I pressed the red button again. “Op Nine, Op Nine, this is Alfred. Answer if you can hear me. It’s raining. Over.”
I counted to five, and then tried again. “Op Nine, really need to talk to you. This is Alfred, over.”
Nothing. Not even static. Maybe it was defective or maybe the batteries were dead. You would think highly specialized operatives—particularly a SPA like Op Nine—would check their equipment before a covert op like this one.
There was only one way to test it. Technically, I wasn’t in a panic—not yet—but I was about as close as you can get. I decided I could always tell him I hit it accidentally.
I pressed the blue button.
I counted to ten. Nothing happened. He didn’t come bursting through the hedges, gun drawn, to my rescue. He didn’t come at all, even after I reached sixty and then gave up counting, slipped the mini-3XD into my coat pocket, and eased out the door that faced away from the street, so the mother of the saucer-eyed kids wouldn’t see me. I ran bent over to the hedge, then ducked around it, putting it between me and the road. Now maybe if I stood up and walked casually toward the front door she might mistake me for Op Nine—or Detective Bruce Givens—though that seemed unlikely, since he was about three inches taller and twenty pounds lighter. Sometimes you have to go with all that’s left, even if all that’s left is foolish hope.
I sauntered up the walkway to the front door. I didn’t see how Op Nine got in, but I figured I’d start with the door. The concrete was slick with ice and I had to walk very slowly. At the bottom of the steps leading up to the porch was a flower bed filled with leafless shrubs and a small figure standing guard, just to my left.
A yard gnome. I had a thing about yard gnomes, like I told Dr. Benderhall; I’m not sure why. I put them in the same class as clowns: something that’s supposed to be funny but really is kind of scary. This particular yard gnome had seen his share of winters. The paint on the face was flecking off and the paint that remained had faded to various hues of gray.
I dropped to a crouch and shuffled to the door—I wasn’t sure if I could be seen over the top of the hedge. I could hear the neighbor now: Quick, call the cops! It’s that huge-headed hooligan!
So how did he get in? The front door was locked and the two windows on either side were closed and latched down. Maybe he could melt through walls, like a phantom. First I had him pegged as a cyborg; now he could melt through walls.
So I froze up again and tried the blue button one more time while I leaned against the front door.
At that moment, I heard the dead bolt slowly pull back. I scrambled to my feet, turned, and watched as the front door creaked open about two inches.
“Op Nine?” I whispered.
Nothing. So I took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and stepped inside my own personal house of horrors.
37
The first thing I noticed was the smell of cat. It’s an unmistakable odor and also unavoidable, no matter how often you change the litter box. If this was a movie, the cat would leap out of the dark at me, I would scream, the audience would jump, and then both of us would go “whew!” right before the slasher came barreling out of the shadows with the butcher knife. I should probably neutralize the cat before proceeding.
The second thing I noticed was the yard gnome.
Was it the same gnome from outside? In semidarkness almost everything took on shades of gray, so I couldn’t be one hundred percent positive, but it could have been the same gnome, now standing a few feet inside the entryway. Same height, same rubbed-out face, same creepy ambience that all yard gnomes have.
Cold air blew through the open door behind me, so I pushed it closed, keeping my eye on the gnome. It didn’t move. Well, I didn’t really expect it to come to life, did I? Yard gnomes don’t come to life, not in the real world. Then I thought, with a pang of sadness, that the real world was gone, the world I knew before Bernard Samson, OIPEP, the Sword of Kings, and the Seal of Solomon came into my life.
That world was gone and never coming back, even if we somehow got the genie back in the bottle. Like Dr. Merryweather had said, we had crossed the threshold into a new reality, and maybe it wasn’t looking into the demon’s eyes that had me so screwed up—maybe it was the loss of everything that made sense to me.
“Okay, look,” I said to the gnome. “I’m not afraid of you.” Probably the first time in the history of the world anyone had said that to a yard gnome—also probably the first time anyone had ever lied to a yard gnome.
He just stared back at me wearing that sly little grin.
To heck with it. “Op Nine!” I shouted. “Op Nine, where are you?”
The lights in the entryway blazed on and the floorboards creaked behind me. I whirled around, jamming my hand into my coat pocket, fumbling for the mini-3XD Op Nine had given me in the car.
An old lady stood by the front door, wearing purple house slippers with a flowery print that matched her robe. On her left hand she wore an oven mitt. In her right, she held a gun, pointed directly at the center of my forehead.
“If you move, dear, you’re dead,” she announced.
“I’m going to take my hand out of my pocket,” I said. “Okay?”
She nodded. “Slowly, dear. It’s late and I’m jumpy.”
I slowly brought my right hand into view and then raised both into the air.
“I’m not a burglar,” I said.
She smiled. I got an eyeful of large, sparkling white teeth with oversized incisors, just like Mike’s. She had a small head and a wide, round face, crisscrossed with wrinkles and deep creases, her eyes bright blue and kind.
She dropped the gun into the pocket of her robe and I took that as a signal I could lower my hands. We stood there for a second, staring at each other.
“I’m Alfred Kropp,” I said.
“I know who you are, dear,” she said. “Michael said you might show up. Well, not you specifically, but someone from his company.”
“That’s actually who I came in looking for,” I said.
“Well, you won’t find him here. I sent him on his way. Police detective!” She trilled a little laugh.
“That’s good,” I said. “I was afraid maybe you shot him.”
I was trapped between her and the yard gnome by the stairs. Why would someone put a yard gnome by their stairs?
“I’ve baked an apple pie, Alfred. Would you like a slice?”
“I’m not really that hungry.”