Page 2 (1/2)
Ivy believed that she was a haruspex Haruspices, a class of priests in ancient Rome, divined the future from the entrails of animals killed in sacrifices
They had been respected, even revered, by other Romans, but most likely they had not received a lot of party invitations
Ivy wasn’t morbid Haruspicy did not occupy the center of her life She seldom talked to customers about it
Neither did she have the stoh entrails For a haruspex, she was squea in the species of the cadaver, in the circumstances of its discovery, in its position related to the points of the compass, and in other arcane aspects of its condition
Her predictions seldom if ever came true, but Ivy persisted
"Whatever it turns out to mean," she told Billy as she picked up her order pad and a pencil, "it’s a bad sign A dead possuood fortune"
"I’ve noticed thatnorth and its tail is pointing east"
Thirsty h the door soon after Ivy, as if she were aall day Only a few sat at the bar; the others kept her bustling table to table
Although the tavern’s h rollers, Ivy’s incoht have earned had she attained a doctoral degree in economics
An hour later, at five o’clock, Shirley Trueblood, the second evening waitress, ca jas CertainSome women, too
The day-shift short-order cook, Ben Vernon, went ho cook, Ramon Padillo, caers, fries, Buffalo wings, quesadillas, nachos…
Rain worked, the spicy dishes sold in greater nu Guys ordered h a lot of little bottles of Tabasco, and asked for sliced jalapenos on their burgers
"I think," Ra heat into their gonads to be ready if she comes on to them"
"No one in this joint has a chance at Ivy," Billy assured him
"You never know," Ra in the peppers, too"
"So hts," Ra bartender, Steve Zillis, whose shift overlapped Billy’s by an hour At twenty-four, he was ten years younger than Billy but twenty years less ht of sophisticated hurown men to blush
He could tie knots in a cherry steht nostril with peanuts and fire thearette sht ear
As usual, Steve vaulted over the end gate in the bar instead of pushing through it "How’re they hangin’, Keet my life back"
"This is life," Steve protested "The center of the action"
The tragedy of Steve Zillis was that he la on an apron, he snatched three olives froht them one at a time in his mouth
When two drunks at the bar clapped loudly, Steve basked in their applause as if he were the star tenor at the Metropolitan Opera and had earned the adulation of a refined and knowledgeable audience
In spite of the affliction of Steve Zillis’s company, this final hour of Billy’s shift passed quickly The tavern was busy enough to keep two bartenders occupied as the late-afternoon tipplers delayed going ho drinkers arrived
Asthis transitional time The customers were at peak coherency and happier than they would be later, when alcohol washed them toward melancholy
Because the s faced east and the sun lay west, softest daylight painted the panes The ceiling fixtures layered a coppery glow over the burntred rant air was savory with the scents of wood flooring pickled in stale beer, candle wax, cheeseburgers, fried onion rings
Billy didn’t like the place enough, however, to linger past the end of his shift He left promptly at seven
If he’d been Steve Zillis, he would have made a production of his exit Instead, he departed as quietly as a ghost de froht remained The sky was an electric Maxfield Parrish blue in the east, a paler blue in the west, where the sun still bleached it
As he approached his Ford Explorer, he noticed a rectangle of white paper under the driver’s-side windshield wiper
Behind the steering wheel, with his door still open, he unfolded the paper, expecting to find a handbill of so a car wash or a e:
If you don’t take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher somewhere in Napa County
If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work
You have six hours to decide The choice is yours
Billy didn’t at that instant feel the world tilt under hiun, but it would Soon
Chapter 2
Mickey Mouse took a bullet in the throat
The 9-mm pistol cracked threeDonald Duck’s face
Lanny Olsen, the shooter, lived at the end of a fissured blacktop lane, against a stony hillside where grapes would never grow He had no view of the fabled Napa Valley
As compensation for his unfashionable address, the property was shaded by beautiful pluhtened by wild azaleas And it was private
The nearest neighbor lived at such a distance that Lanny could have partied 24/7 without disturbing anyone This offered no benefit to Lanny because he usually went to bed at nine-thirty; his idea of a party was a case of beer, a bag of chips, and a poker game
The location of his property, however, was conducive to target shooting He was the most practiced shot in the sheriff’s department As a boy, he’d wanted to be a cartoonist He had talent The Disneyperfect portraits of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, fixed to the hay-bale backstop, were Lanny’s work
Ejecting the spent azine from his pistol, Lanny said, "You should have been here yesterday I head-shot twelve Road Runners in a row, not a wasted round"
Billy said, "Wile E Coyote would’ve been thrilled You ever shoot at ordinary targets?"
"What would be the fun in that?"
"You ever shoot the Sie," Lanny said "Never Marge"
Lannyfather, Ansel, had not been determined that his son would follow him into law enforcement as Ansel himself had followed his father
Pearl, Lanny’s mother, had been as supportive as her illness allowed When Lanny was sixteen, Pearl had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lys sapped her Even in periods when the lyth Concerned that his father would be a useless nurse, Lanny never went away to art school He remained at home, took up a career in law enforcement, and looked after his mother
Unexpectedly, Ansel was first to die He stopped a , and thecontracted lye, Pearl lived with it for a surprisingly long time She had died ten years previously, when Lanny was thirty-six
He’d still been young enough for a career switch and art school Inertia, however, proved stronger than the desire for a new life
He inherited the house, a handso veranda, which he maintained in pristine condition With a career that was a job but not a passion, and with no family of his own, he had plenty of spare tiazine in the pistol, Billy took the typewritten e from a pocket "What do you raphs while, in the lull of gunfire, blackbirds returned to the high bowers of nearby ele evoked neither a frown nor a sh Billy had expected one or the other "Where’d you get this?"
"Somebody left it under my windshield wiper"