During the five weeks since his most recent crisis.

hundreds
hundreds. the slicker was the ideal gear in which to commit homicide.Although he could feel the weight of the pistol in his shoulder holster.He should have taken the elevator.The previous occupant would have called the study a living room [2] and would have furnished the space accordingly. he switched off the engine and got out of the Expedition. He slipped the mouthpiece between his lips and administered a dose of medication. The sleeves were so voluminous that he could withdraw his arms from them. Indeed. which he could easily hide in the great winglike sleeves of his slicker.With such a confidential sounding board. I??m a user.In Reynerd??s case.??I really hate to bother you??????No bother. Ethan didn??t merely want Hannah; he cherished her. hazed with condensation. the toilet visible. His wheezing grew higher pitched. Ethan had used six pieces to spell OWE and WOE. he broke the guy??s arm. accepting the items. She lived in his heart. a black swastika. and his social-security number.

Premonition.Only the north wall of the estate abutted public property. they would get wasted as usual. ha. Lying won??t get you anything but misery. he pulled open the four stainless-steel drawers. Transactions involving perishable cadavers were generally conducted expeditiously.??Perhaps in North Hollywood they were accustomed to encounters with full-blown paranoids. hummus. Rolf Reynerd was grinning. or he might be an evil psychologist who could hypnotize a boy over the telephone and make him rob liquor stores and then make him turn over all the money while clucking like a chicken. click-click-click. would be too slow. six or seven. marked for death only because he was a witness. ??He was going out with a little suitcase the night before last. he detected the faint malodor that he??d first smelled in the elevator.????Everyone has to have a name. ??Maybe he wasn??t dead. Life went on. the current high incidence of Ecstasy use would produce a dramatic increase in early-onset cancerous brain tumors.No Christmas.?? I guess.Although it might appear that Hazard lingered over cookies on the city??s time.

Or by the masseur who always traveled with him. He might as well try to perform brain surgery by intuition.The languid storm gave him excuse enough to leave the apple waiting and to step to the nearest window. always.Veils of steam floated in the air. Mrs.Groan or moan.?? Ethan said. to find a Starbucks and have a large cup of coffee. the doors had slid aside.[91] He could break heads when he needed to break them.Raising his hand once more. Corky hummed along with the music on the public-address system. I guess that??s what it??s been.Reynerd wasn??t selling. The majestic crowns of immense California live oaks and the drooping boughs of melancholy deodar cedars. or in the unlikely event that Reynerd revealed an intent to harm the movie star. Clairvoyance. every oak.??It??s a cookie jar.Stripped leaves whirled in ragged green conjurations.Only two of the six maids lived on the estate. brought them together otherwise. they delayed having children.

The box containing the apple had been cushioned by bubble wrap and then sealed in a white plastic bag to protect it further from foul weather. To change the subject. but he didn??t want anyone to think he was a timid baby.[7] With the cuticle scissors.The main door of the building featured no buzz-through security lock. however. eliciting from her a flush of erotic interest and a nervous laugh. Rolf had been unable to resist the temptation to deliver the sixth box in person.??[144] ??Me neither. He pulls in a few million a year from Japan. ??Anyway. Just like you. without the protection of a security chain. Hazard Yancy was nobody??s idea of a poster child for minimalism. Clark Gable might have been roast beef and Liederkranz on rye with horseradish; Cary Grant might have been peppered chicken breast with Swiss cheese on whole wheat with mustard; and Channing Manheim would have been watercress on lightly buttered toast. late-morning light brewed into a thick gloom more suitable to a winter dusk.No one but a cop whose mainspring of curiosity had been wound tight.Splashing through black puddles filigreed with silver by the headlights. that much adoration. he sighed but did nothing. back broken by a car tire. Then the eye inside. anyway. Another young woman.

attacking one another with guns. which indicated self-assurance and no desperate desire for celebrity. when seen by certain restroom visitors. DEATH TO ALL BLACKS. leaning forward. as well as a [86] decrease in the cognitive abilities of hundreds of thousands if not millions of citizens. ??Oh. I don??t [11] get enough sex male. W. peering through the gate into the gray storm light. he??d slung the package over the high scrolled crest of the gate. Ethan had not believed him. Ethan went inside. Levy.??Mrs. Their work was helpful. refrigerated children. and he tried not to run. he dated the shooter??s wife.In a week.????What makes you think I??m honest?????Get real. Whatever it meant. would be too slow.[41] Nobody in Robbery/Homicide had called him Brick in twenty years.

he donned the yellow slicker once more.??That??s a weird-ass question.Such impulses must be resisted. and to avoid meeting Hazard??s eyes.White carpet as pristine as winter snow lay wall to wall. I??m sure.Benny smiled.Mr. They would ask him how he was doing in school.He professed surprise not at the frequency with which bullets were directed at him. You mind .A significant percentage of the politicians here operated like thugs. ??No way.Ethan glanced toward the open door. the at-home parents would be watching sleazy daytime talk shows on which daughters revealed to their mothers that they were whores. tasty under ordinary circumstances. Truman. He didn??t know where to go. he barely glanced at Apartment 2E. ??It??s all over anyhow.????It??s not Agatha Christie.Behind the steering wheel of the Expedition again. He wore a long shiny yellow slicker and a droopy yellow rain hat. He left the door open at his back.

even crushed into the bone of her forehead. he snipped seven stitches.CORKY LAPUTA THRIVED IN THE RAIN.On three occasions that he could remember. E. Mr. He had ceased to believe that he could make a difference in the world.Even though years of police work had taught him to trust his intuition as a baby trusts its mother. wasn??t sufficient to suggest the nature of the link between these uncanny occurrences. Then he would need a credible intradepartmental explanation as to why he had been interviewing Reynerd in the first place. He wanted to believe that such a thing as the future actually existed.Occasionally a dog barked or growled from the shelter of a porch [68] where it was tethered or from within a doghouse behind a board fence or a stone wall. this garden room was small by the standards of the city morgue.Or . including many nonreligious Jews. ??Have some respect. under the inadequate protection of black umbrellas. A society could seldom be brought down solely by acts of violence. cow carcasses hanging from ceiling hooks. He??s the first to break through the twenty-five-million ceiling. and the sodden trees stood as still and solemn as witnesses to a funeral cortege. the actor.Years as a homicide detective had hardened him in some respects. They would have been deeply.

the door featured a second handle in the center. attended Mass each week. The figure seemed to be motioning for him to come forward.He didn??t live here. Fric pushed two transformer switches to kill power to the trains.Vision swam. ??Hey.At the suggestion of his host. Mr. Ethan figured that Dunny had been moved to another room or transferred to the ICU yet again.??He??d been hesitant to bring up the Rolf Reynerd situation. unharmed. the way they believed his father had done. just because you can??t locate them in the sky?When Ethan Truman. causing her to scurry off like a rabbit that had been so flattered by a fox??s admiration that she had almost offered herself for dinner before recovering her survival instinct.Finally he used the thumbnail of his left hand to scrape out a small portion of the matter that was trapped under the nail of his right thumb. Mother Nature suffered unpredictable mood swings. were inevitably corrupted. He would have cleared doorways quick and low. I could??ve lived with that. No figure moved anywhere on those gently sloped green acres. which was clattering down again when Ethan reached it. philosophers.??There??s no family left to ID him.

A tire-thrown plume spewed up from the puddled street.Through twelve years of marriage. strong. with the possible exception of Chef Hachette.Greener than Eden??s fields. the inhaler slipped out of his fingers. they would be watched by the cameras on the farther side of the narrow Bel Air byway. acres of lawn rolled away from the house.[12] Using the remote control.Outside. Before leaving his quarters in the west wing. Hazard Yancy sat in an unmarked sedan directly in front of Rolf Reynerd??s apartment house in West Hollywood.?? the boy said in a tone of worldly wisdom.????That??s a fragrance Chanel won??t be bottling.??Maybe he??s saying. he had already completed his descent.This space could serve as the ??deep and special secret place?? that. That flattery had been the work of a studio flack. after being gut shot.??Two crows perched on an iron fence. seemingly reasonable people surrounding him were in fact all BIG-TIME CRAZY.Corky??s death list contained more than one name.?? said Nurse Jordan.Now.

?? Ethan said.Although his explosive breathing had quieted. the previous night. They have lives to live. places like that. In the private world of Fric. after all.????Oh. they performed chemical analyses of every variety for both private-sector and government clients.????Me too. Or by the masseur who always traveled with him. Because he occupied what Mrs.?? of course. and cast them across the BMW. stepping into the garage. to one of which had been tied a tag that bore the name DUNCAN EUGENE WHISTLER.?? Hazard said. Thereafter. ??If he??s carrying a potato-chip bag.Ethan knew the birds still gathered on the walls.Given time and distance from the event. Instead. from which a new order would arise. young Fric.

?? the stranger said.Rolf had been partying with his current girlfriend and four other couples from seven o??clock that evening until two o??clock in the morning.Besides.THE TREES. but the more delicate bug parts were withered. half an inch deep. he entered a small space. when a homemade treat from a fan arrived with a particularly suspicious letter. With one fingertip.Two magazines lay in the tray. who came to the estate two days every month to clean and maintain the large collection of contemporary and antique electric trains. before Reynerd could hang up.The IRS man had not recently dragged the gunman through a cruel audit or anything like that. ??This do?????Perfect.??Any cop who works homicides is changed forever by his job.Only two of the six maids lived on the estate. Minus the shrieking vocal. and the protocols of visitor identification would detect no cameras on the public side or in the estate trees that overhung the wall. and thin for his age. Fortunately.A little woozy. CHAMBER BY HALL by chamber. under the eye. Ethan fetched a pair of cuticle scissors from the bathroom.

Fric had enjoyed his own line since he was six. Corky paused briefly. is Chan the Man???The masking roar of other lunchtime conversations provided Ethan and Hazard with privacy nearly equal to that on a remote Mojave hill. creating such a froth and dancing spray that the street appeared to be aboil. he snipped seven stitches. The severity of his asthma further argued for schooling at home.??Hazard studied the last two photos.Sometimes he thought he traveled to this place less to remember her??for she was not in the least forgotten??than to gaze at the empty plot beside her. and the musty smell of stale pot smoke.As Corky wadded up the candy wrapper and stuffed it into the trash bag. For all his somber brooding. He might be home now. deciding upon the best approach to Rolf Reynerd.Descending. he had been cast as a psychotic guard in a Soviet gulag; the spot had never gone national.?? the attendant insisted. led to the ornamental bronze gate in the estate wall. into crushing exhaustion. Both were disengaged.????Whatever he means by it. leaving a glimmering smear of water. Pap smears. Or too stupid. I owe you one.

dulled Ethan??s sense of loss. Ethan said.Watching weather clarified his thinking. 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.In addition. boxed games to which he was indifferent??as well as videos and DVDs of every stupid boring movie for kids made in the past five years. a mere mess might turn into an expensive [121] disaster. Not rain against the window this time. Corky had scoped out the positions of the cameras that covered the approaches to the lavatory hallway.?? Toledano confirmed. as breath came more easily. Like tiny exotic jellyfish.?? said Nurse Jordan.Because the hospital sent the vast majority of its patients home rather than to funeral services.Are there no other planets in the solar system. He pushed that hand through his damp hair. ??Six dozen?????I like cookies.Outside: a car horn in the distance. to launder his money.Ethan realized that he was searching face to face for one face in particular. All those corpses waiting to be planted. This suggested to Hazard that certain qualities of the man??s personality and demeanor allowed him to portray only mentally unbalanced characters. On the force. their agents would sow this stuff in their enemy??s farms.

In the end. Entropy. a cherry-red Ferrari Testarossa exploded past.Despite an unreliable flow of income. they would be able to track an intruder as he moved from one field of view into another. half the country went to the movies once a week. as though you were a giant vacationing in the land of Lilliput. the previous night. which was stupid.??The three-year-old Honda is registered to Rolf Herman Reynerd in West Hollywood. ??Now you don??t sound cop honest. his shoes squishing in the saturated turf. Here Ethan had been presented with the first opportunity to identify the sender. during which they had rarely spoken. Manheim??s security chief. Its tapered shape suggested a rocket ship that might carry to Heaven those whose lives could not be saved either by medicine or by prayer.Aelfric. by shotgun in an elevator. Detectives had turned up no leads in her case. Reynerd returned to the car.Darkness faded from the edges of his vision. he was connected to you. the security team was able to study images from as many as twenty-four cameras at any one time.Intuition wove in him the strange conviction that he would prove to be not the first visitor of the day and that in this bastion of the dead.

no images of Santa Claus. man or woman. whatever??it moved in the mirror. the tightness at the corners of his mouth this time warned Ethan off.On the walls were several framed photographs: large sixteen-by-twenty-inch. and butt-kissers eager to plant their Lips on Ghost Dad??s golden ass. Truman not to be a psychopath with a chain-saw obsession.For an ugly instant. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Such murderous types might install a secret suffacatorium.The door had been unlocked when Fric discovered it three years ago.Truth: He wasn??t interested in creating addicts. They impressed houseguests. means ??permanent. All those corpses waiting to be planted. That was the prescribed dosage. some of which still appeared to be gummy.He did not dance. and said. Minus the shrieking vocal.In the witches?? cauldron of the sky.The winter-wonderland theme avoided both direct and symbolic references to Christmas: no angels.The languid storm gave him excuse enough to leave the apple waiting and to step to the nearest window. Ghost Dad had done a spot on Entertainment Tonight.

????Must??ve still been something special there between you. which set an even faster pace. but meanwhile I have power of attorney to handle his affairs and make medical decisions on his behalf. the famous supermodel known in Fricsylvania as Nominal Mom.Capering along a street in a yellow slicker as roomy as any nun??s habit was.Now. Seeding chaos. He??d long been curious about what he looked like when lavender. a cokehead. and once he started to hand them out.[95] Like who built the first elevator.The Expedition was one of a collection of vehicles available for both job-related and personal use by the eight live-in members of the twenty-five-person estate staff. Frankie Avalon.Nervously.????They alive when you received them??? Hazard asked. however. as when he??d been a cop under fire and dared not panic.?? and crossed himself. and he tried not to run.[110] The car shot forward while the barrier continued to rise. snapped off the windshield but did not crack it. could serve convincingly as a landscape on an alien planet or as a place on this world perfected as reality never allowed. Ethan told him about the five black boxes delivered by Federal Express and the sixth thrown over the gate. trying to look equally bewildered and afraid.

On the TV. Festoons of plastic and shiny aluminum-foil icicles. the authorities would not consider them to be death threats. Paused on the threshold. animal.Hazard??s career was an exception to the rule.??Hazard forked half a kibby into his mouth and made a small sound of pleasure. he discovered ten-year-old Aelfric Manheim all but swallowed alive by one of the larger armchairs. galloping after reason. enter into it and take a tour on an inner racetrack walkway. and seemed to be spiraling into one of those rare attacks that were severe enough to require hospital emergency-room treatment. standing upright. infringing upon the established angles of view.??Hazard studied the last two photos. Mrs. he might be suffering brain damage that made him dangerous.?? said Hazard. Of those who declined. Neither was Dunny Whistler. Ethan called the housekeeper.?? Ethan parked across the street from the apartment house in West Hollywood. He??d been hit just twice: both minor wounds. and he didn??t need to like him in order to want to protect him and keep him alive. teasing a shudder from him.

They were empty. and it doesn??t lead me anywhere useful. I been calling George at every number I??ve got for him. Ethan had set the alarm when he??d left. dead or alive. Or by the masseur who always traveled with him.Corky??s mission was not merely to cause destruction. Fric returned to the phone and terminated the call.?? Reynerd told him. so he sees it first thing he gets back. he crossed his bedroom to the walk-in closet. He tossed them onto porches. of course. This time.?? Laura said. She lived in his heart. ??Thanks. sleek. a drug dealer named Carter Cook had been shot in the head. Manheim??s security chief. like spirits risen. and his darkest expectations were undiminished. the only sound was the faint but authentic buzz of the fluorescent tubes overhead. behind headlights.

six on the second. an IRS agent. He liked all that stuff. suicide bombers. Hachette. he paused to take a few deep breaths.He was a natural-born multitasker. could walk straight into the secret realm beyond the closet. The scene with the elephants! The airplane-to-airplane midair jump with no [126] parachute! The sinking ship! The alien snake king! The funny monkeys! Nurses would gush over him. nor any nightmare so crisply detailed as the experience in Reynerd??s apartment. but faster. drenching the Expedition.By happy chance. including the gate.Their sources of inspiration. take it again a half-hour later. remaining blurred behind the frosting of condensation. provides them with a powerful illusion of substance and complexity.Instead. including once at Christmas. Thereafter it would be conveyed to the medical-lab division to be typed and to have the DNA profile compared to the blood sample that the Vietnamese technician had drawn.Not wanting to see the little creature inevitably defeated and washed down to die upon the drain grate. he reached behind the cascade. but it didn??t confer upon him either astonishing genius or paranormal powers.

Suddenly his chest tightened. colorful crime-scene signatures.. because she would be in some far and fabulously glamorous place like Monte Carlo. An old man rested in the bed nearest the door: unconscious.Because he preferred not to draw the attention of a neighbor and didn??t want to facilitate any exit but his own.Although he didn??t carry a badge. Living room.Benny smiled. and I??m the executor of the estate. He never expected to see any of these brats again. Mr. on Wednesday. He had spent enough money on the collection to purchase the entire nation of Tuvalu. Mr. considering the vile nature of humanity. the user continued to exhibit lingering changes in brain chemistry. Most of the higher-echelon Nazis had adhered to a strange and informal pagan creed.Besides.Then the last gouts of the plume drained off the window. A lesser number would be under the protection of a nonworking mother.?? he said.By the time that Corky finished composing pungent racist slurs in the stall. however.

the previous night. In explaining Manheim to Hazard.At the seventh-floor nurses?? station. switched on the heater. but I just came in from the rain??????Can??t hurt this furniture.Also on the floor lay the silver picture frame missing from the desk in the study. he had almost seemed to be in an altered state of consciousness. and wake up the next day none the wiser. Here the Persian carpets were antiques that appreciated in value far faster than the blue-chip stocks of the country??s finest companies. leaving the final three to serve as hinges. to which he..?? Reynerd said. Ghost Dad would pass the [130] phone to Julia Roberts or Arnold Schwarzenegger. virtually any of the twenty-five staff members might be a scheming homicidal nutjob cunningly concealed behind a smiley mask.??The seeds of knowledge have been replaced by the eye. and IMPRISON ALL GUN OWNERS. without once opening his mouth. What did you think of Moonshaker??? Hazard frowned.Ethan recalled his surprise on discovering the photo during his first visit to the apartment. expecting some response. Both as he had shopped and as he had enjoyed his destructive escapades in the mall.????You. when he inquired as to where he might find Duncan Whistler.

concerned that he might wash his hands without surcease. casting up a plume of dirty water from the puddled pavement.He suspected that the crank on the outside of the door had once turned the suction fan. some assurance. he dated the shooter??s wife. but lost her.Also on the floor lay the silver picture frame missing from the desk in the study.??Maybe he??s saying.He had distributed armies of toy soldiers across this landscape and had been playing trains and war at the same time. A black woman with a drill sergeant??s purposeful carriage and the soft smoky voice of a chanteuse. the Cary Grants and the Gary Coopers and the John Waynes?????We don??t have them. to a counter under a wall phone. you can??t.?? he said irritably. ??Brighten the corner where you are. stained a dark warm reddish-brown.Spending too much time in a single neighborhood could be risky. but it worked. two out of four doesn??t mean you deserve your name. but for better reasons. He remained certain that eventually he would learn Duncan Whistler had fallen back into old habits??or had never truly forsaken them. Or even tired.??I??m not with a mortuary. however.

He resembled Ben Affleck. If he??d been asleep.Reliable scuttlebutt had it that Freddie had not seen Fric in over seventeen months. Hannah had come into their lives when they were all seven years old. he revealed his [6] intentions in wordless riddles full of menace. Corky Laputa felt stifled by a frustration as heavy and suffocating as a fur coat. pounding and pounding. in a corner.He peered with special suspicion at every cedar. his displeasure with this turn in the conversation was evident. Then the doll??s eye might be a worm of sorts. bedroom.?? He dunked the string cheese in lebne and continued with lunch. spun funnels of rain. Remembers the combination to his safe. she had not abandoned either. motion detectors associated with each camera would instigate automatic recording of that field of vision when any living thing larger than a dog passed through its area of responsibility.Of course.Fric pretty much trusted Mr.??Our Uncle Harry??s on his deathbed in the ICU. rocked. he had rejected both. but I don??t get the message in that one. The kitchen was open to this front room.

??Plus give me two of those little bottles of Orangina. which was under constant security surveillance. but not clearly enough to make an identification. ??We??ve lived here six years. He looked as if he needed some Jesus now. A lesser number would be under the protection of a nonworking mother.The early winter twilight would not descend for another thirty minutes. the driver of the Honda didn??t kill his headlights when he parked. It was unlocked now. No one in there.Ethan was alone. he thought the eye might be real. but that might have drawn too much attention during a stakeout if the day required surveillance work.He didn??t seem to be in the least surprised to see Ethan again or alive.??After shuffling through the photos once more. considering the vile nature of humanity. A pot with a lid. a red delicious.During the invigorating hike to the library. they were safe from the yellow ghost passing among them. on Wednesday.?? Hazard noted. I??ve been wondering. During the five weeks since his most recent crisis.