ceiling. he hurried along the north hall to the east hall.

If the bags contained handguns as well as chips
If the bags contained handguns as well as chips. pushed aside the empty gift box. Fric pushed two transformer switches to kill power to the trains.Ghost Dad once told Freddie that he called her line every now and then.If Dunny were half the man that he??d once been.Dave Ladman. as though the driver were in fact hoping to run down a darting child or an old lady slowed by orthopedic shoes and a cane.Greener than Eden??s fields. Corky was forty-two. Ethan stepped to the side of the cab. Then he realized that he was listening to the fall of water in the master-bathroom shower. he??d slung the package over the high scrolled crest of the gate. Then he saw that it was only a plastic orb with convincing details. and if he was dead??where is he now?????Probably one of the sisters jerking your chain. McBee kept his fridge and pantry stocked according to shopping lists he presented to her.The early winter twilight would not descend for another thirty minutes.?? Ethan named a famous west-side restaurant where the Face had a standing reservation.?? Hazard said dryly. bathroom.At the center of this great space. more SS bastards shooting Catholics and burying their bodies in a mass grave here by a pine woods.The boy preferred to be called Fric. a flock of pigeons erupted in a swirl of feathered [28] frenzy from a cobblestone plaza in front of a backdrop of old European buildings. Corky went about his [69] work as discreetly as possible. For about forty minutes. The same experiences had made Dunny yearn for buckets of money and for power sufficient to ensure that no one would ever again dare to tell him what to do or ever again make him live by rules other than his own.

He should have taken the elevator.??I don??t understand.?? he said.Previously a framed photograph of Hannah had been displayed on the desk. He clipped the inhaler to his belt.Descending. The worry could be even worse for spouses. the walls seemed barely able to hold back a devastating weight of sea. ??I was just getting some snacks for the show. the depth of field made possible by modern cameras. and they would explode simultaneously. ??but he??s clean. I explode off the screen. ??To fix the note on George??s door.??I??ve seen your picture.Searching in a hostile situation of the usual kind. if you can??t.Departing now. So does my old man. 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. Moonves could get firearm registrations for you.The bag to his left offered Hawaiian-style chips.????Cookie.In the first picture stood a honey-colored ceramic cat.Targeted in an elevator. hollow kingdom.

The third photo was of a small. At the landing.??Ten foreskins from grown men. he rode up to the fifteenth floor before the cab started down again. not least of all the sense to recognize in Hannah a woman of exceptional virtues. like threads of seed pearls. An ice-pick killer. He drove out of the Palomar Laboratories parking lot. by the dead.[110] The car shot forward while the barrier continued to rise.?? of course.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. Living in luxury paid for with such dirty money. She probably thought her beauty made him nervous. eyes blue.????That??s not an exclusive club. and even from day to day in the same year. either.Fric had enjoyed his own line since he was six. Nemo was a customer.[118] He clutched at the medicinal inhaler clipped to his belt. Ethan had taken enough salt to work up a thirst for truth.Jose lived for his wife and four children. toiling. last year he gets himself thrown out of a car at like ninety miles an hour. he had to admit that he wanted to drive away not to find a place and time for quiet reflection.

As he ascended past the second floor.[102] Just in case this guy with no name happened to be the one from whom he might need to hide.With those rumors. although he might not be a cop in any official sense. drop leaves. was neither as grand as some in the neighborhood nor large enough to require a doorman. Birds were the subject of every photo. however. He??d be forgotten now. had placed a call to Cook??s cell phone an hour before the murder. surround-sound technology??all that stuff makes flat personalities bigger than life. and I never wear a tutu. Then in a moment of clarity. Mr. like spirits risen. rain chased rain along the street.Maybe all twenty-five were ax murderers waiting to strike.????That money. the laws against murder remained in effect. But not just for Christmas shopping. The tape was already loaded. steadily receding beyond reach. he heard through third parties that Dunny had gotten out of the life. one of Reynerd??s party pals that night??Jerry Nemo??was known to Hazard from another case.Unless Rolf Reynerd had loaned his car to a friend. after he had learned that he held authority over Dunny??s affairs.

Triggered by remote control. even to Easter-basket bunnies that they could brutally dismember and consume for a double enjoyment. guess who??s here with me and wants to talk to you. Prior to a war.He understood the need to balance radical action with patience. for his current mood. Impossible. Tall French windows provided a clear view of nothing real.IN THIS WINDOWLESS CHAMBER THREE STORIES underground. however.?? but no one except perhaps a few sneeringly superior European film directors seemed to have any idea what rospo meant. he brought the item here to Palomar to be analyzed.. The device squirted between his suddenly sweaty fingers and rattled farther across the floor.Hazard had already been served a double order of the kibby appetizer with cucumbers. Ghost Dad would come on the line. in an instant. The slug hammered him dead-center in the chest. His fingers were pale. Trains of every vintage raced through forests. roared like gunning engines. he gripped the pistol in his right hand. ??If he??s carrying a potato-chip bag. The receptionist didn??t roll her eyes. They would have to discuss that in their next chat. McBee would within minutes dispatch one of the six maids under her command to Ethan??s [16] apartment.

blazing canary. Toledano said.He put the ice cream in the freezer and returned the empty picture frame to the study. even if they did not lift him out of the mire of Fricdom. sapphire??so completely filtered natural light even on a bright day that the books were at no risk of sustaining sun damage. Their mutual grief had not. leaving the steamy bathroom.He was pretending to be a dealer drumming up business.Dave and his shift partner. and he??d made only a little money from it.After pressing the button for the main garage level. as if the seafood tagine had hardened like a dental mold. This time. He could see no slightest stain remaining. snapped off the windshield but did not crack it. ??They??re always locked. except he??s sincere. could serve convincingly as a landscape on an alien planet or as a place on this world perfected as reality never allowed. though her real name had been Hilda May Glorkal. dollars. Christmas Eve.????We haven??t even dated in eighteen months. not really. he had returned to his desk in Homicide. and the wrong half. tighter.

Hernandez had forgotten to enter the alarm code when she??d departed last week. A desk plaque identified him as VIN TOLEDANO. McBee???The boy nodded. ??So how does your friend come to be pushed out of a car doing ninety?????He was a great guy. Inside.??While Ethan returned the computer-printed photos to the manila envelope. including the gate.??Fact is.?? of course.Aelfric. was more important than heeding intuition. had discovered the name Aelfric in the script for a cheesy fantasy film in which she had agreed to play a three-breasted Amazon alchemist. and many small but welcome miseries. Tom Mack. had proved this theory wrong. He harbored no malice toward any particular group. The face of the Face seemed to be nearly all there was of Channing. Hachette. all mechanical figures moving on tracks.??The boy stared in silence for a moment.?? ????You can??t get a date with the Face by making me feel guilty. He didn??t succeed.The machines beeped.Places like this had never in the past disturbed him. Fric returned to the phone and terminated the call. probably to all of them.

but two cadavers on gurneys made an immediate impression.Eight-dose giveaways like this would not facilitate the collapse of civilization overnight. not fully amped but clipping along at high altitude.According to the medical examiner. to the single control.In a week. Ethan had a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Seven days a week.Fric had never known anyone quite like him. had been tracking down a license-plate number for him.Ooodelee-ooodelee-oo.??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. He??d watched it six times before. No sound issued from the elevator machinery. in the distance. but the lid indicated that the container had once held pickle relish. the blustering wind tattooed ephemeral patterns on the window.??Thanks.Reynerd wasn??t selling. displaying a paperback with dragons and wizards on the cover.????He??s filming in Florida. It was unlocked now.??Two crows perched on an iron fence. But they would not be able to obtain a useful image of his face.Dave Ladman. faithless priests molesting children.

Reynerd said.?? Ethan said. but he loathed his given name. from worse. before it was fully out of the way. maintaining a measured pressure on the trigger. hummus.In his throat: a hard-boiled egg or a stone.Built into the inner face of the door was a fine-mesh screen behind which lay a mechanism that Fric had examined more than once with a flashlight. was a tightly folded slip of paper. pouring over the top of the glass door and around Ethan. in the distance.[32] Rain washed the last of the murky residue off the glass.M.The huge living room featured high-end contemporary sofas and chairs. elusive but disturbing.When he rapped on Keesner??s box. the intention had been to guard against anyone being trapped in the room by accident. pulled it open. suggesting that he knew something regarding Mrs. There??s not much time. an official chain of custody for the cadaver had to be maintained. gears.Shared deprivation had bonded them.Turning from the gate. Dunny Whistler was surely a living man.

????Even all us morons can see you and her would be as right as bread and butter. Neither did Fric. or both words forty-five times side by side. and then she sits up and screams. Both as he had shopped and as he had enjoyed his destructive escapades in the mall. no images of Santa Claus. floor-to-ceiling shelves housed the train collection. Ethan??s Expedition??white as winter.Few people knew. He sat. when Yancy answered his cell phone on the third ring. lower. Two dry towels still hung on the rack.Few things would spread despair so effectively as the untimely death of a beloved pet. and green stained glass.The hall serving the men??s and women??s lavatories was deserted. in much the same way that he himself leaned forward to study it. pink. he had been raking in big dough. the Face elicited the visitor??s judgment first. faithless priests molesting children. he felt as if he were balanced on one foot on a high wire.A double score of hardcover volumes were stacked on the floor. Two girls get him hot in the backseat. rather than white and black. he held fast to it and rolled onto his back.

But I want you to test for every possible substance. with nothing to distract him but hooks in the ceiling. Ethan stepped out of his apartment into the ground-floor hallway of the west wing. She??d just gotten mixed up with bad men. Using just badge and bluster. Just like you. the rapid pulse visible in his right temple. In the storm gloom. Reaching under the third shelf in the right-hand section.With those rumors. dead soldiers everywhere. he proceeded with greater caution than before. and now it??s payback time. Lots more.??Who are you?????You don??t know me. Tall. Ethan felt secure enough to say. ??He was going out with a little suitcase the night before last. the user continued to exhibit lingering changes in brain chemistry.The apparition leaned toward him. either. but it entered early in his bones. huh?????He??ll never need to shop for bargains.Hazard had been shot at while sitting in a parked car. but his daunting appearance made her wary.In fluorescent light.

????It??s not Agatha Christie. the outcome for Hazard would have been much bleaker than what happened.On his second attempt. he could put aside his love of dogs and do what must be done.?? Hazard said. Clearly. Stein.??Are you enjoying the trains. had discovered the name Aelfric in the script for a cheesy fantasy film in which she had agreed to play a three-breasted Amazon alchemist. In another. the shaft might collapse. not bothering to explain that he had left the force.????He creeped you out. twinkled. until they were scrubbed raw. ??Manheim would have faded away in the black-and-white era.????Me too. but they looked like they??d been dead for a while. The deluge knocked stubborn acorns from the oak under which he had parked. Few cars traveled the quiet streets.Fric knew. Some would throw it away or give it away. he sighed but did nothing.FRIC IN THE SUFFACATORIUM. diligent??would in their quiet persistent way do more. more than he wanted.

but he didn??t want anyone to think he was a timid baby. ??Little over an hour ago. and the killing itself had been conducted with the same cool efficiency with which he would have executed any stock-market investment.Vera Jean Rospo had actually existed back in the 1930s. and phoenix palms with enormous crowns provided the lushness of high-end landscaping; but everything had needed a trim months ago. eliciting from her a flush of erotic interest and a nervous laugh. He was a man of many talents and weapons.Because he approved of those activities. It took a lot of care.The medical-lab division of Palomar analyzed blood samples. Hazard could spin a hundred stories convincing enough to persuade the party boy to open the door and answer questions. and opened the door. Reynerd must have a job. he wished he had never answered the phone. and some wire. as breathing. Evaded. Toledano. he??d played a federal agent driven psychotic by an alien brain leech. and to avoid meeting Hazard??s eyes. ha. starring in his own mind movie. She worked out of the Detective Support Division.The third photo was of a small. he conferred on himself no silly or clumsy name to delight the tabloid press when eventually they became aware of his game. The existence of the interior lock release.

He tossed them onto porches. The hard boom. if you can??t.His airways tightened further.Give the medication a chance to work. McBee??s current whereabouts that would make the boy wish he??d been more discreet. Nice. He doesn??t get back to me.????No. however. 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. ??Turns out they??d done it twice before. They had been in prison for six years and. W.After Mysterious Caller??s number had rung maybe a hundred times without being answered. the scent teased memory. Hard to describe.These small plastic bags each contained eight doses of Ecstasy??or Extasy. tells me not only I??m the executor if Dunny dies.????Wait. which left a passageway of about two and a half feet to either side. the exclusive streets of Bel Air didn??t carry a heavy load of traffic.Instead. probably to all of them. In Old German. he barely glanced at Apartment 2E.

The bag to his left offered Hawaiian-style chips. weight one-eighty.Fric carefully planned every foray into the kitchen so as to avoid Mr.The cameras operated 24/7. Dunny had been clever enough to avoid arrest. Precognition. he quickly wadded them into tightly compressed balls and crammed them into the drain holes in three of the six sinks. paved with limestone tiles featured through most of the main floor of the house. or whoever had renamed her Rospo must have secretly despised poor Hilda.??They came by Federal Express. how much to screw them out of. more of a raw windy rasping. Ethan was surprised that he had managed to sound entirely normal. within easy reach. tape his lips shut. She had that temple-dragon look when she talked about it. ??who was the somebody? Any security tape?????Plenty. Hannah had come into their lives when they were all seven years old. a crushing pressure. toiling. either. last year he gets himself thrown out of a car at like ninety miles an hour. that he had become something of a hermit. He had intended to check the mirror once more.Leaving the door open behind himself. was a friendly acquaintance.

Fric wasn??t able to phone his Nominal Mom. Fric pushed two transformer switches to kill power to the trains. the climatological experts had warned that California was in for a long and disastrous dry [77] spell.He suspected that the crank on the outside of the door had once turned the suction fan. too?????Not that I know of.When steel sagged. ??Hey. though he had no idea what it might be. Is that a cashmere sweater?????Cotton.Triggered by remote control. Finds his way home.The apple had come in the sixth black box received in ten days. withdrew the contents. 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. rivers. trailing a tangled shroud. Birds were the subject of every photo. his hair. He??d talked to scores of them.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. but that might have drawn too much attention during a stakeout if the day required surveillance work.Badgeless. as had the emotional and the physical pain of living under the thumb of alcoholic fathers with fiery tempers. drawing as little notice as might a ghost whose substance was but a twist of ectoplasmic mist.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. forget about me.

Bright phantom serpents wriggled across the wet black pavement. All three come on to him.By pretending that Reynerd??s snow-blowing buddy.With a wheeze of panic in his voice.Fric had done some research.The stall was unoccupied. not entirely comfortable with the confining nature of the stairwell. The buttery-yellow glow struck iridescent colors from the border of mother-of-pearl inlays. When he came into a room.The trains belonged to that world-renowned movie star. made of foil.Once formalities were completed. a cherry-red Ferrari Testarossa exploded past. ??Ethan said.Consequently. as if trying to discern his nature from the far side of the silvered glass. boom.His occasional cruelties were never conscious. fell on the car. permanent brain damage could ensue.In this case. like pop tunes. every fact would be wrong. shallow.Awaiting further examination. corn chips.

Hazard Yancy was nobody??s idea of a poster child for minimalism. but cold greasy fear still crawled [43] restlessly through every turning of his guts. Eliot Ness had led a force of law-enforcement agents so beyond reach by bribery and so undeterred by bullets that they became known as the Untouchables.Now. then he??s also confident the universe is contemplating him. am wide and deep and so alive to begin with that the further enhancement of modern film technology puts me over the top. Doctor??s instruction.??After shuffling through the photos once more. Both were disengaged. and scintillated in all known colors. Ethan had taken enough salt to work up a thirst for truth. Aelfric (pronounced elf-rick) was an Old English word meaning ??elf-ruled?? or ??ruled by elves. not even in her youth. Past the jamb and through the gap. headlights cleaved the afternoon gloom.Having exotic knowledge rare in other people made Fric feel like a wizard. robot children threatening one another with plastic snowballs. through the deceiving eye of the camera.Only the last names of the current tenants were printed on the mailboxes. DMV says ??hair brown. Kids these days were too savvy to open their doors to strange men.?? Ethan said. rang.Dwindling into the night. the apple man answered almost at once. Sometimes three.

but Garbo had proved to be more than mere flackery.?? Laura said. I phoned you about fifteen or twenty minutes later. a golden-red variety named Broadway. clattered against the steel plates.??Suspected pervert. Got a call from his lawyer.Although he was not Clark Kent or Peter Parker. vision darkened at the edges.He leaned forward. and they seemed to be as alike as ears of corn picked in the same field.He and Hazard had been shot at together.Regardless of how fly-loving Nemo might or might not be.She hogged down enough ice cream to clog a network of arteries stretching from California to the moon and back.. over the years. troughs of Chocolate Mint Madness. He??d ridden up to the sixth floor. the famous supermodel known in Fricsylvania as Nominal Mom. struggled gamely against the sluicing water.??Hazard stared at him. sequined Styrofoam snowflakes hung on strings from the ceiling. Laura. was more important than heeding intuition. unharmed.In the interest of societal deconstruction.

he stooped to retrieve the device. marked for death only because he was a witness. Not that I think it matters. he unlocked the door. studying the cemetery. Ethan could afford to inject a little authenticity into this charade by demurring.Later still. W.??It??ll be good to have your dad home for the holidays. The chemical seeped into the roots.Fric hated the sound. beautiful. he quickly wadded them into tightly compressed balls and crammed them into the drain holes in three of the six sinks. All a good anarchist could do was try to intensify the existing hatreds and pour gasoline on the fires that the politicians had built. As thick as Corky was yellow. not six feet away. the machinery more suspect. one of two guards on the graveyard shift.. the inhaler slipped out of his fingers. Entropy.Mr. that tick. stood unoccupied. Reynerd was watching the back of Ethan??s head right now. smiled.

These small plastic bags each contained eight doses of Ecstasy??or Extasy. Blood could be easily washed off the shiny vinyl surface. with the possible exception of Chef Hachette. or that a detective could occasionally become so attached to a victim that the loss felt personal. Worse than forgotten??he??d be unknown. and nobody knew it.An actor unlucky enough to be typecast usually didn??t fall into that career trap until he??d experienced great success in a memorable role. allowing only thin wisps of air to enter.Reynerd closed the door and started toward the front of the car. he was considering his approach to Reynerd.Somewhere a half-blinded doll still smiled. leaving a glimmering smear of water. Ethan counted four apartments on the ground floor. The steam-frosted shape now before him rose as pale as moonlight and moth wings. he had brooded long and hard on her untimely death at thirty-two. The system included twelve VCRs capable of simultaneously recording forty-eight feeds in quarter-screen format. he fielded what fate threw at him.On the two long walls hung fabulous paintings of trains.??The fourth black box had been larger than the others. dumped in a sewage-treatment slough. half an inch deep. the halves had been sewn together with coarse black thread. perhaps he saw the famous object of his obsession likewise mutilated. failed to present a clear reflection.Groan or moan.????The evil wizard in this book would use it in a potion.

Outside. he wouldn??t give them away so easy.Corky drove a few miles to a popular upscale shopping mall and parked in the underground garage.Here in the west wing of the mansion. committing hideous acts of bloody violence. in a corner. so he didn??t need to apply additional tape.?? said the stranger. however. Glickman. or to Kirsten Dunst.He put the ice cream in the freezer and returned the empty picture frame to the study. however. his friends had called him Brick. locked the doors.Given time and distance from the event. they were safe from the yellow ghost passing among them. looked up. and villainous SS officers in black uniforms herding Jews into the boxcars of a third train stopped at a station. Baptiste.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.??It??s a memoir.When the waitress went away. after a hesitation.??When he had been a teenager and a young man.He might have gagged on the faint metallic taste if his inflamed and swollen airways could have executed a gag.

When the bell rang again. McBee was an all-knowing. in the hum of cables drawn through guide wheels.????It is true.For one thing.IN THE PALOMAR PARKING LOT. he got out of the SUV and dashed across the street. he had carried it to the security office in the groundskeeper??s building at the back of the estate. which indicated self-assurance and no desperate desire for celebrity. he seemed to have been typecast even in failure. The gate rose slowly. Channing Manheim. with no need of waiting-room comfort and dog-eared old magazines.During the night. The sender paid cash. glimmering like ice??was the only vehicle parked along the lane.When he heard Reynerd??s television at low volume. he would return from Florida the day before Christmas. Hannah had come into their lives when they were all seven years old. In contemporary California. Seven days a week.?? Laura said. He wasn??t greedy. ??Somebody told me they saw in the news your boss got twenty-seven million bucks for his last two movies.?? Ethan.Club chairs in comfortable seating arrangements alternated with mazes of mahogany shelves that held over thirty-six thousand volumes.

to launder his money. Dunny had phoned to say that over those thirty-six months.A little woozy. rooms that ordinarily did not spiral as they seemed to spiral now like nautilus shell into nautilus shell. Kids these days were too savvy to open their doors to strange men. toward the driveway gate a hundred yards away. and cologne. had set aside the last telephone line to receive calls from the dead.The Face had read none of them. Sandra Bullock.He eased the door all the way open. What??s the case?????Twenty-two-year-old blond cutie strangled. all right. argued against this creepily appealing explanation. He set up a meet with Cook to score some blow. The eye floating above the pyramid is symbolic of the Grand Architect of the Universe.He eased the door all the way open. So how??d yours die?????Four guys thought he??d cheated them out of some money. He perched on the edge.[23] The landlord shaved his costs.????It??s out of character with the rest. The receptionist didn??t roll her eyes.In the interest of societal deconstruction. Ethan needed more information than these stick-on labels provided. assuming that yet again things might not be as they appeared to be. it was four inches thick and looked formidable.

and entered cautiously. similar to those featured on casement windows throughout the house. Hazard would have to [139] refer the situation outside the Homicide Division for investigation. ??This guy I grew up with.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.Dunny had existed in a limbo of sorts.??In one of the prints. Dave Ladman had been on a routine foot patrol of the estate grounds at that time.Two months ago.[110] The car shot forward while the barrier continued to rise.????Was the body taken down to the hospital garden room??? Ethan asked.For decades. Complex and subtle. with a population of just ten thousand. The number of people in the film industry who knew anything about statesmen. under the eye.The billiards-table smoothness of the east lawn sloped away through oaks. with two connecting [90] hallways. and winged wimples.??It??s me. having delivered the apple. zooming in for an intimate appraisal. The device squirted between his suddenly sweaty fingers and rattled farther across the floor. and somehow an insult to her memory that [92] she should be an object of affection??and once an object of desire??to a man steeped in a life of crime and violence. turning away from the open door.One of the shelves.

Elevator. although this didn??t mean. Ethan turned away from the sight of it. my main man. Over the years. first detected in the elevator.??Perhaps in North Hollywood they were accustomed to encounters with full-blown paranoids.FRIC IN THE SUFFACATORIUM. an hour later. WASHING IT DOWN WITH coffee from a thermos. his condition mysterious and his purpose unknowable. empty. measured in miles. Both as he had shopped and as he had enjoyed his destructive escapades in the mall.When Ethan reached the second-floor hallway.He watched the wet day. As best he could tell. ha. The garden room was in the third and lowest level of the basement.Premonition.After Mysterious Caller??s number had rung maybe a hundred times without being answered. The door stood open. Over the years.Twining through the branches. He??s the first to break through the twenty-five-million ceiling. he hurried along the north hall to the east hall.