Odd Thomas

tasty or not, they weren't within everyone's grocery budget.
        I sat on a bench with my back to the koi, unimpressed by their flashy fins and precious scales.
        In five minutes, Stormy came out of Burke & Bailey's with two cones of ice cream. I enjoyed watching her walk toward me.
        Her uniform included pink shoes, white socks, a hot-pink skirt, a matching pink-and-white blouse, and a perky pink cap. With her Mediterranean complexion, jet-black hair, and mysterious dark eyes, she looked like a sultry espionage agent who had gone undercover as a hospital candy striper.
        Sensing my thoughts, as usual, she sat beside me on the bench and said, "When I have my own shop, the employees won't have to wear stupid uniforms."
        "I think you look adorable."
        "I look like a goth Gidget."
        Stormy gave one of the cones to me, and for a minute or two we sat in silence, watching shoppers stroll past, enjoying our ice cream.
        "Under the hamburger and bacon grease," she said, "I can still smell the peach shampoo."
        "I'm an olfactory delight."
        "Maybe one day when I have my own shop, we can work together and smell the same."
        "The ice-cream business doesn't move me. I love to fry."
        "I guess it's true," she said.
        "What?"
        "Opposites attract."
        "Is this the new flavor came in last week?" I asked.
        "Yeah."
        "Cherry chocolate coconut chunk?"
        "Coconut cherry chocolate chunk," she corrected. "You've got to get the proper adjective in front of chunk or you're screwed."
        "I didn't realize the grammar of the ice-cream industry was so rigid."
        "Describe it your way, and some weasel customers will eat the whole thing and then ask for their money back because there weren't chunks of coconut in it. And don't ever call me adorable again. Puppies are adorable."
        "As you were coming toward me, I thought you looked sultry."
        "The smart thing for you would be to stay away from adjectives altogether."
        "Good ice cream," I said. "Is this the first taste you've had?"
        "Everyone's been raving about it. But I didn't want to rush the experience."
        "Delayed gratification."
        "Yeah, it makes everything sweeter."
        "Wait too long, and what was sweet and creamy can turn sour."
        "Move over Socrates. Odd Thomas takes the podium."
        I know when the thin ice under me has begun to crack. I changed the subject. "Sitting with my back to all those koi creeps me out."
        "You think they're up to something?" she asked.
        "They're too flashy for fish. I don't trust them."
        She glanced over her shoulder, at the pond, then turned her attention once more to the ice cream. "They're just fornicating."
        "How can you tell?"
        "The only thing fish ever do is eat, excrete, and fornicate."
        "The good life."
        "They excrete in the same water where they eat, and they eat in the semen-clouded water where they fornicate. Fish are disgusting."
        "I never thought so until now," I said.
        "How'd you get out here?"
        "Terri's Mustang."
        "You been missing me?"
        "Always. But I'm looking for someone." I told her about Fungus Man. "This is where my instinct brought me."
        When someone isn't where I expect to find him, neither at home nor at work, then sometimes I cruise around on my bicycle or in a borrowed car, turning randomly from street to street. Usually in less than half an hour, I cross paths with the one I seek. I need a face or a name for focus, but then I'm better than a bloodhound.
        This is a talent for which I have no name. Stormy calls it "psychic magnetism."
        "And here he comes now," I said, referring to Fungus Man, who ambled along the promenade, following the descending rapids toward the tropical koi pond.
        Stormy didn't have to ask me to point the guy out to her. Among the other shoppers, he was as obvious as a duck in a dog parade.
        Although I had nearly finished the ice cream without being chilled, I shivered at the sight of this strange man. He trod the travertine promenade, but my teeth chattered as if he had just walked across my grave.
        

CHAPTER 8
        
        PALE, PUFFY, HIS WATERY GRAY GAZE FLOATING over store windows, looking almost as bemused as an Alzheimer's patient who has wandered out of his care