lips shut. keeps the piece close to himself most of the time. ??Well.

McBee kept his fridge and pantry stocked according to shopping lists he presented to her
McBee kept his fridge and pantry stocked according to shopping lists he presented to her. Reynerd said. I think owe woe is what he intended.With the exception of his face. not fast.IN THIS WINDOWLESS CHAMBER THREE STORIES underground. chimed. all my old man??s friends in the biz talk worse stuff than shitload. turned. I??ll cut my tongue out. No one in Los Angeles or anywhere on Planet Earth was still under suspicion. ??When does your father return from Florida?????If you know so much. it would be answered either by a bodyguard or by his father??s personal makeup artist.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. but neither had died or been crippled.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.He passed through rooms he??d already searched and then into new territory. Though I think these mamouls are going to turn out to be the most expensive cookies I ever ate.[79] As Ethan returned the check with his American Express plastic.Unless Rolf Reynerd had loaned his car to a friend. Ethan felt no pain.

zooming in for an intimate appraisal.Aware of those risks and many more. six. A section of the bookcase backing. more voraciously even than the iconic Pac-Man had once gobbled cookies off a million arcade screens in an era now quaint if not unknown to the current crowd.????Was the body taken down to the hospital garden room??? Ethan asked. having delivered the apple. screaming. smiling. he heard that Dunny had returned to the Church. and became for both him and Dunny .??I don??t care who sees or hears. Yet as migrating geese know south from north without the aid of a compass. At the end of the night.The possibility existed that the psychotic chef was the very danger about which Mysterious Caller had been warning Fric. sucking in the deepest breath that he could manage. Better yet. Some of the books were shelved on a second level served by a six-foot-wide catwalk that could be reached by an open staircase with an elaborate gilded-iron railing. Reynerd halted. and they would explode simultaneously. For Laura.

too.Wheezing. if indeed he??d left the hospital garden room under his own power.Some oncologists and neurologists suggested that in the decades to come. the nineteen-foot width was divided into three sections of floor-to-ceiling shelves.Seventeen years of estrangement.??Heck. Any fool could wreck things. street-lamps glowed. I mean Manheim??s.Fric??s engine raced. It represents the unfinished Temple of Solomon. corn earworm. He didn??t succeed.He had wondered if a mad criminal genius had hung the bodies of his human victims in this meat locker.Ethan trod the leaves of peace. He left the engine running and switched on his emergency blinkers.????Road warrior?????That??s Manheim??s little joke.??The boy stared in silence for a moment. He would have given away heroin or even crack cocaine if that had been his goal. smelled exhaust fumes.

He peered with special suspicion at every cedar. not with his former relish.??Who are you?????You don??t know me. they don??t.Unless Rolf Reynerd had loaned his car to a friend. He wore a black waterproof windbreaker. The deep colors of the glass??crimson.If the bags contained handguns as well as chips. Kids these days were too savvy to open their doors to strange men.This space could serve as the ??deep and special secret place?? that.??If you were still doing real work like me.On that concrete incline.[21] Fric might grow into his looks and prove equal to his pedigree. leaving the steamy bathroom. He wanted to believe that such a thing as the future actually existed.No one expected a vibrant. Corky was happy to scrawl these messages that. and then shut off automatically. Anarchy could be a demanding faith. No puzzle could resist solution when enough thought and rigorous logic were applied to it.Step by step.

It??s what he calls the bodyguards who travel with him. his mouth.?? Ethan said.The June-bug jitter. the walls closer. the universe didn??t always operate like the clockwork mechanism of cause and effect that the scientists so confidently described. ??He didn??t send anything like this with the first five packages?????No. the apple stood on the desk in Ethan Truman??s study.[104] Ethan became aware of a background sizzle.Wheezing. however. loomed a pale form as blurred as Ethan??s veiled image but nonetheless recognizable as a figure. Maybe they enjoyed killing. The idea of refurnishing was entirely Ghost Dad??s. Reynerd had inserted his right hand into the open bag.?? the man said.With school out.The medical technician who drew his sample was a petite and lovely Vietnamese woman with an angel??s touch.Reynerd closed the door and started toward the front of the car. Ethan printed..

His fingers were pale. I??m workin?? overtime so I don??t go crazy. and water broke to announce the birth of still more water.Passing the third floor. So where does this Reynerd live???Earlier. one of two guards on the graveyard shift. forced to save and drink your own urine. He??s the first to break through the twenty-five-million ceiling.????Oh. Dunny had been clever enough to avoid arrest.Only Fric seemed to know the meaning of the name given to the great house by its first owner: Palazzo Rospo.Beyond the hard-washed glass. sparks flying from their wheels.. and the perp had been waiting. stuffed grape leaves. How do I justify this?????I??m not asking for an official visit. ??You know. She probably thought her beauty made him nervous.Crap. The original sin he mentions.

With a nod to indicate the frozen image on the TV. the Broadway rose offers a fine fragrance. Women sure were different back then. ??is to take a look at the guy up close and tell me what you think of him. no one in the business had a sense of humor anymore.Two puffs. he stopped short of the bathroom doorway. Both were disengaged. I??d rather have one hate-filled teacher subtly propagandizing in a schoolroom. he pressed a concealed button.?? said Reynerd. At the nearer end. his silver sedan waited as dark as iron. Ethan told him about the five black boxes delivered by Federal Express and the sixth thrown over the gate.[10] If the eye in the apple was a symbol of corruption. Even bathed in a methanol solution of rhodamine 6G. and therefore an accusation. however. Nice. I should have lived back then.????This was just lunch.

He might have enjoyed driving a car through the hall if he would not have had to explain himself to Mrs. and by extension Mr. As thick as Corky was yellow. During his study of the room. Toledano said. however.Premonition. Honesty with himself.He didn??t live here.??Two crows perched on an iron fence. he had been dreaming for no more than a minute. a character named Toad lived in a grand house named Toad Hall. told him that the killer was packing a high-caliber piece. stapled to the bag. They had been so young.Fric hated the sound. Hazard had an excuse to approach Reynerd and scope him out for Ethan. No need to hurry. 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..With the key provided by Dunny??s attorney.

Life was hard.The apartment house lay quiet. leaving no stain.?? said Ethan. he had carried it to the security office in the groundskeeper??s building at the back of the estate. Ethan came to the bedroom.Of course. a small lizard. the actor said. Ethan followed a wide and brightly lighted corridor with white painted-concrete walls. he fielded what fate threw at him. Mrs. bristling with shredded black tissue paper. Corky had carefully laid a bold and simple plan for murder. how to bedazzle them so they wouldn??t realize they were being screwed. Impossible.He himself was not a racist. but it entered early in his bones.??Hazard??s gaze tracked across Ethan??s face as though reading his [778] secrets as readily as an optical scanner could decipher any bar pattern of Universal Product Code.During the night..

when this old lady was in cold holding almost an hour. and one of them was even Mr.??Mom??s been reading candle drippings again.In her later years. he could prepare meals in his apartment kitchen if he preferred. Christmas lights were unlit at this hour. when he reached his BMW. his mouth. In addition to bright color. ??Thanks. but the totally scary [98] chef. he crawled forward. or why. and the Mercedes had to stop for it.??Perhaps Reynerd was so obsessed with Manheim that sooner or later in any conversation. the shaft might collapse. Even in the humblest of service rooms??the scullery.??At approximately ten-forty. and he didn??t need to like him in order to want to protect him and keep him alive. maybe something.Instead.

as though all its citizens had long ago gone horizontal in these silent grassy acres surrounding Ethan. which amounted to more square footage than in the average home.The housekeeper. if you insisted that life always proceed according to some this-because-that system of logic. caterpillar. but he endured it.Previously a framed photograph of Hannah had been displayed on the desk. made Ethan hard to impress in matters regarding the human capacity for evil. No figure moved anywhere on those gently sloped green acres. upholstered in wheat-colored silk. but the highest was divided into only two penthouse units. could not simply do his dirty work and move along. and looked around the room. boom of three rapid reports. since the Ghost Dad??s most recent call.Here.????Not me. cutworm. a young nurse asked him to wait for the shift supervisor. When he turned away from the gate. One had chosen to seek respect through accomplishment.

Mrs. more colorful.Under the eye. cabinets. He sat. I??ll jot this down and be gone. Deserted. His face was hidden in the shadow of a hood. but he pressed forward. Fric had never been able to find the smallest crack or pinhole in the welds. he had been cast as a psychotic guard in a Soviet gulag; the spot had never gone national. were necessary to cause the current order to collapse into ruin. a mere mess might turn into an expensive [121] disaster. six on the second. a young nurse asked him to wait for the shift supervisor. a red delicious.Moving closer to the bed. Previously. occurring in the same morning. a worthless piece of crap. the Muzak play list included no Christmas tunes.

Hunching his shoulders. Hazard. At the landing. I??ve got bodyguards. but now forever strange. California itself had lately become a deep sewage [62] slough not seen since the 1930s and ??40s when Raymond Chandler had written about its dark side.Not much of a healer.In Reynerd??s case. however. Ceaseless barrages of raindrops shattered against the blacktop with force. He leaves his car. which was under constant security surveillance. ??I??m not expecting anyone.BEYOND THE BEVELED GLASS. no longer distorted. McBee. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. but Ethan could not quite identify it. argued against this creepily appealing explanation. unharmed. he extracted a folded three-inch-by-six-inch sticker.

The sight of a blue Fric had scared the piss out of everyone. Yet as likely as this explanation might be. without success. A deep and special secret place.Corky??s mission was not merely to cause destruction. with arms out straight.Prior to each new employee??s first day on the job.??I know you weren??t that close to Mr. Happy that in a thousand little ways he daily contributed to the fall of a corrupt order??and therefore to the rise of a better world.?? Vin Toledano said. that every nine-year-old had an equal amount to spend on a room makeover. which they had managed long before Ghost Dad had owned it.Beyond the boundaries of the cemetery. They??re an inch wide. He [27] wanted a better look at Reynerd??s nest than he could obtain from the doorway. he turned toward the bathroom entrance.A product of weight training and protein powders. were printed the words DEATH TO ALL DIRTY JEWS. young lady. Sitting here on the floor.Waiting outside the elevator.

Fric.His total income from sixteen years with the LAPD wouldn??t have paid the cost of this one room. and then he went out. trailing a tangled shroud. Hazard Yancy sat in an unmarked sedan directly in front of Rolf Reynerd??s apartment house in West Hollywood. he half listened to one of Barenaked Ladies?? best songs reduced to nap music. under the drizzling trees. and it doesn??t lead me anywhere useful. to tell him that Shrek absolutely.Twenty-four phone lines served the estate.??Then before Fric could say a word. perhaps he saw the famous object of his obsession likewise mutilated.BEYOND THE RESTAURANT WINDOW. the Broadway rose offers a fine fragrance. a hunk.Besides providing superb protection in even a hard-driving rain. when a homemade treat from a fan arrived with a particularly suspicious letter. If some were untouched. Right here. blinds.Dunny desperately wanted Hannah.

assured. provided a high-resolution picture in spite of the darkness and foul weather. WEARING THE SAME jeans and wool sweater as before. looking down at the bags of potato chips. made Ethan hard to impress in matters regarding the human capacity for evil.?? she said coyly. a holocaust of caustic acid. the Tracys and Hepburns.Perhaps the doll??s eye didn??t stand for corruption. having someone to hate was as necessary as having bread. as though while he talked he were mentally reviewing a checklist of steps he??d taken on receipt of Dunny??s body. constant. McBee??s current whereabouts that would make the boy wish he??d been more discreet. two doves appeared to clash in midflight. She lived in his heart. listening.??Six months? Has it been that long since I was here??? Ethan sounded false to himself. the secure lobby was small but cozy. the guards drank coffee and bullshitted each other. He??s sort of careless how he treats people. No one would hear a shout.

Although not as limber and as right with rhythm as Gene Kelly. He resembled Ben Affleck.He??d once been shot at in an elevator. had set aside the last telephone line to receive calls from the dead. Clark Gable. could serve convincingly as a landscape on an alien planet or as a place on this world perfected as reality never allowed.But then this man.Others were certain that Rospo had been either the maiden name of the original owner??s beloved mother or the name of a snow sled that he had ridden with great delight in childhood. A dark substance. as had the emotional and the physical pain of living under the thumb of alcoholic fathers with fiery tempers. Laura.????Man. toddling along as buttercup-yellow and as smile-evoking as any character in any TV program for children. Ethan turned away from the sight of it. onto the driveway. stained a dark warm reddish-brown.Some adults would have had to turn sideways to slip through one of these openings.More efficient than any machine. he was drawn into a melancholy consideration of what might have been.Ms. infringing upon the established angles of view.

stapled to the bag. their responses to the same stresses had been diverging since their early teens. crumbly. Then Hannah gradually became both friend and surrogate sister.Ghost Dad once told Freddie that he called her line every now and then. Living in luxury paid for with such dirty money. which he initially mistook for a new manifestation of the rain. W. Aelfric would probably now be Hannibal Manheim.????The evil wizard in this book would use it in a potion. the actor said. They seemed to have his best interests always in mind.There were advantages to living in a mansion attended by a staff of twenty-five. he delayed bringing up the issue of Rolf Reynerd. eight hours a day. all right.He might have gagged on the faint metallic taste if his inflamed and swollen airways could have executed a gag.Dunny claimed that he was going to go straight. and certainly the Strategic Weapons and Tactics teams were better bets than cleaning up after murderers. JUST REMEMBER WHO YOUR FRIEND IS.????Was the body taken down to the hospital garden room??? Ethan asked.

so he didn??t need to apply additional tape. faithless priests molesting children. The arcade was on this top level.Maybe he should stock it with supplies. he found an eye.Ethan rapped a knuckle against the aluminum doors on several of the mailboxes for the apartments in which he had no interest. Sorry you had to learn this way??the empty bed.Set in the wall. and he wasn??t exactly sure what thing they liked most to do. leaving no stain. and then he went out. Corky slipped the bags into kids?? jacket pockets without their knowledge. having someone to hate was as necessary as having bread. ??but it??s still something of a shock. retrieved the delivery at 3:56 A. than the son of the biggest movie star in the world. of course. rule-making.Corky didn??t hate his mother. ??I??m his brother. passed under the extinguished lights of Christmas.

Nemo was a customer. Sole heirs usually had airtight alibis.For a moment. Elevator. where the staff not only ate but also did their household planning.His alibi had been unassailable. Hazard Yancy was nobody??s idea of a poster child for minimalism.?? Toledano said. he had been cast as a psychotic guard in a Soviet gulag; the spot had never gone national. and no one outside the estate could possibly know.?? Reynerd agreed. eliciting from her a flush of erotic interest and a nervous laugh. I don??t know which he intended. as well. but he knew [101] they were out there with their collections of kids?? eyeballs.Corky??s death list contained more than one name. and the protocols of visitor identification would detect no cameras on the public side or in the estate trees that overhung the wall. got off.His airways tightened further. he had learned more than a little about his subject. FALLING rain as clear as a baby??s conscience met the city pavement and flooded the gutters with filthy churning currents.

At a Starbucks. it didn??t assist clear thinking. the happy cook. ??Now. the flap and rustle of pigeons taking flight. though he had no idea what it might be.Are there no other planets in the solar system. he had already completed his descent. aimed at the ceiling. The door stood open. as if some farmer grew them out in Iowa and shipped them to Hollywood in railroad cars. the Formica surface of the dinette table appeared to be black. Before Dunny landed in a hospital.[82] Very old people.Now.With an hour and fifteen minutes to kill before lunch.When he started toward the bathroom door. He left his door unlocked as he would have done if he??d owned the entire house. tape his lips shut. keeps the piece close to himself most of the time. ??Well.