“I left him at the Baptist church, sir. I’m with Stormy—in line to have some tacos, but thanks just the same.”
“Tell me about Robertson. I have a man watching his house in Camp’s End, but he hasn’t gone home yet.”
I said, “He was down in the graveyard, saw us up in the belfry. He gave us the rude number one with lots of emphasis and then came after us.”
“You think he knows you were in his house?” the chief asked.
“If he hasn’t been home since I was there, I don’t see how he could know, but he must. Excuse me a second, sir.”
We had reached the menu board.
“Swordfish tacos with extra salsa, fried corn fritters, and a large Coke, please,” I told the sombrero-wearing donkey that holds the order microphone in its mouth. I looked at Stormy. She nodded. “Make that two of everything.”
“Are you at Mexicali Rose?” the chief asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“They have fantastic churros. You should try some.”
I took his advice and placed a double order with the donkey, which, as before, thanked me in the voice of a teenage girl.
As the line of cars crept forward, I said, “When we gave Robertson the slip in the church, he must’ve been angry. But why he decided to take it out on the building, I don’t know.”
“Two cars are on the way to St. Bart’s, no sirens. They might even be there now. But vandalism—that doesn’t measure up to the horrors you said he’s going to commit.”
“No, sir. Not close. And there’s less than three hours till August fifteenth.”
“If we can park his butt in jail overnight for vandalism, we’ll have an excuse to poke around in his life. Maybe that’ll give us a chance to figure out the bigger thing he’s up to.”
After wishing the chief luck, I pressed END and returned the phone to Stormy.
I checked my watch. Midnight—and August 15—seemed like a tsunami, building height and power, racing toward us with silent but deadly force.
TWENTY-ONE
WAITING TO HEAR FROM THE CHIEF THAT THEY had nailed Robertson in the act of vandalism, Stormy and I ate dinner in the Mexicali Rose parking lot, with the windows of the Mustang rolled down, hoping to catch a breeze. The food was tasty, but the hot night air smelled of exhaust fumes.
“So you broke into Fungus Man’s house,” Stormy said.
“Didn’t smash any glass. Just used my driver’s license.”
“Does he keep severed heads in his refrigerator?”
“I didn’t open his refrigerator.”
“Where else would you expect to find severed heads?”
“I wasn’t looking for any.”
She said, “That creepy smile of his, those weird gray eyes…First thing I’d look for is a collection of knickknacks with ears. These tacos are fabulous.”
I agreed. “And I like all the colors in the salsa. Yellow and green chiles, the red of the chopped tomatoes, the little purple flecks of onion…sort of looks like confetti. You should do it this way when you make salsa.”
“What—you were bitten by Martha Stewart, now you’re a walking-dead lifestyle guru? So tell me what you found if you didn’t find heads?”
I told her about the black room.
Licking corn-fritter crumbs off her elegant fingers, she said, “Listen to me, odd one.”
“I’m all ears.”
“They’re big, but they’re not all of you. Open them wide now and hear this: Don’t go in that black room again.”
“It doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Don’t even go looking for it, hoping it’ll come back.”
“That never even crossed my mind.”
“Yes, it did,” she said.
“Yes, it did,” I admitted. “I mean, I’d like to understand it—what it is, how it works.”
To emphasize her objection, she poked a corn fritter in my direction. “It’s the gate to Hell, and you’re not meant for that neighborhood.”
“I don’t think it’s the gate to Hell.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s the gate to Hell. If you go looking for it, and you find it, and you wind up in Hell, I’m not going to go down there looking for you and pull your ass out of the fire.”
“Your warning is duly noted.”
“It’s hard enough being married to a guy who sees dead people and goes chasing after them every day, and just too hard if he goes on some quest to find the gate to Hell.”
“I don’t go chasing after them,” I said, “and since when are we married?”
“We will be,” she said, and finished her final fritter.
On more than one occasion, I have asked her to marry me. Though we both agree that we are soul mates and that we will be together forever, she has always shied from my proposals with something like, I love you madly, desperately, Oddie, so madly that I would cut off my right hand for you, if that made any sense as a proof of love. But as for this marriage thing—let’s put a pin in it.
Understandably, dribbles of swordfish taco fell out of my mouth when I heard that we were going to be taking vows. I plucked those morsels off my T-shirt and ate them, buying time to think furiously, before I said, “So…you mean you’re accepting my proposal?”
“Silly, I a
ccepted it ages ago.” Off my look of bewilderment, she said, “Oh, not with a conventional ‘Yes, darling, I’m yours,’ but I accepted in so many words.”
“I didn’t interpret ‘put a pin in it’ as meaning yes.”
Brushing swordfish crumbs off my shirt, she said, “You have to learn to listen with more than your ears.”
“What orifice do you suggest I listen with?”
“Don’t be crude. It doesn’t become you. I mean, sometimes you have to listen with your heart.”
“I’ve listened with my heart for so long I’ve periodically had to swab earwax out of my aortal valve.”
“Churros?” she asked, opening a white pastry bag and at once filling the car with a delicious, cinnamony, dough-nutlike aroma.
I said, “How can you think about dessert at a time like this?”
“You mean at dinner time?”
“I mean at talking-about-getting-married time.” My heart raced as if I were chasing someone or being chased, but with luck that part of the day was over. “Listen, Stormy, if you really mean it, then I will do something big to improve my financial situation. I’ll give up the short-order job at the Grille, and I don’t just mean for tires. Something bigger.”
Her look of amused speculation was so heavy that the weight of it tilted her head. Cocking one eye at me, she said, “And from your perspective, what could be bigger than tires?”
I gave it some thought. “Shoes.”
“What kind of shoes?”
“All kinds. Retail shoe sales.”
She looked dubious. “That’s bigger than tires?”
“Sure. How often do you buy tires? Not even once a year. And you need only one set of tires per vehicle. But people need more than one pair of shoes. They need all types. Brown dress shoes, black dress shoes, running shoes, sandals—”
“Not you. All you have is three pairs of the same sneakers.”
“Yes, but I’m not like other people.”
“Not in the least,” she agreed.
“Another thing to consider,” I said, “is that not every man, woman, and child has a car, but everyone has feet. Or nearly everyone. A family of five might have two cars, but they have ten feet.”