Odd Thomas

lake below is frozen."
        The woman, believing that Gypsy Mummy had misheard the question, repeated it: "Will Johnny and I have a long and happy marriage?"
        Johnny read the third card: "The orchard of blighted trees produces poisonous fruit."
        And the fourth: "A stone can provide no nourishment, nor will sand slake your thirst."
        With irrational persistence, the couple spent four more quarters in pursuit of an answer. They began bickering on receipt of the fifth card. By the time Johnny read number eight, the cold wind predicted by the first fortune was blowing at gale-force between them.
        After Johnny and his love departed, Stormy and I took our turn with Gypsy Mummy. A single coin produced for us the assurance that we were destined to be together forever.
        When Stormy tells this story, she claims that after granting to us what the other couple had wanted, the mummified dwarf winked.
        I didn't see this wink. I don't understand how a sewn-shut eye could perform such a trick and yet fail to pop a single stitch. The image of a winking mummy resonates with me nonetheless.
        Now, as I waited under the Gypsy Mummy's framed card, Stormy came to bed. She wore plain white cotton panties and a SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt.
        All the models in the Victoria's Secret catalogue, in thongs and skimpy teddies and peekaboo bras, collectively possess a fraction of the erotic allure of Stormy in schoolgirl briefs and Spongebob top.
        Lying on her side, cuddling against me, she put her head upon my chest to listen to my heart. She got an earful.
        She often likes to be held in this way until she falls asleep. I am the boatman she trusts to row her into restful dreams.
        After a silence, she said, "If you want me… I'm ready now."
        I am no saint. I have used my driver's license to trespass in homes to which I've not been invited. I answer violence with violence and never turn the other cheek. I have had enough impure thoughts to destroy the ozone layer. I have often spoken ill of my mother.
        Yet when Stormy offered herself to me, I thought of the orphaned girl, then known to the world as Bronwen, alone and afraid at the age of seven, adopted and given safe harbor, only to discover that her new father wanted not a daughter but a sex toy. Her confusion, her fear, her humiliation, her shame were too easy for me to imagine.
        I thought also of Penny Kallisto and the seashell that she had handed to me. From the glossy pink throat of that shell had come the voice of a monster speaking the language of demented lust.
        Though I didn't confuse my clean passion with Harlo Landerson's sick desire and savage selfishness, I could not purge from memory his rough breathing and bestial grunts. "Saturday is almost here," I told Stormy. "You've taught me the beauty of anticipation."
        "What if Saturday never comes?"
        "We'll have this Saturday and thousands more," I assured her.
        "I need you," she said.
        "Is that something new?"
        "God, no."
        "It's not new for me, either."
        I held her. She listened to my heart. Her hair feathered like a raven's wing against her face, and my spirits soared.
        Soon she murmured to someone she seemed pleased to see in her sleep. The boatman had done his job, and Stormy drifted on dreams.
        I eased off the bed without waking her, drew the top sheet and thin blanket over her shoulders, and switched the bedside lamp to its lowest setting. She doesn't like to wake in darkness.
        After slipping into my shoes, I kissed her forehead and left her with the 9-mm pistol on her nightstand.
        I turned out the lights elsewhere in the apartment, stepped into the public hall, and locked her door with a key she'd given to me.
        The front door of the apartment house featured a large oval of leaded glass. The beveled edges of the mosaic pieces presented a fragmented and distorted view of the porch.
        I put one eye to a flat piece of glass to see things more clearly. An unmarked police van stood at the curb across the street.
        Law-enforcement in Pico Mundo involves few clandestine operations. The police department owns only two unmarked units.
        The average citizen wouldn't recognize either vehicle. Because of the assistance that I've provided to the chief on numerous cases, I have ridden in and am familiar with