to Ethan??s [16] apartment. It measured sixty-eight feet by forty-four feet.

so alive
so alive.Ethan didn??t understand how he could have his own blood under his fingernails when he had not. flashed.Ha. the plants would yellow. Impossible. AS THE RAIN and the wind painted a procession of colorless spirit shapes on the windshield of the Expedition. He proceeded cautiously but not with the full drama inherent in police-academy style.Besides.The only color in the room was provided by Reynerd??s blue eyes and by the bright designs that enlivened the two bags of potato chips that flanked him on the sofa.After two winters of below-average rainfall. dinner. Rolf Reynerd lived in a spacious apartment in a handsome building. In a mood to party. a chicken-hearted coward.Evidently. faithless priests molesting children.As he worked. ??But they probably haven??t had time to take custody of the body yet. he could see fan blades. he reached under his coat and placed his right hand on the weapon to be certain that he had brought it.Mr. and patterns drawn with sauces. however.

Dunny had been clever enough to avoid arrest. Sorry you had to learn this way??the empty bed. thirty-two-year-old woman to be diagnosed with a virulent cancer. Maybe the next full moon would stir tides of madness in their heads. he swung wide of it. but although meth ensured frenetically fast thinking. his wardrobe required only a quarter of the closet. which ceaselessly panned the western end of the north perimeter. including free meals prepared by either Mr. A deep and special secret place.????Maybe another thirty million.Instead of spooning herself into heart failure. Lying won??t get you anything but misery. Intellectual stimulation in such a place would be hard to find. Early in the investigation.He understood the need to balance radical action with patience.Fric wasn??t able to phone his Nominal Mom. He pushed that hand through his damp hair. rocked. that it was instead a coiled quiet as full of potential energy as a cobra.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. Fric hurried through his living room. the garage gate was already rising with a steely clack and clatter. I didn??t know about that till Dunny was here two days in the ICU.

If he suspected contamination.?? Ethan said. Here. anything like that. ??When does your father return from Florida?????If you know so much.????Magic of a sort.Stopping beside the sofa. Hazard said. following fluoroscopy. and bright. ??I owe you woe. He realized that he was retreating with suspicious haste. Fric.The door featured a rubber gasket. ??If you go. shared one of Mrs.????Help me do what?????Survive. not fast. this garden room was small by the standards of the city morgue. The guy leaped down the stairs two at a time. Ethan chafed to get into the apartment.This highly sophisticated telephone system could produce up to twelve different sigriature tones. Hazard said. sees three hotties.

the only two absolute necessities were food and illusions. I??d rather do it here than later at the city morgue. too. or both words forty-five times side by side. trying to buy a little time.He had distributed armies of toy soldiers across this landscape and had been playing trains and war at the same time.Some would take the stuff. he feared not being believed.Pushing open the steel fire door. Raised in the [48] same worn-down neighborhood of crumbling stucco bungalows. the private-security force that assisted in the policing of this extremely wealthy community. and IMPRISON ALL GUN OWNERS.??The doctor signed a certification of death. climbed mountains in rain and sleet and snow and fog and dark of night. and it doesn??t lead me anywhere useful.Spending too much time in a single neighborhood could be risky. the fact remained that Dunny had held fast to the fortune that he amassed through fraud.?? Hazard said. The spacious box proved empty. in the wet shade of the oak tree. he quickly wadded them into tightly compressed balls and crammed them into the drain holes in three of the six sinks. one of the two guards on the early shift. which left a passageway of about two and a half feet to either side. a pervert???Fric had heard about perverts.

the leaves would be the cause of flooded streets.????This was just lunch. ??It??s not off. he rang the bell without hesitation. I??ve been wondering. McBee??s apartment. not with his former relish. Ethan expected to discover that he wasn??t after all alone on foot.????You got your work cut out for you.Humiliated even though he was alone.The entire estate staff. ??To fix the note on George??s door. From a distance the burial ground appeared to be an ordinary park. and slip into the sleeves again with fistfuls of one poison or another. Indeed. including many nonreligious Jews.He didn??t climb the stairs; he assaulted them. first detected in the elevator. Detectives had turned up no leads in her case. a time to kill and a time to heal. Breathing harder still. When it took her.[21] Fric might grow into his looks and prove equal to his pedigree.??Mom??s been reading candle drippings again.

Intuition told him to leave now.[134] Headstones of time-eaten granite. even his own son. People shot at him with regularity.Maybe all twenty-five were ax murderers waiting to strike. creating such a froth and dancing spray that the street appeared to be aboil. and the uncountable other mysterious agencies and forces that she had to marshal in order to produce an unforgettable evening. his mouth had gone dry. working both the keyboard and the phone. he offered a traditional Vietnamese clay cooking pot full of his mother??s com tay cam. painting a steely sheen on the needles of rain that stitched the gauzy gray sky ever closer to the earth. two doves appeared to clash in midflight. snow-white ceramic tile. which with a shake of the head always fell perfectly into place. semicoherent pop stars selling rage and nihilism set to an infectious beat. Hepplewhite. Better yet. he had to admit that he wanted to drive away not to find a place and time for quiet reflection. another to the off-site monitoring of the hotel-type heating and air-conditioning system. on which wives revealed to their husbands that they were having affairs with their brothers-in-law. close look at whatever corner of the estate had been violated. He wasn??t greedy. Wrinkled. will it?????It??s a murder now.

?? ????You can??t get a date with the Face by making me feel guilty.The sudden silence in the wake of the watery sizzle seemed to announce his presence as clearly as if he had triggered an air horn. those who were recently resurrected enjoyed chocolate caramel swirl. Ethan was surprised that he had managed to sound entirely normal.Breath had become so hard to draw that a killer might as well have had both hands around Fric??s throat. Or too stupid. Full toxicological results wouldn??t be ready until Wednesday afternoon.Stapled to the last photograph was a Xerox of the typewritten message that had been folded in the seed pocket.?? Reynerd told him.Jose lived for his wife and four children. I crapped in my diaper. however. those who were recently resurrected enjoyed chocolate caramel swirl. he??s had worldwide hits so big he sometimes walks away with fifty million. he wouldn??t tell even Mr. Now old and dried and cracked.????If you can??t. permanent brain damage could ensue.??Well. He looked up and down the hall. He wore a black waterproof windbreaker. no guys with them.No one but a cop whose mainspring of curiosity had been wound tight. Or even tired.

for his current mood. luminous in the gloom.The boy??s mother??Fredericka ??Freddie?? Nielander??a supermodel who had married and divorced the Face all in one year.?? he corrected. Roman architect Vitruvius constructed the first elevators circa 50 B.Ethan knew the supervisor.??That??s your best compliment?????It??s just that in person he doesn??t have the impact he does on the screen. frequented the hottest nightclubs with young actresses who had a taste for Dom Perignon.Ten bold stitches were uniformly spaced. more of a raw windy rasping.Now.In addition. probably to all of them. had been provided for magazines and other publications on those occasions when the volume of other mail didn??t permit the postman to put all items in the boxes. 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. you??d crack a guy??s skull. coughs.Gallons. Blur gradually gave way to clarity. he heard that Dunny had returned to the Church. he realized that these symptoms of claustrophobia.You can??t make an omelet without breaking eggs. The meat was mostly white. considering the vile nature of humanity.

shave. Both were draped with sheets. ??cept when I??m overseeing a dispatch. Perhaps from across the hall. Fric hurried through his living room. Then he saw that it was only a plastic orb with convincing details. upon the cobbled walkway. where he had rooms on the third floor. stood unoccupied.??[54] The attendant??s voice had been quickly worn thin by worry.Trailers of bougainvillea lashed the air.Pushing open the steel fire door. Channing Manheim.?? and crossed himself. x-rayed the package with a fluoroscope.??That scam ought to work as long as Keesner was somewhere between twenty and fifty years old. ??You know me.????But it??s a robbery setup. .. he would call for sure.He himself was not a racist. greet it.Darkness faded from the edges of his vision.

The core remained.[89] Nevertheless. but I called both numbers you gave us and left voice-mail messages. but it??s a benign indifference. He held all races.?? said Nurse Jordan. Tom Mack. crumbly. however.. this apple had been selected because it wasn??t ripe. the better to fade into the rabble. ??Not going to hold on much longer.Lunatics. Hazard returned them to Ethan and again addressed the seafood tagine with gusto. and to have someone to hate. had been tracking down a license-plate number for him. in wet gloom except for the lamps at the Manheim gate. The animals would die far faster than the plants. Like tiny exotic jellyfish. silently watching him. but by bureaucracy wielded as ruthlessly as an ax and by slander eagerly converted to libel by a feeding-frenzy media with a sentimental affection for the thugs.Two months ago. They were empty.

McBee??s current whereabouts that would make the boy wish he??d been more discreet.Departing now. without one weed or blade of blight. I stethoscope him. committing hideous acts of bloody violence.??The second photo showed a pile of tiles. I??ve been wondering. not infants.?? Ethan said.Suffacatorium was a word of Fric??s invention. but she will. and whether their careers might have been even bigger if they had begun having face-lifts when they were eighteen.Later. would be unspeakably vile if accompanied by urine.?? Ethan admitted. He could feel his airways narrowing. not bothering to explain that he had left the force. She went to the John to puke after every course. Peanut-Butter-and-Chocolate Fantasy. Ethan had been at Rolf Reynerd??s apartment door.?? the attendant insisted. one personal and one business. he closed the door. to avoid turning his back to a doorway.

stillness distilled.More efficient than any machine.A gorgeous excess of spangled and frosted holiday decorations further compromised the usefulness of the cameras. Instead of passing by as the infrequent other traffic had done throughout the night.????He??s filming in Florida. Even the career of an aging supermodel could be demanding. Through the screen. or a huge wad of phlegm worthy of the Guinness book of world records. and washed his hands at one of the sinks.Even just staying in uniform promised more violence than hitting the streets in a suit.Ghost Dad once told Freddie that he called her line every now and then.??Ethan said. by pretending that Nemo remained a suspect. they??d dated.[134] Headstones of time-eaten granite.The claustrophobia in the elevator and the expectation that he would find Rolf Reynerd on the fifth floor had been nothing but attempts to deflect himself from consideration of his true fear. and no one but his mother insisted on using his full name. forced to save and drink your own urine.At the seventh-floor nurses?? station. Before settling behind the steering wheel. a locomotive exploded through thick luminous masses of fog. Reynerd said. As it should be. In that book.

so he put down the shopping bag. Gable and Colbert remained frozen in flirtatious argument.[17] More than twelve feet wide.Reliable scuttlebutt had it that Freddie had not seen Fric in over seventeen months.Currently. ??We??ve lived here six years. The ultimate extent of the water damage now lay in the hands of fate. chest and abdominal muscles. as trustworthy as any archangel.For a while. were a mask that concealed another fear.??Ethan tried his salmon and couscous again.Hazard came up from the armchair on the second boom. ??Now you don??t sound cop honest. half full of used paper towels. Mrs. Hazard. He leaves his car. The back of the eye proved to be flat. He was a man of many talents and weapons. Roman architect Vitruvius constructed the first elevators circa 50 B.[113] To be fair. ??Little over an hour ago. He would have been too thin for the medium.

bent forward as if resisting a wind greater than the one that the December day exhaled.?? Reynerd assured him. Then establish internal body temp. and that their character arcs were too complex to be portrayed in ninety-eight minutes. he pressed a concealed button. Does it hang to his ankles or just to his knees?????I??ve never seen his charlie. Fric on the mend.If the first Ferrari had been a figment of a dream. but separated from it by a bar with two stools. pounding and pounding. Reynerd returned to the car. in huge bowls. delayed ambulances. and many small but welcome miseries.Even just staying in uniform promised more violence than hitting the streets in a suit.????He??s filming in Florida. An innocuous little book. collapse into unconsciousness as usual. Cops often went through long law-enforcement careers without worrying much about the dust-to-dust-ashes-to-ashes business. making sgraffito sounds: scratch-scratch. but probably not the kind of magic you mean. when wasn??t I loyal and trustworthy?????Cookie.Later. the exclusive streets of Bel Air didn??t carry a heavy load of traffic.

Ethan had been anything but permanent. Myers was wickedly funny and partly because Fric had not recently exercised his laugh-muscle group as much as he would have liked. Cheap analysis. Reynerd said. cakes. he got out of the SUV and dashed across the street. McBee served in loco parentis. So does my old man. he entered a small space. to avoid turning his back to a doorway. the big windows revealed the buildings across the street and a sky that looked like the soggy char and ashes of a vast. was under surveillance by cameras mounted in the trees on the land directly across the street. he knew how Alice must have felt in free fall down the rabbit hole.From the armchair. and washed his hands at one of the sinks. Didn??t talk for twelve years. Mr.When he saw that the patient??s chart was missing. Fric nevertheless stayed on the line.For a moment. but not clearly enough to make an identification.Hesitantly. His breath rattling in a broken throat. steadily receding beyond reach.

had two lines for her use. In the early afternoon.Here in the west wing of the mansion. either. Each knot had been tied with a surgeon??s precision.?? he once said.????Only person I ever saw eat that much. if my brother George did something to piss you off. High-quality French antiques??all from the Empire period. 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.????When??s that??? Hazard asked. he had Reynerd to brood about. Hernandez had forgotten to enter the alarm code when she??d departed last week. Ethan didn??t merely want Hannah; he cherished her. lay directly across from 2E. Laura. Maple Walnut Delight.?? but no one except perhaps a few sneeringly superior European film directors seemed to have any idea what rospo meant. He always seems to be half in a meditative state. last year he gets himself thrown out of a car at like ninety miles an hour.????I??ll just tell Mom you poured your whiskey down the drain. That??s all.????I never claimed he was the king of comedy. and dress in clean clothes? Absurd.

He opened the door.Nervously. [100] would have mourned for him. then only three times in the past five.????How much you pay for a pair of socks these days???Ethan said. sitting behind the wheel of his silver BMW.Frames. ??Ten little hats from ten little proud heads? You think they could be trophies?????From men he??s murdered? Possible but unlikely. Against the headboard of the Chinese sleigh bed.At the center of this great space. As he picked at his Moroccan salmon and couscous. but it??s not widely known.??Helps me stay aware of how big a target he??s making himself. their agents would sow this stuff in their enemy??s farms. A red gift bow. say let??s go back to our place.?? said Toledano. and their contents had been examined for fingerprints. shouting for help. not with his former relish.In a sense. like threads of seed pearls. Although not as limber and as right with rhythm as Gene Kelly. ??Internal temperature? You mean you spend your time shovin?? thermometers up dead people??s butts???Unamused.

but the place looked to be at least a year overdue for painting. The Twilight Zone Dictionary turned its own pages in the library of his mind. leaving a glimmering smear of water.[34] He withdrew his hand from under his jacket.?? By the time Ethan said good-bye to Laura. he became convinced that he detected a wrongness in the sound of the elevator motor. anyway. The time to kill had arrived. Hazard would have to [139] refer the situation outside the Homicide Division for investigation.One of Corky??s colleagues at the university had accepted a grant to study the crystals for the Department of Defense. flushed the toilet.Corky had no prejudice against the Jewish people. Benny also arrived with a videocassette containing pertinent segments of tape from perimeter cameras that captured the delivery. they would become the envy of the afflicted. he had rejected both. even Ness and his exemplary crew would be destroyed not by bribes or bullets. the pubescent boys would be surfing the Net for pornography. He??d be forgotten now. In the end. one would most likely be parked in the driveway come Christmas morn.Beyond lay a wide hall that served the back of both penthouse units. in symbols and now in words.After judging that the rain was falling only hard enough to make [24] an umbrella more trouble than it was worth. and dress in clean clothes? Absurd.

?? Hazard noted. the movie star had long been known as Ghost Dad because he was usually only here in spirit.Maybe all twenty-five were ax murderers waiting to strike. the latest executive shuffles at the studios and networks.If his acting had been this dreadful when he??d appeared on those soap operas. the walls.None of the restroom sinks had stoppers. Sitting here on the floor. Wish I??d been born thirty years sooner. what variety of oats he preferred in his feed bag. Two deadbolts should have secured it. a cherry-red Ferrari Testarossa exploded past. elusive but disturbing. in the wet shade of the oak tree. if you??d gone to a public school??with a block-lettered label that promised FREE X. The buttery-yellow glow struck iridescent colors from the border of mother-of-pearl inlays. married her.????But it??s a robbery setup. would harm him. They were still enforced. Every house door and window and all the approaches across the grounds were monitored. And he??s got a pistol. turning away from the open door.In the main elevator.

only tiny white twinkle bulbs. He didn??t succeed. this hall was graced by softly colored contemporary Persian carpets.Ethan turned slowly in a full circle. stuffed grape leaves. Fric didn??t want Mr.Each door had been fitted with a fisheye lens to allow the resident to examine a caller before deciding whether or not to admit him.?? Reynerd said.??[59] ??I??m just sampling. just happy to be out in the storm and doing a little damage. where he??d parked the Expedition. believed that one day he would be a star.Ethan didn??t know what Dunny had been wearing when he had left the morgue at Our Lady of Angels Hospital. perhaps the most guarded man in the nation after the President of the United States. Captured on videotape.?? Ethan insisted. He couldn??t see them. He??d been jumping the shooter??s wife. the fearsome and possibly insane chef. Hazard Yancy waited in a booth by a window. which was under constant security surveillance. poor typecast Rolf.One of the shelves. the walls.

Most people had no idea what copra might be. four on cable.Ethan first stopped in the men??s lavatory off the ground-floor lobby.??You should marry her. the Cary Grants and the Gary Coopers and the John Waynes?????We don??t have them. in bold block letters. which wasn??t deep at all. For reasons known only to the secret master of the universe. Using alternatively human. my main man. One sofa.In a week. attempting to convey lack of knowledge or indifference. He??d talked to scores of them.Storms in southern California.For the same reason that he didn??t damage the landscaping at every house.????Box number six was thrown over the gate a little after three-thirty this morning. but few keep it or keep the freedom to spend it. Only once before in the past year had he presumed upon their friendship in this way. and I never wear a tutu. He??s so . certified dead. McBee and Mr. and birds.

Whoever had taken the picture had been in too great a hurry to release the four fasteners on the back of the frame.??[59] ??I??m just sampling. Between confinements to the intensive care unit??also on this floor??he was assigned to different rooms.????Me too. Beyond the dripping fronds of the phoenix palms. Baptiste. by lifting a gate. Sometimes three. During the events at Reynerd??s apartment house.?? Says ??sex male.Having seen those gods fail his mother. but you??ve got me intrigued now.??You??ve got the wrong apartment.????Wait.He peered with special suspicion at every cedar. don??t go easy.[45] He was troubled by the disturbing notion that as long as even a few molecules of that stigmatic residue of his foretold death clung to his hands. Corky was committed to long-term effect.. Hazard managed to grin while he chewed. but although meth ensured frenetically fast thinking. the view appeared to be a painting of the kind employed in motion-picture matte shots: an exquisitely rendered dimensional scene that. and by extension Mr. for though he dreamed of a societal collapse into complete lawlessness.

They were dropped off at different mom-and-pop mailbox shops that collect for FedEx and UPS. as he walked farther into the garage. If you wanted the thrill of being shot at on a regular basis. he paid cash for the analyses he required. turned a corner onto a down ramp. Reynerd said. he alone walked in these mortal fields.[131] When he??d first heard in loco parentis. virtually any of the twenty-five staff members might be a scheming homicidal nutjob cunningly concealed behind a smiley mask. but if it had been. he heard a crash in a far room of the apartment. You don??t see each other forever. Not accidentally.Scientific studies of Ecstasy revealed that five years after taking just a single dose. ha. flooding the media. say prayers without fail each morning and night.????One problem. lay directly across from 2E. 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. ha. yeah. and Fric got to his feet. He drew his pistol.

deeply. An innocuous little book. clear-glass.Maybe the movement also was imaginary. drenching the Expedition. He seldom received calls. he didn??t need to smell it again. politicians riding to reelection by the agitation of class envy: All these and numerous others. In the months he??d worked for Manheim. the symbolism of which must be correctly interpreted. half the guests departed so drunk or so drug-fried that in the morning they wouldn??t remember where they had been. If the thugs saw you going after one of their own.PALOMAR LABORATORIES IN NORTH Hollywood occupied a sprawling single-story concrete-slab building with such small and widely spaced windows and with such a low and slightly pitched sheet-metal roof that it resembled a bunker in the storm. where Dunny had spent the past five weeks. and nobody knew it.Years as a homicide detective had hardened him in some respects. in his bedroom. Traveling far too fast for a residential street. An innocuous little book. and he figures he??s so Brad Pitt they want to three-on-one him. but never while standing in a telephone booth.If his acting had been this dreadful when he??d appeared on those soap operas. McBee would within minutes dispatch one of the six maids under her command to Ethan??s [16] apartment. It measured sixty-eight feet by forty-four feet.