I fumbled it from my pocket and answered on the third ring. 'Yeah?'

'Hi.'

From that single word, I recognized the smoky-voiced woman who had called while I'd been sitting under the branches of the poisonous brugmansia behind the Ying house, the previous night.

'You again.'

'Me.'

She could have obtained this number only by calling my recharged cell phone and talking to Terri.

'Who are you?' I asked.

'You still think I have the wrong number?'

'No. Who are you?'

She said, 'You have to ask?'

'Didn't I just?'

'You shouldn't have to ask.'

'I don't know your voice.'

'So many men know it well.'

If she wasn't speaking in riddles, she was at least being obscure, taunting.

'Have I ever met you?' I asked.

'No. But can't you dream me up?'

'Dream you up?'

'I'm disappointed in you.'

'Again?'

'Still.'

I thought of the footprints in the silt. One pair had belonged to either a boy or a woman.

Not sure of the game, I waited.

She waited, too.

In most of the rafter junctions, spiders had spun webs. Those architects hung, glossy and black, among the pale carca.s.ses of flies and moths on which they had feasted.

Finally I said, 'What do you want?'

'Miracles.'

'By which you mean-what?'

'Fabulous impossible things.'

'Why call me?'

'Who else?'

'I'm a fry cook.'

'Astonish me.'

'I sling hash.'

She said, 'Icy fingers.'

'What?'

'That's what I want.'

'You want icy fingers?'

'Up and down my spine.'

'Get an Eskimo ma.s.seuse.'

'Ma.s.seuse?'

'For the icy fingers.'

The humorless always need to ask, and she did: 'Is that a joke?'

'Not a great one,' I admitted.

'You think everything's funny? Is that the way you are?'

'Not everything.'

'Not very much at all, a.s.shole. You laughing now?'

'No, not now.'

'You know what I think would be funny?'

I didn't reply.

'What I think would be funny is I take a hammer to the little creep's arm.'

Overhead, an eight-legged harpist moved, and silent arpeggios trembled through taut strings of spider silk.

She said, 'Will his bones shatter like gla.s.s?'

I didn't at once respond. I thought before I spoke, then said, 'I'm sorry.'

'What're you sorry for?'

'I'm sorry for offending you with the joke about the Eskimo.'

'Baby, I don't offend.'

'I'm glad to hear that.'

'I just get p.i.s.sed off.'

'I'm sorry. I mean it.'

'Don't be boring,' she said.

I said, 'Please don't hurt him.'

'Why shouldn't I?'

'Why should you?'

'To get what I want,' she said.

'What do you want?'

'Miracles.'

'Maybe it's me, I'm sure it is, but you aren't making sense.'

'Miracles,' she repeated.

'Tell me what I can do?'

'Amazements.'

'What can I do to get him back unhurt?'

'You disappoint me.'

'I'm trying to understand.'

'He's proud of his face, isn't he?' she asked.

'Proud? I don't know.'

'It's the only part of him not screwed up.'

My mouth had gone dry, but not because the shed was hot and layered with dust.

'He's got a pretty face,' she said. 'For now.'

She terminated the call.

Briefly I considered pressing *69 to see if I could ring her back even though she had a block on her caller ID. I did not do it because I suspected this would be a mistake.

Although her cryptic statements shed no light on her enigmatic agenda, one thing seemed clear. She was accustomed to control, and at the mildest challenge to it, she responded with hostility.

Having a.s.signed to herself the aggressive role in this, she expected me to be pa.s.sive. If I star-sixty-nined her, she would no doubt be p.i.s.sed off.

She was capable of cruelty. What anger I inspired in her, she might vent on Danny.

The smell of dry rot. Of dust. Of something dead and desiccated in a shadowy corner.

I returned the phone to my pocket.

On a silken thread, a spider descended from its web, lazily turning in the still air, legs trembling.

NINETEEN.

I RIPPED OUT THE LOCK CYLINDER, SHOVED OPEN THE door, and left the spiders to their preying.

So otherworldly and disturbing had been the flood-control system, so eerie the phone conversation that followed, had I stepped across the threshold into Narnia, I would not have been more than mildly surprised.

In fact, I found myself beyond the limits of Pico Mundo, but not in a land ruled by magic. On all sides lay desert scrub, rocky and remorseless.

This shed stood on a concrete pad twice its size. A chain-link fence enclosed the facility.

I walked the perimeter of this enclosure, studying the rugged landscape, seeking any sign of an observer. The encircling terrain offered no good hiding places.

When it appeared that retreat to the shed, to avoid gunfire, would not be necessary, I climbed the chain-link gate.

The stony ground immediately before me took no impressions. Relying on intuition, I headed south.

The sun had reached its apex. Perhaps five hours of daylight remained before the early winter nightfall.