Odd Thomas

birds sing sweeter than usual and the bees make better honey and the world is a place of rejoicing - or so it seems from my perspective.
        What I wanted to do and the right thing to do were not one and the same. So I said, "The problem is that I was put here for this work, and if I walk away from the job, it will only follow me, one way or another."
        I picked up my glass. I'd forgotten it was empty. I put it down again.
        "When I've got a specific target, my psychic magnetism works in two directions. I can cruise at random and find who I need to find… in this case Robertson… or he'll be drawn to me if he wants to be, sometimes even if he doesn't. And in the second case, I have less control and I'm more likely to be… unpleasantly surprised."
        "That's just a theory," Stormy said.
        "It's nothing I can prove, but it's true. It's something I know in my gut."
        "I've always figured you don't think with your head," Stormy said, her tone changing from one of insistent - and almost angry - persuasion to one of resignation and affection.
        Terri said to me, "If I were your mother, I'd box your ears."
        "If you were my mother, I wouldn't be here."
        These were the two most important women in the world to me; I loved each of them in a different way, and declining to do what they wanted, even in the interest of doing the right thing, was difficult.
        The candlelight burnished their faces to the same golden glow, and they regarded me with an identical anxiety, as though by virtue of their female intuition they knew things that I could not perceive even with my sixth sense.
        From the CD player, Elvis crooned, "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"
        I consulted my wristwatch. "It's August fifteenth."
        When I tried to get to my feet, Stormy didn't restrain me as she had done previously. She, too, rose from her chair.
        I said, "Terri, I guess you'll have to cover for me on the first shift - or get Poke to come in if he's willing."
        "What - you can't cook and save the world at the same time?"
        "Not unless you want the bacon burnt. Sorry to give you such short notice."
        Terri accompanied us to the door. She hugged Stormy, then me. She boxed one of my ears. "You be here day after tomorrow, on time, at the griddle, flippin' those cakes, or I'm going to demote you to fountain jockey."
        

CHAPTER 29
        
        ACCORDING TO THE BIG DIGITAL SIGN AT THE Bank of America, the temperature had fallen to a comparatively chilly ninety degrees here on the side of midnight when broomsticks are licensed to fly.
        A lazy breeze stirred through town, repeatedly dying and rising again, as though rust inhibited the mechanisms of the wind gods. Hot and dry, it traveled in crisp and fitful whispers among ficuses, palms, and jacarandas.
        The streets of Pico Mundo were quiet. When the breeze held its breath, I could hear the click of the switches in the traffic-signal control boxes as the lights changed from green to yellow to red at the intersections.
        As we walked to Stormy's apartment, we remained alert, half expecting Bob Robertson to pop like a jack-in-the-box from behind a parked car, out of a doorway.
        Other than the wind-licked leaves, the only movement was the dart-and-swoop of a swarm of bats pursuing a flurry of moths through the glow of a streetlamp, to the moon, and then out past Cassiopeia.
        Stormy lives three blocks from the Pico Mundo Grille. We held hands and walked in silence.
        My course was set irrevocably. In spite of her objections, she knew as well as I did that I had no choice but to do whatever I could to help Chief Porter stop Robertson before he committed the slaughter that had drenched my dreams for three years.
        Anything that could be said on the subject now would be useless repetition. And here on the dark side of a threatening dawn, small talk had no charm.
        The old, two-story Victorian house had been divided into four apartments. Stormy lives in the ground-floor unit on the right.
        We didn't expect Robertson to be waiting there for us. Though he had somehow learned who I was, it didn't follow that he would easily discover Stormy's address.
        If he was lying in wait for me, my apartment over Rosalia Sanchez's garage was a better bet than Stormy's place.
        Prudence, however, made us cautious as we entered the