Forever Odd

drink were in the adjacent bathroom. She returned from there with one of Chiquita’s finest.
        As she peeled the fruit, she explained that the banana tree-“as you know, Odd Thomas”-was the tree of forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.
        “I thought it was an apple tree.”
        “Play dumb if you want,” she said.
        Although certain that I was aware of it, she also told me that the Serpent (with a capital S) lives forever because he eats twice daily of the fruit of the banana tree. And every serpent (with a small’s) will live for a thousand years by following this simple dietary requirement.
        “But you’re not a serpent,” I said.
        “When I was nineteen,” she revealed, “I made a wanga to charm the spirit of a snake from its body into mine. As I’m sure you can see, it’s twined among my ribs, where it’ll live forever.”
        “Well, for a thousand years, anyway.”
        Her patchwork theology-obviously stitched together in part from voodoo, but God alone knew from what else-made the ravings of Jim Jones in Guyana, David Koresh in Waco, and the leader of the comet cult that committed mass suicide near San Diego sound like rational men of faith.
        Although I expected Datura to make the eating of the banana an erotic performance, she consumed the fruit with a kind of dogged determination. She chewed without apparent pleasure, and more than once grimaced when she swallowed.
        I guessed that she was twenty-five or twenty-six years old. She might have been on this two-bananas-per-day regimen for as long as seven years.
        Having by now eaten in excess of five thousand bananas, she might understandably have lost her taste for them-particularly if she had done the math relating to her remaining obligation. With 974 years to live (as a serpent, small 5), she had approximately 710,000 more bananas in her future.
        I find it so much easier being a Catholic. Especially one who doesn’t get to church every week.
        So much about Datura was foolish, even pitiable, but her fatuity and ignorance made her no less dangerous. Throughout history, fools and their followers, willfully ignorant but in love with themselves and with power, have murdered millions.
        When she had consumed the banana and calmed the spirit of the snake entwined through her ribs, we were ready to visit the casino.
        A squirming against my groin startled me, and I thrust my hand into my pocket before realizing that I felt only Terri Stambaugh’s satellite phone.
        Having seen, Datura said, “What have you got there?”
        I had no choice but to reveal it. “Just my phone. I had it set to vibrate instead of ring. It surprised me.”
        “Is it vibrating still?”
        “Yes.” I held it in the palm of my hand, and we stared at it for a moment, until the caller hung up. “It stopped.”
        “I’d forgotten your phone,” she said. “I don’t think we should leave it with you.”
        I had no choice but to give it to her.
        She took it into the bathroom and slammed it into a hard countertop. Slammed it again.
        When she returned, she smiled and said, “We were at the movies once, and this dork took two phone calls during the film. Later we followed him, and Andre broke both his legs with a baseball bat.”
        This proved that even the most evil people could occasionally have a socially responsible impulse.
        “Let’s go,” she said.
        I had entered Room 1203 with a flashlight. I left with it, too- switched off, clipped to my belt-and no one objected.
        Carrying a Coleman lantern, Robert led the way to the nearest stairs and descended at the front of our procession. Andre came last with the second lantern.
        Between those big somber men, Datura and I followed the wide stairs, not one behind the other, single file, but side by side at her insistence.
        Down the first flight to the landing at the eleventh floor, I heard a steady menacing hiss. I half convinced myself that this must be the voice of the serpent spirit that she claimed to carry within her. Then I realized it was the sound of the burning gas in the saclike wicks of the lamps.
        On the second flight, she took my hand. I might have pulled free of her grip in revulsion if I hadn’t thought her capable of ordering Andre to lop my hand off at the wrist as punishment for the insult.
        More than fear, however, encouraged