The plaque and the music system were later smashed to bits by an angry poltergeist.
The only long-term consequence of that writing contest had been my friendship with Little Ozzie, for which I was grateful, although for five years he had harassed me to write, write, write. He said that such a talent was a gift and that I had a moral obligation to use it.
“Two gifts are one too many,” I told him now. “If I had to deal with the dead and also write something worthwhile, I’d either go stark raving mad or shoot myself in the head with that gun you want to give me.”
Impatient with my excuses, he said, “Writing isn’t a source of pain. It’s psychic chemotherapy. It reduces your psychological tumors and relieves your pain.”
I didn’t doubt either that this was true for him or that he had enough pain to require a lifetime of psychic chemotherapy.
Although Big Ozzie was still alive, Little Ozzie saw his father only once or twice a year. On each occasion, he required two weeks to recover his emotional equilibrium and trademark good humor.
His mother was alive, too. Little Ozzie hadn’t spoken to her in twenty years.
Big Ozzie currently weighed, at a guess, only fifty pounds less than his son. Consequently, most people assumed that Little Ozzie had inherited his obesity.
Little Ozzie, however, refused to portray himself as a victim of his genetics. He said that at the heart of him was a weakness of will that resulted in his immensity.
Over the years, he sometimes implied and I frequently inferred that his parents had broken a part of his heart that resulted in this mortal weakness of will. He never spoke of his difficult childhood, however, and refused to describe what he had endured. He just wrote mystery novel after mystery novel ...
He didn’t speak of his folks with bitterness. Instead, he spoke of them hardly at all and avoided them as best he could—and wrote book after book about art, music, food, and wine ...
“Writing,” I told him now, “can’t relieve my pain as much as it’s relieved by the sight of Stormy ... or by the taste of coconut cherry chocolate chunk ice cream, for that matter.”
“I have no Stormy in my life,” he replied, “but I can understand the ice cream.” He finished his wine. “What are you going to do about this Bob Robertson?”
I shrugged.
Ozzie pressed me: “You’ve got to do something if he knows that you were in his house this afternoon and already he’s following you around.”
“All I can do is be careful. And wait for Chief Porter to get something on him. Anyway, maybe he wasn’t actually following me. Maybe he heard about your exploding cow and stopped by to gawk at the ruins.”
“Odd, I would be indescribably disappointed if, having not yet employed your writing gift to any useful purpose, you wound up dead tomorrow.”
“Just think how I’d feel.”
“I might wish that you’d grow wiser faster, get a gun and write a book, but I won’t wish anyone’s life away for him. ‘How swift are the feet of the days of the years of youth.’”
Giving attribution to the quote, I said, “Mark Twain.”
“Excellent! Perhaps you aren’t a willfully ignorant young fool, after all.”
“You used that quote once before,” I admitted. “That’s how I know it.”
“But at least you remembered! I believe this reveals in you a desire, even if unconscious, to give up the griddle and make yourself a man of literature.”
“I expect I’ll switch to tires first.”
He sighed. “You’re a tribulation sometimes.” He rang his empty wineglass with one fingernail. “I should’ve brought the bottle.”
“Sit still. I’ll get it,” I said, for I could fetch the Cabernet from the kitchen in the time that he would require merely to lever himself up from his armchair.
The ten-foot-wide hallway served as a gallery for fine art, and opening off both sides of it were rooms rich with still more art and books.
At the end of the hall lay the kitchen.
On a black-granite counter stood the bottle, uncorked to let the wine breathe.
Although the front rooms had been comfortably air-conditioned, the kitchen proved to be surprisingly warm. Entering, I thought for an instant that all four ovens must be filled with baking treats.
Then I saw that the back door stood open. The desert evening, still broiling in the stubborn summer sun, had sucked the coolness from the kitchen.
When I stepped to the door to close it, I saw Bob Robertson in the backyard, as pale and fungoid as ever he had looked.
ROBERTSON STOOD FACING THE HOUSE, AS though waiting for me to see him. Then he turned and walked toward the back of the property.
For too long, I hesitated in the doorway, uncertain what I should do.
I assumed that one of his neighbors might have recognized me and might have told him that earlier I’d been snooping around during his absence. But the swiftness with which he’d tracked me down and had begun to tail me was disconcerting.
My paralysis broke with the realization that I had endangered Ozzie, had led this psychopath to his house. I left the kitchen, crossed the porch, descended the steps to a patio, stepped onto the lawn, and went after Robertson.
Ozzie’s house sits at the front of his one-acre lot, and most of the property is given over to lawn and to trees that screen him from his neighbors. In the back half of the acre, the trees grow thicker than at the front, and stand close enough to qualify as a small woods.
Into this copse of laurel, podocarpus, and California pepper, Robertson strode—and disappeared from view.
The westward-dawdling sun slanted between the trees where it could find narrow gaps, but for the most part the layered branches successfully resisted it. Cooler than the sun-baked lawn, these greenery-scented shadows were nevertheless warm, and they pressed against me in stifling folds.
No less than the cloying shadows, the trunks of the many trees offered concealment. My quarry made good use of them.
I tacked quickly but warily through the woods, north to south, then south to north, first in silence, then calling his name—“Mr. Robertson?”—but he didn’t answer.
The few intruding flares of sunlight inhibited rather than assisted the search. They illuminated little but were just numerous enough to prevent my eyes from adjusting well to the gloom.
Afraid of leaving the woods unsearched and therefore giving Robertson a chance to creep in behind me, I took too long to get to the gate in the back fence. I found it closed, but it was held by a gravity latch that would have engaged automatically when it fell shut behind him.
The gate opened into a picturesque brick-paved alleyway, flanked by back fences and garages, shaded here and there by queen palms and willowy pepper trees. Neither Bob Robertson nor anyone else was afoot as far as I could see in either direction.
Returning through the woodlet, I half expected him to lunge at me, not gone after all but waiting to catch me with my guard down. If Robertson was hiding in that grove, he must have recognized that I remained alert, for he didn’t risk an assault.
When I reached the back porch, I stopped, turned, and studied the pocket forest. Birds flew from those branches, not as if chased out by anything, but only as if taking