"I don't think so. I don't know. Maybe."

The fish tacos were swimming the acidic currents of my stomach, churning a bitter backwash into my throat.

My palms were damp. And cold. I blotted them on my jeans.

I almost wanted to drive back to Stormy's place and get her gun.

CHAPTER 22.

THE BOWLING-CENTER PARKING LOT WAS TWO-thirds full. I circled, searching for Robertson's Explorer, but I couldn't find it.

Finally I parked and switched off the engine.

Stormy opened the pa.s.senger's door, and I said, "Wait."

"Don't make me call you Mulder," she warned.

Staring at the green and blue neon letters that spelled out Green Moon Lanes, I hoped to get a sense of whether the slaughter I had foreseen was imminent or still some distance in the future. The neon failed to speak to my sixth sense.

The architect for the bowling center had designed it with a responsible awareness of the expense involved in air-conditioning a large building in the Mojave. The squat structure, which featured low ceilings inside, thwarted heat transfer by using a minimum of gla.s.s. Pale beige stucco walls reflected the sun during the day and cooled quickly with the coming of night.

In the past this building had not seemed ominous; its character impressed me only because of the efficiency of design, for it had the clean lines and the plain facade of most modern buildings in the desert. Now it reminded me of a munitions bunker, and I sensed that a tremendous explosion might soon occur within its walls. Munitions bunker, crematorium, tomb "The employees here wear black slacks and blue cotton shirts with white collars," I told Stormy.

"So?"

"In my dream, the victims all wear tan slacks and green polo shirts."

Still in her seat but with one leg out of the Mustang, one foot on the blacktop, she said, "Then this isn't the place. There's some other reason you cruised here. It's safe to go inside, see if we can figure out why we're here."

"Over at Fiesta Bowl," I said, referring to the only other bowling center in Pico Mundo and surrounding environs, "they wear gray slacks and black shirts with their names st.i.tched in white on the breast pockets."

"Then your dream must be about something that's going to happen outside Pico Mundo."

"That's never been the case before."

I have lived my entire life in the relative peace of Pico Mundo and the territory immediately encircling it. I have not even seen the farther reaches of Maravilla County, of which our town is the county seat.

If I were to live to be eighty, which is unlikely and which is a prospect that I view with despondency if not despair, I might one day venture into the open countryside and even as far as one of the smaller towns in the county. But perhaps not.

I don't desire a change of scenery or exotic experiences. My heart yearns for familiarity, stability, the comfort of home - and my sanity depends upon it.

In a city the size of Los Angeles, with so many people crammed atop one another, violence occurs daily, hourly. The number of b.l.o.o.d.y encounters in a single year might be greater than those in the entire history of Pico Mundo.

The aggressive whirl of Los Angeles traffic produces death as surely as a bakery produces m.u.f.fins. Earthquakes, apartment-house fires, terrorist incidents I can only imagine how many lingering dead people haunt the streets of that metropolis or any other. In such a place, with so many of the deceased turning to me for justice or consolation, or just for silent companionship, I would no doubt quickly seek escape in autism or suicide.

Not yet either dead or autistic, however, I had to face the challenge of Green Moon Lanes.

"All right," I said, able to summon resignation if not bravado, "let's go in and have a look around."

With nightfall, the blacktop pavement returned the heat that it had borrowed from the sun during the day, and with the heat came a faint tarry smell.

So low and large that it seemed to be falling toward us, the moon had risen in the east: a dire yellow countenance, the vague cratered sockets of its timeless blind gaze.

Perhaps because Granny Sugars had been seriously superst.i.tious about yellow moons and believed that they were an omen of bad cards in poker, I surrendered to an irrational urge to escape from the sight of that leprous and jaundiced celestial face. Taking Stormy's hand, I hurried her toward the front doors of the bowling center.

Bowling is one of the oldest sports in the world and in one form or another was played as early as 5,200 B.C.

In the United States alone, over 130,000 lanes await action in more than 7,000 bowling centers.

Total annual bowling revenues in America are approaching five billion dollars.

With the hope of clarifying my recurring dream and understanding the meaning of it, I had researched bowling. I knew a thousand facts about the subject, none of them particularly interesting.

I also rented shoes and played eight or ten games. I am no good at the sport.

Watching me play, Stormy had once said that if I were to become a regular bowler, I would spend far more time in the gutter than would the average alcoholic hobo.

Over sixty million people in the United States go bowling at least once each year. Nine million of them are diehards who belong to bowling leagues and regularly compete in amateur tournaments.

When Stormy and I entered Green Moon Lanes that Tuesday night, a significant percentage of those millions were rolling b.a.l.l.s down polished lanes toward more spares than splits, but more splits than strikes. They were laughing, cheering one another, eating nachos, eating chili-cheese fries, drinking beer, and having such a good time that it was difficult to imagine Death choosing this place to harvest a sudden crop of souls.

Difficult but not impossible.

I must have been pale, because Stormy said, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Okay. I'm good."

The low thunder of rolling b.a.l.l.s and the clatter of tenpins had never previously struck me as fearsome sounds; but this irregular series of rumbles and crashes strummed my nerves.

"What now?" Stormy asked.

"Good question. No answer."

"You want to just wander around, scope the scene, see if you get any bad vibes?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Scope the scene. Bad vibes."

We didn't wander far before I saw something that made my mouth go dry. "Oh, my G.o.d."

The guy behind the shoe-rental counter had not come to work in the usual black slacks and blue cotton shirt with white collar. He wore tan slacks and a green polo shirt, like the dead people in my bowling dream.

Stormy turned, surveying the long busy room, and pointed toward two additional employees. "They've all gotten new uniforms."

Like every nightmare, this one of mine was vivid and yet not rich in detail, more surreal than real, not specific as to place or time or circ.u.mstances. The faces of the murder victims were twisted in agony, distorted by terror and shadow and strange light, and when I woke, I could never describe them well.

Except for one young woman. She would be shot in the chest and throat, but her face would remain remarkably untouched by violence. She would have s.h.a.ggy blond hair, green eyes, and a small beauty mark on her upper lip, near the left corner of her mouth.

As Stormy and I proceeded farther into Green Moon Lanes, I saw the blonde from the dream. She stood behind the bar, drawing draft beer from one of the taps.

CHAPTER 23.

STORMY AND I SAT AT A TABLE IN THE BAR ALCOVE, but we didn't order drinks. I was already half drunk with fear.

I wanted to get her out of the bowling alley. She didn't want to leave.

"We've got to deal with this situation," she insisted.

The only way that I could deal with it was to phone Chief Wyatt Porter and tell him, with little explanation, that when Bob Robertson had his coming-out party to celebrate his status as a full-fledged murderous psychopath, the site of his debutante ball was likely to be Green Moon Lanes.

For a man tired from a day of hard work, bloated with barbecue and beer, and ready for bed, the chief responded with admirable quickness and clarity of mind. "How late are they open?"

Phone to my right ear, finger in my left ear to block the alley noise, I said, "I think until midnight, sir."

"A little more than two hours. I'll dispatch an officer right now, have him stand security, be on the lookout for Robertson. But, son, you said this might go down August fifteenth - tomorrow, not today."

"That's the date on the calendar page in his file. I'm not sure what it means. I won't be certain it couldn't happen today until today is over and he hasn't shot anyone."

"Any of these things you call bodachs there?"

"No, sir. But they could show up when he does."

"He hasn't returned home to Camp's End yet," the chief said, "so he's out and about. How were the churros?"

"Delicious," I told him.

"After the barbecue, we had a difficult choice between mud pie and homemade peach pie. I thought it through carefully and had some of both."

"If ever I had a glimpse of Heaven, sir, it was a slice of Mrs. Porter's peach pie."

"I'd have married her for the peach pie alone, but fortunately she was smart and beautiful, too."

We said good-bye. I clipped the cell phone to my belt and told Stormy we needed to get out of there.

She shook her head. "Wait. If the blond bartender isn't here, the shooting won't happen." She kept her voice low, leaning close to be heard over the clash and clatter of bowlers bowling. "So somehow we get her to leave."

"No. A premonition in a dream isn't in every detail a picture of exactly exactly what will happen. She could be home safe, and the shooter could show up here anyway." what will happen. She could be home safe, and the shooter could show up here anyway."

"But at least she she will have been saved. One less victim." will have been saved. One less victim."

"Except that somebody else who wouldn't wouldn't have died might be shot in her place. Like the bartender who replaces her. Or me. Or you." have died might be shot in her place. Like the bartender who replaces her. Or me. Or you."

"Might be." be."

"Yes, might might be, but how can I save one if there's a likelihood that it means condemning another?" be, but how can I save one if there's a likelihood that it means condemning another?"

Three or four bowling b.a.l.l.s slammed into pin setups in quick succession. The racket sounded a little like automatic gunfire, and though I knew it wasn't wasn't gunfire, I twitched anyway. gunfire, I twitched anyway.

I said, "I've got no right to decide that someone else should die in her place."

Prophetic dreams - and the complex moral choices they present - come to me only rarely. I'm grateful for that.

"Besides," I said, "what's her reaction going to be if I walk over to the bar and tell her she's going to be shot to death if she doesn't get out of here."

"She'll think you're eccentric or dangerous, but she might go."

"She won't. She'll stay there. She won't want to jeopardize her job. She won't want to appear fearful, because that makes her look weak, and these days women don't want to seem weak any more than men do. Later she might ask someone to walk with her to her car, but that's all."

Stormy stared at the blonde behind the bar while I surveyed the room for any bodachs that might precede the executioner. n.o.body here but us humans.

"She's so pretty, so full of life," Stormy said, meaning the bartender. "So much personality, such an infectious laugh."

"She seems more alive to you because you know she might be fated to die young."

"It just seems wrong to walk out and leave her there," Stormy said, "without warning her, without giving her a chance." chance."

"The best way to give her a chance, to give all all the potential victims a chance, is to stop Robertson before he does anything." the potential victims a chance, is to stop Robertson before he does anything."

"What's the likelihood you'll stop him?"

"Better than if he'd never come into the Grille this morning and I'd never gotten a look at him with his bodach entourage."

"But you can't be sure you'll stop him."

"Nothing's for sure in this world."

Searching my eyes, she thought about what I'd said, and then reminded me: "Except us."

"Except us." I pushed my chair away from the table. "Let's go."