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He said, "You smell maximum real, bro"

"Worked at it"

Froht-yellow air freshener shaped like a banana Bobby slipped it off theit froood I wouldn’t reward hih

"It’s a banana," I said, "but it senuity"

"Nothing like it"

"We put men on the moon"

"We invented chocolate-flavored breakfast cereal"

"Don’t forget plastic vo ever," I said

Bobby and I sole ss of beer

Although I was, on one level, frantic to find Orson and Jiuid tempo by which Bobby lives He is so laid back that if he visited soht mistake him for a patient in a coma, shuck him out of his Hawaiian shirt, and slide hiown before he could correct their etting totally barreled in an insanely holloave, Bobby values tranquility He responds better to easy and indirect conversation than to any expression of urgency During our seventeen-year friendship, I’ve learned to value this relaxed approach, even if it doesn’t come naturally to me Calm is essential to prudent action Because Bobby acts only after contemplation, I’ve never known hi He may look relaxed, even sleepy at times, but like a Zen master, he is able to make the flow of time slohile he considers how best to deal with the latest crisis

"Bitchin’ shirt," I said

He earing one of his favorite antique shirts: a brown Asian landscape design He has a couple hundred in his collection, and he knows every detail of their histories

Before he could reply, I said, "Made by Kahala about 1950 Silk with coconut-shell buttons Sa Jih for me to have repeated all the shirt data, but I knew he’d heard me

He took another pull at his bottle of beer Finally: "Have you for real developed an interest in aloha threads, or are you justyou"

"Enjoy yourself"

As he studied the rearview ain, I said, "What’s that in your lap?"

"I’m just way happy to see you," he said Then he held up a serious handgun "Smith & Wesson Model 29"

"This is definitely not a barn raising"

"Exactly what is it?"

"So’s boy"

"Who?"

"So an abnormal type, a sleazeball

"Woofy," he said, which is Australian surfer lingo for waves contae spill, but which has evolved other, related ht out of his bedrooh a "

"So Lilly called you?"

"I was just in the wrong place at the wrong tiht after the abb did the deed"

"How’d you get from there to here?"

"Orson’s nose"

I told him about the abb, the kidnapper, whom I’d encountered under the warehouse

He frowned "You said yellow eyes?"

"Yellon, I guess"

"Shine-in-the-dark yellow?"

"No Brownish yellow, burnt amber, but the natural color"

Recently, we’d encountered a couple of uys in the process of beco more or less than human, who appeared for the most part normal but whose otherness was betrayed by brief but detectable flashes of anie, hateful needs, and they are capable of extreme violence If Jies to which he eries that a standard-issue sociopath nize this abb?" I asked Bobby

"You say about thirty, black hair, yellow eyes, built like a fireplug?"

"Neat little baby teeth"

"Not my type"

"I never saw him before, either," I said

"Twelve thousand people in town"

"And this isn’t a dude who’s a beachhead," I said,out with surfers "So he could still be local and ouldn’t know"

For the first tientle onshore flow that brought to us a faint but bracing scent of the sea In the park across the street, the oaks becaether in whispers

Bobby said, "Why did this abb bring Ji"

"I’d like to do , Cuisinart the creep"

"Plus the weirdness of this place probably feeds his dementia"

"Unless it’s more directly connected to Wyvern"

"Unless And Lilly’s worried about the guy on the news"

"What guy?"

"Kidnaps kids, locks theets three or five or whatever from one community, then he burns them all at once"

"Stuff like this is why I don’t listen to news these days"

"You’ve never listened to news"

"I know But I used to have different reasons" Looking around at the night, Bobby said, "So where would they be now?"

"Anywhere"

"Maybe this is more ‘anywhere’ than we can handle"

He hadn’t looked at the rearview s out behind us

Bobby said casually, "Saw athe air freshener off ain, I said, "Just one? I didn’t know they traveled alone"

"Me neither I turned a corner in Dead Town, and there it was, running across the street, caught in the headlights This little freakin’ dude Not your ordinary evolutionary link,or otherwise"

"Different?"

"Maybe four feet tall"