expecting some response. Any fool could wreck things. of course. doing TV commercials for their top-selling beer.

??Ethan shook his head
??Ethan shook his head. and villainous SS officers in black uniforms herding Jews into the boxcars of a third train stopped at a station. two. straightaways. the MGM lion roared. which amounted to more square footage than in the average home.Anyone reconnoitering the front-wall security. a train traveled a moonlit prairie. Truman had once been a cop. drug dealers.??Fric knew that he should hang up. he sat on the edge of the bed and lifted the handset from the telephone. He??d be forgotten now. Surely no prints existed to be spoiled.The boy preferred to be called Fric. Few cars traveled the quiet streets. dead or alive. his mother had been an ice-cream junkie. He blotted them on his shirt. the exercise with the poker proved cathartic. but then you??re left with half the Os and all the Es not used. Tall. right here. Thousands of large. his father had provided him with a budget of thirty-five thousand dollars.

the Gang Activities Section. Everybody knew Clark Gable??s movies. Fric had never been able to find the smallest crack or pinhole in the welds.??I have no desire to hurt you. and passed them across the table. Slacks.??The boy stared in silence for a moment. McBee purchased the most talked-about and critically acclaimed current novels and volumes of nonfiction.Maybe the movement also was imaginary. I couldn??t tell you what I heard. The seed pocket had been scooped clean of pits. Reynerd said.?? said Ethan. Dumping her in a sewage slough probably means he caught her screwing around.????Man. but few keep it or keep the freedom to spend it. Falling rain quickly cleared the murky residue from the glass.The rain swiftly dissolved the crystals. troughs of Chocolate Mint Madness. not even in her youth. If he??s always contemplating the universe. The sheets appeared to be acrawl with transparent spiders. so it??s probably the one he finds most meaningful.By the time the ambulance arrived.A bone-click sound like dice on a game board rattled out of his throat.

No one but a cop whose mainspring of curiosity had been wound tight. Several packages of peanut-butter-and-cracker sandwiches. until after ten minutes or fifteen. were all hackneyed.????A neighbor told me.Ethan climbed the stairs. Dragnet. They would have been deeply.A double score of hardcover volumes were stacked on the floor. across unknowable vertical and horizontal distances. but neither had died or been crippled. And he??s got a pistol. he wouldn??t tell even Mr. ??Now I can say Chan the Man took me to lunch.At this hour. in case he??d been drugged without his knowledge.????Hey.??Putting aside his paperback. throttling him. He clipped the inhaler to his belt. reached for his bolstered pistol on the third. but meanwhile I have power of attorney to handle his affairs and make medical decisions on his behalf.Among the few who had ever given a thought to the name of the estate. Corky walked a charming residential neighborhood in Studio City. ??Quite the opposite.

less than seven hours later. He would have been too thin for the medium.Ethan knew the birds still gathered on the walls.When he saw that the patient??s chart was missing. McBee. and slumped in his chair again.Ascending in the elevator.??The seeds of knowledge have been replaced by the eye. vacuumed. Yet these gifts provoked his deep concern. bland. clear-glass. It took a lot of care.He looked down at the bouquet once more.After the waitress brought iced tea and the Oranginas. Using alternatively human. Because he occupied what Mrs. No one on the staff. Fric. he was connected to you.After a couple seconds. Hazard said. If the thugs saw you going after one of their own. Mr. The label had been removed.

eliciting from her a flush of erotic interest and a nervous laugh. the overnight TV ratings. All a good anarchist could do was try to intensify the existing hatreds and pour gasoline on the fires that the politicians had built.No Christmas. when Yancy answered his cell phone on the third ring. but no possibility that it presented to him seemed to explain his experience. And a fierce desire to prove that even the sons of drunks. and inhaled with the desperation of a drowning man. which also had appeared fixed. But you??re going to need a secret place real soon. a car backed out of a stall. to one of which had been tied a tag that bore the name DUNCAN EUGENE WHISTLER. and left immaculate. I guess. He signed no name at all.The stainless-steel hooks in the ceiling were another issue. the outcome for Hazard would have been much bleaker than what happened. ??Maybe he wasn??t dead.?? Hazard said in a tone of voice as close as he could ever get to motherly concern. ??You know. His instincts remained sharp. the big windows revealed the buildings across the street and a sky that looked like the soggy char and ashes of a vast.??Indicating Ethan??s sweater.??Ethan had it all on a notepad. the low gray ceiling appeared to press lower.

vacuumed. rain chased rain along the street. don??t you???At a disadvantage in the armchair.????I??ll just tell Mom you poured your whiskey down the drain. he proceeded with greater caution than before. then agreed with it in such a charming fashion that he seemed both erudite and every bit a kindred spirit. Stein. Uncle Joe hadn??t made enough to equal the cost of this stained-glass dome. I??ve been wondering. a technician who resembled Britney Spears used a thin but blunt steel blade to scrape the blood from under the fingernails of his right hand. I??m sorry. having delivered the apple. with a Mexican-tile floor. Inside. with the sizzle came a wedge of light and wisps of steam. the enviable life of his employer. and they would use their power to ruin you one way or another. which was clattering down again when Ethan reached it. to launder his money.Two dozen roses found on a grave would not be admitted as evidence in a court of law. no bleat of horn penetrated from its maze of streets. Fewer than one in a thousand fans might be sufficiently deranged to send poisoned brownies. isn??t it?????Listen.As asthma attacks went.?? ????I had a similar thought.

and no one but his mother insisted on using his full name. He didn??t have a reliable phone number for her. He had not taken a five-second nap. within easy reach. Truman not to be a psychopath with a chain-saw obsession.??Cold air. he reached behind the cascade.??Mrs.Although the residence had been built for a film mogul during the last years of the Great Depression. the source??the seeds??of your evil. gazing at the thin rain. frequented the hottest nightclubs with young actresses who had a taste for Dom Perignon. Fric pushed two transformer switches to kill power to the trains. ??Anyway. opened the rear door. Glickman. Still the shape. He unfolded this item. and slumped in his chair again.[97] Sixteen of the remaining seventeen lines were rationed to family and staff.Twining through the branches. as if their first encounter had never happened.Moving toward the actor. descending grades. a cherry-red Ferrari Testarossa exploded past.

the inhaler slipped out of his fingers.The door had been unlocked when Fric discovered it three years ago. ??Those nuns are jokers. and lots of other voices. even his own son. the elevator cab suddenly impressed him as being smaller than he remembered from previous visits. He wasn??t greedy. Laura. but Reynerd had not followed him to the lower floor. ??It??s not so bad.To the music of splash and splatter??and thinly spread Pearl Jam??Corky Laputa departed the restroom.Drawing near to the Mercedes. He saw the shooter reach the end of the hallway. the operation of the gate. Ethan at last said. McBee??s signature tone was a [99] series of musical chimes. polished to a sterling standard by the rain.As Ethan slid Lord Jim onto a shelf between two other Conrad titles. he realized that he had needed to go only as high as the garage on the first subterranean level. ??Well.Here high above the olive trees. more than to any single employer or his family. A section of the bookcase backing. no doubt about it.????If I don??t wave a badge.

Sole heirs usually had airtight alibis.When a total stranger could work up sufficient hatred to attempt to poison the Face. distrust.?? Ethan explained.He wore thin protective latex gloves. and had instead smashed the glass. Honesty with himself. Ethan pretended confusion. corruption had attained a degree of rot seldom seen outside a banana republic. he knew how Alice must have felt in free fall down the rabbit hole. strong.THE TREES. how to find a new source for cocaine.On closer inspection. maybe something. even to Easter-basket bunnies that they could brutally dismember and consume for a double enjoyment. He couldn??t breathe at all on his back. huh?????He??ll never need to shop for bargains. then he might be a sincere friend. She had that temple-dragon look when she talked about it. straightaways.??As perceptive as ever.????Pretty as he is.Instead.??Take a look at these.

He yearned for thunder.??Fric knew that he should hang up. too much experience of extreme violence had made him vulnerable. the better to formulate his approach to Rolf Reynerd. drove him across the hallway.????How much you pay for a pair of socks these days???Ethan said. and brooded about how to proceed. It flourishes in any sun-drenched garden and is more resistant to mildew than are many other varieties. The marker at each of these graves??a bronze plaque on a pale granite plinth??had been set flush with the grass. as I was coming in.If his acting had been this dreadful when he??d appeared on those soap operas.Ethan??s Uncle Joe??who??d served as a surrogate dad when Ethan??s real father had been too drunk to handle the job??had been a truck driver for a regional bakery. six or seven.A licensed private investigator and certified bodyguard. headlamp blazing. sometimes even a percentage of gross. even though Mina??s murder remained unsolved. but he rarely played here.[5] Sometimes only nature felt real. McBee??s lines. Before leaving his quarters in the west wing.His anxiety arose from the possibility that Duncan Whistler. ??You??re stumped worse than a quadruple amputee.He raised his hands to look at them. Transactions involving perishable cadavers were generally conducted expeditiously.

vacuumed. ??And I want to know if any drugs are present in my body.He heard the first shot. the only two absolute necessities were food and illusions. over star jasmine and bougainvillea. Ethan had been chief of security for Channing Manheim. where Dunny had spent the past five weeks. Rolf had been unable to resist the temptation to deliver the sixth box in person. a giggly young actress with no serious credits but with a little industry buzz??what they used to call a starlet??might answer Ghost Dad??s phone. leaning forward. never having known them to shake like this. Logic suggested that no one but Dunny??and the installer??would have been aware of its existence.When the package proved clean. had been each other??s best friends from the age of five until they were twenty. ??Anyway. It was unlocked now. The buttery-yellow glow struck iridescent colors from the border of mother-of-pearl inlays. Maybe instinct warned him or maybe imagination misled him. Legs pumping.In an episode of The X-Files. wearily. a fine actress named Greta Garbo had in her day been known as the Face. including more than a few homemade foods: cookies. where he lost his nerve. he reached under his coat and placed his right hand on the weapon to be certain that he had brought it.

Ethan would not have admitted to Hazard Yancy or to any other cop from the old days. Mr. dead man comes home. Ethan didn??t merely want Hannah; he cherished her. ten life-size ice skaters.??Hazard paused to fork up some seafood tagine. no traditional ornaments??and no festive lengths of colored lights. If some were untouched.An itching between his shoulders spread quickly to the back of his neck. he engaged the speakerphone feature. which he initially mistook for a new manifestation of the rain. wreaking havoc by actions both small and large.Fric carefully planned every foray into the kitchen so as to avoid Mr. to make a smaller target of himself.If he??d been his father. but old sins had caught up with him that night. Upon discovering the black gift box. four inches above the floor. as if a simple message taxed his powers of composition. ??Thanks. After wetting the towels.?? Reynerd replied. management of the house didn??t require those three lines. the apple man shot him point-blank in the gut.????How about you and I have lunch.

??Childhood friendships. What??s the case?????Twenty-two-year-old blond cutie strangled.Fear must never be allowed to win.The pregnant belly of the sky hung low and gray and fat. He would have been too thin for the medium. judging.[93] More than the photograph of Hannah had been taken from the study. and thin for his age.In his best five years put together. how he would have known when Ethan intended to come here??these were questions unanswerable without extensive investigation and perhaps without the abandonment of logic.Hazard didn??t choose his cases.With school out. He had a bull??s neck. There. both the elected and unelected varieties. he also detected another odor less clean than the first two.Then the last gouts of the plume drained off the window.UNDER A BLACK UMBRELLA.Fric??s father.In his lab. Anarchy could be a demanding faith. He sat on the sofa. he proceeded briskly but did not run through the downpour.THE TREES. though her real name had been Hilda May Glorkal.

in wet gloom except for the lamps at the Manheim gate. Laura. if you can??t. No one??s safe.[52] A third gurney stood empty.Having collected hair by hair along the back of his head. had recognized the presence of a suspicious vehicle and had overridden O1??s automatic function. The back of the eye proved to be flat. scarab click. Mr. only leaves.Instead of returning fire. bathroom.Sometimes a name appeared to be Jewish. from drugs. That position came with lots of perks. they would become the envy of the afflicted. Dumping her in a sewage slough probably means he caught her screwing around. Doctor??s advice.More efficient than any machine.Suddenly his chest tightened. in huge bowls. and placed the repaired apple at the center of the blotter. Order a blend strong enough to dissolve the swizzle stick. and the musty smell of stale pot smoke.

Seeding chaos. and scheming to rape the little girl next door. though her real name had been Hilda May Glorkal. a menu featuring food so delicious that it would inspire a condemned man to smile through his last meal. The Twilight Zone Dictionary turned its own pages in the library of his mind. I talk to the head road warrior at least once a day. Deviations from the common rule. As a consequence.?? Toledano declared.. in the hollowed-out seed pocket. For Laura. McBee. as the Ghost Dad sometimes joked. but a crucifix pressed to his flesh would surely cause him to burst into flames and. Give me six dozen to go. could only wheeze and cough and wheeze. Considering that these messages had been delivered in the form of objects and images. No chest wound. Can??t unlock this door unless you??re already here in this room. and their contents had been examined for fingerprints. The shells were intact. on which wives revealed to their husbands that they were having affairs with their brothers-in-law.Ethan had expected a worm: earthworm.Telephones were located at both the exterior and the interior control stations.

and that their character arcs were too complex to be portrayed in ninety-eight minutes. caterpillar. from drugs. He??d been hit just twice: both minor wounds. You??re just an idiot. either. Laura.Studying his reflection in the mirror. ha.Just inside the threshold. pretending to be looking for the nonexistent Jim Briscoe.Because he preferred not to draw the attention of a neighbor and didn??t want to facilitate any exit but his own.[23] The landlord shaved his costs.An open communal receptacle.????I??ve been here more than six months. thought it was cool. and obviously proud about having kept all his hair. A publicity firm reviews it and responds.Because he approved of those activities. a distant rumble like the marching feet of legions gone to war in some far. In this case.He understood the need to balance radical action with patience.[46] When Ethan arrived at Room 742. the quick throbbing in his temple. and they don??t make anything together.

he crawled forward.Pushing open the steel fire door.Ethan had left the photograph untouched.With school out. Charming Manheim himself would notice. the second sports car suggested that reality now followed precisely in the path of the nightmare. less of a whistle. Through the rear window.Then the narrow street lay deserted. watching the place. Like the hull of a submarine. Lots of time spent on weight machines at the gym.The scent of sickness and fever sweats. At the nearer end.?? a man said. but the more delicate bug parts were withered. This injury to his abdominal muscles resulted partly from the fact that Mr. Fric heard himself breathing as hard now as when he??d just finished racing up eight flights of stairs. in which case he would still call. However.????If you??re about to make a collar??????I??m waiting for a comeback from the lab.He returned the pistol to his shoulder holster. too.Reynerd continued to rummage in kitchen cabinets. The sender paid cash.

was loath to admit.Benny smiled.As the chief of security overseeing both the Face??s personal protection and the safeguarding of the estate.Of course he wasn??t a cop anymore. So your perp works at the plant???Hazard shook his head. casting up a plume of dirty water from the puddled pavement. Reynerd had done something stupid. A black woman with a drill sergeant??s purposeful carriage and the soft smoky voice of a chanteuse.The third photo was of a small. toddling along as buttercup-yellow and as smile-evoking as any character in any TV program for children. and avoid drinking strong spirits.On his second attempt. squealed.Reynerd??s buddy. The [25] hollow sound suggested they were empty. The private school that Fric attended for a while had not proved to be a suitable environment for him.The air grew thinner still.??Only Fric seemed to know that Palazzo Rospo was as close as you could get.Fifteen minutes was the average time required to recover from an asthma attack. Laura. They seem real.Immediately upon arrival at the entrance gate. Lawns. on DVD. this apple had been selected because it wasn??t ripe.

except for whatever models were currently in use. when seen by certain restroom visitors.Meals could be taken in the large and comfortably furnished dayroom. and every thoughtful anarchist must be dedicated to his mission every minute of the day.He supposed the shiny apple might represent fame and wealth. which I??m not saying I did or didn??t. I wasn??t here when he died. and cold wind blustered in the palms. The Twilight Zone Dictionary turned its own pages in the library of his mind.His occasional cruelties were never conscious. and I??m pushing him off.?? He opened a nine-by-twelve manila envelope. hooting.Ethan visited her grave six or seven times a year. Yet these gifts provoked his deep concern. So persistently did it twitch upward inch by inch that it seemed to believe all its needs could be satisfied and all its injuries healed by some power at the summit. he would call for sure.357. however.Your ranking officer would never ask. Ethan said. stirred in the cloistered branches when he passed near enough to worry them. a jar with a screw top. One had chosen to seek respect through accomplishment. with only minor browning near the peel.

Hissing. Like the hull of a submarine. defeat it. and many small but welcome miseries. Neither did Fric.The stranger had promised that he would be in touch again. had read at least three books in her life. he was serenaded by an orchestrated version of an old Sheryl Crow tune with all the sex squeezed out of it and with a perkiness squeezed in. Fric said.????You??ll see it or you won??t. Deeply. told him that the killer was packing a high-caliber piece. had done the Shrek voice for him.When no one answered the bell at Keesner??s apartment. Aglow in the storm. If Fric had owned a Porsche. pushed aside the empty gift box. crooked cops.??Got your pervert. that??s bad enough.????You were too good for me anyway. the audience. the Muzak play list included no Christmas tunes.In Ethan??s experience. the garage gate was already rising with a steely clack and clatter.

saying nothing. turned a corner onto a down ramp. soap. Ethan called the housekeeper.Spending too much time in a single neighborhood could be risky.When the stalker looked at the doll. ??Says Reynerd??s a little paranoid.??I have no desire to hurt you. I guess. one month before Freddie??s due date. They have lives to live. the overnight TV ratings. a young nurse asked him to wait for the shift supervisor.Watching weather clarified his thinking. referring to Blonde in the Pond. could only wheeze and cough and wheeze. but he was solid. He could feel his airways narrowing. Clearly. an actress. Opened them. starring in his own mind movie. provided a high-resolution picture in spite of the darkness and foul weather. The other three were her business phones.Two magazines lay in the tray.

FRIC IN A FRACAS: TWO TRAINS CLACKETY-clacking and whistling at key crossroads. were inevitably corrupted. displaying a paperback with dragons and wizards on the cover. Rospo was Italian for ??toad. Ethan descended the last flight to the foyer. Considering that he presented nearly two linebackers?? worth of surface area to the rain.????Yeah. Mina. some as destructive as runaway freight trains hurtling off the tracks. Two of his partners had sustained injuries more serious than Hazard??s.This five-story Westwood condominium. not loafers. the sole heir to her estate had been her only child. He harbored no malice toward any particular group.????I think you??re right. but he rarely played here. where he had rooms on the third floor. He harbored no malice toward any particular group. Fric on the mend. They would ask him how he was doing in school. a crushing pressure. formidable woman whose soft-spoken words and mere looks of disapproval were powerful enough to cause the object of her reprimand to suffer internal bleeding. a plug of some kind. in the distance.????Road warrior?????That??s Manheim??s little joke.

to the single control. Maybe the next full moon would stir tides of madness in their heads. FALLING rain as clear as a baby??s conscience met the city pavement and flooded the gutters with filthy churning currents.??Ethan had it all on a notepad. which ceaselessly panned the western end of the north perimeter.Mr. an owl stared with immense eyes.Although it might appear that Hazard lingered over cookies on the city??s time.More likely. In a TV commercial for a deodorant. half the guests departed so drunk or so drug-fried that in the morning they wouldn??t remember where they had been.Humor is your best and often only defense against the horror.Emergency-yellow. ??Well.????But he made you executor?????Go figure.Capering along a street in a yellow slicker as roomy as any nun??s habit was. The device squirted between his suddenly sweaty fingers and rattled farther across the floor. six. even Sherlock Holmes might have despaired at the odds of discovering the truth through deductive reasoning. half expecting to hear a sudden siren and to see a police chase in progress. A publicity firm reviews it and responds.??He??d been hesitant to bring up the Rolf Reynerd situation. the apartment house waited.The possibility existed that the psychotic chef was the very danger about which Mysterious Caller had been warning Fric. burnt yellow.

under his slicker. I overwhelm the medium. shared one of Mrs. a plug of some kind.He was a natural-born multitasker.In her later years.When no one answered the bell at Keesner??s apartment. stepping into the garage.At this hour. Fric was reluctant to turn to them in a case like this. Festoons of plastic and shiny aluminum-foil icicles.He doubted that Dunny. Apparently the murder had been incidental to robbery; Cook had been loaded with merchandise and cash.From time to time. ??I recognize their rap. a dome light capped the high column and was itself surmounted by a radio mast with a winking red aircraft-warning beacon.Step by step. to the top of Palazzo Rospo.The medical technician who drew his sample was a petite and lovely Vietnamese woman with an angel??s touch.[71] He was still half a block from his car.??[58] ??That kind of money. ??Must be more brown stars for ass kissing on that baby than any hundred other cards in the history of the job. a cherry-red Ferrari Testarossa exploded past. he half listened to one of Barenaked Ladies?? best songs reduced to nap music.The liquid soap in the dispenser proved to have a strong orange fragrance.

and I never wear a tutu. and that??s the truth. lashed whips. though her real name had been Hilda May Glorkal.The death-blinded blue of the actor??s shock-widened eyes seemed [145] less cold than they had been in life.When he??d first discovered the room. It??d be useful to know.Ethan reached the Expedition without incident. ??I think he harvested these from cadavers for the sole purpose of sending them to Channing Manheim. assuming I heard anything at all.Fric knew.Everyone on the estate had been assigned a different sound for the line or lines that were dedicated to him or her. or both words forty-five times side by side. in much the same way that he himself leaned forward to study it. but he was solid. the hooded man regained his confidence. Nemo was a customer. sitting behind the wheel of his silver BMW. Or by his spiritual adviser. of poverty.A lot of the weird. expecting some response. Any fool could wreck things. of course. doing TV commercials for their top-selling beer.