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hasn't been seen for a while?"
    "I did! Where do you suppose she is?"
    "No idea," Neddie said.

CHAPTER 15

Mushroomburgers
    My father has a cream-colored Cadillac convertible with seat covers made of hand-tooled saddle leather, and a set of steer horns mounted on the front. Sometimes he and I drive around aimlessly, listening to cowboy music on the radio. We usually wind up at the mushroomburger place, run by Hindu swamis. I could tell my father was thoughtful by the way he munched his mushroom cheeseburger with hot peppers and curry sauce.
    "I've been thinking about my brother, Herman," he said.
    "Prairie Dog Birnbaum, who disappeared so long ago?" I asked.
    "The very same," my father said, dabbing at his mustache with a napkin. "No one seems to know what happened to him. He just up and vanished one day. I often wonder if he is alive somewhere, or merely dead."
    "If he were alive, wouldn't he have gotten in touch with you sometime in the last fifty years?"
    "Well, Herman was never much for writing," my father said. "It would not be unlike him to keep to himself unless he had something particular to say. I've asked all the old-timers, the cowboys and Indians, if they ever heard anything about him, but no one seems to know. I would like to find out what became of him."
    "Can't you hire detectives? Don't they do that, find people?"
    "Pinkerton men? I've had the Unblinking Eye Private Investigation Agency on the case for months," my father said. "They haven't come up with a thing. I've exhausted every resource but one."
    "And what is that one?"
    "The supernatural," my father said. "Your mother tells me that you have some connections in the spirit world."
    "Well, only a couple, really, to talk with," I said. "But I am acquainted with some ghosts."
    "Of course, your mother believes it's a delusion, brought on by stress, and as a psychiatrist, she'd know, I suppose—but still, perhaps you wouldn't mind making some inquiries."
    "Consider it done," I told my father.

CHAPTER 16

Doughnuts at Dawn
    I woke up all of a sudden at the crack of dawn. Completely awake. And restless. I felt like getting out of the apartment. I dressed in a hurry.
    My mother was already up, doing her morning yoga.
    "I'm going out, Mom," I told her.
    "Remember to breathe deeply, dear," she said, breathing deeply herself while in the "confused cobra" posture. A minute later, I was out in the street. It was neat in the street at that hour. The sun wasn't quite up, and there was a soft, foggy feeling. No cars were running, there were hardly any lights in windows, and the streetlights were still on. I breathed deeply.
    Then I realized I didn't know what I wanted to do now that I was up and outside. It was hours until school. I decided I ought to have breakfast. I walked over to Vine Street and headed for the Rolling Doughnut. It was open twenty-four hours, the sign said—but I'd only ever been there at more normal times, never so early or very late. A fresh cruller and a coffee with cream would be just right in the slightly chilly morning air.
    When I got there, the place was open all right. I could smell the doughnuts cooking way down the block. I went up to the little window, got my cruller and coffee, and carried them to one of the wooden picnic tables. The place was practically deserted—only one other customer, a boy about my age with a low hairline. He was hunched over a black coffee at one of the tables. Ugliest kid I had ever seen—he had pale, greasy-looking skin, coarse black hair in a flattop cut, pudgy hands, a teensy nose, and a fat face. He was wearing a black turtleneck and sunglasses.
    "Mind if I join you?" I asked the ugly kid.
    "What difference does it make?" he said. He seemed depressed and proud of it.
    I sat down across from him. "Sun's coming up," I said, which was kind of stating the obvious, but it was something neutral to say, just to see if he wanted to make conversation.
    "Happens," he said. "Dawn on a doomed world,"