"As I recall, he was especially fond of his mama, wasn't he?"

"He adored her," I said.

"Isn't she dead, too?"

"Much longer than he's been, yes."

"Then they're together again, aren't they?"

"Not as long as he's reluctant to let go of this world. She's over there in the light, and he's stuck here."

"Why won't he move on?"

"Sometimes they have important unfinished business here."

"Like little Penny Kallisto this morning, leading you to Harlo Landerson."

"Yes, sir. And sometimes they just love this world so much they don't want to leave it."

The chief nodded. "This world sure was good to him."

"If it's unfinished business, he's had more than twenty-six years to take care of it," I noted.

The chief squinted toward Lysette Rains, trying to see some smallest evidence of her spirit companion-a wisp of ectoplasm, a vague distortion of the air, a quiver of mystical radiance. "He made some great music."

"Yes, he did."

"You tell him he's always welcome here."

"I will, sir. That's kind of you."

"Are you sure you can't stay for dinner?"

"Thank you, sir, but I've got a date."

"With Stormy, I'm sure."

"Yes, sir. My destiny."

"You're a smooth operator, Odd. She must love to hear you say that-'my destiny.'"

"I love to hear me say it."

The chief put his arm around my shoulders and walked me to the gate at the north side of the house. "Best thing that can happen to a man is a good woman."

"Stormy is beyond just good."

"I'm happy for you, son." He lifted the latch and opened the gate for me. "Don't you worry about this Bob Robertson. We'll dog him, but so he doesn't suspect we're watching. He tries to make a wrong move, we'll be all over him."

"I'll worry just the same, sir. He's a very bad man."

When I got to the Mustang, Elvis was already sitting in the passenger's seat.

The dead don't need to walk where they want to go-or ride in a car, for that matter. When they choose to walk or cruise the streets, they're motivated by nostalgia.

From the poolside party to the Mustang, he had changed out of the clothes from Blue Hawaii. Now he was wearing black slacks, a dressy tweed sport coat, white shirt, black tie, and black pocket handkerchief, an outfit from (as Terri Stambaugh later told me) It Happened at the World's Fair.

Driving away from the Porter house, we listened to "Stuck on You," as infectious a tune as ever the King recorded.

Elvis rapped out the rhythm on his knees and bobbed his head, but the tears kept flowing.

FIFTEEN

IN DOWNTOWN PICO MUNDO, AS WE WERE PASSING A church, Elvis indicated that he wanted me to pull to the curb.

When I stopped the car, he held out his right hand to me. His grip was as real and warm as Penny Kallisto's.

Instead of shaking my hand, he clasped it in both of his. Maybe he was simply thanking me, but it seemed like more than that.

He appeared to be worried about me. He gently squeezed my hand, staring intensely at me with evident concern, and then squeezed my hand again.

"It's all right," I said, although I had no idea whether that was in any way an adequate response.

He got out of the car without opening the door-just phased through it-and walked up the steps of the church. I watched until he passed through the heavy oak doors and out of sight.

My dinner date with Stormy wasn't until eight o'clock, so I had time to kill.

Keep busy, Granny Sugars used to say, even if with poker, fighting, and fast cars, because idleness will get you in worse trouble.

Even lacking Grandma's advice, I couldn't just have gone to my rendezvous point with Stormy and waited for her. With nothing else to occupy my mind, I'd dwell on Bob Robertson and his demonic files.

Cruising away from the church, I phoned P. Oswald Boone, he of the four hundred pounds and the six-fingered left hand.

Little Ozzie answered on the second ring. "Odd, my beautiful cow exploded."

"Exploded?"

"Boom," said Little Ozzie. "One minute all is right with the world, and the next minute your fabulous cow is blown to bits."

"When did this happen? I haven't heard anything about it."

"Exactly two hours and twenty-six minutes ago. The police have been here and gone, and I believe that even they, with all their experience of criminal savagery, were shocked by this."

"I just saw Chief Porter, and he didn't mention it."

"After they left here, the responding officers no doubt needed a stiff drink or two before writing their report."

"How're you doing?" I asked.

"I'm not bereft, because that would be a morally offensive over-reaction, but I am sad."

"I know how much you loved that cow."

"I loved that cow," he confirmed.

"I was thinking of coming over for a visit, but maybe this isn't the best time."

"This is the perfect time, dear Odd. Nothing is worse than being alone on the evening of the day when one's cow has exploded."

"I'll be there in a few minutes," I promised.

Little Ozzie lives in Jack Flats, which fifty years ago was called Jack Rabbit Flats, an area west and downhill from the historical district. I have no idea where the rabbit went.

When the picturesque downtown commercial district began to be a tourist draw in the late 1940s, it was given a series of quaintness injections to increase its appeal. The less photogenic enterprises- muffler shops, tire stores, gun shops-were squeezed to the Flats.

Then twenty years ago, glittering new commercial centers arose along Green Moon Road and Joshua Tree Highway. They drained customers from the shabbier businesses in the Flats.

Gradually during the past fifteen years, Jack Flats has been gentrified. Old commercial and industrial buildings were bulldozed. Homes, townhomes, and upscale apartments took their place.

The first to settle in the neighborhood when few could see its future, Little Ozzie purchased a one-acre parcel on which had stood a long-out-of-business restaurant. There he built his dream home.

This two-story, Craftsman-style residence has an elevator, wide doorways, and steel-reinforced floors. Ozzie constructed it both to accommodate his proportions and to withstand the punishment that he might inflict upon it if eventually he becomes, as Stormy fears, one of those men for whom the attending mortician requires a crane and a flatbed truck.

When I parked in front of the now cowless house, I was more shocked by the carnage than I had expected to be.

Standing under one of the Indian laurels that cast long shadows in the westering sun, I stared in dismay at the giant carcass. All things of this earth eventually pass away, but sudden and premature departures are nonetheless disturbing.

The four legs, chunks of the blasted head, and slabs of the body were scattered across the front lawn, shrubbery, and walkway. In a particularly macabre touch, the inverted udder had landed on one of the gateposts in the picket fence, and the teats pointed skyward.

This black-and-white Holstein cow, approximately the size of an

SUV had previously stood atop two twenty-foot-tall steel poles, neither of which had been damaged in the explosion. The only thing left on that high perch was the cow's butt, which had shifted position until it faced the street, as if mooning passersby.

Under the plastic Holstein had once hung a sign for the steakhouse restaurant that had previously occupied the property. When he built his home, Little Ozzie had not preserved the sign, only the giant plastic bovine.

To Ozzie, the cow wasn't merely the largest lawn ornament in the world. It was art.

Of the many books that he has written, four have been about art, so he ought to know what he's talking about. In fact, because he is Pico Mundo's most famous resident (living, anyway) and perhaps its most respected, and because he was building a home in the Flats when everyone else expected it to remain a blighted zone in perpetuity, only Little Ozzie could have argued successfully before the city building department to keep the cow, as sculpture.