Odd Thomas

foyer and then her apartment. Inside, the cool air had a faint peach scent. We left the Mojave far behind us when we closed the door.
        She has three rooms, a bath, and a kitchen. Switching on lights, we went directly to her bedroom, where she keeps her 9-mm pistol.
        She ejected the magazine, checked it to be sure that it was fully loaded, and snapped it back into the weapon.
        I am wary of any gun, anywhere, anytime - except when it's in Stormy's hand. She could sit with her finger on the detonation button of a nuclear weapon, and I would feel safe enough to nap.
        A quick check of the windows revealed that they were locked, as she had left them.
        No boogeyman had taken up residence in any of the closets.
        While Stormy brushed her teeth and changed for bed, I called Green Moon Lanes and listened to a recorded message regarding their hours, services, and prices. They opened for business at 11:00 a.m. Thursday through Sunday, and at 1:00 p.m. Monday through Wednesday.
        The earliest that Robertson could walk into the bowling center with murder in mind was when they unlocked the doors at one o'clock.
        Two multiplex cinemas with a total of twenty screens serve the greater Pico Mundo area. By phone, I learned that the movie to which Viola had intended to take her daughters was playing at two theaters in only one multiplex. I made a mental note of the show times, the earliest of which was 1:10 p.m.
        In the bedroom, I turned down the bedclothes, took off my shoes, and stretched out atop the thin blanket, waiting for Stormy.
        She has furnished her humble home with items from thrift shops run by Goodwill and the Salvation Army; however, the look is neither shabby nor without character. She has a talent for eclectic design and for discerning the magic in objects that others might see as merely old or peculiar, or even grotesque.
        Floor lamps featuring silk shades with beaded fringes, chairs in the Stickley style paired with plump Victorian footstools upholstered in tapestries, Maxfield Parrish prints, colorful carnival-glass vases and bibelots: The mix should not work, but it does. Her rooms are the most welcoming that I have ever seen.
        Time seems suspended in this place.
        In these rooms I am at peace. I forget my worries. The problems of pancakes and poltergeists are lifted from me.
        Here I cannot be harmed.
        Here I know my destiny and am content with it.
        Here Stormy lives, and where she lives, I flourish.
        Above her bed, behind glass, in a frame, is the card from the fortune-telling machine: YOU ARE DESTINED TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER.
        Four years ago, on the midway of the county fair, a gaudy contrivance called Gypsy Mummy had waited in a shadowy back corner of an arcade tent filled with unusual games and macabre attractions.
        The machine had resembled an old-fashioned phone booth and had stood seven feet high. The lower three feet were entirely enclosed. The upper four feet featured glass on three sides.
        In the glass portion sat a dwarfish female figure attired in a Gypsy costume complete with garish jewelry and colorful headscarf. Her gnarled, bony, withered hands rested on her thighs, and the green of her fingernails looked less like polish than like mold.
        A plaque at her feet claimed that this was the mummified corpse of a Gypsy dwarf. In 18th-century Europe, she had been renowned for the accuracy of her prognostications and foretellings.
        The mottled skin of her face stretched tight over the skull. The eyelids were stitched shut with black thread, as were her lips.
        Most likely this was not the art of Death working in the medium of flesh, as claimed, but instead the product of an artist who had been clever with plaster, paper, and latex.
        As Stormy and I arrived at Gypsy Mummy, another couple fed a quarter to the machine. The woman leaned toward a round grill in the glass and asked her question aloud: "Gypsy Mummy tell us, will Johnny and I have a long and happy marriage?"
        The man, evidently Johnny, pushed the ANSWER button, and a card slid into a brass tray. He read it aloud: "A cold wind blows, and each night seems to last a thousand years."
        Neither Johnny nor his bride-to-be regarded this as an answer to their question, so they tried again. He read the second card: "The fool leaps from the cliff, but the winter