lieutenant in on this.”
“We are involved,” John answered. “We called you, remember?”
“Hold on, then,” Frank replied, seeming unruffled by John’s curt tone.
John picked up the receiver, so that the speakerphone was off. Lieutenant Carlson came on the line, and apparently a lot of angry haggling and talk about press rights and police prerogatives ensued. We could only hear John’s side of it, but he was unbending. He argued that the call had come into the paper, not into the police, and that his reporters had the right to be on the streets, which were public places, looking at all the public acorn- bearing trees they could find. Eventually Carlson saw that it was useless to protest. The whole conversation probably took about three minutes, but it seemed like forever to me. I wanted to get going.
John stuck his head out his door and started shouting reporters’ names. He filled them in, then had two or three of them calling tree surgeons, another pair going down to the Tree Department. “Ask about the biggest oak trees. Something tells me this guy picked out something on a grand scale. After all, it has to be fit for the gods.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“You stay here — who knows what he’s up to. Maybe he’s just trying to draw you out of the building.” At my mutinous look, he added, “Besides, if he calls back, you’d better be here.”
“If he stays true to form, he won’t call again today. Let me go out on it. I’m the only one reading about the mythology. Maybe I’ll see something the others would miss.”
“Forget it,” he said, and shooed us out of his office.
I drew some quick sympathetic looks from the others as they hurried off. Cassandra.
I went back to my desk and reread the story of Aeacus, more carefully this time. A plague of serpents caused the island of Aegina’s water to be poisoned. Additionally, the locals had suffered drought, famine, and a pestilent wind from the south. Aeacus awoke from his ants-to-men dream to discover it was raining, the serpents were gone, and a new populace of hard-working subjects was at his command. Talk about sweet dreams.
I thought of Thanatos’ letters, and of what he had said on the phone. Aeacus had seen his future army on an oak. But perhaps, as with many of his other references, Thanatos didn’t literally mean that I could find Rosie Thayer near an oak tree. What about the other places in Las Piernas which might be connected to oaks, or to the word “oak”?
I logged on to my computer terminal and asked for a program that serves as a guide to the city; it lists streets, public buildings, developments, parks, schools, and other points of interest in Las Piernas. Given any address, it will also display an area map. I searched under the word “oak.” A few seconds later, a list appeared on the screen. A restaurant called The Oak Room. A development called Oakridge Estates. Oak View Apartments. The Oakmont Hotel. Oakwood Elementary School. Oak Knoll Shopping Center. About twenty streets: Oak Park, Old Oak, Oak Point, Oak Meadow, Twin Oaks, Oak Grove, Sleeping Oak.
Sleeping Oak Road. That one caught my attention. Aeacus had seen the army of ants twice: on an oak, and while he was asleep.
I brought the map display up on the screen. Sleeping Oak was a long, residential street that wound its way through the hills. I debated with myself for a while, tried thinking of other ways to look at Thanatos’ messages. But the street name was the only possibility that really nagged at me.
I saw that John’s door was closed, and gathered up my coat, purse, and keys. I pulled out a copy of the photo of Rosie Thayer and tucked it into a pocket. I had almost made it to the newsroom door when a hand caught my shoulder. I turned to see Lydia.
“Where are you going?” she asked in a low voice.
“Just out to my car for a minute.”
“Then where?”
No use trying to fool her. “Listen, Lydia, I can’t sit here all day. I’ve got an idea I want to follow up on.”
“If Thanatos doesn’t kill you, John will.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say. Come over to the desk for a minute.” When she saw that I would protest, she said, “Come with me or I’ll walk right into John’s office before you can make it out of the building.”
At the City Desk, she unlocked a cabinet and handed me a cellular phone.
“You know the lecture on how much a call on one of these costs the paper,” she said, “so I won’t make you listen to it again. But take this with you and use it if you need help. That way, when I’m at your funeral, I’ll feel like I did what I could to save an old friend.”
“Aren’t you the chipper one. Okay, I’ll take it.”
“Will you tell me where you’re going?”
“Sleeping Oak Road. Thanks for the phone — and the concern.”
LAS PIERNAS SITS on a curve of the California coastline; most of its beaches face the south. As some custom-home builders have noticed over the past five years, the views from the south side of hillside streets like Sleeping Oak Road were some of the best in the inland part of the city. You could see almost all of Las Piernas below, and the ocean beyond it. The view from the north side of the street was not so picturesque, but some homeowners had overcome this handicap by trying to build taller houses than their neighbors across the street.
Many of the homes were old by Las Piernas standards, modest dwellings built in the 1920s. About every fourth or fifth house had been razed and replaced with a larger, more modern structure. I didn’t see an oak tree anywhere.
I started on the south side, and walked from house to house, knocking on doors, asking the few people who were home if they had seen the woman in the photo, or noticed any unusual activities on the street. I asked if any of their neighbors had moved in fairly recently. If they hadn’t closed the door in my face by then, I got around to asking about their neighbors’ habits. I came across people who had grudges against others on their block, and got the lowdown on who never cut their lawn, whose kids were holy terrors, whose dog barked endlessly, and which
