by Dean Koontz
“Yes, I know. The two policemen told me, so I didn’t have to wait for you this morning.”
“Policemen?”
“It was good knowing early. I turned out the lights and just enjoyed sitting here, watching the dawn develop.” She raised her mug. “Would you like some apple juice, Odd Thomas?”
“No thank you, ma’am. Did you say two policemen?”
“They were nice boys.”
“When was this?”
“Not forty minutes ago. They were worried about you.”
“Worried—why?”
“They said someone reported hearing a gunshot come from your apartment. Isn’t that ridiculous, Odd Thomas? I told them I hadn’t heard anything.”
I was sure that the call reporting the shot had been made anonymously, because the caller had likely been Robertson’s killer.
Mrs. Sanchez said, “I asked them what on earth you’d be shooting at in your apartment. I told them you don’t have mice.” She raised her mug to take a sip of apple juice, but then said, “You don’t have mice, do you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“They wanted to look anyway. They were concerned about you. Nice boys. Careful to wipe their feet. They didn’t touch a thing.”
“You mean you showed them my apartment?”
After swallowing some apple juice, she said, “Well, they were policemen, and they were so worried about you, and they felt much better when they didn’t find that you’d shot your foot or something.”
I was glad I’d moved Robertson’s body immediately upon finding it in my bathroom.
“Odd Thomas, you never came around last night to get the cookies I baked for you. Chocolate chip with walnuts. Your favorite.”
A plate, heaped with cookies, covered with plastic wrap, stood on the table.
“Thank you, ma’am. Your cookies are the best.” I picked up the plate. “I was wondering … do you think I could borrow your car for a little while?”
“But didn’t you just drive up in it?”
My blush was redder than the spreading dawn beyond the windows. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, then, you’ve already borrowed it,” she said without the slightest trace of irony. “No need to ask twice.”
I retrieved the keys from a pegboard by the refrigerator. “Thank you, Mrs. Sanchez. You’re too good to me.”
“You’re a sweet boy, Odd Thomas. You remind me so much of my nephew Marco. Come September, he’ll have been invisible three years.”
Marco, with the rest of his family, had been aboard one of the planes that flew into the World Trade Center.
She said, “I keep thinking he’ll turn visible again any day, but it’s been so long now.… Don’t you ever go invisible, Odd Thomas.”
She breaks my heart sometimes. “I won’t,” I assured her.
When I bent down and kissed her brow, she put a hand to my head, holding my face to hers. “Promise me you won’t.”
“I promise, ma’am. I swear to God.”
CHAPTER 45
When I parked in front of stormy’s apartment house, the undercover PD van was no longer across the street.
Obviously, when the police detail had been in place, it hadn’t been providing security for her. As I’d suspected, they had been keeping a watch with the hope that Robertson would come looking for me. When I’d shown up at Chief Porter’s house, after the shooting, they realized that I was no longer with Stormy, and evidently they pulled up stakes.
Robertson was embarked upon an endless sleep, watched over by the ghost of a young prostitute, but his murderer and former kill buddy remained at large. This second psychopath would have no reason to make a special target of Stormy; besides, she had her 9-mm pistol and the hard-nosed will to use it.
Yet into my mind came the image of Robertson’s chest wound, and I could not turn away from it or close my eyes to it as I had done in my bathroom. Worse, my imagination transferred the mortal hole from the dead man’s livid flesh to Stormy, and I thought also of the young woman who saved me from the coyotes, arms crossed modestly over her breasts and wounds.
On the front walkway, I broke into a run. Slammed up the stairs. Crashed across the porch. Threw open the door with the leaded glass.
I fumbled the key, dropped it, bent and snatched it from the air as it bounced off the hardwood floor, and let myself into her apartment.
From the living room, I saw Stormy in the kitchen, and I went to her side.
She stood at the cutting board, beside the sink, using a small grapefruit knife to section the prime Florida fruit. A small pile of extracted seeds glistened on the wood.
“What’re you wired about?” she asked as she finished her task and set aside the knife.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Since I’m not, do you want some breakfast?”
I almost told her that someone had shot the chief.
Instead, I said, “If I did drugs, I’d love an amphetamine omelet with three pots of black coffee. I didn’t get much sleep. I need to stay awake, clarify my thinking.”
“I’ve got chocolate-covered doughnuts.”
“That’s a start.”
We sat at the kitchen table: she with her grapefruit, me with the box of doughnuts and with a Pepsi, full sugar, full caffeine.
“Why did you think I was dead?” she asked.
She was already worried about me. I didn’t want to wind her anxiety spring to the breaking point.
If I told her about the chief, I’d wind up also telling her about Bob Robertson in my bathtub, about how he’d been a dead man already when I’d seen him in the churchyard, about the events at the Church of the Whispering Comet and the satanic meditation card.
She’d want to stay at my side for the duration. Ride shotgun, give me cover. I couldn’t allow her to endanger herself like that.
I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m seeing bodachs everywhere. Hordes of them. Whatever’s coming, it’s going to be big. I’m scared.”
Warningly, she pointed her spoon at me. “Don’t tell me to stay home today.”
“I’d like you to stay home today.”
“What’d I just say?”
“What’d I just say.”
Chewing, silenced by grapefruit and by chocolate doughnut, we stared at each other.
“I’ll stay home today,” she said, “if you’ll stay here all day with me.”
“We’ve been through this. I can’t let people die if there’s a way to spare them.”
“And I’m not going to live even one day in a cage just because there’s a loose tiger out there somewhere.”
I chugged Pepsi. I wished that I had some caffeine tablets. I wished that I had smelling salts to clear my head each time a fog of sleep began to creep upon me. I wished that I could be like other people, with no supernatural gift, with no weight to carry except whatever chocolate doughnuts might eventually put on me.
“He’s worse than a tiger,” I told her.
“I don’t care if he’s worse than a Tyrannosaurus rex. I’ve got a life to live—and no time to waste if I’m going to have my own ice-cream shop within four years.”
“Get real. One day off work isn’t going to destroy your chances of fulfilling the dream.”
“Every day I work toward it is the dream. The process, not the final achievement, is what it’s all about.”
“Why do I even try to reason with you? I always lose.”
“You’re a fabulous man of action, sweetie. You don’t need to be a good debater, too.”
“I’m a fabulous man of action and a terrific short-order cook.”
“The ideal husband.”
“I’m going to have a second doughnut.”
With full knowledge that she was offering a concession that I could not accept, she smiled and said, “Tell you what—I’ll take a day off work and go with you, right at your side, everywhere you go.”
Where I hoped to go, by the grace of psychic magnetism, wa
s to the unknown man who’d killed Robertson and who might now be preparing himself to carry out the atrocity that they had planned together. Stormy wouldn’t be safe at my side.
“No,” I said. “You get on with your dream. Pack those cones, mix those milkshakes, and be the best damn purveyor of ice cream that you can be. Even little dreams can’t come true unless you persevere.”
“Did you think that up, odd one, or are you quoting?”
“Don’t you recognize it? I’m quoting you.”
She smiled affectionately. “You’re smarter than you look.”
“I’d have to be. Where are you going on your lunch break?”
“You know me—I pack my lunch. It’s cheaper, and I can stay at work, on top of things.”
“Don’t change your mind. Don’t go near a bowling alley, near a movie theater, near anything.”
“Can I go near a golf course?”
“No.”
“A miniature-golf course?”
“I’m serious about this.”
“Can I go near a game arcade?”
“Remember that old movie, Public Enemy?” I asked.
“Can I go near an amusement park?”
“James Cagney’s this gangster having breakfast with his moll—”
“I’m nobody’s moll.”
“—and when she irritates him, he shoves half a grapefruit in her face.”
“And what does she do—castrate him? That’s what I’d do, with my grapefruit knife.”
“Public Enemy was made in 1931. You couldn’t show castration on the screen back then.”
“What an immature art form it was in those days. So enlightened now. You want half my grapefruit and I’ll get my knife?”
“I’m just saying I love you and I’m worried about you.”
“I love you, too, sweetie. So I’ll promise not to eat lunch on a miniature-golf course. I’ll have it right at Burke Bailey’s. If I spill salt, I’ll immediately throw a pinch over my shoulder. Hell, I’ll throw the entire shaker.”
“Thanks. But I’m still considering the grapefruit-face smash.”
CHAPTER 46
At the Takuda house on Hampton Way, no bodachs were in sight. The previous night, they had been swarming over the residence.
As I parked in front of the place, the garage door rolled up. Ken Takuda backed out in his Lincoln Navigator.
When I walked to the driveway, he stopped the SUV and put down his window. “Good morning, Mr. Thomas.”
He’s the only person I know who addresses me so formally.
“Good morning, sir. It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?”
“A glorious morning,” he declared. “A momentous day, like every day, full of possibilities.”
Dr. Takuda is on the faculty of California State University at Pico Mundo. He teaches twentieth-century American literature.
Considering that the modern and contemporary literature taught in most universities is largely bleak, cynical, morbid, pessimistic, misanthropic dogmatism, often written by suicidal types who sooner or later kill themselves with alcohol or drugs, or shotguns, Professor Takuda was a remarkably cheerful man.
“I need some advice about my future,” I lied. “I’m thinking of going to college, after all, eventually getting a doctorate, building an academic career, like you.”
When his lustrous Asian complexion paled, he acquired a taupe tint. “Well, Mr. Thomas, while I’m in favor of education, I couldn’t in good conscience recommend a university career in anything but the hard sciences. As a working environment, the rest of academia is a sewer of irrationality, hatemongering, envy, and self-interest. I’m getting out the moment I earn my twenty-five-year pension package, and then I’m going to write novels like Ozzie Boone.”
“But, sir, you always seem so happy.”
“In the belly of Leviathan, Mr. Thomas, one can either despair and perish, or be cheerful and persevere.” He smiled brightly.
This wasn’t the response I expected, but I pressed forward with my half-baked scheme to learn his schedule for the day and thereby perhaps pinpoint the place where Robertson’s kill buddy would strike. “I’d still like to talk to you about it.”
“The world has too few modest fry cooks and far too many self-important professors, but we’ll chat about it if you like. Just call the university and ask for my office. My graduate assistant will set up an appointment.”
“I was hoping we could talk this morning, sir.”
“Now? What has caused this sudden urgent thirst for academic pursuits?”
“I need to think more seriously about the future. I’m getting married on Saturday.”
“Would that be to Ms. Bronwen Llewellyn?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Thomas, you have a rare opportunity for perfect bliss, and you would be ill advised to poison your life with either academia or drug dealing. I have a class this morning, followed by two student conferences. Then I’m having lunch and seeing a movie with my family, so I’m afraid tomorrow is the absolute earliest we can discuss this self-destructive impulse of yours.”
“Where are you having lunch, sir? At the Grille?”
“We’re allowing the children to choose. It’s their day.”
“What movie are you seeing?”
“That thing about the dog and the alien.”
“Don’t,” I said, though I hadn’t seen the film. “It stinks.”
“It’s a big hit.”
“It sucks.”
“The critics like it,” he said.
“Randall Jarrell said that art is long and critics are but the insects of a day.”
“Give my office a call, Mr. Thomas. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
He put up his window, backed out of the driveway, and drove off toward the university and, later in the day, an appointment with Death.
CHAPTER 47
Nicolina Peabody, age five, wore pink sneakers, pink shorts, and a pink T-shirt. Her wristwatch featured a pink plastic band and a pink pig’s face on the dial.
“When I’m old enough to buy my own clothes,” she told me, “I’ll wear nothing but pink, pink, pink, every day, all year, forever.”
Levanna Peabody, who would soon be seven, rolled her eyes and said, “Everybody’ll think you’re a whore.”
Entering the living room with a birthday cake on a plate under a clear-glass lid, Viola said, “Levanna! That’s an awful thing to say. That’s just half a step from trash talk and two weeks with no allowance.”
“What’s a whore?” Nicolina asked.
“Someone who wears pink and kisses men for money,” Levanna said in a tone of worldly sophistication.
When I took the cake from Viola, she said, “I’ll just grab their box of activity books, and we’ll be ready to go.”
I had taken a quick tour of the house. No bodachs lurked in any corner.
Nicolina said, “If I kiss men for free, then I can wear pink and not be a whore.”
“If you kiss lots of men for free, you’re a slut,” Levanna said.
“Levanna, enough!” Viola reprimanded.
“But, Mom,” Levanna said, “she’s got to learn how the world works sooner or later.”
Noticing my amusement and interpreting it with uncanny skill, Nicolina confronted her older sister: “You don’t even know what a whore is, you only think you do.”
“I know, all right,” Levanna insisted smugly.
The girls preceded me down the front walk to Mrs. Sanchez’s car, which was parked at the curb.
After locking the house, Viola followed us. She put the box of activity books in the backseat with the girls, and then she sat up front. I handed the cake to her and closed her door.
The morning was pure Mojave, blazing and breathless. The sky, an inverted blue ceramic cauldron, poured out a hot dry brew.
With the sun still in the east, all shadows slanted westward, as if yearning for that horizon over which the night had preceded them. And along the windless street,
only my shadow moved.
If supernatural entities were present, they were not evident.
As I got in the car and started the engine, Nicolina said, “I’m never going to kiss any men, anyway. Just Mommy, Levanna, and Aunt Sharlene.”
“You’ll want to kiss men when you’re older,” Levanna predicted.
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
“I won’t,” Nicolina firmly declared. “Just you, Mommy, Aunt Sharlene. Oh, and Cheevers.”
“Cheevers is a boy,” Levanna said as I pulled away from the curb and set out for Sharlene’s house.
Nicolina giggled. “Cheevers is a bear.”
“He’s a boy bear.”
“He’s stuffed.”
“But he’s still a boy,” Levanna contended. “See, it’s started already—you want to kiss men.”
“I’m not a slut,” Nicolina insisted. “I’m going to be a dog doctor.”
“They’re called veterinarians, and they don’t wear pink, pink, pink, every day, all year, forever.”
“I’ll be the first.”
“Well,” Levanna said, “if I had a sick dog and you were a pink veterinarian, I guess I’d still bring him to you ’cause I know you’d make him well.”
Following a circuitous route, checking the rearview mirror, I drove six blocks to wind up two blocks away on Maricopa Lane.
Using my cell phone en route, Viola called her sister to say that she was bringing the girls for a visit.
The tidy white clapboard house on Maricopa has periwinkle-blue shutters and blue porch posts. On the porch, a social center for the neighborhood, are four rocking chairs and a bench swing.
Sharlene rocked up from one of the chairs when we parked in her driveway. She is a large woman with a rapturous smile and a musical voice perfect for a gospel singer, which she is.
A golden retriever, Posey, rose from the porch floor to stand at her side, lashing a gorgeous plumed tail, excited by the sight of the girls, held in place not by a leash but by her master’s softly spoken command.
I carried the cake into the kitchen, where I politely declined Sharlene’s offer of ice-cold lemonade, an apple dumpling, three varieties of cookies, and homemade peanut brittle.
Lying on the floor with four legs in the air, forepaws bent in submission, Posey solicited a belly rub, which the girls were quick to provide.
