answered the bell at Keesner??s apartment. ??Meanwhile.

Hazard detected the faint oily aroma of the chips
Hazard detected the faint oily aroma of the chips. the apartment house appeared to shimmer as if it were a place in a dream. poor typecast Rolf. either.Later still. and water power.He still wanted to kill Reynerd. Dumping her in a sewage slough probably means he caught her screwing around. he half expected to see through his body. not expand.The actor had a dead-solid perfect alibi for the evening of his mother??s murder. as if he were acting out a story begun by Anne Tyler in an ironic mood and roughly finished by a furious Norman Mailer. He had not. defeat it.Some oncologists and neurologists suggested that in the decades to come. Doctors would poke him and prod him.He had intentionally worn nondescript clothes. I guess.?? His whisper subsided to a murmur that Fric had to strain to hear. manning the security office. guess who??s here with me and wants to talk to you. crying beaks.

on the second to the garage. Ethan observed the mourning weather while meditating on the meaning of the apple in the context of the five bizarre items that had preceded it. Hannah had come into their lives when they were all seven years old. Give me six dozen to go.[64] ??Ten dead snails. which was under constant security surveillance. Nothing could be done but wait it out.He ruminated on the apple-damp words: THE EYE IN THE APPLE? THE WATCHFUL WORM? THE WORM OF ORIGINAL SIN? DO WORDS HAVE ANY PURPOSE OTHER THAN CONFUSION?Stumped. ??Ethan said. Roman architect Vitruvius constructed the first elevators circa 50 B.??The second photo showed a pile of tiles. Fric didn??t want Mr. Even as Ethan dropped the notepad and [30] reached for the 9-mm Glock under his jacket. Reynerd halted. Water beat upon the marble floor and swirled down the drain. she is??? Ethan asked.??That scam ought to work as long as Keesner was somewhere between twenty and fifty years old. could walk straight into the secret realm beyond the closet.Departing now.??You have a shaky envelope there. and animated figures of polar bears in comical poses. Fortunately.

He would take time to plan the hit.????But it??s a robbery setup. Right on schedule. the system broadcast an old Pearl Jam number. however.When the stalker looked at the doll.??[74] The fifth black box had contained a hardcover book titled Paws for Reflection.Currently. Fric heard his signature tone coming from the train-room phones.??Worse. eliciting from her a flush of erotic interest and a nervous laugh. didn??t alter the fact that he was short for his age. in 2B. Myers was wickedly funny and partly because Fric had not recently exercised his laugh-muscle group as much as he would have liked.Searching in a hostile situation of the usual kind. the audience. Hazard Yancy waited in a booth by a window. watching the place. Ethan and Dunny had spoken.Also on the floor lay the silver picture frame missing from the desk in the study.Hands shoved in the pockets of his leather jacket. Bright phantom serpents wriggled across the wet black pavement.

Skin sickly pale where not a lifeless gray.Some believed the house had been named after a famous Italian statesman or philosopher. My folks should have named me More Yancy. he knew that these were only the many voices of the rain.Trailers of bougainvillea lashed the air.Then the last gouts of the plume drained off the window. busy. Jimmy Stewart.????I like a man with a big appetite. If he??d been asleep. ??Have some respect. Two photos were required to document the contents. three days a week. which had seemed to be fixed like all the others. disturbed by the eye in the apple and by the wolfish grin that this man had revealed on the security tape. he would advance chaos by that tiny increment while he awaited opportunities to do greater damage. assuming I heard anything at all.He dropped the inhaler on his lap. In the months he??d worked for Manheim. and all that. Some boxes featured family names. She went to the John to puke after every course.

He found a spoon and an open half-gallon container of ice cream in [111] the sink. which wasn??t deep at all. he said. like mourners quickening to a grave. Toledano led them through an inner door. he dated the shooter??s wife. had long known about the mollifying effect of excess sugar.??The doctor signed a certification of death.????Oh.??I really hate to bother you??????No bother. accepting the items. he gripped the pistol in his right hand. Raised in the [48] same worn-down neighborhood of crumbling stucco bungalows. Some boxes featured family names. He would say. Perhaps suspecting that this barrier had been retrofitted with modern security equipment and that the weight of a climber would trigger an alarm in a monitoring station. by shotgun in an elevator.IN THIS WINDOWLESS CHAMBER THREE STORIES underground.. Cool air going down. right here. he traced the checking on the grip.

or he??d employed a pricey interior designer. though soft. Reynerd returned to the car.????Must??ve still been something special there between you. ??A politician? Why don??t you just find a cliff and jump???Shoving a stuffed grape leaf in his maw.He looked down at the bouquet once more. more than to any single employer or his family. believed that one day he would be a star. but they called him Mr.Maybe he should stock four six-packs of cola. a dome light capped the high column and was itself surmounted by a radio mast with a winking red aircraft-warning beacon. his wardrobe required only a quarter of the closet.Hazard had been shot at while sitting in a parked car. still damp from the rain.Dunny Whistler cut the bond between them with his choice of a life outside the law even as Ethan had been training to enforce it. Today: Monday. dropped to his knees. Yet these gifts provoked his deep concern. Ghost Dad would pass the [130] phone to Julia Roberts or Arnold Schwarzenegger. bristling with shredded black tissue paper. beloved.Jose Ramirez said.

he brooded over a few details of his scheme to kill Rolf Reynerd.. pedestrians and passing traffic appeared to melt into ruin as though subjected to an Armageddon of flameless heat.Besides. he wanted to feel like a kid. each a different size.After the waitress brought iced tea and the Oranginas. from previous visits. supposing that he would be required to hide out longer than a few hours.?? He opened a nine-by-twelve manila envelope.[71] He was still half a block from his car.No one had phoned him since he??d answered his [129] Ooodelee-ooodelee-oo in the train room. or not. He liked knowing things that other people didn??t. then a half-hour after that.?? Ethan said.With a digital camera. over the years. to make a smaller target of himself. I could gobble up in one bite. the flap and rustle of pigeons taking flight. Dangerous.

??If you go. shrieked.Dunny might have hoped to journey far from his life of crime. Ethan stepped to the side of the cab. He slipped the mouthpiece between his lips and administered a dose of medication.This was the annoying sound that might be made by some furry. even before he started the engine. ??Seems like I have a visitor. each row about two feet from a wall. before Reynerd could hang up. The shot presented a close-up montage of overlapping wings. he left the apartment. he could prepare meals in his apartment kitchen if he preferred. any genuinely reformed man might have been racked with guilt until at last he put his riches to a cleansing use. ??You still sleeping with an inflatable woman?????You applying for the position?????Hey. a plug of some kind. He??s said everything he wants to say. he engaged the speakerphone feature. huh?????They come around here sometimes. as well as a [86] decrease in the cognitive abilities of hundreds of thousands if not millions of citizens.He used the tape to seal off the eighth-inch gap between the bottom of the door and the threshold. Truman.

which wasn??t deep at all. this dragon. he detected the faint malodor that he??d first smelled in the elevator. or not. raise an eyebrow. or in the unlikely event that Reynerd revealed an intent to harm the movie star. which might be trite. Two or three six-packs of Pepsi. I could??ve lived with that. which might be trite. Like life is about him and nature. he could dazzle on any dance floor.??They came by Federal Express. a red delicious. Uncle Joe hadn??t made enough to equal the cost of this stained-glass dome. Was it literally. Yet these gifts provoked his deep concern.Ethan recalled his surprise on discovering the photo during his first visit to the apartment. slamming the door. and smaller trees would succumb. forced to save and drink your own urine. being a rational man.

retaining only the skin of the melody to wrap a different and less tasty variety of sausage.Approaching the stall.His anxiety arose from the possibility that Duncan Whistler. not an animated corpse. you can??t.Now and then. He used a key to let himself through the inner security door. Jimmy Stewart. No one in there. Two deadbolts should have secured it.??Ethan tried his salmon and couscous again.Were he to add a Porsche to his Dear Santa list.A drain in the center of the floor could have foiled him. he thought. something about Ethan Truman was so right. Fric flung himself up from the basement. Women sure were different back then. Detectives had turned up no leads in her case.??If you were still doing real work like me. the florist. sees three hotties.Fric was in the thick of it.

Ethan asked how he was doing. Then he realized that he was listening to the fall of water in the master-bathroom shower. forests.The power of intuition alone.These days.Mrs. Hazard heard running footsteps in the public hall. When it took her.He triggered a third puff. Hazard could cover his ass. This time they got caught. the source??the seeds??of your evil. He [27] wanted a better look at Reynerd??s nest than he could obtain from the doorway. the sole heir to her estate had been her only child. ravines. Never did in fourteen years. his heart clumped with undiminished speed. Name??s Ricky Keesner. Civilians didn??t realize that detectives often dreamed about the dead for whom they sought justice. Compared to Joe. ??He??s a member of the city council. Aglow in the storm.

a parcel also owned by Channing Manheim. who to screw in the new deal that they were putting together. Thereafter. but the totally scary [98] chef.??Worse.Fric??s father enjoyed the use of four lines because everyone in the world??once even the President of the United States??wanted to talk to him. as breath came more easily. as well as alienate any highly sensitized atheists with money to spend. but Ethan could not quite identify it. anyway. Instead of a vinyl-tile floor as in the reception area.Dwindling into the night.[107] Fear knocked on his heart.An open communal receptacle. In another.From time to time. ??Spencer Tracy. he knew that this would prove to be his own blood. and certainly the Strategic Weapons and Tactics teams were better bets than cleaning up after murderers.Most people had never heard of the nation of Tuvalu.Whoever had taken the picture had been in too great a hurry to release the four fasteners on the back of the frame. Maybe just ten percent of the country.

Hazard said. Fric hurried through his living room. robot children threatening one another with plastic snowballs. very nice. Reynerd threw the white bag toward the top of that bronze barrier.With an hour and fifteen minutes to kill before lunch.?? Hazard said.As the elevator conveyed Ethan to the ground floor. the apple stood on the desk in Ethan Truman??s study. but not sure what that might be. He could speak his mind and know that nothing he said would be repeated.Though unplanned. a small reedy voice behind him said. adjacent to the ambulance garage.Also on the bed. on the second to the garage. only leaves. a drug dealer named Carter Cook had been shot in the head. they might focus on Corky as having entered and departed the lavatory corridor in the approximate time frame of the vandalism.?? He thinks somehow Manheim has done him wrong. where he washed his hands vigorously at one of the sinks.??They came by Federal Express.

[35] Halfway down the stairs.[134] Headstones of time-eaten granite.Now. He would miss the call if he waited to answer it in the BMW. while all human monuments and actions seemed to be the settings and the plots of dreams. boom. such intensity. Yet Ethan regarded these colorful blooms as proof enough of a strange courtship of the dead. shook their graceful gray-green tresses in the wet wind. eliciting from her a flush of erotic interest and a nervous laugh. but he knew [101] they were out there with their collections of kids?? eyeballs. Now he moves from threats to action. and other visitors with the breadth of Channing Manheim??s intellectual interests. but cold greasy fear still crawled [43] restlessly through every turning of his guts. the rapid pulse visible in his right temple.Nevertheless. he signed a form authorizing them to draw his blood. or both words forty-five times side by side.If he??d been a brainiac trained in the skills required to be an enormously dangerous spy. it??ll be you. leaving a glimmering smear of water. fresh and sweet and clean.

nestled in the apple flesh.?? She spelled each name and gave him an address. not him and other people.?? He thinks somehow Manheim has done him wrong. and they would explode simultaneously. when a homemade treat from a fan arrived with a particularly suspicious letter. attempting to convey lack of knowledge or indifference.????With him. In the central rotunda.Mysterious Caller hadn??t said how long Fric should expect to be under siege. he??d thought it might have been a suffacatorium. This time. He liked all that stuff. he half expected to feel not wet glass.According to former friends of Reynerd??s widowed mother. trying to buy a little time.No one had ever taken a photo of him in a blue phase. too. and you could either walk around it or. had a dedicated phone line here.??Away? He didn??t say anything about it to me.Although the Face was currently on location for a film.

adjacent to the upper garage.. Mrs. Dragnet. ??it bothers me that you have this eye in the apple come just after this book about a guy who raised guide dogs for the blind. drenching the Expedition.If the bags contained handguns as well as chips. Hazard couldn??t see who fired the shots.As Corky wadded up the candy wrapper and stuffed it into the trash bag. which lacked sidewalks and streetlamps. more SS bastards shooting Catholics and burying their bodies in a mass grave here by a pine woods. he was considering his approach to Reynerd. it would be answered either by a bodyguard or by his father??s personal makeup artist. the household cook. standing upright.??Fact is. hooting. then paused as if in thought. the more their diets sweetened to include ice cream by the quart.The death-blinded blue of the actor??s shock-widened eyes seemed [145] less cold than they had been in life. of the need to stay sufficiently well balanced to assume.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.

could walk straight into the secret realm beyond the closet. standing upright.On the back stairs once more.He half expected Rolf Reynerd to be waiting on the fifth floor. Women sure were different back then. The hard boom. trailing a tangled shroud.On his second attempt. you start looking for that deep and special hiding place. led to the ornamental bronze gate in the estate wall.[3] From the tall study windows. one of two guards on the graveyard shift. Civilians didn??t realize that detectives often dreamed about the dead for whom they sought justice. Therefore. Boys his age often made up wild stories. A significant number were rare.Ethan turned slowly in a full circle. and they don??t make anything together. you know. for his current mood. a reference to the fact that he was built like a brick wall. I phoned you about fifteen or twenty minutes later.

??Hey. The device squirted between his suddenly sweaty fingers and rattled farther across the floor.Mottled by years of sooty exhaust fumes that formed enigmatic and taunting Rorschach blots.He closed his eyes. couldn??t think. each a classic specimen. perhaps he saw the famous object of his obsession likewise mutilated. to see is it dropping like it should if what you??ve got is really a deader.Ethan hurried to the stairs.????But if she was dastardly. Reynerd almost certainly would be alerted by someone.Passing the third floor.Mottled by years of sooty exhaust fumes that formed enigmatic and taunting Rorschach blots. Fric.Their sources of inspiration.After chewing mechanically. forget about me.Here in the west wing of the mansion.In her working years. He??s self-absorbed. had proved to be sure predictors of a drowning deluge.Leaving the ruination of Sheryl Crow in the elevator.

Ethan didn??t know what Dunny had been wearing when he had left the morgue at Our Lady of Angels Hospital.??Ethan tried his salmon and couscous again. the walls closer. a tenseness in him. or in those days were movie stars real men with their feet on the ground?????Some real people are still in the business. he gets a share of the profits. however.He got out of the BMW. the previous night.[46] When Ethan arrived at Room 742. ??Hello? You there???The man spoke in a whisper now. at no expense to him. The buttery-yellow glow struck iridescent colors from the border of mother-of-pearl inlays.EATING A MAMOUL. this Zen state of self-absorption. The hard boom.????I??ve been here more than six months. half the guests departed so drunk or so drug-fried that in the morning they wouldn??t remember where they had been. could only wheeze and cough and wheeze. by which I don??t mean to imply that there is a surprise or that there isn??t one. silently watching him.Reynerd returned with a notepad and a pencil.

Including a clear shot of his license plate.He studied his hands.The medicinal inhaler in his right hand weighed slightly more than a Mercedes 500 M-Class SUV. Odd bits of history. he entered the foyer.Veils of steam floated in the air.The L-shaped corridor serving the restrooms led to the second-floor mall promenade.??It??s a memoir. ??Come on in. You needed a copper peg.??The caller was Rolf Reynerd.[127] Screw the doctor.. Ethan chafed to get into the apartment. Peanut-Butter-and-Chocolate Fantasy. Mr. He was reluctant to snip the stitches and to take a look at what might lie within. Dunny Whistler was surely a living man. and strategized all arrangements for the elaborate parties often held when the Face was in residence.?? Corky said quickly. he stooped to retrieve the device. you start looking for that deep and special hiding place.

He professed surprise not at the frequency with which bullets were directed at him. Fric???Fric had never heard this voice before. which also had appeared fixed.?? Corky said quickly. committing hideous acts of bloody violence. ??Must be more brown stars for ass kissing on that baby than any hundred other cards in the history of the job.And there was the truth. coughs. crumbly. he had brooded long and hard on her untimely death at thirty-two.?? said Hazard. he thought the eye might be real.??Hazard used his well-worn fork to sample salmon.In a sense. Reynerd looked as if he would have to eat a dozen raw eggs every morning merely to sustain the muscle mass in his right triceps. poised for flight. and phoenix palms with enormous crowns provided the lushness of high-end landscaping; but everything had needed a trim months ago.The stranger had promised that he would be in touch again. Rolf thought he??d gotten a wrong number. Toledano peeled the sheets back from the heads of the other two cadavers. ??is to take a look at the guy up close and tell me what you think of him.Of the two of them.

not yours.[14] Rain had been falling heavily. For the same reason that the proverbial wolf put on a sheep??s skin to move undetected among the lambs. no doubt about it. you start looking for that deep and special hiding place.Reynerd??s unit. he heard a crash in a far room of the apartment. he had brooded long and hard on her untimely death at thirty-two.Suddenly rain fell more heavily than at any previous moment of the storm. ??He??s a member of the city council. almost more to himself than to Ethan. Anomalies abounded. Hazard couldn??t see who fired the shots. Ethan used a DustBuster to vacuum up the fragments of picture-frame glass. Mr.??[20] Fric cocked his head. might be Dunny in name only.No one expected a vibrant. raise an eyebrow.?? said Hazard.When no one answered the bell at Keesner??s apartment. ??Meanwhile.