Odd Thomas

him was a weakness of will that resulted in his immensity.
        Over the years, he sometimes implied and I frequently inferred that his parents had broken a part of his heart that resulted in this mortal weakness of will. He never spoke of his difficult childhood, however, and refused to describe what he had endured. He just wrote mystery novel after mystery novel…
        He didn't speak of his folks with bitterness. Instead, he spoke of them hardly at all and avoided them as best he could - and wrote book after book about art, music, food, and wine…
        "Writing," I told him now, "can't relieve my pain as much as it's relieved by the sight of Stormy… or by the taste of coconut cherry chocolate chunk ice cream, for that matter."
        "I have no Stormy in my life," he replied, "but I can understand the ice cream." He finished his wine. "What are you going to do about this Bob Robertson?"
        I shrugged.
        Ozzie pressed me: "You've got to do something if he knows that you were in his house this afternoon and already he's following you around."
        "All I can do is be careful. And wait for Chief Porter to get something on him. Anyway, maybe he wasn't actually following me. Maybe he heard about your exploding cow and stopped by to gawk at the ruins."
        "Odd, I would be indescribably disappointed if, having not yet employed your writing gift to any useful purpose, you wound up dead tomorrow."
        "Just think how I'd feel."
        "I might wish that you'd grow wiser faster, get a gun and write a book, but I won't wish anyone's life away for him. 'How swift are the feet of the days of the years of youth.'"
        Giving attribution to the quote, I said, "Mark Twain."
        "Excellent! Perhaps you aren't a willfully ignorant young fool, after all."
        "You used that quote once before," I admitted. "That's how I know it."
        "But at least you remembered! I believe this reveals in you a desire, even if unconscious, to give up the griddle and make yourself a man of literature."
        "I expect I'll switch to tires first."
        He sighed. "You're a tribulation sometimes." He rang his empty wineglass with one fingernail. "I should've brought the bottle."
        "Sit still. I'll get it," I said, for I could fetch the Cabernet from the kitchen in the time that he would require merely to lever himself up from his armchair.
        The ten-foot-wide hallway served as a gallery for fine art, and opening off both sides of it were rooms rich with still more art and books.
        At the end of the hall lay the kitchen.
        On a black-granite counter stood the bottle, uncorked to let the wine breathe.
        Although the front rooms had been comfortably air-conditioned, the kitchen proved to be surprisingly warm. Entering, I thought for an instant that all four ovens must be filled with baking treats.
        Then I saw that the back door stood open. The desert evening, still broiling in the stubborn summer sun, had sucked the coolness from the kitchen.
        When I stepped to the door to close it, I saw Bob Robertson in the backyard, as pale and fungoid as ever he had looked.
        

CHAPTER 17
        
        ROBERTSON STOOD FACING THE HOUSE, AS THOUGH waiting for me to see him. Then he turned and walked toward the back of the property.
        For too long, I hesitated in the doorway, uncertain what I should do.
        I assumed that one of his neighbors might have recognized me and might have told him that earlier I'd been snooping around during his absence. But the swiftness with which he'd tracked me down and had begun to tail me was disconcerting.
        My paralysis broke with the realization that I had endangered Ozzie, had led this psychopath to his house. I left the kitchen, crossed the porch, descended the steps to a patio, stepped onto the lawn, and went after Robertson.
        Ozzie's house sits at the front of his one-acre lot, and most of the property is given over to lawn and to trees that screen him from his neighbors. In the back half of the acre, the trees grow thicker than at the front, and stand close enough to qualify as a small woods.
        Into this copse of laurel, podocarpus, and California pepper, Robertson strode - and disappeared from view.
        The westward-dawdling sun slanted between the trees where it could find narrow gaps, but for the most part the layered branches successfully resisted it.