"Little Gerhard? That can't be true."

"Inspired, I guess, by Little Richard. I don't know for sure. I never heard Little Gerhard sing. Is Viola going to be shot in the head?"

"I don't know." Juicy and cooked medium-well, the meat in the cheeseburger had been enhanced with a perfect pinch of seasoned salt. Poke was a contender. "Like you said, dreams are just dreams."

"She's had things hard. She doesn't need this."

"Shot in the head? Who does need it?"

"Will you look after her?" Terri asked.

"How would I do that?"

"Put out your psychic feelers. Maybe you can stop the thing before it happens."

"I don't have psychic feelers."

"Then ask one of your dead friends. They sometimes know things that are going to happen, don't they?"

"They're generally not friends. Just passing acquaintances. Anyway, they're helpful only when they want to be helpful."

"If I was dead, I'd help you," Terri assured me.

"You're sweet. I almost wish you were dead." I put down the cheeseburger and licked my fingers. "If somebody in Pico Mundo is going to start shooting people, it'll be Fungus Man. "

"Who's he?"

"Sat at the counter a while ago. Ordered enough food for three people. Ate like a ravenous swine."

"That's my kind of customer. But I didn't see him."

"You were in the kitchen. He was pale, soft, with all rounded edges, like something that would grow in Hannibal Lecter's cellar."

"He put off bad vibes?"

"By the time he left, Fungus Man had an entourage of bodachs."

Terri stiffened and looked warily around the restaurant. 'Any of them here now?"

"Nope. The worst thing on the premises at the moment is Bob Sphincter."

The real name of the pinchpenny in question was Spinker, but he earned the secret name we gave him. Regardless of the total of his bill, he always tipped a quarter.

Bob Sphincter fancied himself to be two and a half times more generous than John D. Rockefeller, the oil billionaire. According to legend, even in the elegant restaurants of Manhattan, Rockefeller had routinely tipped a dime.

Of course in John D's day, which included the Great Depression, a dime would purchase a newspaper and lunch at an Automat. Currently, a quarter will get you just a newspaper, and you won't want to read anything in it unless you're a sadist, a masochist, or a suicidally lonely wretch desperate to find true love in the personal ads.

Terri said, "Maybe this Fungus Man was just passing through town, and he hit the highway as soon as he cleaned his plate."

"Got a hunch he's still hanging around."

"You gonna check him out?"

"If I can find him."

"You need to borrow my car?" she asked.

"Maybe for a couple hours."

I walk to and from work. For longer trips, I have a bicycle. In special cases, I use Stormy Llewellyn's car, or Terri's,

So many things are beyond my control: the endless dead with all their requests, the bodachs, the prophetic dreams. I'd probably long ago have gone seven kinds of crazy, one for each day of the week, if I didn't simplify my life in every area where I do have some control. These are my defensive strategies: no car, no life insurance, no more clothes than I absolutely need-mostly T-shirts, chinos, and jeans-no vacations to exotic places, no grand ambitions.

Terri slid her car keys across the table.

"Thanks," I said.

"Just don't haul any dead people around in it. Okay?"

"The dead don't need a ride. They can appear when they want, where they want. They walk through air. They fly."

"All I'm saying is, if you tell me some dead person was sitting in my car, I'll waste a whole day scrubbing the upholstery. It creeps me out."

"What if it's Elvis?"

"That's different." She finished her dill pickle. "How was Rosalia this morning?" she asked, meaning Rosalia Sanchez, my landlady.

"Visible," I said.

"Good for her."

SEVEN

GREEN MOON MALL STANDS ALONG GREEN MOON ROAD, between old-town Pico Mundo and its modern western neighborhoods. The huge structure, with walls the color of sand, had been designed to suggest humble adobe construction, as though it were a home built by a family of gigantic Native Americans averaging forty feet in height.

In spite of this curious attempt at environmentally harmonious but deeply illogical architecture, patrons of the mall can still be Star-bucked, Gapped, Donna Karaned, and Crate amp; Barreled as easily in Pico Mundo as in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, or Miami.

In a corner of the vast parking lot, remote from the mall, stands Tire World. Here the architecture is more playful.

The single-story building supports a tower crowned by a giant globe. This model of Earth, rotating lazily, seems to represent a world of peace and innocence lost when the snake entered Eden.

Like Saturn, this planet sports a ring, not of ice crystals and rocks and dust but of rubber. Encircling the globe is a tire that both rotates and oscillates.

Five service bays ensure that customers will not wait long to have new tires installed. The technicians wear crisp uniforms. They are polite. They smile easily. They seem happy-Car batteries can be purchased here, as well, and oil changes are offered. Tires, however, remain the soul of the operation.

The showroom is saturated with the enchanting scent of rubber waiting for the road.

That Tuesday afternoon, I wandered the aisles for ten or fifteen minutes, undisturbed. Some employees said hello to me, but none tried to sell me anything.

I visit from time to time, and they know that I am interested in the tire life.

The owner of Tire World is Mr. Joseph Mangione. He is the father of Anthony Mangione, who was a friend of mine in high school.

Anthony attends UCLA. He hopes to have a career in medicine.

Mr. Mangione is proud that his boy will be a doctor, but he is disappointed, as well, that Anthony has no interest in the family business. He would welcome me to the payroll and would no doubt treat me as a surrogate son.

Here, tires are available for cars, SUVs, trucks, motorcycles. The sizes and degrees of quality are many; but once the inventory is memorized, no stress would be associated with any job at Tire World.

That Tuesday, I had no intention of resigning my spatula at the Pico Mundo Grille anytime soon, although short-order cooking can be stressful when the tables are full, tickets are backed up on the order rail, and your head is buzzing with diner lingo. On those days that also feature an unusual number of encounters with the dead, in addition to a bustling breakfast and lunch trade, my stomach sours and I know that I am courting not merely burnout but also early-onset gastrointestinal reflux disease.

At times like that, the tire life seems to be a refuge almost as serene as a monastery.

However, even Mr. Mangione's rubber-scented corner of paradise was haunted. One ghost stubbornly inhabited the showroom.

Tom Jedd, a well-regarded local stonemason, had died eight months previous. His car careened off Panorama Road after midnight, broke through rotted guardrails, tumbled down a rocky hundred-foot embankment, and sank in Malo Suerte Lake.

Three fishermen had been in a boat, sixty yards offshore, when Tom went swimming in his PT Cruiser. They called the cops on a cell phone, but emergency-rescue services arrived too late to save him.

Tom's left arm had been severed in the crash. The county coroner declared himself undecided as to whether Tom had bled to death or drowned first.

Since then, the poor guy had been moping around Tire World. I didn't know why. His accident had not been caused by a defective tire.

He'd been drinking at a roadhouse called Country Cousin. The autopsy cited a blood-alcohol level of 1.18, well over the legal limit. He either lost control of the vehicle due to inebriation or he fell asleep at the wheel.