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I thought also of Penny Kallisto and the seashell that she had handed to lossy pink throat of that shell had coe of deh I didn’t confuse e selfishness, I could not purge frorunts "Saturday is alht 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 so new?"

"God, no"

"It’s not new for me, either"

I held her She listened to ainst 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 Stor her, drew the top sheet and thin blanket over her shoulders, and switched the bedside la She doesn’t like to wake in darkness

After slipping into my shoes, I kissed her forehead and left her with the 9-hts elsewhere in the apartment, stepped into the public hall, and locked her door with a key she’d given to e oval of

leaded glass The beveled edges of the ­mented 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 departe 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 a features, the stubby shortwave an­tenna spiking from the roof at the back was the clincher

I had not asked the chief to grant protection to Storry at the implication that she couldn’t take care of her­self She has her pistol, her certificate of graduation froer to her, if any, would seem to exist only when I ith her Bob Robertson had no beef with anyone but htprotection not to Stormy but to me

More likely, it wasn’t protection but surveillance Robertson had tracked ain later at St Bart’s The chiefa watch on me in the hope that Robertson would sniff out my trail onceabout the vandalis, but I resented being used as bait without first being asked politely if Ia hook inthe responsibilities of ift, I sometimes resort to tactics frowned upon by the police The chief knows this Being subjected to police surveillance and

protection would inhibit me and, if I acted in my usual impulsive fashion, would make Chief Porter’s position evenby the main entrance, I walked to the end of the public hall and departed by the back door A sate beside the garage opened into an alleyway

The officer in the van thought that he was running surveillance on et an­gry with me because I had never asked that she be provided with pro­tection

I was tired but not ready to sleep I went ho for me and would try to kill me Maybe I would survive, subdue hih hopes of a violent encounter with a satisfactory con­clusion

THIRTY

THE MOJAVE HAD STOPPED BREATHING THE DEAD LUNGS of the desert no longer exhaled the lazy breeze that had accompanied Stormy and me on our walk to her apart a vacant lot, through a drainage culvert dry for ain, I made my way home at a brisk pace

Bodachs were abroad

First I saw the on all fours When they passed through dark places, they were discernible only as a tuatepost lamps revealed the posture brought to ian house on Ha to the far side of the street, I saenty or thirty inky for by cracks infraht, one of them thrashed and writhed as if in

the throes of h the keyhole in the front door

Two others, exiting the residence, strained theh the screen that covered an attic vent As comfortable on vertical surfaces as any spider, they crawled down the wall of the house to the porch roof, crossed the roof, and sprang to the front lawn

This was the home of the Takuda fahtened any s The Takudas were asleep, unaware that a swarm of malevolent spirits, quieter than cock­roaches, crawled through their roo

I could only assume that one of the Takudas - or all of them - were destined to die this very day, in whatever violent incident had drawn the bodachs to Pico Mundo in great nuathered at the site of forthco Home be­fore the earthquake In this case, however, I didn’t believe that the Takudas would perish in their hohters would die in their picturesque bungalow

The bodachs were not concentrated in one place this time They were all over town, and from their unusually wide disburse the potential victi at the place where the bloodshed would occur Call this the pregalance back, con­cerned that the slightest attention I paid to these creatures would alert them to the fact that I could see them

On Eucalyptus Way, other bodachs had invaded the home of Morris and Rachel Melman

Since Morrie had retired as the superintendent of the Pico Mundo School District, he’d stopped resisting his circadian rhythht lover by nature He spent these quiet hours in the pursuit of various hobbies and interests While Rachel slept in the dark upstairs, warhtened the lower floor

The distinctive shadowy shapes of bodachs in their erect but hunch-shouldered posture were visible at every ground-floorThey appeared to be in ceaseless, agitateddeath stirred in theree or another, this silent frenzyto work less than twenty-four hours ago The intensity of their ht, I foundto see bodachs swars, however, and the stars blazed unobstructed from Andromeda to Vulpecula

Because they have no apparent ravity Yet I have never seen theh supernatu­ral, they seeh not all, of the laws of physics