Odd Thomas

At the bowling alley, there had been no bodachs around Varner as there had been, at times, around Robertson. If I'd seen him with bodachs in attendance, I might have realized what a monster he was,

Because they might take fingerprints, I hurriedly gathered the scraps of foil that had wrapped the towelettes and shoved them in a pocket of my jeans. I grabbed the scissors, stood, swept the ceiling with the flashlight, and found the tarantula directly overhead.

Tarantulas are timid. They do not stalk human beings.

I sprinted from the room, heard the spider drop to the floor with a soft but solid fleshy sound, slammed the door between us, and wiped prints off the knob with the tail of my T-shirt, then off the front door, too, as I left.

Because tarantulas are timid and because I believe there are no coincidences, I raced to the Chevy, threw the scissors and flashlight in the shopping bag, started the engine, and stomped the accelerator. I exited the grounds of the Church of the Whispering Comet with a shriek of tortured rubber, kicking up a spray of sand and crumbled blacktop, eager to reach the state highway before being surrounded by legions of tarantulas, an army of coyotes, and a slithering swarm of rattlesnakes all functioning in concert.

FIFTY-SIX

NOT DOP. POD. PRINCE OF DARKNESS. THE SOURCE OF Simon Varner's tattooed acronym, POD, occurred to me as I crossed the town line, returning to Pico Mundo.

Costumed satanists performing weird rituals with an obscenely decorated chalice would be regarded by most people as being less well intentioned but also markedly sillier than the elaborately fur- hatted members of a men's lodge called the Fraternal Order of Hedgehogs. Men who dress up to look bad are as suspect of being nerds as are those men with weed-whacker haircuts, tortoiseshell eyeglasses, pants worn five inches above the navel and three inches above the shoes, and bumper stickers that say jar jar Binks rules.

If I would have been inclined to dismiss them as nerds playing at evil, that inclination had not held past the moment when I found the Rubbermaid-boxed souvenirs in the freezer.

Now that I suspected the identity of Robertson's collaborator, I trusted my supernatural gift to lead me to him. Considering that in the grip of psychic magnetism-Stormy sometimes shortens it to PM syndrome or PMS-I occasionally make abrupt turns, I drove with as much speed as seemed prudent.

Under the influence of PMS, I zone out to some extent, and try to think only about the object of my interest-in this case, Varner- rather than about where I am at any moment or about where I might be going. I'll know where I'm going when I get there.

In this state, my conscious mind relaxes, and random thoughts pop into it almost as often as I make seemingly random turns in search of my quarry. This time, one of those thoughts involved my mother's older sister, Cymry, whom I have never met.

According to my mother, Cymry is married to a Czechoslovakian whose first name is Dobb. My father says Cymry has never married.

Neither of my parents has a history of reliability. In this case, however, I suspect that my father is telling the truth and that I have no uncle of either Czechoslovakian or any other heritage.

My father says that Cymry is a freak, but he will say no more. His assertion infuriates my mother, who denies Cymry's freakhood and calls her a gift from God.

This is an odd statement on my mother's part, considering that she lives her life as if with the firm conviction that God does not exist.

The first time that I asked Granny Sugars about her mysterious firstborn, she dissolved in tears. I had never seen her cry before. The next day, still red-eyed, she had hit the road again in pursuit of faraway poker games.

The second time I asked her about Cymry, she became angry with me for pursuing the issue. I had never before seen her angry. Then she became cold and distant. She had never previously been that way with me, and her behavior reminded me too much of my mother.

Thereafter, I never asked about Cymry.

I suspect that in an institution somewhere, managed with drugs and humane restraints, I have an aunt who is at least a little like me. I suspect that as a child she didn't conceal her special gift as I did.

This is probably why Granny Sugars, with all her poker winnings, left no estate of which I'm aware. I think she funded a trust to pay for Cymry's care.

Over the years, my father has let slip certain dues leading me to speculate that Cymry's sixth sense, whatever strange talents it may encompass, is accompanied by physical mutation. I think she scared people not just because of things that she said but also because of how she looked.

More often than not, a baby born with one mutation will, in fact, have two or more. Ozzie says-and apparently not in his role as a writer of fiction-that one in every eighty-eight thousand babies is born with a sixth finger on one hand, as he was. Hundreds if not thousands of them should be walking the streets of America, yet how many six-fingered hands have you seen on adults? You don't encounter them because most of those babies are born with other and more terrible deformities that cause them to die in early infancy.

Those six-fingered children fortunate enough to be robustly healthy will usually receive surgery if the superfluous digit can be removed without affecting the function of the hand. They walk among us, Little Ozzie says, passing for five-fingered 'mundanes.'

I think all this is true, because Ozzie is proud of his sixth finger and enjoys collecting lore on what he calls 'the natural-born pickpockets who are members of my superior breed.' He says that his second mutation is his ability to write well and swiftly, turning out enthusiastically received books at a prodigious pace.

I dream of Aunt Cymry from time to time. These are not prophetic dreams. They are full of yearning. And sadness.

Now, at 12:21, daydreaming about Cymry yet acutely and nervously aware of precious minutes passing, fully in the PMS zone, I expected to find Officer Simon Varner in the vicinity of either the bowling alley or the multiplex theater where the dog movie would unreel shortly after one o'clock. Instead, I was led unexpectedly to the Green Moon Mall.

What I saw was unusual for a Wednesday in summer: a packed parking lot. The giant banner reminded me that the mall merchants' annual summer sale had begun at ten o'clock this morning and would continue through the weekend.

What a crowd.

FIFTY-SEVEN

A GALAXY OF SUNS BLAZED ON THE WINDSHIELDS OF the serried cars and SUVs, a lightquake that shocked my bloodshot eyes and forced me to squint.

Three-story department stores anchored the north and south ends of the mall. Numerous specialty shops occupied the two levels between those leviathans.

PMS drew me to the department store at the north end. I drove around to the back and parked near a wide descending ramp that led to the subterranean loading docks where trucks delivered merchandise.

Three spaces away stood a black-and-white police cruiser. No cop in sight.