Odd Thomas

that I was being coddled in a sauna. I felt like a child who had wandered into the gingerbread house of a Black Forest witch and had been popped into her oven with the control at slow bake.
        Occasionally a car passed, but no pedestrians appeared.
        No children were at play. No homeowner ventured forth to putter in a withered garden.
        One dog slumped past, head low, tongue lolling, as if it were stubbornly tracking the mirage of a cat.
        Soon my body provided the humidity that the air lacked, until I sat in a puddle of sweat.
        I could have started the Mustang and switched on the air conditioning, but I didn't want to waste Terri's gasoline or overheat the engine. Besides, as any desert denizen knows, repeated heating and cooling may temper some metals, but it softens the human mind.
        After forty minutes, Fungus Man reappeared. He locked the side door of the house, which suggested that no one remained at home, and got behind the wheel of his dust-shrouded Explorer.
        I slid down in my seat, below the window, listening as the SUV drove past and left a trail of sound that dwindled into silence.
        Crossing to the pale-yellow house, I didn't worry unduly about being watched from any of the sun-silvered windows along the street. Living in Camp's End inspired alienation rather than the community spirit needed to form a Neighborhood Watch committee.
        Instead of going to the blue front door and making a greater spectacle of myself, I sought the shadows of the carport and knocked on the side door that Fungus Man had used. No one answered.
        If the door had featured a deadbolt lock, I would have had to force a window. Confronted by a mere latch bolt, I was confident that, like other young Americans, I had been so well educated by TV cop dramas that I could slip easily into the house.
        To simplify my life, I keep no bank accounts and pay only cash; therefore, I have no credit cards. California had thoughtfully issued to me a laminated driver's license stiff enough to loid the lock.
        As I'd anticipated, the kitchen wasn't a shrine either to Martha Stewart decor or to cleanliness. The place couldn't be fairly called a pig stye, either; it was just plagued by a general disarray, with here and there an offering of crumbs to ants if they wished to visit.
        A faint but unpleasant smell laced the well-cooled air. I could not identify the source, and at first I thought that it must be the singular fragrance of Fungus Man, for he appeared to be one who would issue strange and noxious odors if not also deadly spoors.
        I didn't know what I sought here, but I expected to recognize it when I saw it. Something had drawn the bodachs to this man, and I had followed in their wake with the hope of discovering a clue to the reason for their interest.
        After I circled the kitchen, trying but failing to find meaning in a mug half filled with cold coffee, in a browning banana peel left on a cutting board, in the unwashed dishes in the sink, and in the ordinary contents of drawers and cupboards, I realized that the air was not just cool but inexplicably chilly. For the most part, the sweat on my exposed skin had dried. On the nape of my neck, it felt as though it had turned to ice.
        The pervasive chill was inexplicable because even in the Mojave, where air conditioning was essential, a house as old and as humble as this rarely had central cooling. Window-mounted units, each serving a single chamber, were a viable alternative to the costly retrofitting of a dwelling that didn't merit the expense.
        The kitchen had no such window units.
        Often in a home like this, the residents held the heat at bay only at night and only in the bedroom. Sleep might otherwise be difficult. Even in this small house, however, an air conditioner in the bedroom would not be able to cool the entire structure. Certainly it could not have made an icebox of the kitchen.
        Besides, window-mounted units were noisy: the chug and hum of the compressor, the rattle of the fan. I heard none of that here.
        As I stood, head cocked, listening, the house waited in silence. On consideration, I suddenly found this stillness to be unnatural.
        My shoes should have teased noise from the cracked linoleum, from floorboards loosened by time, heat, and shrinking aridity. Yet when I moved, I had the stealth of a cat on pillows.
        In