Brother Odd

writers."
        "Wow. That'll be a reason for a big celebration."
        "I will most likely bake many cakes for the event."
        The steadiness of his decorative-icing application and the consistency of details in his filigree design were impressive.
        If he'd not had about him an air of deceit equal to that of a chameleon sitting on a tree branch, disguised as bark, waiting for innocent butterflies to approach, I might have begun to doubt his potential for villainy.
        "Being a Hoosier, sir, you must have a lot of experience driving in snow."
        "Yes. I have had considerable experience of snow both in my adopted Indiana and in my native Russia."
        "We have two SUVs, fitted with plows, in the garage. We've got to drive up to the abbey and bring back some of the brothers."
        "Are you asking me to drive one of these vehicles, Mr. Thomas?"
        "Yes, sir. If you would, I'd be most grateful. It'll save me making two trips."
        "For what purpose are the brothers coming to the school?"
        "For the purpose," I said, "of assisting the sisters with the children if there should be a power failure related to the blizzard."
        He drew a perfect miniature rose to finish off one corner of the cake. "Does not the school have an emergency backup generator?"
        "Yes, sir, you bet it does. But it doesn't crank out the same level of power. Lighting will have to be reduced. They'll have to turn heating off in some areas, use the fireplaces. And Sister Angela wants to be prepared in case the generator falters, too."
        "Have the main power and the backup generator ever both failed on the same occasion?"
        "I don't know, sir. I don't think so. But in my experience, nuns are obsessed with detailed planning."
        "Oh, I have no doubt, Mr. Thomas, that if nuns had designed and operated the nuclear plant at Chernobyl, we would not have suffered a radiation disaster."
        This was an interesting turn. "Are you from Chernobyl, sir?"
        "Do I have a third eye and a second nose?"
        "Not that I can see, sir, but then you're largely clothed."
        "If we should ever find ourselves sunning on the same beach, you are free to investigate further, Mr. Thomas. May I finish decorating these cakes, or must we rush pell-mell to the abbey?"
        Knuckles and the others would need at least forty-five minutes to gather the items they'd be bringing and to assemble for pickup.
        I said, "Finish the cakes, sir. They look terrific. How about if you meet me down in the garage at twelve forty-five?"
        "You can depend on my assistance. I will have finished the cakes by then."
        "Thank you, sir." I started to leave, then turned to him again. "Did you know Cole Porter was a Hoosier?"
        "Yes. And so are James Dean, David Letterman, Kurt Vonnegut, and Wendell Willkie."
        "Cole Porter, he was perhaps the greatest American songwriter of the century, sir."
        "Yes, I agree."
        "'Night and Day,' 'Anything Goes,' 'In the Still of the Night,' 'I Get a Kick Out of You,' 'You're the Top.' He wrote the Indiana state song, too."
        Romanovich said, "The state song is 'On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away' and if Cole Porter heard you crediting it to him, he would no doubt claw his way out of the grave, track you down, and exact a terrible vengeance."
        "Oh. Then I guess I was misinformed."
        He raised his attention from the cake long enough to give me an ironic look heavy enough to weight down a feather in a high wind. "I doubt that you are ever misinformed, Mr. Thomas."
        "No, sir, you're wrong. I'm the first to admit I don't know anything about anything-except that I'm something of a nut about all things Indiana."
        "Approximately what time this morning did this Hoosiermania overcome you?"
        Man, he was good at this.
        "Not this morning, sir," I lied. "All my life, as long as I can remember."
        "Maybe you were a Hoosier in a previous life."
        "Maybe I was James Dean."
        "I am certain you were not James Dean."
        "Why do you say that, sir?"
        "Such an intense craving for adoration and such a capacity for rudeness as Mr. Dean exhibited could not possibly have been expunged so entirely from just one incarnation to the next."
        I thought about that statement from a few different angles. "Sir, I have nothing against the late Mr. Dean,