surely arise from the possession of even one flawless feature.
Roy was blessed with a repetitive dream, which came to him two or three nights every month, and from which he always woke in a state of rapture. In the dream, he searched the world over for women like Guinevere, and from each he harvested her perfect feature: from this one, a pair of ears so beautiful that they made his foolish heart pound almost painfully; from that one, the most exquisite ankles that it was within the mind of man to contemplate; from yet another, the snow-white, sculptured teeth of a goddess. He kept these treasures in magic jars, where they did not in the least deteriorate, and when he had collected all the parts of an ideal woman, he assembled them into the lover for whom he had always longed. She was so radiant in her unearthly perfection that he was half blinded when he looked upon her, and her slightest touch was purest ecstasy.
Unfortunately, he always woke from the paradise of her arms.
In life he would never know such beauty. Dreams were the only refuge for a man who would settle for nothing less than perfection.
Gazing into the sea and sky. A solitary man at the end of a deserted pier. Imperfect in every aspect of his own face and form. Aching for the unattainable.
He knew that he was both a romantic and a tragic figure. There were those who would even call him a fool. But at least he dared to dream and to dream big.
Sighing, he turned away from the uncaring sea and walked back to his car in the parking lot.
Behind the steering wheel, after he switched on the engine but before he put the car in gear, Roy allowed himself to withdraw the color snapshot from his wallet. He had carried it with him for more than a year, and he had studied it often. Indeed, it had such power to mesmerize him that he could have spent half the day staring at it in dreamy contemplation.
The photo was of the woman who had most recently called herself Valerie Ann Keene. She was attractive by anyone’s standards, perhaps even as attractive as Guinevere.
What made her special, however, what filled Roy with reverence for the divine power that had created humankind, was her perfect eyes. They were more arresting and compelling than even the eyes of Captain Harris Descoteaux of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Dark yet limpid, enormous yet perfectly proportioned to her face, direct yet enigmatic, they were eyes that had seen what lay at the heart of all meaningful mysteries. They were the eyes of a sinless soul yet somehow also the eyes of a shameless voluptuary, simultaneously coy and direct, eyes to which every deceit was as transparent as glass, filled with spirituality and sexuality and a complete understanding of destiny.
He was confident that in reality her eyes would be more, not less, powerful than they were in the snapshot. He had seen other photographs of her, as well as numerous videotapes, and each image had battered his heart more punishingly than the one before it.
When he found her, he would kill her for the agency and for Thomas Summerton and for all those well- meaning others who labored to make this a better country and a better world. She had earned no mercy. Except for her single perfect feature, she was an evil woman.
But after Roy had fulfilled his duty, he would take her eyes. He deserved them. For too brief a time, those enchanting eyes would bring him desperately needed solace in a world that was sometimes too cruel and cold to bear, even for someone with an attitude as positive as that which he cultivated.
By the time Spencer was able to make it to the front door of the apartment with Rocky in his arms (the dog might not have left under his own power), Theda filled a plastic bag with the remaining ten chocolate-chip cookies from the plate beside the armchair, and she insisted that he take them. She also toddled into the kitchen and returned with a homemade blueberry muffin in a small brown paper bag — and then made another trip to bring him two slices of lemon-coconut cake in a Tupperware container.
Spencer protested only the cake, because he wouldn’t be able to return the container to her.
“Nonsense,” she said. “You don’t need to return it. I’ve got enough Tupperware to last two lifetimes. For years I collected and collected it, because you can keep just anything in Tupperware, it has so many uses, but enough is enough, and I have more than enough, so just enjoy the cake and throw the container away. Enjoy!”
In addition to all the edible treats, Spencer had acquired two pieces of information about Hannah-Valerie. The first was Theda’s story about the portrait of the cockroach on the wall of Hannah’s bedroom, but he still didn’t know what to make of that. The second concerned something that Theda remembered Hannah saying during idle dinner conversation one evening shortly before packing up her things and dusting Vegas off her heels. They had been discussing places in which they had always dreamed of living, and although Theda couldn’t make up her mind between Hawaii and England, Hannah had been adamant that only the small coastal town of Carmel, California, had all the peace and beauty that anyone could ever desire.
Spencer supposed that Carmel was a long shot, but at the moment it was the best lead he had. On one hand, she hadn’t gone straight there from Las Vegas; she had stopped in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and tried to make a life as Valerie Keene. On the other hand, perhaps now, after her mysterious enemies had found her twice in large cities, she would decide to see if they could locate her as easily in a far smaller community.
Theda had not informed the band of loud, rude, window-shattering nitwits about Hannah’s mention of Carmel. Maybe that gave Spencer an advantage.
He was loath to leave her alone with the memories of her beloved husband, long-mourned children, and vanished friend. Nevertheless, thanking her effusively, he stepped across the threshold onto the balcony and walked to the stairs that led down into the courtyard.
The mottled gray-black sky and the blustery wind surprised him, for when he had been in Thedaworld, he had all but forgotten that anything else existed beyond its walls. The crowns of the palms still thrashed, and the air was chillier than before.
Carrying a seventy-pound dog, a plastic bag full of cookies, a blueberry muffin in a paper sack, and a Tupperware container heavy with cake, he found the stairs precarious. He lugged Rocky all the way to the bottom, however, because he was certain that the dog would race straight back to Thedaworld if put down on the balcony.
When Spencer finally released the mutt, Rocky turned and gazed longingly up the stairs toward that little piece of canine heaven.
“Time to plunge back into reality,” Spencer said.
The dog whined.
Spencer walked toward the front of the complex, under the windwhipped trees. Halfway past the swimming pool he looked back.
Rocky was still at the stairs.
“Hey, pal.”
Rocky looked at him.
“Whose hound are you anyway?”
An expression of doggy guilt overcame the mutt, and at last he padded toward Spencer.
“Lassie would never leave Timmy, even for God’s
Rocky sneezed, sneezed, and sneezed again at the pungent scent of chlorine.
“What if,” Spencer said as the dog caught up to him, “I’d been trapped here, under an overturned tractor, unable to save myself, or maybe cornered by an angry bear?”
Rocky whined as if in apology.
“Accepted,” Spencer said.
On the street, in the Explorer again, Spencer said, “Actually, I’m proud of you, pal.”
Rocky cocked his head.
Starting the engine, Spencer said, “You’re getting more sociable every day. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’ve been raiding my cash supply to pay for some high-priced Beverly Hills therapist.”
Half a block ahead, a mold-green Chevy rounded the corner in a high-speed slide, tires screaming and smoking, and almost rolled like a stock car in a demolition derby. Somehow it stayed on two wheels, accelerated toward them, and shrieked to a stop at the curb on the other side of the street.
Spencer assumed the car was driven by a drunk or by a kid hopped up on something stronger than Pepsi — until the doors flew open and four men, of a type he recognized too well, exploded out of it. They hurried toward the entrance to the apartment-house courtyard.
