Odd Thomas: You Are Destined to Be Together Forever

Two

The two-lane blacktop was so narrow that if we met oncoming traffic, I would have to drive partly on the graveled shoulder of the road. Following the sprinting spirit in khakis and checkered shirt, we passed a few humble houses that featured cacti as lawn shrubs and pebbles instead of grass, in recognition of the desert that, in these outskirts of Pico Mundo, couldn’t be denied as easily as it could in the center of town.

“Call Chief Porter,” I said, “and give me the phone when you have him on the line.”

Stormy flipped open her cell phone and entered the number as I gave it to her.

The road sloped down for more than a mile, through an uninhabited area of mesquite and purple sage in full spring bloom, toward a hollow in which a grove of cottonwoods flourished because an aquifer lay within reach of their roots. At the trees, the paved road came to a dead end.

“There’s no cell service out here,” Stormy reported as she pocketed her phone. “No cell service, probably no cable TV, no public sewer hookup, most likely well water, no city water lines, but I bet they have plenty of chain saws.”

An oiled-dirt driveway curved among the trees. Through the screen of branches, I could see a two-story house. Gliding toward that residence, the spirit of the murdered man disappeared into the cottonwood shadows.

As I parked across the narrow dirt lane to prevent anyone from escaping the house in a vehicle, I said, “Better stay here while I have a look around.”

“I’m not a delicate flower,” Stormy declared. “As soon as I’m old enough to buy a pistol, I’m going to get a license to carry a concealed weapon.”

Because of the troubles in her childhood, she knew that true Evil walked the world.

“But you’re not old enough yet,” I said.

“Which is why I have this.”

From her purse, she produced a six-inch-long stainless-steel tube about two inches in diameter, with a crosshatched grip. At the top was a stainless-steel knob as shiny as a mirror. She pressed a button, and in an instant the tube telescoped to eighteen inches and locked at that length. Smiling at me, she lightly rapped the palm of her left hand with the knob of the baton.

“Ordered it through an ad in a martial-arts magazine,” she said. “It’ll fracture a knee or even a skull.”

Unconvinced, I said, “You should still stay here with the car.”

“Oh, my adorable fry cook, I am either coming with you or I’m going in there alone.”

“What does that mean? You’re going to test that thing on my head?”

“I wouldn’t want to test it on your head,” she assured me. “But we’re either in this together or we’re not, and I’ve been operating on the assumption that we are in it together.”

“In what together?”

“Life.”

She has these dark eyes as deep as galaxies. It’s easy to get lost in them.

I said, “Well…see…it’s just that…since caveman days it’s been the man’s job—”

“You’re not a caveman.”

“No. But traditionally—”

“I bet some of those cavewomen were totally tough mamas.” She opened the passenger door and got out of the car. “Is Elvis coming with us?”

Mr. Presley was no longer in the backseat. I don’t know where he goes when he’s not with me. Being a spirit, he can’t sing or play the guitar, and he can’t eat his favorite deep-fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich even if he could get somebody to make one for him.

“He split,” I said, “he’s off ghosting somewhere,” and I got out of the car.

As she joined me at the entrance to the driveway, Stormy said, “Why Elvis and not Buddy Holly?”

“I don’t know.”

“Buddy Holly was twenty-three when he died. So young. You’d think he’d be more reluctant than Elvis to cross over.”

I said, “Buddy Holly went down in a plane crash one winter night. On the other hand, Elvis was sitting on a toilet when he died, maybe of an overdose, and he collapsed into a puddle of his own vomit.”

“So you’re saying maybe he lingers here out of mortification?”

“Not just that. But it’s conceivably a factor.”

As we followed the driveway into the cottonwood grove, she said, “I doubt that anyone on the Other Side cares how we died, only how we lived. Tell him that. I mean, if he comes around again.”

“He’ll come around. Even if he didn’t want me to help him cross over, he’d come around to stare moon-eyed at you.”

She was surprised. “He stares moon-eyed at me?”

“He’s in love with you, I think.”

“That’s kind of weird.”

“Regardless of his other faults, he was always a gentleman in life. He wouldn’t materialize in your bathroom and watch you naked in the shower or anything. Anyway, I guess I’m glad he’s dead, so I don’t have to compete with him.”

“If he wasn’t dead, he’d be like sixty-five. You being a quarter his age, he wouldn’t be much competition.”

“I wish you’d said any instead of much.”

She smiled and pinched my cheek. “Yes, my sweet griddle boy, I’m sure you do.”

We followed the oiled-dirt driveway only twenty feet or so into the woods before leaving it for the cover of the trees. I wanted to circle the house, staying in the woods, to reconnoiter it from every angle, before deciding on an approach.

This being the Mojave in spring, the day was warm, the air oven-dry and very still. Dead leaves crunched underfoot, and occasionally a bird took wing through the branches overhead, startled into flight.

I felt someone watching me, but that didn’t mean anything. Because of my paranormal abilities, because I had to make my way through the world of the living and the dead, I sometimes felt that I must be under observation by a hostile presence when in fact I wasn’t.

In a whisper, Stormy said, “I feel as if we’re being watched.”

To spare her the fear of being tracked by malevolent and unseen enemies, I said, “Watch out for rattlesnakes.”