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Nevertheless, I needed a shower, and I wanted one more than I needed it. But not yet.
Wary that one of the cultists might have been posted to watch for me, feeling dangerously exposed, I crossed what seemed like a hundred acres of blacktop to the exit. Earlier, I had used the bolt cutter to sever the chain that held shut the gate to the fenced parking lot.
I had left the motorcycle in a nearby residential neighborhood of modest homes shaded by massive old ficus trees. No one was abroad at that hour, except for one rangy coyote slinking down the center of the street, reluctant to give up the night’s hunt, looking left and right, hoping to find a house cat for breakfast or perhaps even a small child who had disobeyed his mother and had come outside alone.
Somehow the driver of the Escalade, who had tried to run me down the night before, had known that I would be traveling on the state route, straddling a Big Dog Bulldog Bagger; therefore, it made sense that the other cultists also might be looking for the bike. I didn’t have a master-of-disguise kit and didn’t intend to prowl Pico Mundo incognito; however, calling attention to myself didn’t make sense, either. Later that morning, I would need to ditch the Big Dog and find other transportation, but first I had an appointment to keep and no other wheels to get there.
After stowing the pillowcase and tools in one of the saddlebags, I put on my helmet and goggles. I pulled away from the curb and headed toward the coyote. It backed off but wasn’t intimidated. As I drove past the beast, it followed me with a yellow-eyed stare of predatory calculation, sharp teeth revealed in a sneer of contempt.
Nine
Formed by the construction of a dam, Malo Suerte Lake was immediately east of Pico Mundo, a large deep body of water with a marina and sandy beaches along the north shore. Associated with one of those beaches, a grassy park offered picnic areas shaded by phoenix palms and by the spreading branches of massive live oaks.
The park had long been popular in warm weather, which was most of the year in Maravilla County, but as it offered no campground, I had never before seen anyone there laying out a picnic breakfast less than an hour after dawn. Ozzie Boone had draped a white cloth over one of the concrete-slab picnic tables designed and anchored to foil thieves. On the cloth he had arranged several chafing dishes warmed by Sterno.
I drove past him, past the Cadillac that had been customized to accommodate his bulk and weight, and parked the Big Dog out of sight behind an oak. I hadn’t seen him in a few months, since he had picked me up at St. Bartholomew’s Abbey in the Sierra Nevada, where I had for a while lived in the guesthouse, hoping to find peace and quiet among the monks, finding instead a kind of darkness new to me.
As a writer, Ozzie served as my mentor. As a man, he had long been a surrogate father, which I had often needed. My real father had no idea how to fill that role. He’d never shown any desire to do so.
“Dear Odd,” he said, enfolding me in a bear hug, “the last time I saw you, I feared you’d lost weight, and now I’m certain of it. You’re a shadow of your former self.”
“No, sir. I still weigh the same. Maybe I appear smaller to you because you’ve gotten still larger.”
“I am a svelte four hundred thirty-five pounds, and if I can stick to my diet, I hope to be four hundred fifty by September.”
“I worry about you,” I said.
“Yes, you are quite the worrier for one of such tender years. But if obesity were the worst that any of us had to worry about, the world would be an idyllic place. You’ve probably noticed that it isn’t.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve noticed.”
In a bucket of ice were a carton of orange juice and two of chocolate milk. He had also brought two large thermoses of coffee. He offered those beverages to me, and at my request he poured coffee, black.
The mug was large and thick, emblazoned with the words PICO MUNDO GRILLE and the logo of that diner, where I had once worked. I figured that the mug might be intended not only as a welcome-back gesture but also as a subtle suggestion that I return to my old job and put down roots and cease roaming in search of what only home could offer.
When I looked up, I saw that he had been watching me as I stared at the mug. He said, “This is where you belong, Oddie. With those who love you most.”
“Sir, you’ve not only gained weight since I saw you last, you’ve also become psychic.”
“One doesn’t need to be psychic to read your mind, Oddie. In spite of all your complications, you are wonderfully transparent.”
“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“As it was intended.” He picked up a tall glass of chocolate milk, savoring two long swallows before putting it down and dabbing at his faux mustache with a paper napkin. “When you called, you were as mysterious as a character in one of my novels. You were so discreet, you might as well have been talking in code. Why couldn’t we have breakfast in my kitchen?”
“I didn’t want to endanger you, sir. Are you sure you weren’t followed here?”
He sighed. “If I had been followed here, dear boy, I wouldn’t be here. What trouble has found you this time?”
“The same trouble, sir. Cultists like those who shot up the mall back then.”
Ozzie writes noir fiction, and in spite of his rotundity, he thinks of himself as someone who can be a tough guy when the need arises. He does indeed have impressive forearms and considerable courage. But unshed tears rose in his eyes when I mentioned the mall shooting, because he wasn’t only my surrogate father; to some extent, he had also fulfilled that role for Stormy, who had been orphaned as a child.
“They’ve come in from out of town,” I continued. “They want to make what happened here two summers ago seem like nothing.”
“In a sense, it was nothing,” Ozzie said, tears still standing in his eyes. “Everything barbarians do is nothing, no matter how loudly they insist it’s something.”
The coffee had cooled just enough that I could sip it. “Sir, I don’t know how many of them are here to do this thing. I don’t know their faces, and I only know three first names. I’m afraid it’s happening sooner than later, too fast for me to get a handle on it.”
He finished the glass of chocolate milk and put it down on the white tablecloth and placed the heels of his plump hands over his eyes, rubbing gently, as though he hadn’t slept in a long time and was weary, but of course he was blotting the tears and pressing them back.
I said, “I had a set-to with others of their cult over in Nevada not long ago, and it didn’t end well for them. They’d like to kill me, and I can’t pretend there wouldn’t be an up side to that, but I’d rather stop them first.”
Lowering his hands from his face, Ozzie said, “Anything happens to you, there’s no up side, son. Not for me. There’s only so much eating a man can do to keep the world at bay before he loses all taste for food.”
Rarely am I at a loss for words, but I didn’t know what to say to that. I covered my speechlessness with a few sips of coffee.
Ozzie reached for the open carton of milk wedged in the bucket of ice, but then decided not to pour any more for himself just yet.
He said, “I imagine that through all your adventures, you still held fast to it.”
I knew what he meant. “Yes, sir.” I put down the mug, took out my wallet, and produced the card from the fortune-telling machine.
His hand trembled as he held the little pasteboard prediction.
He appeared to read it more than once, as though hoping the simple statement might be modified before his eyes. YOU ARE DESTINED TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER. But of course the words did not change. Considering the source of the promise and the importance of it, I was confident that it would not be broken and in fact that it would be kept sooner than later—as long as I did not fail to do what I had been called home to accomplish.
As I took the card from him and returned it to my wallet, I said, “Whatever happens next, what most concerns me is that none of my friends should die because of me. If I let that happen … I won’t have earned what I’ve been promised.”
We turned together toward the sound of a car on the lane that wound through the park. A police cruiser approached and pulled off the pavement to stop half on the graveled shoulder and half on the grass, in the oak shadows, behind Ozzie’s Cadillac.
Wyatt Porter, chief of police in Pico Mundo, got out of the car, closed the door, and for a moment stood looking at us across the roof of the vehicle. I had been fortunate enough to have two surrogate fathers when I’d lived in Pico Mundo, and they were both joining me for breakfast in the park. I hadn’t seen the chief since I’d left town about nine months earlier. The last thing he’d said to me was, “I don’t know what we’ll do without you, son.” What we had both done was keep on keeping on, which is all any of us can do. He looked good for a man who had once been shot in the chest and left for dead, and I was happier than I can say to see how well he appeared to be.
He rounded the car and came to us. I found myself smiling, but the chief did not smile. He nodded at Ozzie, and then he stopped in front of me and said, “Do you believe in dreams, Oddie?”
The chief—and very few others—knew about my paranormal talents. He and I had worked together on a number of cases over the years, though he had always concealed my contributions and spared me from being made a media sensation.
“Dreams?” I said. “Some are just the mind playing games with itself, and they’re not to be taken seriously. But I don’t think that’s the kind you mean.”
