The Face

which was so lame that it was almost clever.
        Mr. Devonshire was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Are you all right, Fric?”
        “Ummm, sure, I’m swell, just a little, you know, bummed out by all the rain.”
        After another but thankfully shorter silence, the porter said, “Well, enjoy your ham sandwiches.”
        “Thank you, sir. I will. I made them myself. From scratch.” He was the world’s worst liar. “With ham.”
        Mr. Devonshire walked toward the north hall, and Fric just stood there, stupidly holding the hamper as if it were heavy.
        After the porter disappeared at the intersection of the west and north halls, Fric continued to stare after him. He was convinced that Mr. Devonshire was hiding just out of sight and that the man’s eerie left eye would turn so far to one side that it would be hanging out of his head when he peeked around the corner.
        The lawn-and-patio-storage room, to which Fric had been headed, was not set aside for the storage of lawns and patios. Rather, the cushions for the hundred or more outdoor chairs and sun lounges-and sometimes the furniture as well-were moved there in anticipation of bad weather. The big room also held lawn umbrellas, croquet sets, outdoor games, and such associated paraphernalia as picnic hampers.
        Following his conversation with the porter, Fric could no longer simply return the hamper to the storage room. If Mr. Devonshire saw [417] him without it anytime soon, he would be exposed as a devious liar who was actually up to some kind of no good.
        Suspicious, the staff might surreptitiously watch him, even as shorthanded as they were at the moment. Without realizing it, he might reveal his deep and special secret place to a keen observer.
        Now that he had committed himself to the picnic story, he must follow through. He would have to lug the hamper to the rose room and sit by the windows, gazing out at the rose garden that wasn’t there anymore, pretending to eat ham sandwiches that didn’t exist.
        Mysterious Caller had warned him about lying.
        If he wasn’t ready to handle nice Mr. Devonshire, Fric wondered how he could expect to deceive and hide out from Moloch.
        Finally he decided that the porter and his lazy eye were not lurking just around the corner, after all.
        Certain that he appeared too grim for a picnicker, but unable to force a smile, he carried the damn hamper all the way from the southwest corner of the house to the northeast corner, to the rose room.

CHAPTER 63
        
        JACK TROTTER, KNOWN TO THE WORLD BY MANY names, known only to Corky as Queeg von Hindenburg, didn’t live in the glamorous part of Malibu. He resided far from those view hills and beaches where actors and rock stars and the fabulously wealthy founders of bankrupt dot-com companies sunned, played, and shared recipes for cannabis brownies.
        Instead, he lived inland, behind the hills and beyond the sight of the sea, in one of the rustic canyons that appealed not only to those who kept horses and loved the simple life but also to troubled cranks and crackpots, weedheads with names like Boomer and Moose who farmed marijuana under lamps in barns and bunkers, ecoterrorists scheming to blow up auto dealerships in the name of endangered tree rats, and religious cultists worshiping UFOs.
        A ranch fence badly in need of paint surrounded Trotter’s four acres. He usually kept the gate shut to discourage visitors.
        Today the gate hung wide open because he feared that Corky-known to him as Robin Goodfellow, kick-ass federal agent-would drive through that barrier, battering it off its hinges, as he’d done once before.
        At the end of the graveled driveway stood the hacienda-style house [419] of pale yellow stucco and exposed timbers. Not dilapidated enough to be called ramshackle, not nearly dirty enough to be called squalid, the place suffered instead from a sort of genteel neglect.
        Trotter didn’t spend much money maintaining his home because he expected to have to flee at any moment. A man with his head in the lunette of a guillotine lived with no more tension than what Jack Trotter daily endured.
        A conspiracy theorist, he believed that a secret cabal ran the nation, that it intended soon to dispense with democracy and impose brutal dictatorial control. He was ever alert for early signs of the coming crackdown.
        Currently