Odd Thomas Part 12

When I parked in front of the now cowless house, I was more shocked by the carnage than I had expected to be.

Standing under one of the Indian laurels that cast long shadows in the westering sun, I stared in dismay at the giant carca.s.s. All things of this earth eventually pa.s.s away, but sudden and premature departures are nonetheless disturbing.

The four legs, chunks of the blasted head, and slabs of the body were scattered across the front lawn, shrubbery, and walkway. In a particularly macabre touch, the inverted udder had landed on one of the gateposts in the picket fence, and the teats pointed skyward.

This black-and-white Holstein cow, approximately the size of an SUV, had previously stood atop two twenty-foot-tall steel poles, neither of which had been damaged in the explosion. The only thing left on that high perch was the cow's b.u.t.t, which had s.h.i.+fted position until it faced the street, as if mooning pa.s.sersby.

Under the plastic Holstein had once hung a sign for the steak-house restaurant that had previously occupied the property. When he built his home, Little Ozzie had not preserved the sign, only the giant plastic bovine.

To Ozzie, the cow wasn't merely the largest lawn ornament in the world. It was art.

Of the many books that he has written, four have been about art, so he ought to know what he's talking about. In fact, because he is Pico Mundo's most famous resident (living, anyway) and perhaps its most respected, and because he was building a home in the Flats when everyone else expected it to remain a blighted zone in perpetuity, only Little Ozzie could have argued successfully before the city building department to keep the cow, as sculpture.

As the Flats became more upscale, some of his neighbors - not most, but a highly vocal minority - objected to the giant cow on aesthetic grounds. Perhaps one of them had resorted to violence.

By the time that I navigated through the jagged shards of cow art and climbed the front porch steps, before I could ring the bell, Ozzie opened the wide door, hoved across the threshold, and greeted me. "Is this not pathetic, Odd, what some ill-educated fool has done? I take solace in reminding myself that 'art is long and critics are the insects of a day.'"

"Shakespeare?" I asked.

"No. Randall Jarrell. A wonderful poet, now all but forgotten because modern universities teach nothing but self-esteem and toe-sucking."

"I'll clean this up for you, sir."

"You will not!" Ozzie declared. "Let them look at the ruin for a week, a month, these 'venomous serpents who delight in hissing.'"

"Shakespeare?"

"No, no. W. B. Daniel, writing on critics. I'll have the debris picked up eventually, but the a.s.s of that fine cow will remain up there, my answer to these bomb-toting philistines."

"So it was a bomb?"

"A very small one, affixed to the sculpture during the night, with a timer that allowed these 'serpents who feed on filth and venom' to be far from the crime when the blast came. That's not Shakespeare, either. Voltaire writing on critics."

"Sir, I'm a little worried about you," I said.

"Don't be concerned, lad. These cowards have barely sufficient courage to sneak up on a plastic cow in the dead of night, but they don't have the spine to confront a fat man with forearms as thick as mine."

"I'm not talking about them. I'm referring to your blood pressure."

With a dismissive wave of one of his formidable arms, Little Ozzie said, "If you carried my bulk, your blood rich with cholesterol molecules the size of miniature marshmallows, you'd understand that a little righteous outrage from time to time is the only thing that keeps your arteries from clogging shut altogether. Righteous outrage and fine red wine. Come in, come in. I'll open a bottle, and we'll toast the destruction of all critics, 'this wretched race of hungry alligators.'"

"Shakespeare?" I asked.

"For Heaven's sake, Odd, the Bard of Avon wasn't the only writer ever to put pen to paper."

"But if I just stick with him," I said, following Ozzie into the house, "I'll get one of these right sooner or later."

"Was it with such pathetic tricks that you slid through high school?"

"Yes, sir."

Ozzie invited me to make myself comfortable in his living room while he fetched the Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon, and thus I found myself alone with Terrible Chester.

This cat is not fat, but he is big and fearless. I once saw him stand off an aggressive German shepherd sheerly with att.i.tude.

I suspect that even a pit bull, gone bad and in a murdering mood, would have turned away as the shepherd did, and would have gone in search of easier prey. Like crocodiles.

Terrible Chester is the color of a rubescent pumpkin, with black markings. Judging by the black-and-orange patterns on his face, you might think he was the satanic familiar of that old rock group, Kiss.

Perched on a deep windowsill, gazing out at the front yard, he pretended for a full minute to be unaware that company had arrived.

Being ignored was fine with me. The shoes I wore had never been peed on, and I hoped to keep them that way.

Finally turning his head, he regarded me appraisingly, with contempt so thick that I expected to hear it drizzle to the floor with a spattering sound. Then he s.h.i.+fted his attention once more to the window.

The exploded Holstein seemed to fascinate him and to put him in a somber, contemplative mood. Perhaps he had used up eight of his lives and felt a chill of mortality.

The furniture in Ozzie's living room is custom, oversized, and built for comfort. A Persian carpet in dark jewel tones, Honduras mahogany woodwork, and shelves upon shelves of books create a cozy ambience.

In spite of the danger to my shoes, I quickly relaxed and experienced less of a sense of impending doom than at any time since finding Penny Kallisto waiting at the foot of my apartment steps earlier in the day.

Within half a minute, Terrible Chester put me on edge again with his threatening, angry hiss. All cats have this talent, of course, but Chester rivals both rattlesnakes and cobras for the intensity and the menace of his hiss.

Something outside had so disturbed him that he rose to his feet on the windowsill, arched his back, and bristled his hackles.

Although clearly I was not the cause of his agitation, I slid to the edge of my armchair, poised for flight.

Chester hissed again, then clawed the gla.s.s. The skreeeek skreeeek of his nails on the window made the fluid quiver in the hollows of my spine. of his nails on the window made the fluid quiver in the hollows of my spine.

Suddenly I wondered if the cow-demolition squad had returned in daylight to bring down the stubborn bovine b.u.t.t.

When Chester raked the gla.s.s again, I got to my feet. I eased toward the window with caution, not because I feared that a Molotov c.o.c.ktail would crash through it but because I didn't want the vexated cat to misunderstand my motives.

Outside, at the picket fence, facing the house, stood the Fungus Man, Bob Robertson.

CHAPTER 16.

MY FIRST INSTINCT WAS TO DUCK BACK FROM the window. If Fungus Man was already following me, however, he must somehow suspect that earlier I had been in his house in Camp's End. My furtive behavior would serve to confirm my guilt.

I remained near the window, but I was grateful that Terrible Chester stood between me and Robertson. I also found it gratifying that the cat's apparent intense dislike of the man, even at such a distance as this, confirmed my distrust of him.

Until this moment, I would never have a.s.sumed that Terrible Chester and I would agree on any issue or have anything in common other than our affection for Little Ozzie.

For the first time in my experience, Robertson wore no smile, dreamy or otherwise. Standing in suns.h.i.+ne that the weight of the day had condensed from white glare into honey-gold, back-dropped by the forms and shadows of the laurels, he looked as grim as the giant photo of Timothy McVeigh on his study wall.

From behind me, Ozzie said, '"Oh, G.o.d, that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains.'"

Turning, I found him with a tray on which he offered two gla.s.ses of wine and a small plate of cubed cheese surrounded by thin white crackers.

Thanking him, I took one of the gla.s.ses and glanced outside.

Bob Robertson was not where he had been.

Risking a dangerous misunderstanding with Terrible Chester, I stepped closer to the window, looking north and south along the street.

"Well?" Ozzie asked impatiently. Ozzie asked impatiently.

Robertson had gone, and quickly, as if with an urgent purpose.

As spooked as I had been to see this strange man at the picket fence, I was still more disturbed to have lost sight of him. If he wanted to follow me, I would submit to being tailed because then I would know where he was and, knowing, would rest easier.

"'Oh, G.o.d, that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains,'" Ozzie repeated.

Turning from the window, I saw that he had put down the tray and stood now with his gla.s.s raised as if making a toast.

Struggling to recover my composure, I said, "Some days are so difficult that if we didn't let wine steal our wits, how would we sleep?"

"Lad, I'm not asking you to debate the statement, merely to identify its source."

Still rattled by Robertson, I said, "Sir?"

With some exasperation, Ozzie said, "Shakespeare! "Shakespeare! I stack the quiz to ensure you a pa.s.sing grade, and still you fail. That was Ca.s.sio speaking in Act 2, Scene 3 of I stack the quiz to ensure you a pa.s.sing grade, and still you fail. That was Ca.s.sio speaking in Act 2, Scene 3 of Oth.e.l.lo." Oth.e.l.lo."

"I was distracted."

Indicating the window, where Chester no longer appeared to be agitated and had once more settled into a furry pile on the deep sill, Ozzie said, "The destruction that barbarians leave behind has a grim fascination, doesn't it? We're reminded how thin is the veneer of civilization."

"Sorry to disappoint you, sir, but my thoughts weren't running that deep. I just I thought I saw someone I knew pa.s.sing by."

Raising the winegla.s.s in his five-fingered hand, Ozzie said, "To the d.a.m.nation of all miscreants."

"That's pretty strong, sir - d.a.m.nation."

"Don't spoil my fun, lad. Just drink."

Drinking, I glanced at the window again. Then I returned to the armchair where I had been seated before the cat hissed so alarmingly.

Ozzie settled down, as well, but his chair made a noisier issue of it than mine did.

I looked around at the books, at the wonderful reproductions of Tiffany lamps, but the room didn't exert its usual calming influence. I could almost hear my wrist.w.a.tch ticking off the seconds toward midnight and August 15.

"You've come here with a burden," Ozzie said, "and since I don't see a hostess gift, I a.s.sume the weight you carry is some trouble or other."

I told him everything about Bob Robertson. Although I'd withheld the story of the black room from Chief Porter, I shared it with Ozzie because he has an imagination big enough to encompa.s.s anything.

In addition to his nonfiction books, he has written two highly successful series of mystery novels.

The first, as you might expect, is about a fat detective of incomparable brilliance who solves crimes while tossing off hilarious bon mots. He relies on his beautiful and highly athletic wife (who utterly adores him) to undertake all the investigative footwork and to perform all the derring-do.

Those books, Ozzie says, are based on certain hormone-drenched adolescent fantasies that preoccupied him throughout his teenage years. And still linger.

The second series involves a female detective who remains a likable heroine in spite of numerous neuroses and bulimia. This character had been conceived over a five-hour dinner during which Ozzie and his editor made less use of their forks than they made of their winegla.s.ses.

Challenging Ozzie's a.s.sertion that a fictional detective could have any any personal problems or habits, however unpleasant, and still be a hit with the public as long as the author had the skill to make the character sympathetic, the editor had said, "No one could make a large audience want to read about a detective who stuck a finger down her throat and threw up after every meal." personal problems or habits, however unpleasant, and still be a hit with the public as long as the author had the skill to make the character sympathetic, the editor had said, "No one could make a large audience want to read about a detective who stuck a finger down her throat and threw up after every meal."

The first novel featuring such a detective won an Edgar Award, the mystery genre's equivalent of an Oscar. The tenth book in the series had been recently published to greater sales than any of the previous nine.

In solemn tones that fail to disguise his impish glee, Ozzie says that no novels in the history of literature have featured so much vomiting to the delight of so many readers.

Ozzie's success doesn't in the least surprise me. He likes people and he listens listens to them, and that love of humanity s.h.i.+nes out of his pages. to them, and that love of humanity s.h.i.+nes out of his pages.

When I finished telling him about Robertson, the black room, and the file cabinets packed with thick case histories of homicidal maniacs, he said, "Odd, I wish you would get a gun."

"Guns scare me," I reminded him.

"Your life life scares scares me. me. I'm certain Wyatt Porter would issue you a permit to carry a concealed weapon." I'm certain Wyatt Porter would issue you a permit to carry a concealed weapon."

"Then I'd have to wear a sports jacket."

"You could switch to Hawaiian s.h.i.+rts, carry the gun in a belt holster in the small of your back."

I frowned. "Hawaiian s.h.i.+rts are just not me."

"Oh, yes," he said with undisguised sarcasm, "your T-s.h.i.+rts and jeans are such a unique fas.h.i.+on statement."

"Sometimes I wear chinos."

"The depth of your wardrobe dazzles the mind. Ralph Lauren weeps."

I shrugged. "I am who I am."

"If I purchase a suitable weapon for you and personally instruct you in its use-"

"Thank you, sir, for your concern, but for sure I'd shoot off both my feet, and the next thing I knew, you'd be writing a series about a footless private investigator."

"It's already been done." He sipped his wine. "Everything's already been done. Only once in a generation does anything as fresh as a vomiting detective come along."

"There's still chronic diarrhea."