Mrs. Bullock said, “Well, Oddie, we didn’t figure you’d be back till late.”
“I put a few things together and realized the safe house was going to be attacked. I’m sorry I brought them down on you.”
She looked surprised. “Oh, shush, wasn’t nothin’ you did or even you bein’ here that caused this darn foolishness.”
“This here kind of squabble happens once’t in a while,” her husband assured me.
“Squabble?”
“Tussle, scrap, whatever you feel like callin’ it.”
“Every now and then,” said Maybelle, “their kind gets a bead on one of our safe houses, so they show up all full of mayhem.”
“An operation like this here tonight,” Mr. Bullock said, “takes these bastards some plannin’. For sure they been on to us some weeks now, long before you come around.”
Maybelle said, “Maybe it was ’cause of the astronaut they got on the scent of this lovely place.”
“Or that cute-as-a-button ballerina girl,” said Mr. Bullock.
His wife grimaced and shook her head. “Oh, they wanted that dear girl so bad, a thousand of their kind would’ve slit their own throats if maybe it would gain ’em just a thin chance to slit hers.”
“Do these squabbles always end like this?” I asked.
“Gracious, no,” Maybelle said. She smiled at her husband and then looked at me again. “Was it that easy, then this war would be done before it ever did start.”
“Sometimes, it’s our folks end up dead as dirt.” Deacon winked at his wife. “But not here and now.”
“Not here and now,” she said.
Mentally, I was wobbling a little from thinking about the scope of the secret conflict that all of this implied. “I didn’t realize the cult was so big.”
“Them cultists that want to sink their teeth in you, dear? Why, they aren’t big at all. Them and others like ’em wasn’t the ones would’ve killed our astronaut had they got their hands on him.”
“Or that little ballerina,” her husband said.
“Or that Army lieutenant, he won the big medal.”
“Or that comedian, years ago, we had to fake his death and do him a new face.”
“It’s not one cult,” Maybelle said, “it’s a way of thinkin’.”
Mr. Bullock agreed. “Thinkin’, What is it I want, and how can I take it from someone that has it.”
“Thinkin’, Who is it I hate or envy most, and how can they be got rid of,” Maybelle said.
“Thinkin’, Can’t be me made a mess of my life, must be your fault, so you’re gonna pay.”
“A way of thinking,” I said. “But it’s a way that an awful lot of people think.”
“But not anywheres near the most of ’em,” Maybelle said. “Not the most, and that’s one reason why doin’ what we do is worth doin’.”
“I hope you’re right, ma’am.”
“Call me Maybelle.”
“Yes, ma’am. What happens to you now?”
“Me and Deke? We move on wherever.”
“Wherever?”
“Wherever Edie Fischer thinks best. Most often some far place from where we was last.”
“So the clean-up crew you mentioned deals with the dead bodies?”
“Well, it’s partly what keeps ’em busy.”
“What happens to this house?”
Mr. Bullock said, “Clean-up crew tears all the tricks out, puts things back like they was before us, makes it normal as normal ever can be, so it’ll get sold. No safe house never can be a safe house again once’t the bastards know about it.”
Mrs. Bullock finished her spiked coffee and smiled. “We been here three interestin’ years, made some fine memories. But it does a person good to move on from time to time, keeps you fresh.”
Mr. Bullock reached into his shirt pocket. “I hate how it vibrates like a squirmin’ lizard.” He produced a cell phone, put it to his ear, said “yeah” three times, “dang” once, and “no” twice before he terminated the call.
His wife asked, “Clean-up?”
“Yep. Them boys got a job and a half this time around. They’ll be pullin’ in the driveway in about two minutes.”
I said, “They got here really fast.”
“This team is mostly close, a lot of the time just over in Vegas. Got themselves more cleanin’ up to do there than here.”
Looking at my watch, I said, “Did they teleport or something?”
“We had us three false alarms today,” he said.
“One just before dinner,” I remembered.
“Right after that, I called out to Vegas for clean-up, told ’em there’s likely to be one mess or t’other.”
“How did you know the alarms weren’t false?”
“One false alarm in a day,” Maybelle said, “might be nothin’ but truly false. More than one, well, then you got to figure they’re all as real as my own teeth.”
“You’ve got beautiful teeth, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Oddie. I always say everythin’ worthwhile starts with a nice smile.”
Mr. Bullock got up from his chair. “Boss lady’s right behind the crew.”
I rose to my feet. “You mean Mrs. Fischer?”
“About six o’clock, she come in town from the coast with them three friends of yours.”
That would be Annamaria, Tim, and Blossom Rosedale, the Happy Monster.
“Edie holed up somewhere safe with ’em,” Mr. Bullock said. “We don’t got to know where. Don’t want to know. She’s come here just herself now, with the clean-up crew, so she can chat with you, son.”
The three of us stepped onto the front porch as a forty-foot box truck and a paneled van appeared out of the dark colonnades of velvet ash. Neither vehicle sported a company name. They swept past the house to park in the backyard.
A black superstretch Mercedes limousine with tinted windows followed close behind the paneled van and stopped in the driveway, near the front porch. The driver doused the headlights.
Mr. Bullock said, “Edie wants to see you in the car, son. The biggest dang snoops in the world, with all their evil electronic ears, won’t never hear but even a word of what’s said in that limo. Get in the front, ’cause she’s drivin’ herself.”
Thirty-three