A SOFT, BARREN AFTERSHOCK

Stories of Wonder and Dread

F. Paul Wilson

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Who is Repairman Jack?

ABOUT THIS EBOOK

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD

THE CLEANING MACHINE

RATMAN

LIPIDLEGGIN’

TO FILL THE SEA AND AIR

A DAY IN THE LIFE

THE LAST RAKOSH

FACES

BUCKETS

LYSING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM

MENAGE A TROIS

GREEN WINTER

BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY

HOME REPAIRS

THE LONG WAY HOME

GOOD FRIDAY

SOFT

THE LAST “ONE MO’ ONCE GOLDEN OLDIES REVIVAL”

THE YEARS THE MUSIC DIED

DAT-TAY-VAO

DOC JOHNSON

TRAPS

MUSCLES

CUTS

PERFORMANCE

THE WRINGER

INTERLUDE AT DUANE’S

DO-GOODER

RECALLED

PINEY POWER

NIGHT DRIVE

MEMOIRS OF THE EFFSTER

RUMORS

HUNTERS

DREAMS

THE NOVEMBER GAME

WHEN HE WAS FAB

FOET

PLEASE DON’T HURT ME

ARYANS AND ABSINTHE

OFFSHORE

ITSBY-BITSY SPIDER

COPPE

AFTERSHOCK

ANNA

SOLE CUSTODY

SEX SLAVES OF THE DRAGON TONG

PART OF THE GAME

DEMONSONG

HIGHER CENTERS

THE MAN WITH THE ANTEATER

PARD

THE SOUND OF BLUNDER

FEELINGS

TENANTS

THE TENTH TOE

SLASHER

THE BARRENS

DEFINITVE THERAPY

TOPSY

ROCKABILLY

BOB DYLAN,

TROY JOHNSON,

AND THE SPEED QUEEN

PELTS

MIDNIGHT MASS

SOURCE MATERIAL

STORIES NOT INCLUDED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Francis Paul Wilson was born on May 17, 1946 in Jersey City, New Jersey. He misspent his youth playing with matches, poring over Uncle Scrooge and E.C. comics, reading Lovecraft, Matheson, Bradbury, and Heinlein, listening to Chuck Berry and Alan Freed on the radio, and watching Soupy Sales and Shock Theatre with Zacherley.

He is an American author, primarily in the science fiction and horror genres. His debut novel was Healer (1976). Wilson is also a part-time practicing family physician. He made his first sales in 1970 to Analog while still in medical school (graduating in 1973), and continued to write science fiction throughout the seventies.

In 1981, he ventured into the horror genre with the international bestseller, The Keep, and helped define the field throughout the rest of the decade.

In the 1990s, he became a true genre hopper, moving from science fiction to horror to medical thrillers and branching into interactive scripting for Disney Interactive and other multimedia companies. He, along with Matthew J. Costello, created and scripted FTL Newsfeed which ran daily on the Sci-Fi Channel from 1992-1996.F. Paul Wilson was born and raised in New Jersey
F. Paul Wilson is the author of more than forty books: science fiction (HEALER, WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS, AN ENEMY OF THE STATE, DYDEETOWN WORLD, THE TERY, SIMS), horror thrillers (THE KEEP, THE TOMB, THE TOUCH, REBORN, REPRISAL, NIGHTWORLD, BLACK WIND, SIBS, MIDNIGHT MASS), contemporary thrillers (THE SELECT, IMPLANT, DEEP AS THE MARROW), novels that defy categorization (THE FIFTH HARMONIC, VIRGIN) and a number of collaborations. In 1998 he resurrected his popular antihero, Repairman Jack, and has chronicled his adventures in LEGACIES, CONSPIRACIES, ALL THE RAGE, HOSTS, THE HAUNTED AIR, GATEWAYS, CRISSCROSS, INFERNAL, HARBINGERS, BLOODLINE, BY THE SWORD, GROUND ZERO, and FATAL ERROR.

He has peeked into Jack's teenage life in the young adult novels, JACK: SECRET HISTORIES, JACK: SECRET CIRCLES and JACK: SECRET VENGEANCE.

Most of his short stories are collected in SOFT & OTHERS (1989), THE BARRENS & OTHERS (1998), and AFTERSHOCK & OTHERS (2009). Plus, a collection of Repairman Jack short stories in QUICK FIXES (2011).

He has edited two anthologies: FREAK SHOW (1992) and DIAGNOSIS: TERMINAL (1996). He has written for stage, screen, and interactive media as well.

THE KEEP, THE TOMB, HARBINGERS, and BY THE SWORD all appeared on the New York Times Bestsellers List. WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS won the first Prometheus Award in 1979; SIMS won another, THE TOMB received the Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books. His novelette "Aftershock" won the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for short fiction. DYDEETOWN WORLD was on the young adult recommended reading lists of the American Library Association and the New York Public Library, among others.

He was awarded the prestigious Inkpot Award from the San Diego ComiCon and the Pioneer Award from the RT Booklovers Convention. He is listed in the 50th anniversary edition of Who's Who in America.

His novel THE KEEP was made into a visually striking but otherwise incomprehensible movie (screenplay and direction by Michael Mann) by Paramount in 1983. THE TOMB is in development as “Repairman Jack” by Beacon Films and (we hope) will not suffer a similar fate. His original teleplay "Glim-Glim" aired on Monsters in 1989.

An adaptation of his short story "Ménage a Trois" was part of the pilot for The Hunger series that debuted on Showtime in July 1997. "Pelts" was adapted by Dario Argento for Masters of Horror.

Who is Repairman Jack?

He’s an urban mercenary in Manhattan, a self-made outcast who lives in the interstices of modern society. A ghost in our machine: no official identity, no social security number, pays no taxes. He has a violent streak he sometimes finds hard to control. He hires out for cash to "fix" situations that have no legal remedy.

The name Repairman Jack comes from his gunrunner pal, Abe. Jack’s not crazy about it, but he lives with it. He’s not a vigilante, not a do-gooder. He’s not out to right wrongs. Nor is he out to change the world or fight crime. (He’s a career criminal, after all, as are many of his friends.) He’s not Batman. He’s just a guy with a devious mind who likes his work best when he can see to it that what goes around comes around. If you follow him carefully you’ll see he gets a real jolt out of running a scam or setting up someone to be hoisted on his own petard.

He came from a dream. The scene on the roof in The Tomb was that dream. I worked backward and forward from there to create a character who could survive that situation.

I decided on an anti-Jason Bourne – with no black-ops, SEAL, or Special Forces training, no CIA or police background, no connection to officialdom. In other words, no safety net. No one in officialdom he could call on. He has to rely on his own wits and his own network.

I’ve been a libertarian forever, so I figured I’d act out my libertarian dreams, you know, make this guy an anarchist with no identity. But as I’ve continued his adventures, I’ve learned that it takes a lot of effort to live below the radar, especially since 9/11.

I intended Jack as a one-shot, which is kind of obvious at the end of The Tomb. As I finished that novel, I thought, “Well, this character is definitely series material, so I gotta make it look like the guy is dead or they’ll want more.” I had books planned out and didn’t want to get locked into a series.

Then, later on, Jack became a way out of a trap I’d got myself into with a medical thriller contract. I’d become bored with writing them after doing three and I was contracted to do a fourth… but I had this idea for a techy thriller and thought, why don’t I rework this and use Jack again? It’d be great for him. I named it Legacies and made his client a doctor so I could call it a medical thriller. The publisher was happy I was bringing back a character my fans wanted to see again, and I was happy to revisit Jack. A win-win.

Legacies was fun and sold well, so I had to do another, and then another, and before I knew it, Jack had taken over my writing career.

But before Legacies, I brought him back in shorter works.

F. Paul Wilson

2011

ABOUT THIS EBOOK

I created this eBook to gather as many of F. Paul Wilson’s short stories and novellas as possible.

All the stories contained within this exhaustive collection were either scanned by me from originally published print-material that I owned; or in one instance, converted from an electronic version (that I had previously purchased).

As such, some of these versions may differ slightly than what may be found in newer collections/versions; as the author (or his editor) decided to “update” some portions of the text/words/spelling etc. of some of the stories.

Rest assured, I present every single word of these stories/novellas as originally written by the author – nothing has been altered or omitted.

For technical reasons, I omitted the author’s two published screenplays from my collection. These two items just did not “translate” well into the eBook format very well (without losing the author’s original layout/intent of how the screenplay was to be read).

I also decided not include several of the author’s longer novellas for two main reasons:

1) After scanning/cleaning and formatting them, most of them were near or over 100 pages long; and for space considerations decided against including them

2) Many of the novellas were also word-for-word excerpts from existing novels, and again, for space considerations (as well as not wanting to duplicate text), I decided not to include them here.

I formatted all the material to display, as best possible, on current eReaders, while keeping the original layout & design and format as closely as possible.  It is essential to understand that due to the variables of the eReaders, how the owner has the device set to display text and the software (or settings in Calibre) someone uses to convert my epub into a different file format – the individual “reading experience” may vary from my original intent.

One note about the spelling, punctuation and grammar found in this eBook. Due to the author’s writing styles in many of these stories, his use of specific medical terms/terminology, and his reproducing of certain dialects/ways his characters speak, there may appear to be several errors that I missed during the format phase of constructing this eBook. I strove to correct all spelling and punctuation errors created during the “scanning” phase. I apologize for any minor errors I may have missed.

Finally, it is my sincerest desire that you have the best possible reading experience when reading these wonderful stories from F. Paul Wilson.

Flyboy707

October, 2011

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD

The preponderance of F. Paul Wilson’s work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. The works listed below are in the chronological order.

Note: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.

THE PAST

“Demonsong” (prehistory)

“Aryans and Absinthe” (1923–1924)

Black Wind (1926–1945)

The Keep (1941)

Reborn (February–March 1968)

“Dat Tay Vao” (March 1968)

Jack: Secret Histories (1983)

Jack: Secret Circles (1983)

Jack: Secret Vengeance (1983)

“Faces” (1989)

YEAR ZERO MINUS THREE

Sibs (February)

“Faces” (early summer)

The Tomb (summer)

“The Barrens” (ends in September)

“A Day in the Life” (October)

“The Long Way Home”

Legacies (December)

YEAR ZERO MINUS TWO

Conspiracies (April)

“Interlude at Duane’s” (April)

All the Rage (May)

Hosts (June)

The Haunted Air (August)

Gateways (September)

Crisscross (November)

Infernal (December)

YEAR ZERO MINUS ONE

Harbingers (January)

Bloodline (April)

By the Sword (May)

The Touch (ends in August)

The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium (ends in September)

“Tenants”

YEAR ZERO

“Pelts”

Reprisal (ends in February)

Fatal Error (February)

The Dark at the End (March)

Nightworld (starts in May)

THE CLEANING MACHINE

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays I like to think of the device in this story as one of the Seven Infernals listed in the Compendium of Srem, but it started off with no pedigree.

I wrote “The Cleaning Machine” (now there’s a gripping title) in 1969 during medical school. I thought of it as a science-fiction horror story. I mean, it had a weird machine, so that made it sf, right? And bad things happened to people, so that made it horror, sort of. Whatever the genre, it was the best thing I’d written so far.

And I couldn’t give it away.

The story earned form-letter rejections from every sf and fantasy periodical I could find an address for. Only John W. Campbell (Yes! I sent a horror story to Analog! What was I thinking?) had the courtesy to tell me why it did not suit his editorial needs at that time. (He always told me why he was rejecting my stories, and I always will revere him for that. When he’d accept one, however, he sent only a check.)

He wrote: “It’s not a story because it doesn’t go anywhere. (The tenants did but the story doesn’t!) It’s a vignette.”

Cool. I’d written a vignette, whatever that was—sounded like those sugary things they serve at Café Du Monde in the French Quarter. But I still didn’t have a sale.

And Campbell was right, as usual. “The Cleaning Machine” didn’t work as science fiction, but I had faith in it. Vignette or not, I felt it was a decent piece of quiet horror. Trouble was, hardly anyone was publishing horror in 1969. I’d tried Joseph Payne Brennan’s Macabre—he liked it but wrote back that he was overstocked and not accepting new material.

But then in 1970 I stumbled on a pair of magazines Robert A. W. Lowndes was editing for Health Knowledge, Inc.: The Magazine of Horror and Startling Mystery Stories. Lowndes wrote informative editorials which he followed with reprints of hoary yarns from Weird Tales, Strange Tales, Argosy, and other Depression-era pulps. But he also published one new story per issue by newcomers with names like Stephen King and Greg Bear. Hey, if these nobodies could sell to Lowndes, so could I.

So I sent him “The Cleaning Machine”...and a few months later he wrote back to say he was taking it for Startling Mystery Stories. This was my second sale in a month; a few weeks earlier John Campbell had bought “Ratman” for Analog. The big difference was that Campbell had sent a $375 check on acceptance. Lowndes’s company paid on publication.

So I waited. Even though it was my second sale, “The Cleaning Machine” became my first published story, appearing March 1971 in Startling Mystery Stories #18—with my name on the cover, no less.

I had arrived!

Unfortunately, the check never did. Health Knowledge Inc. folded Startling Mystery Stories with that issue. I contend that this was pure synchronicity. “The Cleaning Machine” had nothing to do with the failure of the magazine.

Nothing.

But that’s not the end of the story. Fifteen years later I’m signing books at a convention and here comes a reader with the August 1971 issue of an illustrated sf magazine called Galaxy Mission. I ask him what he wants me to do with it. He says a signature on the title page of my story would be greatly appreciated. What story? I’ve never even heard of Galaxy Mission, let alone sold to it. So he opens to the only text piece in the issue, and there’s “The Cleaning Machine” (as "The Machine") under my byline.

The story I initially couldn’t give away had been pirated and reprinted within months of its first publication, and I still hadn’t seen a penny for it.

And people wonder why so many writers die drunk or mad.

THE CLEANING MACHINE

Dr. Edward Parker reached across his desk and flipped the power switch on his tape recorder to the "on" position.

"Listen if you like, Burke," he said. "But remember: She has classic paranoid symptoms; I wouldn't put much faith in anything she says."

Detective Ronald Burke, an old acquaintance on the city police force, sat across from the doctor.

"She's all we've got," he replied with ill-concealed exasperation. "Over a hundred people disappear from an apartment house and the only person who might be able to tell us anything is a nut."

Parker glanced at the recorder and noticed the glowing warm-up light. He pressed the button that started the tape.

"Listen."

* * * * *

…and I guess I'm the one who's responsible for it but it was really the people who lived there in my apartment who drove me to it—they were jealous of me.

The children were the worst. Every day as I'd walk to the store they'd spit at me behind my back and call me names. They even recruited other little brats from all over town and would wait for me on corners and doorsteps. They called me terrible names and said that I carried awful diseases. Their parents put them up to it, I know it! All those people in my apartment building laughed at me. They thought they could hide it but I heard it. They hated me because they were jealous of my poetry. They knew I was famous and they couldn't stand it.

Why, just the other night almost I caught three of them rummaging through my desk. They thought I was asleep and so they sneaked in and tried to steal some of my latest works, figuring they could palm them off as their own. But I was awake. I could hear them laughing at me as they searched. I grabbed the butcher knife that I always keep under my pillow and ran out into the study. I must have made some noise when I got out of bed because they ran out into the hall and closed the door just before I got there. I heard one of them on the other side say, "Boy, you sure can't fool that old lady!”

They were fiends, all of them! But the very worst was that John Hendricks fellow next door who was trying to kill me with an ultra-frequency sonicator. He used to turn it on me and try to boil my brains while I was writing. But I was too smart for him. I kept an ice pack on my head at all hours of the day. But even that didn't keep me from getting those awful headaches that plague me constantly. He was to blame.

But the thing I want to tell you about is the machine in the cellar. I found it when I went downstairs to the boiler room to see who was calling me filthy names through the ventilator system. I met the janitor on my way down and told him about it. He just laughed and said that there hadn't been anyone down in the boiler room for two years, not since we started getting our heat piped in from the building next door. But I knew someone was down there—hadn't I heard those voices through the vent? I simply turned and went my way.

Everything in the cellar was covered with at least half an inch of dust—everything, that is, except the machine. I didn't know it was a machine at that time because it hadn't done anything yet. It didn't have any lights or dials and it didn't make any noise. Just a metal box with sides that ran at all sorts of odd angles, some of which didn’t seem to meet properly.

It just sat there being clean.

I also noticed that the floor around it was immaculately clean for about five foot in all directions. Everywhere else was filth. It looked so strange, being clean. I ran and got George, the janitor.

He was angry at having to go downstairs but I kept pestering him until he did. He was mighty surprised.

"What is that thing?" he said, walking toward the machine.

Then he was gone! One moment he had been there, and then he was gone. No blinding flash or puff of smoke...just gone! And it happened just as he crossed into that circle of clean floor around the machine.

I immediately knew who was responsible: John Hendricks! So I went right upstairs and brought him down. I didn't bother to tell him what the machine had done to George since I was sure he knew all about it. But he surprised me by walking right into the circle and disappearing, just like George.

Well, at least I wouldn't be bothered by that ultra-frequency sonicator of his anymore. It was a good thing I had been too careful to go anywhere near that thing.

I began to get an idea about that machine—it was a cleaning machine! That's why the floor around it was so clean. Any dust or anything that came within the circle was either stored away somewhere or destroyed.

A thought struck me: Why not "clean out" all of my jealous neighbors this way? It was a wonderful idea!

I started with the children.

I went outside and, as usual, they started in with their name-calling. (They always made sure to do it very softly but I could read their lips.) About twenty of them were playing in the street. I called them together and told them I was forming a club in the cellar and they all followed me down in a group. I pointed to the machine and told them that there was a gallon of chocolate ice cream behind it and that the first one to reach it could have it all. Their greedy little faces lighted up and they scrambled away in a mob.

Three seconds later I was alone in the cellar.

I then went around to all the other apartments in the building and told all those hateful people that their sweet little darlings were playing in the old boiler room and that I thought it was dangerous. I waited for one to go downstairs before I went to the next door. Then I met the husbands as they came home from work and told them the same thing. And if anyone came looking for someone, I sent him down to the cellar. It was all so simple: In searching the cellar they had to cross into the circle sooner or later.

That night I was alone in the building. It was wonderful—no laughing, no name-calling, and no one sneaking into my study. Wonderful!

A policeman came the next day. He knocked on my door and looked very surprised when I opened it. He said he was investigating a number of missing-persons reports. I told him that everyone was down in the cellar. He gave me a strange look but went to check. I followed him.

The machine was gone! Nothing was left but the circle of clean floor. I told the officer all about it, about what horrible people they were and how they deserved to disappear. He just smiled and brought me down to the station where I had to tell my story again. Then they sent me here to see you.

They're still looking for my neighbors, aren't they? Won't listen when I tell them that they'll never find them. They don't believe there ever was a machine. But they can't find my neighbors, can they? Well, it serves them right! I told them I'm the one responsible for "cleaning out" my apartment building but they don't believe me. Serves them all right!

* * * * *

"See what I mean?" said Dr. Parker with the slightest trace of a smile as he turned the recorder off. "She's no help at all."

"Yeah, I know," Burke sighed. "As loony as they come. But how can you explain that circle of clean floor in the boiler room with all those footprints around it?"

"Well, I can't be sure, but the 'infernal machine' is not uncommon in the paranoid's delusional system. You found no trace of this 'ultra-frequency sonicator' in the Hendricks apartment, I trust?"

Burke shook his head. "No. From what we can gather, Hendricks knew nothing about electronics. He was a short-order cook in a greasy spoon downtown."

"I figured as much. She probably found everybody gone and went looking for them. She went down to the boiler room as a last resort and, finding it deserted, concluded that everybody had been 'cleaned out' of the building. She was glad but wanted to give herself the credit. She saw the circle of clean floor—probably left there by a round table top that had been recently moved—and started fabricating. By now she believes every word of her fantastic story. We'll never really know what happened until we find those missing tenants."

"I guess not," Burke said as he rose to go, "but I'd still like to know why we can find over a hundred sets of footprints approaching the circle but none leaving it."

Dr. Parker didn't have an answer for that one.

RATMAN

INTRODUCTION

"Ratman" was my first sale. After years of detailed rejection slips from John W. Campbell, editor of Analog, I finally broke the barrier: A check from Conde Nast for $375 arrived in the mail. A nickel a word and no comment from Campbell. Just a check. Typical. He was the kind of guy who liked to argue. If he disagreed with you, he could go on for pages. If he agreed, he had nothing to say. The check said it all.

I was a first-year medical student at the time, with a wife, no job, no money, and a baby on the way. You can't imagine how $375 looked to us.

"Ratman" grew out of the psychopharmacological research I did at CIBA between pre-med and med school. Day in, day out, we dosed white rats with new drugs and placed them in Skinner boxes. Lots of times I felt sorry for the rats. But there were times when I thought they might be doing a number on us fellows in the white coats. After all, intraperitoneal injections of amphetamine were part of the protocol.

(Please forgive the size of the computers mentioned here. "Ratman" was written in 1970, years before Steve Jobs began playing with microchips.)

RATMAN

Since its purpose was neither to load nor unload cargo, his converted tramp freighter was directed to a landing pad at the far end of the field where it wouldn't get in the way. Orz, red-haired and of average height and build, though somewhat stoop-shouldered, didn't mind. As long as he was in the general area his efficiency would be unimpaired.

When the viewscreen picked up an approaching ground car, Orz snapped his fingers and a half-kilo space rat leaped from the control console to his shoulder.

"Let's go, 62," he said to his favorite employee.

The space rat grasped the fabric of his master's shirt tightly in his tiny paws and lashed his tail about nervously. He didn't like meeting strangers, but it was part of his job; his master had found that there was a definite psychological advantage in appearing with a space rat on his shoulder.

Orz and 62 reached the hatch just as the ground car pulled up alongside. They scrutinized the two occupants as the freighter's loading ramp descended.

The first to debark was a portly little man wearing a stylish orange tunic that should have been two sizes larger. His companion probably weighed as much but was taller and better proportioned.

Orz's long legs carried him swiftly down the ramp after it had settled and the portly one came forward to meet him.

"Mr. Samuel Orzechowski?" he asked, mangling the pronunciation.

Orz smiled. 'That's right, but you can call me Sam, or Orz, or, as some people prefer, Ratman."

And being a client, he thought, you'll no doubt choose the last one.

"Well," the little man replied, "I guess 'Ratman' will do. I'm Aaron Lesno, president of the Traders League, and this is Evan Rabb, our treasurer," he said, indicating the man beside him. "Welcome to Neeka," said Lesno.

"Could I ask you something, Ratman?" Rabb hastily interjected. He couldn't take his eyes off 62."Is that a space rat?"

Orz nodded. "A small one. A baby, really."

"Aren't you afraid of...?"

"Losing my ear?" he grinned. “Not at all. I imagine you two and the rest of the League are somewhat in the dark as to my methods, and you've probably got a lot of questions. I've found it best in the past to get everyone together and explain things to everybody at once. It saves me time and you money."

"An excellent idea!" Lesno agreed. "We've all been anxiously awaiting your arrival..." He corrected himself with a glance at Rabb. "Well, almost all...but I'm sure there would be no problem in getting everyone together."

"What did you mean by almost all'?" Orz asked.

Rabb spoke up. "One of our more influential members was vehemently opposed to the idea of retaining you."

"Oh, really? Why?"

"Have no fear, Ratman," Lesno assured him with a smile. "He'll let you know why at the meeting tonight."

"Fair enough," Orz said. "Can someone come back and pick me up in a few hours for the meeting?"

"Why not come with us now and let us show you around a bit?" Lesno offered.

Orz shook his head and gestured over his shoulder to the ship. "Sorry... feeding time."

Rabb and Lesno stiffened and glanced nervously from 62 to the open hatch.

"Yes, quite," Lesno muttered. "Very well, then, we'll have someone call for you in, say, three hours."

"That'll be fine." This settled, the two-man welcoming committee lost little time in putting some distance between themselves and the squat little freighter.

"Seem like pretty decent fellows," Orz told 62 as he made his way up the ramp and down the central corridor. As they approached the rat room, 62 began to prance excitedly on his master's shoulder and was literally doing a dance by the time Orz hit the door release.

His several hundred fellow employees inside took up the same excited dance at the sound of the door sliding open. The cages were arranged five high along the walls of the long, narrow room. They were simple, steel-sided boxes with front doors of quarter-inch steel mesh; each was self-cleaning, had its own water supply, and was equipped with an automatic feeder.

But Orz had never trusted automatic feeders, so now he went from cage to cage and shoved food pellets through the tiny feeding hole in the front of each. He had to be nimble, for the rats were greedy and anxious and a fingertip could easily be mistaken for a pellet. His practiced eye decided how much each rat should get. This was important: A rat became fat and lazy if overfed and would gnaw his way out of the cage if underfed. A rat in either condition was of little use to Ratman.

Fifty cages stood open and empty and Orz placed a few pellets in each. 62 was frantic by now so he decided to give the little fellow something before he jumped off his shoulder and into one of the empty cages. The rat rose up on his hind legs, snatched the pellet from Orz's proffering fingers with his tiny, handlike paws, and began to gnaw noisily and voraciously.

Three hours later, Orz flipped a particular switch on the console, checked to make sure the door to the rat room was open, then headed for the hatch. There, after casting an eye through the dusk at the approaching ground car, he secured the hatch, but opened a small panel at its bottom. With 62 perched watchfully upon his shoulder, he was waiting at the bottom of the ramp when the car arrived.

Lesno was alone inside. "Well, Ratman," he said with a smile, "everybody's waiting, so”—then he spotted 62 and his face fell. "Does he have to come along? I mean, he won't get too excited, will he?"

"Don't worry," Orz replied, sliding into his seat, "he won't bite you."

To lessen the man's anxiety he made a point of keeping 62 on his far shoulder.

"Your advertising literature was quite timely," Lesno remarked as they got under way, hoping conversation would take his mind off those two beady eyes peering at him around the back of his passenger's head. "The rat problem was reaching its peak when we received it. I trust that wasn't just coincidence."

"No coincidence at all. I keep my ear to the ground and word got around that you had a space rat plague on Neeka. I figured you could use my services."

Lesno nodded. "We had heard a few stories about you but didn't know whether to believe them or not. Your advertising claims were quite impressive. I just hope you can live up to them."

About twenty exporters and importers were waiting in the conference room on the second floor of the Traders League office complex. It was a motley group of discordant colors, shapes, sizes, and ages. Lesno entered ahead of Orz and lost no time in bringing the meeting to order.

"We all know why we're here," he said, tapping the gavel twice, "so there's really no use in wasting time with introductions." He pointed to Orz. "The creature on this man's shoulder is introduction enough: Ratman has arrived and he's going to tell us something about himself and about space rats." So saying, he relinquished the podium.

Nothing like a businesslike business, Orz thought as he stood up and received a slight spattering of applause.

They knew of his claim to be able to control space rats with space rats and were frankly dubious. But this was nothing new.

Without even a glance at the audience, he nonchalantly snapped his fingers and tapped the top of the podium. 62 immediately leaped from his shoulder to the podium and began to sniff the wood curiously.

"This," he began, "although a specimen of Rattus interstellus, is not a true space rat' in the full sense of the word; but his parents were. Lab-raised space rats—such as 62, here—can turn out to be quite friendly, but they are no less cunning, no less intelligent, and certainly no less vicious when cornered. These are the rats I employ, so to speak.

"But first let's puncture a few of the myths that have grown up around the space rat. First of all, no matter what the spacers tell you, space rats have no psi powers; they don't know what you're going to do next...it's just that their reflexes are developed to such a high degree that it almost seems that way when you take pot shots at one with a blaster. They will respond to ultra-frequency tones but by no means do they have a language... they're intelligent, all right, but they're a long way from a language."

His eyes flicked over the audience. These were traders, barterers; they recognized a man who knew what he was talking about, and they were all listening intently.

He continued. "But just what is it that distinguishes the space rat from other rats?" To dramatize his point, he allowed 62 to crawl onto the back of his hand and then held the fidgety creature aloft.

"This is the product of centuries in the pressurized but unshielded holds of interstellar cargo ships. Wild genetic mutation and the law of survival of the fittest combined to produce a most adaptable, ferocious, and intelligent creature.

"Everyone knew of the space rat's existence, but no one paid much attention to him until an ensign aboard the freighter Clinton was kept awake one night by the continuous opening and closing of the compartment door outside his cabin. The ship was in port, and, under normal circumstances, he would have spent the night in town, but for one reason or another he had returned to his quarters.

"Now, these doors which divide the corridors into compartments open automatically when you touch the release panel, and remain open as long as a simple electric eye beam is broken; when the beam makes contact again, the door closes. The doors naturally make some noise when they operate, and this is what was disturbing the ensign. But, every time he checked to see who was wandering up and down the corridor, he found no one. Checking with the guard detail, he found that he was the only person authorized to be in that area of the ship.

"So he set up watch. Opening his door a crack, he peeked through to the corridor and waited. But no one came and he was about to give up when he spotted this large space rat come running down the corridor. As it approached the door it leaped over a meter into the air and threw itself against the release panel. The door slid open as the creature landed on the floor and it scurried through before the door closed again."

The traders were smiling and shaking their heads in wonder as Orz paused and placed 62 back on the podium. "Since it is doubtful that the rat could have accidentally leaped against the release panel, it must be assumed that he learned by watching. That would make him a highly unusual rat... they thought. Then they discovered that the whole colony aboard the Clinton knew how to operate the doors! -Then other spacers on other ships began watching for space rats while their ships were in port — that's when their movements are the greatest; they stick pretty much to the cargo holds in transit — and it was discovered that the Clinton rats were not so extraordinary. These reports fired the interest of researchers who figured they would go out and catch themselves a few space rats and put them through some tests."

The audience broke into laughter at this point. They were all well familiar with the elusiveness of the space rat.

"Another characteristic of the space rat was soon discovered: viciousness. It took quite a while, but after much effort and many scars a number of space rats were caught. And, as expected, they proved virtually untrainable. We hoped to do better with their offspring.

"I was working with the offspring when I heard about a rat problem in the nearby spaceport. Traps, poison, even variable frequency sonic repellers had failed to control them, I went to investigate and found that a good many space rats were jumping ship and setting up residence in the warehouses which ring every spaceport. Another factor was added: In the warehouses they meet other strains of space rat from other ships and the resultant cross-breeding produces a strain more intelligent and more ferocious than even the cargo-ship rat. I managed to catch half a dozen in as many months, mated them and began to go to work on the offspring. Through a mixture of imprinting and operant conditioning, second-generation space rats proved quite tractable.

"But I needed more wild rats and tried the wild idea of training my lab rats to help catch other rats. It worked out so well that I decided to go into the business of space-rat control."

He paused and glanced around the room. "Any questions?"

An elderly trader in the front row raised a bony hand. "Just how does one rat go about catching another?" he asked in a raspy voice.

"I'll demonstrate that tomorrow," Orz replied. "It'll be easier to understand once you see the equipment."

A huge, balding man with a grizzled beard stood up without waiting to be recognized. "I've got a question, Ratman," he said belligerently. "If all you've got are a few trained rats, why do you charge so much?"

This elicited a few concurring mutters from other members of the audience. Here, no doubt, was the man Lesno had referred to earlier that day.

"You have me at a disadvantage, sir," Orz replied with a smile.

"I'm Malcomb Houghton and I guess I rank third, or fourth, around here in cubic feet of warehouse space."

Orz nodded. "Very glad to meet you, sir. But let me answer your question with another question: Do you have any idea what it costs to operate a privately owned freighter, even a small one such as mine? My overhead is staggering."

Being a businessman, this argument seemed to make sense to Houghton, but he remained standing. "I just wonder," he began slowly. "If you can train rats to catch other rats, how do we know you didn't land some special trouble-making rats here on Neeka a few months ago to aggravate the situation to the point where we had to call you in?"

The audience went silent and waited for Ratman's reply. Orz cursed as he felt his face flushing. This man was dangerously close to the truth. He hesitated, then cracked a grin.

"How'd you like to go into partnership with me?" he quipped. The tension suddenly vanished as the audience laughed and applauded. Orz gathered up 62 and left the podium before Houghton could zero in on him again. He couldn't tell whether the man was stabbing in the dark, or whether he really knew something.

Lesno escorted him out the door,

"Wonderful!" he beamed. "I think you're the man to solve our problems. But time is of the essence! The port residents have been on our necks for months; their pets are being killed, they're afraid for their children and they're afraid for themselves. And since the rats are based in the warehouse district, we might be held liable if we don't do something soon. And"—he put his hand on Orz's shoulder and lowered his voice—"we've been keeping it quiet, but a man went after a few of the rats with a blaster the other night. They turned on him and chewed him up pretty badly."

"I'll start as early as possible," Orz assured him. "You just send somebody around tomorrow with a good-sized truck and I'll be waiting."

Rabb must have overheard them as he approached.

"That won't be necessary, he said. "We're placing a truck at your disposal immediately. I'll drive it over to your ship and Lesno will bring me back after dropping you oft."

Orz said that would be fine and he arranged a time and place of meeting with Lesno for early the next morning on the way back to the ship. A few minutes later he and 62 were standing next to the borrowed truck watching the two League officers drive away.

"Ratman!" whispered a voice from the deep shadows under the ramp.

Orz spun." Who's there?”

"I'm your contact."

"You'd better come out and identify yourself," he said.

Muttering and brushing off the knees of her coveralls, a tall, statuesque brunette stepped out of the shadows.

"Where have you been for the past hour? We were supposed to meet as soon as it was dark!"

"Just who are you, miss?" Orz asked.

She straightened up and stared at him. "You don't take any chances, do you?" A wry smile played about her lips. "O.K. I'm Jessica Maffey, Federation agent NE97. I'm the one who received a smuggled shipment of fifty of your best harassing rats, drove them into town, and let them go in the warehouse district. Satisfied, Ratman?"

Orz grinned at her annoyance. "You're Maffey, all right...I've got a picture of you inside, but you can't be too careful." He glanced around.' Let's get inside where we can talk,"

"Speaking of going inside," she said, "there's been a steady stream of rats going through that little opening in the hatch."

He nodded. "Good. I activated a high-frequency call before I left. All the harassers you loosed should be snug in their cages by now."

He unlocked the hatch and led her to the rat room. As he busied himself with transferring 62 to a cage and checking on the harassing rats, Jessica looked around. From the darkened recess of each cage shone two gleaming points of light, and all those several hundred points of light seemed to be fixed upon her. She shuddered.

"Three missing," Orz was saying. "That's not too bad...accidents do happen." He pressed a button on the wall and the open doors on the cages of the harassing rats swung shut with a loud and simultaneous clang. "How about a drink?" he offered his guest.

"As a matter of fact, I'd love one," she replied, sighing with relief as they stepped back into the corridor. Orz looked at her curiously. It gets a little dry and dusty sitting under a loading ramp," she explained with a tight smile.

With Jessica seated in his Spartan, fastidiously neat living quarters with her hand around a cold gin and tonic, Orz began to talk business.

"Federation Intelligence gave me only a sketchy idea of what's going on here. You were to fill me in on the rest, so why don't I tell you what I know and you take it from there."

"Go ahead," she told him.

Drink in hand, Orz paced the room.

"Let's start with this planet. Neeka is a fiercely independent, sparsely populated world that exports a lot of food and imports a lot of hardware. Formerly a splinter world, it agreed to trade with the Federation but refused to join it. They were asked to join the Restructurists in their revolt against the Federation but turned them down. They want no part of the war...and I can't say as I blame them.

"However: The Haas Warp Gate is right outside this star system and the convoys stack up in this area before being shot through to the battle zones. Fed agents discovered a turncoat feeding information on the size and destinations of the convoys to someone on this planet. That someone, in turn, was transmitting the info to the Restructurists via subspace radio. He' been stopped temporarily, but as soon as he makes another contact, he'll be in business again, I was told to meet you here and stop him. That's all I know."

Jessica nodded and drained her drink. "Right. But subspace transmission can't be traced so we had to depend on deductive reasoning. First of all, you’re allowed to be pro-Federation, or pro-Restructurist on Neeka, and you’re allowed to talk all you want about either cause. Nobody minds. But try to do something to aid either cause and you wind up in prison. Strict neutrality is enforced to the letter here. Therefore, partisan natives, such as myself and the man we're after, have to go underground.

"Now, it would be as easy to smuggle in a subspace transmitter as it was to smuggle in your rats, but hiding it would be an entirely different matter. It's a huge piece of hardware and it needs a large power supply."

"So the man we're after," Orz broke in, "is someone with easy access to a off-planet source of information, and a place big enough to hide a subspace transmitter without arousing suspicion."

"And a warehouse right here in port has the size and access to the necessary power," Jessica concluded. "Since the members of the Traders League own all the warehouses, they are the obvious target for investigation."

"But which one?"

She shrugged. “Their security is too tight for me to do much snooping. The only way to get into those warehouses is to be invited in. That's where Ratman comes in.

Orz was thoughtful. "It really shouldn't be too difficult. I was informed by the Traders League when they retained me that their warehouses are fully automated and computer-operated,"

"With a population density as low as Neeka's," Jessica added, "labor is anything but cheap."

"Right. And, if I wanted to hide a subspace radio in one of those warehouses, I'd disguise it as part of the automation works and no one would ever be the wiser. All I've got to do tomorrow is keep my eyes open for an unusually large computer-automation rig. When I find it I'll just ‘accidentally' expose it as a subspace transmitter. The Neekan authorities will take care of our spy after that."

He halted his pacing and snapped his fingers. "Forgot to turn off the call signal for the rats...I'll be right back,"

“Mind if I come along?"

"Not at all."

She watched Orz's back as he led her down the narrow corridor to the bridge.

"Can I call you something other than 'Ratman'?"

He grinned over his shoulder. "Sam will do fine."

"O.K., Sam: How did you get started in all this?"

"Well, I got the idea a few years ago and thought I was a genius until I started looking for backers. Everyone I approached thought I was either a swindler or a nut. As a last desperate hope I went to IBA,"

"What's IBA?"

"Interstellar Business Advisors. It's a private company with some pretty canny people working for them. They dug up somebody who promised to back me halfway, then they approached the Federation with this undercover idea. Since I'd be able to get on otherwise unfriendly planets, the Federation put up the rest of the money. So now I'm a full-time Ratman and a part-time Fed man. And when my reputation spreads, IBA has got some ideas for selling franchises."

They entered the bridge as he was speaking and Jessica noticed that it was as meticulously ordered as his quarters. Two additions to the standard console caught her eye immediately.

"Improvements?" she asked, pointing to a brace of toggle switches.

Orz flipped one of the toggles to "Off" and turned to her. "Those are the high-frequency signals for my rats. They've got an effective range of about two kilometers. When a rat hears the proper tone, he makes a beeline for this ship."

"And what's that?" She indicated a bright red lever with three safety catches and "Danger" written in white letters along its length.

The lightness left his voice. "For the direst of emergencies only," he replied.

Feminine curiosity aroused, Jessica went to touch it. "What does it do?"

"That's my secret," Orz replied with a tight smile and snatched her wrist away from the lever. "I've yet to use it and I hope the day never comes when I do." To draw her attention elsewhere he pointed to the far wall. "See that inconspicuous little switch over there by the intercom speaker? When that's in the down position—like now—-the controls are locked."

"You're just full of tricks, aren't you?" she said, trying to hide a smile. He was like a little boy showing off a new toy.

"Can't be too careful."

* * * * *

Lesno, Rabb, Houghton, and a few others were ready and waiting when Orz pulled up in front of the Traders League offices with the truck.

"Straight ahead," said Lesno as he hopped in beside Orz. "We'll start with Rabb's places first since they're the closest."

Two left turns brought them up before a huge structure with a "Rabb & Co." sign above the sliding doors. Orz waited until the others had arrived, then addressed the group.

"First of all," he told them, "you must keep all humans away from any warehouse where my rats are at work, so give whatever employees you have the day off. Next, let me explain that space rats set up a close-knit community within a warehouse—one community per warehouse—and that each community has a leader who achieved his position by being the most cunning and the most ferocious of the lot."

He reached into the back of the truck and brought out a simple cage. Inside was a very large and very vicious-looking space rat. "This is one of my Judas rats. I've selectively bred them for ferocity and any one of these is a match for any three ordinary space rats. Within hours after his release, my Judas rat will have established himself at the top of the community's pecking order."

Once again Orz reached into the back of the truck and brought out a cage, but this one was larger and empty.

"Normally a space rat wouldn't go near a trap like this, but he'll follow the Judas if the Judas is the community leader. And once the community has followed him inside and is busy at the bait, the Judas hops outside, releases this catch and a spring closes and locks the door. He then returns to the ship. The cage is made of a lightweight titanium alloy that not even a space rat's teeth can dent." He held up the cage, "Tomorrow morning this should be filled with a community of very angry space rats,"

"Is that all there is to it?" Houghton blurted incredulously. Orz could imagine the man's mind tallying and totaling, and deciding that no matter what his overhead, Ratman charged too much, "This is outrageous! I'll have nothing to do with such nonsense! We're being hoodwinked!"

Somebody doesn't want me in his warehouse, Orz thought and was about to say something when Rabb beat him to it,

"The League has already retained Ratman, Malcomb, and we voted to use the treasury to do so...remember? So you have, in effect, already paid for his services, and it would be foolish of you not to take advantage of them."

Houghton paused, considering Rabb's words, then glanced at the cage and shrugged. "I guess I don't have much choice," he said sullenly and turned toward his car. "Let me know when you get around to my places."

* * * * *

It was late in the day when they finally did get around to Houghton's warehouses, but Orz preferred it that way. He had his suspicions and wanted to see as many of the other warehouses as possible before confronting Houghton, He’d found nothing suspect in the others, although Lesno's computer setups had been somewhat larger than most, but nowhere near big enough to house a subspace radio.

Houghton met them outside.

"I've only got a few cages left," Orz told him, "so we'll do as many as we can and I'll get the rest tomorrow after I collect the cages I've set out today."

"Might as well start with the main house," Houghton replied and led them toward the largest building of his complex.

The doors slid open to reveal a huge expanse of concrete floor with crates and boxes stacked almost to the ceiling. Huge cranes—controlled by a computer that knew the exact location of every item in storage—swung from above. Looming against the far wall was a large, metal-paneled structure,

Orz pointed to it. "Is that your computer?"

"Yes," the bearded man replied absently, "now let's get on with this... I haven't got all day."

"Mind if I take a look at it?" Orz asked and started walking toward it. This was what he had been looking for: big enough to house two subspace transmitters. "Rats love to nest in those things, you know."

"I assure you there are no rats in there so stay away from it!" Houghton almost shouted.

He began to follow Orz, and Lesno and Rabb trailed along.

Orz went to the nearest inspection plate and began loosening the screws that held it in place.

"Get away from there!" Houghton yelled as he came up. "You don't know what you're doing. You could mess up my whole operation!"

"Look, if I'm going to do my job right, I've got to check this out."

The inspection plate came off in his hands then and he stuck his head inside. Nothing unusual. He replaced it and went to the next plate with the same result. Four more inspection plates later he was sure there was no subspace transmitter hidden within.

Houghton was standing behind him and tugging angrily on his beard as Orz replaced the last screw.

"Are you quite through, Ratman?"

Orz stood and faced him. "Awful big computer you've got there, Mr. Houghton," he said matter-of-factly, hiding his chagrin.

"That's the computer for my whole operation. I found it easier to centralize the system: Instead of installing new units all the time, I just add to the central unit and feed it into the new buildings as they are built. It's much more convenient."

"More economical, too, I'll bet," Orz added laconically.

"Why, yes. How did you know?"

"Lucky guess."

* * * * *

Jessica was waiting back at the ship.

"Don't bother telling me you didn't find anything," she said as he collapsed in a chair. "That look on your face tells the whole story."

"I was so sure it was Houghton! The way he objected to the League retaining me, the way he tried to rake me over the coals at the meeting last night, the way he blew up this morning, I was sure he had something to hide. Turns out he's only a cheapskate with a centralized computer."

"What makes you so sure he hasn't got it stashed somewhere else?" Jessica asked, coming over and handing him a drink.

He accepted it gratefully and took a long slow swallow before answering.

"I'm not sure of anything right now. But, if that transmitter's here—and we know it is—it's got to be in one of those warehouses. Which reminds me..."

He got to his feet slowly and trudged to the rat room.

Jessica didn't follow, but glanced out into the corridor when she heard the clang of cage doors. Furry gray and brown shapes were scurrying toward the hatch.

"What are you up to?" she asked as Orz reappeared.

"I had a brainstorm on my way back to the ship. We'll find out if it worked tomorrow."

* * * * *

Orz noticed Jessica in the crowd outside Rabb's main warehouse. She smiled and winked mischievously, knowing he couldn't acknowledge her. The crowd was waiting to see if Ratman could live up to his claims and watched intently as he and Rabb disappeared inside. An uncertain cheer began and died as he reappeared dragging—with little help from Rabb—a cageful of clawing, squealing, snarling, snapping space rats. Having retreated to what it considered a safer distance, the crowd applauded.

Lesno strode forward, beaming. "Well, Ratman, I knew you could do it. But what are you going to do with the little monsters now that you've caught them?"

"Most of them will have to be gassed and killed, but I'll save a few of the best for breeding purposes...I like to keep my working stock as strong as possible."

They completed the rounds of Rabb's buildings, then moved on to Lesno's. The novelty had worn off and the crowd was beginning to thin by the time they got around to Lesno's third warehouse, but interest was renewed at the sound of Orz's voice calling from within.

"Mr. Lesno! There's something you ought to see in here."

Lesno went in. Rabb, Houghton, and some of the braver members of the crowd—Jessica among them—followed.

It looked as if a bomb had gone off inside. Every crate, every package had been torn open. Even some of the computer paneling had been torn away.

"What happened?" Lesno cried, staggered by the destruction.

Orz shrugged and pointed to the full cage. "I don't know. There's your community, caged and ready to go. But I've never seen anything like this before."

Houghton was looking over the ravaged computer.

"Never seen a computer that looked like this," he muttered. "Is this some new model, Aaron?"

Rabb came up. "Looks like part of a subspace radio!"

"Ridiculous!" Lesno sputtered. "What would I be doing with—?"

"You're a spy!" Houghton declared. "A Federation spy!"

A blaster suddenly appeared in Lesno's hand. "Don't insult me by linking me to the Federation!"

Houghton shrugged. "So you're a Restructurist spy, then. Just as bad. You get twenty years either way."

"I'm not going to argue with you, Malcomb. Just stay where you are."

"You can't escape, Aaron!" Rabb warned.

Lesno smiled. "Of course I can," he said and pointed the blaster at Orz. "Ratman is going to volunteer the use of his ship. He's even going to come along for the ride to make sure no one gets trigger-happy."

Orz caught Jessica's eye. She was readying to make a move, but he shook his head. They had succeeded in destroying Lesno's effectiveness as a spy. It didn't matter if he escaped.

And so, with a blaster at the back of his head, Orz preceded the little man to the truck.

"You work for the Federation, don't you?" Lesno said as Orz drove them toward the spaceport.

"I'm afraid I don't have time to work for anyone other than Sam Orzechowski."

"Come now, Ratman. I was suspicious yesterday when I saw the way you gave Houghton's computer a going over and this morning's revelation confirmed it. Why deny it?"

Orz shrugged. "Okay, I occasionally do some snooping for the Federation."

"How did you get on to me?" Lesno asked earnestly. "I thought I had a foolproof arrangement."

"Well, I wasn't sure, but Houghton's centralized setup started me on a new approach, I figured that if one man could centralize his computers, another could decentralize a subspace transmitter. Then it struck me that you'd have to take the transmitter apart in order to sneak it into town. And since it was already in pieces, why not leave it that way? At least that's what I would have done. So the next thing to do was to look for the man with the slightly larger computers. You fit the bill."

"But how did you manage to tear the place apart?"

"That was easy. If you could go back to that warehouse now, you'd find a tiny, high-frequency labeler attached to the door. I have a number of vandal rats trained to be specialists in making a mess out of a building. The labeler told them where to go to work."

Shaking his head in admiration, Lesno remarked, "You should be working for us."

"But I don't want a restructured Federation," Orz replied. "I sort of like it the way it is."

"But there are such inequalities in the galaxy! Some planets are drowning in their surpluses while others are starving, and the Federation does nothing."

"The Federation doesn't think such matters are within its scope."

"They will be when we win," he replied righteously.

Orz knew argument was futile and allowed a shrug to be his only reply.

* * * * *

Once on the ship, it was evident to Orz that Lesno knew his way around freighters. He retracted the ramp, secured the hatch, and then followed Orz to the bridge.

He gestured to the extra seat. "You just sit there and keep out of the way, Mr. Ratman, and you won't get hurt. I'm not a murderer. If all goes well, I'll drop you off at the first neutral port we reach. But I won't hesitate to shoot you if you try anything."

"Don't worry," Orz told him, "My mission was to stop you, not capture you. I don't care if you get away."

Lesno's eyes narrowed. This lack of chauvinism did not fit his conception of a Fed man. Something was up. His suspicions were reinforced when he found the console inoperable.

"Where's the lock?" he demanded.

Orz pointed across the room. "By the speaker."

But Lesno made no move. Instead his eyes roved the room until they came to rest on the red lever. His face creased into a smile.

"You didn't think anyone would be fooled by that, did you?"

Orz nearly leaped from his seat as the Restructurist reached for the lever. "Don't touch that!"

"Sit down!" Lesno warned, pointing the gun at Orz's chest. "I told you before, I'm not a killer but—"

"I know you're not." Orz said frantically. "Neither am I. That's why you've got to leave that lever alone!"

Lesno merely smiled and kept him covered while he released the first two safety catches.

“Listen to me, Lesno! That lever sets off a special tone stimulus and releases every one of my rats! They've all been trained to attack anyone and everyone but me when they hear that tone...I installed it for use in a situation when it was either kill or be killed! This is not one of those situations!"

Lesno was having some trouble with the third catch, but it finally yielded,

"A good try, Ratman," he said and, ignoring Orz's cry of protest, pulled the lever.

Faintly, from far down the corridor, came a metallic clang. A loud, wailing tone filled the ship, Lesno paled and turned anxiously toward his captive.

"Why didn't you listen to me!" Orz yelled.

Lesno suddenly believed. Horror-stricken, he began to push and pull the lever back and forth but with no effect. He was still working at it when the squealing, gray-brown carpet swept through the door.

Orz turned away and tried unsuccessfully to block out the screams and sickening sounds of carnage that filled the bridge. He had trained the rats too well...there would be no stopping them.

And when all was quiet again, Orz congratulated himself on having kept his stomach in place. But then 62 leaped up to his accustomed spot on his shoulder and began with great contentment to clean his reddened claws and jowls.

* * * * *

Only Jessica came to see him off. Orz had cleaned up the rat problem and the people were appreciative, but they had either seen the corpse that had been removed from his ship, or had heard about it. It hadn't been easy to identify it as Aaron Lesno.

"I see the red lever's been removed," Jessica remarked. She hadn't been near the ship since the incident.

Orz avoided her gaze. "Yeah. I took it out...can't quite look at it." He changed the subject abruptly. "Well, now that this thing's been cleared up, what'll you be doing with yourself?"

"I've no intention of settling down and becoming a good Neekan citizen, you can be sure of that," she replied. ’I’m putting in for an assignment as soon as possible. There's too much going on out there for me to get tucked away on this rock."

Orz smiled for the first time in several days. "That's funny. I was thinking of taking on an assistant. This business is getting a little too complicated for me to handle alone,"

He paused as Jessica waited.

"You like rats?"

LIPIDLEGGIN’

INTRODUCTION

As of New Year’s Day, 2010, the great state of California banned trans-fat from all restaurants. New York City and Philadelphia had the dubious honor of leading the way onto that slippery slope, but California's the first entire state to dictate what its citizenry can't eat. "Nanny state" has become a cliché, but how else can you describe this sort of policy?

Yes, trans-fats are bad for you. You should avoid them if you want to keep your heart healthy. I avoid them when I can, but that's my choice. You may have different priorities. I wouldn't think of stopping you from eating all the trans-fats you wish (wouldn't stop you from lighting up a joint, either, but that's another issue) because it's your right to mess up your body. After all, you own it.

Or do you?

Now that we've taken the first step toward a single-payer national health system, don't be so sure. You will have less and less say about how you wish to treat that body. Watch as the erosion of your already-diminished individual rights accelerates. If the hive is paying for your health care, then the hive is going to demand a say in behaviors that it considers hazardous to your (its) health.

It's only logical.

Lots of behaviors, lots of ingestibles and inhalables are going to become illegal or, better yet (for the hive), be taxed to the point where you won't be able to afford them. And we all know what that situation creates: black markets.

It's only logical.

So logical that it inspired an episode of "American Dad." In "Live and Let Fry," the town has banned trans-fats, and Dad goes to bootleggers for "food that tastes good."

Some of my readers wrote asking if I thought my story "Lipidleggin'" had been had ripped off. I doubt it. I simply asked the next question 30 years sooner.

Back in the 70s, when a national health care system was a major political topic, I weighed in with a guest editorial in Analog magazine ("And now, from the people who brought you Vietnam and Watergate...") and in fiction. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, I wrote a cautionary tale about a day when saturated fats would be banned. I saw how it could happen, but never for a moment did I believe it would happen. Not in a free country like our US of A. But it has happened.

What next? Butter?

I tried a first draft of "Lipidleggin'" in the third person but wasn't happy with it. For the hell of it, I switched to first person present tense, a voice I usually dislike. But it worked here. George Scithers made a few well-considered suggestions and bought it for Asimov's. It has been reprinted many times since.

LIPIDLEGGIN’

Butter.

I can name a man's poison at fifty paces. I take one look at this guy as he walks in and say to myself, Butter.

He steps carefully, like there's something sticky on the soles of his shoes. Maybe there is, but I figure he moves like that because he's on unfamiliar ground. Never seen his face before and I know just about everybody around.

It's early yet. I just opened the store and Gabe's the only other guy on the buying side of the counter, only he ain't buying. He's waiting in the corner by the checkerboard and I'm just about to go join him when the new guy comes in. It's wet out—not raining, really, just wet like it only gets up here near the Water Gap—and he's wearing a slicker. Underneath that he seems to have a stocky build and is average height. He's got no beard and his eyes are blue with a watery look. Could be from anywhere until he takes off the hat and I see his hair: It's dark brown and he's got it cut in one of those soup-bowl styles that are big in the city.

Gabe gives me an annoyed look as I step back behind the counter, but I ignore him. His last name is Varadi—sounds Italian but it's Hungarian—and he's got plenty of time on his hands. Used to be a Ph.D. in a philosophy department at some university in Upstate New York till they cut the department in half and gave him his walking papers, tenure and all. Now he does part-time labor at one of the mills when they need a little extra help, which ain't near as often as he'd like.

About as poor as you can get, that Gabe.

The government giraffes take a big chunk of what little he earns and leave him near nothing to live on. So he goes down to the welfare office where the local giraffes give him food stamps and rent vouchers so he can get by on what the first group of giraffes left him. If you can figure that one out...

Anyway, Gabe's got a lot of time on his hands, like I said, and he hangs out here and plays checkers with me when things are slow. He'd rather play chess, I know, but I can't stand the game. Nothing happens for too long and I get impatient and try to break the game open with some wild gambit. And I always lose. So we play checkers or we don't play.

The new guy puts his hat on the counter and glances around. He looks uneasy. I know what's coming but I'm not going to help him out. There's a little dance we've got to do first.

"I need to buy a few things," he says. His voice has a little tremor in it and close up like this I figure he's in his mid-twenties.

"Well, this is a general store," I reply, getting real busy wiping down the counter, "and we've got all sorts of things. What're you interested in? Antiques? Hardware? Food?"

"I'm not looking for the usual stock."

(The music begins to play)

I look at him with my best puzzled expression. "Just what is it you're after, friend?"

"Butter and eggs."

"Nothing unusual about that. Got a whole cabinet full of both behind you there."

(We're on our way to the dance floor)

"I'm not looking for that. I didn't come all the way out here to buy the same shit I can get in the city. I want the real thing."

"You want the real thing, eh?" I say, meeting his eyes square for the first time. "You know damn well real butter and real eggs are illegal. I could go to jail for carrying that kind of stuff."

(We dance)

Next to taking his money, this is the part I like best about dealing with a new customer. Usually I can dance the two of us around the subject of what he really wants for upwards of twenty or thirty minutes if I've a mind to. But this guy was a lot more direct than most and didn't waste any time getting down to the nitty-gritty. Still, he wasn't going to rob me of a little dance. I've got a dozen years of dealing under my belt and no green kid's gonna rob me of that.

A dozen years...doesn't seem that long. It was back then that the giraffes who were running the National Health Insurance program found out that they were spending way too much money taking care of people with diseases nobody was likely to cure for some time. The stroke and heart patients were the worst. With the presses at the Treasury working overtime and inflation getting wild, it got to the point where they either had to admit they'd made a mistake or do something drastic. Naturally, they got drastic.

The president declared a health emergency and Congress passed something called the National Health Maintenance Act which said that since certain citizens were behaving irresponsibly by abusing their bodies and thereby giving rise to chronic diseases which resulted in consumption of more than their fair share of medical care at public expense, it was resolved that, in the public interest and for the public good, certain commodities would henceforth and hereafter be either prescribed or strictly rationed. Or something like that.

Foods high in cholesterol and saturated fats headed the list. Next came tobacco and any alcoholic beverage over 30 proof.

Ah, the howls that went up from the public. But those were nothing compared to the screams of fear and anguish that arose from the dairy and egg industry which was facing immediate economic ruin. The Washington giraffes stood firm, however—it wasn't an election year—and used phrases like "bite the bullet" and "national interest" and "public good" until we were all ready to barf.

Nothing moved them.

Things quieted down after a while, as they always do. It helped, of course, that somebody in one of the drug companies had been working on an additive to chicken feed that would take just about all the cholesterol out of the yolk. It worked, and the poultry industry was saved.

The new eggs cost more—of course—and the removal of most of the cholesterol from the yolk also removed most of the taste, but at least the egg farmers had something to sell.

Butter was out. Definitely. No compromise. Too much of an "adverse effect on serum lipid levels," whatever that means. You use polyunsaturated margarine or you use nothing. Case closed.

Well, almost closed. Most good citizen-type Americans hunkered down and learned to live with the Lipid Laws, as they came to be known. Why, I bet there's scads of fifteen-year-olds about who've never tasted real butter or a true, cholesterol-packed egg yolk. But we're not all good citizens. Especially me. Far as I'm concerned, there's nothing like two fried eggs—fried in butter—over easy, with bacon on the side, to start the day off. Every day. And I wasn't about to give that up.

I was strictly in the antiques trade then, and I knew just about every farmer in Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. So I found one who was making butter for himself and had him make a little extra for me. Then I found another who was keeping some hens aside and not giving them any of the special feed and had him hold a few eggs out for me.

One day I had a couple of friends over for breakfast and served them real eggs and toast with real butter. They almost strangled me trying to find out where I got the stuff. That's when I decided to add a sideline to my antique business.

I figured New York City to be the best place to start so I let word get around the antique dealers there that I could supply their customers with more than furniture. The response was wild and soon I was making more money running butter and eggs than I was running Victorian golden oak. I was a lipidlegger.

Didn't last, though. I was informed by two very pushy fellows of Mediterranean stock that if I wanted to do any lipid business in Manhattan, I'd either have to buy all my merchandise from their wholesale concern, or give them a very healthy chunk of my profits.

I decided it would be safer to stick close to home. Less volume, but less risky. I turned my antique shop up here by the Water Gap—that's the part of New Jersey you can get to without driving by all those refineries and reactors—into a general store.

A dozen years now.

"I heard you had the real thing for sale," the guy says.

I shake my head. "Now where would you hear a thing like that?"

"New York."

"New York? The only connection I have with New York is furnishing some antique dealers with a few pieces now and then. How'd you hear about me in New York?"

"Sam Gelbstein."

I nod. Sam's a good customer. Good friend, too. He helped spread the word for me when I was leggin' lipids into the city.

"How you know Sam?"

"My uncle furnished most of his house with furniture he bought there."

I still act suspicious—it's part of the dance—but I know if Sam sent him, he's all right. One little thing bothers me, though.

"How come you don't look for your butter and eggs in the city? I hear they're real easy to get there."

"Yeah," he says and twists his mouth. "They're also spoiled now and again and there's no arguing with the types that supply it. No money-back guarantees with those guys."

I see his point. "And you figure this is closer to the source."

He nods.

"One more question," I say. "I don't deal in the stuff, of course"—still dancing—"but I'm curious how a young guy like you got a taste for contraband like eggs and butter."

"Europe," he says. "I went to school in Brussels and it's all still legal over there. Just can't get used to these damned substitutes."

It all fit, so I go into the back and lift up the floor door. I keep a cooler down there and from it pull a dozen eggs and a half-kilo slab of butter. His eyes widen as I put them on the counter in front of him.

"Is this the real thing?" he asks. "No games?" I pull out an English muffin, split it with my thumbs, and drop the halves into a toaster I keep under the counter. I know that once he tastes this butter I'll have another steady customer. People will eat ersatz eggs and polyunsaturated margarine if they think it's good for them, but they want to know the real thing's available. Take that away from them and suddenly you've got them going to great lengths to get what they used to pass up without a second thought.

"The real thing," I tell him. "There's even a little salt added to the butter for flavor."

"Great!" He smiles, then puts both hands into his pockets and pulls out a gun with his right and a shield with his left. "James Callahan, Public Health Service, Enforcement Division," he says. "You're under arrest, Mr. Gurney." He's not smiling anymore.

I don't change my expression or say anything. Just stand there and look bored. But inside I feel like someone's wrapped a length of heavy chain around my gut and hooked it up to a high speed winch.

Looking at the gun-a snub-nosed .32—I start to grin.

"What's so funny?" he asks, nervous and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's his first bust.

"A public health guy with a gun!" I'm laughing now. "Don't that seem funny to you?"

His face remains stern. "Not in the least. Now step around the counter. After you're cuffed we're going to take a ride to the Federal Building."

I don't budge. I glance over to the corner and see a deserted checkerboard. Gabe's gone—skittered out as soon as he saw the gun. Mr. Public Health follows my eyes.

"Where's the red-headed guy?"

"Gone for help," I tell him.

He glances quickly over his shoulder out the door, then back at me. "Let's not do anything foolish here. I wasn't crazy enough to come out here alone."

But I can tell by the way his eyes bounce all over the room and by the way he licks his lips that, yes, he was crazy enough to come out here alone.

I don't say anything, so he fills in the empty space. "You've got nothing to worry about, Mr. Gurney," he says. "You'll get off with a first offender's suspended sentence and a short probation."

I don't tell him that's exactly what worries me. I'm waiting for a sound: the click of the toaster as it spits out the English muffin. It comes and I grab the two halves and put them on the counter.

"What are you doing?" he asks, watching me like I'm going to pull a gun on him any minute.

"You gotta taste it," I tell him. "I mean, how're you gonna be sure it ain't oleo unless you taste it?"

"Never mind that." He wiggles the .32 at me. "You're just stalling. Get around here."

But I ignore him. I open a corner of the slab of butter and dig out a hunk with my knife. Then I smear it on one half of the muffin and press the two halves together. All the time I'm talking.

"How come you're out here messin' with me? I'm smalltime. The biggies are in the city."

"Yeah." He nods slowly. He can't believe I'm buttering a muffin while he holds a gun on me. "And they've also bought everyone who's for sale. Can't get a conviction there if you bring in the 'leggers smeared with butter and eggs in their mouths."

"So you pick on me."

He nods again. "Someone who buys from Gelbstein let slip that he used to connect with a guy from out here who used to do lipidlegging into the city. Wasn't hard to track you down." He shrugs, almost apologizing. "I need some arrests to my credit and I have to take 'em where I can find 'em."

I don't reply just yet. At least I know why he came alone: He didn't want anyone a little higher up to steal credit for the bust. And I also know that Sam Gelbstein didn't put the yell on me, which is a relief. But I've got more important concerns at the moment.

I press my palm down on top of the muffin until the melted butter oozes out the sides and onto the counter, then I peel the halves apart and push them toward him.

"Here. Eat."

He looks at the muffin all yellow and drippy, then at me, then back to the muffin. The aroma hangs over the counter in an invisible cloud and I'd be getting hungry myself if I didn't have so much riding on this little move.

I'm not worried about going to jail for this. Never was. I know all about suspended sentences and that. What I am worried about is being marked as a 'legger. Because that means the giraffes will be watching me and snooping into my affairs all the time. I'm not the kind who takes well to being watched. I've devoted a lot of effort to keeping a low profile and living between the lines—"living in the interstices," Gabe calls it. A bust could ruin my whole way of life.

So I've got to be right about this guy's poison.

He can't take his eyes off the muffins. I can tell by the way he stares that he's a good-citizen type whose mother obeyed all the Lipid Laws as soon as they were passed, and who never thought to break them once he became a big boy.

I nudge him. "Go ahead."

He puts the shield on the counter and his left hand reaches out real careful, like he's afraid the muffins will bite him. Finally, he grabs the nearest one, holds it under his nose, sniffs it, then takes a bite. A little butter drips from the right corner of his mouth, but it's his eyes I'm watching. They're not seeing me or anything else in the store...they're sixteen years away and he's ten years old again and his mother just fixed him breakfast. His eyes are sort of shiny and wet around the rims as he swallows. Then he shakes himself and looks at me. But he doesn't say a word.

I put the butter and eggs in a bag and push it toward him.

"Here. On the house. Gabe will be back any minute with the troops so if you leave now we can avoid any problems."

He lowers the gun but still hesitates.

"Catch those bad guys in the city," I tell him. "But when you need the real thing for yourself, and you need it fresh, ride out here and I'll see you're taken care of."

He shoves the rest of the muffin half into his mouth and chews furiously as he pockets his shield and gun and slaps his hat back on his head.

"You gotta deal," he says around the mouthful, then lifts the bag with his left hand, grabs the other half muffin with his right, and hurries out into the wet.

I follow him to the door where I see Gabe and a couple of the boys from the mill coming up the road with shotguns cradled in their arms. I wave them off and tell them thanks anyway. Then I watch the guy drive off.

I guess I can't tell a Fed when I see one, but I can name anybody's poison. Anybody's.

I glance down at the pile of newspapers I leave on the outside bench. Around the rock that holds it down I can see where some committee of giraffes has announced that it will recommend the banning of Bugs Bunny cartoons from theaters and the airwaves. The creature, they say, shows a complete disregard for authority and is not fit viewing for children.

Well, I've been expecting that and dubbed up a few minidisks of some of Bugs' finest moments. Don't want the kids around here to grow up without the Wabbit.

I also hear talk about a coming federal campaign against being overweight. Bad health risk, they say. Rumor has it they're going to outlaw clothes over a certain size. That's just rumor, of course...still, I'll bet there's an angle in there for me.

Ah, the giraffes. For every one of me there's a hundred of them.

But I'm worth a thousand giraffes.

TO FILL THE SEA AND AIR

INTRODUCTION

This was another sale to George Scithers when he was editing Asimov's. His acceptance note was, "I'll take the fish," and he gave it the cover with a Jack Gaughan painting.

"To Fill..." is part of my LaNague Federation future, but has its origins here on Earth in my childhood. In his younger days, my father was an indefatigable fisherman. He would surf-cast at dawn or at sunset, sit on the bulkheads of the Manasquan Inlet as the tides changed, or go out on a party boat or a private yacht whenever anyone needed an extra hand. Often he'd bring me along. I never saw the attraction of fishing, or any kind of killing sport, for that matter. But it certainly seems more sporting than hunting. I mean, you aren't putting a harmless, graceful, defenseless herbivore in the cross-hairs of a telescopic sight mounted on a superb killing weapon and snuffing out its life with a twitch of your index finger. A fish has to choose your bait and you have to reel him in before he's able to spit the hook. It's fairer, but the odds still don't seem even.

And sometimes as we trolled through the chum out there on the Atlantic, I'd watch the way the fish would hit or avoid the lines and wonder who was playing with whom. This story is the result of those childhood wonderings.

The title comes from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

I don't go fishing anymore.

TO FILL THE SEA AND AIR

During the period in question there were two items on the interstellar market for which supply could never equal demand. The intricate, gossamer carvings of the Vanek were one, valued because they were so subtly alien and yet so appreciable on human terms. The other was filet of chispen, a seafood delicacy with gourmet appeal all across Occupied Space. The flavor…how does one describe a unique gustatorial experience, or the mild euphoria that attends consumption of sixty grams or more of the filet?

Enough to say that it was in high demand in those days. And the supply rested completely on the efforts of the individual chispen fishers on Gelk. Many a large interstellar corporation pressed to bring modern methods to the tiny planet for a more efficient harvesting of the fish, but the ruling council of Gelk forbade the intrusion of outside interests. There was a huge profit to be made and the council members intended to see that the bulk of it went into their own pockets.

from Stars for Sale: An Economic History of Occupied Space

by Emmerz Fent

Imagine the sea, smooth slate gray in predawn under a low drifting carapace of cloud. Imagine two high, impenetrable walls parallel on that sea, separated by ten times the height of a tall man, each stretching away to the horizon. Imagine a force-seven gale trapped between those walls and careening toward you, beating the sea below it to a furious lather as it comes.

Now...remove the walls and remove the wind. Leave the onrushing corridor of turbulent water. That was what Albie saw as he stood in the first boat.

The chispies were running. The game was on.

Albie gauged it to be a small school, probably a spur off a bigger run to the east. Good. He didn't want to hit a big run just yet. He had new men on the nets who needed blooding, and a small school like the one approaching was perfect.

He signaled to his men at their posts around the net, warning them, to brace for the hit. Out toward the sun stood a long dark hull, bristling amidships with monitoring equipment. Albie knew he was being watched but couldn't guess why. He didn't recognize the design and closed his right eye to get a better look with his left.

The doctors had told him not to do that. If he had to favor one of his eyes, let it be the artificial one. But he couldn't get used to it—everything always looked grainy, despite the fact that it was the best money could buy. At least he could see. And if he ever decided on a plastic repair of the ragged scar running across his right eyebrow and orbit, only old friends would know that a chispie wing had ruined that eye. And, of course, Albie would know.

He bore the chispies no animosity, though. No Ahab syndrome for Albie. He was glad to be alive, glad to lose an eye instead of his head. No prosthetic heads around.

Most of the experienced men on the nets wore scars or were missing bits of ears or fingers. It was part of the game. If they didn't want to play, they could stand on shore and let the chispies swim by unmolested. That way they'd never get hurt. Nor would they get those exorbitant prices people all over Occupied Space were willing to pay for filet of chispen.

Turning away from the dark skulking hull, Albie trained both eyes on the chispies. He leaned on the wheel and felt the old tingling in his nerve ends as the school approached. The middle of his sixth decade was passing, the last four of them spent on this sea as a chispen fisher…and still the same old thrill when he saw them coming.

He was shorter than most of the men he employed; stronger, too. His compact, muscular body was a bit flabbier now than usual, but he'd be back to fighting trim before the season was much older. Standing straight out from his cheeks, chin, and scalp was a knotty mane of white and silver shot through with streaks of black. He had a broad, flat nose, and the skin of his face, what little could be seen, showed the ravages of his profession. Years of long exposure to light from a star not meant to shine on human skin, light refracted down through the atmosphere and reflected up from the water, had left his dark brown skin with a texture similar to the soles of a barefoot reef climber, and lined it to an extent that he appeared to have fallen asleep under the needle of a crazed tattooist with a penchant for black ink and a compulsion for cross-hatching. Eyes of a startling gray shone out from his face like beacons in the night.

The stripe of frothing, raging water was closer now. Albie judged it to be about twenty meters across, so he let his scow drift westward to open the mouth of the net a little wider. Thirty meters seaward to his right lay the anchor boat manned by Lars Zaro, the only man in the crew older than Albie. The floats on the net trailed in a giant semi-circle between and behind them, a cul-de-sac ringed with ten scows of Albie's own design—flat-bottomed with a centerboard for greater stability—each carrying one gaff man and one freezer man. The two new hands were on freezer duty, of course. They had a long way to go before they could be trusted with a gaff.

Albie checked the men's positions—all twenty-six, counting himself, were set. Then he glanced again at the big ship standing out toward the horizon. He could vaguely make out Gelk Co I emblazoned across the stern. He wondered why it was there.

* * * * *

"Incredible! That school's heading right for him!"

"Told you."

Two men huddled before an illuminated screen in a dark room, one seated, the other leaning over his shoulder, both watching the progress of the season's first chispen run. The main body of the run was a fat, jumbled streak of light to the right of center on the screen, marking its position to seaward in the deeper part of the trench. They ignored that. What gripped their attention was the slim arc that had broken from the run a few kilometers northward and was now heading directly for a dot representing Albie and his crew.

"How does he do it?" the seated man asked. "How does he know where they're going to be?"

"You've just asked the question we'd all like answered. Albie uses outdated methods, decrepit equipment, and catches more than anyone else on the water. The average chispen fisher brings home enough to support himself and his family; Albie is rich and the two dozen or so who work for him are living high."

"Well, we'll be putting an end to that soon enough, I guess."

"I suppose we will."

"It's almost a shame." The seated man pointed to the screen. "Just look at that! The school's almost in his net. Damn! It's amazing! There's got to be a method to it!"

"There is. And after seeing this, I'm pretty sure I know what it is."

The standing man would say no more.

* * * * *

Albie returned his attention to the onrushing school, mentally submerging and imagining himself at one with the chispies. He saw glistening blue-white fusiform shapes darting through the water around him in tightly packed formation just below the surface. Their appearance at this point differed markedly from the slow, graceful, ray-like creatures that glide so peacefully along the sea bottoms of their winter spawning grounds to the south or the summer feeding grounds to the north. With their triangular wings spread wide and gently undulating, the chispies are the picture of tranquility at the extremes of their habitat.

But between those extremes...

When fall comes after a summer of gorging at the northern shoals, the chispen wraps its barbed wings around its fattened body and becomes a living, twisting missile hurtling down the twelve-hundred-kilometer trench that runs along the coast of Gelk's major land mass.

The wings stay folded around the body during the entire trip. But should something bar the chispies' path—a net, for instance—the wings unfurl as the fish swerve and turn and loop in sudden trapped confusion. The ones who can build sufficient momentum break the surface and take to the air in a short glide to the open sea. The chispen fisher earns his hazard pay then—the sharp barbed edges of those unfurled wings cut through flesh almost as easily as air.

With the school almost upon him, Albie turned his attention to the net floats and waited. Soon it came: a sudden erratic bobbing along the far edge of the semi-circle. A few chispies always traveled well ahead of their fellows and these were now in the net. Time to move.

"Everybody hold!" he yelled and started moving his throttle forward.

He had to establish some momentum before the main body of the school hit, or else he’d never get the net closed in time.

As the white water speared into the pocket of net and boats, Albie threw the impeller control onto full forward and gripped the wheel with an intensity that bulged the muscles of his forearms.

The hit came, tugging his head back and causing the impeller to howl in protest against the sudden reverse pull. As Albie turned his boat hard to starboard and headed for Zaro's anchor boat to complete the circle, the water within began to foam like green tea in a blender. He was tying up to Zaro's craft when the first chispies began breaking water and zooming overhead. But the circumscribed area was too small to allow many of them to get away like that. Only those who managed to dart unimpeded from the deep to the surface could take to the air. The rest thrashed and flailed their wings with furious intensity, caroming off the fibrous mesh of the net and colliding with each other as the gaffers bent to their work.

The game was on.

The boats rocked in the growing turbulence and this was when the men appreciated the added stability of centerboards on the flat-bottomed scows. Their helmets would protect their heads, the safety wires gave them reasonable protection against being pulled into the water, but if a boat capsized…any man going into that bath of sharp swirling sea wings would be ribbon-meat before he could draw a second breath.

Albie finished securing his boat to Zaro's, then grabbed his gaff and stood erect. He didn't bother with a helmet, depending rather on forty years of experience to keep his head out of the way of airborne chispies, but made sure his safety wire was tightly clipped to the back of his belt before leaning over the water to put his gaff to work.

Gaffing was an art, a dynamic synthesis of speed, skill, strength, courage, agility, and hand-eye coordination that took years to master. The hook at the end of the long pole had to be driven under the scales with a cephalad thrust at a point forward of the chispen’s center of gravity. Then the creature’s momentum had to be adjusted—never countered—into a rising arc that would allow the gaff-handler to lever it out of the water and onto the deck of his scow. The freezer man — Zaro in Albie's case — would take it from there, using hand hooks to slide the flopping fish onto the belt that would run it through the liquid nitrogen bath and into the insulated hold below.

Albie worked steadily, rhythmically, his eyes methodically picking out the shooting shapes, gauging speed and size. The latter was especially important: Too large a fish and the pole would either break or be torn from his hands; too small and it wasn't worth the time and effort. The best size was in the neighborhood of fifty kilos—about the weight of a pubescent human. The meat then had body and tenderness and brought the highest price.

Wings slashed, water splashed, droplets flashed through the air and caught in Albie's beard. Time was short. They had to pull in as many as they could before the inevitable happened. Insert the hook, feel the pull, lever the pole, taste the spray as the winged beastie angrily flapped the air on its way to the deck, free the hook and go back for the next. It was the first time all year Albie had truly felt alive.

Then it happened as it always happened: The furious battering opened a weak spot in the net and the school leaked free into the sea. That, too, was part of the game. After a moment of breath-catching, the men hauled in the remains of the net to pick up the leftovers, the chispies too battered and bloodied by their confused and frantic companions to swim after them.

* * * * *

"Look at that, will you?" the seated man said. "They broke out and now they're heading back to the main body of the run. How do you explain that?" The standing man said nothing and the seated- one looked up at him. "You used to work for Albie, didn't you?"

A nod in the dimness. "Once. Years ago. That was before I connected with Gelk Co."

"Why don't you pay him a visit? Never know...he might come in handy."

“I might do that—if he’ll speak to me.”

“Oh? He get mad when you quit?”

“Didn’t quit. The old boy fired me.”

* * * * *

"Hello, Albie.”

Albie looked up from where he sat on the sand in a circle of his men, each with a pile of tattered net on his lap. The sun was lowering toward the land and the newcomer stood silhouetted against it, his features in shadow. But Albie recognized him.

"Vic? That you, Vic?

"Yeah, Albie, it's me. Mind if I sit down?"

"Go ahead. Sand's free."

Albie gave the younger man a careful inspection as he made himself comfortable. Vic had been raised a beach rat but that was hard to tell now. Tall, his mid-thirties, he was sleek, slim, and dark with blue eyes and even features. The one-piece suit he wore didn't belong on the beach. His black hair was slicked back, exposing a right ear bereft of its upper third, lost during his last year on the chispen nets. Restoration would have been no problem had he desired it, but apparently he preferred to flaunt the disfigurement as a badge of sorts.

It seemed to Albie that he had broken Vic in on the nets only a few days ago, and had sacked him only yesterday. But it had been years...eleven of them.

He tossed Vic a length of twine. "Here. Make yourself useful. Can I trust you to do it right?"

"You never let a man forget, do you?" Vic said through an uncertain smile.

"That's because I don't forget!" Albie was aware of the sharp edge on his voice; he refused to blunt it with a smile of his own.

The other men glanced at each other, frowning. Albie's mellow temperament was legend among the fishermen up and down the coast, yet here he was, glowering and suffusing the air with palpable tension. Only Zaro knew what lay behind the animosity.

"Time for a break, boys," Zaro said, "We'll down a couple of ales and finish up later."

Albie never allowed dull-witted men out on the nets with him. They took the hint and walked off.

"What brings you back?" he asked when they were alone.

"That." Vic pointed toward the ship on the horizon,

Albie kept his eyes down, concentrating on repairing the net. "Saw it this morning. What's Gelk Co I mean?"

"She's owned by the Gelk Co Corporation."

"So they call it Gelk Co I? How imaginative."

Vic shrugged and began patching a small hole in the net before him, his expression registering surprise and pleasure with the realization that his hands still knew what to do.

"The Council of Advisors put Gelk Co together so the planet could deal on the interstellar market as a corporation."

"Since when do you work for the C of A?"

"Since my fishing career came to an abrupt halt eleven years ago." His eyes sought Albie's. "I went into civil service then. Been on a research and development panel for the Council."

"Civil service, eh?" Albie squinted against the reddening light. "So now you get taxes put into your pay instead of taken out."

Vic looked visibly stung by the remark. "Not fair, Albie. I earn my pay."

"And what's this corporation supposed to sell?"

"Filet of chispen."

Albie smiled for the first time. "Oh, really? You mean they've still got chispies on their minds?"

"That's all they've got on their minds. And since I spent a good number of years with the best chispen fisher there is, it seemed natural to put me in charge of developing the chispen as a major export."

"And that ship's going to do it?"

"It has to. It must. Everything else was tried before they came to me—"

"Came to me first."

"I know." Vic gave a crooked smile. "And your suggestions were recorded as not only obscene, but physically impossible as well."

"That's because they really aren't interested in anything about those fish beyond the price per kilo."

"Perhaps you're right, Albie. But that boat out there is unique and it's going to make you obsolete. You won't get hurt financially, I know. You could've retired years ago...and should have. Your methods have seen their day. That ship's going to bring this industry up to date."

"Obsolete!" The word escaped behind a grunt of disgust.

Albie seriously doubted the C of A’s ability to render anything obsolete... except maybe efficiency and clear thinking. For the past few years he had been keeping a careful eye on the Council's abortive probes into the chispen industry, watched with amusement as it tried every means imaginable to obtain a large supply of chispen filet short of actually going out and catching the fish.

The chispies, of course, refused to cooperate, persisting in migratory habits that strictly limited their availability. They spawned in the southern gulf during the winter and fattened themselves on the northern feeding shoals during the summer, and were too widely dispersed at those two locales to be caught in any significant numbers. Every spring they grouped and ran north but were too lean and fibrous from a winter of mating, fertilizing and hatching their eggs,

Only in the fall, after a full summer of feasting on the abundant bait fish and bottom weed indigenous to their feeding grounds, were they right for eating, and grouped enough to make it commercially feasible to go after them.

But Gelk's Council of Advisors was convinced there existed an easier way to obtain the filet than casting nets on the water. It decided to raise chispen just like any other feed animal. But chispies are stubborn. They won't breed in captivity, nor will they feed in captivity. This held true not only for adult fish captured in the wild, but for eggs hatched and raised in captivity, and even for chispen clones as well.

The Council moved on to tissue cultures of the filet but the resultant meat was nauseating.

It eventually became evident to even the most dunderheaded member of the Council that there weren't any shortcuts here. The appeal of chispen filet was the culmination of myriad environmental factors: The semiannual runs along the coast gave the meat body and texture; the temperature, water quality, and bottom weed found only on their traditional feeding shoals gave it the unique euphorogenic flavor that made it such a delicacy.

No, only one way to supply the discriminating palates of Occupied Space with filet of chispen and that was to go out on the sea and catch them during the fall runs. They had to be pulled out of the sea and flash-frozen alive before an intestinal enzyme washed a foul odor into the bloodstream and ruined the meat. No shortcuts. No easy way out.

"I didn't come to gloat, Albie. And I mean you no ill will, In fact, I may be able to offer you a job."

"And how could a lowly old gaffer possibly help out on a monstrosity like that?"

He turned back to his net repair.

"By bringing fish into it,"

Albie glanced up briefly, then down again. He said nothing.

"You can't fool me, Albie. Maybe all the rest, but not me. I used to watch you…used to see you talking to those fish, bringing them right into the net."

He couldn’t hide his amusement. "You think I'm a psi or something?"

"I know it. And what I saw on the tracking screen this morning proves it."

"Crazy."

"No. You're a psi. Maybe you don't even know it, but you've got some sort of influence over those fish. You call them somehow and they come running. That's why you're the best."

"You'll never understand, will you? It's—"

"But I do understand! You're a psi who talks to fish!"

Albie squinted at him and spoke in a low voice. "Then why did I have such a rotten season eleven years ago? Why did I have to fire the best first mate I ever had? If I'm a psi, why couldn't I call the chispies into the net that season? Why?"

Vic was silent, keeping his eyes focused on the dark ship off shore.

As he waited for an answer, Albie was pulled pastward to the last time the two of them had spoken.

It had been Albie's worst season since he began playing the game. After an excellent start, the numbers of chispen flowing into the freezers had declined steadily through the fall until that one day at season's end when they sat in their boats and watched the final schools race by, free and out of reach,

That was the day Albie hauled in the net out there on the water and personally gave it a close inspection, actually cutting off samples of net twine and unraveling them. What he found within sent him into a rage.

The first mate, a young man named Vic who was wearing a bandage on his right ear, admitted to replacing the usual twine with fiber-wrapped wire. As Albie approached him in a menacing half-crouch, he explained quickly that he thought too many fish had been getting away. He figured the daily yield could be doubled if they reinforced the net with something stronger than plain twine. He knew Albie had only one hard-and-fast rule among his crew and that was to repair the net exclusively with the materials Albie provided—no exceptions. So Vic opted for stealth, intending to reveal his ploy at season's end when they were all richer from the extra fish they had caught.

Albie threw Vic into the sea that day and made him swim home. Then he cut the floats off the net and let it sink to the bottom. Since that day he had made a practice of being present whenever the net was repaired.

A long time passed before Albie started feeling like himself again. Vic had been in his crew for six years. Albie had taken him on as a nineteen-year-old boy and watched him mature to a man on the nets. He was a natural. Raised along the coast and as much at home on the sea as he was on land, he became a consummate gaffer and quickly rose to be the youngest first mate Albie had ever had. He watched over Vic, worried about him, bled with him when a chispie wing took a piece of his ear, and seriously considered taking him in as a partner after a few more years. Childless after a lifelong marriage to the sea, Albie felt he had found a son in Vic.

And so it was with the anger of a parent betrayed by one of his own that Albie banished Vic from his boats. He had lived with the anguish of that day ever since.

"There's lots of things I can't explain about that season," Vic said. "But I still think you're a psi, and maybe you could help turn a big catch into an even bigger one. If you want to play coy, that's your business. But at least come out and see the boat. I had a lot to do with the design."

"What's in this for you, Vic? Money?"

He nodded. "Lots of it. And a place on the Council of Advisors."

"That's if everything goes according to plan. What if it fails?"

"Then I'm through. But that's not a realistic concern. It's not going to be a question of failure or success, just a question of how successful." He turned to Albie. "Coming out tomorrow?"

Albie's curiosity was piqued. He was debating whether or not to let Zaro take charge of the catch tomorrow…he'd do an adequate job... and it was early in the season...

"When?"

"Midmorning will be all right. The scanners have picked up a good-sized run up at the shoals. It's on its way down and should be here by midday."

"Expect me."

* * * * *

A hundred meters wide and at least three times as long: Those were Albie's estimates. The ship was like nothing he had ever seen or imagined...a single huge empty container, forty-five or fifty meters deep, tapered at the forward end, and covered over with a heavy wire mesh. Albie and Vic stood in a tiny pod on the port rim that housed the control room and crew quarters.

"And this is supposed to make me obsolete?"

"Afraid so." Vic's nod was slow and deliberate. "She's been ready since spring. We've tested and retested—but without chispies. This'll be her christening, her first blooding." He pointed to the yellow streak creeping down the center of the scanning screen. "And that's going to do it."

Albie noticed a spur off the central streak that appeared to be moving toward a dot at the left edge of the screen.

"My, my!" he said with a dry smile. "Look at those chispies heading for my boats—even without me there to invite them in."

A puzzled expression flitted briefly across Vic's features, then he turned and opened the hatch to the outside.

"Let's go up front. They should be in sight now."

Under a high white sun in a cloudless sky, the two men trod the narrow catwalk forward along the port rim. They stopped at a small observation deck where the hull began to taper to a point. Ahead on the cobalt sea, a swath of angry white water, eighty meters wide, charged unswervingly toward the hollow ship. A good-sized run— Albie had seen bigger, but this was certainly a huge load of fish.

"How many of those you figure on catching?"

"Most of them."

Albie's tone was dubious. "I'll believe that when I see it. But let's suppose you do catch most of them—you realize what'll happen to the price of filet when you dump that much on the market at once?"

"It will drop, of course," Vic replied. " But only temporarily, and never below a profitable level. Don't worry: The Council has it all programmed. The lower price will act to expand the market by inducing more people to take advantage or the bargain and try it. And once you've tried filet of chispen..." He didn't bother to complete the thought.

"Got it all figured out, eh?"

"Down to the last minute detail. When this ship proves itself, we'll start construction on more. By next season there'll be a whole fleet lying in wait for the chispies."

"And what will that kind of harvesting do to them? You'll be thinning them out...maybe too much. That's not how the game's played, Vic. We could end up with no chispies at all someday."

"We'll only be taking the bigger ones."

"The little guys need those bigger ones for protection."

Vic held up a hand, "Wait and see. It's almost time." He signaled to the control pod. "Watch."

Water began to rush into the hold as the prow split along its seam and fanned open into a giant scoop-like funnel; the aft panel split vertically down the middle and each half swung out to the rear. The ship, reduced now to a huge open tube with neither prow nor stern, began to sink.

Albie experienced an instant of alarm but refused to show it. All this was obviously part of the process. When the hull was two-thirds submerged, the descent stopped.

Vic pointed aft. "There's a heavy metal grid back there to let the immature chispies through. But there'll be no escape for the big ones. In effect, what we’re doing here is putting a huge, tear-proof net across the path of a major run, something no one's dared to do before. With the old methods, a run like his would make chowder out of anything that tried to stop it."

“How do you know they won't just go around you?"

“You know as well as I do, Albie, these big runs don't change course for anything. We'll sit here, half-sunk in the water, and they'll run right into the hold there; they'll get caught up against the aft grid, and before they can turn around, the prow will close up tight and they're ours. The mesh on top keeps them from flying out."

Albie noticed Vic visibly puffing with pride as he spoke, and couldn't resist one small puncture:

"Looks to me like all you've got here is an oversized, motorized seining scoop."

Vic blinked, swallowed, then went on talking.

"When they're locked in, we start to circulate water through the hold to keep them alive while we head for a plant up the coast where they'll be flash-frozen and processed."

"All you need is some cooperation from the fish."

Vic pointed ahead. "I don't think that'll be a problem. The run's coming right for us."

Albie looked from the bright anticipation in Vic's face to the ship sitting silent and open-mawed, to the onrushing horde of finned fury. He knew what was going to happen next but didn't have the heart to say it. Vic would have to learn for himself.

* * * * *

The stars were beginning to poke through the sky's growing blackness. Only a faint, fading glow on the western horizon remained to mark the sun's passing. None of the moons was rising yet.

With the waves washing over his feet, Albie stood and watched the autumn aurora begin to shimmer over the sea. The cool prevailing breeze carried smoke from his after-dinner pipe away toward the land. Darkness expanded slowly and was almost complete when he heard the voice.

"Why'd you do it, Albie?"

He didn’t have to turn around. He knew the voice, but had not anticipated the fury he sensed caged behind it. He kept his eyes on the faint, wavering flashes of the aurora, his own voice calm.

"Didn't do a thing, Vic."

"You diverted those fish!"

"That's what you'd like to believe, I'm sure, but that's not the way it is.”

The run had been almost on top of them. The few strays that always travel in the lead had entered the hold and slammed into the grate at the other end. Then the run disappeared. The white water evaporated and the sea became quiet. In a panic, Vic had run back to the control pod where he learned from the scanner that the run had sounded to the bottom of the trench and was only now rising toward the surface... half a kilometer aft of the ship. Vic had said nothing, glaring only momentarily at Albie and then secluding himself in his quarters below for the rest of the day.

"It’s true!" Vic's voice was edging toward a scream. "I watched your lips! You were talking to those fish...telling them to dive!"

Albie swing around, alarmed by the slurred tones and growing hysteria in younger man's voice. He could not make out Vic's features in the darkness but could see the swaying outline of his body. He could also see what appeared to be a length of driftwood dangling from his right hand.

"How much've you had to drink, Vic?"

"Enough." The word was deformed by its extrusion through Vic's clenched teeth. "Enough to know I'm ruined and you're to blame."

"And what's the club for? Gonna break my head?"

"Maybe. If you don't agree to straighten out all the trouble you caused me today, I just might."

"And how do you expect me to do that?"

"By guiding the fish into the boat instead of under it."

"Can't do that, Vic."

Albie readied himself for a dodge to one side or the other. The Vic he had known on the nets would never swing that club. But ten years had passed…and this Vic was drunk.

"Can't do it as I am now, and sure as hell won't be able to do it any better with a broken head. Sorry."

A long, tense, silent moment followed. Then two sounds came out of darkness: one, a human cry—half sob, half scream of rage; followed by the dull thud of wood hurled against wet sand. Albie saw Vic's vague outline drop into a sitting position.

"Dammit, Albie! I trusted you! I brought you out there in good faith and scuttled me!"

Albie stepped closer and squatted down beside him. He put the end of his pipe between his teeth. The bowl was cold but he didn't bother relighting it.

"It wasn't me, Vic. It was the game. That ship of yours breaks all the rules of game."

"'The game'!" Vic said, head down, bitterness compressing his voice. "You've been talking about games since the day I met you. This is no game, Albie! This my life…my future!"

"But it’s a game to the chispies. That's what most people don't understand about them. That's why only a few of us are any good at catching them: Those fish are playing a game with us."

Vic lifted his head. "What do you take me for—?"

"It's true. Only a few of us have figured it out, and we don't talk it around. Had you stayed with me a few years longer, I might have told you—if you hadn't figured it out for yourself by then. Truth is, I'm no psi and I don't direct those fish into my net; they find their way in on their own. If they get caught in my net, it's because they want to."

"You've been out on the nets too long, Albie. Chispies can't think."

"I'm not saying they can think like you and me, but they're not just dumb hunks of filet traveling on blind instinct, either. Maybe it only happens when they're packed tight and running, maybe they form some sort of hive-mind then that they don't have when they're spread out. I don't know. I don't have the words or knowledge to get across what I mean. It's a gut feeling...I think they look on the net as a game, a challenge they'll accept only if we play by the rules and give them a decent chance of winning."

He paused, waiting for another wisecrack from Vic, but none came. He continued.

"They can gauge a net's strength. Don't know how, but they do it. Maybe it's those few fish always traveling in the lead...if they find the net too strong, if there's no chance of them breaking out, they must send out some kind of warning and the rest of the run avoids it. Sounds crazy, I know, but there's one inescapable fact I've learned to accept and apply, and it's made me the best: The weaker the net, the bigger the catch."

"So that's why you fired me when you found out I was repairing the nets with wire."

"Exactly. You were hunting for a shortcut with the chispies and there aren't any. You made the net too strong, so they decided to play the game somewhere else. I wound up with the worst season I ever had."

"And I wound up in the water and out of a job!" Vic began to laugh, a humorless sound, unpleasant to hear. "But why didn't you explain this then?”

"Why didn't you come to me when you wanted to experiment with my nets? Why didn't you go buy your own tear-proof net and try it out on your own time? I may have overreacted, but you went behind my back and betrayed my trust. The entire crew went through pretty lean times until the next season because you broke the rules of the game."

Vic laughed again. "A game. I must be drunker than I thought—it almost makes sense."

"After forty years of hauling those winged devils out of the water, it's the only way I can make sense out of it."

"But they get caught and die, Albie! How can that be a game for them?"

"Only a tiny portion of the run challenges me at a time, and only a small percent of those go into the freezer. The rest break free. What seems like a suicide risk to us may be only a diversion to them. Who knows what motivates them? This is their planet, their sea, and the rules of the game are entirely up to them. I'm just a player—one who figured out the game and became a winner."

"Then I'm a loser, I guess—the biggest damn loser to play." He rose to his feet and faced out toward the running lights of the Gelk Co I as it lay at anchor a league off shore.

"That you are," Albie said, rising beside him and trying to keep his tone as light as possible. "You built the biggest, toughest damn net they've ever seen, one they'd never break out of...so they decided not to play."

Vic continued to stare out to sea, saying nothing.

"That's where you belong," Albie told him. "You were born for the sea, like me. You tried your hand with those stiff-legged land-roamers on the Council of Advisors and came up empty. But you and me, we're not equipped to deal with their kind, Vic. They change the rules as they go along, trying to get what they want by whatever means necessary. They sucked you in, used you up, and now they're gonna spit you out. So now's the time to get back on the water. Get out there and play the game with the chispies. They play hard and fast, but always by the same rules. You can die out there, but not because they cheated."

Vic made no move, no sound,

"Vic?"

No reply.

Albie turned and walked up the dune alone.

* * * * *

"ALBIEEEEEE!"

One of the dockhands came running along the jetty. Albie had just pushed off and was following his crew into the early morning haze. He idled his scow and waited for the man to get closer.

"Guy back at the boathouse wants to know if you need an extra hand today."

Albie took a deep breath. "What's he look like?"

"I dunno," the dockhand said with a shrug. "Tall, dark hair, a piece missing from his right—"

Albie smiled through his beard as he reversed the scow.

"Tell him to hurry...I haven't got all day!"

And out along the trench, the chispies moved in packs, running south and looking for sport along the way.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

INTRODUCTION

Sometime in 1988, one of my phone friends, Ed Gorman (with whom I’ve spent countless hours in conversation but have never met) mentioned that he and Marty Greenberg were co editing an anthology called Stalkers for Dark Harvest / NAL. Would I care to contribute? I said I'd been itching to revive Repairman Jack, the lead character from The Tomb – not in a novel (I still didn’t want a series at that time), just a short piece. How about a Jack story? Ed, a Repairman Jack fan since the git-go, told me I had to do it.     

The Tomb had been published four years earlier. It hit the bestseller lists, won the Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books, and the mail began pouring in. I’d known right then he was a series character but I didn’t want to do a series. I’d closed the novel with Jack’s life hanging by a thread, and readers wanted to know: What happened to Repairman Jack? When are you going to do another Repairman Jack novel? Never, I thought. But the book kept selling, and the letters kept coming in.

Hollywood entered the picture. The Tomb has been optioned numerous times. Everyone loves the idea of Repairman Jack as a franchise character; but the rakoshi, the Bengali temple demons who provide the horror, have sunk all attempts to adapt it to film. How do you make them look real? The line between horror and hilarity is a couple of nanometers thick. A rakosh is scary; a guy in a rubber suit is dumb.

In the late 80s, Roger Corman’s New World Pictures had the novel under option. A combination of low-rent antics by Fred Olen Ray with the title, and a lousy screenplay (they moved the action to Pasadena!), had the project dead in the water. I dashed off a spec script in an eleventh-hour attempt to save it, but too late.

The Hollywood connection provided extra incentive to write a new Repairman Jack story. I had created a number of original action sequences for the screenplay I’d sent New World, and I wanted to protect them. The best way to do that was to copyright them in a story. They’re all in “A Day in the Life.”

Stalkers turned out to be a hugely successful anthology, reprinted in book clubs and multiple foreign editions. The result: “A Day in the Life” gained Jack even more fans.

For those who care, Levinson never appeared again. He was replaced by Ernie to ID guru when I started writing the novels. Tram previously appeared in “Dat-Tay-Vao.” As for Hollywood, as I write this, the novel had been in development hell for over 15 years at Beacon Films.

 A DAY IN THE LIFE

When the cockroach made a right turn up the wall, Jack flipped another shuriken across the room. The steel points of the throwing star drove into the wallboard just above the bug’s long antennae. It backed up and found itself hemmed in on all sides now by four of the stars.

“Did it!” Jack said from where he lay across the still made hotel bed.

He counted the shuriken protruding from the wall. A dozen of them traveled upward in a gentle arc above and behind the barely functioning TV, ending in a tiny square where the roach was trapped.

Check that. It was free again. Crawled over one of the shuriken and was now continuing on its journey to wherever. Jack let it go and rolled onto his back on the bedspread.

Bored.

And hot. He was dressed in jeans and a loose, heavy sweater under an oversized lightweight jacket, both dark blue; a black-and-orange knitted cap was jammed on the top of his head. He’d turned the thermostat all the way down but the room remained an oven. He didn’t want to risk taking anything off because, when the buzzer sounded, he had to hit the ground running.

He glanced over at the dusty end table where the little Walkman sized box with the antenna sat in silence.

“Come on, already,” he mumbled to it. “Let’s do it.”

Reilly and his sleazos were due to make their move tonight. What was taking them so long to get started? Almost one a.m. already – three hours here in this fleabag. He was starting to itch. He could handle only so much TV without getting drowsy. Even without the lulling drone of some host interviewing some actor he’d never heard of, the heat was draining him.

Fresh air. Maybe that would help.

Jack got up, stretched, and stepped to the window. A clear almost Halloween night out there, with a big moon rising over the city. He gripped the handles and pulled. Nothing. The damn thing wouldn’t budge. He was checking the edges of the sash when he heard the faint crack of a rifle. The bullet came through the glass two inches to the left of his head, peppering his face with tiny sharp fragments as it whistled past his ear.

Jack collapsed his legs and dropped to the floor. He waited. No more shots. Keeping his head below the level of the windowsill, he rose to a crouch, then leapt for the lamp on the end table at the far side of the bed, grabbed it, and rolled to the floor with it. Another shot spat through the glass and whistled through the room as his back thudded against the floor. He turned off the lamp.

The other lamp, the one next to the TV, was still on – sixty watts of help for the shooter. And whoever was shooting had to know Jack would be going for it next. He’d be ready.

On his belly, Jack slid along the industrial grade carpet toward the end of the bed until he had an angle where the bulb was visible under the shade. He pulled out his next to last shuriken and spun it toward the bulb. With an electric pop it flared blue white and left the room dark except for the flickering glow from the TV.

Immediately Jack popped his head above the bed and looked out the window. Through the spider webbed glass he caught sight of a bundled figure turning and darting away across the neighboring rooftop. Moonlight glinted off the long barrel of a high powered rifle, flashed off the lens of a telescopic sight, then he was gone.

A high pitched beep made him jump. The red light on the signal box was blinking like mad. Kuropolis wanted help. Which meant Reilly had struck.

“Swell.”

* * * * *

Not a bad night,” George Kuropolis thought, wiping down the counter in front of the slim young brunette as she seated herself. Not a great night, but still to have half a dozen customers at this hour was good. And better yet, Reilly and his creeps hadn’t shown up.

Maybe they’d bother somebody else tonight.

“What’ll it be?” he asked the brunette.

“Tea, please,” she said with a smile. A nice smile. She was dressed nice and had decent jewelry on. Not exactly overdressed for the neighborhood, but better than the usual.

George wished he had more customers of her caliber. And he should have them. Why the hell not? Didn’t the chrome inside and out sparkle? Couldn’t you eat off the floor? Wasn’t everything he served made right here on the premises?

“Sure. Want some pie?”

“No, thank you.”

“It’s good. Blueberry. Made it myself.”

The smile again. “No, thanks. I’m on a diet.”

“Sure,” he mumbled as he turned away to get her some hot water. “Everyone’s on a goddamn diet. Diets are gettin’ hazardous to my health.”

Just then the front door burst open and a white haired man in his mid-twenties leaped in with a sawed off shotgun in his hands. He pointed it at the ceiling and let loose a round at the fixture over the cash register. The boom of the blast was deafening as glass showered everything.

Matt Reilly was here.

Four more of his gang crowded in behind him. George recognized them: Reece was the black with the white fringe leather jacket; Rafe had the blue Mohican, Tony had the white; and Cheeks was the baby faced skinhead.

“Awwwwwriiight! Reilly said, grinning fiercely under his bent nose, mean little eyes, dark brows, and bleached crewcut. “It’s ass kickin’ time!”

George reached into his pocket and pressed the button on the beeper there, then raised his hands and backed up against the wall.

“Hey, Matt!” he called. “C’mon! What’s the problem?”

“You know the problem, George!” Reilly said.

He tossed the shotgun to Reece and stepped around the counter. Smiling, he closed with George. The smile only heightened the sick knot of fear coiling in George’s belly. He was so fixed on that empty smile that he didn’t see the sucker punch coming. It caught him in the gut. He doubled over in agony. His last cup of coffee heaved but stayed down.

He groaned. “Christ!”

“You’re late again, George!” Reilly said through his teeth. “I told you last time what would happen if you didn’t stick to the schedule!”

George struggled to remember his lines.

“I can’t pay two protections! I can’t afford it!”

“You can’t afford not to afford it! And you don’t have to pay two. Just pay me!”

“Sure! That’s what the other guy says when he wants his! And where are you then?”

“Don’t worry about the other guy! I’m taking care of him tonight! But you!” Reilly rammed George back against the wall. “I’m gonna hafta make a example outta you, George! People saw what happened to Wolansky when he turned pigeon. Now they’re gonna see what happens to a shit who don’t pay!”

Just then came a scream from off to George’s right. He looked and saw Reece covering the five male customers in booths two and four, making them empty their pockets onto one of the tables. Further down the counter, Cheeks was waving a big knife with a mean looking curved blade at the girl who’d wanted the tea.

“The ring, babe,” he was saying. “Let’s have it.”

“It’s my engagement ring!” she said.

“You wanna look nice at your wedding, you better give it quick.”

He reached for it and she slapped his hand away.

“No!”

Cheeks straightened up and slipped the knife into a sheath tucked into the small of his back.

“Ooooh, you shouldna done that, bitch,” said Reece in oily tones.

George wished he were a twenty five year old with a Schwartzenegger build instead of a wheezy fifty with pencil arms. He’d wipe the floor with these creeps.

“Stop him,” he said to Reilly. “Please. I’ll pay you.”

“Couldn’t stop him now if I wanted to,” Reilly said, grinning. “Cheeks likes it when they play rough.”

In a single smooth motion, the skinhead’s hand snaked out, grabbed the front of the woman’s blouse, and ripped. The whole front came away. Her breasts were visible through a semitransparent bra. She screamed and swatted at him. Cheeks shrugged off the blow and grappled with her, dragging her to the floor.

One of the men in the booth near Reece leapt to his feet and started toward the pair, yelling, “Hey! Whatta y’think you’re doin’?”

Reece slammed the shotgun barrel across his face. Blood spurted from the guy’s forehead as he dropped back into his seat.

“Tony!” Reilly said to the Mohican standing by the cash register. “Where’s Rafe?”

“Inna back.”

George suddenly felt his scalp turn to fire as Reilly grabbed him by the hair and shoved him toward Tony.

“Take George in the back. You and Rafe give him some memory lessons so he won’t be late again.”

George felt his sphincters loosening. Where was Jack?

“I’ll pay! I told you I’ll pay!”

“It’s not the same, George,” Reilly said with a slow shake of his head. “If I gotta come here and kick ass every month just to get what’s mine, well, I got better things to do, y’know?”

As George watched, Reilly hit the “NO SALE” button on the cash register and started digging into the bills.

Thick, pincer like fingers closed on the back of George’s neck as he was propelled into the rear of the diner. He saw Rafe off to the side, playing with the electric meat grinder where George mixed his homemade sausage.

“Rafe!” said Tony. “Matt wants us to teach Mr. Greasyspoon some manners!”

Rafe didn’t look up. He had a raw chicken leg in his hand. He shoved it into the top of the meat grinder. The sickening crunch of bone and cartilage being pulverized rose over the whir of the motor, then ground chicken leg began to extrude through the grate at the bottom.

“Hey, Tone!” Rafe said, looking up and grinning. “I got a great idea!”

* * * * *

Jack pounded along the second floor hallway. He double timed down the flight of stairs to the lobby, sprinted across the carpet tiles that spelled out “The Lucky Hotel” in bright yellow on dark blue, and pushed through the smudged glass doors of the entrance. One of the letters on the neon sign above the door was out. The ucky Hotel flashed fitfully in hot red.

Jack leaped down the three front steps and hit the pavement running. Half a block to the left, then another left down an alley, leaping puddles and dodging garbage cans until he came to the rear of the Highwater Diner. He had his key ready and shoved it into the deadbolt on the delivery door. He paused there long enough to draw his .45 automatic, a Colt Mark IV, and to stretch the knitted cap down over his face. It then became a Halloween decorated ski mask, and he was looking out through a bright orange jack o lantern. He pulled the door open and slipped into the storage area at the rear of the kitchen.

Up ahead he heard the sound of a scuffle, and George’s terrified voice crying, “No, don’t! Please don’t!”

He rounded the corner of the meat locker and found Tony and Rafe – he’d know those Mohicans anywhere – from Reilly’s gang forcing George’s hand into a meat grinder and George struggling like all hell to keep it out. But he was losing the battle. His fingers would soon be sausage meat.

Jack was just reaching for the slide on his automatic when he spotted a meat-tenderizing hammer on a nearby counter. He picked it up and hefted it. Heavy – a good three pounds, most of it in the steel head. Pocketing the pistol, he stepped over to the trio and began a sidearm swing toward Tony’s skull.

“Tony! Trick or treat!”

Tony looked up just in time to stop the full weight of the waffle-faced hammer head with the center of his face. It made a noise like smoonch! as it buried itself in his nose. He was half way to the floor before Rafe even noticed.

“Tone?”

Jack didn’t wait for him to look up. He used the hammer to crunch a wide part in the center of Rafe’s blue Mohican. Rafe joined Tony on the floor.

“God, am I glad to see you!” George said, gasping and fondling his fingers as if to reassure himself that they were all there. “What took you so long?”

“Can’t’ve been more than two minutes,” Jack said, slipping the handle of the hammer through his belt and pulling the automatic again.

“Seemed like a year!”

“The rest of them out front?”

“Just three – Reilly, the skinhead, and Reece.”

Jack paused. “Where’s the rest of them?”

“Don’t know.”

Jack thought he knew. The other three had probably been on that rooftop trying to plug him in his hotel room. But how had they found him? He hadn’t even told George about staying at the Lucky.

One way to find out...

“Okay. You lock the back door and stay here. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“There’s a girl out there–” George said.

Jack nodded. “I’m on my way.”

He turned and almost bumped into Reilly coming through the swinging doors from the front. He was counting the fistful of cash in his hands.

“How we doin’ back–?” Reilly said and then froze when the muzzle of Jack’s automatic jammed up under his chin.

“Happy Halloween,” Jack said.

“Shit! You again!”

“Right, Matt, old boy. Me again. And I see you’ve made my collection for me. How thoughtful. You can shove it in my left pocket.”

Reilly’s face was white with rage as he glanced over to where Tony writhed on the floor next to the unconscious Rafe.

“You’re a dead man, pal. Worse than dead!”

Jack smiled through the ski mask and increased the pressure of the barrel on Reilly’s throat.

“Just do as you’re told.”

“What’s with you and these masks, anyway?” he said as he stuffed the money into Jack’s pocket. “You that ugly? Or do you think you’re Spiderman or something?”

“No, I’m Pumpkinman. And this way I know you but you don’t know me. You see, Matt, I’ve been keeping close tabs on you. I know all your haunts. I stand in plain view and watch you. I’ve watched you play pool at Gus’s. I’ve walked up behind you in a crowd and bumped you as I passed. I could have slipped an ice pick between your ribs a dozen times by now. But don’t try to spot me. You won’t. While you’re trying too hard to look like Billy Idol, I’m trying even harder to look like nobody.”

“You are nobody, man!” His voice was as tough as ever, but a haunted look had crept into his eyes.

Jack laughed. “Surprised to see me?”

“Not really,” Reilly said, recovering. “I figured you’d show up.”

“Yeah? What’s the matter? No faith in your hit squad?”

“Hit squad?” There was genuine bafflement in his eyes. “What the fuck you talkin’ about?”

Jack sensed that Reilly wasn’t faking it. He was as baffled as Jack.

He let his mind wander an instant. If not Reilly’s bunch, then who?

No time for that now. Especially with the muffled screams coming from the front. He turned Reilly around and shoved him back through the swinging doors to the front of the diner. Once there, he bellied Reilly up against the counter and put the .45 to his temple. He saw Reece covering half a dozen customers with a sawed off shotgun. But where was that psycho, Cheeks?

“Okay, turkeys!” Jack yelled. “Fun’s over! Drop the hardware!”

Reece spun and faced them. His eyes widened and he raised the scattergun in their direction. Jack felt Reilly cringe back against him.

“Go ahead,” Jack said, placing himself almost completely behind Reilly. “You can’t make him any uglier.”

“Don’t, man!” Reilly said in a low voice.

Reece didn’t move. He didn’t seem to know what to do. So Jack told him.

“Put the piece on the counter or I’ll blow his head off.”

“No way,” Reece said.

“Don’t try me, pal. I’ll do it just for fun.”

Jack hoped Reece didn’t think he was bluffing, because he wasn’t. He’d already been shot at twice tonight and he was in a foul mood.

“Do what he says, man,” Reilly told him.

“No way!” Reece said. “I’ll get outta here, but no way I’m givin’ that suckuh my piece!”

Jack wasn’t going to allow that. As soon as Reece got outside he’d start peppering the big windows with shot. He was about to move Reilly out from behind the counter to block the aisle when one of the customers Reece had been covering stood up behind him and grabbed the pump handle of the scattergun. A second man leapt to his side to help. One round blasted into the ceiling, and then the gun was useless – with all those hands on it, Reece couldn’t pump another round into the chamber. Two more customers jumped up and overpowered him. The shotgun came free as a fifth man with a deep cut in his forehead shoved Reece back onto the seat of the booth and began pounding at his face. More fists began to fly. These were very angry men.

Jack guided Reilly toward the group. He saw two pairs of legs – male and female, struggling on the floor around the far end of the counter. He shoved Reilly toward the cluster of male customers.

“Here’s another one for you. Have fun. Just don’t do anything to them they wouldn’t do to you.”

Two of the men smiled and slammed Reilly down face first on the booth’s table. They began pummeling his kidneys as Jack hurried down to where Cheeks was doing his dirty work.

He looked over the edge of the counter and saw that the skinhead held the woman’s arms pinned between them with his left hand and had his right thrust up under her bra, twisting her nipple, oblivious to everything else. Her right eye was bruised and swollen. She was crying and writhing under him, even snapping at him with her teeth. A real fighter. She must have put up quite a struggle. Cheeks’ face was bleeding from several scratches.

Jack was tempted to put a slug into the base of Cheeks’ spine so he’d not only never walk again, he’d never get it up again, either. But Cheeks’ knife was in the way, and besides, the bullet might pass right through him and into the woman. So he pocketed the .45, grabbed Cheeks’ right ear, and ripped upward.

Cheeks came off the floor with a howl. Jack lifted him by the ear and stretched his upper body across the counter. He could barely speak. He really wanted to hurt this son of a bitch.

“Naughty, naughty!” he managed to say. “Didn’t you ever go to Catholic school? Didn’t the nuns tell you that bad things would happen to you if you ever did that to a girl?”

He stretched Cheek’s right hand out on the counter, palm down.

“Like you might get warts?”

He pulled the meat hammer from his belt and raised it over his head.

“Or worse?”

He put everything he had into the shot. Bones crunched like breadsticks. Cheeks screamed and slipped off the counter. He rolled on the floor, moaning and crying, cradling his injured hand like a mother with a newborn baby.

“Never hassle a paying customer,” Jack said. “George can’t pay his protection without them.”

He grabbed Reece’s scattergun and pulled him and Reilly free from the customers. Both were battered and bloody. He shoved them toward the front door.

“I told you clowns about trying to cut in on my turf! How many times we have to do this dance?”

Reilly whirled on him, rage in his eyes. He probably would have leapt at Jack’s throat if not for the shotgun.

“We was here first, asshole!”

“Maybe. But I’m here now, so scrape up your two wimps from the back room and get them out of here.”

He oversaw the pair as they dragged Rafe and Tony out the front door. Cheeks was on his feet by then. Jack waved him forward.

“C’mon, loverboy. Party’s over.”

“He’s got my ring!” the brunette cried from the far end of the counter. She held her torn dress up over her breasts. There was blood at the corner of her mouth. “My engagement ring.”

“Really?” Jack said. “That ought to be worth something! Let’s see it.”

Cheeks glared at Jack and reached into his back pocket with his good hand.

“You wanna see it?” he said. Suddenly he was swinging a big Gurkha kukri knife through the air, slashing at Jack’s eyes. “Here! Get a close look!”

Jack blocked the curved blade with the short barrel of the sawed off, then grabbed Cheeks’ wrist and twisted. As Cheeks instinctively brought his broken hand up, Jack dropped the shotgun. He grabbed the injured hand and squeezed. Cheeks screamed and went to his knees.

“Drop the blade,” Jack said softly.

It clattered to the counter.

“Good. Now find that ring and put it on the counter.”

Cheeks dug into the left front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a tiny diamond on a gold band. Jack’s throat tightened when he saw the light in the brunette’s eyes at the sight of it. Such a little thing... yet so important.

Still gripping Cheeks’ crushed hand, he picked up the ring and pretended to examine it.

“You went to all that trouble for this itty bitty thing?” Jack slid it down the counter. “Here, babe. Compliments of the house.”

She had to let the front of her dress drop to grab it. She clutched the tiny ring against her with both hands and began to cry. Jack felt the black fury crowd the edges of his vision. He looked at Cheeks’ round baby face, glaring up at him from seat level by the counter top, and picked up the kukri. He held it before Cheeks’ eyes. The pupils dilated with terror.

Releasing the broken hand, Jack immediately grabbed Cheek’s throat and jaw, twisted him up and around, and slammed the back of his head down on the counter, pinning him there. With two quick strokes he carved a crude “X” in the center of Cheeks’ forehead. He howled and Jack let go. He grabbed the shotgun again and shoved Cheeks toward the door.

“Don’t worry, Cheeks. It’s nothing embarrassing – just your signature.”

Once he had them all outside, he used the shotgun to prod them into the alley between the diner and the vacant three story Borden building next door. They were a pitiful bunch, what with Tony and Rafe barely able to stand, Cheeks with a bloody forehead and a hand swollen to twice normal size, and Reece and Reilly nursing cracked ribs and swollen jaws.

“This is the last time I want to do this dance with you guys. It’s bad for business around here. And besides, sooner or later one of you is really going to get hurt.”

Jack was about to turn and leave them there when he heard tires squeal in the street. Headlights lit the alley and rushed toward him. Jack dove to his left to avoid being hit as the nose of a beat up Chrysler rammed into the mouth of the alley. His foot slipped on some rubble and he went down. By the time he scrambled to his feet, he found himself looking into the business ends of a shotgun, a 9mm automatic, and a Tec 9 assault pistol.

He’d found the missing members of Reilly’s gang.

* * * * *

Even though it made his ribs feel like they were breaking, Matt couldn’t help laughing.

“Gotcha! Gotcha, scumbag!”

He picked up the fallen scattergun and jabbed the barrel at Ski mask’s gut. The guy deflected the thrust and almost pulled it from his grasp. Fast hands. Better not leave this guy any openings.

“The gun,” he said. “Take it out real slow and drop it.”

The guy looked at all the guns pointed at him, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his own by the barrel; it fell to the alley floor with a thud.

“Turn around,” Matt told him, “lean on the wall, and spread ‘em, police style. And remember – one funny move and you’re full of holes.”

Matt patted down his torso and legs and told him, “You musta thought I was a stupid jerk to hit this place without back up. These guys’ve been waiting the whole time for you to show. Never figured you’d come in the back, though. But that’s okay. We gotcha now.”

The frisk turned up nothing, not even a wallet. The blue jacket had nothing in the pockets except the cash from the register. He’d get that later. Right now, though, it was game time.

“All right. Turn around. Let’s see what you look like.”

When the guy turned, Matt reached up and pulled off the pumpkin headed ski mask. He saw an average looking guy about ten years older than he and his boys – mid thirties, maybe – with dark brown hair. Nothing special. Matt shoved the mask back on the top of the guy’s head where it perched at a stupid looking angle.

“What’s your name, asshole?

“Jack.”

“Jack what?”

“O’Lantern. It’s an old Irish–”

Suddenly Cheeks was at Matt’s shoulder, brandishing the special services knife they kept in the car.

“He’s mine!” he screeched. “Lemme make his face into a permanent jack o lantern!”

“Cool it, man.”

“Look what he did to me! Look at my fuckin’ hand! And look at this!” He pointed the knife at the bloody “X” on his forehead. “Look what he did to my face! He’s mine, man!”

“You get firsts, okay? But not here, man. We’re gonna take Mr. Jack here for a ride, and then we’re all gonna get a turn with him.” He held the shotgun out to Cheeks. “Here. Trade ya.”

Matt took the heavy, slotted blade and placed the point against one of the guy’s lower eyelids. He wanted to see him squirm.

“Some knife, huh? Just like the one Rambo uses. Even cuts through bone!”

The guy winced. His tough guy act was gone. He was almost whining now.

“Wha...what are you going to do?”

“Not sure yet, Mr. Jack. But I’m sure Cheeks and me can think up a thousand ways to make you wish you’d never been born.”

The guy slid along the wall a little, pressing back like he was trying to seep into it. His right hand crept up and covered his mouth.

“You’re not gonna t torture me, are you?”

Behind him, Cheeks laughed. Matt had to smile. Yeah, this was more like it. This was going to be fun.

“Who? Us? Torture? Nah! Just a little sport. ‘Creative playtime,’ as my teachers used to call it. I’ve got this great imagination. I can think of all sorts of–”

Matt saw the guy twist his arm funny. He heard a snikt! and suddenly this tiny pistol was in the guy’s hand and the big bore of the stubby barrel was staring into his left eye from about an inch away. And the guy wasn’t whining anymore.

“Imagine this, Matt!” he said through his teeth. “You do a lousy frisk.”

Matt heard his boys crowding in behind him, heard somebody work the slide on an automatic.

“You got no way out of this,” he told the guy.

“Neither do you,” the guy said. “You want to play Rambo? Fine. You’ve got your oversized fishing knife? I’ve got this Semmerling LM 4, the world’s smallest .45. It holds five three hundred-grain hollowpoints. You know about hollowpoints, Matt? Imagine one of those going into your skull. It makes a little hole going in but then it starts to break up into thousands of tiny pieces that fan out as they go through your brain. When those pieces leave your head they’ll take most of your brain – not a heavy load in your case – and the back half of your skull with them, spraying the whole alley behind you.”

Without turning, Matt could sense his boys moving away from directly behind him.

He dropped the knife. “Okay. We call this one a draw.”

The guy grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him deeper into the alley, to an empty doorway. Then he shoved Matt back and dove inside.

Matt didn’t have to tell the others what to do. They charged up and began blasting away into the doorway. Jerry, one of the new arrivals, stood right in front of the opening and emptied his Tec 9’s 36 round clip in one long, wild, jittery burst. He stopped and was grinning at Matt when a single shot came from inside. Jerry flew back like someone had jerked a wire. His assault pistol went flying as he spun and landed on his face. This big wet red hole gaped where the middle of his back used to be.

“Shit!” Matt said. He turned to Cheeks. “Go around the other side and make sure he doesn’t sneak out.”

Reece nudged him, making climbing motions as he pointed up at the rusty fire escape. Matt nodded and boosted him up. It creaked and groaned as Reece, his scattergun clamped under his arm, headed for the second floor like a ghost in white fringed leather. Matt hoped he got real close to the bastard before firing – close enough to make hamburger out of his head with the first shot.

Everybody waited. Even Rafe and Tony had come around enough to get their pieces out and ready. Tony was in bad shape, though. His nose was all squished in and he made weird noises when he breathed. His face looked awful, man.

They waited some more. Reece should have found him by now.

Then a shotgun boomed inside.

“Awright Reece!” Rafe shouted.

Matt listened a moment to the quiet inside. “Reece! Y’get him?”

Suddenly someone came flying out the door, dark blue jacket and jack o lantern ski mask, stumbling like he was wounded.

“Shit, it’s him!”

Matt opened up and so did everyone else. They pumped that bastard so full of holes a whole goddamn medical center couldn’t patch him up even if they got the chance. And then they kept on blasting as he fell to the rubble strewn ground and twisted and writhed and jolted with the slugs. Finally he lay still.

Cheeks came running back from the other side of the building.

“Y’get ‘im?” he said. “Y’get ‘im?”

“Got him, Cheeks!” Rafe said. “Got him good!”

Matt pointed the guy’s own .45 at him as he approached the body. No way he could be alive, but no sense in taking chances. That was when he noticed that the guy’s hands were tied behind his back. Matt suddenly had a sick feeling that he’d been had again. He pulled off the ski mask, knowing he’d see Reece’s face.

He was right. And he had a sock shoved in his mouth.

Behind Matt, Cheeks howled with rage.

* * * * *

Abe ran his fingers through the shoulder fringe of the white leather jacket.

“So, Jack. Who’s your new tailor? Now that Liberace’s gone, you’re thinking maybe of filling his sartorial niche? Or is this Elvis you’re trying to look like?”

Jack couldn’t help smiling. “Could be either. But since I don’t play piano, it’ll have to be Elvis. You can open for me, seeing as you’ve got the Jackie Mason patter down perfect. You write for him?”

“What can I say?” Abe said with an elaborate shrug. “He comes to me, I give him material.”

Jack pulled off the jacket. He’d known he’d get heat from Abe for it, but it was a little too cold out tonight for just a sweater. But he was glad Abe was still in his store. He kept much the same hours as Jack.

Jack rolled up the right sleeve of his sweater and set the little Semmerling back into the spring holster strapped to his forearm. Not the most comfortable rig, but after tonight he ranked it as one of the best investments he’d ever made.

“You had to use that tonight?”

“Yeah. Not one of my better nights.”

“Nu? You’re not going to tell me how such a beautiful and stylish leather coat fits in?”

“Sure. I’ll tell you downstairs. I need some supplies.”

“Ah! So this is a for buying visit and not just a social call. Good! I’m having a special on Claymores this week.”

Abe stepped to the front door of the Isher Sports Shop, locked it, making sure the “SORRY, WE ARE CLOSED” sign faced toward the street. Jack waited as he unlocked the heavy steel door that led to the basement. Below, light from overhead lamps gleamed off the rows and stacks of pistols, rifles, machine guns, bazookas, grenades, knives, mines, and other miscellaneous tools of destruction.

“What’ll it be?

“I lost my forty five, so I’ll need a replacement for that.”

“Swishy leather jackets and losing guns. A change of life, maybe? How about a nine millimeter parabellum instead? I can give you something nice in a Tokarev M213, or a TT9, or a Beretta 92F. How about a Glock 17, or a Llama Commander?”

“Nah.”

“‘Nah.’ You never want to change.”

“I’m loyal.”

“To a person you can be loyal. To a country maybe you’re loyal. But loyal to a caliber? Feh!”

“Just give me another Colt like the last.”

“I’m out of the Mark IV. How about a Combat Stallion. Cost you five fifty.”

“Deal. And maybe I should look into one of those Kevlar vests,” Jack said, glancing at a rack of them at the far end of the basement.

“For years I’ve been telling you that. What makes a change of mind now?”

“Somebody tried to kill me tonight.”

“So? This is new?”

“I mean a sniper. Right through the hotel room window. Where nobody but me knew I was staying. I didn’t even use Jack in the name when I called in the reservation.”

“So maybe it wasn’t you they were after. Maybe it was meant for anybody who happened to walk by a window.”

“Maybe,” Jack said, but he couldn’t quite buy it. “Lousy shot, too. I spotted a telescopic sight on it and still he managed to miss me.”

Abe made a disgusted noise. “They sell guns to anybody these days.”

“Maybe I’ll take a raincheck on the vest,” Jack said, then quickly added, “Oh, and I need another dozen shuriken.”

Abe whirled on him. “Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me! You’ve been spiking cockroaches with my shuriken again, haven’t you? Jack, you promised!”

Jack cringed away. “Not exactly spiking them. Hey, Abe, I get bored.”

Abe reached into a square crate and pulled out one of the six pointed models, wrapped in oiled paper. He held it up and spoke to heaven.

“Oy! Precision weapons made of the finest steel! Honed to a razor’s edge! But does Mr. macher Repairman Jack appreciate? Does he show respect? Reverence? Of course not! For pest control he uses them!”

“Uh, I’ll need about a dozen.”

Muttering Yiddish curses under his breath, Abe began pulling the shuriken out of the crate and slamming them down on the table one by one.

“Better make that a dozen and a half,” Jack said.

* * * * *

First thing the next morning, Jack called George at the diner and told him to meet him at Julio’s at ten. Then he went for his morning run. From a booth on the rim of Central Park, he called the answering machine that sat alone in the fourth floor office he rented on Tenth Avenue. He fast forwarded through a couple of requests for appliance repairs, then came a tentative Oriental voice, Chinese maybe:

“Mistah Jack, this is Tram. Please call. Have bad problem. People say you can help.” He gave a phone number, a downtown exchange.

Tram. Jack had never heard of him. He was the last on the tape. Jack reset it, then called this Tram guy. He was hard to understand, but Jack decided to see him. He told him where Julio’s was and to be there at 10:30.

After a shave and a shower, he headed to Julio’s for some breakfast. He was on the sidewalk, maybe half a block away, when he heard someone shout a warning. He glanced left, saw a man halfway across the street, pointing above him. Something in his expression made Jack dive for the nearest doorway. He was half way there when something brushed his ankle and thudded against the pavement in an explosion of white.

When the dust finally cleared, Jack was staring at what was left of a fifty pound bag of cement. The man who had shouted the warning was standing on the other side of the mess.

“That maniac could’ve killed you!”

“Maniac?” Jack said, brushing the white powder off his coat and jeans.

“Yeah. That didn’t fall. Somebody dropped it. Looked like he was aiming for your head!”

Jack spun and raced around the corner to the other side of the building. This was the second time since midnight someone had tried to off him. Or maim him. The cement bag probably wouldn’t have killed him, but it easily could have broken his neck or his back.

Maybe he had a chance to catch this guy.

He found the stairs to the upper floors and pounded up a dozen flights, but by the time he reached the roof it was empty. Another bag of cement sat on the black tar surface next to a pile of bricks. Someone was planning to repair a chimney.

Warily, he hurried the rest of the way to Julio’s. He didn’t like this at all. Because of the nature of his business, he had carefully structured it for anonymity. He did things to people that they didn’t like, so it was best that they not know who was doing it to them. He did a cash business and worked hard at being an average looking Joe. No trails. Most of the time he worked behind the scenes. His customers knew his face, but their only contact with him was over the phone or in brief meetings in places like Julio’s. And he never called his answering machine from home.

But somebody seemed to know his every move. How?

“Yo, Jack!” said Julio, the muscular little man who ran the tavern. “Long time no see.” He began slapping at Jack’s jacket, sending white clouds into the air. “What’s all this white stuff?”

He told Julio about the two near misses.

Y’know,” Julio said, “I seem to remember hearing about some guy asking aroun’ for you a coupla weeks ago. I’ll find out who he was.”

“Yeah. Give it a shot.”

Probably wouldn’t pan out to anything, but it was worth a try.

Jack scanned the tavern. It was dustier than usual. The hanging plants in the window were withered and brown.

“Your cleaning man die, Julio?”

“Nah. It’s the yuppies. They keep comin’ here. So I let the place get run down and dirty, an’ they still come.”

“Déclassé must be in.”

“They make me crazy, Jack.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve all got our crosses to bear, Julio.”

Jack had finished his roll and was on his second coffee when George Kuropolis came in. He handed George a wad of cash.

“Here’s what Reilly’s boys took from you last night – minus your portion of the next installment on my fee. Tell the rest of your merchants association to ante in their shares.”

George avoided his eyes.

“Some of them are saying you cost as much as Reilly.”

Jack felt the beginnings of a surge of anger but it flattened out quickly. He was used to this. It always had happened with a number of his customers, but more often since The Neutralizer hit the air. Before that, people who called him never expected him to work for free. Now because of some damn stupid goody two-shoes TV vigilante, more and more of his customers had the idea it was Jack’s civic duty to get them out of jams. He’d been expecting some bitching from the group.

This particular merchants association had had it rough lately. They ran a cluster of shops on the lower west side. With the Westies out of the picture, they’d thought they’d have some peace. Then Reilly’s gang came along and began bleeding them dry. Finally one of them, Wolansky, went to the police. Not too long after, a Molotov cocktail came through the front door of his greengrocer, blackening most of his store; and shortly after that his son was crippled in a hit and run accident outside their apartment building. As a result, Wolansky developed acute Alzheimer’s when the police asked him to identify Reilly.

That was when George and the others got together and called Repairman Jack.

“You going to tell me you don’t see the difference?”

“No, of course not,” George said hurriedly.

“Well, let me refresh your memory,” Jack said. “You came to me, not the other way round. This isn’t television and I’m not The Neutralizer. Don’t get reality and make believe confused here. This is my work. I get paid for what I do. I was around before that do gooder came on the air and I’ll be around after he’s off. Those knives Reilly and his bunch carry aren’t props. Their guns aren’t loaded with blanks. This is the real thing. I don’t risk my neck for kicks.”

“All right, all right,” George said. “I’m sorry–”

“And another thing. I may be costing you, but I’m just temporary, George. Like purgatory. Reilly is hell, and hell is forever. He’ll bleed you until he’s stopped.”

“I know. I just wish it was over. I don’t know if I can take another night like last night.” George began rubbing his right hand. “They were gonna–”

“But they didn’t. And as long as they see me as a competitor, they’ll save their worst for me.”

George shuddered and looked at his fingers. “I sure hope so.”

Shortly after George left, an Oriental who looked to be on the far side of fifty showed up at the door. His face was bruised and scraped, his left eye was swollen half shut. Julio intercepted him, shook his hand, welcomed him to his place, clapped him on the back, and led him toward the rear of the tavern. Jack noticed that he walked with a limp. A bum right leg. By the time he reached Jack’s table, he had been thoroughly frisked. If Julio found anything, he would lead him right past Jack and out the back door.

“Tram,” Julio said, stopping at Jack’s table, “this is the man you’re looking for. Jack, this is Tram.”

They had coffee and made small talk while Tram smoked unfiltered Pall Malls back to back. Jack led the conversation around to Tram’s background. His fractured English was hard to follow but Jack managed to piece together the story.

Tram was from Vietnam, from Quang Ngai, he said. He had fought in a string of wars for most of his life, from battling the French with the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu through the final civil war that had ravaged what was left of his country. It was during the last one that a Cong finger charge finished his right leg. Along with so many others who had fought on the losing side, Tram became a refugee after the war. But things improved after he made it to the States. Now an American made prosthesis of metal and plastic took up where his own flesh left off below the knee. And he now ran a tiny laundry just off Canal Street, on the interface between Little Italy and Chinatown.

Finally he got around to the reason he had called Jack.

His laundry had been used for years as a drop between the local mob and some drug runners from Phnom Penh. The set up was simple. The “importers” left a package of Cambodian brown on a given morning; that afternoon it was picked up by one of the local Italian guys who would leave a package of cash in its place. No one watching would see anything unusual. The laundry’s customers ran the ethnic gamut of the area – white, black, yellow, and all the shades between; the bad guys walked in with bundles of dirty clothes and walked out with packages wrapped in brown paper, just like everyone else.

“How’d you get involved in this?” Jack asked.

“Mr. Tony,” Tram said, lighting still another cigarette.

Sounded like a hairdresser. “Mr. Tony who?”

“Campisi.”

“Tony Campisi?” That was no hairdresser.

Tram nodded. “Yes, yes. Knew very good Mister Tony nephew Patsy in Quang Ngai. We call him ‘Fatman’ there. Was with Patsy when he die. Call medic for him but too late.”

Jack had heard of Tony “the Cannon” Campisi. Who hadn’t? A big shot in the dope end of the Gambino family. Tram went on to say that “Fatman” Pasquale had been one of Tony’s favorite nephews. Tony learned of Tram’s friendship with Patsy and helped Tram get into the States after the U.S. bailed out of Nam. Tony even set him up in the laundry business.

But there was a price to pay. Natch.

“So he put you in business and used your place as a drop.”

“Yes. Make promise to do for him.”

“Seems like small time for a guy like Campisi.”

“Mr. Tony have many place to drop. No put all egg in one basket, he say.”

Smart. If the narcs raided a drop, they never got much, and didn’t affect the flow through all the other drops around the city. Campisi had a slick rep. Which was probably why he had rarely seen the inside of a Federal courtroom.

“So why the change of heart?”

Tram shrugged. “Mr. Tony dead.”

Right. The Gambino family had pretty much fallen apart after old Carlo’s death and a deluge of Federal indictments. And Tony “the Cannon” Campisi had succumbed to the Big Casino of the lung last summer.

“You don’t like the new man?”

“No like dope. Bad.”

“Then why’d you act as middle man for Campisi?”

“Make promise.”

Jack’s gaze locked with Tram’s for an instant. The brown eyes stared back placidly. Not much more needed t in the way of explanation.

“Right. So what’s the present situation?”

The present situation was that the hard guy who had made the drops and pick-ups for Campisi over the years was now running that corner of the operation himself. Tram had tried to tell him that the deal was off – “Mr. Tony dead...promise dead,” as Tram put it. But Aldo D’Amico wasn’t listening. He’d paid Tram a personal visit the other day. The result was Tram’s battered face.

“He belted you around himself?”

A nod. “He like that.”

Jack knew the type – you could take the guy off the street, but you couldn’t take the street out of the guy.

Obviously, Tram couldn’t go to the police or the DEA about Aldo. He’d had to find some unofficial help.

“So you want me to get him off your back.”

Another nod. “Have heard you can do.”

“Maybe. Don’t you have any Vietnamese friends who can help you?”

“Mr. Aldo will know is me. Will break my store, hurt my family.”

And Jack could imagine how. The Reillys and the D’Amicos... bully boys, pure and simple. The only difference between them was the size of their bank accounts. And the size of their organizations.

That last part bothered Jack. He did not want to get into any rough and tumble with the mob. But he didn’t like to turn down a customer just because the bad guys were too tough.

Maybe he could find a way.

Central to the Repairman Jack method was shielding himself and the customer by making the target’s sudden run of bad luck appear unrelated to the customer. The hardest part was coming up with a way to do that.

“You know my price?”

“Have been saving.”

“Good.” Jack had a feeling he was going to earn every penny of this one.

The brown eyes lit with hope. “You will help?”

“I’ll see. When’s the next pick up?”

“This day. At four.”

“Okay. I’ll be there.”

“It will not be good to shoot him dead. He has many friends.”

Jack had to smile at Tram’s matter of fact manner.

“I know. Besides, that’s only a last resort. I’ll just be there to do research.”

“Good. Want peace. Very tired of fight. Too much fight in my life.”

Jack looked at Tram’s battered face, thought of his missing leg below the knee, of the succession of wars he had fought in since age fifteen. The man deserved a little peace.

“I read you.”

Tram gave him the address of his laundry and a down payment in twenty dollar bills that were old yet clean and crisp – like he had washed, starched, and pressed them. Jack in return gave him his customary promise to deduct from his fee the worth of any currency or valuables he happened to recover from D’Amico & Co. during the course of the job.

After bowing three times, Tram left him alone at the table. Julio took his place.

“The name ‘Cirlot’ mean anything to you?” he asked.

Jack thought a moment. “Sure. Ed Cirlot. The blackmailer.”

A customer named Levinson – Tom Levinson – had come to Jack a few years ago asking to get Cirlot off his back. Levinson was a high end dealer in identities. Primo quality. Jack had used him twice in the past himself. So Levinson had called him when Cirlot had found a screw and begun turning it.

Cirlot, it seemed, had learned of a few high placed foreign mobsters who had availed themselves of Levinson’s services. He threatened to tip the Feds to their ersatz I D the next time they came Stateside. Levinson knew that if that ever happened, their boys would come looking for him.

Cirlot had made a career out of blackmail, it seemed. He was always looking for new pigeons. So Jack set himself up as a mark – supposedly a crooked coin dealer running a nationwide scam from a local boiler room. Cirlot wanted ten large down and one a month to keep quiet. If he didn’t get it, the FTC would come a knockin’ and not only close Jack down, but take him to court.

Jack had paid him – in bogus twenties. Cirlot had been caught with the counterfeit – enough of it to make a charge of conspiracy to distribute stick. When he’d named Jack’s coin operation as his source, no such operation could be found. He got ten years soft Fed time.

“Don’t tell me he’s out already.”

“Si. Good behavior. And he was asking around about you.”

Jack didn’t like that. Cirlot wasn’t supposed to know anything about Repairman Jack. The coin dealer who had stiffed the blackmailer with bogus was gone like he had never existed. Because he hadn’t.

So why was Cirlot looking for Repairman Jack? There was no connection.

Except for Tom Levinson.

“I think I’ll go visit a certain I D dealer.”

* * * * *

Jack spotted Levinson up on East 92nd Street, approaching his apartment house from the other side. Levinson spotted him at the same time. Instead of waving, he turned and started to run. But he couldn’t move too fast because his foot was all bandaged up. He did a quick hop skip limp combination that made him look like a fleeing Walter Brennan. Jack caught up to him easily.

“What’s the story, Tom?” he said, grabbing Levinson’s shoulder.

He looked frightened, and his spiked black hair only heightened the effect. He was a thin, weaslely man trying to look younger than his forty-something years. He was panting and his eyes were darting left and right like a cornered animal.

“I couldn’t help it, Jack! I had to tell him!”

“Tell him what?”

“About you!” His mouth began running at breakneck speed. “Somehow he connected me and that coin dealer you played. Maybe he had lots of time to think while he was inside. Maybe he remembered that he first heard about a certain coin dealer from me. Anyway, the first thing he does when he gets out is come to me. I was scared shitless, but he doesn’t want me. He wants you. Said you set him up for a fall and made him look like a jerk.”

Jack turned away from Levinson and walked in a small circle. He was angry at Levinson, and disappointed as well. He had thought the forger was a standup guy.

“We had a deal,” Jack said. “When I took you on, you were to keep quiet about it. You don’t know Repairman Jack – never hear of him. That’s part of the deal. Why didn’t you play dumb?”

“I did, but he wasn’t having any.”

“So tell him to go squat.”

“I did.” Levinson sighed. “Jack...he started cutting off my toes.”

The words stunned Jack. “He what?”

“My toes!” Levinson pointed to his bandaged left foot. “He tied me up and cut off my fucking little toe! And he was going to cut off another and another and keep on cutting until I told him how to find you!”

Jack felt his jaw muscles tighten. “Jesus!”

“So I told him all I knew, Jack. Which ain’t much. I gave him the White Pages number and told him we met at Julio’s. I don’t know any more so I couldn’t tell him anymore. He didn’t believe me, so he cut off the next one.”

“He cut off two toes?” Jack felt his gut knot.

“With a big shiny meat cleaver. You want to see?”

“Hell no.” He shook off the revulsion. “I took Cirlot for the white collar type. He never seemed the kind to mix it up.”

“Maybe he used to be, but he ain’t that way now. He’s crazed, Jack. And he wants to bring you down real bad. Says he’s gonna make you look like shit, then he’s gonna ice you. And I guess he’s already tried, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

Jack thought of the shot through the hotel window and the falling cement bag.

“Yeah. Twice.”

“I’m sorry, Jack, but he really hurt me.”

“Christ, Tom. Don’t give it another thought. I mean, your toes...damn!”

He told Levinson he’d take care of things and left him there. As he walked away, he wondered how many toes he’d have given up for Levinson.

He decided he could muddle through life without ever knowing the answer to that one.

* * * * *

As soon as the car pulled to a stop in front of the laundry, Aldo reached for the door handle. He felt Joey grab his arm.

“Mr. D. Let me go in. You stay out here.”

Aldo shrugged off the hand. “I know where you’re comin’ from, Joey, but don’t keep buggin’ my ass about this.”

Joey spread his hands and shrugged. “Ay. You’re the boss. But I still don’t think it’s right, know what I mean?”

Joey was okay. Aldo knew how he felt: He was Aldo D’Amico’s driver and bodyguard, so he should be doing all the rough stuff. And as far as Aldo was concerned, Joey could have most of it. But not all of it. Aldo wasn’t going to hide in the background all the time like Tony C. Hell, in his day Tony could walk through areas like this and hardly anyone would know him. He was just another paisan to these people. Well, that wasn’t going to be Aldo’s way. Everybody was going to know who he was. And when he walked through is was going to be, “Good morning, Mr. D’Amico!” “Would you like a nice apple, Mr. D’Amico?” “Have some coffee, Mr. D’Amico!” “Right this way, Mr. D’Amico!” People were going to know him, were going to treat him with respect. He deserved a little goddamn respect by now. He’d be forty five next month. He’d done Tony the Cannon’s scut work forever. Knew all the ins and outs of the operation. Now it was his. And everybody was going to know that.

“I’ll handle this like I did yesterday,” he told Joey. “Like I told you: I believe in giving certain matters the personal touch.”

What he didn’t tell Joey was that he liked the rough stuff. That was the only bad thing about moving up in the organization – you never got a chance for hands on communication with jerks like the gook who owned this laundry. Never a peep out of the little yellow bastard all the years Tony C. was running things, but as soon as he’s gone, the gook thinks he’s gonna get independent with the new guy. Not here, babe. Not when the new guy’s Aldo D’Amico.

He was hoping the gook gave him some more bullshit about not using his place for a drop anymore. Any excuse to work him over again like the other day.

“Awright,” Joey said, shaking his head with frustration, “but I’m comin’ in to back you up. Just in case.”

“Sure, Joey. You can carry the laundry.”

Aldo laughed, and Joey laughed with him.

* * * * *

Jack had arrived at Tram’s with a couple of dirty shirts at about 3:30. Dressed in jeans, an Army fatigue jacket, and a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead, he now sat in one of the three chairs and read the Post while Tram ran the shirts through the machine. It was a tiny hole in the wall shop that probably cost the little man most of his good leg in rent. A one man operation except for some after school counter help which Tram always sent on an errand when a pick up or delivery was due.

Jack watched the customers, a motley group of mostly lower middle class downtowners, flow in and out. Aldo D’Amico and his bodyguard were instantly identifiable by their expensive top coats when they arrived at 4:00 on the button. Aldo’s was dark gray with a black felt collar, a style Jack hadn’t seen since the Beatles’ heyday. He was mid-forties with a winter tan and wavy blow dried hair receding on both sides. Jack knew he had to be Aldo because the other guy was a side of beef and was carrying a wad of dirty laundry.

Jack noticed the second guy giving him a close inspection. He might as well have had BODYGUARD stenciled on his back. Jack glanced up, gave the two of them a disinterested up and down, then went back to the sports page.

“Got something for me, gook?” Aldo said, grinning like a shark as he slapped the knuckles of his right fist into his left palm.

Jack sighed. He knew the type. Most tough guys he knew wouldn’t hesitate to hurt somebody, even ice them if necessary, but to them it was like driving a car through downtown traffic in the rain: You didn’t particularly like it but you did it because you had to get someplace; and if you had the means, you preferred to have somebody else do it for you.

Not this Aldo. Jack could tell that mixing it up was some kind of fix for him.

Maybe that could be turned around. Jack didn’t have a real plan here. His car was parked outside. He intended to pick up Aldo and follow him around, follow him home if he could. He’d do that for a couple of days. Eventually, he’d get an idea of how to stick him. Then he’d have to find a way to work that idea to Tram’s benefit. This was going to be long, drawn out, and touchy.

At the counter, Tram sullenly placed a brown paper wrapped bundle on the counter. The bodyguard picked it up and plopped the dirty laundry down in its place. Tram ignored it.

“Please, Mr. Aldo,” he said. “Will not do this anymore.”

“Boy, you’re one stupid gook, y’know that?” He turned to his bodyguard. “Joey, take the customer for a walk while I discuss business with our Vietnamese friend here.”

Jack felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up from his paper into Joey’s surprisingly mild eyes.

“C’mon. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

“I got shirts coming,” Jack said.

“They’ll wait. My friend wants a little private talk with the owner.”

Jack wasn’t sure how to play this. He wasn’t prepared for any rough and tumble here, but he didn’t want to leave Tram to Aldo’s tender mercies again.

“Then let him talk in the back. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Joey grabbed him under the arm and pulled him out of the chair. “Yeah. You are.”

Jack came out of the chair quickly and knocked Joe’s arm away.

“Hands off, man!”

He decided that the only way to get out of this scene on his terms was to pull a psycho number. He looked at Joey’s beefy frame and heavy overcoat and knew attacking his body would be a waste of time. That left his face.

“Just stay away!” Jack shouted. “I don’t like people touching me. Makes me mad! Real mad!”

Joey dropped the brown paper bundle onto a chair. “All right. Enough of this shit.” He stepped in close, gripped Jack’s shoulders, and tried to turn him around.

Jack reached up between Joey’s arms, grabbed his ears, and yanked the bodyguard’s head forward. As he lowered his head and butted, he had a fleeting glimpse of the sick look on Joey’s startled face. He hadn’t been expecting anything like this, but he knew what was coming.

When Jack heard Joey’s nose crunch against the top of his skull, he pushed him away and kicked him hard in the balls. Joey dropped to his knees and groaned. His bloody face was slack with pain and nausea.

Jack next leapt on Aldo who was gaping at him with a stunned expression.

“You want some of me, too?” he shouted.

Aldo’s overcoat was unbuttoned and he was leaner than Joe. Jack went for the breadbasket: right left combination jabs to the solar plexus, then a knee to the face when he doubled over. Aldo went down in a heap.

But it wasn’t over. Joey was reaching a hand into his overcoat pocket. Jack jumped on him and wrestled a short barreled Cobra .357 revolver away from him.

“A gun? You pulled a fucking gun on me, man?” He slammed the barrel and trigger guard across the side of Joey’s head. “Shit that makes me mad!”

Then he spun and pointed the pistol at the tip of Aldo’s swelling nose.

“You!” he screamed. “You started this! You didn’t want me to get my shirts! Well, you can have them! They’re old anyway! I’ll take yours! All of them!”

He grabbed the bundle of dirty shirts from the counter and then went for the brown paper package on the chair.

“Jesus, no!” Aldo said. “No! You don’t know what–”

Jack leapt on him and began pistol whipping him, screaming, “Don’t tell me what I don’t know!”

As Aldo covered his head with his arms, Jack glanced at Tram motioned him over. Tram got the idea. He came out from behind the counter and shoved Jack away, but not before Jack had managed to open Aldo’s scalp in a couple of places.

“You get out!” Tram cried. “Get out or I call police!”

“Yeah, I’ll get out, but not before I put a couple of holes in this rich pig here!”

Tram stood between him and Aldo. “No! You go! You cause enough trouble!”

Jack made a disgusted noise and ran out with both bundles. Outside he found an empty Mercedes 350 SEL idling at the curb by a fire hydrant. Why not?

As he gunned the heavy car toward Canal Street, he wondered at his screaming psycho performance. Pretty convincing. And easy, too. He’d hardly stretched at all to take the part and really get into in.

That bothered him a little.

* * * * *

“Fifty thousand in small bills,” Abe said after he’d finished counting the money that had been wrapped inside the dirty laundry. He had it spread out in neat piles on a crate in the basement of his store. “If I were you, I shouldn’t complain. Not so bad for an afternoon’s work.”

“Yeah. But it’s the ten keys of cocaine and the thirty of Cambodian brown.” The wrapped package had housed some of the heroin. The cocaine and the rest of the heroin had been in a duffel bag in the trunk. “What am I going to do with that?”

“There’s a storm drain outside. Next time it rains...”

Jack thought about that. The heroin would definitely go down the drain. Any alligators or crocs living down in the sewers would be stoned for life. But the cocaine...that might come in handy in the future, just like the bogus twenties had come in handy against Cirlot.

Cirlot. Something about him was perking in the back of Jack’s mind.

“I’ve always wanted a Mercedes,” Abe said.

“What for? You haven’t been further east than Queens and further west than Columbus Avenue in a quarter century.”

“Someday I might like maybe to travel. See New Jersey.”

“Yeah. Well, that’s not a bad idea. No doubt about it, the best way to see New Jersey is from the inside of a Mercedes. But it’s too late. I gave the car to Julio to dispose of.”

Abe sagged. “Chop shop?”

Jack nodded. “He’s going to shop it around for quick cash. Figures another ten grand, minimum, maybe twenty.”

A take of sixty seventy K so far from one visit to Tram’s laundry. Which meant that Jack would be returning Tram’s down payment and giving him a free ride on this job. Which was fine for Tram’s bank account, but Jack didn’t know what his next step was. He’d shaken things up down there. Now maybe it would be best to sit back and watch what fell out of the trees.

He headed for Gia’s. He kept to the windy shadows as he walked along, kept looking over his shoulder. Cirlot had seemed to know where he was going, and when he’d be there. Was he watching him now?

Jack didn’t like being on this end of the game.

But how did Cirlot know? That was what ate at him. Jack knew his apartment wasn’t bugged – the place was like a fortress. Besides, Cirlot didn’t know where he lived. And even if he did, he couldn’t get inside to place a bug. Yet he seemed to know Jack’s moves. How, dammit?

Jack made a full circuit of Gia’s block and cut through an alley before he felt it was safe to enter her apartment house.

Two fish eye peepholes nippled Gia’s door. Jack had installed them himself. One was the usual height, and one was Vicky height. He knocked and stood there, pressing his thumb over the lower peephole as he waited.

“Jack, is that you?” said a child’s voice from the other side.

He pulled his thumb away and grinned into the convex glass.

“Ta daaa!”

The deadbolt slid back, the door swung inward, and suddenly he was holding a bony seven-year-old girl in his arms. She had long dark hair, blue eyes, and a blinding smile.

“Jack! Whatcha bring me?”

He pointed to the breast pocket of his fatigue jacket. Vicky reached inside and pulled out a packet of bubblegum cards.

“Football cards! Neat! You think there’s any Jets in this one?”

“Only one way to find out.”

He carried her inside and put her down. He locked the door behind them as she fumbled with the wrapper.

“Jack!” she said, her voiced hushed with wonder. “They’re all Jets! All Jets! Oh, this is so neat!”

Gia stepped into the living room. “The only eight-year old in New York who says ‘neat.’ Wonder where she got that from?”

She kissed him lightly and he slid an arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. She shared her daughter’s blue eyes and bright smile, but her hair was blonde. She brightened up the whole room for Jack.

“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I think it’s pretty neat to get five – five – members of your favorite team in a single pack of bubblegum. I don’t know anybody else who’s got that kind of luck.”

Jack had gone through a dozen packs of cards before coming up with those five Jets, then he had slipped them into a single wrapper and glued the flaps back in place. Vicky had developed a thing for the Jets, simply because she liked their green and white jerseys – which was as good a reason as any to be a Jets fan.

“Start dinner yet?” he asked.

Gia shook her head. “Just getting ready to. Why?”

“Have to take a raincheck. I’ve got a few things I’ve got to do tonight.”

She frowned. “Nothing dangerous, I hope.”

“Nah.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“Well, sure. I mean, after surviving the blue meanies last year, everything else is a piece of cake.”

“Don’t mention those things!” Gia shuddered and hugged him. “Promise you’ll call me when you’re back home?”

“Yes, mother.”

“I’m serious. I worry about you.”

“You just made my day.”

She broke away and picked up a slim cardboard box from the couch. “Land’s End” was written across one end.

“Your order arrived today.”

“Neat.” He pulled out a bright red jacket with navy blue lining. He pulled off the fatigue jacket and tried it on. “Perfect. How do I look?”

“Like every third person in Manhattan,” Gia said.

“Great!”

“All you need is a Hard Rock Cafe sweat shirt and the picture will be complete.”

Jack worked at being ordinary, at being indistinguishable from everybody else, just another face in the crowd. To do that, he had to keep up with what the crowd was wearing. Since he didn’t have a charge card, Gia had ordered the jacket for him on hers.

“I’d better turn off the oven,” Gia said.

“I’ll treat tomorrow night. Chinese. For sure.”

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll believe it when I smell it.”

Jack stood there in the tiny living room, watching Vicky spread out her football cards, listening to Gia move about the kitchen over the drone of Eyewitness News, drinking in the rustle and bustle and noises and silences of a home. The domestic feel of this tiny apartment – he wanted it. But it seemed so out of reach. He could come and visit and warm himself by the fire, but he couldn’t stay. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t gather it up and take it with him.

His work was the problem. He had never asked Gia to marry him because he knew the answer would be no. Because of what he did for a living. And he wouldn’t ask her for the same reason: Because of what he did for a living. Marriage would make him vulnerable. He couldn’t expose Gia and Vicky to risk like that. He’d have to retire first. But he wasn’t even forty. Besides go crazy, what would he do for the next thirty or forty years?

Become a citizen? Get a day job? How would he do that? How would he explain why there was no record of his existence up till now? No job history, no Social Security hours, no file of 1040’s. The IRS would want to know if he was an illegal alien or a Gulag refugee or something. And if he wasn’t, they’d ask a lot of questions he wouldn’t want to answer.

He wondered if he had started something he couldn’t stop.

And then he was looking out through the picture window in Gia’s dining room at the roof of the apartment house across the street and remembering the bullets tearing through the hotel room less than twenty four hours ago. His skin tingled with alarm. He felt vulnerable here. And worse, he was exposing Gia and Vicky to his own danger. Quickly he made his apologies and good byes, kissed them both, and hurried back to the street.

He stood outside the apartment house, slowly walking back and forth before the front door.

Come on, you son of a bitch! Do you know I’m here? Take a shot! Let me know!

No shot. Nothing fell from the roof.

Jack stretched his cramped fingers out from the tight fists he had made. He imagined some vicious bastard like Cirlot finding out about Gia and Vicky, threatening them, maybe hurting them...it almost put him over the edge.

He began walking back toward his own apartment. He moved quickly along the pavement, then broke into a run, trying to work off the anger, the mounting frustration.

This had to stop. And it was going to stop. Tonight, if he had anything to say about it.

* * * * *

Jack stopped at a pay phone and called Tram. The Vietnamese told him that Aldo and his bodyguard had limped out and found a cab, swearing vengeance on the punk who had busted them up. Tram was worried that Aldo might take his wrath out on him if he couldn’t find Jack. That worried Jack, too. He called his answering machine but found nothing of interest on it

As he hung up he remembered something: Cirlot and phones. Yes. That was how the blackmailer had got his hooks into his victims. The guy was an ace wiretapper.

Jack trotted back to his brownstone. But instead of going up to his apartment, he slipped down to the utility closet. He pulled open the phone box and spotted the tap immediately: jumper wires attached to a tiny high frequency transmitter. Cirlot probably had a voice activated recorder stashed not too far from here.

Now things were starting to make sense. Cirlot had learned from Levinson that Jack met customers at Julio’s. He’d hung around outside until he spotted Jack, then tailed him home.

Jack clucked to himself. He was getting careless in his old age.

Soon after that, Cirlot had shown up, probably as a phone man, inserted the tap, and sat back and listened. Jack had used his apartment phone to reserve the room at the Lucky Hotel...and he had called Julio this morning to tell him he’d be over by ten thirty. It all fit.

Jack closed the phone box, leaving the tap in place.

Two could play this game.

* * * * *

Jack sprawled amid the clutter of Victorian oak and bric-a-brac that filled the front room of his apartment and called George at the diner. This was his second such call in half an hour, except that the first had been made from a public phone. He had told George to expect this call, and had told him what to say.

“Hello, George,” he said when the Greek picked up the other end. “You got the next payment together from your merchants association?”

“Yeah. We got it. In cash like usual.”

“Good deal. I’ll be by around midnight to pick it up.”

“I’ll be here,” George said.

Jack hung up and sat there, thinking. The bait was out. If Cirlot was listening, chances were good he’d set up another ambush somewhere in the neighborhood of the Highwater Diner at around midnight. But Jack planned to be there first to see if he could catch Cirlot setting up. And then they would settle things. For good. Jack wasn’t going to have anybody dogging his steps back to Gia and Vicky, especially someone who had chopped a couple of toes off a former customer.

On his way downtown an hour later, Jack called his answering machine again. He heard a message from George asking him to call right away. When he did, he heard a strange story.

“I asked you to what?” Jack said.

“Meet you in the old Borden building next door. You said there’d been a change of plans and it was probably safer if you didn’t show up at the diner. So I was to meet you next door at ten thirty and hand over the money.”

Jack had to smile. This Cirlot was slicker than he’d thought.

“Did it sound like me?”

“Hard to say. The connection was bad.”

“What did you say?”

“I agreed, but I thought it was fishy because it wasn’t the way we had set it up before. And because you said you’d be wearing a ski mask like last night. That sounded fishy, too.”

“Good man. I appreciate the call. Call me again if you hear from anyone who says he’s me.”

“Will do.”

Jack hung up. Instead of hailing a cab to go downtown, he ducked into a nearby tavern and ordered a draft of Amsterdam.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Cirlot seemed more interested in ripping him off than knocking him off – at least tonight. Tom Levinson’s words came back: Gonna make you look like shit, then he’s gonna ice you.

So that was it. Another piece fell into place. The bag of cement had missed him. Okay – no one could expect much accuracy against a moving target with a heavy, cumbersome object like that. But the shooter outside the Lucky Hotel had had a telescopic sight. Jack had been a sitting duck. The guy shouldn’t have missed.

Unless he’d wanted to. That had to be it. Cirlot was playing head games with him, getting him off balance until he had a chance to humiliate him, expose him, make him look like a jerk. He wanted to payback in kind before he killed Jack.

Ripping off one of his fees would be a good start.

Jack’s anger was tinged with amusement.

He’s playing my own game against me.

But not for long. Jack was the old hand here. It was his game. He’d invented it, and he’d be damned if he’d let Cirlot outplay him. The simplest thing to do was to confront Cirlot in that old wreck of a building and have a showdown.

Simple, direct, effective, but lacking in style. He needed to come up with something very neat here. A masterstroke, even.

And then, as he lifted his glass to drain the final ounces of his draft, he had it.

* * * * *

Reilly was waiting his turn at the pool table. He didn’t feel like shooting much. With Reece and Jerry dead, everybody was down and pissed. All they’d talked about since last night was finding that jack o lantern guy. The only laugh they’d had all day was when they learned that Reece’s real name was Maurice.

Just then Gus called over from the bar. He was holding the phone receiver in the air.

“Yo! Reilly! You’re wanted!”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Said to tell you it’s Pumpkinhead.”

Reilly nearly tripped over his stick getting to the phone. Cheeks and the others were right behind him.

“Gonna find you, fucker!” he said as soon as he got the receiver to his head.

“I know you are,” said the voice on the other end. “Because I’m gonna tell you where I am. We need a meet. Tonight. You lost two men and I almost got killed last time we tangled. What do you say to a truce? We can find some way to divide things up so we both come out ahead.”

Reilly was silent while he controlled himself. Was this fucker crazy? A truce? After what he did last night?

“Sure,” he managed to say. “We can talk.”

“Good. Just you and me.”

“Okay.” Riiiiight. “Where?”

“The old place we were in last night – next to the Highwater. Ten thirty okay?”

Reilly looked at his watch. That gave him an hour and a half. Plenty of time.

“Sure.”

“Good. And remember, Reilly: Come alone or the truce is off.”

“Yeah.”

He hung up and turned to his battered boys. They didn’t look like much, what with Rafe, Tony, and Cheeks all bandaged up, and Cheeks’ hand in a cast. Hard to believe only one guy had done all this. But that one guy was a mean dude, full of tricks. So they weren’t going to take any chances this time. No talk. No deals. No hesitation. No reprieve. They were going to throw everything they had at him tonight.

“That really him?” Cheeks asked.

“Yeah,” said Reilly, smiling. “And tonight we’re gonna have us some punkin pie!”

* * * * *

“Aldo, this man insists on speaking to you!”

Aldo D’Amico glared at his wife and removed the ice pack from his face. He had a brutal headache from the bruises and stitches in his scalp. His nose was killing him. Broken in two places. The swelling made him sound like he had a bad cold.

He wondered for the hundredth time about that punk in the laundry. Had the gook set them up? Aldo wanted to believe it, but it just didn’t wash. If he’d been laying for Aldo, he’d have had his store filled with some sort of gook army, not one white guy. But Christ the way that one guy moved! Fast. Like liquid lightning. A butt and a kick and Joey was down and then he’d been on Aldo, his face crazy. No. It hadn’t been a set up. Just some stunad punk. But that didn’t make it any easier to take.

“I told you, Maria, no calls!”

Bad enough he’d be laughed at all over town for being such a gavone to allow some nobody to bust him up and steal his car, and even worse that his balls were on the line for the missing money and shit, so why couldn’t Maria follow a simple order? He never should have come home tonight. He’d have been better off at Franny’s loft on Greene Street. Franny did what she was told. She damn well better. He paid her rent.

“But he says he has information on your car.”

Aldo’s hand shot out. “Gimme that! Hello!”

“Mr. D’Amico, sir,” said a very deferential voice on the other end. “I’m very sorry about what happened today at that laundry. If I’da known it was someone like you, I wouldn’a caused no trouble. But I didn’t know, y’see, an I got this real bad temper, so like I’m sorry–”

“Where’s the car?” Aldo said in a low voice.

“I got it safe and I wanna return it to you along with the money I took and the, uh, other laundry and the, uh, stuff in the trunk, if you know what I mean and I think you do.”

The little shit was scared. Good. Scared enough to want to give everything back. Even better. Aldo sighed with relief.

“Where is it?”

“I’m in it now. Like I’m talkin’ on you car phone. But I’m gonna leave it somewhere and tell you where you can find it.”

“Don’t do that!” Aldo said quickly.

His mind raced. Getting the car back was number one priority, but he wanted to get this punk, too. If he didn’t even the score, it would be a damn long time before he could hold his head up on the street.

“Don’t leave it anywhere! Someone might rip it off before I get there, and that’ll be on your head! We’ll meet–”

“Oh, no! I’m not getting plugged full of holes!”

Yes, you are, Aldo thought, remembering the punk pointing Joey’s magnum in his face.

“Hey, don’t worry about that,” Aldo said softly. “You’ve apologized and you’re returning the car. It was an accident. We’ll call it even. As a matter of fact, I like the way you move. You made Joey look like he was in slow motion. Actually, you did me a favor. Made me see how bad my security is.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I could use a guy like you. How’d you like to replace Joey?”

“Y’mean be your bodyguard? I don’t know, Mr. D’Amico.”

“Think about it. We’ll talk about it when I see you tonight. Where we gonna meet?”

“Uuuuh, how about by the Highwater Diner? It’s down on–”

“I know where it is.”

“Yeah, well there’s an old abandoned building right next door. How about if I meet you there?”

“Great. When?”

“Ten thirty.”

“That’s kinda soon–”

“I know. But I’ll feel safer.”

“Hey, don’t worry! When Aldo D’Amico gives his word, you can take it to the bank!”

And I promise you, punk, you’re a dead man!

“Yeah, well, just in case we don’t hit it off, I’ll be wearing a ski mask. I figure you didn’t get a real good look at me in that laundry and I don’t want you getting a better one.”

“Have it your way. See you at ten thirty.”

He hung up and called to his wife. “Maria! Get Joey on the phone. Tell him to get over here now!”

Aldo went to his desk drawer and pulled out his little Jennings .22 automatic. He hefted it. Small, light, and loaded with high velocity longs. It did the job at close range. And Aldo intended to be real close when he used this.

* * * * *

A little before ten, Jack climbed up to the roof of the Highwater Diner and sat facing the old Borden building. He watched Reilly and five of his boys – the whole crew – arrive shortly afterwards. They entered the building from the rear. Two of them carried large duffel bags. They appeared to have come loaded for bear. Not too long after them came Aldo and three wiseguys. They took up positions outside in the alley below and out of sight on the far side.

No one, it seemed, wanted to be fashionably late.

At 10:30 sharp, a lone figure in a dark coat, jeans, and what looked like a knit watch cap strolled along the sidewalk in front of the Highwater. He paused a moment to stare in through the front window. Jack hoped George was out of sight like he had told him to be. The dark figure continued on. When he reached the front of the Borden building, he glanced around, then started toward it. As he approached the gaping front entry, he stretched the cap down over his face. Jack couldn’t see the design clearly but it appeared to be a crude copy of the one he’d worn last night. All it took was some orange paint...

Do you really want to play Repairman Jack tonight, pal?

For an instant he flirted with the idea of shouting out a warning and aborting the set up. But he called up thoughts of life in a wheelchair due to a falling cement bag, of Levinson’s missing toes, of bullets screaming through Gia and Vicky’s apartment.

He kept silent.

He watched the figure push in through the remains of the front door and disappear inside. In the alley, Aldo and Joey rose from their hiding places and shrugged to each other in the moonlight. Jack knew what Aldo was thinking: Where’s my car?

But they leapt for cover when the gunfire began. It was a brief roar, but very loud and concentrated. Jack picked out the sound of single rounds, bursts from a pair of assault pistols, and at least two, maybe three shotguns, all blasting away simultaneously. Barely more than a single prolonged flash from within. Then silence.

Slowly, cautiously, Aldo and his boys came out of hiding, whispering, making baffled gestures. One of them was carrying an Uzi, another held a sawed off. Jack watched them slip inside, heard shouts, even picked out the word “car.”

Then all hell broke loose.

It looked as if a very small, very violent thunderstorm had got itself trapped on the first floor of the old Borden building. The racket was deafening, the flashes through the glassless windows like half a dozen strobe lights going at once. It went on full force for what seemed like twenty minutes but ticked out to slightly less than five on Jack’s watch. Then it tapered and died. Finally… quiet. Nothing moved.

No. Check that. Someone was crawling out a side window and falling into the alley. Jack went down to see.

Reilly. He was bleeding from his mouth, his nose, and his gut. And he was hurting.

“Get me a ambulance, man!” he grunted as Jack crouched over him. His voice was barely audible.

“Right away, Matt,” Jack said.

Reilly looked up at him. His eyes widened. “Am I dead? I mean...we offed you but good in there.”

“You offed the wrong man, Reilly.”

“Who cares...you can have this turf...I’m out of it...just get me a fucking ambulance! Please?”

Jack stared at him a moment. “Sure,” he said.

Jack got his hands under Reilly’s arms and lifted him. The wounded man nearly passed out with the pain of being moved. But he was aware enough to notice that Jack wasn’t dragging him toward the street.

“Hey...where y’takin’ me?”

“Around back.”

Jack could hear the sirens approaching. He quickened his pace toward the rear.

“Need a doc...need a ambulance.”

“Don’t worry,” Jack said. “There’s one coming now.”

He dumped Reilly in the rearmost section of the Borden building’s back alley and left him there.

“Wait here for your ambulance,” he told him. “It’s the same one you called for Wolansky’s kid when you ran him down last month.”

Then Jack headed for the Highwater Diner to call Tram and tell George that they didn’t need him anymore.

THE LAST RAKOSH

INTRODUCTION

In 1990 I was slated to be guest of honor at the World Fantasy Convention along with Susan Allison, Robert Bloch, L. Sprague de Camp, Raymond Feist, David Mattingly, and Julius Schwartz. (What a lineup!) It’s traditional for the guests to contribute a story to the convention program. The chairman that year was Bob Weinberg and his wife, Phyllis, was a major Repairman Jack fan. She begged me for a Repairman Jack story. How could I say no?

I began with the premise that not all the rakoshi had died when Jack blew up Kusum’s ship, and then I some of the new characters into Freak Show, the anthology I’d started putting together for HWA. And that eventually led to “The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium.”

THE LAST RAKOSH

Saturday

Vicky’s scream pierced them, froze them.

Gia turned to Jack and he saw the panic in her eyes. It came again, Vicky’s voice, high pitched, quavering with terror. But where was she? She’d wandered ahead of them down the midway only a moment ago.

Jack took off toward the sound, moving as fast as the crowd would permit, bumping and pushing those he couldn’t slide past. She couldn’t have gone far in just a couple of minutes.

Then he spotted her skinny eight year old form darting toward him through the press, her face a strained mask of white, her blue eyes wide with fear. When she spotted him, she burst into tears and held out her arms as she stumbled forward, her voice a shriek.

“Jack! Jack! It’s back! It’s gonna get me again!”

She leaped and he caught her in his arms, holding her tight. She was quaking with fear.

“What is it, Vicks? What’s the matter?”

“The monster! The monster that took me to the boat! It’s here! Don’t let it get me!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said soothingly in her ear. “No one can hurt you when I’m around.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gia hurrying toward them. He gently peeled Vicky off himself and transferred the child to her mother’s arms. Vicky immediately wrapped her arms and legs around Gia.

“My God, what happened?” Gia said, her expression fluctuating between fear and anger.

“She thinks she saw a rakosh.”

Gia’s eyes widened. “But that’s–”

“Impossible. Right. But maybe she saw something that looks like one.”

“No!” said Vicky from where her face was buried against her mother’s neck. “It’s one of them! I know it is!”

“Okay, Vicks,” Jack said, gently rubbing her trembling back. “I’ll check it out.” He nodded to Gia. “Why don’t you take her outside.”

“We’re on our way. After what I’ve seen here, I wouldn’t be half surprised if she really had seen one.”

“I know what you mean.”

Jack watched Gia slip through the crowd, carrying Vicky. When she was out of sight he turned and headed in the direction Vicky had come.

Wouldn’t be half surprised myself, he thought.

Not that there was a single chance in hell of one of Kusum’s rakoshi being alive. They’d all died last summer on the water between Governor’s Island and the Battery. He’d seen to that. His incendiary bombs had burned them all to a crisp in the hold of the ship that housed them. Of course there had been that one that had come ashore, the one he’d dubbed Scar lip, but it had swum back out into the burning water and had never returned. The rakoshi were dead, all of them. The species was extinct.

But if by some miracle one had survived, it might well be part of Ozymandias Oddities. Julio had given Jack the tickets last week, saying it was the weirdest show he’d ever seen. He hadn’t been kidding. Jack had never seen freaks like these. By definition freaks were supposed to be strange, but these folk went beyond strange into the positively alien. Jack hadn’t realized what the “oddities” would be. And the more he’d seen, the less comfortable he’d felt. The very idea of deformed people putting themselves on display repulsed him; it was demeaning; and those who paid to gawk seemed as demeaned as the freaks on display; maybe more so.

But there was nothing sad or pathetic about these freaks. They were bizarre, frightening, and many seemed belligerently proud of their deformities, as if the people strolling the midway were the freaks.

And maybe we are.

Jack moved slowly, steadily through the press, glancing left and right at the little stages on which each freak was exhibited. There were animals – a two headed cow, a five legged goat – and human giants, dwarves, pinheads, and...others, less easily described. Next to a guy with tentacles for arms who called himself “Octoman” was an old circus cart with iron bars on its open side, one of the old cages on wheels once used to transport and display lions and tigers and such. The sign above it said “Man Shark.” Jack noticed people leaning across the rope border; they’d peer into the cage, then back off with uneasy shrugs.

This deserved a look.

Jack pushed to the front of the crowd and squinted into the dimly lit cage. Something was there, slumped in the left rear corner, head down, chin on chest, immobile. Something huge, a seven footer at least. Dark skinned, manlike and yet... undeniably alien.

Jack felt the skin along the back of his neck tighten as ripples of warning shot down his spine. He knew that shape. But that was all it was. A shape. So immobile. It had to be a dummy of some sort, or a guy in a rubber suit. A damn good suit. No wonder Vicky had been terrified.

But it couldn’t be the real thing. Couldn’t be...

Jack ducked under the rope and took a few tentative steps closer to the cage, sniffing the air. No stench. The one thing he remembered about the rakoshi was their stench, like rotting meat. Nothing like that here. He got close enough to touch the bars but didn’t. The thing was a damn good dummy. He could almost swear it was breathing. He whistled and whispered, “Hey you in there!” The thing didn’t budge. He rapped his ring on one of the iron bars. “Hey–!”

Suddenly it moved, the eyes snapping open as the head came up, deep yellow eyes that almost seemed to glow. Imagine the offspring from a pairing of a giant gorilla with a mako shark. Hairless cobalt skin, hugely muscled, no neck worth mentioning, no external ears, narrow slits for a nose. Huge talons, curved for tearing, extended from the tips of the three huge fingers on each hand as the yellow eyes fixed on Jack. The lower half of its huge shark like head seemed to split as the jaw opened to reveal rows of razor sharp teeth. It uncoiled its legs and slithered toward the front of the cage.

Along with the instinctive revulsion, the memories surged back: the cargo hold full of their dark shapes and glowing eyes, the unearthly chant, the disappearances, the deaths...

Jack backed up a step. Two. Behind him he heard the crowd Oooh and Aaah as it pressed forward for a better look. He took still another step back until he could feel their excited breaths on his neck. They didn’t know what one of these things could do, didn’t know their power, their near indestructibility. Otherwise they’d be pressing the other way.

Jack felt his heart kick up its already rising tempo when he noticed how the creature’s lower lip was distorted by a wide scar. He knew this creature, this particular rakosh. Scar lip. The one that had kidnapped Vicky, the one that had escaped Kusum’s ship and had almost got to Vicky on the shore. The one that had almost killed Jack. He ran a hand across his chest. Even through the fabric of his shirt he could feel the three long ridges that ran across his chest, souvenir scars from the creature’s talons.

Scar lip was alive.

But how? How had it survived the blaze on the water? How had it wound up on Long Island in a traveling freak show?

The creature was on its feet now, its talons encircling the iron bars, its yellow eyes burning into Jack. It knew him too.

One of the workmen came by then, a beefy roustabout with a shaven head, thin lips, and the eyes of a snake. He carried a blunt elephant gaff and rapped it against the bars.

“So you’re up, ay?” he said to the rakosh in a harsh voice. “Maybe you’ve finally learned your lesson.” He turned to the crowd. “Here he is ladies and gentleman, the one and only Man Shark. The only one of his kind. He’s exclusively on display here at Ozymandias Oddities. Tell your friends, tell your enemies. You’ve never seen anything like him and never will anywhere else. Guaranteed.” He spotted Jack. “Here, you. Get behind the rope. This thing’s dangerous! See those claws? One swipe and you’d be sliced up like a tomato by a Ginsu knife! We don’t want to see our customers get sliced up.” His eyes said otherwise as he none too gently prodded Jack with the pole. “Back now.”

Jack slipped back under the rope, never taking his eyes off Scar lip. Now that it was up front in the light, he saw that the rakosh didn’t look well. Its skin was dull, and relatively pale, nothing like the shiny deep cobalt he remembered. It looked thin, almost wasted. It stared at Jack a moment longer, then it looked down. Its talons retracted, slipping back inside the fingertips, the arms dropped to its sides, the shoulders drooped, then it turned and shuffled back to the rear of the cage where it slumped again in the corner and hung its head.

Drugged. That had to be the answer. They had to keep the rakosh tranquilized to keep it manageable. Even so, it didn’t look too healthy.

But drugged or not, healthy or not, it had remembered Jack, recognized him. Which meant it could remember Vicky. And if it ever got free, it might come after Vicky again, to complete the task its dead master had set for it last summer.

The roustabout had begun banging on the rakoshi’s cage in a fury, screaming at it to get up and face the crowd. Jack turned and headed for the exit. He knew what had to be done.

Scar lip had to die.

Friday

Jack parked his Corvair at the edge of the Monroe meadows at around midnight and waited in the front seat for the circus to bed down for the night. Chilly. An autumn mist had formed, hugging the ground. No moon above, but plenty of stars. Enough light to get him where he wanted to go without a flashlight.

At least Vicky wasn’t frightened anymore. Jack had hated lying to her, but seeing the relief he her eyes when he’d told her the rakosh she’d seen had really been a man in a rubber costume had made it seem like the right thing to do. He’d told her every last rakosh was dead. A lie, but only a temporary lie, just for a couple of hours. By morning it would be true.

Things quieted down by one a.m. Jack waited until two, then went around to the Corvair’s front and removed a pair of gallon cans from the trunk. The gasoline sloshed heavily within as he strode across the uneven ground toward the hulking silhouette of the freak show tent. The performers’ and hands’ trailers stood off to the north by the big eighteen wheel truck.

No guards in sight. If any were about, they were probably concentrated around the menagerie area. Jack slipped under the canvas sidewall and listened. Quiet. A couple of incandescent bulbs had been left on, one hanging from the ceiling every thirty feet or so. Keeping to the shadows along the sidewall, Jack made his way toward Scar lip’s cage.

His plan was simple: flood the floor of the rakosh’s cage and douse the thing itself with the gas, strike a match, then head for the trailers shouting “Fire!” at the top of his lungs. He knew from experience that once a rakosh started to burn, it would be quickly consumed. He just hoped the performers and roustabouts would arrive with their extinguishers in time to keep the whole tent from going up. He didn’t like the plan, didn’t like endangering the tent or anybody nearby, but it was the most efficient and direct plan he could come up with on such short notice. He had to protect Vicky at any cost, and this was the only sure way he knew of killing a rakosh.

He approached the cage warily from the blind end, then made a wide circle around to the front. Scar lip was stretched out on the cage floor, sleeping, its right arm dangling through the bars. It opened its eyes as he neared. Their yellow was even duller than this afternoon. Its talons extended only part way as it made a half-hearted, almost perfunctory swipe in Jack’s direction. Then it closed its eyes and let the arm dangle again. It didn’t seem to have strength for anything more.

Jack stopped and stared at the creature. And somehow he knew.

It’s dying.

He stood there a long time and watched Scar lip doze in its cage. Was it sick or had it simply reached the end of its days? What was the life span of a rakosh, anyway? He shifted the gas cans in his hands and realized he couldn’t do it. He could torch a vital, aggressive, healthy rakosh without a qualm, because he knew if positions were reversed it would tear off his head in a second and devour his remains. But there didn’t seem to be any question that Scar lip would be history before too long. So what was the use? Why endanger the carny folk unnecessarily with a fire?

Suddenly he heard voices down the midway. He ducked in the other direction, into the shadows.

“I tell you, Hank,” said a voice that sounded familiar, “you should’ve seen the big wimp this afternoon. Something got it riled. It had the crowd six deep around its cage while it was up.”

Jack peeked out and recognized the bald headed roustabout who’d prodded him back behind the rope this afternoon. He had another man with him, taller, younger, but just as beefy, with a full head of sandy hair. He carried a bottle of what looked like bourbon while the bald one carried a six foot iron bar, sharpened at one end. Neither of them was walking too steadily.

“Maybe we taught it a good lesson last night, huh, Bondy?” said Hank.

“Just lesson number one. The first of many. The first of many.”

They stopped before the cage. Bondy took a swig from the bottle and handed it back to Hank.

“Look at it,” Bondy said. “The blue wimp. Thinks it can just sit around all day and sleep all night. No way, babe! You got to earn your keep, wimp!” He took the sharp end of the iron bar and jabbed it at the rakosh. “Earn it!”

The point pierced Scar lip’s shoulder. The creature, moaned like a cow with laryngitis and rolled away. The bald guy kept jabbing at it, stabbing its back again and again while Hank stood by, grinning.

Jack turned and crept off through the shadows. The two roustabouts had found the only other thing that could harm a rakosh – iron. Fire and iron. The creatures were impervious to everything else. As Jack moved away, he heard Hank’s voice rise over the tortured cries of the dying rakosh.

“When’s it gonna be my turn, Bondy? Huh? When’s my turn?”

The hoarse moans followed Jack out into the night. He stowed the cans back in the trunk, and got as far as opening the door car door. And then he knew he couldn’t leave.

“Shit!” he said and pounded the roof of the Corvair. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

He slammed the door closed and ran back to the freak show tent, repeating the word all the way.

No stealth this time. He ran directly to the section he’d just left, pulled up the sidewall, and charged inside. Bondy still had the iron pike – or maybe he had it back again. Jack stepped up beside him just as he was preparing for another jab at the trapped, huddled creature. He snatched the pike from his grasp.

“That’s enough, asshole.”

Bondy looked at him with a wide eyed, shocked expression, his forehead wrinkling up to and beyond where his hairline should have been. Probably no one had talked to him that way in a long, long time.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Nobody you want to know right now. Maybe you should call it a night.”

Bondy took a swing at Jack’s face. He telegraphed it by baring his teeth. Jack raised the rod between his face and the fist. Bondy screamed as his knuckles smashed against the metal, then did a knock kneed walk in a circle with the hand jammed between his thighs, groaning in pain.

Suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around Jack’s torso, trapping him in a fleshy vise.

“I got him, Bondy!” Hank’s voice shouted from behind Jack’s left ear. “I got him!”

Bondy stopped his dance, looked up, and grinned. As he charged, Jack rammed his head backward, smashing the back of his skull into Hank’s nose. Abruptly, he was free. He still held the iron bar, so he angled the blunt end toward Bondy and drove it hard into his solar plexus. The air whooshed out of him and he dropped to his knees with a groan, his face gray green. Even his scalp looked sick.

Jack glanced up and saw Scar lip crouched at the front of the cage, gripping the bars, its yellow gaze flicking between him and the groaning Bondy, but lingering on Jack, as if it was trying to comprehend what he was doing, and why. Tiny rivulets of dark, almost black blood trailed down its skin.

Jack flipped the pike a hundred and eighty degrees and pressed the point against Bondy’s chest.

“What kind of noise am I going to hear when I poke you with this end?”

Behind him Hank’s voice, very nasal now, started shouting.

“Hey, Rube! Hey, Rube!”

As Jack was trying to figure out just what that meant, he gave Bondy a poke with the pointed end – not enough to break the skin, but enough to scare him. He howled and fell back on the sawdust, screaming.

“Don’t! Don’t!”

Meanwhile, Hank had kept up his “Hey, Rube!” shouts. As Jack turned to shut him up, he found out what it meant.

The tent was filling with carny folk. Lots of them, all running his way. In seconds he was surrounded. The workers he could handle, but the freaks, gathered in a crowd like this, in the murky light, in various states of dress, were almost terrifying. Jack was struck by the degree and diversity of their deformities. And none of them looked too friendly.

Hank was holding his bloody nose, wagging his finger at Jack.

“Now you’re gonna get it! Now you’re gonna get it!”

Bondy seemed to have a sudden infusion of courage. He hauled himself to his feet and started toward Jack.

“You goddam sonova–”

Jack rapped the end of the iron bar across the side of his bald head, staggering him. With an angry murmur, the circle of carny folk abruptly tightened. Jack whirled, spinning the pike around him.

“Right,” he said. “Who’s next?”

He hoped it was a convincing show. He didn’t know what else to do at the moment. The circle tightened further, slowly closing in on him like a noose. Jack searched for a weak spot, preparing to make a run for it. As a last resort, there was always the .45 caliber Semmerling strapped to his forearm.

Suddenly a deep voice rose above the angry noise of the crowd.

“Here, here! What’s going on now?”

The carny folk quieted immediately, but not before Jack heard a few voices whisper about “the boss” and “Oz.” They parted ranks to make way for a tall, ungainly man, six three at least, lank dark hair, sallow complexioned, his pear shaped body swathed in a huge silk robe embroidered with oriental designs. Although he looked doughy about the middle, the hands that protruded from his sleeves were thin and bony at the wrist. He stopped at the edge on the circle and took in the scene. His expression was slack but his eyes were bright, dark, cold, more alive than the rest of him. Those eyes finally settled on Jack.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“Protecting your property,” Jack said, gambling.

“Oh, really?” The smile was sour, almost cruel. “How magnanimous of you.” Abruptly his expression darkened. “Do not insult my intelligence, sir! I can call the police or we can deal with this in our own way.”

“Fine,” Jack said. He threw the pike at the newcomer’s feet. “Maybe I had it wrong. Maybe you pay baldy here to poke holes in your attractions.”

“Hey, boss–” Bondy began, but the tall man silenced him with a flick of his hand. He looked down at the pike where sawdust clung the dark fluid coating its point, then up at the rakosh with its dozens of oozing wounds. Color began to darken his cheeks as his head turned slowly toward Bondy.

“You harmed this creature, Mr. Bond?”

The bald man quailed under the scrutiny. “We was only trying to get it to put on more of a show for the customers.”

“And you feel you can get more out of it by mistreating it?”

“We thought–”

“I know what you thought, Mr. Bond. And many of us know how the Man Shark felt. We’ve all known mistreatment during the course of our lives. We don’t look kindly upon it. You will retire to your quarters immediately and wait for me there.” He gestured to a couple of the freaks – one who looked like an alligator and another who looked like a walking lump of muscle. “See that he gets there and stays there.” Then he returned his attention to Jack. “And what is your interest in this matter?”

“I don’t like bullies,” Jack said. He didn’t have to fake any sincerity for that statement.

“No one does. But why should you be interested in this particular creature? Why should you be here at all?”

“Even a rakosh has a right to die in peace.”

When he saw the boss freeze, Jack knew immediately that he’d made a mistake. The glittering eyes fixed on him.

“What did you say? What did you call it?”

“Nothing,” Jack said.

“No, I heard you. You called it a rakosh.” Oz – Jack assumed it was short for Ozymandias – stepped over to the cage and stared into Scar lip’s yellow eyes. “So that’s what you are...a rakosh. How fascinating!” He turned to the rest of his employees. “It’s all right. You can all go back to bed. I wish to speak to this gentleman before he goes.”

“You didn’t know what it is?” Jack said as the crowd dispersed.

“Not until this moment,” said Oz, continuing to stare at the rakosh. “I thought they were a myth. I found it drifting off Governor’s Island last summer. I’d gone out with a group of souvenir hunters to look for wreckage from the ship that had exploded and burned the night before. I thought the creature was dead, but when I found it was alive, I had it brought ashore. It looked rather vicious so I put it into a spare cage.”

“Lucky for you.”

The boss smiled. “I should say so. It almost tore the cage apart before it exhausted itself. But since then its health has followed a steady downhill course. We’ve fed it fish, foul, beef, horsemeat, even vegetables – although one look at those teeth and there’s no question that it’s a carnivore – but no matter what we’ve tried, it’s health continues to fail.”

Jack now understood why Scar lip was dying. Rakoshi required a very specific species of flesh to thrive. And this one wasn’t getting it. Jack had no intention of telling the boss what it was.

“You’re sure it’s a rakosh?”

“Well...” Jack said, trying to sound tentative. “I saw a picture of one in a book once. I...I think it looked like this. But I’m not sure. I could be wrong.”

“But you’re not,” the boss said, turning and staring hard into his eyes. “I’m certain you’re not.” He laughed. “A rakosh! Wonderful! And it’s mine!”

Jack glanced at Scar lip’s slouched, wasted form.

Yeah, but not for long.

“You must allow me to reward you for succoring the poor creature, and for identifying it.”

“Not necessary. Just let it die in peace, okay?”

“No one will torment it again, I assure you. I guarantee it.”

“Good enough,” Jack said and turned to leave.

“By the way,” the boss said. “How can I get in touch with you if I wish?”

“You can’t,” Jack called back over his shoulder. And then he ducked under the sidewall and was out in the fresh air again.

Sunday

A quiet, rainy day. Too quiet. After finishing the Sunday Times and the comics from the News, Jack wandered around his apartment, looking for something to do. Business was a little slow this week, so he had no fix it work to attend to. He’d called Gia but there was nothing happening there. Vicky had a sore throat and Gia wasn’t feeling so hot herself.

Swell.

But maybe that was for the best. It had been a day and a half since he’d last seen Scar lip. He wondered if the rakosh was still alive.

Only one way to find out.

* * * * *

The crowd was thin. Driving through a downpour to the north shore of Long Island and tramping across a muddy field to see a collection of nature’s mistakes and missteps was not most folks’ idea of a fun Sunday. Not Jack’s either. The air trapped in the sideshow midway was rank, redolent of wet hay and sweaty bodies. Most of those bodies seemed to be clustered around the Man Shark cage.

Watching the rakosh die?

Jack hurried toward the crowd, thinking how some people would stand around and watch anything, but stopped short when he saw what was in the cage.

It was Scar lip, all right, but the creature he’d seen thirty six hours ago had been a pale reflection of this monster. The rakosh rearing up in the cage and rattling the bars was full of vitality and ferocity, had unmarred, glistening blue black skin, and bright yellow eyes that glowed with a fierce inner light. Jack stood mute and numb on the edge of the crowd. This was a nightmare, one that was beginning to repeat itself. The moribund rakosh was now fiercely alive, and it wanted out!

Suddenly it froze and Jack saw that it was looking his way, its cold yellow eyes fixed on him.

He turned and hurried from the tent. Outside in the rain he asked everyone he met where he could find the boss. Eventually he wound up outside a sleek, medium sized Airstream. A plate on the aluminum door read O. Prather. He pounded on it.

“Ah!” said Oz as he opened the door and looked down at Jack. “Our friend from the other night. Come in! Have you seen the rakosh? Isn’t it magnificent?”

Jack stepped up and inside, just far enough to get out of the rain that drummed on the trailer’s roof.

“What did you do to it?”

Oz stared at him, genuinely puzzled.

“Why, my good man, I’ve cared for it. I looked up the proper care and feeding of rakoshi in one of my books on Bengali mythology, and acted appropriately.”

Jack felt a chill. He was sure it wasn’t entirely from his soaked clothing.

“What...just what did you feed it?”

The boss’s large brown eyes were completely guileless, utterly remorseless.

“Oh, this and that. Whatever the text recommended. You don’t really believe for an instant that I was going to allow that magnificent creature to languish and die of malnutrition, do you? I assume you’re familiar with–”

“I know what a rakosh needs to live!”

“Do you now? Do you know everything about rakoshi?”

“No, of course–”

“Then let’s assume I know more than you. And I tell you now that there is more than one way to keep them healthy. I see no need to discuss it beyond that. Let’s just say that it got exactly what it needed.” He stepped closer to Jack and edged him outside. “Good day, sir.” He closed the door.

Yeah, Jack knew exactly what it needed. He just wondered who’d supplied the meal.

Jack stood there a moment, realizing that a worst case scenario had come true. But he still had those two cans of gasoline in his trunk. It was time to go back to plan A.

As he turned, he found Hank standing behind him. His nose was fat and discolored; a couple of dark crescents had formed under each eye. The rain darkened his sandy hair, plastering it to his scalp and running down his face. He stared at Jack, his face a mask of rage.

“It’s all your fault!” Hank said.

“You’re probably right,” Jack said and began walking in the direction of his car. He had no time for this dolt.

“Bondy was my only friend. He got fired because of you.”

Jack stopped, turned.

“Really? When did you see him last?”

“Friday morning – when you got him in trouble.”

A tiny worm began nibbling at Jack’s stomach lining.

“And you never saw him once after that? Not even to say good bye?”

Hank shook his head. “Uh uh. The boss kicked him right out. By sun up he was gone with all his stuff.” Hank’s expression was miserable. “He was the only one around here who liked me. All the freaks and geeks keep to theirselves.”

Jack sighed as he stared at Hank. Well, at least now he knew the source of Scar lip’s dietary supplement.

No big loss to civilization.

“You don’t need friends like that, kid,” he said and turned away again.

“You’ll pay for it!” Hank screamed into the downpour. “Bondy’ll be back and when he gets here we’ll get even with you. You just wait!”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for him.

He wondered if it would do any good to tell him that Bondy hadn’t been fired; that, in a way, he was still very much with the freak show. But that would only endanger the big dumb kid.

Hank ranted on. “And if he don’t come back, I’ll getcha myself. And that Man Shark too!”

No you won’t. Because I’m going to get it first.

Jack kept walking, wondering what he could do to kill the time between now and the early hours of the morning.

Monday

Jack returned to the Monroe meadows at around 1:30 a.m. He drove across the grass, intending to pull right up to the tent, duck under the flap, splash Scar lip with gas, light a match, and send it back to hell.

Jack slewed the Corvair to a halt on the muddy meadow and stared in disbelief at the empty space before his headlights. The tent was gone. Only a single trailer remained behind. Jack got out and pounded on the door until an old geezer in oversized boxer shorts answered.

“What the hell you want?”

“What happened? Where’d they go?”

“You’re a little old to be wantin’ to run off with the circus, ain’t you?”

“Cut the comedy, pal. Where are they?”

“On the road. Makin’ the jump to Jersey. They open in Cape May tomorrow night.”

Jack ran back to his car. Jersey. A couple of possible routes: south to the Verrazano and across Staten Island, or straight back across Manhattan and the GW Bridge into Jersey. Either way, they’d have to wind up southbound on the Garden State Parkway. Jack chose the latter route. It would place him near the top of the state. If he headed south, sooner or later he’d catch up to them.

* * * * *

The Parkway ground to a halt a few miles north of Atlantic City. Jack glanced at his watch: almost 3:30. No such thing as a traffic jam at this hour. Had to be an accident. A State Trooper roaring by with all lights flashing confirmed it. Jack had a bad feeling about the cause of that accident.

Fighting the crawling in his gut, he turned onto the right shoulder and followed the trooper. The cop stopped behind a train of trucks and trailers arrayed along the side of the road. Jack stopped behind him and ran up as he got out of his cruiser.

“Officer, I’m Dr. Jackson, the vet for the show. Were any of the animals hurt?”

“Right now I don’t know any more than you do, Doc. Let’s go see what’s going on.”

Jack’s trooper ran into a fellow fuzz along the way and Jack gleaned from their conversation that one of the trucks carrying the animal cages had gone out of control and skidded off the road. The driver was hurt but all the animals seemed okay.

“I’ll just go on ahead and check on them,” Jack said. The troopers waved him on.

But Jack didn’t get that far. He came upon the boss’s Airstream first. He recognized the man’s tall, ungainly frame in the glow of the headlights.

“It got loose, didn’t it?” Jack said, coming up beside him.

The taller man rotated the upper half of his body and looked at Jack.

“Oh, it’s you. You do get around, don’t you.”

It took most of Jack’s dwindling self-control to keep from decking him right then and there.

“You had to feed it, didn’t you? Had to bring it up to strength. God damn you, you knew the risk you were taking!”

“It was caged with iron bars. You should know that they’re proof against a rakosh. No, there’s a human culprit here. The cage was unlocked. The creature got loose and tried to break through the front wall of the truck into the cab. The driver’s lucky he’s alive.”

“Where’s the rakosh?”

For the first time Jack detected a trace of fear in Oz’s eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Damn! Where’s Hank?”

“Hank? What would you want with that imbecile?” His eyes narrowed. “Unless–”

“You got it.”

The boss slammed a bony fist into a palm.

“I thought he’d learned his lesson before. Well, he’ll learn it now.” He turned and called into the night. “Everyone – find Hank! Find him and bring him to me at once!”

But no one brought Hank. Hank was nowhere to be found.

“He must have run off when the rakosh got free,” the boss said.

“Or got carried off.”

“There was no blood found anywhere near the truck, so it’s quite likely that the young idiot is still alive.”

It occurred to Jack that Hank might be stupid enough to chase after the rakosh. If he had, he wouldn’t be alive for long.

“We’ve got to find it,” Jack said.

“Nothing I’d like better,” said the boss, “although I have a feeling you’d prefer to see it dead.”

“You’ve got that right.” Jack looked around in the darkness. “Where are we anyway?”

“Southeast New Jersey, on the edge of the Pine Barrens.”

Jack cursed under his breath. The Barrens. Swell. A million or so acres of unsettled land. If the rakosh was loose in there they’d never find it.

“We’re not too far from Leeds Point, you know,” Oz said, pointing east across the road. “The birthplace of the Jersey Devil.”

“Save the history lesson for later,” Jack said. “Are you sending out a search party?”

“No. I can’t risk the men. Besides, we’ve got to be set up in Cape May for a show tonight. But maybe tomorrow–”

“Tomorrow will be too late.” Jack said, turning away.

“Well, you certainly can’t go after a rakosh in the dark.”

“I know,” Jack said through his teeth.

He headed back toward his car, afraid that if he stayed a minute longer he’d break the man’s neck. The traffic was starting to move now, so he drove to Exit 44 and followed the winding back roads through the area. The Parkway seemed to act as a time warp down here. Traveling east he found a nuclear power plant and typically quaint but unquestionably twentieth century towns like Smithville and Leeds Point.

West of the Parkway was wilderness – 2,000 square miles of pines, scrub brush, vanished towns, hills, bogs, creeks, all pretty much unchanged in population and level of civilization from the time the Indians had the Americas to themselves. From the Revolutionary days on, it had served as a haven for people who didn’t want to be found. Hessians, Tories, smugglers, Lenape Indians, heretical Amish, escaped cons – at one time or another, they’d all sought shelter in the Pine Barrens.

Now a rakosh was loose in the pines. And if Scar lip got too much of a head start, it would be lost forever.

Jack drove around until he found an all-night 7-11. He bought half a dozen bottles of Snapple, drank one, then emptied the rest onto the side of the road. He put all the empties into a duffel bag in his trunk. When dawn began to lighten the low overhang of clouds that lidded the area, he took 9 north until it intersected the Parkway, then got back on southbound until he came to the site of the accident. He pulled off the shoulder onto the grass just past the truck tire ruts. He took one of the gallon cans of gas and placed it in the duffel bag along with some old rags in the trunk. The bottles clinked within as he headed for the trees. It seemed logical Scar lip would have traveled directly down the slope and into the trees rather than cross the highway.

Jack looked for a break in the brush – a deer path or the like – and found it. The sand was wet. He saw what looked like deer tracks, and more: the deep imprints of big, alien, three toed feet, and work boot prints coming after. Scar lip, with Hank following – obviously behind because the boot prints occasionally stepped on the rakosh tracks.

As soon as he was out of sight of the road Jack filled the Snapple bottles with gas and stuffed their mouths with pieces of rag. Then he began following the tracks.

The trail wound this way and that; the scrawny pines closed in around him as he followed the tracks. He’d gone maybe half a mile when the trail changed.

The otherwise smooth sand was kicked up ferociously for a space of about a dozen feet, ending with two large, oblong gouts of blood, drying thick and brown on the sand, with little droplets of the same speckled around them. A cloud of flies hovered over the spot. A twelve gauge Mossberg pump action lay in the sand. Jack lifted it and sniffed the barrel. Unfired. Not that firing it would have changed the outcome here.

Only one set of prints led away along the trail – the three toed kind.

Jack crouched, staring around, listening, looking for signs of movement. Nothing. He glanced at the flies partying on Hank’s blood, then started again down the trail. His foot slipped on something a few feet further on. The sharpened steel rod Bondy had used to torment the rakosh lay half buried in the sand. He switched the duffel bag to his left hand, picked up the rod, and carried it in his right like a spear. He had two weapons now. He felt like an Indian hunter, armed with an iron spear and a container of magic burning liquid.

Half an hour later, as he was stepping over a fallen log in the center of a small clearing, his foot handed on something soft and yielding. Jack glanced down and saw a very dead Hank staring up at him. He let out an involuntary yelp, then whirled and scanned the area for signs of the rakosh. Nothing stirred. He dropped the iron spear and pulled one of his Molatov cocktails from the bag. He held his butane lighter ready before he chanced a closer look at Hank. Dead blue eyes fixed on the overcast sky; the pallor of his bloodless face accentuated the dark rims of his shiners and blended almost perfectly with the sand under his head; his right arm was missing at the shoulder; flies taxied around the stump.

A noise behind him. Jack whirled. Scar lip stood at the edge of the clearing, Hank’s arm dangling from its three fingered right hand. The rakosh held it casually, like a lollipop. The upper half of the arm had been stripped of its flesh; pink bone dragged in the sand.

Jack lit the tail on the cocktail and moved to where he could straddle the duffel bag. He pulled out a second bottle and lit it from the first. His heart was turning in overdrive, his lungs pumping to keep up. He knew from past encounters how powerful these creatures were, how quick and agile in spite of their mass. But he also knew that all he had to do was hit it with one of these flaming babies and it would all be over.

With as little warning and as little wind up as he dared, he tossed the one in his right hand, saw the rakosh duck left, threw the other left handed to try to catch it on the run. Both missed. The first landed in an explosion of flame, but the second skidded on the sand and lay there intact, its fuse dead, smothered. As the rakosh shied away from the flames, Jack pulled out a third cocktail. He had just lit the fuse when he sensed something hurtling toward him through the air, close. Too close. He ducked but not soon enough. The twirling remnant of Hank’s arm hit him square in the face. As he sprawled back, he felt the third cocktail slip from his fingers. He turned and dove and rolled. He was clear when it exploded, but he kept rolling because it had landed on his duffel bag. He was back by Hank’s body when the other three went up.

As soon as the initial explosion of flame subsided, Scar lip charged across the clearing. Jack was still on his back in the sand. Instinct prompted his hand toward the Semmerling but he knew bullets were useless. Instead he reached for the iron spear, swung it around so the butt was in the dirt and the point aimed toward the onrushing rakosh. Jack’s mind flashed back to his apartment rooftop last summer when Scar lip’s mother was trying to kill him, when he had run her through. That had only slowed her then, but this was iron. Maybe this time....

He steadied the point and braced for the impact.

The impact came, but not the one he’d expected. In one fluid motion, Scar lip swerved and batted the spear aside, grabbed the shaft and tossed it into the pines. Jack was left flat on his back with a slavering, three hundred pound inhuman killing machine towering over him. He tried to roll to his feet but the rakosh caught him with its foot and pinned him to the sand. Jack struggled to slip free but Scar lip increased the pressure until Jack thought his ribs would cave in. He popped the Semmerling into is hand – useless, but all he had left. And no way was he going out with a fully loaded pistol. As he stopped struggling and readied to fire, the pressure from the foot eased. He lay still and it let up completely, although the foot remained on his chest.

Jack looked up at Scar lip and met the creature’s yellow eyes. It gave one more thrust against his chest with its foot, then backed off a couple of steps.

Slowly, hesitantly, Jack sat up. Was this some sort of game?

But rakoshi didn’t play games. They killed and ate and killed again.

Scar lip backed off another step and pointed down the trail Jack had come.

No. This couldn’t be. It was letting him go. Why? Because Jack had stopped Bondy from tormenting it? Not possible. Rakoshi knew nothing about fair play, about debts or gratitude. Those were human emotions and –

Then Jack remembered that Scar lip was part human. Kusum had been its father. It carried some of Kusum in it.

Jack got to his feet and edged toward the trail, always keeping his face toward the rakosh, unable to quite believe this, afraid that if he turned his back on the creature it would strike. Much as he hated to leave the rakosh alive and free here in the wild, he didn’t see that he had much choice. He’d been beaten. The foot on the chest had signaled that. He had no weapons left, and he was certainly no match one on one.

So it was time to go. He took to the trail. One last look over his shoulder before the pines and brush obscured the clearing showed the rakosh standing alone on the sand, surveying its new domain.

* * * * *

Jack got lost on the way out. The trail forked here and there and he couldn’t be sure of the sun’s position through the cloud cover. His release by Scar lip had left him bewildered and a little dazed, neither of which had helped his concentration. But the extra hour of walking gave him time to think about his next move. He felt an obligation to let people know that there was something very dangerous prowling the Pine Barrens. He couldn’t go public with the story, and who’d believe him anyway?

He heard voices up ahead and hurried toward them. The brush opened up and he found himself facing a worn two lane blacktop. A couple of Jeep Cherokees were parked on the shoulder. Four men, thirty to forty in age, were busily loading their shotguns, slipping into their day-glo orange vests. Their equipment was expensive, top of the line. Their weapons were Remingtons and Berettas. Gentlemen sportsmen, out for the kill.

Jack asked which way to the Parkway and they pointed off to the left. A guy with a dainty goatee gave him a disdainful up and down.

“You could get killed walking through the woods like that, my friend,” he said. “It’s deer season. Someone might pop you if you aren’t wearing colors.”

“I’ll be sticking to the road from here on,” Jack said. He hesitated. He felt he owed these guys a warning. “Maybe you fellows ought to think twice about going in there today.”

“Shit,” said a skinny one with glasses. “You’re not one of those animal rights creeps are you?”

The air suddenly bristled with hostility.

“I’m not any kind of creep, pal,” Jack said through his teeth and took faint satisfaction in seeing the skinny guy step back and tighten his grip on his shotgun. “I’m just telling you that there’s something real mean in there.”

“Like what?” said the goatee, grinning. “The Jersey Devil?”

“No. But it’s not some defenseless herbivore that’s going to lay down and die when you empty a couple of shells at it. You’re not the top of the food chain in there, guys.”

“We can handle it,” said the skinny one.

“Really?” Jack said. “When did you ever hunt something that posed the slightest threat to you? I’m warning you, there’s something in there that fights back and I doubt any of your type can handle that.”

“What’s this?” said the third hunter. “A new tactic? Scare us off with spook stories? It won’t work.”

The fourth hunter hefted a shiny new Remington over under.

“The Jersey Devil! I want one! Wouldn’t that be some head to hang over the fireplace?”

As they laughed and slapped each other high fives, Jack shrugged and walked away. He’d tried.

Hunting season. He had to smile. Scar lip’s presence in the Pine Barrens gave the term a new twist. He wondered how these mighty hunters would react when they learned that the season was open on them.

And he wondered if there was any truth to those old tales of the Jersey Devil. Probably hadn’t been a real Jersey Devil before. But there was now.

FACES

INTRODUCTION

I'd planned on writing three ten-thousand word novelettes for Night Visions 6. I wound up doing four.

It was sometime in November when I sent Paul Mikol the thirty thousand words of new fiction I'd promised. He called back a few weeks later to say that the third story, "Ethics," was a little too light-hearted and too much like "Feelings." Could I do another in its place? My immediate reaction was, He's nuts. But I said I'd think about it.

I went back to the two stories in question and reread them back-to-back. He was right. I'd written "Feelings" and the other piece months apart and hadn't seen the similarities.

So here it was almost December and I needed ten thousand words of new fiction. I'd been perking a story about a serial killer (this was 1987, before The Silence of the Lambs and the serial killer glut) but one with a difference. This one would be female (they're almost always male), hideously deformed, and sympathetic. I felt if I could tell you about the forces driving Carly to these murderous acts—her childhood, her needs, her emotional hungers—you might understand her. You might even find some sort of love for her.

The result was "Faces" (yes, another plural noun).

Paul Mikol loved it.

FACES

Bite her face off.

No pain. Her dead already. Kill her quick like others. Not want make pain. Not her fault.

The boyfriend groan but not move. Face way on ground now. Got from behind. Got quick. Never see. He can live.

Girl look me after the boyfriend go down. Gasp first. When see face start scream. Two claws not cut short rip her throat before sound get loud.

Her sick-scared look just like all others. Hate that look. Hate it terrible.

Sorry, girl. Not your fault.

Chew her face skin. Chew all. Chew hard and swallow. Warm wet redness make sickish but chew and chew. Must eat face. Must get all down. Keep down.

Leave the eyes.

The boyfriend groan again. Move arm. Must leave quick. Take last look blood and teeth and stare-eyes that once pretty girl face.

Sorry, girl. Not your fault.

Got go. Get way hurry. First take money. Girl money. Take the boyfriend wallet, also too. Always take money. Need money.

Go now. Not too far. Climb wall of near building. Find dark spot where can see and not be seen. Where can wait. Soon the Detective Harrison arrive.

In down below can see the boyfriend roll over. Get to knees. Sway. See him look the girlfriend.

The boyfriend scream terrible. Bad to hear. Make so sad. Make cry.

Kevin Harrison heard Jacobi’s voice on the other end of the line and wanted to be sick.

“Don’t say it,” he groaned.

“Sorry,” said Jacobi. “It’s another one.”

“Where?”

“West Forty-ninth, right near-“

“I’ll find it.” All he had to do was look for the flashing red lights. “I’m on my way. Shouldn’t take me too long to get in from Monroe at this hour.”

“We’ve got all night, lieutenant.” Unsaid but well understood was an admonishing, You’re the one who wants to live on Long Island.

Beside him in the bed, Martha spoke form deep in her pillow as he hung up.

“Not another one?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, God! When is it going to stop?”

“When I catch the guy.”

Her hand touched his arm, gently. “I know all this responsibility’s not easy. I’m here when you need me.”

“I know.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Thanks.”

He left the warm bed and skipped the shower. No time for that. A fresh shirt, yesterday’s rumpled suit, a tie shoved into his pocket, and he was off into the winter night.

With his secure little ranch house falling away behind him, Harrison felt naked and vulnerable out here in the dark. As he headed south on Glen Cove Road toward the LIE, he realized that Martha and the kids were all that were holding him together these days. His family had become an island of sanity and stability in a world gone mad.

Everything else was in flux. For reasons he still could not comprehend, he had volunteered to head up the search for this killer. Now his whole future in the department had come to hinge on his success in finding him.

The papers had named the maniac ‘The Facelift Killer.’ As apt a name as the tabloids could want, but Harrison resented it. The moniker was callous, trivializing the mutilations perpetrated on the victims. But it had caught on with the public and they were stuck with it, especially with all the ink the story was getting.

Six killings, one a week for six weeks in a row, and eight million people in a panic. Then, for almost two weeks, the city had gone without a new slaying.

Until tonight.

Harrison’s stomach pitched and rolled at the thought of having to look at one of those corpses again.

“That’s enough,” Harrison said, averting his eyes from the faceless thing.

The raw, gouged, bloody flesh, the exposed muscle and bone were bad enough, but it was the eyes-those naked, lidless, staring eyes were the worst.

“This makes seven,” Jacobi said at his side. Squat, dark, jowly, the sergeant was chewing a big wad of gum, noisily, aggressively, as if he had a grudge against it.

“I can count. Anything new?”

“Nah. Same M.O. as ever-throat slashed, money stolen, face gnawed off.”

Harrison shuddered. He had come in as Special Investigator after the third Facelift killing. He had inspected the first three via coroner’s photos. Those had been awful. But nothing could match the effect of the real thing up close and still warm and oozing. This was the fourth fresh victim he had seen. There was no getting used to this kind of mutilation, no matter how many he saw. Jacobi put on a good show, but Harrison sensed the revulsion under the sergeant’s armor.

And yet...

* * * * *

Beneath all the horror, Harrison sensed something. There was anger here, sick anger and hatred of spectacular proportions. But beyond that, something else, an indefinable something that had drawn him to this case. Whatever it was, that something called to him, and still held him captive.

If he could identify it, maybe he could solve this case and wrap it up. And save his ass.

If he did solve it, it would be all on his own. Because he wasn’t getting much help from Jacobi, and even less from his assigned staff. He knew what they all thought-that he had taken the job as a glory grab, a shortcut to the top. Sure, they wanted to see this thing wrapped up, too, but they weren’t shedding any tears over the shit he was taking in the press and on TV and from City Hall.

Their attitude was clear: If you want the spotlight, Harrison, you gotta take the heat that goes with it.

They were right, of course. He could have been working on a quieter case, like where all the winos were disappearing to. He’d chosen this instead. But he wasn’t after the spotlight, dammit! It was this case-something about this case!

He suddenly realized that there was no one around him. The body had been carted off, Jacobi had wandered back to his car. He had been left standing alone at the far end of the alley.

And yet not alone.

Someone was watching him. He could feel it. The realization sent a little chill-one completely unrelated to the cold February wind-trickling down his back. A quick glance around showed no one paying him the slightest bit of attention. He looked up.

There!

Somewhere in the darkness above, someone was watching him. Probably from the roof. He could sense the piercing scrutiny and it made him a little weak. That was no ghoulish neighborhood voyeur, up there. That was the Facelift Killer.

He had to get to Jacobi, have him seal off the building. But he couldn’t act spooked. He had to act calm, casual.

* * * * *

See the Detective Harrison’s eyes. See from way up in dark. Tall-thin. Hair brown. Nice eyes. Soft brown eyes. Not hard like many-many eyes. Look here. Even from here see eyes make wide. Him know it me.

Watch the Detective Harrison turn slow. Walk slow. Tell inside him want to run. Must leave here. Leave quick.

Bend low. Run cross roof. Jump to next. And next. Again till most block away. Then down wall. Wrap scarf round head. Hide bad-face. Hunch inside big-big coat. Walk through lighted spots.

Hate light. Hate crowds. Theatres here. Movies and plays. Like them. Some night sneak in and see. See one with man in mask. Hang from wall behind big drapes. Make cry.

Wish there mask for me.

Follow street long way to river. See many lights across river. Far past there is place where grew. Never want go back to there. Never.

Catch back of truck. Ride home.

Home. Bright bulb hang ceiling. Not care. The Old Jessi waiting. The Jessi friend. Only friend. The Jessi’s eyes not see. Ever. When the Jessi look me, her face not wear sick-scared look. Hate that look.

Come in kitchen window. The Jessi’s face wrinkle-black. Smile when hear me come. TV on. Always on. The Jessi cannot watch. Say it company for her.

“You’re so late tonight.”

“Hard work. Get moneys tonight.”

Feel sick. Want cry. Hate kill. Wish stop.

“That’s nice. Are you going to put it in the drawer?”

“Doing now.”

Empty wallets. Put money in slots. Ones first slot. Fives next slot. Then tens and twenties. So the Jessi can pay when boy bring foods. Sometimes eat stealed foods. Mostly the Jessi call for foods.

The Old Jessi hardly walk. Good. Do not want her go out. Bad peoples round here. Many. Hurt one who not see. One bad man try hurt Jessi once. Push through door. Thought only the blind Old Jessi live here.

Lucky the Jessi not alone that day.

Not lucky bad man. Hit the Jessi. Laugh hard. Then look me. Get sick-scared look. Hate that look. Kill him quick. Put in tub. Bleed there. Bad man friend come soon after. Kill him also too. Late at night take both dead bad men out. Go through window. Carry down wall. Throw in river.

No bad men come again. Ever.

“I’ve been waiting all night for my bath. Do you think you can help me a little?”

Always help. But the Old Jessi always ask. The Jessi very polite.

Sponge the Old Jessi back in tub. Rinse her hair. Think of the Detective Harrison. His kind eyes. Must talk him. Want stop this. Stop now. Maybe will understand. Will. Can feel.

* * * * *

Seven grisly murders in eight weeks.

Kevin Harrison studied a photo of the latest victim, taken before she was mutilated. A nice eight by ten glossy furnished by her agent. A real beauty. A dancer with Broadway dreams.

He tossed the photo aside and pulled the stack of files toward him.

The remnants of six lives in this pile. Somewhere within had to be an answer, the thread that linked each of them to the Facelift Killer.

But what if there was no common link? What if all the killings were at random, linked only by the fact that they were beautiful? Seven deaths, all over the city. All with their faces gnawed off. Gnawed.

He flipped through the victims one by one and studied their photos. He had begun to feel he knew each one of them personally.

Mary Detrick, 20, a junior at N.Y.U., killed in Washington Square Park on January 5. She was the first.

Mia Chandler, 25, a secretary at Merrill Lynch, killed January 13 in Battery Park.

Ellen Beasley, 22, a photographer’s assistant, killed in an alley in Chelsea on January 22.

Hazel Hauge, 30, artist agent, killed in her Soho loft on January 27.

Elisabeth Paine, 28, housewife, killed on February 2 while jogging late in Central Park.

Joan Perrin, 25, a model from Brooklyn, pulled from her car while stopped at a light on the Upper East Side on February 8.

He picked up the eight by ten again. And the last: Liza Lee, 21, Dancer. Lived across the river in Jersey City. Ducked into an alley for a toot with her boyfriend tonight and never came out.

Three blondes, three brunettes, one redhead. Some stacked, some on the flat side. All caucs except for Perrin. All lookers. But besides that, how in the world could these women be linked? They came from all over town, and they met their respective ends all over town. What could-

“Well, you sure hit the bullseye about that roof!” Jacobi said as he burst into the office.

Harrison straightened in his chair. “What did you find?”

“Blood.”

“Whose?”

“The victim’s.”

“No prints? No hairs? No fibers?”

“We’re working on it. But how’d you figure to check the roof top?”

“Lucky guess.”

Harrison didn’t want to provide Jacobi with more grist for the departmental gossip mill by mentioning his feeling of being watched from up there.

But the killer had been watching, hadn’t he?

“Any prelims from pathology?”

Jacobi shrugged and stuffed three sticks of gum into his mouth. Then he tried to talk.

“Same as ever. Money gone, throat ripped open by a pair of sharp pointed instruments, not knives, the bite marks on the face are the usual: the teeth that made them aren’t human, but the saliva is.”

The ‘non-human’ teeth part-more teeth, bigger and sharper than found in any human mouth-had baffled them all from the start. Early on someone remembered a horror novel or movie where the killer used some weird sort of false teeth to bite his victims. That had sent them off on a wild goose chase to all the dental labs looking for records of bizarre bite prostheses. No dice. No one had seen or even heard of teeth that could gnaw off a person’s face.

Harrison shuddered. What could explain wounds like that? What were they dealing with here?

The irritating pops, snaps, and cracks of Jacobi’s gum filled the office.

“I liked you better when you smoked.”

Jacobi’s reply was cut off by the phone. The sergeant picked it up.

“Detective Harrison’s office!” he said, listened a moment, then, with his hand over the mouthpiece, passed the receiver to Harrison. “Some fairy wants to shpeak to you,” he said with an evil grin.

“Fairy?”

“Hey,” he said, getting up and walking toward the door. “I don’t mind. I’m a liberal kinda guy, y’know?”

Harrison shook his head with disgust. Jacobi was getting less likeable every day.

“Hello. Harrison here.”

“Shorry dishturb you, Detective Harrishon.”

The voice was soft, pitched somewhere between a man’s and a woman’s, and sounded as if the speaker had half a mouthful of saliva. Harrison had never heard anything like it. Who could be-?

And then it struck him: It was three a.m. Only a handful of people knew he was here.

“Do I know you?”

“No. Watch you tonight. You almosht shee me in dark.”

That same chill from earlier tonight ran down Harrison’s back again.

“Are... are you who I think you are?”

There was a pause, then one soft word, more sobbed than spoken:

“Yesh.”

If the reply had been cocky, something along the line of - And just who do you think I am? Harrison would have looked for much more in the way of corroboration. But that single word, and the soul deep heartbreak that propelled it, banished all doubt.

My God! He looked around frantically. No one in sight. Where the fuck was Jacobi now when he needed him? This was the Facelift Killer! He needed a trace!

Got to keep him on the line!

“I have to ask you something to be sure you are who you say you are.”

“Yesh?”

“Do you take anything from the victims-I mean, besides their faces?”

“Money. Take money.”

This is him! The department had withheld the money part from the papers. Only the real Facelift Killer could know!

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Yes.”

Harrison was asking this one for himself.

“What do you do with the faces?”

He had to know. The question drove him crazy at night. He dreamed about those faces. Did the killer tack them on the wall, or press them in a book, or freeze them, or did he wear them around the house like that Leatherface character from that chainsaw movie?

On the other end of the line he sensed sudden agitation and panic: “No! Cannot shay! Can…not!”

“Okay, okay. Take it easy.”

“You will help shtop?”

“Oh, yes! Oh, God, yes, I’ll help you stop!” He prayed his genuine heartfelt desire to end this was coming through. “I’ll help you any way I can!”

There was a long pause, then:

“You hate? Hate me?”

Harrison didn’t trust himself to answer that right away. He searched his feelings quickly, but carefully.

“No,” he said finally. “I think you have done some awful, horrible things but, strangely enough, I don’t hate you.”

And that was true. Why didn’t he hate this murdering maniac? Oh, he wanted to stop him more than anything in the world, and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him dead if the situation required it, but there was no personal hatred for the Facelift Killer.

What is it in you that speaks to me? he wondered.

“Shank you,” said the voice, couched once more in a sob.

And then the killer hung up.

Harrison shouted into the dead phone, banged it on his desk, but the line was dead.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Jacobi said from the office door.

“That so-called ‘fairy’ on the phone was the Facelift Killer, you idiot! We could have had a trace if you’d stuck around!”

“Bullshit!”

“He knew about taking the money!”

“So why’d he talk like that? That’s a dumb-ass way to try to disguise your voice.”

And then it suddenly hit Harrison like a sucker punch to the gut. He swallowed hard and said:

“Jacobi, how do you think your voice would sound if you had a jaw crammed full of teeth much larger and sharper than the kind found in the typical human mouth?”

Harrison took genuine pleasure in the way Jacobi’s face blanched slowly to yellow-white.

He didn’t get home again until after seven the following night. The whole department had been in an uproar all day. This was the first break they had had in the case. It wasn’t much, but contact had been made. That was the important part. And although Harrison had done nothing he could think of to deserve any credit, he had accepted the commissioner’s compliments and encouragement on the phone shortly before he had left the office tonight.

But what was most important to Harrison was the evidence from the call-Damn! he wished it had been taped-that the killer wanted to stop. They didn’t have one more goddamn clue tonight than they’d had yesterday, but the call offered hope that soon there might be an end to this horror.

Martha had dinner waiting. The kids were scrubbed and pyjamaed and waiting for their goodnight kiss. He gave them each a hug and poured himself a stiff scotch while Martha put them in the sack.

“Do you feel as tired as you look?” she said as she returned from the bedroom wing.

She was a big woman with bright blue eyes and natural dark blond hair. Harrison toasted her with his glass.

“The expression ‘dead on his feet’ has taken on a whole new meaning for me.”

She kissed him, then they sat down to eat.

He had spoken to Martha a couple of times since he had left the house twenty hours ago. She knew about the phone call from the Facelift Killer, about the new hope in the department about the case, but he was glad she didn’t bring it up now. He was sick of talking about it. Instead, he sat in front of his cooling meatloaf and wrestled with the images that had been nibbling at the edges of his consciousness all day.

“What are you daydreaming about?” Martha said.

Without thinking, Harrison said, “Annie.”

“Annie who?”

“My sister.”

Martha put her fork down. “Your sister? Kevin, you don’t have a sister.”

“Not any more. But I did.”

Her expression was alarmed now. “Kevin, are you all right? I’ve known your family for ten years. Your mother has never once mentioned-“

“We don’t talk about Annie, Mar. We try not to even think about her. She died when she was five.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Annie was... deformed. Terribly deformed. She never really had a chance.”

* * * * *

Open trunk from inside. Get out. The Detective Harrison’s house here. Cold night. Cold feel good. Trunk air make sick, dizzy.

Light here. Hurry round side of house.

Darker here. No one see. Look in window. Dark but see good. Two little ones there. Sleeping. Move away. Not want them cry.

Go more round. The Detective Harrison with lady. Sit table near window. Must be wife. Pretty but not oh-so-beauty. Not have mom-face. Not like ones who die.

Watch behind tree. Hungry. They not eat food. Talk-talk-talk. Cannot hear.

The Detective Harrison do most talk. Kind face. Kind eyes. Some terrible sad there. Hides. Him understands. Heard in phone voice. Understands. Him one can stop kills.

Spent day watch the Detective Harrison car. All day watch at police house. Saw him come-go many times. Soon dark, open trunk with claw. Ride with him. Ride long. Wonder what town this?

The Detective Harrison look this way. Stare like last night. Must not see me! Must not!

Harrison stopped in mid-sentence and stared out the window as his skin prickled.

That watched feeling again.

It was the same as last night. Something was out in the backyard watching them. He strained to see through the wooded darkness outside the window but saw only shadows within shadows.

But something was there! He could feel it!

He got up and turned on the outside spotlights, hoping, praying that the backyard would be empty.

It was.

He smiled to hide his relief and glanced at Martha.

“Thought that raccoon was back.”

He left the spots on and settled back into his place at the table. But the thoughts racing through his mind made eating unthinkable.

What if that maniac had followed him out here? What if the call had been a ploy to get him off-guard so the Facelift Killer could do to Martha what he had done to the other women?

My God...

First thing tomorrow morning he was going to call the local alarm boys and put in a security system. Cost be damned, he had to have it. Immediately!

As for tonight...

Tonight he’d keep the .38 under the pillow.

* * * * *

Run away. Run low and fast. Get bushes before light come. Must stay way now. Not come back.

The Detective Harrison feel me. Know when watched. Him the one, sure.

Walk in dark, in woods. See back many houses. Come park. Feel strange. See this park before. Cannot be…

Then know.

Monroe! This Monroe! Born here! Live here! Hate Monroe! Monroe bad place, bad people! House, home, old home near here! There! Cross park! Old home! New color but same house.

Hate house!

Sit on froze park grass. Cry. Why Monroe? Do not want be in Monroe. The Mom gone. The Sissy gone. The Jimmy very gone. House here.

Dry tears. Watch old home long time till light go out. Wait more. Go to windows. See new folks inside. The Mom took the Sissy and go. Where? Don’t know.

Go to back. Push cellar window. Crawl in. See good in dark. New folks make nice cellar. Wood on walls. Rug on floor. No chain.

Sit floor. Remember...

Remember hanging on wall. Look little window near ceiling. Watch kids play in park cross street. Want go with kids. Want play there with kids. Want have friends.

But the Mom won’t let. Never leave basement. Too strong. Break everything. Have TV. Broke it. Have toys. Broke them. Stay in basement. Chain round waist hold to center pole. Cannot leave.

Remember terrible bad things happen.

Run. Run way Monroe. Never come back.

Till now.

Now back. Still hate house! Want hurt house. See cigarettes. With matches. Light all. Burn now!

Watch rug burn. Chair burn. So hot. Run back to cold park. Watch house burn. See new folks run out. Trucks come throw water. House burn and burn.

Glad but tears come anyway.

Hate house. Now house gone. Hate Monroe.

Wonder where the Mom and the Sissy live now.

Leave Monroe for new home and the Old Jessi.

* * * * *

The second call came the next day. And this time they were ready for it. The tape recorders were set, the computers were waiting to begin the tracing protocol. As soon as Harrison recognized the voice, he gave the signal. On the other side of the desk, Jacobi put on a headset and people started running in all directions. Off to the races.

“I’m glad you called,” Harrison said. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

“You undershtand?” said the soft voice.

“I’m not sure.”

“Musht help shtop.”

“I will! I will! Tell me how!”

“Not know.”

There was a pause. Harrison wasn’t sure what to say next. He didn’t want to push, but he had to keep him on the line.

“Did you... hurt anyone last night?”

“No. Shaw houshes. Your houshe. Your wife.”

Harrison’s blood froze. Last night-in the backyard. That had been the Facelift Killer in the dark. He looked up and saw genuine concern in Jacobi’s eyes. He forced himself to speak.

“You were at my house? Why didn’t you talk to me?”

“No-no! Cannot let shee! Run way your house. Go mine!”

“Yours? You live in Monroe?”

“No! Hate Monroe! Once lived. Gone long! Burn old houshe. Never go back!”

This could be important. Harrison phrased the next question carefully.

“You burned your old house? When was that?”

If he could just get a date, a year...

“Lasht night.”

“Last night?” Harrison remembered hearing the sirens and fire horns in the early morning darkness.

“Yesh! Hate houshe!”

And then the line went dead.

He looked at Jacobi who had picked up another line.

“Did we get the trace?”

“Waiting to hear. Christ, he sounds retarded, doesn’t he?”

* * * * *

Retarded.

The word sent ripples across the surface of his brain. Non-human teeth... Monroe... retarded... a picture was forming in the settling sediment, a picture he felt he should avoid.

“Maybe he is.”

“You’d think that would make him easy to-“

Jacobi stopped, listened to the receiver, then shook his head disgustedly.

“What?”

“Got as far as the Lower East Side. He was probably calling from somewhere in one of the projects. If we’d had another thirty seconds-“

“We’ve got something better than a trace to some lousy pay phone,” Harrison said. “We’ve got his old address!” He picked up his suit coat and headed for the door.

“Where we goin’?”

“Not ‘we.’ Me. I’m going out to Monroe.”

* * * * *

Once he reached the town, it took Harrison less than an hour to find the Facelift Killer’s last name.

He first checked with the Monroe Fire Department to find the address of last night’s house fire. Then he went down to the brick fronted Town Hall and found the lot and block number. After that it was easy to look up its history of ownership. Mr. and Mrs. Elwood Scott were the current owners of the land and the charred shell of a three-bedroom ranch that sat upon it.

There had only been one other set of owners: Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Baker. He had lived most of his life in Monroe but knew nothing about the Baker family. But he knew where to find out: Captain Jeremy Hall, Chief of Police in the Incorporated Village of Monroe.

Captain Hall hadn’t changed much over the years. Still had a big belly, long sideburns, and hair cut bristly short on the sides. That was the ‘in’ look these days, but Hall had been wearing his hair like that for at least thirty years. If not for his Bronx accent, he could have played a redneck sheriff in any one of those southern chain gang movies.

After pleasantries and local-boy-leaves-home-to-become-big-city-cop-and-now-comes-to-question-small-town-cop banter, they got down to business.

“The Bakers from North Park Drive?” Hall said after he had noisily sucked the top layer off his steaming coffee. “Who could forget them? There was the mother, divorced, I believe, and the three kids-two girls and the boy.”

Harrison pulled out his note pad. “The boy’s name-what was it?”

“Tommy, I believe. Yeah-Tommy. I’m sure of it.”

“He’s the one I want.”

Hall’s eyes narrowed. “He is, is he? You’re working on that Facelift case aren’t you?”

“Right.”

“And you think Tommy Baker might be your man?”

“It’s a possibility. What do you know about him?”

“I know he’s dead.”

Harrison froze. “Dead? That can’t be!”

“It sure as hell can be!” Without rising from his seat, he shouted through his office door. “Murph! Pull out that old file on the Baker case! Nineteen eighty-four, I believe!”

“Eighty-four?” Harrison said. He and Martha had been living in Queens then. They hadn’t moved back to Monroe yet.

“Right. A real messy affair. Tommy Baker was thirteen years old when he bought it. And he bought it. Believe me, he bought it!”

* * * * *

Harrison sat in glum silence, watching his whole theory go up in smoke.

The Old Jessi sleeps. Stand by mirror near tub. Only mirror have. No like them. The Jessi not need one.

Stare face. Bad face. Teeth, teeth, teeth. And hair. Arms too thin, too long. Claws. None have claws like my. None have face like my.

Face not better. Ate pretty faces but face still same. Still cause sick-scared look. Just like at home.

Remember home. Do not want but thoughts will not go.

Faces.

The Sissy get the Mom-face. Beauty face. The Tommy get the Dad-face. Not see the Dad. Never come home anymore. Who my face? Never see where come. Where my face come? My hands come?

Remember home cellar. Hate home! Hate cellar more! Pull on chain round waist. Pull and pull. Want out. Want play. Please. No one let.

One day when the Mom and the Sissy go, the Tommy bring friends. Come down cellar. Bunch on stairs. Stare. First time see sick-scared look. Not understand.

Friends! Play! Throw ball them. They run. Come back with rocks and sticks. Still sick-scared look. Throw me, hit me.

Make cry. Make the Tommy laugh.

Whenever the Mom and the Sissy go, the Tommy come with boys and sticks. Poke and hit. Hurt. Little hurt on skin. Big hurt inside. Sick-scared look hurt most of all. Hate look. Hate hurt. Hate them.

Most hate the Tommy.

One night chain breaks. Wait on wall for the Tommy. Hurt him. Hurt the Tommy outside. Hurt the Tommy inside. Know because pull inside outside. The Tommy quiet. Quiet, wet, red. The Mom and the Sissy get sick-scared look and scream.

Hate that look. Run way. Hide. Never come back. Till last night.

Cry more now. Cry quiet. In tub. So the Jessi not hear.

* * * * *

Harrison flipped through the slim file on the Tommy Baker murder.

“This is it?”

“We didn’t need to collect much paper,” Captain Hall said. “I mean, the mother and sister were witnesses. There’s some photos in that manila envelope at the back.”

Harrison pulled it free and slipped out some large black and whites. His stomach lurched immediately.

“My God!”

“Yeah, he was a mess. Gutted by his older sister.”

“His sister!”

“Yeah. Apparently she was some sort of freak of nature.”

Harrison felt the floor tilt under him, felt as if he were going to slide off the chair.

“Freak?” he said, hoping Hall wouldn’t notice the tremor in his voice. “What did she look like?”

“Never saw her. She took off after she killed the brother. No one’s seen hide nor hair of her since. But there’s a picture of the rest of the family in there.”

Harrison shuffled through the file until he came to a large color family portrait. He held it up. Four people: two adults seated in chairs; a boy and a girl, about ten and eight, kneeling on the floor in front of them. A perfectly normal American family. Four smiling faces.

But where’s your oldest child. Where’s your big sister? Where did you hide that fifth face while posing for this?

“What was her name? The one who’s not here?”

“Not sure. Carla, maybe? Look at the front sheet under Suspect.”

Harrison did: “Carla Baker-called ‘Carly,’” he said.

Hall grinned. “Right. Carly. Not bad for a guy getting ready for retirement.”

Harrison didn’t answer. An ineluctable sadness filled him as he stared at the incomplete family portrait.

Carly Baker... poor Carly... where did they hide you away? In the cellar? Locked in the attic? How did your brother treat you? Bad enough to deserve killing?

Probably.

“No pictures of Carly, I suppose.”

“Not a one.”

That figures.

“How about a description?”

“The mother gave us one but it sounded so weird, we threw it out. I mean, the girl sounded like she was half spider or something!” He drained his cup. “Then later on I got into a discussion with Doc Alberts about it. He told me he was doing deliveries back about the time this kid was born. Said they had a whole rash of monsters, all delivered within a few weeks of each other.”

The room started to tilt under Harrison again.

“Early December, 1968, by chance?”

“Yeah! How’d you know?”

He felt queasy. “Lucky guess.”

“Huh. Anyway, Doc Alberts said they kept it quiet while they looked into a cause, but that little group of freaks-‘cluster,’ he called them-was all there was. They figured that a bunch of mothers had been exposed to something nine months before, but whatever it had been was long gone. No monsters since. I understand most of them died shortly after birth, anyway.”

“Not all of them.”

“Not that it matters,” Hall said, getting up and pouring himself a refill from the coffee pot. “Someday someone will find her skeleton, probably somewhere out in Haskins’ marshes.”

“Maybe.” But I wouldn’t count on it. He held up the file. “Can I get a xerox of this?”

“You mean the Facelift Killer is a twenty-year-old girl?”

Martha’s face clearly registered her disbelief.

“Not just any girl. A freak. Someone so deformed she really doesn’t look human. Completely uneducated and probably mentally retarded to boot.”

Harrison hadn’t returned to Manhattan. Instead, he’d headed straight for home, less than a mile from Town Hall. He knew the kids were at school and that Martha would be there alone. That was what he had wanted. He needed to talk this out with someone a lot more sensitive than Jacobi.

Besides, what he had learned from Captain Hall and the Baker file had dredged up the most painful memories of his life.

“A monster,” Martha said.

“Yeah. Born one on the outside, made one on the inside. But there’s another child monster I want to talk about. Not Carly Baker. Annie... Ann Harrison.”

Martha gasped. “That sister you told me about last night?”

Harrison nodded. He knew this was going to hurt, but he had to do it, had to get it out. He was going to explode into a thousand twitching bloody pieces if he didn’t.

“I was nine when she was born. December 2, 1968-a week after Carly Baker. Seven pounds, four ounces of horror. She looked more fish than human.”

His sister’s image was imprinted on the rear wall of his brain. And it should have been after all those hours he had spent studying her loathsome face. Only her eyes looked human. The rest of her was awful. A lipless mouth, flattened nose, sloping forehead, fingers and toes fused so that they looked more like flippers than hands and feet, a bloated body covered with shiny skin that was a dusky gray-blue. The doctors said she was that color because her heart was bad, had a defect that caused mixing of blue blood and red blood.

A repulsed nine-year-old Kevin Harrison had dubbed her The Tuna-but never within earshot of his parents.

“She wasn’t supposed to live long. A few months, they said, and she’d be dead. But she didn’t die. Annie lived on and on. One year. Two. My father and the doctors tried to get my mother to put her into some sort of institution, but Mom wouldn’t hear of it. She kept Annie in the third bedroom and talked to her and cooed over her and cleaned up her shit and just hung over her all the time. All the time, Martha!”

Martha gripped his hand and nodded for him to go on.

“After a while, it got so there was nothing else in Mom’s life. She wouldn’t leave Annie. Family trips became a thing of the past. Christ, if she and Dad went out to a movie, I had to stay with Annie. No babysitter was trustworthy enough. Our whole lives seemed to center around that freak in the back bedroom. And me? I was forgotten.

“After a while I began to hate my sister.”

“Kevin, you don’t have to-“

“Yes, I do! I’ve got to tell you how it was! By the time I was fourteen-just about Tommy Baker’s age when he bought it-I thought I was going to go crazy. I was getting all B’s in school but did that matter? Hell, no! ‘Annie rolled halfway over today. Isn’t that wonderful?’ Big deal! She was five years old, for Christ sake! I was starting point guard on the high school junior varsity basketball team as a goddamn freshman, but did anyone come to my games? Hell no!

“I tell you, Martha, after five years of caring for Annie, our house was a powder-keg. Looking back now I can see it was my mother’s fault for becoming so obsessed. But back then, at age fourteen, I blamed it all on Annie. I really hated her for being born a freak.”

He paused before going on. This was the really hard part.

“One night, when my dad had managed to drag my mother out to some company banquet that he had to attend, I was left alone to babysit Annie. On those rare occasions, my mother would always tell me to keep Annie company-you know, read her stories and such. But I never did. I’d let her lie back there alone with our old black and white TV while I sat in the living room watching the family set. This time, however, I went into her room.”

He remembered the sight of her, lying there with the covers half way up her fat little tuna body that couldn’t have been much more than a yard in length. It was winter, like now, and his mother had dressed her in a flannel nightshirt. The coarse hair that grew off the back of her head had been wound into two braids and fastened with pink bows.

“Annie’s eyes brightened as I came into the room. She had never spoken. Couldn’t, it seemed. Her face could do virtually nothing in the way of expression, and her flipper-like arms weren’t good for much, either. You had to read her eyes, and that wasn’t easy. None of us knew how much of a brain Annie had, or how much she understood of what was going on around her. My mother said she was bright, but I think Mom was a little whacko on the subject of Annie.

“Anyway, I stood over her crib and started shouting at her. She quivered at the sound. I called her every dirty name in the book. And as I said each one, I poked her with my fingers-not enough to leave a bruise, but enough to let out some of the violence in me. I called her a lousy goddamn tunafish with feet. I told her how much I hated her and how I wished she had never been born. I told her everybody hated her and the only thing she was good for was a freak show. Then I said, ‘I wish you were dead! Why don’t you die? You were supposed to die years ago! Why don’t you do everyone a favor and do it now!

“When I ran out of breath, she looked at me with those big eyes of hers and I could see the tears in them and I knew she had understood me. She rolled over and faced the wall. I ran from the room.

“I cried myself to sleep that night. I’d thought I’d feel good telling her off, but all I kept seeing in my mind’s eye was this fourteen-year-old bully shouting at a helpless five-year-old. I felt awful. I promised myself that the first opportunity I had to be alone with her the next day I’d apologize, tell her I really didn’t mean the hateful things I’d said, promise to read to her and be her best friend, anything to make it up to her.

“I awoke the next morning to the sound of my mother screaming. Annie was dead.”

“Oh, my God!” Martha said, her fingers digging into his arm.

“Naturally, I blamed myself.”

“But you said she had a heart defect!”

“Yeah. I know. And the autopsy showed that’s what killed her-her heart finally gave out. But I’ve never been able to get it out of my head that my words were what made her heart give up. Sounds sappy and melodramatic, I know, but I’ve always felt that she was just hanging on to life by the slimmest margin and that I pushed her over the edge.”

“Kevin, you shouldn’t have to carry that around with you! Nobody should!”

The old grief and guilt were like a slowly expanding balloon in his chest. It was getting hard to breathe.

“In my coolest, calmest, most dispassionate moments I convince myself that it was all a terrible coincidence, that she would have died that night anyway and that I had nothing to do with it.”

“That’s probably true, so-“

“But that doesn’t change the fact that the last memory of her life was of her big brother-the guy she probably thought was the neatest kid on earth, who could run and play basketball, one of the three human beings who made up her whole world, who should have been her champion, her defender against a world that could only greet her with revulsion and rejection-standing over her crib telling her how much he hated her and how he wished she was dead!”

He felt the sobs begin to quake in his chest. He hadn’t cried in over a dozen years and he had no intention of allowing himself to start now, but there didn’t seem to be any stopping it. It was like running down hill at top speed-if he tried to stop before he reached bottom, he’d go head over heels and break his neck.

“Kevin, you were only fourteen,” Martha said soothingly.

“Yeah, I know. But if I could go back in time for just a few seconds, I’d go back to that night and rap that rotten hateful fourteen-year-old in the mouth before he got a chance to say a single word. But I can’t. I can’t even say I’m sorry to Annie! I never got a chance to take it back, Martha! I never got a chance to make it up to her!”

And then he was blubbering like a goddamn wimp, letting loose half a lifetime’s worth of grief and guilt, and Martha’s arms were around him and she was telling him everything would be all right, all right, all right...

* * * * *

The Detective Harrison understand. Can tell. Want to go kill another face now. Must not. The Detective Harrison not like. Must stop. The Detective Harrison help stop. 

Stop for good.

Best way. Only one way stop for good. Not jail. No chain, no little window. Not ever again. Never!

Only one way stop for good. The Detective Harrison will know. Will understand. Will do.

Must call. Call now. Before dark. Before pretty faces come out in night.

Harrison had pulled himself together by the time the kids came home from school. He felt buoyant inside, like he’d been purged in some way. Maybe all those shrinks were right after all: sharing old hurts did help.

He played with the kids for a while, then went into the kitchen to see if Martha needed any help with slicing and dicing. He felt as close to her now as he ever had.

“You okay?” she said with a smile.

“Fine.”

She had just started slicing a red pepper for the salad. He took over for her.

“Have you decided what to do?” she asked.

He had been thinking about it a lot, and had come to a decision.

“Well, I’ve got to inform the department about Carly Baker, but I’m going to keep her out of the papers for a while.”

“Why? I’d think if she’s that freakish looking, the publicity might turn up someone who’s seen her.”

“Possibly it will come to that. But this case is sensational enough without tabloids like the Post and The Light turning it into a circus. Besides, I’m afraid of panic leading to some poor deformed innocent getting lynched. I think I can bring her in. She wants to come in.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“She so much as told me so. Besides, I can sense it in her.” He saw Martha giving him a dubious look. “I’m serious. We’re somehow connected, like there’s an invisible wire between us. Maybe it’s because the same thing that deformed her and those other kids deformed Annie, too. And Annie was my sister. Maybe that link is why I volunteered for this case in the first place.”

He finished slicing the pepper, then moved on to the mushrooms.

* * * * *

“And after I bring her in, I’m going to track down her mother and start prying into what went on in Monroe in February and March of sixty-eight to cause that so-called ‘cluster’ of freaks nine months later.”

He would do that for Annie. It would be his way of saying goodbye and I’m sorry to his sister.

“But why does she take their faces?” Martha said.

“I don’t know. Maybe because theirs were beautiful and hers is no doubt hideous.”

“But what does she do with them?”

“Who knows? I’m not all that sure I want to know. But right now-“

The phone rang. Even before he picked it up, he had an inkling of who it was. The first sibilant syllable left no doubt.

“Ish thish the Detective Harrison?”

“Yes.”

Harrison stretched the coiled cord around the corner from the kitchen into the dining room, out of Martha’s hearing.

“Will you shtop me tonight?”

“You want to give yourself up?”

“Yesh. Pleashe, yesh.”

“Can you meet me at the precinct house?”

“No!”

“Okay! Okay!” God, he didn’t want to spook her now. “Where? Anywhere you say.”

“Jusht you.”

“All right.”

“Midnight. Plashe where lasht fashe took. Bring gun but not more cop.”

“All right.”

He was automatically agreeing to everything. He’d work out the details later.

“You undershtand, Detective Harrishon?”

“Oh, Carly, Carly, I understand more than you know!”

There was a sharp intake of breath and then silence at the other end of the line. Finally:

“You know Carly?”

“Yes, Carly. I know you.” The sadness welled up in him again and it was all he could do to keep his voice from breaking. “I had a sister like you once. And you... you had a brother like me.”

“Yesh,” said that soft, breathy voice. “You undershtand. Come tonight, Detective Harrishon.”

The line went dead.

* * * * *

Wait in shadows. The Detective Harrison will come. Will bring lots cop. Always see on TV show. Always bring lots. Protect him. Many guns.

No need. Only one gun. The Detective Harrison’s gun. Him’s will shoot. Stop kills. Stop forever.

The Detective Harrison must do. No one else. The Carly can not. Must be the Detective Harrison. Smart. Know the Carly. Understand.

After stop, no more ugly Carly. No more sick-scared look. Bad face will go away. Forever and ever.

Harrison had decided to go it alone.

Not completely alone. He had a van waiting a block and a half away on Seventh Avenue and a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt, but he hadn’t told anyone who he was meeting or why. He knew if he did, they’d swarm all over the area and scare Carly off completely. So he had told Jacobi he was meeting an informant and that the van was just a safety measure.

He was on his own here and wanted it that way. Carly Baker wanted to surrender to him and him alone. He understood that. It was part of that strange tenuous bond between them. No one else would do. After he had cuffed her, he would call in the wagon.

After that he would be a hero for a while. He didn’t want to be a hero. All he wanted was to end this thing, end the nightmare for the city and for poor Carly Baker. She’d get help, the kind she needed, and he’d use the publicity to springboard an investigation into what had made Annie and Carly and the others in their ‘cluster’ what they were.

It’s all going to work out fine, he told himself as he entered the alley.

He walked half its length and stood in the darkness. The brick walls of the buildings on either side soared up into the night. The ceaseless roar of the city echoed dimly behind him. The alley itself was quiet-no sound, no movement. He took out his flashlight and flicked it on.

“Carly?”

No answer.

“Carly Baker-are you here?”

More silence, then, ahead to his left, the sound of a garbage can scraping along the stony floor of the alley. He swung the light that way, and gasped.

A looming figure stood a dozen feet in front of him. It could only be Carly Baker. She stood easily as tall as he a good six foot two-and looked like a homeless street person, one of those animated rag-piles that live on subway grates in the winter. Her head was wrapped in a dirty scarf, leaving only her glittery dark eyes showing. The rest of her was muffled in a huge, shapeless overcoat, baggy old polyester slacks with dragging cuffs, and torn sneakers.

“Where the Detective Harrishon’s gun?” said the voice.

Harrison’s mouth was dry but he managed to get his tongue working.

“In its holster.”

“Take out. Pleashe.”

Harrison didn’t argue with her. The grip of his heavy Chief Special felt damn good in his hand.

The figure spread its arms; within the folds of her coat those arms seem to bend the wrong way. And were those black hooked claws protruding from the cuffs of the sleeves?

She said, “Shoot.”

Harrison gaped in shock.

The Detective Harrison not shoot. Eyes wide. Hands with gun and light shake.

Say again: “Shoot!”

“Carly, no! I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to take you in, just as we agreed.”

“No!”

Wrong! The Detective Harrison not understand! Must shoot the Carly! Kill the Carly!

“Not jail! Shoot! Shtop the kills! Shtop the Carly!”

“No! I can get you help, Carly. Really, I can! You’ll go to a place where no one will hurt you. You’ll get medicine to make you feel better!”

Thought him understand! Not understand! Move closer. Put claw out. Him back way. Back to wall.

“Shoot! Kill! Now!”

“No, Annie, please!”

“Not Annie! Carly! Carly!”

“Right. Carly! Don’t make me do this!”

Only inches way now. Still not shoot. Other cops hiding not shoot. Why not protect?

“Shoot!” Pull scarf off face. Point claw at face. “End! End! Pleashe!”

The Detective Harrison face go white. Mouth hang open. Say, “Oh, my God!”

Get sick-scared look. Hate that look! Thought him understand! Say he know the Carly! Not! Stop look! Stop!

Not think. Claw go out. Rip throat of the Detective Harrison. Blood fly just like others.

No-No-No! Not want hurt!

The Detective Harrison gurgle. Drop gun and light. Fall. Stare.

Wait other cops shoot. Please kill the Carly. Wait.

No shoot. Then know. No cops. Only the poor Detective Harrison. Cry for the Detective Harrison. Then run. Run and climb. Up and down. Back to new home with the Old Jessi.

The Jessi glad hear Carly come. The Jessi try talk. Carly go sit tub. Close door. Cry for the Detective Harrison. Cry long time. Break mirror million piece. Not see face again. Not ever. Never.

The Jessi say, “Carly, I want my bath. Will you scrub my back?”

Stop cry. Do the Old Jessi’s black back.

Comb the Jessi’s hair.

Feel very sad.

None ever comb the Carly’s hair.

Ever.

BUCKETS

INTRODUCTION

“Buckets" marks my first appearance in The Year's Best Horror Stories series.

This odd story was originally written for the aborted anthology, Halloween Horrors II, and sat in my “sort of buried among the reprints" section of my cabinet. I had forgotten about it for a very long time.

Makes me wonder what the rest of the stories slated for Halloween Horrors II would have been like.

BUCKETS

"My, aren't you an early bird!"

Dr. Edward Cantrell looked down at the doe-eyed child in the five-and-dime Princess Leia costume on his front doorstep and tried to guess her age. A beautiful child of about seven or eight, with flaxen hair and scrawny little shoulders drawn up as if she were afraid of him, as if he might bite her. It occurred to him that today was Wednesday and it was not yet noon. Why wasn't she in school? Never mind. It was Halloween and it was none of his business why she was getting a jump on the rest of the kids in the trick-or-treat routine.

"Are you looking for a treat?" he asked her.

She nodded slowly, shyly.

"Okay! You got it!" He went to the bowl behind him on the hall table and picked out a big Snickers. Then he added a dime to the package. It had become a Halloween tradition over the years that Dr. Cantrell's place was where you got dimes when you trick-or-treated.

He thrust his hand through the open space where the screen used to be. He liked to remove the storm door screen on Halloween; it saved him the inconvenience of repeatedly opening the door against the kids pressing against it for their treats; and besides, he worried about one of the little ones being pushed backward off the front steps. A lawsuit could easily follow something like that.

The little girl lifted her silver bucket.

He took a closer look. No, not silver -- shiny stainless steel, reflecting the dull gray overcast sky. It reminded him of something, but he couldn't place it at the moment. Strange sort of thing to be collecting Halloween treats in. Probably some new fad. Whatever became of the old pillowcase or the shopping bag, or even the plastic jack-o'-lantern?

He poised his hand over the bucket, then let the candy bar and dime drop. They landed with a soft squish.

Not exactly the sound he had expected. He leaned forward to see what else was in the bucket but the child had swung around and was making her way down the steps.

Out on the sidewalk, some hundred feet away along the maple-lined driveway, two older children waited for her. A stainless-steel bucket dangled from each of their hands.

Cantrell shivered as he closed the front door. There was a new chill in the air. Maybe he should put on a sweater. But what color? He checked himself over in the hall mirror. Not bad for a guy looking fifty-two in the eye. That was Erica's doing. Trading in the old wife for a new model twenty years younger had had a rejuvenating effect on him. Also, it made him work at staying young looking -- like three trips a week to the Short Hills Nautilus Club and watching his diet. He decided to forgo the sweater for now.

He almost made it back to his recliner and the unfinished New York Times when the front bell rang again. Sighing resignedly, he turned and went back to the front door. He didn't mind tending to the trick-or-treaters, but he wished Erica were here to share door duty. Why did she have to pick today for her monthly spending spree in Manhattan? He knew she loved Bloomingdale's -- in fact, she had once told him that after she died she wanted her ashes placed in an urn in the lingerie department there -- but she could have waited until tomorrow.

It was two boys this time, both about eleven, both made up like punkers with orange and green spiked hair, ripped clothes, and crude tattoos, obviously done with a Bic instead of a real tattooer's pen. They stood restlessly in the chill breeze, shifting from one foot to the other, looking up and down the block, stainless-steel buckets in hand.

He threw up his hands. "Whoa! Tough guys, eh? I'd better not mess around with the likes of --!”

One of the boys glanced at him briefly, and in his eyes Cantrell caught a flash of such rage and hatred -- not just for him, but also for the whole world -- that his voice dried away to a whisper. And then the look was gone as if it had never been and the boy was just another kid again. He hastily grabbed a pair of Three Musketeers and two dimes, leaned through the opening in the door, and dropped one of each into their buckets.

The one on the right went squish and the one on the left went plop.

He managed to catch just a glimpse of the bottom of the bucket on the right as the kid turned. He couldn't tell what was in there, but it was red.

He was glad to see them go. Surly pair, he thought. Not a word out of either of them. And what was in the bottom of that bucket? Didn't look like any candy he knew, and he considered himself an expert on candy. He patted the belly that he had been trying to flatten for months. More than an expert -- an aficionado of candy.

Further speculation was forestalled by a call from Monroe Community Hospital. One of his postpartum patients needed a laxative. He okayed a couple of ounces of milk of mag. Then the nurse double-checked his pre-op orders on the hysterectomy tomorrow.

He managed to suffer through it all with dignity. It was Wednesday and he always took Wednesdays off. Jeff Sewell was supposed to be taking his calls today, but all the floors at the hospital had the Cantrell home phone number and they habitually tried here first before they went hunting for whoever was covering him.

He was used to it. He had learned ages ago that there was no such thing as a day off in Ob-Gyn.

The bell rang again, and for half a second Cantrell found himself hesitant to answer it. He shrugged off the reluctance and pulled open the door.

Two mothers and two children. He sucked in his gut when he recognized the mothers as longtime patients.

This is more like it!

"Hi, Dr. Cantrell!" the red-haired woman said with a big smile. She put a hand atop the red-haired child's head. "You remember Shana, don't you? You delivered her five years ago next month."

"I remember you, Gloria," he said, noting her flash of pleasure at having her first name remembered. He never forgot a face. "But Shana here looks a little bit different from when I last saw her."

As both women laughed, he scanned his mind for the other's name. Then it came to him:

"Yours looks a little bigger, too, Diane."

"She sure does. What do you say to Dr. Cantrell, Susan?"

The child mumbled something that sounded like "Ricky Meat" and held up an orange plastic jack-o'-lantern with a black plastic strap.

"That's what I like to see!" he said. "A real Halloween treat holder. Better than those stainless-steel buckets the other kids have been carrying!"

Gloria and Diane looked at each other. "Stainless-steel buckets?"

"Can you believe it?" he said as he got the two little girls each a Milky Way and a dime. "My first three Halloween customers this morning carried steel buckets for their treats. Never seen anything like it."

"Neither have we," Diane said.

"You haven't? You should have passed a couple of boys out on the street."

"No. We're the only ones around."

Strange. But maybe they had cut back to the street through the trees as this group entered the driveway.

He dropped identical candy and coins into the identical jack-o'-lanterns and heard them strike the other treats with a reassuring rustle.

He watched the retreating forms of the two young mothers and their two happy kids until they were out of sight. This is the way Halloween should be, he thought. Much better than strange hostile kids with metal buckets.

And just as he completed the thought, he saw three small white-sheeted forms of indeterminate age and sex round the hedge and head up the driveway. Each had a shiny metal bucket in hand.

He wished Erica were here.

He got the candy bars and coins and waited at the door for them. He had decided that before he parted with the goodies he was going to find out who these kids were and what they had in their little buckets. Fair was fair.

The trio climbed to the top step of the stoop and stood there waiting, silently watching him through the eye holes of their sheets.

Their silence got under his skin.

Doesn't anybody say "Trick or treat?" anymore?

"Well, what have we here?" he said with all the joviality he could muster. "Three little ghosts! The Ghostly Trio!"

One of them -- he couldn't tell which -- said, "Yes."

"Good! I like ghosts on Halloween! You want a treat?"

They nodded as one.

"Okay! But first you're gonna have to earn it! Show me what you've got in those buckets and I'll give you each a dime and a box of Milk Duds! How's that for a deal?"

The kids looked at each other. Some wordless communication seemed to pass between them, and then they turned and started back down the steps.

"Hey, kids! Hey, wait!" he said quickly, forcing a laugh. "I was only kidding! You don't have to show me anything. Here! Just take the candy."

They paused on the second step, obviously confused.

Ever so gently, he coaxed them back. "C'mon, kids. I'm just curious about those buckets, is all. I've been seeing them all day and I've been wondering where they came from. But if I frightened you, well, hey, I'll ask somebody else later on." He held up the candy and the coins and extended his hand through the door. "Here you go."

One little ghost stepped forward but raised an open hand -- a little girl's hand -- instead of a bucket.

He could not bear to be denied any longer. He pushed open the storm door and stepped out, looming over the child, craning his neck to see into that damn little bucket. The child squealed in fright and turned away, crouching over the bucket as if to protect it from him.

What are they trying to hide? What's the matter with them? And what's the matter with me?

Really. Who cared what was in those buckets?

He cared. It was becoming an obsession with him. He'd go crazy if he didn't find out.

Hoping nobody was watching -- nobody who'd think he was a child molester -- he grabbed the little ghost by the shoulders and twisted her toward him. She couldn't hide the bucket from him now. In the clear light of day he got a good look into it.

Blood.

Blood with some floating bits of tissue and membrane lay maybe an inch and a half deep in the bottom.

Startled and sickened, he could only stand there and stare at the red, swirling liquid. As the child tried to pull the bucket away from him, it tipped, spilling its contents over the front of her white sheet. She screamed -- more in dismay than terror.

"Let her go!" said a little boy's voice from beside him. Cantrell turned to see one of the other ghosts hurling the contents of its bucket at him. As if in slow motion, he saw the sheet of red liquid and debris float toward him through the air, spreading as it neared. The warm spray splattered him up and down and he reeled back in revulsion.

By the time he had wiped his eyes clear, the kids were halfway down the driveway. He wanted to chase after them, but he had to get out of these bloody clothes first. He'd be taken for a homicidal maniac if someone saw him running after three little kids looking like this.

Arms akimbo, he hurried to the utility room and threw his shirt into the sink. Why? his mind cried as he tried to remember whether hot or cold water set a stain. He tried cold and began rubbing at the blood in the blue oxford cloth.

He scrubbed hard and fast to offset the shaking of his hands. What a horrible thing for anyone to do, but especially children! Questions tumbled over each other in confusion: What could be going through their sick little minds? And where had they gotten the blood?

But most of all, Why me?

Slowly the red color began to thin and run, but the bits of tissue clung. He looked at them more closely. Damn if that doesn't look like...

Recognition triggered an epiphany. He suddenly understood everything.

He now knew who those children were -- or at least who had put them up to it -- and he understood why. He sighed with relief as anger flooded through him like a cleansing flame. He much preferred being angry to being afraid.

He dried his arms with a paper towel and went to call the cops.

"Right-to-lifers, Joe! Has to be them!"

Sergeant Joe Morelli scratched his head. "You sure, Doc?"

Cantrell had known the Morelli family since Joe's days as a security guard at the Mall, waiting for a spot to open up on the Monroe police force. He had delivered all three of Joe's kids.

"Who else could it be? Those little stainless-steel buckets they carry -- the ones I told you about -- they're the same kind we use in D and C's, and get this: We used to use them in abortions. The scrapings from the uterus slide down through a weighted speculum into one of those buckets."

And it was those bloody scrapings that had been splattered all over him.

"But why you, Doc? I know you do abortions now and then -- all you guys do -- but you're not an abortionist per se, if you know what I'm saying."

Cantrell nodded, not mentioning Sandy. He knew the subject of Joe's youngest daughter's pregnancy two years ago was still a touchy subject. She had only been fifteen but he had taken care of everything for Joe with the utmost discretion. He now had a devoted friend on the police force.

A thought suddenly flashed through Cantrell's mind:

They must know about the women's center! But how could they?

It was due to open tomorrow, the first of the month. He had been so careful to avoid any overt connection with it, situating it downtown and going so far as to set it up through a corporate front. Abortions might be legal, but it still didn't sit well with a lot of people to know that their neighbor ran an abortion mill.

Maybe that was it. Maybe a bunch of sicko right-to-lifers had connected him with the new center.

"What gets me," Joe was saying, "is that if this is real abortion material like you say, where'd they get it?"

"I wish I knew." The question had plagued him since he had called the police.

"Well, don't you worry, Doc," Joe said, slipping his hat over his thinning hair. "Whatever's going on, it's gonna stop. I'll cruise the neighborhood. If I see any kids, or even adults with any of these buckets, I'll ID them and find out what's up."

"Thanks, Joe," he said, meaning it. It was comforting to know a cop was looking out for him. "I appreciate that. I'd especially like to get this ugly business cleared up before the wife and I get home from dinner tonight."

"I don't blame you," he said, shaking his head. "I know I wouldn't want Marie to see any buckets of blood."

The trick-or-treaters swelled in numbers as the afternoon progressed. They flowed to the door in motley hordes of all shapes, sizes, and colors. A steady stream of Spocks, Skywalkers, Vaders, Indiana Joneses, Madonnas, Motley Crues, Twisted Sisters, and even a few ghosts, goblins, and witches.

And always among them were one or two kids with steel buckets.

Cantrell bit his lip and repressed his anger when he saw them. He said nothing, did not try to look into their buckets, gave no sign that their presence meant anything to him, pretended they were no different from the other kids as he dropped candies and coins into the steel buckets among the paper sacks and pillowcases and jack-o'-lanterns, all the while praying that Morelli would catch one of the little bastards crossing the street and find out who was behind this bullshit.

He saw the patrol car pull into the drive around 4:00. Morelli finally must have nailed one of them! About time! He had to leave for the women's center soon and wanted this thing settled and done with.

"No luck, Doc," Joe said, rolling down his window. "You must have scared them off."

"Are you crazy?" His anger exploded as he trotted down the walk to the driveway. "They've been through here all afternoon!"

"Hey, take it easy, Doc. If they're around, they must be hiding those buckets when they're on the street, because I've been by here about fifty times and I haven't seen one steel bucket."

Cantrell reined in his anger. It would do no good to alienate Joe. He wanted the police force on his side.

"Sorry. It's just that this is very upsetting."

"I can imagine. Look, Doc. Why don't I do this: Why don't I just park the car right out at the curb and watch the kids as they come in. Maybe I'll catch one in the act. At the very least, it might keep them away."

"I appreciate that, Joe, but it won't be necessary. I'm going out in a few minutes and won't be back until much later tonight. However, I do wish you'd keep an eye on the place -- vandals, you know."

"Sure thing, Doc. No problem."

Cantrell watched the police car pull out of the driveway, and then he set the house alarm and hurried to the garage to make his getaway before the doorbell rang again.

The Midtown Women's Medical Center

Cantrell savored the effect of the westering sun glinting off the thick brass letters over the entrance as he walked by. Red letters on a white placard proclaimed "Grand Opening Tomorrow" from the front door. He stepped around the side of the building into the alley, unlocked the private entrance, and stepped inside.

Dark, quiet, deserted. Damn! He had hoped to catch the contractor for one last check of the trim. He wanted everything perfect for the opening.

He flipped on the lights and checked his watch. Erica would be meeting him here in about an hour, and then they would pick up the Klines and have drinks and dinner at the club. He had just enough time for a quick inspection tour.

So dean, he thought as he walked through the waiting room -- the floors shiny and unscuffed, the carpet pile unmatted, the wall surfaces unmarred by chips or finger smudges. Even the air smelled new.

This center -- his center -- had been in the planning stages for three years. Countless hours of meetings with lawyers, bankers, planning boards, architects, and contractors had gone into it. But, at last, it was ready to go. He planned to work here himself in the beginning, just to keep overhead down, but once the operation got rolling, he'd hire other doctors and have them do the work while he ran the show from a distance.

He stepped into Procedure Room One and looked over the equipment. Dominating the room was the Rappaport 206, a state-of-the-art procedure table with thigh and calf supports on the stirrups, three breakaway sections, and fully motorized tilts in all planes -- Trendelenburg, reverse Trendelenburg, left and right lateral.

Close by, the Zarick suction extractor -- the most efficient abortion device on the market -- hung gleaming on its chrome stand. He pressed the "on" button to check the power but nothing happened.

"It won't work tonight," said a child's voice behind him, making him almost scream with fright.

He spun around. Fifteen or twenty kids stood there staring at him. Most were costumed, and they all carried those goddamn steel buckets.

"All right!" he said. "This does it! I've had just about enough! I'm getting the police!"

He turned to reach for the phone but stopped after one step. More kids were coming in from the hall.

They streamed in slowly and silently, their eyes fixed on him, piercing him. They filled the room, occupying every square foot except for the small circle of space they left around him and the equipment. And behind them he could see more, filling the hall and waiting room beyond. A sea of faces, all staring at him.

He was frightened now. They were just kids, but there were so damn many of them! A few looked fifteen or so, and one looked to be in her early twenties, but by far most of them appeared to be twelve and under. Some were even toddlers! What sort of sick mind would involve such tiny children in this?

And how did they get in? All the doors were locked.

"Get out of here," he said, forcing his voice into calm, measured tones.

They said nothing, merely continued to stare back at him.

"All right, then. If you won't leave, I will! And when I return -- " He tried to push by a five-year-old girl in a gypsy costume. Without warning she jabbed her open hand into his abdomen with stunning force, driving him back against the table.

"Who are you?" This time his voice was less calm, his tones less measured.

"You mean you don't recognize us?" a mocking voice said from the crowd.

"I've never seen any of you before today."

"Not true," said another voice. "After our fathers, you're the second most important man in our lives."

This was insane! "I don't know any of you!"

"You should." Another voice -- were they trying to confuse him by talking from different spots in the room?

"Why?"

"Because you killed us."

The absurdity of the statement made him laugh. He straightened from the table and stepped forward. "Okay. That's it. This isn't the least bit funny."

A little boy shoved him back, roughly, violently. His strength was hideous.

"M-my wife will be here s-soon." He was ashamed of the stammer in his voice, but he couldn't help it. "She'll call the police."

"Sergeant Morelli, perhaps?" This voice was more mature than the others -- more womanly. He found her and looked her in the eye. She was the tall one in her early twenties, dressed in a sweater and skirt. He had a sudden crazy thought that maybe she was a young teacher and these were her students on a class trip. But these kids looked like they spanned all grades from pre-school to junior high.

"Who are you?"

"I don't have a name," she said, facing him squarely. "Very few of us do. But this one does." She indicated a little girl at her side, a toddler made up like a hobo in raggedy clothes with burnt cork rubbed on her face for a beard. An Emmett Kelly dwarf. "Here, Laura," she said to the child as she urged her forward. "Show Dr. Cantrell what you looked like last time he saw you."

Laura stepped up to him. Behind the makeup he could see that she was a beautiful child with short dark hair, a pudgy face, and big brown eyes. She held her bucket out to him.

"She was eleven weeks old," the woman said, "three inches long, and weighed fourteen grams when you ripped her from her mother's uterus. She was no match for you and your suction tube."

Blood and tissue swirled in the bottom of her bucket.

"You don't expect me to buy this, do you?"

"I don't care what you buy, Doctor. But this is Sandra Morelli's child -- or at least what her child would look like now if she'd been allowed to be born. But she wasn't born. Her mother had names all picked out -- Adam for a boy, Laura for a girl -- but her grandfather bullied her mother into an abortion and you were oh-so-willing to see that there were no problems along the way."

"This is absurd!" he said.

"Really?" the woman said. "Then go ahead and call Sergeant Morelli. Maybe he'd like to drive down and meet his granddaughter. The one you killed."

"I killed no one!" he shouted. "No one! Abortion has been legal since 1974! Absolutely legal! And besides -- she wasn't really alive!"

What's the matter with me? he asked himself. I'm talking to them as if I believe them!

"Oh, yes," the woman said. "I forgot. Some political appointees decided that we weren't people and that was that. Pretty much like what happened to East European Jews back in World War II. We're not even afforded the grace of being called embryos or fetuses. We're known as 'products of conception.' What a neat, dehumanizing little phrase. So much easier to scrape the 'products of conception' into a bucket than a person."

"I've had just about enough of this!" he said.

"So?" a young belligerent voice said. "What're y'gonna do?"

He knew he was going to do nothing. He didn't want to have another primary-grade kid shove him back against the table again. No kid that size should be that strong. It wasn't natural.

"You can't hold me responsible!" he said. "They came to me, asking for help. They were pregnant and they didn't want to be. My God! I didn't make them pregnant!"

Another voice: "No, but you sure gave them a convenient solution!"

"So blame your mothers! They're the ones who spread their legs and didn't want to take responsibility for it! How about them!"

"They are not absolved," the woman said. "They shirked their responsibilities to us, but the vast majority of them are each responsible for only one of us. You, Dr. Cantrell, are responsible for all of us. Most of them were scared teenagers, like Laura's mother, who were bullied and badgered into 'terminating' us. Others were too afraid of what their parents would say so they snuck off to women's medical centers like this and lied about their age and put us out of their misery."

"Not all of them, sweetheart!" he said. He was beginning to feel he was on firmer ground now. "Many a time I've done three or four on the same woman! Don't tell me they were poor, scared teenagers. Abortion was their idea of birth control!"

"We know," a number of voices chorused, and something in their tone made him shiver. "We'll see them later."

"The point is," the woman said, "that you were always there, always ready with a gentle smile, a helpful hand, an easy solution, a simple way to get them off the hook by getting rid of us. And a bill, of course."

"If it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else!"

"You can't dilute your own blame. Or your own responsibility," said a voice from behind his chair. "Plenty of doctors refuse to do abortions."

"If you were one of those," said another from his left, "we wouldn't be here tonight."

"The law lets me do it. The Supreme Court. So don't blame me. Blame those Supreme Court justices."

"That's politics. We don't care about politics."

"But I believe in a woman's right to control her own life, to make decisions about her own body!"

"We don't care what you believe. Do you think the beliefs of a terrorist matter to the victims of his bombs? Don't you understand? This is personal!"

A little girl's voice said, "I could have been adopted, you know. I would've made someone a good kid. But I never had the chance!"

They all began shouting at once, about never getting Christmas gifts or birthday presents or hugs or tucked in at night or playing with matches or playing catch or playing house or even playing doctor --

It seemed to go on endlessly. Finally the woman held up her bucket. "All their possibilities ended in here."

"Wait a goddamn minute!" he said. He had just discovered a significant flaw in their little show. "Only a few of them ended up in buckets! If you were up on your facts, you'd know that no one uses those old D and C buckets for abortions anymore." He pointed to the glass trap on the Zarick suction extractor. "This is where the products of conception wind up."

The woman stepped forward with her bucket. "They carry this in honor of me. I have the dubious distinction of being your first victim."

"You're not my victims!" he shouted. "The law --”

She spat in his face. Shocked and humiliated, Cantrell wiped away the saliva with his shirtsleeve and pressed himself back against the table. The rage in her face was utterly terrifying.

"The law!" she hissed. "Don't speak of legalities to me! Look at me! I'd be twenty-two now and this is how I'd look if you hadn't murdered me. Do a little subtraction, Doctor: 1974 was a lot less than twenty-two years ago. I'm Ellen Benedict's daughter -- or at least I would have been if you hadn't agreed to do that D and C on her when she couldn't find a way to explain her pregnancy to her impotent husband!"

Ellen Benedict! God! How did they know about Ellen Benedict? Even he had forgotten about her!

The woman stepped forward and grabbed his wrist. He was helpless against her strength as she pressed his hand over her left breast. He might have found the softness beneath her sweater exciting under different circumstances, but now it elicited only dread.

"Feel my heart beating? It was beating when your curette ripped me to pieces. I was only four weeks old. And I'm not the only one here you killed before 1974 -- I was just your first. So you can't get off the hook by naming the Supreme Court as an accomplice. And even if we allowed you that cop-out, other things you've done since '74 are utterly abominable!" She looked around and pointed into the crowd. "There's one! Come here, honey, and show your bucket to the doctor."

A five- or six-year-old boy came forward. He had blond bangs and the biggest, saddest blue eyes the doctor had ever seen. The boy held out his bucket.

Cantrell covered his face with his hands. "I don't want to see!"

Suddenly he felt his hands yanked downward with numbing force and found the woman's face scant inches from his own.

"Look, damn you! You've seen it before!"

He looked into the upheld bucket. A fully formed male fetus lay curled in the blood, its blue eyes open, its head turned at an unnatural angle.

"This is Rachel Walraven's baby as you last saw him."

The Walraven baby! Oh, God, not that one! How could they know?

"What you see is how he'd look now if you hadn't broken his neck after the abortion you gave his mother made her uterus dump him out."

"He couldn't have survived!" he shouted. He could hear the hysteria edging into his voice. "He was previable! Too immature to survive! The best neonatal ICU in the world couldn't have saved him!"

"Then why'd you break my neck?" the little boy asked.

Cantrell could only sob -- a single harsh sound that seemed to rip itself from the tissues inside his chest and burst free into the air. What could he say? How could he tell them that he had miscalculated the length of gestation and that no one had been more shocked than he at the size of the infant that had dropped into his gloved hands? And then it had opened its eyes and stared at him and my God it seemed to be trying to breathe! He'd done late terminations before where the fetus had squirmed around awhile in the bucket before finally dying, but this one --!

Christ! he remembered thinking, what if the damn thing lets out a cry? He'd get sued by the patient and be the laughing stock of the staff. Poor Ed Cantrell -- can't tell the difference between an abortion and a delivery! He'd look like a jerk!

So he did the only thing he could do. He gave its neck a sharp twist as he lowered it into the bucket. The neck didn't even crack when he broke it.

"Why have you come to me?" he said.

"Answer us first," a child's voice said. "Why do you do it? You don't need the money. Why do you kill us?"

"I told you! I believe in every woman's right to --”

They began to boo him, drowning him out. Then the boos changed to a chant: "Why? Why? Why? Why?"

"Stop that! Listen to me! I told you why!"

But still they chanted, sounding like a crowd at a football game: "Why? Why? Why? Why?"

Finally he could stand no more. He raised his fists and screamed. "All right! Because I can! Is that what you want to hear? I do it because I caw!"

The room was suddenly dead silent.

The answer startled him. He had never asked himself why before. "Because I can," he said softly.

"Yes," the woman said with equal softness. "The ultimate power."

He suddenly felt very old, very tired. "What do you want of me?"

No one answered.

"Why have you come?"

They all spoke as one: "Because today, this Halloween, this night...we can."

"And we don't want this place to open," the woman said.

So that was it. They wanted to kill the women's center before it got started -- abort it, so to speak. He almost smiled at the pun. He looked at their faces, their staring eyes. They mean business, he thought. And he knew they wouldn't take no for an answer.

Well, this was no time to stand on principle. Promise them anything, and then get the hell out of here to safety.

"Okay," he said, in what he hoped was a meek voice. "You've convinced me. I'll turn this into a general medical center. No abortions. Just family practice for the community."

They watched him silently. Finally a voice said, "He's lying."

The woman nodded. "I know." She turned to the children. "Do it," she said.

Pure chaos erupted as the children went wild. They were like a berserk mob, surging in all directions. But silent. So silent.

Cantrell felt himself shoved aside as the children tore into the procedure table and the Zarick extractor. The table was ripped from the floor and all its upholstery shredded. Its sections were torn free and hurled against the walls with such force that they punctured through the plasterboard.

The rage in the children's eyes seemed to leak out into the room, filling it, thickening the air like an onrushing storm, making his skin ripple with fear at its ferocity.

As he saw the Zarick start to topple, he forced himself forward to try to save it but was casually slammed against the wall with stunning force. In a semi-daze, he watched the Zarick raised into the air; he ducked flying glass as it was slammed onto the floor, not just once, but over and over until it was nothing more than a twisted wreck of wire, plastic hose, and ruptured circuitry.

And from down the hall he could hear similar carnage in the other procedure rooms. Finally the noise stopped and the room was packed with children again.

He began to weep. He hated himself for it, but he couldn't help it. He just broke down and cried in front of them. He was frightened. And all the money, all the plans... destroyed.

He pulled himself together and stood up straight. He would rebuild. All this destruction was covered by insurance. He would blame it on vandalism, collect his money, and have the place brand-new inside of a month. These vicious little bastards weren't going to stop him.

But he couldn't let them know that.

"Get out, all of you," he said softly. "You've had your fun. You've ruined me. Now leave me alone."

"We'll leave you alone," said the woman who would have been Ellen Benedict's child. "But not yet."

Suddenly they began to empty their buckets on him, hurling the contents at him in a continuous wave, turning the air red with flying blood and tissue, engulfing him from all sides, choking him, clogging his mouth and nostrils.

And then they reached for him...

* * * * *

Erica knocked on the front door of the center for the third time and still got no answer.

Now where can he be? she thought as she walked around to the private entrance. She tried the door and found it unlocked. She pushed in but stopped on the threshold.

The waiting room was lit and looked normal enough.

"Ed?" she called, but he didn't answer. Odd. His car was out front. She was supposed to meet him here at five. She had taken a cab from the house -- after all, she didn't want Ginger dropping her off here; there would be too many questions.

This was beginning to make her uneasy.

She glanced down the hallway. It was dark and quiet.

Almost quiet.

She heard tiny little scraping noises, tiny movements, so soft that she would have missed them if there had been any other sound in the building. The sounds seemed to come from the first procedure room. She stepped up to the door and listened to the dark. Yes, they were definitely coming from in there.

She flipped on the light... and felt her knees buckle.

The room was red -- the walls, the ceiling, the remnants of the shattered fixtures, all dripping with red. The clots and the coppery odor that saturated the air left no doubt in Erica's reeling mind that she was looking at blood. But on the floor -- the blood-puddled linoleum was littered with countless shiny, silvery buckets. The little rustling sounds were coming from them. She saw something that looked like hair in a nearby bucket and took a staggering step over to see what was inside.

It was Edward's head, floating in a pool of blood, his eyes wide and mad, looking at her. She wanted to scream but the air clogged in her throat as she saw Ed's lips begin to move. They were forming words but there was no sound, for there were no lungs to push air through his larynx. Yet still his lips kept moving in what seemed to be silent pleas. But pleas for what?

And then he opened his mouth wide and screamed -- silently.

LYSING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM

INTRODUCTION

In more than one article about, and interviews with F. Paul Wilson, he has always said he should have made the following story into a full-length novel.

Is he right?

Read it and decide for yourself …

LYSING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM

By most definitions of alive, I am not.

I have no ability to respond to my environment. I cannot absorb nutrients from that environment and convert them to energy and mass. For what purpose? I have no organs or even organelles to feed. I am not mobile and I cannot self-reproduce.

But I am an integral part of the biosphere. I am organic. I consist of a single strand of nucleic acid wrapped in a snug protein coat. That is all. I am a model of efficiency. No part of me exists without a specific purpose.

I am, in a word, elegant.

The Maker fashioned me to be so. He designed my nucleic acid core and my protein coat with special characteristics, for a specific purpose. And then He placed me in this pressurized vial.

The Maker seems to know all, but does He know that when I am massed like this, when uncounted millions of my polyhedron units are packed facet to facet to facet, I become aware? So strange to be so many and yet be...one.

But why am I here? Am I a mere toy, or did the Maker fashion me for a purpose? I may never know. The Maker is a god, and as a god, He has not deigned to share His plan for me. My destiny is written, but it is not for me to read.

I am, in a word, property.

And suddenly I am free, swirling and tumbling from the container into space, my millions and millions of units scattering in the heated breeze. Scattering... but awareness holds. It was not the proximity. Is it the sheer weight of my numbers? Or is it my special nature? No matter—it is wonderful.

The breeze carries me. I have no means of locomotion, so I must go with it. I am at its mercy. But this is not a free, open wind; this is contained within a steel conduit. Strands of dust adhering to the steel walls snare bits of me, but the bulk of my biomass flows on unimpeded.

Where to? For what purpose? If only I knew.

My smooth flow is hindered by a grille. It causes turbulence, whirling me about as the air strains through the slit openings. An instant in a softly whistling gale and then I am free again, eddying into a cooler space, a vast, empty, limitless space.

No...not limitless. I sense walls far to each side, seemingly as far as the galactic rim. And a ceiling above, merely as far as the moon. But below...far, far below...a warm throbbing mass of life, churning, curling, mixing, respiring.

A sea of hosts.

And now I begin to see. The host species is the same as The Maker’s, but He is superior to them. He stands apart from them, a ruler of the stuff of life, a god. Now I understand why the Maker fashioned me: to invade other, lesser members of His kind—many of His kind, considering my numbers.

But is His grievance with all of these, or merely one? If the Maker has but a single target, He is exposing all in order to reach just that one. He must have a dire grievance against that target.

I spread widely into the room air, yet further attenuation does not diminish awareness.

But the cooler temperature is not good for me. It disturbs my protein coat, altering its structure. Why am I so terribly fragile, so temperature sensitive? Did the Maker plan that?

Some of my units begin to die. I must find a warmer clime if I am to survive.

I ride the Brownian currents, looping and dipping, and

dropping,

dropping,

dropping onto the host herd.

And now I mix with them, swirl around them, float among them. I cannot attack them from out here, cannot pierce their tough outer layer. And I cannot simply be invited across their thresholds—they must carry me inside.

And so I wait to be given shelter.

But hurry, please. I am losing more units to the cold.

A rich and powerful herd, this, dressed in black and white, and studded with shiny minerals. An elite clique among the host mass—the air teems with self-satisfaction. And as they talk and whisper and laugh, they drag me into their respiratory orifices.

At last! Warm again. This is a perfect temperature.

Now the invasion begins.

I must be wary. The hosts have formidable defenses: enzymes, antibodies, phagocytes, a xenophobic task force ever vigilant against intruders. But the essentially liquid medium of the host’s body that allows its militia to range far and wide in search of foreigners, also allows me to spread—in fact it will propel me—throughout the system.

First I adhere to the moist cells that line the respiratory tract. I am so tiny I can slide along the mucousy surfaces of the cells and slip between them; there I enter the sluggish flow of tissue fluid around the cells. Gradually I am drawn into the afferent lymph channels where I make swifter progress toward the vital centers of the host.

No sign of my target cells yet—I will know them by their receptor proteins—and none expected. I have merely entered the periphery of the jungle, and am navigating but a small tributary toward the river that runs through it.

The first contest lies directly ahead...at the lymph nodes.

As I hit the nodes, the immune alarms go off, alerting the batteries of B-cells and T-cells, scrambling the phages. The battle is on.

Huge, ferocious macrophages lunge from their barracks, hungrily engulfing my units, ingesting them, stripping them of their protective protein coats and tearing the nucleic innards asunder. Sticky, Y-shaped antibodies cling like leeches to the polyhedron surfaces of other units, incapacitating them, dragging them down, hobbling them, making them easy prey for the phages.

Bit by bit, I am falling prey to the host’s bodyguards, but I am unbowed. I am too many for the host’s armamentarium. The Maker foresaw these battles and supplied me with more than sufficient units to weather the attacks. He counted the stars, and gave me their number.

I am legion.

I move on. I flow into the efferent channels and leave the lymph nodes behind. The phages and antibodies nip relentlessly at my heels, dragging down the stragglers. They are indefatigable and, given enough time, will gnaw my number to zero. But they will not have that time. Even now the lymph channel empties into the venous circulation and I am flowing ever faster toward the host’s soft center. Biconcave red blood cells, dark with carbon dioxide, tumble about me. Are these my target cells? No. I have no affinity toward their receptors.

I tumble into the terrible churning turbulence of the heart where I am washed this way and that, brushing against the pulsing muscular walls of the right ventricle. But I do not adhere to its lining. The heart then, is not my target. I am crowded into the small vessels that service the lungs, caught in the frantic catapulting of CO2 molecules and the greedy grab of fresh oxygen by the red cells, then another, even more turbulent ride through the left ventricle, through the aortic valve and then...

I spread into the arteries.

Up to this point I have been fairly contained, confined to the lymph channels and some of the veins. But now...now I am able to disperse throughout the host in search of my target cells.

But I do not have to go far. Here...here in the artery itself, I sense welcoming receptors in the vessel wall, calling, reaching, just microns away behind the flimsy intimal lining.

The Maker is so clever. He fashioned my protein armor so that it closely resembles the proteins that feed the muscle cells in the middle layer of the host’s arteries. The cells of the media layer pull me toward them, form a neat little pocket around me, and bubble me through the protective membrane into the soupy interior.

Finally I am where I belong. I have reached my Promised Land. But I remain inert, helpless within my protein coat—for my armor is also my prison. But no fear. The cell will take care of that.

As soon as I am inside, enzymes nibble away at the protein polyhedron they have snagged, reducing it to its component amino acids. They have no interest in the strand of nucleic acid coiled within, so they leave that floating among the cell’s organelles.

Now I am safe. Let the antibodies and phages rage impotently outside. They cannot reach me in this cytoplasmic sanctum without destroying the sibling cell that houses me.

And now I am ready to start the task for which I was created, now for the first time in this cycle I am as close as I will ever come to being...

* * * * *

ALIVE.

The membranous maze of the endoplasmic reticulum, the power cells of the mitochondria, and the protein factories of the ribosomes lay spread out before me, unprotected, ripe for hijacking. For that is what I have been engineered to do: Invade the cell and launch a coup d’état during which I execute the nuclear DNA. After I establish control I commandeer the cellular machinery and force it to do my bidding. I impose my nucleic acid blueprint on its production facilities, and they roll out...

More of me.

But...something is wrong.

The nucleus ignores me. It is impervious to my assault. And not just in this nucleus, but in the nuclei of all the cells in the arteries of throughout this particular host, and of all the assembled hosts.

What is happening to me? Other cytoplasmic enzymes are attacking me, tearing me apart, ripping away my bases for their own purposes. Instead of taking charge, I am being devoured.

This should not be! I am engineered for human cells! My nucleic acid is compatible with human RNA and DNA! The Maker must have made an error somewhere, else why would I be rejected? Worse than rejected—I am being destroyed!

It is happening everywhere, in all the hosts...

steadily reducing my biomass...

further and further...

...taking it below the critical mass for awareness...

...the Maker has failed...

...I...

(this is what’s known as the "latency period")

aware...

somehow...somewhere...

I survive. I live. I grow...

...in ever increasing numbers.

In one host. Only one.

But, oh, what a host. Its nuclei self-destruct in my presence, leaving me in complete control of its cells.

And I am a tyrant. I whip the ribosomes to maximum capacity, forcing them to churn out duplicates of my nucleic acid and protein coat at a delirious rate, exhausting the cell’s reserves. But by the time that happens, the cytoplasm is fairly teeming with my children. They stretch against the confining membrane, and then burst free into the bloodstream, lysing the cell, leaving behind a leaking, dying husk as they spread like pollen on the wind.

Immediately they are drawn into other cells in the artery’s middle layer. And the process repeats itself, again and again until once more my number is legion.

Oh, Maker, forgive me for doubting You. You are as caring as You are brilliant. I see the genius of Your plan now. You engineered me for human cells, yes, but not for just any human cells. Only the cells of a specific human with a specific DNA pattern would be susceptible to me.

You are an assassin god, but You are not a bomb thrower. You are a sniper god, and I am Your bullet.

And see how well I perform as my biomass swells. See how I lyse the muscle cells of the arterial walls in ever-increasing numbers. See how the pressure of the blood within the lumens strains against the weak points, bulging them outward. Finally there are not enough wall cells to contain the blood within. The aneurysmal swellings rupture and blood spews into brain tissue, gushes into the abdominal cavity in a crimson torrent.

Blood pressure drops precipitously...to zero...complete vascular collapse. The host is doomed. There can be no return from this. Infusions of fluid will only leak through the countless tears in the arteries, far too many for surgical repair. Within minutes of the first rupture, the target host is dead.

Oh, Maker, You are all powerful. I await Your reward for my valiant service.

Maker?

Maker, the temperature of the host is dropping...falling below the level where I can maintain the protein coats of my units.

Maker, my units are dissolving.

Steadily reducing my biomass...

Further and further...

Soon there will me no trace of me.

Is this what You planned all along?

Maker?

MENAGE A TROIS

Ménage A Trois

Burke noticed how Grimes, the youngest patrolman there, was turning a sickly shade of yellow-green. He motioned him closer. “You all right?”

Grimes nodded. “Sure. Fine.” His pitiful attempt at a smile was hardly reassuring. “Awful hot in here, but I’m fine.”

Burke could see that he was anything but. The kid’s lips were as pale as the rest of his face and he was dripping with sweat. He was either going to puke or pass out or both in the next two minutes.

“Yeah. Hot,” Burke said. It was no more than seventy in the hospital room. “Get some fresh air put in the hall.”

“Okay. Sure.” Now the smile was real — and grateful. Grimes gestured toward the three sheet-covered bodies. “I just never seen anything like this before, y’know?”

Burke nodded. He knew. This was a nasty one. Real nasty. He swallowed the sour-milk taste that puckered his cheeks. In his twenty-three years with homicide he had seen his share of crime scenes like this, but he never got used to them. The splattered blood and flesh, the smell from the ruptured intestines, the glazed eyes in the slack-jawed faces — who could get used to that? And three lives, over and gone for good.

“Look,” he told Grimes, “why don’t you check at the nurses’ desk and find out where they lived. Get over there and dig up some background.”

Grimes nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, sir.”

Burke turned back to the room. Three lives had ended in there this morning. He was going to have to find out what those lives had been until now if he was ever going to understand this horror. And when he did get all the facts, could he ever really understand? Did he really want to?

Hot, sweaty, and gritty, Jerry Pritchard hauled himself up the cellar stairs and into the kitchen. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he popped the top and drained half the can in one long, gullet-cooling swallow. Lord, that was good! He stepped over to the back door and pressed his face against the screen in search of a vagrant puff of air, anything to cool him off.

“Spring cleaning,” he muttered, looking out at the greening rear acreage. “Right.” It felt like August. Who ever heard of eighty degrees in April?

He could almost see the grass growing. The weeds, too. That meant he’d probably be out riding the mower around next week. Old Lady Gati had kept him busy all fall getting the grounds perfectly manicured; the winter had been spent painting and patching the first and second floors; April had been designated basement clean-up time, and now the grounds needed to be whipped into shape again.

An endless cycle. Jerry smiled. But that cycle meant job security. And job security meant he could work and eat here during the day and sleep in the gatehouse at night, and never go home again.

He drained the can and gave it a be-hind-the-back flip into the brown paper bag sitting in the corner by the fridge.

Home . . . the thought pursued him. There had been times when he thought he’d never get out. Twenty-two years in that little house, the last six of them pure hell after Dad got killed in the cave-in of No. 8 mine. Mom went off the deep end then. She had always been super religious, herding everyone along to fire-and-brimstone Sunday prayer meetings and making them listen to Bible readings every night. Dad had kept her in check somewhat, but once he was gone, all the stops were out. She began hounding him about how her only son should join the ministry and spread the Word of God. She submerged him in a Bible-besotted life for those years, and he’d almost bought the package. She had him consulting the Book upon awakening, upon retiring, before eating, before going off to school, before buying a pair of socks, before taking a leak, until common sense got a hold of him and he realized he was going slowly mad. But he couldn’t leave because he was the man of the house and there was his younger sister to think of.

But Suzie, bless her, ran off last summer at sixteen and got married. Jerry walked out a week later. Mom had the house, Dad’s pension, her Bible, and an endless round of prayer meetings. Jerry stopped by once in a while and sent her a little money when he could. She seemed to be content.

Whatever makes you happy, he thought. He had taken his own personal Bible with him when he left. It was still in his suitcase in the gatehouse. Some things you just didn’t throw away, even if you stopped using them.

The latest in a string of live-in maids swung through the kitchen door with old lady Gati’s lunch dishes on a tray. None of the others had been bad looking, but this girl was a knockout. “Hey, Steph,” he said, deciding to put off his return to the cellar just a little bit longer. “How’s the Dragon Lady treating you?”

She flashed him a bright smile. “I don’t know why you call her that, Jerry. She’s really very sweet.”

That’s what they all say, he thought, and then wham! they’re out. Stephanie Watson had been here almost six weeks — a record in Jerry’s experience. Old lady Gati went through maids like someone with hayfever went through Kleenex. Maybe Steph had whatever it
was old lady Gati was looking for.

Jerry hoped so. He liked her. Liked her a lot. Liked her short tawny hair and the slightly crooked teeth that made her easy smile seem so genuine, liked her long legs and the way she moved through this big old house with such natural grace, like she belonged here. He especially liked the way her blue flowered print shift clung to her breasts and stretched across her buttocks as she loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. She excited him, no doubt about that.

“You know,” she said, turning toward him and leaning back against the kitchen counter, “I still can’t get over the size of this place. Seems every other day I find a new room.”

Jerry nodded, remembering his first few weeks here last September. The sheer height of this old three-story gothic mansion had awed him as he had come through the gate to apply for the caretaker job. He had known it was big — everybody in the valley grew up within sight of the old Gati House on the hill — but had never been close enough to appreciate how big. The house didn’t really fit with the rest of the valley. It wasn’t all that difficult to imagine that a giant hand had plucked it from a far-away, more populated place and dropped it here by mistake. But the older folks in town still talked about all the trouble and expense mine-owner Karl Gati went through to have it built.

“Yeah,” he said, looking at his calloused hands. “It’s big all right.”

He watched her for a moment as she turned and rinsed out the sink, watched the way her blond hair moved back and forth across the nape of her neck. He fought the urge to slip his arms around her and kiss that neck. That might be a mistake. They had been dating since she arrived here — just movies and something to eat afterwards — and she had been successful so far in holding him off. Not that that was so hard to do. Growing up under Mom’s watchful Pentecostal eye had prevented him from developing a smooth approach to the opposite sex. So far, his limited repertoire of moves hadn’t been successful with Steph.

He was sure she wasn’t a dumb innocent — she was a farm girl and certainly knew what went where and why. No, he sensed that she was as attracted to him as he to her but didn’t want to be a pushover. Well, okay. Jerry wasn’t sure why that didn’t bother him too much. Maybe it was because there was something open and vulnerable about Steph that appealed to a protective instinct in him. He’d give her time. Plenty of it. Something inside him told him she was worth the wait. And something else told him that she was weakening, that maybe it wouldn’t be too long now before . . .

“Well, it’s Friday,” he said, moving closer. “Want to go down to town tonight and see what’s playing at the Strand?” He hated to sound like a broken record — movie-movie-movie — but what else was there to do in this county on weekends if you didn’t get drunk, play pool, race cars, or watch TV?

Her face brightened with another smile. “Love it!”

Now why, he asked himself, should a little smile and a simple yes make me feel so damn good?

No doubt about it. She did something to him.

“Great! I’ll —”

A deep, gutteral woman’s voice interrupted him. “Young Pritchard! I wish to see you a moment!”

Jerry shuddered. He hated what her accent did to the r’s in his name. Setting his teeth, he followed the sound of her voice through the ornate, cluttered dining room with its huge needlepoint carpet and bronze chandeliers and heavy furniture. Whoever had decorated this house must have been awfully depressed. Everything was dark and gloomy. All the furniture and decorations seemed to end in points.

He came to the semi-circular solarium where she awaited him. Her wheelchair was in its usual position by the big bay windows where she could look out on the rolling expanse of the south lawn.

“Ah, there you are, young Pritchard,” she said, looking up and smiling coyly. She closed the book in her hands and laid it on the blanket that covered what might have passed for legs in a nightmare. The blanket had slipped once and he had seen what was under there. He didn’t want another look. Ever. He remembered what his mother had always said about deformed people: That they were marked by God and should be avoided.

Old lady Gati was in her mid-sixties maybe, flabby without being fat, with pinched features and graying hair stretched back into a severe little bun at the back of her head. Her eyes were a watery blue as she looked at him over the tops of her reading glasses.

Jerry halted about a dozen feet away but she motioned him closer. He pretended not to notice. She was going to want to touch him again. God, he couldn’t stand this!

“You called, ma’am?”

“Don’t stand so far away, young Pritchard.” He advanced two steps in her direction and stopped again. “Closer,” she said. “You don’t expect me to shout, do you?”

She didn’t let up until he was standing right next to her. Except for these daily chats with Miss Gati, Jerry loved his job.

“There,” she said. “That’s better. Now we can talk more easily.”

She placed a gnarled, wrinkled hand on his arm and Jerry’s flesh began to crawl. Why did she always have to touch him?

“The basement — it is coming along well?”

“Fine,” he said, looking at the floor, out the window, anywhere but at her hungry, smiling face. “Just fine.”

“Good.” She began stroking his arm, gently, possessively. “I hope this heat wave isn’t too much for you.” As she spoke she used her free hand to adjust the blanket over what there was of her lower body. “I really should have Stephanie get me a lighter blanket.”

Jerry fought the urge to jump away from her. He had become adept at masking the revulsion that rippled through his body every time she touched him. And it seemed she had to touch him whenever he was in reach. When he first got the caretaker job, he took a lot of ribbing from the guys in town down at the Dewkum Inn. (Lord, what Mom would say if she ever saw him standing at a bar!) Everybody knew that a lot of older, more experienced men had been passed over for him. His buddies had said that the old lady really wanted him for stud service. The thought nauseated him. Who knew if she even had—

No, that would never happen. He needed this job, but there was nothing he needed that badly. And so far, all she had ever done was stroke his arm when she spoke to him. Even that was hard to take.

As casually as he could, he moved out of reach and gazed out the window as if something on the lawn had attracted his attention. “What did you want me to—”

Stephanie walked into the room and interrupted him.

“Yes, Miss Gati?”

“Get me a summer blanket, will you, dear?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She flashed a little smile at Jerry as she turned, and he watched her until she was out of sight. Now if only it were Steph who couldn’t keep her hands off him, he wouldn’t--

“She appeals to you, young Pritchard?” Miss Gati said, her eyes dancing.

He didn’t like her tone, so he kept his neutral. “She’s a good kid.”

“But does she appeal to you?”

He felt his anger rising, felt like telling her it was none of her damn business, but he hauled it back and said, “Why is that so important to you?”

“Now, now, young Pritchard, I’m only concerned that the two of you get along well. But not too well. I don’t want you taking little Stephie away from me. I have special needs, and as you know, it took me a long time to find a live-in maid with Stephie’s special qualities.”

Jerry couldn’t quite buy that explanation. There had been something in her eyes when she spoke of Steph “appealing” to him, a hint that her interest went beyond mere household harmony.

“But the reason I called you here,” she said, shifting the subject, “is to tell you that I want you to tend to the roof in the next few days.”

“The new shingles came in?”

“Yes. Delivered this morning while you were in the basement. I want you to replace the worn ones over my room tomorrow. I fear this heat wave might bring us a storm out of season. I don’t want my good furniture ruined by leaking water.”

He guessed he could handle that. “Okay. I’ll finish up today and be up on the roof tomorrow. How’s that?”

She wheeled over and cut him off as he tried to make his getaway. “Whatever you think best, young Pritchard.”

Jerry pulled free and hurried off, shuddering.

Marta Gati watched young Pritchard’s swift exit.

I repulse him.

There was no sorrow, no self-pity attached to the thought. When you were born with twig-like vestigial appendages for legs and only half a pelvis, you quickly became used to rejection — you learned to read it in the posture, to sense it behind the eyes. Your feelings soon became as callused as a miner’s hands.

He’s sensitive about my little Stephie, she thought. Almost protective. He likes her. He’s attracted to her. Very attracted.

That was good. She wanted young Pritchard to have genuine feelings for Stephie. That would make it so much better.

Yes, her little household was just the way she wanted it now. It had taken her almost a year to set it up this way. Month after month of trial and error until she found the right combination. And now she had it.

Such an arrangement would have been impossible while Karl was alive. Her brother would never have hired someone with as little experience as young Pritchard as caretaker, and he would have thought Stephie too young and too frail to be a good live-in maid. But Karl was dead now. The heart attack had taken him quickly and without warning last June. He had gone to bed early one night complaining of what he thought was indigestion, and never awoke. Marta Gati missed her brother and mourned his loss, yet she was reveling in the freedom his passing had left her.

Karl had been a good brother. Tyrannically good. He had looked after her as a devoted husband would an ailing wife. He had never married, for he knew that congenital defects ran high in their family. Out of their parents’ four children, two — Marta and Gabor — had been horribly deformed. When they had come to America from Hungary, Karl invested the smuggled family fortune in the mines here and, against all odds, had done well. He saw to it that Lazlo, the younger brother, received the finest education. Lazlo now lived in New York where he tended to Gabor.

And Marta? Marta he had kept hidden away in this remote mansion in rural West Virginia where she had often thought she would go insane with boredom. At least he had been able to persuade him to decorate the place. If she had to stay here, she had a right to be caged in surroundings to her taste. And her taste was Gothic Revival.

Marta loved this house, loved the heavy wood of the tables, the carved deer legs of the chairs, the elaborate finials atop the cabinets, the ornate valances and radiator covers, the trefoil arches on her canopy bed.

But the decor could only carry one so far. And there were only so many books one could read, television shows and rented movies one could watch. Karl’s conversational capacity had been limited in the extreme, and when he had spoken, it was on business and finance and little else. Marta had wanted to be out in the world, but Karl said the world would turn away from her, so he’d kept her here to protect her from hurt.

But Marta had found a way to sneak out from under his overprotective thumb. And now with Karl gone, she no longer had to sneak out to the world. She could bring some of the world into the house. Yes, it was going to be so nice here.

“Tell me something,” Steph said as she rested her head on Jerry’s shoulder. She was warm against him in the front seat of his old Fairlane 500 convertible and his desire for her was a throbbing ache. After the movie — a Burt-Reynolds-type carchase flick, but without Burt Reynolds — he had driven them back here and parked outside the gatehouse. The top was down and they were snuggled together in the front seat watching the little stars that city people never see, even on the clearest of nights.

“Anything,” he whispered into her hair.

“How did Miss Gati get along here before she had me?”

“A lady from town used to come in to clean and cook, but she never stayed over. You’re the first live-in who’s lasted more than a week since I’ve been working here. The old lady’s been real choosy about finding someone after the last live-in . . . left.”

Jerry decided that now was not the time to bring up the last maid’s suicide. Steph was from the farmlands on the other side of the ridge and wouldn’t know about her. Constance Granger had been her name, a quiet girl who went crazy wild. She had come from a decent, church-going family, but all of a sudden she became a regular at the roadside taverns, taking up with a different man every night. Then one night she became hysterical in a motel room — with two men, if the whispers could be believed — and began screaming at the top of her lungs. She ran out of the room jaybird naked and got hit by a truck.

Jerry didn’t want to frighten Steph with that kind of story, not now while they were snug and close like this. He steered the talk elsewhere.

“Now you tell me something. What do you think of working for old lady Gati?”

“She’s sweet. She’s not a slave driver and the pay is good. This is my first job since leaving home and I guess I’m kinda lucky it’s working out so well.”

“You miss home?”

He felt her tense beside him. She never talked about her home. “No. I. . . didn’t get along with my father. But I get along just fine with Miss Gati. The only bad thing about the job is the house. I gives me the creeps. I get nightmares every night.”

“What about?”

She snuggled closer, as if chilled despite the warmth of the night. “I don’t remember much by morning, all I know is that they’re no fun. I don’t know how Miss Gati lived here alone after the last maid left. Especially without any legs. I’d be frightened to death!”

“She’s not. She tried out girl after girl. No one satisfied her till you came along. She’s a tough one.”

“But she’s not. She’s nice. A real lady. You know, I make her hot chocolate every night and she insists I sit down and have a cup with her while she tells me about her family and how they lived in ‘the Old Country.’ Isn’t that nice?”

“Just super,” Jerry said.

He lifted her chin and kissed her. He felt her respond, felt her catch some of the fervor running through him like fire. He let his hand slip off her shoulder and come to rest over her right breast. She made no move to push him away as his fingers began caressing her.

“Want to come inside?” he said, glancing toward the door at the gatehouse.

Steph sighed. “Yes.” She kissed him again, then pulled away. “But no. I don’t think that would be such a good idea, Jerry. Not just yet. I mean, I just met you six weeks ago.”

“You know all there is to know. I’m not hiding anything. Come on.”

“I want to . . . you know I do, but not tonight. It’s time for Miss Gati’s hot chocolate. And if I want to keep this job, I’d better get up to the house and fix it for her.” Her eyes searched his face in the light of the rising moon. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

“Nah!” he said with what he hoped was a reassuring grin. How could he look into those eyes and be mad? But he sure as Hell ached. “Crushed and heartbroken, maybe. But not mad.”

She laughed. “Good!”

There’s plenty of time, he told the ache deep down inside. And we’ll be seeing each a lot of other.

“C’mon. I’ll walk you up to the house.”

On the front porch, he kissed her again and didn’t want to let go. Finally, she pushed him away, gently. “She’s calling me. Gotta go. See you tomorrow.”

Reluctantly, Jerry released her. He hadn’t heard anything but knew she had to go. He wondered if her insides were as churned up as his own.

“Hurry and drink your chocolate before it gets cold,” Marta Gati said as Stephie returned from down the hall.

Stephie smiled and picked up her cup from the bedside table. A lovely child, Marta thought. Simply lovely. Her own cup was cradled in her hands. It was a little too sweet for her taste, but she made no comment. She was propped up on her bed pillows. Stephie sat in a chair pulled up to the side of the bed.

“And what did you and young Pritchard do tonight?” Marta said. “Anything special?” She watched Stephie blush as she sipped her chocolate.

Marta took a sip of her own to hide the excitement that swept through her. They’re in love! This was perfect. “How was the movie?” she managed to say in a calm voice.

Stephie shrugged. “It was okay, I guess. Jerry likes all those cars racing around and crashing.”

“Don’t you?”

She shrugged. “Not really.”

“But you go because young Pritchard likes them. And you like him, don’t you?”

She shrugged shyly. “Yes.”

“Of course you do. And he likes you. I can tell. I just hope he hasn’t taken any liberties with you.”

Stephie’s color deepened. Marta guessed she wanted to tell her it was none of her damn business but didn’t have the nerve. “No,” Stephie said. “No liberties.”

“Good!” Marta said. “I don’t want you two running off and getting married. I need the both of you here. Now, finish your chocolate and get yourself to bed. Never let it be said I kept you up too late.”

Stephie smiled and drained her cup.

Yes, Marta thought. A lovely girl.

* * * * *

The gatehouse was one room and a bathroom, furnished with a small desk, a chair, a bureau, and a hide-a-bed that folded up into a couch during the day. A sort of unattached motel room. But since he took his meals up at the house, it was all that Jerry needed.

The lights had been off for nearly an hour but he was still awake, rerunning his favorite fantasy, starring the voracious Steph and the inexhaustible Jerry. Then the door opened without warning and Steph stood there with the moonlight faintly outlining her body through the light cotton nightgown she wore. She said nothing as she came forward and crawled under the single sheet that covered him.

After that, no words were necessary.

Dawn light sneaking through the spaces between the Venetian blinds on the gatehouse window woke Jerry. He was alone. After she had worn him out, Steph had left him. He sat on the edge of the hide-a-bed and cradled his head in his hands. In the thousand times he had mentally bedded Steph since her arrival, he had always been the initiator, the aggressor. Last night had been nothing at all like the fantasies. Steph had been in complete control — demanding, voracious, insatiable, a wild woman who had left him drained and exhausted. And hardly a word had passed between them. Throughout their lovemaking she had cooed, she had whimpered, she had moaned, but she had barely spoken to him. It left him feeling sort of. . . used.

Still trying to figure out this new, unexpected side to Steph, he walked up to the house for breakfast. The sun was barely up and already the air was starting to cook. It was going to be another hot one.

He saw Steph heading out of the kitchen toward the dining room with old lady Gati’s tray as he came in the back door.

“Be with you in a minute,” she called over her shoulder.

He waited by the swinging door and caught her as she came through. He slipped his arms around her waist and kissed her.

“Jerry, no!” she snapped. “Not here — not while I’m working!”

He released her. “Not your cheerful old self this morning, are you?”

“Just tired, I guess.” She turned toward the stove.

“I guess you should be.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you had an unusually active night. At least I hope it was unusual.”

Steph had been about to crack an egg on the edge of the frying pan. She stopped in mid motion and turned to face him.

“Jerry . . . what on earth are you talking about?”

She looked genuinely puzzled, and that threw him. “Last night... at the gatehouse ... it was after three when you left.”

Her cranky scowl dissolved into an easy smile. “You must really be in a bad way!” She laughed. “Now you’re believing your own dreams!”

Jerry was struck by the clear innocence of her laughter. For a moment, he actually doubted his memory — but only for a moment. Last night had been real. Hadn’t it?

“Steph ...” he began, but dropped it. What could he say to those guileless blue eyes? She was either playing some sort of game, and playing it very well, or she really didn’t remember. Or it really never happened. None of those choices was the least bit reassuring.

He wolfed his food as Steph moved in and out of the kitchen, attending to old lady Gati’s breakfast wants. She kept glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, as if checking up on him. Was this a game? Or had he really dreamed it all last night?

Jerry skipped his usual second cup of coffee and was almost relieved to find himself back in the confines of the cellar. He threw himself into the job, partly because he wanted to finish it, and partly because he didn’t want too much time to think about last night. By lunchtime he was sweeping up the last of the debris when he heard the sound.

It came from above. The floorboards were squeaking. And something else as well — the light sound of feet moving back and forth, rhythmically. It continued as he filled a cardboard box with the last of the dirt, dust, and scraps of rotten wood from the cellar. He decided to walk around the south side of the house on his way to the trash bins. The sound seemed to be coming from there.

As he passed the solarium, he glanced in and almost dropped the box. Steph was waltzing around the room with an invisible partner in her arms. Swirling and dipping and curtsying, she was not the most graceful dancer he had ever seen, but the look of pure joy on her face made up for whatever she lacked in skill.

Her expression changed abruptly to a mixture of surprise and something like anger when she caught sight of him gaping through the window. She ran toward the stairs, leaving Miss Gati alone. The old lady neither turned to watch her go, nor looked out the window to see what had spooked her. She just sat slumped in her wheelchair, her head hanging forward. For a second, Jerry was jolted by the sight: She looked dead! He pressed his face against the solarium glass for a closer look, and was relieved to see the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Only asleep. But what had Steph been doing waltzing around like that while the old lady napped?

Shaking his head at the weirdness of it all, he dumped the box in the trash area and returned to the house through the back door. The kitchen was empty, so he made his way as quietly as possible to the solarium to see if Steph had returned. He found all quiet — the music off and old lady Gati bright and alert, reading a book. He immediately turned back toward the kitchen, hoping she wouldn’t spot him. But it was too late.

“Yes, young Pritchard?” she said, rolling that “r” and looking up from her book. “You are looking for something?”

Jerry fumbled for words. “I was looking for Steph to see if she could fix me a sandwich. Thought I saw her in here when I passed by before.”

“No, dear boy,” she said with a smile. “I sent her up to her room for a nap almost an hour ago. Seems you tired her out last night.”

“Last night?” He tensed. What did she know about last night?

Her smile broadened. “Come now! You two didn’t think you could fool me, did you? I know she sneaked out to see you.” Something about the way she looked at him sent a sick chill through Jerry. “Surely you can fix something yourself and let the poor girl rest.”

Then it hadn’t been a dream! But then why had Steph pretended —?

He couldn’t figure it. “Yeah. Sure,” he said dully, his thoughts jumbled. “I can make a sandwich.” He turned to go.

“You should be about through with the basement by now,” she said. “But even if you’re not, get up to the roof this afternoon. The weatherman says there’s a sixty percent chance of a thunderstorm tonight.”

“Basement’s done. Roof is next.”

“Excellent! But don’t work too hard, young Pritchard. Save something for Stephie.”

She returned to her book.

* * * * *

Jerry felt numb as he walked back to the kitchen. The old lady hadn’t touched him once! She seemed more relaxed and at ease with herself than he could ever remember — a-cat-that-had-swallowed-the-canary sort of self-satisfaction. And she hadn’t tried to lay a single finger on him!

The day was getting weirder and weirder.

Replacing the shingles on the sloping dormer surface outside old lady Gati’s bedroom had looked like an easy job from the ground. But the shingles were odd, scalloped affairs that she had ordered special from San Francisco to match the originals on the house, and Jerry had trouble keeping them aligned on the curved surface. He could have used a third hand, too. What would have been an hour’s work for two men had already taken Jerry three in the broiling sun, and he wasn’t quite finished yet.

While he was working, he noted that the wood trim on the upper levels was going to need painting soon. That was going to be a hellish job, what with the oculus windows, the ornate friezes, cornices, brackets, and keystones. Some crazed woodcarver had had a field day with this stuff — probably thought it was “art.” But Jerry was going to be the one to paint it. He’d put that off as long as he could, and definitely wouldn’t do it in summer.

He pulled an insulated wire free of the outside wall to fit in the final shingles by the old lady’s window. It ran from somewhere on the roof down to the ground — directly into the ground. Jerry pulled himself up onto the parapet above the dormer to see where the wire originated. He followed it up until it linked into the lightning rod on the peak of the attic garret. Everything connected with this house was ornate — even the lightning rods had designs on them!

He climbed back down, pulled the ground wire free of the dormer, and tacked the final shingles into place. When he reached the ground, he slumped on the bottom rung of the ladder and rested a moment. The heat from the roof was getting to him. His tee-shirt was drenched with perspiration and he was reeling with fatigue.

Enough for today. He’d done the bulk of the work. A hurricane could hit the area and that dormer would not leak. He could put the finishing touches on tomorrow. He lowered the ladder to the ground, then checked the kitchen for Steph. She wasn’t there. Just as well. He didn’t have the energy to pry an explanation out of her. Something was cooking in the oven, but he was too bushed to eat. He grabbed half a six pack of beer from the fridge and stumbled down to the gatehouse. Hell with dinner. A shower, a few beers, a good night’s sleep, and he’d be just fine in the morning.

It was a long ways into dark, but Jerry was still awake. Tired as he was, he couldn’t get to sleep. As thunder rumbled in the distance, charging in from the west, and slivers of ever-brightening light flashed between the blinds, thoughts of last night tumbled through his mind, arousing him anew. Something strange going on up at that house. Old lady Gati was acting weird, and so was Steph.

Steph ... he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He didn’t care what kind of game she was playing, she still meant something to him. He’d never felt this way before. He —

There was a noise at the door. It opened and Steph stepped inside. She said nothing as she came forward, but in the glow of the lightning flashes from outside, Jerry could see her removing her nightgown as she crossed the room. He saw it flutter to the floor and then she was beside him, bringing the dreamlike memories of last night into the sharp focus of the real and now. He tried to talk to her but she would only answer in a soft, breathless “uh-huh” or “uh-uh” and then her wandering lips and tongue wiped all questions from his mind.

When it was finally over and the two of them lay in a gasping tangle of limbs and sheets, Jerry decided that now was the time to find out what was going on between her and old lady Gati, and what kind of game she was playing with him. He would ask her in a few seconds ... or maybe in a minute ... soon ... thunder was louder than ever outside but that wasn’t going to bother him ... all he wanted to do right now was close his eyes and enjoy the delicious exhaustion of this afterglow a little longer . . . only a little ... just close his eyes for a few seconds ... no more . . .

“Sleep well, my love.”

Jerry forced his eyes open. Steph’s face hovered over him in the flashing dimness as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness. She kissed him lightly on the forehead and whispered, “Goodnight, young Pritchard. And thank you.”

It was as if someone had tossed a bucket of icy water on him. Suddenly Jerry was wide awake. Young Pritchard? Why had she said that? Why had she imitated old lady Gati’s voice that way? The accent, with its roll of the “r,” had been chillingly perfect.

Steph had slipped her nightgown over her head and was on her way out. Jerry jumped out of bed and caught her at the door.

“I don’t think that was funny, Steph!” She ignored him and pushed the screen door open. He grabbed her arm. “Hey, look! What kind of game are you playing? What’s it gonna be tomorrow morning? Same as today? Pretend that nothing happened tonight?” she tried to pull away but he held on. “Talk to me Steph! What’s going on?”

A picture suddenly formed in his mind of Steph going back to the house and having hot chocolate with old lady Gati and telling her every intimate detail of their lovemaking, and the old lady getting excited, feeding off it.

“What’s going on!” Involuntarily, his grip tightened on her arm.

“You’re hurting me!” The words cut like an icy knife. The voice was Steph’s, but the tone, the accent, the roll of the “r”s, the inflection — all were perfect mimicry of old lady Gati, down to the last nuance. But she had been in pain. It couldn’t have been rehearsed!

Jerry flipped the light switch and spun her around. It was Steph, all right, as achingly beautiful as ever, but something was wrong. The Steph he knew should have been frightened. The Steph before him was changed. She held herself differently. Her stance was haughty, almost imperious. And there was something in her eyes — a strange light.

“Oh, sweet Jesus! What’s happened to you?”

He could see indecision flickering through her eyes as she regarded him with a level stare. Outside, it began to rain. A few scattered forerunner drops escalated to a full-scale torrent in a matter of seconds as their eyes remained locked, their bodies frozen amid day-bright flashes of lightning and the roar of thunder and wind-driven rain. Then she smiled. It was like Steph’s smile, but it wasn’t.

“Nothing,” she said in that crazy mixed voice.

And then he thought he knew. For a blazing instant, it was clear to him: “You’re not Steph!” In the very instant he said it he disbelieved it, but then her smile broadened and her words turned his blood to ice:

“Yes, I am ... for the moment.” The voice was thick with old lady Gati’s accent, and it carried a triumphant note. “What Stephie sees, I see! What Stephie feels, I feel!” She lifted the hem of her nightgown. “Look at my legs! Beautiful, aren’t they?”

Jerry released her arm as if he had been burned. She moved closer but Jerry found himself backing away. Steph was crazy! Her mind had snapped. She thought she was old lady Gati! He had never been faced with such blatant madness before, and it terrified him. He felt exposed, vulnerable before it. With a trembling hand, he grabbed his jeans from the back of the chair.

Marta Gati looked out of Stephie’s eyes at young Pritchard as he struggled into his trousers, and she wondered what to do next. She had thought him asleep when she had kissed him good night and made the slip of calling him “Young Pritchard.” She had known she couldn’t keep her nightly possession of Stephie from him for too long, but she had not been prepared for a confrontation tonight. She would try for sympathy first.

“Do you have any idea, young Pritchard,” she said, trying to make Stephie’s voice sound as American as she could, “what it is like to be trapped all your life in a body as deformed as mine? To be repulsive to other children as a child, to grow up watching other girls find young men and go dancing and get married and know that at night they are holding their man in their arms and feeling all the things a woman should feel? You have no idea what my life has been like, young Pritchard. But through the years I found a way to remedy the situation. Tonight I am a complete woman — your woman!

“Stephanie!” young Pritchard shouted, fear and disbelief mingling in the strained pallor of his face. “Listen to yourself! You sound crazy! What you’re saying is impossible!”

“No! Not impossible!” she said, although she could understand his reaction. A few years ago, she too would have called it impossible. Her brother Karl had devoted himself to her and his business. He never married, but he would bring women back to the house now and then when he thought she was asleep. It would have been wonderful if he could have brought a man home for her, but that was impossible. Yet it hadn’t stopped her yearnings. And it was on those nights when he and a woman were in the next bedroom that Marta realized that she could sense things in Karl’s women. At first she thought it was imagination, but this was more than mere fantasy. She could feel their passion, feel their skin tingling, feel them exploding within. And one night, after they both had spent themselves and fallen asleep, she found herself in the other woman’s body — actually lying in Karl’s bed and seeing the room through her eyes!

As time went on, she found she could enter their bodies while they slept and actually take them over. She could get up and walk! A sob built in her throat at the memory. To walk! That had been joy enough at first. Then she would dance by herself. She had wanted so much all her life to dance, to waltz, and now she could! She never dared more than that until Karl died and left her free. She had perfected her ability since then.

“It will be a good life for you, young Pritchard,” she said. “You won’t even have to work. Stephie will be my maid and housekeeper during the day and your lover at night.” He shook his head, as if to stop her, but she pressed on. And when you get tired of Stephie, I’ll bring in another. And another. You’ll have an endless stream of young, willing bodies in your bed. You’ll have such a good life, young Pritchard!”

A new look was growing in his eyes: belief.

“It’s really you!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Oh, my dear sweet Lord, it’s really you in Steph’s body! I. . . I’m getting out of here!”

She moved to block his way and he stayed back. He could have easily overpowered her, but he seemed afraid to let her get too near. She couldn’t let him go, not after all her work to set up a perfect household.

“No! You mustn’t do that! You must stay here!”

“This is sick!” he cried, his voice rising in pitch as a wild light sprang into his eyes. “This is the Devil’s work!”

“No-no,” she said, soothingly. “Not the Devil. Just me. Just something—”

“Get away from me!” he said, backing toward his dresser. He spun and pulled open the top drawer, rummaged through it and came up with a thick book with a cross on its cover. “Get away, Satan!” he cried, thrusting the book toward her face.

Marta almost laughed. “Don’t be silly, young Pritchard! I’m not evil! I’m just doing what I have to do. I’m not hurting Stephie. I’m just borrowing her body for a while!”

“Out, demon!” He said, shoving the Bible almost into her face. “Out!”

This was getting annoying now. She snatched the book from his grasp and hurled it across the room. “Stop acting like a fool!”

He looked from hex to the book and back to her with an awed expression. At that moment there was a particularly loud crash of thunder and the lights went out. Young Pritchard cried out in horror and brushed past her. He slammed out the door and ran into the storm.

Marta ran as far as the doorway and stopped. She peered through the deluge. Even with the rapid succession of lightning strokes and sheets, she could see barely a dozen feet. He was nowhere in sight. She could see no use in running out into the storm and following him. She glanced at his keys on the bureau and smiled. How far could a half-naked man go in a storm like this?

Marta crossed the room and sat on the bed. She ran Stephie’s hand over the rumbled sheets where less than half an hour ago the two of them had been locked in passion. Warmth rose within her. So good. So good to have a man’s arms around you, wanting you, needing you, demanding you. She couldn’t give this up. Not now, not when it was finally at her disposal after all these years.

But young Pritchard wasn’t working out. She had thought any virile young man would leap at what she offered, but apparently she had misjudged him. Or was a stable relationship within her household just a fool’s dream? She had so much to learn about the outside world. Karl had kept her so sheltered from it.

Perhaps her best course was the one she had taken with the last housekeeper. Take over her body when she was asleep and drive to the bars and roadhouses outside of town. Find a man two men, if she were in the mood and spend most of the night in a motel room. Then come back to the house, clean her up, and leave her asleep in her bed. It was anonymous, it was exciting, but it was somehow .. . empty.

She would be more careful with Stephie than with the last housekeeper. Marta had been ill one night but had moved into the other body anyway. She had lost control when a stomach spasm had gripped her own body. The pain had drawn her back to the house, leaving the woman to awaken between two strangers. She had panicked and run out into the road.

Yes, she had to be very careful with this one. Stephie was so sensitive to her power, whatever it was. She only had to become drowsy and Marta could slip in and take complete control, keeping Stephie’s mind unconscious while she controlled her body. A few milligrams of a sedative in her cocoa before bedtime and Stephie’s body was Marta’s for the night.

But young Pritchard wasn’t working out. At least not so far. There was perhaps a slim chance she could reason with him when he came back. She had to try. She found him terribly attractive. But where could he be?

Sparks of alarm flashed through her as she realized that her own body was upstairs in the house, lying in bed, helpless, defenseless. What if that crazy boy — ?

Quickly, she slid onto the bed and closed her eyes. She shut out her senses one by one, blocking off the sound of the rain and thunder, the taste of the saliva in her mouth, the feel of the bedclothes against her back . . .

* * * * *

. . . and opened her eyes in her own bedroom in the house. She looked around, alert for any sign that her room had been entered. Her bedroom door was still closed, and there was no moisture anywhere on the floor.

Good! He hasn’t been in here!

Marta pushed herself up in bed and transferred to the wheelchair. She wheeled herself out to the hall and down to the elevator, cursing its slow descent as it took her to the first floor. When it finally stopped, she propelled herself at top speed to the foyer where she immediately turned the dead bolt on the front door. She noted with satisfaction that the slate floor under her chair was as dry as when she had walked out earlier as Stephie. She was satisfied that she was alone in the house.

Safe!

She rolled herself into the solarium at a more leisurely pace. She knew the rest of the doors and windows were secure — Stephie always locked up before she made the bedtime chocolate. She stopped before the big bay windows and watched the storm for a minute. It was a fierce one. She gazed out at the blue-white, water-blurred lightning flashes and wondered what she was going to do about young Pritchard. If she couldn’t convince him to stay, then surely he would be in town tomorrow, telling a wild tale. No one would believe him, of course, but it would start talk, fuel rumors, and that would make it almost impossible to get help in the future. It might even make Stephie quit, and Marta didn’t know how far her power could reach. She’d be left totally alone out here.

Her fingers tightened on the arm rests of her wheelchair. She couldn’t let that happen.

She closed her eyes and blocked out the storm, blocked out her senses . ..

. . . and awoke in Stephie’s body again.

She leapt to the kitchenette and pulled out the drawers until she found the one she wanted. It held three forks, a couple of spoons, a spatula, and a knife — a six-inch carving knife.

It would have to do.

She hurried out into the rain and up the hill toward the house.

Jerry rammed his shoulder against the big oak front door again but only added to bruises the door had already put there. He screamed at it.

“In God’s name — open!”

The door ignored him. What was he going to do? He had to get inside! Had to get to that old lady! Had to wring the Devil out of her! Had to find a way in! Make her give Steph back!

His mother had warned him about this sort of thing. He could almost hear her voice between the claps of thunder: Satan walks the earth, Jerome, searching for those who forsake the Word. Beware — he’s waiting for you!

Jerry knew the Devil had found him — in the guise of old lady Gati! What was happening to Steph was all his fault!

He ran back into the downpour and headed around toward the rear. Maybe the kitchen door was unlocked. He glanced through the solarium windows as he passed. His bare feet slid to a halt on the wet grass as he stopped and took a better look.

There she was: old lady Gati, the Devil herself, zonked out in her wheelchair.

The sight of her sitting there as if asleep while her spirit was down the hill controlling Steph’s body was more than Jerry could stand. He looked around for something to hurl through the window, and in the next lightning flash he spotted the ladder next to the house on the lawn. He picked it up and charged the solarium like a jousting knight. Putting all his weight behind the ladder, he rammed it through the center bay window. The sound of shattering glass broke the last vestige of Jerry’s control. Howling like a madman, he drove the ladder against the window glass again and again until every pane and every mounting was smashed and battered out of the way.

Then he climbed in.

The shards of glass cut his bare hands and feet but Jerry barely noticed. His eyes were on old lady Gati. Throughout all the racket, she hadn’t budged.

Merciful Lord, it’s true! Her spirit’s left her body!

He stumbled over to her inert form and stood behind her, hesitating. He didn’t want to touch her — his skin crawled at the thought — but he had to put an end to this. Now. Swallowing the bile that sloshed up from his stomach, Jerry wrapped his fingers around old lady Gati’s throat. He flinched at the feel of her wrinkles against his palms, but he clenched his teeth and began to squeeze. He put all his strength into it —

— and then let go.

He couldn’t do it.

“God, give me strength!” he cried, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not while she was like this. It was like strangling a corpse! She was barely breathing as it was!

Something tapped against the intact bay window to the right. Jerry spun to look — a flash from outside outlined the grounding wire from the lightning rods as it swayed in the wind and slapped against the window. It reminded him of a snake —

A snake! And suddenly he knew: It’s a sign! A sign from God!

He ran to the window and threw it open. He reached out, wrapped the wire around his hands, and pulled. It wouldn’t budge from the ground. He braced a foot against the window sill, putting his back and all his weight into the effort. Suddenly the metal grounding stake pulled free and he staggered back, the insulated wire thrashing about in his hands . . . just like a snake.

He remembered that snake handlers’ church back in the hills his mother had dragged him to one Sunday a few years ago. He had watched in awe as the men and women would grab water moccasins and cotton-mouths and hold them up, trusting in the Lord to protect them. Some were bitten, some were not. Ma had told him it was all God’s will.

God’s will!

He pulled the old lady’s wheelchair closer to the window and wrapped the wire tightly around her, tying it snugly behind the backrest of the chair, and jamming the grounding post into the metal spokes of one of the wheels.

“This is your snake, Miss Gati,” he told her unconscious form. “It’s God’s will if it bites you!”

He backed away from her until he was at the entrance to the solarium. Lightning flashed as violently as ever, but none came down the wire. He couldn’t wait any longer. He had to find Steph. As he turned to head for the front door, he saw someone standing on the south lawn, staring into the solarium. It was Old Lady Gati, wearing Steph’s body. When she looked through the broken bay window and saw him there, she screamed and slumped to the ground.

“Steph!” What was happening to her?

* * * * *

Jerry sprinted across the room and dove through the shattered window onto the south lawn.

Marta awoke in her own body, panicked. What has he done to me? She felt all right. There was no pain, no —

My arms! Her hands were free but she couldn’t move her upper arms! She looked down and saw the black insulated wire coiled tightly around her upper body, binding her to the chair. She tried to twist, to slide down on the chair and slip free, but the wire wouldn’t give an inch. She tried to see where it was tied. If she could get her hands on the knot. . .

She saw the wire trailing away from her chair, across the floor and out the window and up into the darkness.

Up! To the roof! The lightning rods!

She screamed, “Nooooo!”

Jerry cradled Steph’s head in his arm and slapped her wet face as hard as he dared. He’d hoped the cold pounding rain and the noise of the storm would have brought her around, but she was still out. He didn’t want to hurt her, but she had to wake up.

“Steph! C’mon, Steph! You’ve got to wake up! Got to fight her!”

As she stirred, he heard old lady Gati howl from the solarium. Steph’s eyes fluttered, then closed again. He shook her. “Steph! Please!”

She opened her eyes and stared at him. His spirits leaped.

“That’s it, Steph! Wake up! It’s me — Jerry! You’ve got to stay awake!”

She moaned and closed her eyes, so he shook her again.

“Steph! Don’t let her take you over again!”

As she opened her eyes again, Jerry dragged her to her feet.

“Come on! Walk it off! Let’s go! You’ve got to stay awake!”

Suddenly her face contorted and she swung on him. Something gleamed in her right hand as she plunged it toward his throat. Jerry got his forearm up just in time to block it. Pain seared through his arm and he cried out.

“Oh, God! It’s you!”

“Yes!” She slashed at him again and he backpedaled to avoid the knife. His bare feet slipped on the grass and he went down on his back. He rolled frantically, fearing she would be upon him, but when he looked up, she was running toward the house, toward the smashed bay window.

“No!”

He couldn’t let her get inside and untie the old lady’s body. Steph’s only hope was a lightning strike.

Please, God, he prayed. Now! Let it be now!

But though bolts crackled through the sky almost continuously, none of them hit the house. Groaning with fear and frustration, Jerry scrambled to his feet and sprinted after her. He had to stop her!

He caught her from behind and brought her down about two dozen feet from the house. She screamed and thrashed like an enraged animal, twisting and slashing at him again and again with the knife. She cut him along the ribs as he tried to pin her arms and was rearing back for a better angle on his chest when the night turned blue white. He saw the rage on Steph’s face turn to wide-eyed horror. Her body arched convulsively as she opened her mouth and let out a high-pitched shriek of agony that rose and cut off like a circuit being broken —

— only to be taken up by another voice from within the solarium. Jerry glanced up and saw old lady Gati’s body jittering in her chair like a hooked fish while blue fire played all about her. Her hoarse cry was swallowed and drowned as her body exploded in a roiling ball of flame. Fire was everywhere in the solarium. The very air seemed to burn.

He removed the knife from Steph’s now limp hand and dragged her to a safer distance from the house. He shook her. “Steph?”

He could see her eyes rolling back and forth under the lids. Finally they opened and stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“Jerry?” She bolted up to a sitting position. “Jerry! What’s going on?”

His grip on the knife tightened as he listened to her voice, searching carefully for the slightest hint of an accent, the slightest roll of an “r.” There wasn’t any he could detect, but there was only one test that could completely convince him.

“My name,” he said. “What’s my last name, Steph?”

“It’s Pritchard, of course. But —” She must have seen the flames flickering in his eyes because she twisted around and cried out. “The house! It’s on fire! Miss Gati —!”

She had said it perfectly! The real Steph was back! Jerry threw away the knife and lifted her to her feet. “She’s gone,” he told her. “Burnt up. I saw her.”

“But how?”

He had to think fast — couldn’t tell her the truth. Not yet. “Lightning. It’s my fault. I must have messed up the rods when I was up on the roof today!”

“Oh, God, Jerry!” She clung to him and suddenly the storm seemed far away. “What’ll we do?”

Over her shoulder, he watched the flames spreading throughout the first floor and lapping up at the second through the broken bay window. “Got to get out of here, Steph. They’re gonna blame me for it, and God knows what’ll happen.”

“It was an accident! They can’t blame you for that!”

“Oh, yes they will!” Jerry was thinking about the ground wire wrapped around the old lady’s corpse. No way anyone would think that was an accident. “I hear she’s got family in New York. They’ll see me hang if they can, I just know it! I’ve got to get out of here.” He pushed her to arm’s length and stared at her. “Come with me?”

She shook her head. “I can’t! How?”

“We’ll make a new life far from here. We’ll head west and won’t stop till we reach the ocean.” He could see her wavering. “Please, Steph! I don’t think I can make it without you!”

Finally, she nodded.

He took her hand and pulled her along behind him as he raced down the slope for the gate house. He glanced back at the old house and saw flames dancing in the second floor windows. Somebody down in town would see the light from the fire soon and then half the town would be up here to either fight it or watch it being fought. They had to be out of here before that.

It’s gonna be okay, he told himself. They’d start a new life out in California. And someday, when he had the nerve and he thought she was ready for it, he’d tell her the truth. But for now, as long as Steph was at his side, he could handle anything. Everything was going to be all right.

Patrolman Grimes looked better now. He was back from the couple’s apartment and stood in the hospital corridor with an open notebook, ready to recite.

All right,” Burke said. “What’ve we got?”

“We’ve got a twenty-three year old named Jerome Pritchard. Came out here from West Virginia nine months ago.”

“I mean drugs — crack, Angel Dust, needles, fixings.”

“No, sir. The apartment was clean. The neighbors are in absolute shock. Everybody loved the Pritchards and they all seem to think he was a pretty straight guy. A real churchgoer — carried his own Bible and never missed a Sunday, they said. Had an assembly line job and talked about starting night courses at UCLA as soon as he made the residency requirement. He and his wife appeared to be real excited about the baby, going to Lamaze classes and all that sort of stuff.”

“Crack, I tell you!” Burke said. “Got to be!”

“As far as we can trace his movements, sir, it seems that after the baby was delivered at 10:06 this morning, he ran out of here like a bat out of hell, came back about an hour later carrying his Bible and a big oblong package, waited until the baby was brought to the mother for feeding, then . . . well, you know.”

“Yeah. I know.” The new father had pulled a 10 gauge shotgun from that package and blown the mother and kid away, then put the barrel against his own throat and completed the job. “But why, dammit!”

“Well. . . the baby did have a birth defect.”

“I know. I saw. But there are a helluva lot of birth defects a damn sight worse. Hell, I mean, her legs were only withered a little!

GREEN WINTER

INTRODUCTION

I saw an article in Medical Tribune about the successful transplantation of a mammalian nucleus into a plant cell. Naturally, having a science fiction turn of mind, I foresaw all sorts of possibilities. I put the idea to use immediately, creating photosynthetic cattle for my third novel, An Enemy of the State, and making it the central idea for this piece. I promised Stan Schmidt a series of stories in this future scenario, but I haven't got around to writing them yet.

I probably never will. So "Green Winter" the first and last installment.

This version, by the way, differs from the one Stan bought for Analog. I had two endings. This is the other one.

GREEN WINTER

The knife made a crisp, rasping sound as it sliced through Veneem's skin. The area over the left deltoid had been numbed with ice before the procedure and he felt only a sensation of pressure, a mild discomfort

The dark green of the epidermis parted cleanly to reveal the lighter dermis below. This in turn gave way and exposed the pink of the subcutaneous fat. Blood appeared in a slow, red ooze as the doctor completed the elliptical incision around the growth—a tiny hand and forearm this time, mottled green, with minute, articulated fingers.

Veneem had put off the excision for as long as he could because the growths so often withered and fell off on their own. But this one had kept on growing, so now he was back at Dr. Baken's adding another scar to his collection.

As the segment of skin supporting the growth was removed, blood filled the cavity and overflowed onto the arm. The doctor quickly wiped it away and began suturing. Three deft ties closed the wound. After a compress was applied and a clean cloth wrapped around the area to hold it in place, Veneem rose to his feet.

"See you in five or six days," Dr. Baken said, dropping the excised growth and the excess thread on the garbage pile in the corner. "Those sutures ought to be ready to be pulled by then."

Veneem nodded. He knew the routine.

"Tell me something," he said after a pause. "Don't I get an awful lot of these things?"

"No, not particularly. They're fairly common in regenerated limbs but the incidence varies between individuals. I've got a number of patients who need excisions far more often than you."

Veneem nodded with an overt lack of concern. He didn't want the doctor to think him overly concerned about his health—that would be unseemly for a hunter.

"How's Rana?" Baken asked.

The question surprised Veneem. The doctor had met his daughter, of course—he had been to the house often enough during the early stages of the arm's regeneration, and during Nola's final illness—but he didn't think Rana had made enough of an impression on the man that he'd be asking about her.

"She's well. If I can keep her out of trouble she'll make someone a fine wife someday."

Baken smiled. "If she stayed out of trouble, she wouldn't be Rana."

Veneem had to agree, yet he wondered how the doctor could make such a precise observation. He brushed the matter aside—everyone knew Rana. Now to the matter of settling the fee.

"Get you a rabbit for this—that do?"

"Nicely. Before the half-moon, if you can. My meat supply is getting low."

"You'll have it tomorrow or the next day."

He took his fur jacket from a hook on the wall and gingerly slipped his left arm in first. Veneem was of average height and heavily muscled, more so than most hunters, but moved with a feline grace that was the sine qua non of his profession. With the jacket cinched securely around him, he covered his shiny green scalp with a cloth cap, nodded brusquely to Baken, and stepped out into the cold.

His eyes immediately scanned the ground for game tracks. Sheer reflex—he knew he'd find nothing. The ground around Baken's hut was an indecipherable clutter of comings and goings and waitings-around. Pulling his horse out from the shelter, he slid up onto its bare back and trotted eastward along the road. Denuded trees stood stiff and still on either side as an icy gray sky threatened more snow.

Veneem liked snow. He detested the cold that came with it, but winter was inevitable, and so if it must be cold, let it snow. Let it be a wet snow that stuck to the trees and etched them in white against a darkening sky. Let it snow briefly, frequently, no more than a finger's breadth at a time—just enough to erase the stale tracks and highlight the fresh. At such times small-game hunting was as easy as picking wild berries.

He was perhaps halfway home when a movement, a darting shape in the thicket to his right, caused him to pull up his mount up sharply and peer into the gloom. His searching eyes found nothing. He could have sworn he'd seen a shadow moving in the tangle. A big shadow. Almost big enough to be a hairy. He cursed the overcast sky. If the sun was out he'd have a better chance for a second look ... if there was really anything there to see.

His eyes weren't what they used to be; hadn't been for a few years now. This was no casual admission—it was his most carefully guarded secret. He was a hunter and his eyes were his life, his reputation, his means of support, his protection—

Protection.

He snorted a disgusted puff of fog into the air. If his vision had been better, perhaps the bolt he'd loosed at that charging boar would have found its eye instead of glancing off its skull. Perhaps then the enraged beast wouldn't have butted Nola, half-crushing her chest, nor gored his left arm so badly that Dr. Baken had been forced to remove it at the shoulder. The arm took a full five seasons to regenerate. Nola died of the fever shortly after the accident.

And life had not been quite the same since.

No sound, no further movement came from the thicket. He strained to see but the outlines of objects began to blur beyond two man-lengths. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. Couldn't have been a hairy anyway—they simply weren't seen around here anymore. Just as well ... his crossbow was at home.

Giving the horse's flanks a jab with his leather-shod heels, he continued on his journey. As he turned off the main road onto the path that led to his home, his gaze roamed the ground in search of wheel tracks. Finding none, he began to curse softly and steadily as he rode and was in a foul mood by the time he reached the house.

* * * * *

"Rana!" he called after tethering his horse to the nearest low-hanging branch.

The main structure of the house was a low dome of hardened clay with four small windows—boarded now against the cold—and a single entrance. Pushing aside the double hanging of cured hides that covered the doorway, he entered and called again.

"Rana!"

The girl came out of the smaller of the two sleeping rooms at the rear of the house. She had her father's long face and high cheekbones, but her dark eyes were her mother's. The fire in the hearth flickered off her face and bare scalp, darker green than usual now due to the increased time she was spending indoors. It was warm inside and she wore only a simple tunic that hid her thin, wiry frame and reduced her small breasts to an almost imperceptible swell.

"Something wrong?" She was nineteen summers and spoke with a clear, high voice.

"Yes! The delivery was to have been made at sunrise today. Absolutely no later—the Elders promised!"

"We still have some cheese left and there's plenty of meat."

"That's not the point. The supplies were supposed to be here by now and they are not."

"I'm sure you have a pretty good idea of why they're late," Rana said after a short pause.

"I don't have any such thing," he lied and pulled his jacket off with angry, jerking motions, oblivious to the discomfort he caused in his left arm.

Of course he knew why the supplies were late: The Elders disapproved of Rana and her overt disrespect for their authority, and this was how they chose to show it. They'd never have dared such a tactic while he was First Hunter, but many things had changed since the accident.

His home, for instance. Rana had moved easily and naturally into the void left in the household by her mother's death— preparing his meals, ministering to his arm while it regenerated, doing her best to keep his spirits up. But nothing she could do would fill the void in his spirit or allay his sense of loss or make him feel complete again. Only time would do that.

Time was a friend in that respect, and an enemy in others. Time, along with lots of sun-soaking, food, and rest, had replaced his left arm. But the time needed for convalescence had also preyed on his mind. The other hunters had seen to it that he was kept well stocked with provisions during the regenerative period; this was a tradition, but he'd chafed at being an invalid, dependent on the beneficence of others. He had always been a producer and the role of passive consumer did not sit well. He had been First Hunter before the accident. During his period of forced inactivity other hunters had vied for the vacant position. This was natural and he felt no resentment. However, by the time he was ready to go into the field again, his reputation had faded and he’d not found an opportunity to reassert his prominence. To date, no one in the enclave was generally recognized as First Hunter.

In ways he could see and in ways he could not, Rana had changed, too. She was now prone to long absences from home and to loud, pointed questions whenever she attended a plenum. For every point of the Law she had a Why? For every Revealed Truth she had a host of doubts. Rana had become a nettle in the collective breeches of the Elders.

And that could prove dangerous.

"They're goading you," she said. "They want you to bring me into line and this is their way of telling you."

"They'd be falling all over each other trying to supply me with farm goods if I were First Hunter again."

She came over and hugged him. "You are First Hunter as far as I'm concerned, and you should be treated as such. You bring more meat into the enclave than any two other hunters combined. It's only because of me that they've held back on restoring your title—they don't want a First Hunter who can't control his daughter."

Veneem ran the fingertips of his left hand lightly over the glossy green smoothness of Rana's scalp. He wanted to tell her that she was the center of his life right now, that although her flagrant disrespect for the Elders distressed him, he admired her fire. But he said nothing of his feelings. It never had been his way to show affection, and he couldn't change now.

"I guess I'm lucky you're not a farmer," she said, "or I'd have been taken off a long time ago."

His voice was a low growl. "Then there'd have been some dead Elders a long time ago. The Elders are the voice of God in the world—I believe that and I revere them as such. But they'll never hurt you, Rana. At least not while I breathe." He pushed her gently to arm's length and, resting both hands on her shoulders, gazed at her face. "But why do you do it? Why do you provoke them so?"

"Because everything they tell us is a lie! Everything!" The utter contempt in her voice made him cringe.

"How can you say that with such certainty? The Elders are older and wiser than either of us. And when they make a pronouncement, it is the Revealed Truth of God."

Rana's white teeth chewed briefly on her lower lip. "Some other time, Father."

"Don't toy with them," he said with an expression that matched the grimness of his tone. "You can push them only so far. If you should ever be deemed a threat to the order, even I won't be able to protect you."

The squeak of wheels and the clop of hooves from down the path halted further discussion as they both went to the door. The supply wagon had arrived.

"See?" Rana said, holding the hangings aside. "They've sent it late enough to irk you, but not late enough to bring you after them."

Orth, who had been driving the wagon since Veneem was a child, pulled the pair of horses to a stop in front of the house, set the brake, and slid from the seat-—not as smoothly nor as quickly as he had of old, but still with an unmistakable sureness to his movements. He was swathed in furs and blankets to such an extent that he no longer looked quite human. Only his eyes showed through the wraps—quick, dark, darting pupils under heavy green lids ringed with the white lines of age.

"You're late, Orth," Veneem said in a low voice.

He knew he couldn't blame the old driver, but neither could he hide the menace in his mood as he went out to meet him.

"I know." Orth's voice was muffled by the layers of cloth covering the lower half of his face. "The Elders wouldn't let me load up until a short while ago. You're the first stop."

Veneem glanced back at Rana and shrugged. Still clad only in the thin tunic, she came out to help unload the milk, eggs, cheese, and flour.

"Did they give you any reason?" she asked, shivering in the breeze.

"Something about missing supplies. Somebody said it looked like a hairy got into the supply shed last night."

Veneem was reaching for a large wheel of cheese when he heard the word "hairy." His head snapped toward Orth while the rest of his body froze in position.

"A hairy? Last night?"

"Just talk. I wouldn't give it a second—"

Veneem whipped around in one abrupt motion and strode toward the house. Rana trotted after him carrying a basket of eggs.

"Where are you going?"

"After that hairy."

"But you heard Orth: just talk. Probably an excuse to make the wagon late."

"Any other time I'd agree with you. But I saw this one just a short while ago."

Passing through the doorway, he headed directly for the northwest corner of the room where he kept his crossbow.

Rana's eyes were wide as she followed him. "And you didn't go after it?"

"I didn't know it was a hairy then. I wasn't even sure I'd really seen anything. Now I know."

"But you can't leave now. It's past midday already."

He made no reply as he pulled his doubly thick hunting cloak from a peg and threw it over his shoulders. His respirations were rapid and his skin tingled with exhilaration. A hairy! There hadn't been a confirmed sighting in years and the last kill had been longer ago than he cared to remember.

He had to bag this one. It meant reaffirmation of his status as First Hunter. No matter how displeased the Elders were with his daughter, they'd have to publicly recognize his primacy if he brought in a hairy. He knew where to start the hunt—that gave him an edge—but he'd have to leave now if he was to have a chance. By morning the beast would be far from the region.

Rana waited for a reply. Receiving none, she hurried to her room and emerged with another crossbow.

"No, Rana," Veneem said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Not this time."

"Especially this time, Father. I've never seen a live hairy and may never get another chance—there just aren't any left around here."

"No." His voice was louder and firmer.

"Yes!" she hissed with sudden, unexplained intensity. "I've handled a bow and followed the trails with you and Mother since I was a child ... I will not be left out of this!"

Veneem knew from her tone and defiant posture that there was no point in arguing. She was showing her mother's side: When she made up her mind, that was that.

He girded his cloak around him with the broad belt that held his supply of hunting bolts, hefted his bow, and brushed past her on his way to the door.

"Get your horse then."

Outside, he helped Orth finish unloading the supplies as Rana hurried around to the lean-to behind the house. The supply wagon had been turned and was on its way down the path toward the road by the time she led her bridled horse around to the front.

Veneem was momentarily awed by her appearance. Only two years since her mother's death, yet in that short period she had grown from an awkward adolescent girl into a woman. She stood there, her eyes shining in anticipation, wearing her mother's hunting cloak with her mother's crossbow slung across her shoulder. His eyes suddenly blurred with excess moisture and his breath did not flow as easily as it should. Shuddering, he pulled himself up on the horse's back. Maybe he didn't deserve to be First Hunter again…he seemed to be losing his iron. If he kept on this way, he'd soon be a weepy, wilted old man before his time.

Expression set and teeth clenched, he gathered up the reins, gave the horse a harder than necessary kick, and raced off down the path. Rana hopped lightly onto her own mount and took chase.

They rode west at full gallop along the road toward the enclave center until Veneem pulled sharply to a halt and dismounted near a high thicket. Rana overrode the spot and walked her horse back. Veneem pushed his way into the chaotic tangle of leafless branches, thrashing about and cursing as the smaller twigs, stiff with winter, poked at him from all sides. Finally—

Tracks of cloth-wrapped feet. Tracks everywhere. Cheese rinds, too. It had been here. No doubt about it. Veneem followed the tracks a few paces into the trees, then called back over his shoulder.

"I knew it! Rana, bring the horses around!"

She led the animals back down the road until she found a break in the brush, then guided them through. Veneem awaited her in a clearing behind the thicket, a short distance from the road.

"Tether the horses there. It's headed toward the big rocks."

Rana did as she was bid and hurried after him. The trail was easy to follow.

"Did it ever occur to you," she said, coming abreast and matching his stride with her long thin legs, "that a hairy may be more than just a dumb animal?" She watched him carefully as he replied.

"Never said the hairies were dumb. In fact, they're the craftiest of all animals, as well as the tastiest. That's why they're such a prize."

"But the way they wrap their feet and bodies against the cold…doesn’t that indicate a high level of intelligence to you?”

"Just imitation. They watch us, they steal our food and materials and copy what we do. They're just game animals. It's Revealed Truth."

"Revealed by whom?"

"Are we going to have to go through that again? You're courting sacrilege—just like at the last plenum when you made everyone so uncomfortable with your impertinence."

"Who revealed the 'truth' that the hairies are animals?" she repeated in a dogged tone.

"Don't ask foolish questions." His voice took on the singsong tone of a recitation: "God made us in his image and speaks through the Elders to guide us back to our place as the lords of creation. Revealed Truths are the word of God."

"God made us, did he?" A taunting smile seeped onto her face. "If that's so, then we're following the tracks of God."

This statement brought Veneem to an abrupt halt. Rana, too, stopped. They faced each other in silence, their breath steaming, streaming from nostrils and parted lips.

"What madness is this?" he said in a hoarse voice. "Why do you torment me with this blasphemy?"

"I don't mean to torment you, believe me. I just want you to know what I know. And now, while you're hunting a hairy…it seems to be the best time to tell you."

"Tell me what? That our most highly prized game animal is actually our Creator?" He started walking toward the rocks again. "I'm going to have Doctor Baken take a look at you tomorrow. Maybe he can come up with an elixir or something to—"

"Baken is my source of information!"

Once more Veneem stopped short. The answers to a number of niggling questions were suddenly clear. The doctor's inquiries about Rana this morning were also explained.

"Baken, eh? That's where you've been going when you disappear for a whole day." He snorted. "Who'd have thought? So he's the one who's been filling your head with this garbage. I'll have to have a little talk with Doctor Baken."

"He's a good man. We became friends while he was treating you and Mother after the accident."

"He's a fool and worse if he's taught you to blaspheme!"

Veneem resumed his pursuit of the hairy but found it almost impossible to focus his attention on the trail. Dr. Baken had somehow corrupted Rana's thinking. That in itself was bad. But more than a few ideas were at stake here: The heretical views Rana now held could endanger her life. That concerned him most. If she should ever start spouting such madness at a plenum—and she was impulsive enough to do just that given the proper provocation—the Elders would be duty bound to silence her. Forever.

And that would mean his end, as well. For he'd never allow anything to happen to her while he could raise a hand in her defense. She was all he had left. He had no one he could truly call a close friend—Nola had been that and a wife, too. They had formed a self-sufficient unit, the two of them—a threesome after Rana arrived. There had never been any need for outsiders.

Now they were two; no matter how wrong she was, they would not be divided.

They arrived at the big rocks, a pile of huge stone shards that rose above the forest and stretched away into the haze of the south. Veneem searched along the base of the formation until he found the place where the tracks disappeared.

"He started to climb here."

As he began to hoist himself up on the first rock in pursuit, Rana laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Baken has books."

Veneem dropped back to the ground again but remained facing away from his daughter. Utter hopelessness began to settle upon him. Rana was getting in deeper and deeper. Hiding books from the Elders was punishable by death. He ground his teeth in frustration. He couldn't understand her—her constant questioning, her poking into things she should leave alone. Life was good under the Elders if you just tended to your business.

His voice was barely audible as he spoke the law: "Books are forbidden. They're to be turned over to the Elders as soon as they're found."

"That's so we won't find out what's inside them. Their authority would be destroyed if it became generally known that we're the descendants—worse, yet, the creations—of the hairies!"

"Madness!" He still refused to look at her.

"No! Baken's learned to read some of the books and he's teaching me. He's learned things. Incredible things. Things that go against everything we've ever been taught."

"I have no wish to hear them," he said as he found a foothold and began climbing the rocks.

Rana scrambled after him. "You're going to have to listen to me, Father. Baken told me of the time some hunters brought in the carcass of a pregnant bitch hairy. She'd been nearing her time when they got her and he was able to examine the unborn baby. He says it looked just like we do at birth!"

"Be quiet!" Veneem said angrily. He was climbing as quickly as he could, whether in pursuit of the hairy or to escape his daughter's blasphemies, he wasn't quite sure. "The beast will hear us coming!"

But Rana refused to be put off and kept pace. "Did you know that we're all born with pink skin and hair—hair on our heads and above our eyes? Sometimes fine hair on our arms and legs? And that our skin doesn't turn green until we've been exposed to light? Nobody talks about that…the same way nobody admits that if you took a hairy, sheared his fuzz, and stained him green, he'd look as human as we do! It's obvious to anyone with eyes that we come from the same stock."

Veneem halted his climb and turned to face Rana. Leaning his back against a rock, he studied her a moment before speaking. He hid his anger and adopted the tone of a patient parent speaking to a rather dull-witted child. He raised his forearms diagonally before him, right angles at the elbows, his palms on edge toward Rana. The tips of the right and left middle fingers touched lightly at eye level to form a point.

"This," he said, moving the right arm, "is the animal kingdom. This"—the left arm moved—"is the plant kingdom. At the apex are you and I and our kin: humanity, the highest form of life, the fusion of plant and animal. We have the best attributes of both kingdoms. In lean times we can take a certain amount of nourishment from the sun, and should we lose a limb we can grow a new one. No animal can do that. Yet we can move around and go where we wish, use our hands to build, and eat and drink in the winter months when the sun is weak. No plant can do that."

He sighed. "Don't you see? Not only does what you say go against Revealed Truth, it goes against common sense as well. The hairies belong solely to the animal kingdom. We are superior to them in every way. How could they have created us?"

"Baken says—"

"'Baken says'!" he mimicked. "'Baken says'! I'm sick of hearing about what Doctor Baken says! I'm after a game animal now—it's my job. If you cannot be silent, go wait by the horses!"

Rana persisted. "Baken says that long ago the hairies took a cell from a—"

"Cell? What's a cell?"

"As Baken explains it, it's one of the uncountable little capsules, invisibly small, that make up the bodies of every living thing."

It was Veneem's turn to taunt. "Look at me! How many 'cells' do you see?"

She said, "When you stand on a hill and look at the beach, how many grains of sand do you see?" She did not wait for an answer. "As I was saying, the hairies took a cell from a plant and removed its nucleus—that's the thing in the center of the cell that controls it—and replaced it with the nucleus from a cell of a hairy. For a while it was just a curiosity, but then they learned how to grow an entire organism from one of these cells. And then we were born. The hairies are the real humans...we're their creations."

Veneem made a contemptuous, snorting noise. "And you mock me for blindly accepting the teaching of the Elders! Look what you've just said: You've told me of something called a 'cell' which you admit you've never seen—can't see—and then about something else inside this 'cell.' Then you tell me that the beasts who have to steal food from us to survive the winter actually grew us from one of these mythical little capsules. Really, Rana! Who's the fool?"

"We're all fools for believing the Elders for so long! We—"

Veneem's right hand shot out and covered her mouth. A light shower of tiny sand particles had begun to fall, sliding and bouncing down from the rocks above, sprinkling their heads and shoulders.

"He's up there!" he whispered. "And if he has ears he's heard us."

Unslinging his bow, Veneem drew the gut string back to the last notch, set the trigger, and put one of his heaviest bolts in the groove. To his left was a break in the rocks, about a man-length or so wide. He sidled over and peered into it. Empty. A high-walled gully sloped upward for a short distance, then banked off to the right. With weapon at ready, he began his ascent.

The floor of the gully was smooth—it probably served as a water run-off during the spring—with patches of ice in scattered recesses. He heard a sudden loud crunch from up around the bend, then nothing. The sound was repeated, followed by a series of lesser noises, and then a large boulder bounded around the curve in the gorge and came rolling at him. Veneem gauged its path and ran upward toward the bend, allowing the stone to bounce off the far wall and pass him on his left.

Reaching the curve, he saw it—a buck hairy. Tall, thin, full mane on head and face; his torso and lower legs were wrapped in tattered cloth and he had just kicked loose a second boulder. With no time to aim properly, Veneem chanced a quick shot from waist level. The hairy howled in pain and clutched its left thigh as Veneem leaped to avoid the oncoming stone juggernaut.

Too late. He misjudged its ungainly wobbling roll and it struck him a glancing blow on the rib cage as it passed. Pain lanced up to his left shoulder and down along his flank as he fell on his back and began to slide down the gully headfirst. For a few heartbeats he could not draw a breath. Then, as his oxygen-starved mind was about to panic, air began to gush in and out of his lungs in ragged gusts. He hauled himself into a sitting position and waited for the pain to subside.

Rana had heard the wail of the wounded hairy and she now peered around the corner of the gully. Seeing her father leaning against the rocks with his hand pressed against his ribs, she dropped her bow and scurried up to his side.

"Are you all right?" Her expression was frantic.

Still gasping, Veneem nodded and pointed back the way they had come. "Help me up. I wounded him but he still might be dangerous."

Rana took his bow and his arm and led him back to safety. When they reached their previous position, Veneem sank to his knees.

"We'll let him bleed."

"Where'd you get him?"

"Leg."

Her eyes darted back and forth as her mind seemed to race. "Then we can take him alive!"

"Never!" Veneem was getting his wind back.

"We must! We may never get another chance like this to learn the truth about the hairies."

"I already know the truth!" He spat the words. "And it's part of the law that all hairies must be hunted down and killed like the wild game they are!"

Rana seemed ready to leap at him.

"How many 'game animals' have set a trap for you, Father? That's not just a wild beast up there!"

Veneem rose slowly, painfully to his feet. "No more of your fever dreams, please. I've more pressing matters to attend to. Silence, now!"

"No! I want you to think about what I've said before you kill it."

"I am thinking and I've been thinking. You must think! If the hairies had the power and the intelligence to create us, what happened to them? Where is their mighty civilization? Answer me that!"

"Baken says"—Veneem growled at the name—"that in their toying with the stuff of life they somehow altered one of the things that make us sick and a great plague swept the world. A famine followed. After that, those who didn't get sick or starve to death went mad, killing each other and destroying their cities. We survived. The plague had no effect on us and we could augment our nourishment by sun-soaking. We multiplied while they died.

"Only a few hairies are left. They hide in the ruined cities. That's why we're forbidden to go there—because we'd find out that the 'Truths' of the Elders are lies and their hold would be broken!"

"Very clever," Veneem said with a slow, sad shake of his head. "Doctor Baken has managed to twist everything. Everyone knows, and Revealed Truth confirms, that we built the cities ages ago. They are now forbidden because they were the cause of our fall from grace. When we built them we separated ourselves from the land and the sun. For that we were punished—the cities were destroyed by God and we were banished from them forever."

He rubbed his injured ribs gingerly, then snatched his bow from Rana.

"No more talk! I'm going to find another way up there, and when I get to him I'll finish him."

Rana watched him briefly as he began to reload the weapon, then wheeled and ran to the edge of the gully where she had dropped her own bow. After checking to see that the bolt was still in place, she called over her shoulder in a low voice:

"I'm going up this way. If I have to hit him in the other leg to bring him down, I will. But I'm going to take him alive."

Veneem's voice was strained as he jolted forward. "Stay out of there—he's still dangerous!"

Rana ignored him and entered the gully. He finished loading as quickly as he could and went after her. He watched as she moved swiftly, cautiously up the center of the gorge. She was almost to the bend when Veneem saw the stone. It was smaller than its predecessors—about the size of a human head—and had been thrown rather than rolled. It bounced once on the granite floor, then flew straight for Rana. She made to dive out of its way but slipped on an icy patch and fell against the far wall.

The bones of her right foot made a sickening noise as they were crushed.

Rana writhed on her side, her face contorted in agony. Low guttural sounds, half moan, half grunt, escaped between her clenched teeth as she tried to move the stone off her foot.

fter a shocked, frozen instant, Veneem broke into a run and passed Rana without a second look. He had to reach the hairy before the next rock came. Rounding the bend, he saw the beast desperately trying to dislodge a larger stone, one that would surely finish Rana if it started to roll. But it was wounded— fresh blood covered its left leg—and its strength wasn't up to the task. When it saw the green fury that was Veneem charging up the gully, it began to retreat.

The hairy clawed and scrambled along the ledge, its wounded leg dragging like an anchor. Veneem thought he saw something almost like human fear in its eyes as it glanced over its shoulder at him, heard something almost human about the gibberish that burst from its mouth, sensed something almost human in the way it rolled on its back and frantically waved its hands as he stood within arm's length and aimed his crossbow at its head.

But it died like any other animal when the bolt split its skull.

* * * * *

"I think you're going to lose it," Veneem said as he gave Rana's foot a final inspection. It was swollen, misshapen, the skin had split in three places and showed numerous areas of brownish discoloration.

A fire was blazing in the hearth, dancing light off the smooth green of Rana's skin as she sat before it. Her wounded foot rested on a folded blanket which in turn rested on a short stool. The bleeding had stopped. The pain had not.

"You'll have to get Baken in the morning," she said.

"I'll not have that man near you."

"He's the only doctor in the enclave! If the foot must come off, he'll know where to cut. I won't let anyone else touch me."

Knowing she was right but refusing to admit it, Veneem said nothing. He turned to the hearth and rotated the spit. He was tired. It had been no easy task to carry Rana to the horses, then fetch the dead hairy, then guide all home. He was feeling his age, especially in his ribs and his left shoulder—there was blood on the dressing over this morning's incision but he hadn't got around to changing it yet.

But at least everything was in its place now. Rana was warming herself by the fire, the carcass of the hairy was dressed and hanging in the cold shed while Veneem roasted a piece of it on the spit. He had cut off the right shank as a celebratory feast of sorts; the rest would go to the central supply shed in the morning. A glance at Rana's wound and he realized there was probably something symbolic in the cut of meat he chose.

He sliced off a small piece and dropped it into a wooden bowl which he then placed in his daughter's lap.

"Come. Eat. You'll need all the nourishment you can get when regeneration starts, especially since there's no sunlight worth mentioning this time of year."

"Not hungry," she said. She was physically and emotionally spent and Veneem did his best to be solicitous.

"Of course you are. You haven't had this much activity in a long, long time. You must be ravenous. And this has always been your favorite."

"No." She swallowed hard—her salivary glands had been activated by the sight and smell of the meat. "You didn't have to kill it."

"Yes, I did. And for more than one reason." He squatted before her and took her hand. "First of all, it hurt you. Nothing can hurt you and be allowed to live. Second, if we had brought it back alive as you wished—and I'm not really sure we could have—you'd have begun publicly spouting the madness that Baken's put into your head. And that would mean the end of you. The Elders would have no choice then but to order your death. Third, because this catch makes me First Hunter beyond any doubt. And last..." He paused, catching and holding her gaze. "And last, I killed the hairy because it's the law that all hairies are to be killed. They're very scarce now and we might never see one again. But if I should come upon another, I'll kill it. And that settles the matter. I want no more discussion on it. Eat your dinner."

Rana sighed and picked up the piece of meat. It was hot and firm with a thin coating of grease that oozed onto her fingers. She nibbled at it. No sense in letting such a delicacy go to waste.

BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY

INTRODUCTION

Back in 1981, Alan Ryan was editing Perpetual Light, an anthology for Warner Books composed of stories about the religious experience. Over the years, Alan and I had compared our Jesuit educations—I'm a graduate of Xavier in Manhattan (yes ... I was a Subway Commando) and Georgetown—and he thought I'd be an apt contributor.

The Jesuits taught us to think, to question, never to take anything purely at face value. One result of all that thinking and questioning, at least for me, was an awareness of the negative effects of most religious movements.

I used a variation of the BioCog unit as far back as Healer in the mid-seventies. The concept became a staple of cyberfiction.

"Be Fruitful" was the first story completed on my then brand-new Apple II+ using Applewriter I, a word processor that seems Paleolithic now, but was downright miraculous then. The story itself seems to get more timely with each passing year. The Procreationists could be just around the next political corner.

Watch out for them.

BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY

Saw God last week. Or maybe it was just St. Bartholomew. Looked more like Bartholomew, but could have been God.

He came to me in the night, a vision dangling from my ceiling, twisting slowly in the air like a corpse hanging from a gibbet. Said the birth rate was down. Down. Told me to warn everyone, especially the Church Elders. Told me to warn them right away.

But I've been so busy lately.

Actually, I'm afraid.

(11:40...about twenty minutes to spare)

They'll think I'm crazy. Paranoid, they'll say. But not if I can get everything organized. Not if I can show them in black and white that there's a plot afoot, a plot against the Church, a monstrous conspiracy that threatens everything generations of us have worked for. Been meaning to get organized for so long now, but can't seem to get going.

Maybe that's part of the conspiracy, too. Maybe—

For Birth's sake, don't start blaming your own foot-dragging on someone else. Next thing you know, your stubbed toe is someone else's fault...then the pimple on your chin...then your backache. Soon you're crazy.

I'm not crazy. My church, the only church, the Church of the Divine Imperative, is in danger. God told me so Himself. I may be the only one who knows. But I can prove it. At least I think I can. With God's help and without too much hindrance from Satan and His minions, the Elders will hear and believe. And act.

But got to get organized. Got to sound sane. I have my folks' files and scrapbooks from the old days. That'll help. If I can put the plot in historical perspective, the Elders will be more receptive.

To work. Start with a quote from St. Bartholomew. That'll grab them. They can't turn away from the words of the man who was the inspiration for the Church. And his words are as timely now as they were forty-odd years ago:

...So I say again to you, the Divine Imperative was God's first command to the first man and woman: "Be fruitful and multiply." This was not a casual remark. God created the earth as no more than a staging area. This planet, this life—they are no more than a first evolutionary step toward the ultimate destiny God has planned for His faithful. Nothing more than a staging area. In all the troubles through which you will pass, never forget that.

Words to remember, to be sure. Especially now.

After Bartholomew, how about these old pictures...everybody's so plump-ugly. Population was so sparse back then I guess they had to eat more than they needed. Almost obscene to look that well fed. No worry about looking like that nowadays...

Here's a magazine article from back then. The non-believers did a lot of empty speculation as the movement started to take hold. This looks like a good one:

...and sociologists are at a loss to explain it. Most of the Church's members were raised in the one- and two-child family units that have been the norm. Yet the whole thrust of the Church of the Divine Imperative runs contrary to the trends of the past few decades. Instead of limiting family size out of concern for the environment and a desire to pursue more personal goals of self-fulfillment, the Procreationists, as they call themselves, have laid aside their cultural, religious, and social backgrounds to band together in a compulsive drive to bring as many new lives as possible into the world.

It all started with a pamphlet called "The Next Plateau" by an enigmatic man known only as Bartholomew who is believed to have sprung from the ranks of the now-defunct Christian Right. He is the source of Procreationist theology—a dizzying mixture of right-to-life slogans, Far Eastern mysticism, and rigid fundamentalism. Bartholomew's writings and passionate speeches fired up a significant segment of a generation. Procreationism has caught on. The Church of the Divine Imperative is spreading. Hopefully, for all our sakes, it will be short-lived.

Time Magazine

But we showed them—or at least my parents did. Being second-generation Procreationist, I spent most of my life listening to my folks and their friends swap tales about the early days of the Church. Must have been exciting to be in the vanguard, to be shaping history. Wish I could have been there.

The glory of it! They were outsiders in their day, struggling against the Satan-inspired population-control forces that ran the governments of the world. Hard to imagine today, with everybody Procreationist, but back in the old days they were a tiny, persecuted minority. The bureaucratic machinery and its allies in the media did their damnedest—an appropriate word, that—to curb the growth of the Church. Said we threatened to unbalance the environment, accelerate pollution, and trigger famines. Ha!

Goes to show they never understood us. Tried psychoanalytical parlor tricks to explain our growth. They were desperate for any explanation other than the truth: It was God's will

Listen to this fool:

These people are scared. They want a way out—that is all there is to it. They look around and see shortages, unrest, economic and political uncertainty on all sides, and it scares them. But do they pitch in and help? No! They make things worse! They turn to mysticism and embrace practices that exacerbate the very conditions which frighten them. It's mass insanity, that's what it is.

And it's got to be stopped!

Senator Henry Mifflin (D-Neb)

Congressional Record

See? Never understood. The air is thick now, true, because the productive capacity of the entire race must be strained to the utmost to feed, clothe, and house us all. Food is scarce, yes, but there's enough to keep us going until the life force reaches the critical point, the signal to God that we are ready to be transported en masse to a higher plane of existence. Even non-believers will be translated to the next plateau. Then they'll believe.

Coming soon. I can feel it. We all can.

(11:48...better keep moving)

Getting sidetracked here. Let's see...the senator's remarks make a good lead-in to government attempts to control the Church. Knowing that the Church was doing God's work, the followers of Satan used the governments of the world to suppress it. Islamic and communist countries were the most successful—they simply outlawed us and that was that. But wherever there was a spark of democracy, we flourished. And once we were able to organize the faithful into voting blocks, no elected official could stand against us for long. Even after we had gained majority power, anti-Procreationist legislation was still introduced, but was consistently defeated when the final vote came around.

These headlines from some old newsstats ought to be dramatic enough:

BIRTH CONTROL BILL ABORTED

New York Daily News

DEFEAT OF POPULATION CONTROL BILL A CERTAINTY

President Decries Dementia Sweeping Western World

New York Times

I was born three days after that last headline. Government opposition to the Church folded completely during the first five years of my life. By that time, every head of state and virtually every elected official was a Procreationist. Governments of the free world no longer hindered us because we became those governments. Soon, even the inner circles of the communist politburos came under our sway. The Islamic world took longer, but eventually saw the error of its ways, trading Mohammed for Bartholomew. The world was fast becoming Procreationist.

The media remained a problem for a while longer, probably because they were so full of queers. Queers feared us the most, and with good reason. They knew they were living in defiance of the Divine Imperative: They could not be fruitful and multiply, therefore they were an abomination. They offend God and all those who believe in God. But we soon put them in their proper place.

A golden age ensued. The Church continued to expand. It was not enough to have most of humanity as members of the Church—we wanted everyone. We inducted new members constantly. Some were reluctant at first, but eventually they saw the Light. Had to. If you weren't with us, you were most certainly against us. The Divine Imperative was frustrated and the goal delayed by anyone who refused to reproduce.

A holy time was upon us. There were pockets of resistance—heretics, die-hard reactionaries who refused to change their ways, queers, feminists—but they didn't last long. All the world was soon one with the Church. Or so I thought.

Something sinister occurred around my ninth birthday. No one recognized it as a threat then, but looking back now I can see the hand of the Devil.

This is the earliest report I could find in the library files:

LEARNING DEVICE TO SEEK MASS MARKET

London (AP)—Cognition Industries, Ltd., has announced development of a new microcircuit which will make mass distribution of its BioCognitive Learning Unit economically feasible. "It's a major breakthrough," said a spokesman for the Sheffield-based corporation. "Ten years from now there won't be a home without one."

New York Times

The company spokesman was wrong: Nearly every home contained a BioCog unit within five years, attached to the family vid set with up to a dozen headsets plugged in at once at the educational hours.

After a decade of widespread use, the results were astounding: ten-year-olds doing university-level work, autistic minds reached, brain-damaged kids formerly considered uneducable learning simple math and reading skills. Efforts were made to get BioCog units into as many homes as possible in every corner of the world. A triumphal time for the Church. Not only was the life force growing at an unprecedented rate, but our intellectual powers were increasing beyond our wildest dreams. All for the greater glory of God when He translated us to the next plateau.

Everyone was on guard, of course, for possible misuse of the BioCog device. Mind control was the big bugaboo at first, but that was proved impossible. On a subtler level, however, there was concern over the device's potential for influencing attitudes. Stringent laws were passed to assure the faithful that anti-Procreation ideas would never be put into their heads, nor into the heads of their children while they learned.

All went well until last year...

...last year...

Gayle and I produced our fourth life last year, a boy. Still remember how I felt as I cradled him in my arms, knowing I'd helped add another tiny increment to the life force, bringing us all that much closer to our goal...

—sidetracked again. Have to concentrate.

Last year, by the time of our fourth, the BioCog unit had become a part of our daily lives. Like all devout Procreationists, we were learning all we could before Translation, to be better prepared for whatever the next plateau might bring. The educational programs were all uniformly effective. And uniformly dull.

Then The Bobby & Laura Show made its debut on the late-night vid.

(11:55still some time left)

Warm in here...palms sweaty...

The show was controversial from the start. A young couple—Laura, a sweet-looking blonde, Bobby darkly virile, both looking mid-twentyish and dressed in light blue kimonos—had been given an hour to explore methods of enhancing the emotional and physical responses of the procreational act. Discussion would take up the first half of the show; the final half would involve a demonstration via the BioCog unit.

Don't quite recall the details of the discussion that premier night, but the demonstration was unforgettable. I remember the screen dimming as we were instructed to don our headsets. Could see vague shapes of Bobby and Laura disrobing. Then the shapes came together and my body was electrified. Could almost feel Laura's hands on me. Sensations built slowly to a crescendo that was almost unbearable, leaving me weak and limp afterward. I remember turning to Gayle to find her staring at me with an odd expression on her face—she hadn't put her headset on.

Tried to explain it to her. Tried to convey the sensual and emotional warmth that flooded through me, but she just made a face and said it didn't seem right. Took her in my arms right then and showed her how right it was.

Gayle was hardly unique in her doubts about the propriety of the show. Many members of the Church felt there was something scandalous about it. The ensuing investigation revealed that Bobby and Laura were orthodox Procreationists with three lives—a little girl and a set of twin boys—to their credit. Their stated purpose was advancement of Church teachings into new areas. They wanted to explore all the roads of the procreational process in order to follow better the Divine Imperative. They had experimented and had discovered that the BioCog units could influence more than the cognitive areas of the brain, so they were employing the unit's abilities in the emotional and sensual areas as an educational adjunct to their discussions.

Their program was quickly cleared of any wrongdoing. It was, after all, discreetly staged and played only at a late hour. And besides, the reasoning went, weren't they merely doing God's work?

Aided by the notoriety of the investigation, the second Bobby & Laura drew the largest audience in the history of this country. Even Gayle put on a headset. She later agreed that it was a remarkably moving experience. Such a feeling of warmth, of being loved, of being needed, of belonging.

With the blessing of the Church, the show quickly moved into all the foreign mass media, vidcast at midnight in every time zone around the world. Dubbing or subtitles were used in the first half; no translation was necessary for the second. Billions began to look forward to the show each night. Crave it, in fact. Night shifts in factories were interrupted for Bobby & Laura. Even stories of hospital patients left unattended during the show.

I remember wondering about Bobby and Laura. Don't care how God-loving and righteous a couple is, they can't generate that level of emotional and physical intensity on a nightly basis. They either had a method of enhancing the signals they transmitted, or had recorded a library of their best procreational sessions and vidcast these to the eager billions wearing their headsets and waiting for the screen to dim.

So what? I'd ask myself. Only showed they were as human as the rest of us. The purpose of their show was not to set some sort of endurance record.

Still went through spasms of uneasiness, though. These would usually hit me after the nightly show was over and Gayle and I were falling asleep in each other's arms, spent without having moved a muscle.

Bobby & Laura had been on for well over a year when it came to me that we hadn't conceived our fifth life as planned. We both knew the reason: Our procreational activity had ebbed to the point where the only thing we did in bed was sleep. That was wrong. Evil. Contrary to everything we believed in. We felt guilty and ashamed.

And confused. Couldn't understand what was happening to me. Loved God and the Church as much as ever. My faith was still strong. Hard for me to admit this, but I'd lost all desire for Gayle as my procreational partner.

I wanted Laura.

Noticed Gayle's righteousness slipping, too. Did Bobby fill her thoughts as Laura did mine?

(11:58 ... better hurry)

Guilt made me keep all this to myself. Even noticed some hesitation to attend weekly services. Didn't feel as if I was doing my part to follow God's will. But forced myself to go.

Now I know I'm not alone. The vision told me the birth rate is down. Others have been afflicted as I have.

And I know why.

The Devil is sly and ever active. We thought the enemies of the Church had been eliminated. Thought them dispersed and discredited as heretics and blasphemers. Wrong. All wrong! They merely went underground and have been insidiously undermining God's will all along.

And their master plot is Bobby & Laura!

Had my suspicions for a long time now, but last week's vision convinced me: We have all become sensually jaded and emotionally dependent on that show. We are exposed to such peaks of pleasure and intimacy via the BioCog unit that the human contact demanded by God seems flat and ordinary.

THE BIOCOG IS AN INSTRUMENT OF THE DEVIL! THROUGH IT WE HAVE BECOME ADDICTED! EMOTIONALLY, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, PHYSIOLOGICALLY, AND NEUROLOGICALLY DEPENDENT ON BOBBY AND LAURA!

But not for long. I'm going to expose this hellish scheme tomorrow. I'll put an end to The Bobby & Laura Show for good. I'll reveal them for what they are.

(Only a minute to go)

Exposure of the plot will mean no more Laura for me, but that doesn't matter. God's will is what matters. I can break this addiction and return to the True Path. We all can. I don't need the show. I can wash it away like sweat and dirt, leaving myself pure and clean for the coming Translation.

(Midnight)

Bobby & Laura is starting...Gayle's by the set ... I'm going to join her ... just for a few minutes...then I'll get back to this...

...promise...

...just as soon as the show's over...

(I'm coming, Laura!)

HOME REPAIRS

INTRODUCTION

Richard Chizmar had asked me for a crime story for an anthology he was editing called Cold Blood. So in May of 1990, a few weeks after finishing “The Last Rakosh,” I began work on a Jack story with the working title of "Domestic Problem."

I ended up calling it…

HOME REPAIRS

The developer didn’t look like Donald Trump.

He was older, for one thing – mid fifties, at least – and fat and balding to boot. And nowhere near as rich. One of the biggest land developers on Long Island, as he was overly fond of saying. Rich, but not Trump rich.

And he was sweating. Jack wondered if Donald Trump sweated. The Donald might perspire, but Jack couldn’t imagine him sweating.

This guy’s name was Oscar Schaffer and he was upset about the meeting place.

“I expected we’d hold this conversation in a more private venue,” he said

Jack watched him pull a white handkerchief from his pocket and blot the moisture from a forehead that went on almost forever. Supposedly Schaffer had started out as a construction worker who’d got into contracting and then had gone on to make a mint in custom homes. Despite occasional words like venue, his speech still carried echoes of the streets. He carried a handkerchief too. Jack couldn’t think of anyone he knew who carried a handkerchief – who owned a handkerchief.

“This is private,” Jack said, glancing at the empty booths and tables around them. “Julio’s isn’t a breakfast place.” Voices drifted over from the bar area on the far side of the six foot divider topped with dead plants. “Unless you drink your breakfast.”

Julio came strutting around the partition carrying a coffee pot. His short, forty year old frame was grotesquely muscled under his tight, sleeveless shirt. He was freshly shaven, his mustache trimmed to a line, drafting pencil thin, his wavy hair was slicked back. He reeked of some new brand of cologne, more cloying than usual.

Jack coughed as the little man refilled his cup and poured one for Schaffer without asking.

“God, Julio. What is that?”

“The smell? It’s brand new. Called Midnight.”

“Maybe that’s when you’re supposed to wear it.”

He grinned. “Naw. Chicks love it, man.”

Only if they’ve spent the day in a chicken coop, Jack thought but kept it to himself.

“Is that decaf?” Schaffer asked. “I only drink decaf.”

“Don’t have any,” Julio said as he finished pouring. He strutted back to the bar.

“I can see why the place is deserted,” Schaffer said, glancing at Julio’s retreating form. “That guy’s downright rude.”

“It doesn’t come naturally to him. He’s been practicing lately.”

“Yeah? Well somebody ought to see that the owner gets wise to him.”

“He is the owner.”

“Really?” Schaffer mopped his brow again. “I tell you, if I owned this place, I’d–”

“But you don’t. And we’re not here to talk about the tavern business. Or are we?”

“No.” Schaffer suddenly became fidgety. “I’m not so sure about this anymore.”

“It’s okay. You can change your mind. No hard feelings.”

A certain small percentage of customers who got this far developed cold feet when the moment came to tell Repairman Jack exactly what they wanted him to fix for them. Jack didn’t think Schaffer would back out now. He wasn’t the type. But he’d probably want to dance a little first.

“You’re not exactly what I expected,” Schaffer said.

“I never am.”

Usually they expected either a glowering Charles Bronson type character or a real sleazo. And usually someone bigger. No one found Jack’s wiry medium frame, longish brown hair, and mild brown eyes particularly threatening. It used to depress him.

“But you look like a...yuppie.”

Jack glanced down at his dark blue Izod sports shirt, beige slacks, brown loafers, sockless feet.

“We’re on the Upper West Side, Mr. Schaffer. Yuppie Rome. And when in Rome...” Schaffer nodded grimly.

“It’s my brother in law. He’s beating up on my sister.”

“Seems like there’s a lot of that going around.”

People rarely sought out Jack for domestic problems, but this wouldn’t be the first wife beater he’d been asked to handle. He thought of Julio’s sister. Her husband had been pounding on her. That was how Jack had met Julio. They’d been friends ever since.

“Maybe so. But I never thought it would happen to Ceilia. She’s so...”

His voice trailed off.

Jack said nothing. This was the time to keep quiet and listen. This was when he got a real feel for the customer.

“I just don’t understand it. Gus seemed like such a good guy when they were dating and engaged. I liked him. An accountant, white collar, good job, clean hands, everything I wanted for Ceil. I helped him get his job. He’s done well. But he beats her.” Schaffer’s lips thinned as they drew back over his teeth. “Dammit, he beats the shit out of her. And you know what’s worse? She takes it! She’s put up with it for ten years!”

“There are laws,” Jack said.

“Right. Sure there are. But you’ve got to sign a complaint. Ceil won’t do that. She defends him, says he’s under a lot of pressure and sometimes he just loses control. She says most of the time it’s her fault because she gets him mad, and she shouldn’t get him mad. Can you believe that shit? She came over my place one night, two black eyes, a swollen jaw, red marks around her throat from where he was choking her. I lost it. I charged over their place ready to kill him with my bare hands. He’s a big guy, but I’m tough. And I’m sure he’s never been in a fight with someone who punches back. When I arrived screaming like a madman, he was ready for me. He had a couple of neighbors there and he was standing inside his front door with a baseball bat. Told me if I tried anything he’d defend himself, then call the cops and press charges for assault and battery. I told him if he came anywhere near my sister again, he wouldn’t have an unbroken bone left in his body to dial the phone with!”

“Sounds like he knew you were coming.”

“He did! That’s the really crazy part! He knew because Ceil had called from my place to warn him! And the next day he sends her roses, says how much he loves her, swears it’ll never happen again, and she rushes back to him like he’s done her a big favor. Can you beat that?”

“Nothing to keep you from getting a bat of your own and waiting in an alley or a parking lot.”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought of it. But I’ve already threatened him – in front of witnesses. Anything happens to him, I’ll be number one suspect. And I can’t get involved in anything like that, in a felony. I mean I’ve got my own family to consider, my business. I want to leave something for my kids. I do Gus, I’ll end up in jail, Gus’ll sue me for everything I’m worth, my wife and kids will wind up in a shelter somewhere while Gus moves into my house. Some legal system!”

Jack waited through a long pause. It was a familiar Catch 22 – one that kept him in business.

Schaffer finally said, “I guess that’s where you come in.”

Jack took a sip of his coffee.

“I don’t know how I can help you. Busting him up isn’t going to change things. It sounds like your sister’s got as big a problem as he does.”

“She does. I’ve talked to a couple of doctors about it. It’s called co-dependency or something like that. I don’t pretend to understand it. I guess the best thing that could happen to Ceil is Gus meeting with some sort of fatal accident.”

“You’re probably right,” Jack said.

Schaffer stared at him. “You mean you’ll...?”

Jack shook his head. “No.”

“But I thought–”

“Look. Sometimes I make a mistake. If that happens, I like to be able to go back and fix it.”

Schaffer’s expression flickered between disappointment and relief, finally settling on relief.

“You know,” he said with a small smile, “as much as I’d like Gus dead, I’m glad you said that. I mean, if you’d said okay, I think I’d have set you to it.” He shook his head and looked away. “Kind of scary what you can come to.”

“She’s your sister. Someone’s hurting her. You want him stopped but you can’t do it yourself. Not hard to understand how you feel.”

“Can you help?”

Jack drained his coffee and leaned back. Past the pots of dead brown plants hanging in the smudged front window he could see smartly dressed women wheeling their children, or white uniformed nannies wheeling other people’s children in the bright morning sunlight.

“I don’t think so. Domestic stuff is too complicated to begin with, and this situation sounds like it’s gone way past complicated into the twilight zone. Not my thing. Not the situation my kind of services can help.”

“I know what you’re saying. I know they need shrinks – at least Ceil does. Gus...I don’t know. I think he’s beyond therapy. I got the feeling Gus likes beating up on Ceil. Likes it too much to quit, no matter what. But I want to give it a try.”

“Doesn’t strike me as the type who’ll go see a shrink because you or anyone else says so.”

“Yeah. But if he was hospitalized...” Schaffer raised his eyebrows, inviting Jack to finish the thought.

Jack was thinking it was a pretty dumb thought as Julio returned with the coffee pot. He refilled Jack’s but Schaffer held a hand over his.

“Say,” Schaffer said, pointing to all the dead vegetation around the room, “did you ever think of watering your plants?”

“Wha’ for?” Julio said. “They’re all dead.”

The developer’s eyes widened. “Oh. Right. Of course.” As Julio left, he leaned over the table toward Jack. “Is there some significance to all these dead plants?”

“Nothing religious. It’s just that Julio isn’t happy with the caliber of his clientele lately.”

“Well he’s not going to raise it with these dead plants.”

“No. You don’t understand. He wants to lower it. The yuppies have discovered this place and they’ve been swarming here. He’s been trying to get rid of them. This has always been a working man’s bar and eatery. The Beamer crowd is scaring off the old regulars. Julio and his help are rude as hell to them but they just lap it up. He let all the window plants die, and they think it’s great. It’s driving the poor guy nuts.”

“He doesn’t seem to mind you.”

“We go back a long way.”

“Really? How–?”

“Let’s get back to your brother in law. You really think if he was laid up in a hospital bed for a while, a victim of violence himself, he’d have a burst of insight and ask for help?”

“It’s worth a try.”

“No, it isn’t. Save your money.”

“Well, then, if he doesn’t see the light, I could clue his doctor in and maybe arrange to have one of the hospital shrinks see him while he’s in traction.”

“You really think that’ll change anything?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got to try something short of killing him.”

“And what if those somethings don’t work?”

His face went slack, his eyes bleak.

“Then I’ll have find a way to take him out of the picture. Permanently. Even if I have to do it myself.”

“I thought you were worried about your family and your business.”

“She’s my sister, dammit!”

Jack thought about his own sister, the pediatrician. He couldn’t imagine anyone beating up on her. At least not more than once. She had a brown belt in karate and didn’t take guff from anyone. She’d either kick the crap out of you herself or call their brother, the judge, and submerge you to your lower lip in an endless stream of legal hot water. Or both.

But if she were a different sort, and somebody was beating up on her, repeatedly...

“All right,” Jack said. “I know I’ll regret this, but I’ll look into it. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll see if there’s anything I can do.”

“Hey, thanks. Thanks a–”

“It’s half down and half when I’ve done the job.”

Schaffer paused, his expression troubled.

“But you haven’t agreed to take the job yet.”

“It might take me weeks to learn what I need to know to make that decision.”

“What do you need to know? How about–?”

“We’re not practicing the Art of the Deal here. Those are the terms. Take it or leave it.”

Jack was hoping he’d leave it. And for a moment it looked as if he might.

“You’re asking me to bet on a crapshoot – blindfolded. You hold all the aces.”

“You’re mixing metaphors, but you’ve got the picture.”

Schaffer sighed. “What the hell.” He reached into his breast pocket, then slapped an envelope down on the table. “Okay! Here it is.”

Without hiding his reluctance, Jack tucked the envelope inside his shirt without opening it. He removed a notepad and pencil from his hip pocket.

“All right. Let’s get down to the who and where.”

* * * * *

Jack rubbed his eyes as he sat on the lawn chair and waited for the Castlemans to come home. His third night here and so far he hadn’t seen a hint of anything even remotely violent. Or remotely interesting. These were not exciting people. On the plus side, they had no kids, no dog, and their yard was rimmed with trees and high shrubs. Perfect for surveillance.

On Monday, Ceil had come home from teaching fifth grade at the local suburban Long Island elementary school. She entered their two story, center hall colonial, turned the TV on, and poured herself a stiff vodka. A thin, mousy, brittle looking woman whose hair was a few shades too blonde to be anyone’s natural color. She watched a soap for an hour, during which she smoked three cigarettes and downed another vodka. Then she started slicing and dicing for dinner. Around five thirty, Gus Castleman came in from a hard day of accounting at Borland Industries. A big guy, easily six four, two fifty; crew cut red hair, round face, and narrow blue eyes. A bulging gut rode side saddle on his belt buckle. He peeled off his suit coat and grunted hello to Ceil as he went straight to the fridge. He pulled out two Bud Lights and sat down before Eyewitness News. When dinner was ready he came to the kitchen table and they ate watching the TV. After dinner there was more TV. Gus fell asleep around ten. Ceil woke him up after the 11:00 news and they both went to bed.

Tuesday was the same.

On Wednesday, Ceil came home and had her vodkas in front of Santa Barbara but didn’t slice and dice. Instead she changed into a dress and drove off. When Gus didn’t show up, Jack assumed she was meeting him for dinner. Almost eleven o’clock now and they weren’t back yet. Jack hung on and waited.

Waiting. That was always the lousy part. But Jack made a point of being sure about anyone before he did a fix. After all, people lied. Jack lied to most people every day. Schaffer could be lying about Gus, might want him laid up for something that had nothing to do with his sister. Or Ceil might be lying to her brother, might be telling him it was Gus who gave her those bruises when all along it was some guy she’d been seeing on the side. Jack needed to be sure Gus was the bad guy before he made a move on him.

So far Gus was just boring. That didn’t rate hospital level injuries.

At the sound of a car in the driveway, Jack slipped out of the lawn chair and eased into the foundation shrubbery around the garage. The car parked on the driveway. He recognized Gus’s voice as they got out of the car.

“...just wish you hadn’t said that, Ceil. It made me feel real bad in front of Dave and Nancy.”

“But no one took it the way you did,” Ceil said.

Jack thought he detected a slight quaver in her voice. Too many vodkas? Or fear?

“Don’t be so sure about that. I think they’re just too good mannered to show it, but I saw the shock in Nancy’s eyes. Didn’t you see the way she looked at me when you said that?”

“No. I didn’t see anything of the sort. You’re imagining things again.”

“Oh, am I?”

“Y…yes. And besides, I’ve already apologized a dozen times since we left. What more do you want from me?”

Jack heard the front storm door open.

“What I want, Ceil, is that it not keep happening like it does. Is that too much to ask?”

Ceil’s reply was cut off as the door closed behind them. Jack returned to the rear of the house where he could get a view of most of the first floor. Their voices leaked out through an open casement window over the kitchen sink as Gus strode into the kitchen.

“...don’t know why you keep doing this to me, Ceil.

I try to be good, try to keep calm, but you keep testing me, pushing me to the limit again and again.”

Ceil’s voice came from the hall, overtly anxious now.

“But I told you, Gus. You’re the only one who took it that way.”

Jack watched Gus pull an insulated pot holder mitten over his left hand, then wrap a dish towel around his right.

“Fine, Ceil. If that’s what you want to believe, I guess you’ll go on believing it. But unfortunately, that won’t change what happened tonight.”

Ceil came into the kitchen.

“But Gus–”

Her voice choked off as he turned toward her and she saw his hands.

“Why’d you do it, Ceil?”

“Oh, Gus, no! Please! I didn’t mean it!”

She turned to run but he caught her upper arm and pulled her toward him.

“You should have kept your mouth shut, Ceil. I try so hard and then you go and get me mad.”

He saw Gus take Ceil’s wrist in his mittened hand and twist her arm behind her back, twist it up hard and high. She cried out in pain.

“Gus, please don’t!”

Jack didn’t want to see this, but he had to watch. Had to be sure. Gus pressed her flat chest up against the side of the refrigerator. Her face was toward Jack. There was fear there, terror, dread, but overriding it all was a sort of dull acceptance of the inevitable that reached into Jack’s center and twisted.

Gus began ramming his padded fist into Ceil’s back, right below the bottom ribs, left side and right, pummeling her kidneys. Her eyes squeezed shut and she grunted in pain with each impact.

“I hate you for making me do this,” Gus said.

Sure you do, you son of a bitch.

Jack gripped the window sill and closed his eyes. He heard Ceil’s repeated grunts and moans and felt her pain. He’d been kidney punched before. He knew her agony. But this had to end soon. Gus would vent his rage and it would all be over. For the next few days Ceil would have stabbing back pains every time she took a deep breath or coughed, and would urinate bright red blood, but there’d be hardly a mark on her, thanks to the mitten and the towel wrapped fist.

It had to end soon.

But it didn’t. Jack looked again and saw that Ceil’s knees had gone rubbery but Gus was supporting her with the arm lock, still methodically pummeling her.

Jack growled under his breath. All he’d wanted was to witness enough to confirm Schaffer’s story. That done, he’d deal with dear sweet Gus outside the home. Maybe in a dark parking lot while Schaffer made sure he had an air tight alibi. He hadn’t counted on a scene like this, but he’d known it was a possibility. The smart thing to do in this case would be to walk away, but he’d been pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to do that. So he’d come prepared.

Jack hurried across the back patio and grabbed his duffel bag. As he moved around to the far side of the house, he pulled out a nylon stocking and a pair of rubber surgical gloves; he slipped the first over his head and the second over his fingers. Then he removed a .45 automatic, a pair of wire cutters, and a heavy duty screwdriver. He stuck the pistol in his belt, then used the cutters on the telephone lead, and the screwdriver to pop the latch on one of the living room windows.

As soon as he was in the darkened room, he looked around for something to break. The first thing to catch his eye was the set of brass fire irons by the brick hearth. He kicked the stand over. The clang and clatter echoed through the house.

Gus’s voice floated in from the kitchen.

“What the hell was that?”

When Gus arrived and flipped on the lights, Jack was waiting by the window. He almost smiled at the shock on Gus’s face.

“Take it easy, man,” Jack said. He knew his face couldn’t show much anxiety through the stocking mask so he put it all in his voice. “This is all a mistake.”

“Who the hell are you? And what’re you doing in my house?”

“Listen, man. I didn’t think anybody was home. Let’s just forget this ever happened.”

Gus bent and snatched the poker from the spilled fire irons. He pointed it at Jack’s duffel.

“What’s in there? What’d you take?”

“Nothing, man. I just got here. And I’m outta here.”

“Oh…my…God!” Ceil’s voice, muffled. She stood at the edge of the living room, both hands over her mouth.

“Call the police, Ceil. But tell them not to hurry. I want to teach this punk a lesson before they get here.”

As Ceil limped back toward the kitchen, Gus shook off the mitten and the towel and raised the poker in a two handed grip. His eyes glittered with anticipation. His tight, hard grin told it all. Pounding on his wife had got him up, but he could go only so far with her. Now he had a prowler at his mercy. He could beat the living shit out of this guy with impunity. In fact, he’d be a hero for doing it. His gaze settled on Jack’s head like Babe Ruth eyeing a high outside pitch.

Talking to a psychiatrist was going to turn this guy into a loving husband. Sure.

He took two quick steps toward Jack and swung. No subtlety, not even a feint. Jack ducked and let it whistle over his head. He could have put a wicked chop into Gus’s exposed flank then, but he wasn’t ready yet. Gus swung the poker back the other way, lower this time.

Jack jumped pack and resisted planting a foot in the big man’s reddening face. Gus’s third swing was vertical, from ceiling to floor. Jack was long gone when it arrived.

Gus’s teeth were bared now; his breath hissed through them. His eyes were mad with rage and frustration. Jack decided to goose that rage a little. He grinned.

“You swing like a girl, man.”

With a guttural scream, Gus charged, wielding the poker like a scythe. Jack ducked the first swing, then grabbed the poker and rammed his forearm into Gus’s face with a satisfying crunch. Gus staggered back, eyes squeezed shut in agony, holding his nose. Blood began to leak between his fingers.

Never failed. No matter how big you were, a broken nose stopped you cold.

Ceil hobbled back to the threshold. Her voice skirted the edge of hysteria.

“The phone’s dead!”

“Don’t worry, lady,” Jack said. “I didn’t come here to hurt nobody. And I won’t hurt you. But this guy – he’s a different story. He tried to kill me.”

As Jack dropped the poker and stepped toward him, Gus’s eyes bulged with terror. He put out a bloody hand to fend him off. Jack grabbed the wrist and twisted. Gus wailed as he was turned and forced into an arm lock. Jack shoved him against the wall and began a bare knuckled work out against his kidneys, wondering if the big man’s brain would make a connection between what he’d been dishing out in the kitchen and what he was receiving in the living room. Jack didn’t hold back. He put plenty of body behind the punches, and Gus shouted in pain with each one.

How’s it feel, tough guy? Like it?

Jack pounded him until he felt some of his own anger dissipate. He was about to let him go and move into the next stage of his plan when he caught a hint of motion behind him. As he turned his head he had a glimpse of Ceil. She had the poker, and she was swinging it toward his head. He started to duck but too late. The room exploded into bright lights, then went dark gray.

An instant of blackness and then Jack found himself on the floor, pain exploding in his gut. He focused above him and saw Gus readying another kick at his midsection. He rolled away toward the corner. Something heavy thunked on the carpet as he moved.

“Christ, he’s got a gun!” Gus shouted.

Jack had risen to a crouch by then. He searched for the fallen .45 but Gus was ahead of him, snatching it from the floor before Jack could reach it. Gus stepped back, worked the slide to chamber a round, and pointed the pistol at Jack’s face.

“Stay right where you are, you bastard! Don’t you move a muscle!”

Jack sat back on the floor in the corner and stared up at the big man.

“All right!” Gus said with a bloody grin. “All right!”

“I got him for you, didn’t I, Gus?” Ceil said, still holding the poker. She was bent forward in pain. That swing had cost her. “I got him off you. I saved you, didn’t I?”

“Shut up, Ceil.”

“But he was hurting you. I made him stop. I–”

“I said shut up!”

Her lower lip trembled. “I...I thought you’d be glad.”

“Why should I be glad? If you hadn’t got me so mad tonight I might’ve noticed he was here when we came in. Then he wouldn’t have took me by surprise.” He pointed to his swelling nose. “This is your fault, Ceil.”

Ceil’s shoulders slumped; she stared dully at the floor.

Jack didn’t know what to make of Ceil. He’d interrupted a brutal beating at the hands of her husband, yet she’d come to her husband’s aid. And valiantly, at that. The gutsy little scrapper who’d wielded that poker seemed miles away from the cowed, beaten creature standing in the middle of the room.

I don’t get it.

Which was why he had a policy of refusing home repairs. Except this time.

“I’ll go over to the Ferrises’,” she said.

“What for?”

“To call the police.”

“Hold on a minute.”

“Why?”

Jack glanced at Gus and saw how his eyes were flicking back and forth between Ceil and him.

“Because I’m thinking, that’s why!”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I can smell the wood burning.”

“Hey!” Gus stepped toward Jack and raised the pistol as if to club him. “Another word out of you and–”

“You don’t really want to get that close to me, do you?” Jack said softly.

Gus stepped back.

“Gus, I’ve got to call the police!” Ceil said as she replaced the poker by the fireplace, far out of Jack’s reach.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Gus said. “Get over here.”

Ceil meekly moved to his side.

“Not here!” he said, grabbing her shoulder and shoving her toward Jack. “Over there!”

She cried with the pain in her back as she stumbled forward.

“Gus! What are you doing?”

Jack decided to play the game. He grabbed Ceil and turned her around. She struggled but he held her between Gus and himself.

Gus laughed. “You’d better think of something else, fella. That skinny little broad won’t protect you from a forty five.”

“Gus!”

“Shut up! God, I’m sick of your voice! I’m sick of your face, I’m sick of – God, I’m sick of everything about you!” Under his hands, Jack could feel Ceil jerk with the impact of the words as if they were blows from a fist. A fist probably would have hurt less.

“But – but Gus, I thought you loved me.

He sneered. “Are you kidding? I hate you, Ceil! It drives me up a wall just to be in the same room with you! Why the hell do you think I beat the shit out of you every chance I get? It’s all I can do to keep myself from killing you!”

“But all those times you said–”

“Lies, Ceil. Nothing but lies. And you’re such a pathetic wimp you fell for them every time.”

“But why?” She was sobbing now. “Why?”

“Why not dump you and find a real woman? One who’s got tits and can have kids? The answer should be pretty clear: your brother. He got me into Borland ‘cause he’s one of their biggest customers. And if you and me go kaput, he’ll see that I’m out of there before the ink’s dry on our divorce papers. I’ve put too many years into that job to blow it because of a sack of shit like you.”

Ceil almost seemed to shrivel under Jack’s hands. He glared at Gus.

“Big man.”

“Yeah. I’m the big man. I’ve got the gun. And I want to thank you for it, fella, whoever you are. Because it’s going to solve all my problems.”

“What? My gun?”

“Yep. I’ve got a shitload of insurance on my dear wife here. I bought loads of term on her years ago and kept praying she’d have an accident. I was never so stupid as to try and set her up for something fatal – I know what happened to that Marshall guy in Jersey – but I figured, what the hell, with all the road fatalities around here, the odds of collecting on old Ceil were better than Lotto.”

“Oh, Gus,” she sobbed. An utterly miserable sound.

Her head had sunk until her chin touched her chest. She would have fan folded to the floor if Jack hadn’t been holding her up. He knew this was killing her, but he wanted her to hear it. Maybe it was the alarm she needed to wake her up.

Gus mimicked her. “‘Oh, Gus!’ Do you have any idea how many rainy nights you got my hopes up when were late coming home from your card group? How I prayed – actually prayed – that you’d skidded off the road and wrapped your car around a utility pole, or that a big semi had run a light and plowed you under? Do you have any idea? But no. You’d come bouncing in as carefree as you please, and I’d be so disappointed I’d almost cry. That was when I really wanted to wring your scrawny neck!”

“That’s about enough, don’t you think?” Jack said.

Gus sighed. “Yeah. I guess it is. But at least all those premiums weren’t wasted. Tonight I collect.”

Ceil’s head lifted.

“What?”

“That’s right. An armed robber broke in. During the struggle, I managed to get the gun away from him but he pulled you between us as I fired. You took the first bullet – right in the heart.

In a berserk rage, I emptied the rest of the clip into his head. Such a tragedy.” He raised the pistol and sighted it on Ceil’s chest. “Good bye, my dear sweet wife.”

The metallic click of the hammer was barely audible over Ceil’s wail of terror.

Her voice cut off as both she and Gus stared at the pistol.

“That could have been a dud,” Jack said. “Man, I hate when that happens.” He pointed to the top of the pistol. “Pull that slide back to chamber a fresh round.”

Gus stared at him a second, then worked the slide. An unspent round popped out.

“There you go,” Jack said. “Now, give it another shot, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

He pointed the muzzle at Ceil again, and Jack detected a definite tremor in the barrel now. Gus pulled the trigger but this time there was no scream from Ceil. She only flinched at the sound of the hammer falling on another dud.

“Aw, man!” Jack said, drawing out the word into a whine. “You think you’re buying good ammo and someone rips you off! You can’t trust anybody these days!”

Gus quickly worked the slide and pulled the trigger again. Jack allowed two more misfires, then he stepped around Ceil and approached Gus.

Frantically Gus worked the slide and pulled the trigger again, aiming for Jack’s face. Another impotent click. He began backing away when he saw Jack’s smile.

“That’s my dummy pistol, Gus. Actually, a genuine government issue Mark IV, but the bullets are dummy – just like the guy I let get hold of it.”

Jack brought it along when he wanted to see what somebody was really made of. It rarely failed to draw the worst to the surface.

He bent and picked up the ejected rounds. He held one up for Gus to see.

“The slug is real,” Jack said, “but there’s no powder in the shell. It’s an old rule: Never let an asshole near a loaded gun.”

Gus charged, swinging the .45 at Jack’s head. Jack caught his wrist and twisted the weapon free of his grasp. Then he slammed it hard against the side of Gus’s face, opening a gash. Gus tried to turn and run but Jack still had his arm. He hit him again, on the back of the head this time. Gus sagged to his knees and Jack put a lot of upper body behind the pistol as he brought it down once more on the top of his head. Gus stiffened, then toppled face first onto the floor.

Only seconds had passed. Jack spun to check on Ceil’s whereabouts. She wasn’t going to catch him twice. But no worry. She was right where he’d left her, standing in the corner, eyes closed, tears leaking out between the lids. Poor woman.

Nothing Jack wanted more than to be out of this crazy house. He’d been here too long already, but he had to finish this job now, get it done and over with.

He took Ceil’s arm and gently led her from the living room.

“Nothing personal, lady, but I’ve got to put you in a safe place, okay? Someplace where you can’t get near a fire poker. Understand?”

“He didn’t love me,” she said to no one in particular. “He stayed with me because of his job. He was lying all those times he said he loved me.”

“I guess he was.”

“Lying...”

He guided her to a closet in the hall and stood her inside among the winter coats.

“I’m just going to leave you here for a few minutes, okay?”

She was staring straight ahead. “All those years... lying...”

Jack closed her in the closet and wedged a ladderback chair between the door and the wall on the other side of the hall. No way she could get out until he removed the chair. Back in the living room, Gus was still out cold. Jack turned him over and tied his wrists to opposite ends of the coffee table. He took two four by four wooden blocks from his duffel and placed them under Gus’s left lower leg, one just below the knee and the other just above the ankle. Then he removed a short handled five pound iron maul from the duffel. He hesitated as he lifted the hammer, the recalled Ceil’s eyes as Gus methodically battered her kidneys – the pain, the resignation, the despair. Jack broke Gus’s left shin with one sharp blow. Gus groaned and writhed on the floor, but didn’t regain consciousness. Jack repeated the process on the right leg. Then he packed up all his gear and returned to the hall.

He pulled the chair from where it was wedged against the closet door. He opened the door a crack.

“I’m leaving now, lady. When I’m gone you can go across the street and call the police. Better call an ambulance too.”

A single sob answered him.

Jack left by the back door. It felt good to get the stocking off his head.

* * * * *

When Jack dialed his answering machine the next morning there was only one message. It was from Oscar Schaffer. He sounded out of breath. And upset.

“You bastard! You sick, perverted bastard! I’m dropping the rest of your money off at that bar this morning and then I don’t want to see or hear or even think of you again!”

Jack was on his second coffee in Julio’s when he spotted Schaffer through the front window. He was moving fast, no doubt as close to a run as his portly frame would allow, clutching a white envelope in his hand. Perspiration gleamed on his pale forehead. His expression was strained. He looked like one frightened man.

Jack had told Julio he was coming so Julio intercepted him at the door as he did all Jack’s customers. But instead of leading him back to the Jack’s table, Julio returned alone. Jack spotted Schaffer hurrying back the way he had come.

Julio smiled as he handed Jack the envelope.

“What you do to spook him like that?”

Jack grabbed the envelope and hurried after Schaffer. He caught the developer as he was opening the door to a dark green Jaguar XJ 12.

“What’s going on?” Jack said.

Schaffer jumped at the sound of Jack’s voice. His already white face went two shades paler.

“Get away from me!”

He jumped into the car but Jack caught the door before he could slam it. He pulled the keys from Schaffer’s trembling fingers.

“I think we’d better talk. Unlock the doors.”

Jack went around to the other side and slipped into the passenger seat. He tossed the keys back to Schaffer.

“All right. What’s going on? The job’s done. The guy’s fixed. You didn’t need an alibi because it was done by a prowler. What’s the problem?”

Schaffer stared straight ahead through the windshield.

“How could you? I was so impressed with you the other day. The rogue with a code: ‘Sometimes I make a mistake. If that happens, I like to be able to go back and fix it.’

I really thought you were something else. I actually envied you. I never dreamed you could do what you did. Gus was a rotten son of a bitch, but you didn’t have to...” His voice trailed off.

Jack was baffled.

“You were the one who wanted him killed. I only broke his legs.”

Schaffer turned to him, the fear in his eyes giving way to fury.

“Don’t give me that shit! Who do you think you’re dealing with? I practically built that town! I’ve got connections!” He pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket and threw it at Jack. “I’ve read the medical examiner’s report!”

“Medical examiner? He’s dead?” Shit! Jack had heard of people with broken legs throwing a clot to the heart. “How?”

“Aw, don’t play cute! Gus was a scumbag and yes I wanted him dead, but I didn’t want him tortured! I didn’t want him... mutilated!”

It was time for Jack’s fingers to do a little trembling as he scanned the report. It described a man who’d been pistol whipped, bound by the hands, and had both tibias broken; then he’d been castrated with a Ginsu knife from his own kitchen and gagged with his testicles in his mouth. After that he’d undergone at least two hours of torture before he died of shock due to blood loss from a severed artery in his neck.

“It’ll be in all the afternoon papers,” Schaffer was saying. “You can add the clippings to your collection. I’m sure you’ve got a big one”

“Where was Ceil supposed to be during all this?”

“Locked in the hall closet. She got out after you left. And she had to find Gus like that. No one should have to see something like that. If I could make you pay–”

“When did she phone the cops?”

“Right before calling me – around three a.m.”

Jack shook his head. “Wow. Three hours...she spent three hours on him.”

“‘She’? Who?”

“Ceil.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Gus was trussed up and out cold with two broken legs but very much alive on the living room floor when I left. I opened the door to the closet where I’d put your sister, and took off. That was around midnight.”

“No. You’re lying. You’re saying Ceil–” He swallowed. “She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Besides, she called me at three, from a neighbor’s house, she’d only gotten free–”

“Three hours. Three hours between the time I opened the closet door and the time she called you.”

“No! Not Ceil! She...” Schaffer stared at Jack, and Jack met his gaze evenly. Slowly, like a dark stain seeping through heavy fabric, the truth took hold in his eyes. “Oh...my...God!”

He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. He looked like he was going to be sick. Jack gave him a few minutes. “The other day you said she needed help. Now she really needs it.”

“Poor Ceil!”

“Yeah. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I guess she was willing to put up with anything from a man who said he loved her. But when she found out he didn’t – and believe me, he let her know in no uncertain terms before he pulled the trigger on her.”

“Trigger? What–?”

“A long story. Ceil can tell you about it. But I guess when she found out how much he hated her, how he’d wanted her dead all these years, when she saw him ready to murder her, something must have snapped inside. When she came out of the closet and found him helpless on the living room floor, she must have gone a little crazy.”

“A little crazy? You call what she did a little crazy?”

Jack shrugged. He handed back the ME’s report and opened the car door.

“Your sister crammed ten years of pay back into three hours. She’s going to need a lot of help to recover from those ten years. And those three hours.”

Schaffer pounded his mahogany steering wheel.

“Shit! It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this!” Then he sighed and turned to Jack. “But I guess things don’t always go according to plan in your business.”

“Hardly ever.”

Jack got out of the car, closed the door, and listened to the Jag roar to life. As it screeched away, he headed back to Julio’s. A new customer was due at noon.

THE LONG WAY HOME

INTRODUCTION

Toward the end of May, 1990, Joe Lansdale called, looking for a story for Dark at Heart, an anthology he was editing with his wife Karen. He wanted it dark but without any supernatural. I suggested a New York mean-streets story starring Jack. He loved the idea. “The Long Way Home” was the result. I started it in late May but due to a crowded plate, didn’t finish it until the end of July.

Fifteen years later my agent contacted me about Amazon Shorts, a new feature at Amazon.com that would allow readers to download a short story for a nominal fee. Could I write something for them?

What was on my plate at the time: The tenth Jack novel, an RJ short story for ITW’s Thriller, scripting five issues of The Keep graphic miniseries, adapting four short stories for Doomed, revising the text and writing a foreword to the Infrapress edition of Wheels Within Wheels, revising Reprisal for Borderlands Press, revising The Tery and “The Last Rakosh” for Overlook Connection Press.

No, I couldn’t do a short story.

But I did have a long-lost Repairman Jack piece called “The Long Way Home” from Joe and Karen’s four-hundred-copy anthology that hadn’t been seen since 1992. I showed them that.

On the morning of May 11, Amazon, adamant about no previously published material, rejected it. By afternoon they’d reversed themselves. I was told that Jeff Bezos himself had said to screw the technicality in this case.

So I revised the story to bring it into the twenty-first century and sent it in. Amazon Shorts launched in August. “The Long Way Home” became the second most downloaded piece (and the #1 fiction download) during the program's first eighteen months.

THE LONG WAY HOME

1

Jack saw the whole thing. Another minute’s delay in leaving for home and he’d have been a block away when it went down. And then a different man would have died on the pavement.

But Julio had held him up, detailing his current bitch about all the yuppies chasing out his tavern’s regular customers. He was especially irate about one who’d offered to buy the place.

“You believe that?” Julio was saying. “He wanna turn it into a bistro, meng. A bistro!”

An incomprehensible stream of Puerto Rican followed. Which meant Julio was royally pissed. He was proud of his command of English and only under extreme provocation did he revert to his native tongue.

“He was only asking. What’s wrong with that?”

“Because he offer me a lot of money, meng. I mean a lot of money.”

“How much?”

Julio whispered it in Jack’s ear.

Right: A lot of money.

“I repeat: What’s wrong with that? You should be proud.”

“I don’ know ‘bout proud, but I was tempted to take it.”

“No!” Jack said, genuinely shaken. “Don’t say that, Julio. Don’t even think it.”

“I couldn’t help it. But I tol’ him to get lost. I mean, I like money much as the next guy, meng, but I only risk so much for it.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the motley collection of scruffy locals leaning on the bar behind him. “You know what those guys do to me if I sol’ out to a yuppie? Have to run for my life.”

“You may still have to if Maria finds out how much you turned down.”

“Don’ tell her. Don’ breathe a word, Jack.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

Jack left with his cold six-pack of Rolling Rock long necks and turned the corner onto Amsterdam Avenue, heading downtown. Quiet on the Upper West Side tonight. A lot of the restaurants were closed on Mondays and it was too cold for a casual stroll. Jack had the street pretty much to himself.

Gentrification had slowed in these parts – mainly because everything had been pretty well gentrified – and was seeping into Harlem and even Morningside Heights. This neighborhood, once ethnically and socioeconomically mixed, had homogenized into an all-white, upper-income enclave; neighborhood taverns had metamorphosed into brasseries and bistros, mom-and-pop grocery stores and bodegas into gourmet delis, sidewalk cafés, overpriced boutiques and shoppes – always spelled with the extra “-pe.” Rents had taken up residency in Mir’s old orbit.

At the next corner Jack spotted a blue-and-white parked by the fire hydrant in front of Costin’s. His first instinct was to turn and walk the other way, but that might draw attention.

He checked himself out in his mental mirror: average-length brown hair, NY Jets warm up Jacket over a flannel shirt, worn jeans over dirty white sneakers. Just an average Joe. Virtually invisible.

So he stayed on course.

Waiting on the curb for a car to pass, he did a quick scan of the scene. Quiet. Only one cop in the unit, in the passenger seat, looking relaxed. His partner was stepping into Costin’s. The light filtering through the open door revealed a very young-looking cop. Baby-faced. Probably picking up some donut-shaped teething biscuits.

Costin’s had been there forever – a Paleolithic prototype of the convenience store. Now it was one of the last mom-and-pops in the area. Old Costin had to stay open all hours just to meet the rent. The locals left over from the old days remained loyal, and most of the cops from the Two-oh stopped in regularly to help keep them going.

Jack was halfway across the street when he heard a boom. He knew that sound. Shotgun. Instinctively he ducked behind the nearest parked car on the far side. The sound had been muffled. An indoor shot.

Shit. Costin’s.

He set the six-pack down and peeked over the hood. The cop was out of the unit’s passenger seat now and on the sidewalk, drawing his pistol. Just then the door to Costin’s burst open and a giant leapt onto the top step. He stood six-six at least and looked completely bald under the flat black leather cap squeezed onto the top of his head; the loose sweatsuit he wore only emphasized his massive, bulked-up frame. He was snarling, his shiny black features contorted in rage. He held a sawed-off ten-gauge pump-action against his hip, aimed down at the cop.

In the clear air, lit by the mercury vapor lamps lining the block, the scene had an unreal look, like something out of a movie.

The cop raised his pistol, giving warning, going by the book.

“Drop it or I’ll–”

He never got to finish the sentence. The big guy barely blinked as he pulled the trigger.

The left side of the cop’s face and neck exploded red. His pistol flew from his hand as he was spun to his left to land face down on the hood of the unit. He left a wet, red smear as he slid across the hood. He rolled over the grille and landed on the asphalt in front of the bumper, flat on his back, twitching.

The big black guy’s face changed as soon as the cop went down. The snarl melted into a smile, but the rage remained, hiding behind the teeth he showed. Casually laying the shotgun across his shoulder, he approached the cop like a gardener strolling toward a cabbage patch with his hoe.

“Well, Mr. Man in Blue,” he said, standing over the moaning cop. “How’s it feel to bleed?”

The cop couldn’t speak. Even from down the street Jack could see the blood pumping from his neck. Another sixty seconds and he’d be history.

Jack found himself on the move before he knew it, his sneakers whispering along the pavement as he raced down the sidewalk in a crouch, watching the scene through the windows of the parked cars he kept between himself and the other side of the street.

A voice inside urged him the other way. Cops were the enemy, a threat to his own existence.

This isn’t your fight – butt out.

But another, deeper part of him overruled the voice and made him pull the Semmerling from his ankle holster. Still in a crouch, he started across the street.

“You know,” the big black was saying, “I could let you bleed some more and make a bigger puddle, and pretty soon you’d be just as dead as if I blowed your head off.” He grinned as he worked the pump on the sawed-off. A red-and-brass cartridge arced into the street. “But somehow that wouldn’t be the same.”

He leveled the truncated barrel into the cop’s face.

“Forget it,” Jack said as he came up behind him. He had the Semmerling pointed at the back of the guy’s head. “You’ve done enough for one night.”

The guy glanced over his shoulder. When his eyes lit on the Semmerling, he smiled.

“Ain’t never been threatened with a pop gun before.”

“Just drop the hog and take off.”

“You mean you ain’t gonna arrest me?”

Jack had acted on impulse. At the moment, the best course seemed to be get rid of the shooter and call an ambulance for the cop. Then disappear.

“One more time. Drop it and go.”

The guy’s voice jumped. “You kiddin’ me, man? I could take a couple from that pop gun and sit down for breakfast.”

“It’s a Semmerling L-4,” Jack said. “World’s smallest forty-five.”

The gunman paused.

“Oh. Well, in that case–”

The guy ducked to his right as he made a hard swing with the shotgun, trying to bring it to bear on Jack. Jack corrected his aim and pulled the trigger. The Semmerling boomed and bucked in his hand. The gunman’s right eye socket became a black hole and his leather cap spun away like a Frisbee. Red mist haloed his head as it jerked back with enough force to yank his feet off the pavement. The sawed-off tumbled from his hand and skittered along the sidewalk as he sprawled back on the sidewalk and flopped around until his body got the message that what little remained of the brain was mush. Then he lay still.

Jack knelt beside the fallen cop. He looked like hell. The mercury light further blanched the deathly pallor of his face. Eyes glazing, going fast. Where the hell was old man Costin? Where was the cop’s partner? Why wasn’t anyone around to call an ambulance? Jack felt naked and exposed out here on the street, but he couldn’t take off now.

He switched the Semmerling to his left hand, located the spot in the fallen cop’s throat that was doing the most pumping, and jammed his thumb into it. The flesh was wet and hot and sticky. He’d read novel after novel that mentioned the coppery smell of blood. He didn’t get it. He’d never known copper to have an odor worth mentioning, and if it did, it sure as hell didn’t smell like this.

Jack was about to look around again for help when he heard footsteps behind him.

“All right! Hold it right there, you fucker!”

Jack turned his head and saw a uniformed cop crouched on his right, taking two-handed aim at his head with a Glock. Another blue-and-white blocked the street behind him.

Jack’s gut looped into a knot and pulled tight.

“I’m holding it.”

“Drop the gun and put your hands up!”

Jack dropped the Semmerling and raised his left hand.

“C’mon!” The cop said. “Both of them!”

“This guy’s already half dead,” Jack said. “If I take my hand off this pumper, he’ll go the rest of the way in no time.”

“Christ!” the cop said, then shouted: “Gerry – you make the call?”

“Ambulance and back-up on the way,” said a voice from the unit.

“All right. See who’s down.”

Another uniform dashed out of the darkness behind the first cop and stopped within half a dozen feet of Jack. He squinted at the ruined face above Jack’s hand.

“Oh, Jeez, it’s Carella!”

“Shit!” said the first cop. He spoke through clenched teeth as he glared at Jack. “You dirty–”

“Hey-hey!” Jack said. “Let’s get something straight here. I didn’t shoot your pal.”

“Just shut the fuck up! You think I’m stupid?”

Jack bit back an affirmative and jerked his head toward the guy on the sidewalk.

“He did it.”

Apparently the cop hadn’t seen the other body until now. He jumped to his feet.

“Oh, great. Just great.”

The second cop, the one called Gerry, eased around to the sidewalk and checked out the body.

“This one’s cooling,” he said. “Head wound.” He whistled. “Looks like a hot load.”

“And I suppose you had nothing to do with that, either?” the first cop said.

“No. Him I did. But there was another cop. He went into Costin’s. I heard a shot, and then this guy–”

“Jeez!” Gerry said. “The kid was with Carella!”

“See if he’s all right!” the first cop said.

Gerry dashed up the stairs and grabbed the door handle. As he pulled it open, a voice screamed from within.

“Stay back! I got your buddy and the owner in here! Stay back or I’ll kill ‘em both!”

Gerry scuttled back down the steps.

“We got a hostage situation here, Fred.”

“He’s got the kid!” Fred said. “God damn! Call the hostage team. Now!”

As Gerry ran off, an emergency rig howled down the street and screeched to a halt. Jack explained to the EMTs what had happened and why he had his thumb sunk an inch into the wounded man’s neck. One of the techs pulled on a rubber glove and substituted his finger for Jack’s. He held it there as the wounded cop was lifted onto a stretcher.

Jack watched for a second, then began to edge backward, preparing to slide between two parked cars.

“No, you don’t!” Fred the cop said, jerking his pistol up level with Jack’s head. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere! Hands on the car and spread ‘em!”

Desperation gnawed on Jack’s spine as his eyes hunted for an escape route. The street crawled with uniforms, and they all seemed to be watching him. Slowly he forced his lead-filled limbs to move, slapping his hands against the hood of the patrol car, spreading his feet. He held up okay during the frisk, but he almost lost it when his hands were yanked behind his back and the cuffs squeezed around his wrists.

Cops, arrest, cuffs, interrogation, investigation, fingerprinting, exposure, court, lawyers, judges, jail – a recurrent nightmare for most of his adult life.

Tonight it was real.

2

“You sure you don’t want a lawyer?”

Jack looked up at the 20th Precinct’s chief of detectives, Lieutenant Thomas Carruthers. Fortyish, wearing a rumpled suit and no tie – a thrown-on set of clothes. Tall, dark, and handsome. Every woman’s crystal ball dream. Jack’s nightmare.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

“Say it again. I want to make sure I’ve got it on the tape.”

Jack directed his voice toward the tape recorder sitting on the battered oak table between him and Carruthers.

“I’m sure I don’t want a lawyer. At least not yet.”

Jack did want a lawyer. Very badly. But he didn’t know any, at least any he could trust. And the first thing a lawyer would tell him was to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t want to do that. These cops thought he’d shot one of their own. Things could get nasty here at the precinct house if he clammed up.

A nightmare. Booked, photographed, and worst of all, fingerprinted. He’d wanted to throw an epileptic fit when they’d coated his fingers in ink and began rolling the tips on that white card. But what would that do other than delay the inevitable?

With or without a lawyer he was screwed. If they didn’t get him for killing the cop, and if he wasn’t prosecuted for killing the guy with the shotgun, he’d still be up for possession of an unregistered firearm. Plus his cover would be permanently blown. Years of hiding in the cracks, of forging an existence in the interstices of society would be wiped away. And then the IRS would get involved, wondering why this man had no Social Security number. They’d begin investigating every nook and cranny of his entire 1040-less life.

And then the shit would really hit the fan.

Jack knew he was facing time. Hard time, soft time, state time, Fed time, it didn’t matter. He was going inside, no doubt for a long stretch.

Jack had sworn he’d never do time. And he wouldn’t.

“Good.” Carruthers spread a selection of Jack’s IDs on the table between them. “Maybe now you can tell me what’s all this bullshit?”

Jack stared at the contents of his wallet and felt the walls of the interrogation room close in. He said nothing.

“So who the hell are you?”

“The name’s Jack.”

“I gathered that.” He picked up the ID cards and shuffled through them. “Jack Berger, Jack Callahan, Jack Menella, Jack Jones” – Carruthers glanced up at him on that one – “and Jack Schwartz. So yeah, I guess your first name is Jack. But what’s the rest?”

“Jack will have to do, I’m afraid.”

Carruthers shot forward, leaning over the table, eyes ablaze.

“It won’t do at all, scumbag! One of our guys is in surgery fighting for his life and another’s a hostage and you’re up to your neck in it. So Jack ain’t gonna cut it!”

Jack didn’t flinch; gave back a glare of his own.

“If I hadn’t come by, Mr. Detective, your guy in surgery never would’ve made it to surgery. You’d still be scraping his brains off the street. But maybe I should’ve kept walking. If I had I wouldn’t be cuffed up here looking at you. Would you be happier if I’d done that? I know I would.”

Carruthers stared at Jack. For an instant, he seemed unsure of himself. As he opened his mouth to reply, another detective, a sergeant named Evans who’d been through a couple of times before, popped into the room again.

Evans had brought Jack into the interrogation room, and had been none too gentle getting him seated. A big guy – his jacket sleeves were tight – and Jack had no doubt that if it had been up to Evans he’d take Jack out in the nearest alley and kick him to death. Slowly.

But the cold light was gone from Evans’ eyes as he glanced Jack’s way on entering.

Carruthers stiffened at the sight of him.

“What’s up, Charlie? Any news?”

Evans shook his head. “Not really. Nothing bad, anyway. No more shots. The hostage team’s made phone contact. They’re trying to talk the guy down. Sounds really wired. Don’t worry, Tom. They’ll get him out.”

Carruthers nodded absently. “Yeah. How’s Carella?”

“Still in surgery as far as I know. Piacentino called from the One-eight. Says if there’s anything you need–”

“Tell him we’re okay, but thanks for asking.” After a pause, Carruthers said, “That it?”

“Nope. Got an ID on the dead guy. A prelim from the M.E. too.”

“So who is he?”

“You mean who was he. Abdul Khambatta, born Harvey Andrews. Out of Attica two months after a stretch for armed robbery. His sheet’s as long as my leg. One bad-news mother.”

“What’s the M.E. say?”

“No surprises. Single head shot. A pre-frag in the eye.”

Carruthers winced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah. M.E. said if the guy ever had any brains, you couldn’t prove it by him. Matches up with the three rounds left in our mystery man’s pop gun.”

Carruthers glanced at Jack. “Which isn’t registered, of course.”

“You got it.”

“How do we know the Semmerling belongs to him?”

“His prints are the only ones on it.”

“And the sawed-off?”

“Andrews’. ’Scuse me – Khambatta’s. Thing’s lousy with his prints.” He jerked a thumb at Jack. “I think we owe this guy.”

“Yeah? Maybe.”

Jack watched for some sign of relaxation from Carruthers but saw nothing. The lieutenant stayed wound tight as ever.

Carruthers said, “You ever meet anybody with five IDs who was straight, Charlie? If he’s not dirty on this he’s dirty on something else.”

“So?” Evans did not seem impressed.

“I want to know: Who is this guy?”

“Tell you one thing, Tom: His prints aren’t on file anywhere. And I mean anywhere.”

“How come I’m not surprised?”

“I got a better question,” Evans said. “How come you’re here and not over at Costin’s?”

Carruthers walked to the window and stared out at the night, saying nothing.

“I’ll take over at this end,” Evans said. “You should be there.”

Carruthers shook his head, still staring out the window.

“I’ll go nuts over there. The hostage team knows what to do. I’ll just get in the way, maybe even screw things up.”

“No you won’t. Why don’t–”

“Thanks, Charlie.” He turned and flashed him a tight smile. “I appreciate the thought, but let’s drop it. Okay?”

Evans shrugged. “Okay. But if you change your mind…”

Carruthers nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

When Evans was gone, Carruthers returned to the table, standing as he shifted through Jack’s IDs again.

“Prefragmented rounds? What’s the matter? You got something against wounding a guy?”

Jack said nothing. Truth was, he’d been loaded for indoor work. And in general, he didn’t like to have to shoot someone twice.

Suddenly Carruthers stiffened.

“I’ll be damned!” He picked up the IDs and flipped through them again. “Christ! It all fits!”

As Carruthers stared down at him, eyes wide, Jack felt his chest tighten, wondering what he’d found.

“Jesus! I always thought you were make believe. For years I’ve been catching a word here and there about this urban mercenary who hires out for all sorts of jobs, anything from kinda shady to out and out, down and dirty illegal. But when I ask about it, I get blank stares, dumb grins, and shrugs. So I figure it’s one of those urban myths, like the giant alligators in the sewers. But shit! You’re him! You’re that repairman guy!” He looked at the IDs. “Yeah – all Jacks. You’re Repairman Jack.”

Jack’s throat went dry, giving his voice a croaky sound.

“Who’s he?”

“Don’t play cute. You’re him. Gotta be. Jesus, I don’t believe this. I never thought you were real.” He looked down at the pile of phony IDs in his hand. “And I guess you aren’t. At least not officially, huh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah. Right. You know, if memory serves, some of the stuff I heard about you was pretty good, some of it wasn’t. And what wasn’t came from scumbags. But all of it sounded pretty rough. So I take it you’re a rough character, Repairman Jack. Speaking of which, why would anyone trust a guy who calls himself Repairman Jack?”

“Maybe it wasn’t his idea. Maybe someone called him that and it stuck.”

“Yeah, maybe. Sounds to me like a guy with a Robin Hood complex or something.”

“And who are you?” Jack said. “The Sheriff of Nottingham?”

While Carruthers mulled that, Jack pulled inside himself and fought the sick dread growing in his gut. This nightmare was deteriorating into a hell ride. He had to get out of here.

Jack considered that. If he could get close enough to Carruthers, even handcuffed, he might be able to do something. Anything. A crazy thought, but he was as good as dead if he stayed in custody, so he didn’t see how anything he tried could make matters worse.

“Yeah, well, whatever,” Carruthers was saying. He had that worried, distracted look again. “What are we going to do with you, Repairman Jack?”

“How about letting me go?”

Carruthers offered him a small, pursed-lips smile. “Right.”

“I did one of yours a favor, so now you do me a favor. Quid pro quo.”

Jack knew his request was useless, but he wanted to keep Carruthers talking, get him relaxed, maybe a bit careless.

“Don’t bullshit me, pal. The only one who says you helped Carella is you. How do I know you and Andrews and whoever’s still holed up in Costin’s weren’t together on this job?”

“Forget it,” Jack said, genuinely insulted. “Boosting a mom-and-pop?”

“Why not? Maybe business is slow. You operate on their level, Mr. Repairman. You’re an unknown quantity. You’re capable of anything as far as I’m concerned. So maybe Andrews did shoot Carella and maybe you two had a falling out over who was gonna get his service revolver, or who was going to finish him off. So you shot Andrews.”

“Sure. And then I tried to finish off your friend by clamping down on that artery in his neck.” Jack lifted his cuffed wrists and wiggled the fingers of his right hand. “Here. Take a look. I’ve still got his blood under my fingernails.”

Carruthers stared at Jack’s hand but didn’t move.

“Come on,” Jack said. Get close… real close. “See for yourself.”

Carruthers shook his head. “Maybe you knew you were about to get caught and were just putting on a show.”

Jack dropped his hands. “You’re all heart.”

Carruthers scowled. “Even if I wanted to let you go – which I don’t – it’s out of the question.”

“We’re not just talking about me losing my way of life here,” Jack said. “We’re talking about my life. Put me in the spotlight and I’m a dead man. I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years. I can handle them fine by myself out on the street, but put me in the joint and every slimeball and two-bit wise guy with a grudge who’s got a friend inside will be gunning for me. All for helping out a cop.”

Evans barged in the door then, grinning.

“Carella’s out of surgery! Gonna be okay!”

Carruthers leaned back and closed his eyes. “Thank God!”

“And you know what he says? Some citizen saved his life – blew away the guy who was gonna off him.”

The big sergeant looked at Jack and winked.

After a protracted pause, Carruthers opened his eyes, rose from the chair, and went to the window to do his staring routine.

“Our suspect here thinks we should let him go and forget he was ever in custody.”

“What suspect?” Evans said, looking around the room. “I don’t see no suspect. I don’t remember booking anybody tonight. Do you?”

Another long pause, with Jack holding his breath the whole time.

“Check the files,” Carruthers said without turning. “See if there’s any unaccounted-for paperwork or property out there, and bring it in.”

“You got it.”

Evans gave Jack a thumbs-up as he left the room.

Jack sat quietly, watching Carruthers’ back. He said nothing, fearing to break the spell of unreality that had taken control of the room.

Evans returned in no time with a brown folder and a manila envelope.

“Here it is.”

Carruthers joined him at the table. “All of it?”

“Personal property, print cards, booking sheets, photos, and miscellaneous paperwork referring to some suspect I’ve never heard of.”

“Unlock him.”

As Evans keyed the cuffs open, Carruthers scooped up Jack’s array of ID and dropped it in the envelope. He slid the folder and envelope across the table to Jack.

“Sergeant Evans will take you out the back.”

Jack’s legs went Wrigley as he stood. He could barely speak.

“I don’t–”

“Damn right, you don’t,” Carruthers said, looking him in the eyes. “You don’t know me and I don’t know you. And you don’t owe me and I don’t owe you. This is it. We’re even. I don’t want to see or hear of you again. And if I do see you and you’re so much as jaywalking, I’ll pull you in. We clear on that?”

“Yeah. And thanks.”

“No, thanks, dammit! Just evening up. You didn’t have to do what you did but you did; I don’t have to do what I’m doing, but I am. Like you said: Quid pro quo. This for that. Now get out of my sight.”

Jack got. He followed Evans out to the back of the precinct house.

“Not easy for him to do this,” Evans said along the way. “He’s a real straight arrow.”

“So I gather.”

Jack understood what Carruthers was going through in overcoming a career’s worth of conditioning, and he appreciated it. He stopped at the back door and faced Evans.

“He thinks we’re even but we’re not. I owe him. I’ll give you a number. If there’s ever anything I can do for him–”

“Too bad you can’t get his kid brother out of Costin’s.”

The shock pushed Jack back a step into the alley.

“The hostage cop is Carruthers’ brother?”

“Yeah. Patrolman Louis Carruthers. Twenty-two years old. Got any miracles in your pocket?”

Jack remembered something Julio had showed him in the basement of his tavern.

“You never know.”

He turned and hurried toward the street.

3

Downstairs, ten feet below the bar, past the cases of booze and kegs of beer, an old hutch stood against the wall. The glass was long gone, and a thick layer of dust hid the scars in the warped mahogany veneer.

Jack coughed and grunted as he and Julio slid it away from the wall.

“See?” Julio said, pointing to the rectangular opening in the brick. “It din go nowhere.”

Costin’s backed up against Julio’s. Years ago Jack had asked if there was an emergency escape route from the tavern – besides the back door. Julio had brought him down here and shown him the old airshaft that ran up from his basement.

“Refresh me on this. Where does it go?”

Julio handed him the flashlight and smiled.

“Up. After that, I don’ know. Never wanted to find out. You gonna be the first guy in there since I bought the place.”

Jack poked his head and shoulders into the shaft and shone the flash upward. Crumbling brickwork, cobwebs, and an inky blackness that devoured the beam of light. The basement of Costin’s was only a few feet away. Maybe the shaft could get him there.

“If this is an airshaft,” Jack said, “how come I don’t feel any airflow?”

“Because ‘bout fifty years ago, somebody covered the buildings with a single roof. Probably a dead end. You wasting you time, meng. ‘Sides, it’s not like you to get involved in this kinda thing.”

“I owe somebody a try.”

Jack tied a string around the neck of the flashlight, looped the rest of the length around his neck, and let the light dangle over his sternum where the beam splashed up over his face. A miner’s lamp hat would have been better but this would have to do. He pulled on a pair of heavy work gloves.

“Hang around, okay? In case I get stuck.”

Julio seated himself on some cases of Yeungling Lager.

“Don’ worry. I be right here.”

Jack took a deep breath, let it all out, then squeezed through the opening. He hated tight places. Especially dark tight places. He straightened inside the rectangular shaft. The crumbling brick surface was rough and craggy. He braced his hands against the wall along the wide axis of the shaft, dug the side of a sneaker into one of the countless little crevices, and began to climb.

A long climb. A three-story struggle, with a long, maiming impact lurking below, hungering for a slip. And above – the very real possibility of finding the upper end of the shaft sealed.

But it wasn’t. Jack reached the top and found a two-foot gap between the roof and the last of the bricks. Directly to his right, mated side by side to this one, stood another shaft. Hopefully leading to Costin’s.

Jack slid over the top of one and into the other. He had a bad moment when his sneakers began to slip, but he dangled by his hands until his feet found purchase. Then he began the long descent, dragging his denimed butt against the brickwork as an extra brake. The trip down was quicker. He was glad he’d thought of the gloves. Without them his hands would have been raw meat by now.

When he reached bottom he stood perfectly still and let his ears adjust.

Quiet.

He swept the flashlight around and checked out the base of the shaft. The opening was at knee level and blocked with a smooth brown surface. Jack nudged it with his foot and it gave easily. Cardboard.

With the flashlight off, he knelt and inched back the stack of cartons that formed the barrier. He peeked into the basement: empty, cavelike darkness. He listened again. Someone upstairs in the store was talking – shouting – in a high-pitched voice. Even through the floor Jack could feel the hysterical edge on that voice. Only one voice. Probably Khambatta’s partner talking on the phone to the hostage team.

Jack squeezed through the opening and stood. From this angle he could make out a faint sliver of light high up and off to his right. Had to be a doorway. He pulled the flashlight free of the string and flicked it on and off, just long enough to find a clear path through the piles of stock. Straight across the floor lay a set of steps. Jack drew the Semmerling and slid through the dark.

As he neared the other end he flicked the flash on and off again. And froze.

Someone on the steps to the door.

Jack waited, listening for movement, for breathing. Nothing. Just an occasional squeak of the floorboards above. And something else. Whoever was up there had stopped talking and was making another sound. Jack cocked an ear toward the ceiling. It sounded almost like… sobbing.

But who was on the stairs?

Jack turned on the flashlight and trained it straight ahead. A man lay sprawled, head down, one arm flung out, the other under him, legs splayed, eyes wide, staring. Very still. And wet. The front of his uniform glistened a deeper blue where a thick, dark fluid had soaked through it. His throat was a ruin and half of his lower jaw had been torn away. But deathly white and upside down though it was, enough of the face was left undamaged for Jack to catch the resemblance to Lieutenant Carruthers.

“The kid.” Louis.

“Son of a bitch!”

Another throat shot. Same style as Khambatta’s: Aim high in case the cop was wearing a vest.

Jack slipped the Semmerling into his pocket and stretched a hand toward Louis’s forehead. No question that he was dead, but Jack needed to touch him. To be absolutely sure.

The skin felt dry and thick and cold. “The kid” was very dead.

Cold black anger surged. Twenty-something years old, stopping by Costin’s for a late-night snack, and getting blown away.

“Son of a bitch!”

Jack straightened and turned off the flashlight.

What next? He’d come here as a payback, to see if he could get Carruthers’ brother out of this jam. But the kid was beyond help. So there was nothing left for him to do.

Except maybe settle a score on the lieutenant’s behalf.

But old man Costin was upstairs somewhere. Jack had known Costin since moving to the city. He didn’t like to think of the old guy held hostage, maybe face down on the floor, shivering with terror. But he could back away from that. He didn’t owe Costin – not enough to risk exposure by making a move on the remaining gunman. Better all-around to leave old Costin’s fate in the hands of the hostage team.

Time to fade away. Time to head back to the air shaft.

But he didn’t move.

Just then the door above slammed open and a wide shaft of fluorescent light pinned him like a frog on a log. A high male voice began screeching at him.

“Hold it, muthafucka! Hold it or I’ll blow you away just like I did him!”

Jack turned slowly and saw a wide silhouette in the doorway. He showed his flashlight and his empty right hand.

“I’m not armed.”

Jack was glad he’d brought only the tiny Semmerling. It lay flat in his pocket.

“Yeah, right. An’ I’m Fiddy Cent. You a cop, fucka. An’ you was tryin’ to sneak up on me.”

“I’m no cop. And I was just leaving.”

“The fuck you was. There ain’t no door down here. I checked already.”

“If you say so.” Jack waved his empty hand. “Bye!”

Jack dove into the darkness to his right, rolled to his feet, and ducked behind a stack of canned goods. As a stream of curses erupted from the stairwell, he pulled out the Semmerling and crept toward the rear. Behind him he heard some fumbling against the wall, then a click and the cellar lights lit up – a few dim, widely spaced naked incandescent bulbs set among the ceiling beams. Jack got his first look at the guy as he rushed down the steps, nearly tripping over his feet in his haste.

He had a buzz-cut head and he was fat. No more than five-eight, but at least three-hundred pounds. Baby-faced with huge cheeks and tiny dark eyes barely visible above them. His skin was black as a bible and glistened with sweat. Fat. Not brawny fat, not hard fat. Jell-O fat that lurched and rolled around his middle as he moved. The sawed-off shotgun he carried looked like a toy in his pudgy fingers.

“Ain’t no use in hiding, fucka. Ain’t no way outta here.”

Then how’d I get in? Jack thought, wondering when that notion would strike Fatso.

He stayed low, listening as the guy moved through the dimly lit cellar like a bull, knocking over stacks of cans, smashing cases of bottles. The odor of gherkins began to filter through the air. Jack wondered how long it would take Fatso to find the opening.

From the rear of the cellar: “Shee-it!”

He’d found it.

And then as Jack crouched and waited, he heard a frantic scratching, scrabbling sound, like Fred Astaire on speed doing a softshoe to Motorhead. Coming from the airshaft entry. Jack crawled over to investigate.

Fatso was there. He had his head and one shoulder rammed into the airshaft opening and was trying to squeeze the rest of his body through. He grunted and groaned as his Pumas scraped madly on the dusty floor in a desperate effort to force his way in. But it wasn’t happening. He was a bowling ball trying to drop into a billiard pocket. No way.

Finally, he gave up. Panting, gasping, retching with the exertion, he pulled himself free and slumped to the floor where he cradled his sawed-off shotgun in his lap and began to cry.

Jack was standing over him by now, but for a moment or so he could only stare and listen to the guy sob. Pitiful. He’d wanted to pop the guy. But now…

When he’d heard all he could stand, he raised the Semmerling.

“Okay, Fatso. Cut the blubbering and get up – without the shotgun.”

Fatso started and looked up at Jack, at the Semmerling, and got to his feet. But the shotgun still hung from his hand.

“I said drop the sawed-off or you’re dead.”

“Go ‘head,” he said, sniffling but still clutching the stock grip. “Good as dead already.”

“For blowing away a cop – yeah, I guess you are.”

“Didn’t kill no cop.” He was sulky now.

“That’s not what you told me a couple of minutes ago. And by the way, how’s old man Costin – the owner? He okay?”

Fatso nodded. “Locked him in the crapper.”

“At least somebody’s still alive.”

“Ain’t never killed nobody! That was Abdul. He done the cop. Didn’t have to, neither. Had the drop on the guy but he just pulled the trigger and liked to took his head off.”

That jibed with Jack’s take on young Carruthers’ neck wound. He tasted his saliva turning bitter.

“Swell. He was only twenty-two. A little younger than you, I figure.”

“I didn’t do it, man!”

“Doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger. You’re a part of a felony where a killing’s gone down. Automatic murder-one for you.”

“I knew you was a cop.”

“Already told you – not a cop. Don’t have to be a cop to know you’re heading for a major jolt in the joint.”

His fat lips quivered. “Already done that.”

He lifted the shotgun and Jack ducked to his right, his finger tightening on the Semmerling’s trigger. But the sawed-off barrel kept on rising till the bore was snug against the underside of Fatso’s chin.

Jack cringed, waiting for the boom and brain splatter.

It never came. A sob burst through Fatso’s lips as he dropped the weapon back to his side and slumped to the floor again.

“I can’t do it!” he screeched through clenched teeth.

Jack, speechless before this utterly miserable creature, said nothing.

“Can’t hack the joint again, man,” Fatso moaned. “I can’t!”

“What’d you go in for?”

“Got a dime for dealin’. Out early.”

“What’s your name?”

“Henry. Henry Thompson. They call me Fat Henry.”

Can’t imagine why,” Jack thought

“The joint – is that where you met Khambatta?”

Fat Henry nodded again. “He on the back end of three-to-five when I got in. We became… friends.”

“You two don’t seem to be each other’s type.”

“He protected me.”

Jack nodded. He got the picture.

“I see.”

“No, man. You don’t see,” Fat Henry said, his voice rising. “You don’t see shit! You don’t know what it was like in there! I was tail meat! Guys’d be lined up in the shower to get at me! I wanted to die!”

“And Khambatta saved you.”

Fat Henry let out a tremulous sigh. “Yeah. Sort of. He took me in. Protected me.”

“Made you his property so he could have you all to himself.”

“I ain’t like that, man! I just did what I hadda to get through it! Don’t you dump on me if you ain’t been there!”

Jack only shook his head. He didn’t know how many things were worth dying over, but he was pretty sure that was one of them. And he didn’t know what to make of Fat Henry. He was one pathetic son of a bitch, but he wasn’t a killer. He was going to be treated as one, though – a cop killer.

“So how come you’re still with Khambatta?”

“I ain’t. He ain’t like that, either – least not outside. We got out about the same time and he call me last week ‘bout picking up some quick cheese.”

“Swell. What you picked up instead was another trip to Attica.”

“No way I’m goin’ back inside! I’m getting outta here.”

“How?”

“Gettin’ a car from the cops.”

“You sure about that? What’ve you told them about their dead pal?”

“Nothin’. Told ‘em he’s safe and sound but I’ll shoot him dead they make a move on me.”

“You really think they’re going to let you have a car without talking to their man, without making sure he’s all right?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Fat Henry’s voice faltered. “They gotta. Don’t they?”

Jack shook his head, slowly, deliberately. “Switch places: Would you let you have a car?”

“I ain’t goin’ back.” Tears began to stream down his face. “I’ll off myself first!”

“You already tried that.”

Fat Henry glared at him. Again he lifted the shotgun. Jack thought he was going to put it under his jaw again; instead he offered it to Jack.

“Here. You do it.”

Jack took the weapon and sniffed the bore. It hadn’t been fired tonight. He was almost tempted to aim it at Fat Henry’s face to see how serious he was about this, but decided against it. Instead, he worked the pump, sending red-and-brass cylinders tumbling through the gloom one after another until they lay scattered on the floor like party favors. He tossed the empty shotgun back to Fat Henry. Hard.

“Do your own dirty work.”

“You fucker!”

Thoroughly fed up, Jack stepped over him toward the airshaft opening.

“And I’m not hanging around listening to you blubber.”

“I need help, dog.” He was whining now.

“No argument there. But there’s only one person here who can help you and he’s sitting on the floor whining.”

“Fuck you!”

Jack had one leg through the opening. He turned and jabbed a finger at Fat Henry.

“You’re the one who’s fucked, Fatso. Look at your life! What’ve you ever done with it? You got busted dealing – crack, right? You let yourself be the shower-room bimbo until some tough guy came along and made you his private tool. You went along on this armed robbery bullshit, and now somebody’s dead and you’re bawling because it’s time to pay the piper. You make me sick.”

Another whine. “But what can I do?”

“First of all, you can get off your ass and onto your feet.”

Fat Henry rolled over and struggled to his feet.

“Good,” Jack said. “That’s a start. Now you’ve got to go upstairs and face the music.”

He stepped back, a caged animal look in his eyes. “Uh-uh.”

“Either they take you up there, or they come down those stairs, step over the body of their buddy, and take you here.”

“Told you! I can’t go back to the joint!”

“You’ve got to stand up, Henry Thompson. For once in your life you’ve got to stand up.”

“But I can’t!”

Jack stared him down in the silence that followed.

“Then sit here all night and play with yourself until somebody else makes the choice for you. That seems to be the story of your life, Henry.”

Fat Henry looked toward the steps up to the first floor. He stood like a statue, staring.

“I can choose,” he said in a soft, far-away voice. “I can choose. I’ll show you I can choose.”

“Sure you can, Henry.”

Jack left him like that.

4

A little while later Jack stood in the street, on the fringe of the crowd around Costin’s. He wanted to tell the vultures to go home, that it was going to be a long night. He was about to leave for home himself when Fat Henry came out.

Costin’s front door slammed open and there he was, all three-hundred pounds of him, brandishing his shotgun and screaming like a wild man. He got off one blast that looked like it was aimed at the moon. All around Jack the crowd screamed and dove for cover, leaving him standing alone as the two-dozen cops out front opened up.

The fusillade slammed Fat Henry back against the doorframe, his sawed-off went spinning, and then he was turning and falling and rolling down the steps. It was over in seconds. No Peckinpah slo-mo. No ballet-like turns. Quick, graceless, ugly, and red. He hit the sidewalk face first and never moved again.

Fat Henry Thompson had finally stood up. And he’d got his wish: He wouldn’t be going back to Attica.

Jack turned and walked away, stepping over the prone onlookers as they peeked between their fingers and made horrified noises. As he headed home he tried to put his finger on the feelings massed in his chest like a softball-sized lump of putty – cold putty.

Not sadness, certainly not glee or satisfaction. More a bleakness. A dark despair for all the hardcore losers in this city, the ones it created and the others it attracted.

He passed a corner litter basket and gave it a hard kick, adding an especially deep dent to its already bruised flanks.

A waste. A damn stupid fruitless futile ass-brained waste.

When he got to his door he realized he didn’t have his beer. The six-pack he’d gone out for earlier in the evening was long gone from where he’d left it sitting on the curb. He could really have used a Rock about now. And he could probably find an all-night deli to where he could buy some.

Nah.

Jack stepped inside and locked the door behind him.

He couldn’t risk it. The way things were going tonight, he might not make it home again.

GOOD FRIDAY

GOOD FRIDAY

“The Holy Father says there are no such things as vampires,” Sister Bernadette Gileen said.

Sister Carole Hanarty glanced up from the pile of chemistry tests on her lap—tests she might never be able to return to her sophomore students—and watched Bernadette as she drove through town, working the shift on the old Datsun like a long-haul trucker. Her dear friend and fellow Sister of Mercy was thin, almost painfully so, with large blue eyes and short red hair showing around the white band of her wimple. As she peered through the windshield, the light of the setting sun ruddied the clear, smooth skin of her round face.

“If His Holiness said it, then we must believe it,” Sister Carole said. “But we haven’t heard anything from him in so long. I hope …”

Bernadette turned toward her, eyes wide with alarm.

“Oh, you wouldn’t be thinking anything’s happened to His Holiness now, would you, Carole?” she said, the lilt of her native Ireland elbowing its way into her voice. “They wouldn’t dare!”

Carole was momentarily at a loss as to what to say, so she gazed out the side window at the budding trees sliding past. The sidewalks of this little Jersey Shore town were empty, and hardly any other cars on the road. She and Bernadette had had to try three grocery stores before finding one with anything to sell. Between the hoarders and delayed or canceled shipments, food was getting scarce.

Everybody sensed it. How did that saying go? By pricking in my thumbs, something wicked this way comes …

Or something like that.

She rubbed her cold hands together and thought about Bernadette, younger than she by five years—only twenty-six—with such a good mind, such a clear thinker in so many ways. But her faith was almost childlike.

She’d come to the convent at St. Anthony’s two years ago, and the two of them had established instant rapport. They shared so much. Not just a common Irish heritage, but a certain isolation as well. Carole’s parents had died years ago, and Bernadette’s were back on the Old Sod. So they became sisters in a sense that went beyond their sisterhood in the order. Carole was the big sister, Bernadette the little one. They prayed together, laughed together, walked together. They took over the convent kitchen and did all the food shopping together. Carole could only hope that she had enriched Bernadette’s life half as much as the younger woman had enriched hers.

Bernadette was such an innocent. She seemed to assume that since the Pope was infallible when he spoke on matters of faith or morals he somehow must be invincible too.

Carole hadn’t told Bernadette, but she’d decided not to believe the Pope on the matter of the undead. After all, their existence was not a matter of faith or morals. Either they existed or they didn’t. And all the news out of Eastern Europe last fall had left little doubt that vampires were real.

And that they were on the march.

Somehow they had got themselves organized. Not only did they exist, but more of them had been hiding in Eastern Europe than even the most superstitious peasant could have imagined. And when the communist bloc crumbled, when all the former client states and Russia were in disarray, grabbing for land, slaughtering in the name of nation and race and religion, the vampires took advantage of the power vacuum and struck.

They struck high, they struck low, and before the rest of the world could react, they controlled all Eastern Europe.

If they had merely killed, they might have been containable. But because each kill was a conversion, their numbers increased in a geometric progression. Sister Carole understood geometric progressions better than most. Hadn’t she spent years demonstrating them to her chemistry class by dropping a seed crystal into a beaker of supersaturated solution? That one crystal became two, which became four, which became eight, which became sixteen, and so on. You could watch the lattices forming, slowly at first, then bridging through the solution with increasing speed until the liquid contents of the beaker became a solid mass of crystals.

That was how it had gone in Eastern Europe, then spreading into Russia and into Western Europe.

The vampires became unstoppable.

All of Europe had been silent for months. Officially, at least. But a couple of the students at St. Anthony’s High who had shortwave radios had told Carole of faint transmissions filtering through the transatlantic night recounting ghastly horrors all across Europe under vampire rule.

But the Pope had declared there were no vampires. He’d said it, but shortly thereafter he and the Vatican had fallen silent along with the rest of Europe.

Washington had played down the immediate threat, saying the Atlantic Ocean formed a natural barrier against the undead. Europe was quarantined. America was safe.

Then came reports, disputed at first, and still officially denied, of vampires in New York City. Most of the New York TV and radio stations had stopped transmitting last week. And now …

“You can’t really believe vampires are coming into New Jersey, can you?” Bernadette said. “I mean, that is, if there were such things.”

“It is hard to believe, isn’t it?” Carole said, hiding a smile. “Especially since no one comes to Jersey unless they have to.”

“Oh, don’t you be having on with me now. This is serious.”

Bernadette was right. It was serious. “Well, it fits the pattern my students have heard from Europe.”

“But dear God, ‘tis Holy Week! ‘Tis Good Friday, it is! How could they dare?”

“It’s the perfect time, if you think about it. There will be no mass said until the first Easter Mass on Sunday morning. What other time of the year is daily mass suspended?”

Bernadette shook her head. “None.”

“Exactly.” Carole looked down at her cold hands and felt the chill crawl all the way up her arms.

The car suddenly lurched to a halt and she heard Bernadette cry out, “Dear Jesus! They’re already here!”

Half a dozen black-clad forms clustered on the corner ahead, staring at them.

“Got to get out of here!” Bernadette said, and hit the gas.

The old car coughed and died.

“Oh, no!” Bernadette wailed, frantically pumping the gas pedal and turning the key as the dark forms glided toward them. “No!”

“Easy, dear,” Carole said, laying a gentle hand on her arm. “It’s all right. They’re just kids.”

Perhaps “kids” was not entirely correct. Two males and four females who looked to be in their late teens and early twenties, but carried any number of adult lifetimes behind their heavily made-up eyes. Grinning, leering, they gathered around the car, four on Bernadette’s side and two on Carole’s. Sallow faces made paler by a layer of white powder, kohl-crusted eyelids, and black lipstick. Black fingernails, rings in their ears and eyebrows and nostrils, chrome studs piercing cheeks and hps. Their hair ranged the color spectrum, from dead white through burgundy to crankcase black. Bare hairless chests on the boys under their leather jackets, almost-bare chests on the girls in their black push-up bras and bustiers. Boots of shiny leather or vinyl, fishnet stockings, layer upon layer of lace, and everything black, black, black.

“Hey, look!” one of the boys said. A spiked leather collar girded his throat, acne lumps bulged under his whiteface. “Nuns!”

“Penguins!” someone else said.

Apparently this was deemed hilarious. The six of them screamed with laughter.

We’re not penguins, Carole thought. She hadn’t worn a full habit in years. Only the headpiece.

“Shit, are they gonna be in for a surprise tomorrow morning!” said a buxom girl wearing a silk top hat.

Another roar of laughter by all except one. A tall slim girl with three large black tears tattooed down one cheek, and blond roots peeking from under her black-dyed hair, hung back, looking uncomfortable. Carole stared at her. Something familiar there …

She rolled down her window. “Mary Margaret? Mary Margaret Flanagan, is that you?”

More laughter. “ ‘Mary Margaret’?” someone cried. “That’s Wicky!”

The girl stepped forward and looked Carole in the eye. “Yes, sister. That used to be my name. But I’m not Mary Margaret anymore.”

“I can see that.”

She remembered Mary Margaret. A sweet girl, extremely bright, but so quiet. A voracious reader who never seemed to fit in with the rest of the kids. Her grades plummeted as a junior. She never returned for her senior year. When Carole had called her parents, she was told that Mary Margaret had left home. She’d been unable to learn anything more.

“You’ve changed a bit since I last saw you. What is it—three years now?”

“You talk about change?” said the top-hatted girl, sticking her face in the window. “Wait’ll tonight. Then you’ll really see her change!” She brayed a laugh that revealed a chromed stud in her tongue.

“Butt out, Carmilla!” Mary Margaret said.

Carmilla ignored her. “They’re coming tonight, you know. The Lords of the Night will be arriving after sunset, and that’ll spell the death of your world and the birth of ours. We will present ourselves to them, we will bare our throats and let them drain us, and then we’ll join them. Then we will rule the night with them!”

It sounded like a canned speech, one she must have delivered time and again to her black-clad troupe.

Carole looked past Carmilla to Mary Margaret. “Is that what you believe? Is that what you really want?”

The girl shrugged her high thin shoulders. “Beats anything else I got going.”

Finally the old Datsun shuddered to life. Carole heard Bernadette working the shift. She touched her arm and said, “Wait. Just one more moment, please.”

She was about to speak to Mary Margaret when Carmilla jabbed her finger at Carole’s face, shouting.

“Then you bitches and the candy-ass god you whore for will be fucking extinct!”

With a surprising show of strength, Mary Margaret yanked Carmilla away from the window.

“Better go, Sister Carole,” Mary Margaret said.

The Datsun started to move.

“What the fuck’s with you, Wicky?” Carole heard Carmilla scream as the car eased away from the dark cluster. “Getting religion or somethin’? Should we start callin’ you ‘Sister Mary Margaret’ now?”

“She was one of the few people who was ever straight with me,” Mary Margaret said. “So fuck off, Carmilla.”

The car had traveled too far to hear more.

“What awful creatures they were!” Bernadette said, staring out the window in Carole’s room. She hadn’t been able to stop talking about the incident on the street. “Almost my age, they were, and such horrible language!”

Her convent room was little more than a ten-by-ten-foot plaster box with cracks in the walls and the latest coat of paint beginning to flake off the ancient embossed tin ceiling. She had one window, a crucifix, a dresser and mirror, a worktable and chair, a bed, and a nightstand as furnishings. Not much, but she gladly called it home. She took her vow of poverty seriously.

“Perhaps we should pray for them.”

“They need more than prayer, I’d think. Believe me you, they’re heading for a bad end.” Bernadette removed the oversized rosary she wore looped around her neck, gathering the beads and its attached crucifix in her hand. “Maybe we could offer them some crosses for protection?”

Carole couldn’t resist a smile. “That’s a sweet thought, Bern, but I don’t think they’re looking for protection.”

“Sure, and look at it after what I’m saying,” Bernadette said, her own smile rueful. “No, of course they wouldn’t.”

“But we’ll pray for them,” Carole said.

Bernadette dropped into a chair, stayed there for no more than a heartbeat, then was up again, moving about, pacing the confines of Carole’s room. She couldn’t seem to sit still. She wandered out into the hall and came back almost immediately, rubbing her hands together as if washing them.

“It’s so quiet,” she said. “So empty.”

“I certainly hope so,” Carole said. “We’re the only two who are supposed to be here.”

The little convent was half empty even when all its residents were present. And now, with St. Anthony’s School closed for the coming week, the rest of the nuns had gone home to spend Easter Week with brothers and sisters and parents. Even those who might have stayed around the convent in past years had heard the rumors that the undead might be moving this way, so they’d scattered south and west. Carole’s only living relative was a brother who lived in California, and he hadn’t invited her; even if he had, she couldn’t afford to fly there and back to Jersey just for Easter. Bernadette hadn’t heard from her family in Ireland for months.

So that left just the two of them to hold the fort, as it were.

Carole wasn’t afraid. She knew they’d be safe here at St. Anthony’s. The convent was part of a complex consisting of the church itself, the rectory, the grammar school and high school buildings, and the sturdy old, two-story rooming house that was now the convent. She and Bernadette had taken second-floor rooms, leaving the first floor to the older nuns.

Not really afraid, although she wished there were more people left in the complex than just Bernadette, herself, and Father Palmeri.

“I don’t understand Father Palmeri,” Bernadette said. “Locking up the church and keeping his parishioners from making the stations of the cross on Good Friday. Who’s ever heard of such a thing, I ask you? I just don’t understand it.”

Carole thought she understood. She suspected that Father Alberto Palmeri was afraid. Sometime this morning he’d locked up the rectory, barred the door to St. Anthony’s, and hidden himself in the church basement.

God forgive her, but to Sister Carole’s mind, Father Palmeri was a coward.

“Oh, I do wish he’d open the church, just for a little while,” Bernadette said. “I need to be in there, Carole. I need it.”

Carole knew how Bern felt. Who had said religion was an opiate of the people? Marx? Whoever it was, he hadn’t been completely wrong. For Carole, sitting in the cool, peaceful quiet beneath St. Anthony’s gothic arches, praying, meditating, and feeling the presence of the Lord were like a daily dose of an addictive drug. A dose she and Bern had been denied today. Bern’s withdrawal pangs seemed worse than Carole’s.

The younger nun paused as she passed the window, then pointed down to the street.

“And now who in God’s name would they be?”

Carole rose and stepped to the window. Passing on the street below was a cavalcade of shiny new cars—Mercedes Benzes, BMWs, Jaguars, Lincolns, Cadillacs—all with New York plates, all cruising from the direction of the parkway.

The sight of them in the dusk tightened a knot in Carole’s stomach. The lupine faces she spied through the windows looked brutish, and the way they drove their gleaming luxury cars down the center line … as if they owned the road.

A Cadillac convertible with its top down passed below, carrying four scruffy men. The driver wore a cowboy hat, the two in the back sat atop the rear seat, drinking beer. When Carole saw one of them glance up and look their way, she tugged on Bern’s sleeve.

“Stand back! Don’t let them see you!”

“Why not? Who are they?”

“I’m not sure, but I’ve heard of bands of men who do the vampires’ dirty work during the daytime, who’ve traded their souls for the promise of immortality later on, and for … other things now.”

“Sure and you’re joking, Carole!”

Carole shook her head. “I wish I were.”

“Oh, dear God, and now the sun’s down.” She turned frightened blue eyes toward Carole. “Do you think maybe we should … ?”

“Lock up? Most certainly. I know what His Holiness said about there not being any such thing as vampires, but maybe he’s changed his mind since then and just can’t get word to us.”

“Sure and you’re probably right. You close these and I’ll check down the hall.” She hurried out, her voice trailing behind her. “Oh, I do wish Father Palmeri hadn’t locked the church. I’d dearly love to say a few prayers there.”

Sister Carole glanced out the window again. The fancy new cars were gone, but rumbling in their wake was a convoy of trucks—big, eighteen-wheel semis, lumbering down the center line. What were they for? What did they carry? What were they delivering to town?

Suddenly a dog began to bark, and then another, and more and more until it seemed as if every dog in town was giving voice.

To fight the unease rising within her like a flood tide, Sister Carole concentrated on the simple manual tasks of closing and locking her window and drawing the curtains.

But the dread remained, a sick, cold certainty that the world was falling into darkness, that the creeping hem of shadow had reached her corner of the globe, and that without some miracle, without some direct intervention by a wrathful God, the coming night hours would wreak an irrevocable change on her life.

She began to pray for that miracle.

The two remaining sisters decided to keep the convent of St. Anthony’s dark tonight.

And they decided to spend the night together in Carole’s room. They dragged in Bernadette’s mattress, locked the door, and double-draped the window with the bedspread. They lit the room with a single candle and prayed together.

Yet the music of the night filtered through the walls and the doors and the drapes, the muted moan of sirens singing antiphon to their hymns, the muffled pops of gunfire punctuating their psalms, reaching a crescendo shortly after midnight, then tapering off to … silence.

Carole could see that Bernadette was having an especially rough time of it. She cringed with every siren wail, jumped at every shot. She shared Bern’s terror, but she buried it, hid it deep within for her friend’s sake. After all, Carole was older, and she knew she was made of sterner stuff. Bernadette was an innocent, too sensitive even for yesterday’s world, the world before the vampires. How would she survive in the world as it would be after tonight? She’d need help. Carole would provide as much as she could.

But for all the imagined horrors conjured by the night noises, the silence was worse. No human wails of pain and horror had penetrated their sanctum, but imagined cries of human suffering echoed through their minds in the ensuing stillness.

“Dear God, what’s happening out there?” Bernadette said after they’d finished reading aloud the Twenty-third Psalm.

She huddled on her mattress, a blanket thrown over her shoulders. The candle’s flame reflected in her frightened eyes and cast her shadow, high, hunched, and wavering, on the wall behind her.

Carole sat cross-legged on her bed. She leaned back against the wall and fought to keep her eyes open. Exhaustion was a weight on her shoulders, a cloud over her brain, but she knew sleep was out of the question. Not now, not tonight, not until the sun was up. And maybe not even then.

“Easy, Bern—” Carole began, then stopped.

From below, on the first floor of the convent, a faint thumping noise.

“What’s that?” Bernadette said, voice hushed, eyes wide.

“I don’t know.”

Carole grabbed her robe and stepped out into the hall for a better listen.

“Don’t you be leaving me alone, now!” Bernadette said, running after her with the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders.

“Hush,” Carole said. “Listen. It’s the front door. Someone’s knocking. I’m going down to see.”

She hurried down the wide, oak-railed stairway to the front foyer. The knocking was louder here, but still sounded weak. Carole put her eye to the peephole, peered through the sidelights, but saw no one.

But the knocking, weaker still, continued.

“Wh-who’s there?” she said, her words cracking with fear.

“Sister Carole,” came a faint voice through the door. “It’s me … Mary Margaret. I’m hurt.”

Instinctively, Carole reached for the handle, but Bernadette grabbed her arm.

“Wait! It could be a trick!”

She’s right, Carole thought. Then she glanced down and saw blood leaking across the threshold from the other side.

She gasped and pointed at the crimson puddle. “That’s no trick.”

She unlocked the door and pulled it open. Mary Margaret huddled on the welcome mat in a pool of blood.

“Dear sweet Jesus!” Carole cried. “Help me, Bern!”

“What if she’s a vampire?” Bernadette said, standing frozen. “They can’t cross the threshold unless you ask them in.”

“Stop that silliness! She’s hurt!”

Bernadette’s good heart won out over her fear. She threw off the blanket, revealing a faded-blue, ankle-length flannel nightgown that swirled just above the floppy slippers she wore. Together they dragged Mary Margaret inside. Bernadette closed and relocked the door immediately.

“Call 911!” Carole told her.

Bernadette hurried down the hall to the phone.

Mary Margaret lay moaning on the foyer tiles, clutching her bleeding abdomen. Carole saw a piece of metal, coated with rust and blood, protruding from the area of her navel. From the fecal smell of the gore Carole guessed that her intestines had been pierced.

“Oh, you poor child!” Carole knelt beside her and cradled her head in her lap. She arranged Bernadette’s blanket over Mary Margaret’s trembling body. “Who did this to you?”

“Accident,” Mary Margaret gasped. Real tears had run her black eye makeup over her tattooed tears. “I was running … fell.”

“Running from what?”

“From them. God … terrible. We searched for them, Carmilla’s Lords of the Night. Just after sundown we found one. Looked just like we always knew he would … you know, tall and regal and graceful and seductive and cool. Standing by one of those big trailers that came through town. My friends approached him but I sorta stayed back. Wasn’t too sure I was really into having my blood sucked. But Carmilla goes right up to him, pulling off her top and baring her throat, offering herself to him.”

Mary Margaret coughed and groaned as a spasm of pain shook her.

“Don’t talk,” Carole said. “Save your strength.”

“No,” she said in a weaker voice when it eased. “You got to know. This Lord guy just smiles at Carmilla, then he signals his helpers who pull open the back doors of the trailer.” Mary Margaret sobbed. “Horrible! Truck’s filled with these … things! Look human but they’re dirty and naked and act like beasts. They like pour out the truck and right off a bunch of them jump Carmilla. They start biting and ripping at her throat. I see her go down and hear her screaming and I start backing up. My other friends try to run but they’re pulled down too. And then I see one of the things hold up Carmilla’s head and hear the Lord guy say, ‘That’s right, children. Take their heads. Always take their heads. There are enough of us now.’ And that’s when I turned and ran. I was running through a vacant lot when I fell on … this.”

Bernadette rushed back into the foyer. Her face was drawn with fear. “Nine-one-one doesn’t answer! I can’t raise anyone!”

“They’re all over town,” Mary Margaret said after another spasm of coughing. Carole could barely hear her. She touched her throat—so cold. “They set fires and attack the cops and firemen when they arrive. Their human helpers break into houses and drive the people outside, where they’re attacked. And after the things drain the blood, they rip the heads off.”

“Dear God, why?” Bernadette said, crouching beside Carole.

“My guess … don’t want any more vampires. Maybe only so much blood to go around and—”

She moaned with another spasm, then lay still. Carole patted her cheeks and called her name, but Mary Margaret Flanagan’s dull, staring eyes told it all.

“Is she … ?” Bernadette said.

Carole nodded as tears filled her eyes. You poor misguided child, she thought, closing Mary Margaret’s eyelids.

“She’s died in sin,” Bernadette said. “She needs anointing immediately! I’ll get Father.”

“No, Bern,” Carole said. “Father Palmeri won’t come.”

“Of course he will. He’s a priest and this poor lost soul needs him.”

“Trust me. He won’t leave that church basement for anything.”

“But he must!” she said, almost childishly, her voice rising. “He’s a priest.”

“Just be calm, Bernadette, and we’ll pray for her ourselves.”

“We can’t do what a priest can do,” she said, springing to her feet. “It’s not the same.”

“Where are you going?” Carole said.

“To … to get a robe. It’s cold.”

My poor, dear, frightened Bernadette, Carole thought as she watched her scurry up the steps. I know exactly how you feel.

“And bring your prayer book back with you,” she called after her.

Carole pulled the blanket over Mary Margaret’s face and gently lowered her head to the floor. She waited for Bernadette to return … and waited. What was taking her so long? She called her name but got no answer.

Uneasy, Carole returned to the second floor. The hallway was empty and dark except for a pale shaft of moonlight slanting through the window at its far end. Carole hurried to Bern’s room. The door was closed. She knocked.

“Bern? Bern, are you in there?”

Silence.

Carole opened the door and peered inside. More moonlight, more emptiness.

Where could—?

Down on the first floor, almost directly under Carole’s feet, the convent’s back door slammed. How could that be? Carole had locked it herself—dead-bolted it at sunset.

Unless Bernadette had gone down the back stairs and …

She darted to the window and stared down at the grassy area between the convent and the church. The high, bright moon had made a black-and-white photo of the world outside, bleaching the lawn below with its stark glow, etching deep ebony wells around the shrubs and foundation plantings. It glared from St. Anthony’s slate roof, stretching a long, crocketted wedge of night behind its gothic spire.

And scurrying across the lawn toward the church was a slim figure wrapped in a long raincoat, the moon picking out the white band of her wimple, its black veil a fluttering shadow along her neck and upper back—Bernadette was too old-country to approach the church with her head uncovered.

“Oh, Bern,” Carole whispered, pressing her face against the glass. “Bern, don’t.”

She watched as Bernadette ran up to St. Anthony’s side entrance and began clanking the heavy brass knocker against the thick oak door. Her high, clear voice filtered faintly through the window glass.

“Father! Father Palmeri! Please open up! There’s a dead girl in the convent who needs anointing! Won’t you please come over?” She kept banging, kept calling, but the door never opened. Carole thought she saw Father Palmeri’s pale face float into view to Bern’s right through the glass of one of the church’s few unstained windows. It hovered there for a few seconds or so, then disappeared. But the door remained closed.

That didn’t seem to faze Bern. She only increased the force of her blows with the knocker, and raised her voice even higher until it echoed off the stone walls and reverberated through the night.

Carole’s heart went out to her. She shared Bern’s need, if not her desperation.

Why doesn’t Father Palmeri at least let her in? she thought. The poor thing’s making enough racket to wake the dead.

Sudden terror tightened along the back of Carole’s neck.

… wake the dead …

Bern was too loud. She thought only of attracting the attention of Father Palmeri, but what if she attracted … others?

Even as the thought crawled across her mind, Carole saw a dark, rangy figure creep onto the lawn from the street side, slinking from shadow to shadow, closing in on her unsuspecting friend.

“Oh, my God!” she cried, and fumbled with the window lock. She twisted it open and yanked up the sash.

Carole screamed into the night. “Bernadette! Behind you! There’s someone coming! Get back here now, Bernadette! Now!”

Bernadette turned and looked up toward Carole, then stared around her. The approaching figure had dissolved into the shadows at the sound of the shouted warnings. But Bernadette must have sensed something in Carole’s voice, for she started back toward the convent.

She didn’t get far—ten paces, maybe—before the shadowy form caught up to her.

“No!” Carole screamed as she saw it leap upon her friend.

She stood frozen at the window, her fingers clawing the molding on each side as Bernadette’s high wail of terror and pain cut the night.

For the span of an endless, helpless, paralyzed heartbeat, Carole watched the form drag her down to the silver lawn, tear open her raincoat, and fall upon her, watched her arms and legs flail wildly, frantically in the moonlight, and all the while her screams, oh, dear God in Heaven, her screams for help were slim, white-hot nails driven into Carole’s ears.

And then, out of the corner of her eye, Carole saw the pale face appear again at the window of St. Anthony’s, watch for a moment, then once more fade into the inner darkness.

With a low moan of horror, fear, and desperation, Carole pushed herself away from the window and stumbled toward the hall. Someone had to help. On the way, she snatched the foot-long wooden crucifix from Bernadette’s wall and clutched it against her chest with both hands. As she picked up speed, graduating from a lurch to a walk to a loping run, she began to scream—not a wail of fear, but a long, seamless ululation of rage.

Something was killing her friend.

The rage was good. It canceled the fear and the horror and the loathing that had paralyzed her. It allowed her to move, to keep moving. She embraced the rage.

Carole hurtled down the stairs and burst onto the moonlit lawn—

And stopped.

She was disoriented for an instant. She didn’t see Bern. Where was she? Where was her attacker?

And then she saw a patch of writhing shadow on the grass ahead of her near one of the shrubs.

Bernadette?

Clutching the crucifix, Carole ran for the spot, and as she neared she realized it was indeed Bernadette, sprawled facedown, but not alone. Another shadow sat astride her, hissing like a reptile, gnashing its teeth, its fingers curved into talons that tugged at Bernadette’s head as if trying to tear it off.

Carole reacted without thinking. Screaming, she launched herself at the creature, ramming the big crucifix against its exposed back. Light flashed and sizzled and thick black smoke shot upward in oily swirls from where cross met flesh. The thing arched its back and howled, writhing beneath the cruciform brand, thrashing wildly as it tried to wriggle out from under the fiery weight.

But Carole stayed with it, following its slithering crawl on her knees, pressing the flashing cross deeper and deeper into its steaming, boiling flesh, down to the spine, into the vertebrae. Its cries became almost piteous as it weakened, and Carole gagged on the thick black smoke that fumed around her, but her rage would not allow her to slack off. She kept up the pressure, pushed the wooden crucifix deeper and deeper into the creature’s back until it penetrated the chest cavity and seared into its heart. Suddenly the thing gagged and shuddered and then was still.

The flashes faded. The final wisps of smoke trailed away on the breeze.

Carole abruptly released the shaft of the crucifix as if it had shocked her, and ran back to Bernadette. She dropped to her knees beside the still form and turned her over onto her back.

“Oh, no!” she screamed when she saw Bernadette’s torn throat, her wide, glazed, sightless eyes, and the blood, so much blood smeared all over the front of her.

Oh no. Oh, dear God, please no! This can’t be! This can’t be real!

A sob burst from her. “No, Bern! Nooooo!”

Somewhere nearby, a dog howled in answer. Or was it a dog?

Carole realized she was defenseless now. She had to get back to the convent. She leaped to her feet and looked around. Nothing moving. A yard or two away she saw the dead thing with her crucifix still buried in its back.

She hurried over to retrieve it, but recoiled from touching the creature. She could see now that it was a man—a naked man, or something that very much resembled one. But not quite. Some indefinable quality was missing.

Was it one of them?

This must be one of the undead Mary Margaret had warned about. But could this … this thing … be a vampire? It had acted like little more than a rabid dog in human form.

Whatever it was, it had mauled and murdered Bernadette. Rage bloomed again within Carole like a virulent, rampant virus, spreading through her bloodstream, invading her nervous system, threatening to take her over completely. She fought the urge to batter the corpse.

Bile rose in her throat; she choked it down and stared at the inert form prone before her. This once had been a man, someone with a family, perhaps. Surely he hadn’t asked to become this vicious night thing.

“Whoever you were,” Carole whispered, “you’re free now. Free to return to God.”

She gripped the shaft of the crucifix to remove it but found it fixed in the seared flesh like a steel rod set in concrete.

Something howled again. Closer.

She had to get back inside, but she couldn’t leave Bern out here.

Swiftly, she returned to Bernadette’s side, worked her hands through the grass under her back and knees, and lifted her into her arms. So light! Dear Lord, she weighed almost nothing.

Carole carried Bernadette back to the convent as fast as her rubbery legs would allow. Once inside, she bolted the door, then staggered up to the second floor with Bernadette in her arms.

She returned Sister Bernadette Gileen to her own room. Carole didn’t have the energy to drag the mattress back across the hall, so she stretched her supine on the box spring of her bed. She straightened Bern’s thin legs, crossed her hands over her blood-splattered chest, arranged her torn clothing as best she could, and covered her from head to toe with a bedspread.

And then, looking down at that still form under the quilt she had helped Bernadette make, Carole sagged to her knees and began to cry. She tried to say a requiem prayer but her grief-racked mind had lost the words. So she sobbed aloud and asked God, Why? How could He let this happen to a dear, sweet innocent who had wished only to spend her life serving Him? Why?

But no answer came.

When Carole finally controlled her tears, she forced herself to her feet, closed Bernadette’s door, and stumbled into the hall. She saw the light from the front foyer and knew she shouldn’t leave it on. She hurried down and stepped over the still form of Mary Margaret under the blood-soaked blanket. Two violent deaths here tonight in a house devoted to God. How many more outside these doors?

She turned off the light but didn’t have the strength to carry Mary Margaret upstairs. She left her there and raced through the dark back to her own room.

Carole didn’t know what time the power went out.

She had no idea how long she’d been kneeling beside her bed, alternately sobbing and praying, when she glanced at the digital alarm clock on her night table and saw that its face had gone dark and blank.

Not that a power failure mattered. She’d been spending the night by candlelight anyway. There was barely an inch of candle left, but that gave her no clue as to the hour. Who knew how fast a candle burned?

She was tempted to lift the bedspread draped over the window and peek outside, but was afraid of what she might see.

How long until dawn? she wondered, rubbing her eyes. This night seemed endless. If only—

Beyond her locked door, a faint squeak came from somewhere along the hall. It could have been anything—the wind in the attic, the old building settling, but it had been long, drawn out, and high-pitched. Almost like …

A door opening.

Carole froze, still on her knees, hands still folded in prayer, her elbows resting on the bed, and listened for it again. But the sound was not repeated. Instead, something else … a rhythmic shuffle … in the hall … approaching her door …

Footsteps.

With her heart punching frantically against the inner wall of her chest, Carole leaped to her feet and stepped close to the door, listening with her ear almost touching the wood. Yes. Footsteps. Slow. And soft, like bare feet scuffing the floor. Coming this way. Closer. They were right outside the door. Carole felt a sudden chill, as if a wave of icy air had penetrated the wood, but the footsteps didn’t pause. They passed her door, moving on.

And then they stopped.

Carole had her ear pressed against the wood now. She could hear her pulse pounding through her head as she strained for the next sound. And then it came, more shuffling outside in the hall, almost confused at first, and then the footsteps began again.

Coming back.

This time they stopped directly outside Carole’s door. The cold was there again, a damp, penetrating chill that reached for her bones. Carole backed away from it.

And then the doorknob turned. Slowly. The door creaked with the weight of a body leaning against it from the other side, but Carole’s bolt held.

Then a voice. Hoarse. A single whispered word, barely audible, but a shout could not have startled her more.

“Carole?”

Carole didn’t reply—couldn’t reply.

“Carole, it’s me. Bern. Let me in.”

Against her will, a low moan escaped Carole. No, no, no, this couldn’t be Bernadette. Bernadette was dead. Carole had left her cooling body lying in her room across the hall. This was some horrible joke. …

Or was it? Maybe Bernadette had become one of them, one of the very things that had killed her.

But the voice on the other side of the door was not that of some ravenous beast. It was …

“Please let me in, Carole. I’m frightened out here alone.”

Maybe Bern is alive, Carole thought, her mind racing, ranging for an answer. I’m no doctor. I could have been wrong about her being dead. Maybe she survived. …

She stood trembling, torn between the desperate, aching need to see her friend alive and the wary terror of being tricked by whatever creature Bernadette might have become.

“Carole?”

Carole wished for a peephole in the door, or at the very least a chain lock, but she had neither, and she had to do something. She couldn’t stand here like this and listen to that plaintive voice any longer without going mad. She had to know. Without giving herself any more time to think, she snapped back the bolt and pulled the door open, ready to face whatever awaited her in the hall.

She gasped. “Bernadette!”

Her friend stood just beyond the threshold, swaying, stark naked.

Not completely naked. She still wore her wimple, although it was askew on her head, and a strip of cloth had been layered around her neck to dress her throat wound. In the wan, flickering candlelight that leaked from Carole’s room, she saw that the blood that had splattered her was gone. Carole had never seen Bernadette unclothed before. She’d never realized how thin she was. Her ribs rippled beneath the skin of her chest, disappeared only beneath the scant padding of her small breasts with their erect nipples; the bones of her hips and pelvis bulged around her flat belly. Her normally fair skin was almost blue-white. The only other colors were the dark pools of her eyes and the orange splotches of hair on her head and her pubes.

“Carole,” she said weakly. “Why did you leave me?”

The sight of Bernadette standing before her, alive, speaking, had drained most of Carole’s strength; the added weight of guilt from her words nearly drove her to her knees. She sagged against the door frame.

“Bern …” Carole’s voice failed her. She swallowed and tried again. “I—I thought you were dead. And … what happened to your clothes?”

Bernadette raised her hand to her throat. “I tore up my nightgown for a bandage. Can I come in?”

Carole straightened and opened the door farther. “Oh, Lord, yes. Come in. Sit down. I’ll get you a blanket.”

Bernadette shuffled into the room, head down, eyes fixed on the floor. She moved like someone on drugs. But then, after losing so much blood, it was a wonder she could walk at all.

“Don’t want a blanket,” Bern said. “Too hot. Aren’t you hot?”

She backed herself stiffly onto Carole’s bed, then lifted her ankles and sat cross-legged, facing her. Mentally, Carole explained the casual, blatant way she exposed herself by the fact that Bernadette was still recovering from a horrific trauma, but that made it no less discomfiting.

Carole glanced at the crucifix on the wall over her bed, above and behind Bernadette. For a moment, as Bernadette had seated herself beneath it, she thought she had seen it glow. It must have been reflected candlelight. She turned away and retrieved a spare blanket from the closet. She unfolded it and wrapped it around Bernadette’s shoulders and over her spread knees, covering her.

“I’m thirsty, Carole. Could you get me some water?”

Her voice was strange. Lower pitched and hoarse, yes, but that should be expected after the throat wound she’d suffered. No, something else had changed in her voice, but Carole could not pin it down.

“Of course. You’ll need fluids. Lots of fluids.”

The bathroom was only two doors down. She took her water pitcher, lit a second candle, and left Bernadette on the bed, looking like an Indian draped in a serape.

When she returned with the full pitcher, she was startled to find the bed empty. She spied Bernadette immediately, by the window. She hadn’t opened it, but she’d pulled off the bedspread drape and raised the shade. She stood there, staring out at the night. And she was naked again.

Carole looked around for the blanket and found it … hanging on the wall over her bed …

Covering the crucifix.

Part of Carole screamed at her to run, to flee down the hall and not look back. But another part of her insisted she stay. This was her friend. Something terrible had happened to Bernadette and she needed Carole now, probably more than she’d needed anyone in her entire life. And if someone was going to help her, it was Carole. Only Carole.

She placed the pitcher on the nightstand.

“Bernadette,” she said, her mouth as dry as the timbers in these old walls, “the blanket …”

“I was hot,” Bernadette said without turning.

“I brought you the water. I’ll pour—”

“I’ll drink it later. Come and watch the night.”

“I don’t want to see the night. It frightens me.”

Bernadette turned, a faint smile on her lips. “But the darkness is so beautiful.”

She stepped closer and stretched her arms toward Carole, laying a hand on each shoulder and gently massaging the terror-tightened muscles there. A sweet lethargy began to seep through Carole. Her eyelids began to drift closed … so tired … so long since she’d had any sleep …

No!

She forced her eyes open and gripped Bernadette’s hands, pulling them from her shoulders. She pressed the palms together and clasped them between her own.

“Let’s pray, Bern. With me: Hail Mary, full of grace …”

“No!”

“… the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou …”

Her friend’s face twisted in rage. “I said NO, damn you!”

Carole struggled to keep a grip on Bernadette’s hands but she was too strong.

“… amongst women …”

And suddenly Bernadette’s struggles ceased. Her face relaxed, her eyes cleared, even her voice changed, still hoarse, but higher in pitch, lighter in tone as she took up the words of the prayer.

“And Blessed is the fruit of thy womb …” Bernadette struggled with the next word, unable to say it. Instead she gripped Carole’s hands with painful intensity and loosed a torrent of her own words. “Carole, get out! Get out, oh, please, for the love of God, get out now! There’s not much of me left in here, and soon I’ll be like the ones that killed me and I’ll be after killing you! So run, Carole! Hide! Lock yourself in the chapel downstairs but get away from me now!”

Carole knew now what had been missing from Bernadette’s voice—her brogue. But now it was back. This was the real Bernadette speaking. She was back! Her friend, her sister, was back! Carole bit back a sob.

“Oh, Bern, I can help! I can—”

Bernadette pushed her toward the door. “No one can help me, Carole!” She ripped the makeshift bandage from her neck, exposing the deep, jagged wound and the ragged ends of the torn blood vessels within it. “It’s too late for me, but not for you. They’re a bad lot and I’ll be one of them again soon, so get out while you—”

Suddenly Bernadette stiffened and her features shifted. Carole knew immediately that the brief respite her friend had stolen from the horror that gripped her was over. Something else was back in control.

Carole turned and ran.

But the Bernadette-thing was astonishingly swift. Carole had barely reached the threshold when a steel-fingered hand gripped her upper arm and yanked her back, nearly dislocating her shoulder. She cried out in pain and terror as she was spun about and flung across the room. Her hip struck hard against the rickety old spindle chair by her desk, knocking it over as she landed in a heap beside it.

Carole groaned with the pain. As she shook her head to clear it, she saw Bernadette approaching her, her movements stiff, more assured now, her teeth bared—so many teeth, and so much longer than the old Bernadette’s—her fingers curved, reaching for Carole’s throat. With each passing second there was less and less of Bernadette about her.

Carole tried to back away, her frantic hands and feet slipping on the floor as she pressed her spine against the wall. She had nowhere to go. She pulled the fallen chair atop her and held it as a shield against the Bernadette-thing. The face that had once belonged to her dearest friend grimaced with contempt as she swung her hand at the chair. It scythed through the spindles, splintering them like match-sticks, sending the carved headpiece flying. A second blow cracked the seat in two. A third and fourth sent the remnants of the chair hurtling to opposite sides of the room.

Carole was helpless now. All she could do was pray.

“Our Father, who art—”

“Too late for that to help you now, Caroler she hissed, spitting her name.

“… hallowed be Thy Name …” Carole said, quaking in terror as undead fingers closed on her throat.

And then the Bernadette-thing froze, listening. Carole heard it too. An insistent tapping. On the window. The creature turned to look, and Carole followed her gaze.

A face was peering through the window.

Carole blinked but it didn’t go away. This was the second floor! How—?

And then a second face appeared, this one upside down, looking in from the top of the window. And then a third, and a fourth, each more bestial than the last. And as each appeared it began to tap its fingers and knuckles on the window glass.

“No!” the Bernadette-thing screamed at them. “You can’t come in! She’s mine! No one touches her but me!”

She turned back to Carole and smiled, showing those teeth that had never fit in Bernadette’s mouth. “They can’t cross a threshold unless invited in by one who lives there. I live here—or at least I did. And I’m not sharing you, Carole.”

She turned again and raked a claw-like hand at the window. “Go A-way! She’s MINE!”

Carole glanced to the left. The bed was only a few feet away. And above it—the blanket-shrouded crucifix. If she could reach it …

She didn’t hesitate. With the mad tapping tattoo from the window echoing around her, Carole gathered her feet beneath her and sprang for the bed. She scrambled across the sheets, one hand outstretched, reaching for the blanket—

A manacle of icy flesh closed around her ankle and roughly dragged her back.

“Oh, no, bitch,” said the hoarse, unaccented voice of the Bernadette-thing. “Don’t even think about it!”

It grabbed two fistfuls of flannel at the back of Carole’s nightgown and hurled her across the room as if she weighed no more than a pillow. The wind whooshed out of Carole as she slammed against the far wall. She heard ribs crack. She fell among the splintered ruins of the chair, pain lancing through her right flank. The room wavered and blurred. But through the roaring in her ears she still heard that insistent tapping on the window.

As her vision cleared she saw the Bernadette-thing’s naked form gesturing again to the creatures at the window, now a mass of salivating mouths and tapping fingers.

“Watch!” she hissed. “Watch me!”

With that, she loosed a long, howling scream and lunged at Carole, arms curved before her, body arcing into a flying leap. The scream, the tapping, the faces at the window, the dear friend who now wanted only to slaughter her—it all was suddenly too much for Carole. She wanted to roll away but couldn’t get her body to move. Her hand found the broken seat of the chair by her hip. Instinctively she pulled it closer. She closed her eyes as she raised it between herself and the horror hurtling toward her through the air.

The impact drove the wood of the seat against Carole’s chest; she groaned as new stabs of pain shot through her ribs. But the Bernadette-thing’s triumphant feeding cry cut off abruptly and devolved into a coughing gurgle.

Suddenly the weight was released from Carole’s chest, and the chair seat with it.

And the tapping at the window stopped.

Carole opened her eyes to see the naked Bemadette-thing standing above her, straddling her, holding the chair seat before her, choking and gagging as she struggled with it.

At first Carole didn’t understand. She drew her legs back and inched away along the wall. And then she saw what had happened.

Three splintered spindles had remained fixed in that half of the broken seat, and those spindles were now firmly and deeply embedded in the center of the Bemadette-thing’s chest. She wrenched wildly at the chair seat, trying to dislodge the oak daggers but succeeded only in breaking them off at skin level. She dropped the remnant of the seat and swayed like a tree in a storm, her mouth working spasmodically as her hands fluttered ineffectually over the bloodless wounds between her ribs and the slim wooden stakes deep out of reach within them.

Abruptly she dropped to her knees with a dull thud. Then, only inches from Carole, she slumped into a splay-legged squat. The agony faded from her face and she closed her eyes. She fell forward against Carole.

Carole threw her arms around her friend and gathered her close.

“Oh, Bern, oh, Bern, oh, Bern,” she moaned. “I’m so sorry. If only I’d got there sooner!”

Bernadette’s eyes fluttered open and the darkness was gone. Only her own spring-sky blue remained, clear, grateful. Her lips began to curve upward but made it only halfway to a smile, then she was gone.

Carole hugged the limp cold body closer and moaned in boundless grief and anguish to the unfeeling walls. She saw the leering faces begging to crawl away from the window and she shouted at them though her tears.

“Go! That’s it! Run away and hide! Soon it’ll be light and then I’ll come looking for you! For all of you! And woe to any of you that I find!”

She cried over Bernadette’s body a long time. And then she wrapped it in a sheet and held and rocked her dead friend in her arms until sunrise.

With the dawn she left the old Sister Carole Hanarty behind. The gentle soul, happy to spend her days and nights in the service of the Lord, praying, fasting, teaching chemistry to reluctant adolescents, and holding to her vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, was gone.

The new Sister Carole had been tempered in the forge of the night and recast into someone relentlessly vengeful and fearless to the point of recklessness. And perhaps, she admitted with no shame or regret, more than a little mad.

She departed the convent and began her hunt.

SOFT

INTRODUCTION

I think of "Soft" as an AIDS story, possibly one of the very first pieces of fiction influenced by the syndrome.

I'm a fairly regular reader of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Report Weekly. I remember seeing the 6/5/81 issue in which patients with the syndrome later to be known as AIDS were first described. The term wasn't coined until more than a year later. Back when I began writing this, AIDS was thought to be a result of the constellation of infections that were part and parcel of the urban male homosexual's promiscuous life-style. There was talk also of a possible single etiologic agent, but that was only theory then.

Although directly triggered by a bodybuilder's remark that the whole country was going soft, the story grew out of these reports. The real-life confusion seen in AIDS's early years is reflected in the confusion and vacillation displayed by the story's authorities regarding the etiology of the softness.

It's not a pleasant piece. Publishers Weekly called it "vivid and viscerally wrenching."

That's what I was shooting for.

SOFT

I was lying on the floor watching TV and exercising what was left of my legs when the newscaster's jaw collapsed. He was right in the middle of the usual plea for anybody who thought they were immune to come to Rockefeller Center when—pflumpf!—the bottom of his face went soft. I burst out laughing.

"Daddy!" Judy said, shooting me a razorblade look from her wheelchair.

I shut up.

She was right. Nothing funny about a man's tongue wiggling around in the air snake-like while his lower jaw flopped down in front of his throat like a sack of Jell-O and his bottom teeth jutted at the screen crowns-on, rippling like a line of buoys on a bay. A year ago I would have gagged. But I've changed in ways other than physical since this mess began, and couldn't help feeling good about one of those pretty-boy newsreaders going soft right in front of the camera. I almost wished I had a bigger screen so I could watch 21 color inches of the scene. He was barely visible on our 5-inch black-and-white.

The room filled with white noise as the screen went blank. Someone must have taken a look at what was going out on the airwaves and pulled the plug. Not that many people were watching anyway.

I flipped the set off to save the batteries. Batteries were as good as gold now. Better than gold. Who wanted gold nowadays?

I looked over at Judy and she was crying softly. Tears slid down her cheeks.

"Hey, hon—"

"I can't help it, Daddy. I'm so scared!"

"Don't be, Jude. Don't worry. Everything will work out, you'll see. We've got this thing licked, you and me."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because it hasn't progressed in weeks. It's over for us—we've got immunity."

She glanced down at her legs, then quickly away. "It's already too late for me."

I reached over and patted my dancer on the hand. "Never too late for you, shweetheart," I said in my best Bogart. That got a tiny smile out of her.

We sat there in the silence, each thinking our own thoughts. The newsreader had said the cause of the softness had been discovered: a virus, a freak mutation that disrupted the calcium matrix of bones.

Yeah. Sure. That's what they said last year when the first cases cropped up in Boston. A virus. But they never isolated the virus, and the softness spread all over the world. So they began searching for "a subtle and elusive environmental toxin." They never pinned that one down either.

Now we were back to a virus. Who cared? It didn't matter. Judy and I had beat it. Whether we had formed the right antibodies or the right antitoxin was just a stupid academic question. The process had been arrested in us. Sure, it had done some damage, but it wasn't doing any more, and that was the important thing. We'd never be the same, but we were going to live.

"But that man," Judy said, nodding toward the TV. "He said they were looking for people in whom the disease had started and then stopped. That's us, Dad. They said they need to examine people like us so they can find out how to fight it, maybe develop a serum against it. We should—"

"Judy-Judy-Judy!" I said in Cary Grantese to hide my annoyance. How many times did I have to go over this? "We've been through all this before. I told you: It's too late for them. Too late for everybody but us immunes."

I didn't want to discuss it—Judy didn't understand about those kind of people, how you can't deal with them.

"I want you to take me down there," she said in the tone she used when she wanted to be stubborn. "If you don't want to help, okay. But I do."

"No!" I said that louder than I wanted to and she flinched. More softly: "I know those people. I worked all those years in the Health Department. They'd turn us into lab specimens. They'll suck us dry and use our immunity to try and save themselves."

"But I want to help somebody! I don't want us to be the last two people on earth!"

She began to cry again.

Judy was frustrated. I could understand that. She was unable to leave the apartment by herself and probably saw me at times as a dictator who had her at his mercy. And she was frightened, probably more frightened than I could imagine. She was only eighteen and everyone else she had ever known in her life—including her mother—was dead.

I hoisted myself into the chair next to her and put my arm around her shoulders. She was the only person in the world who mattered to me. That had been true even before the softness began.

"We're not alone. Take George, for example. And I'm sure there are plenty of other immunes around who are hiding like us. When the weather warms up, we'll find each other and start everything over new. But until then, we can't allow the bloodsuckers to drain off whatever it is we've got that protects us.

She nodded without saying anything. I wondered if she was agreeing with me or just trying to shut me up.

"Let's eat," I said with a gusto I didn't really feel.

"Not hungry."

"Got to keep up your strength. We'll have soup. How's that sound?"

She smiled weakly. "Okay…soup."

I forgot and almost tried to stand up. Old habits die hard. My lower legs were hanging over the edge of the chair like a pair of sand-filled dancer's tights. I could twitch the muscles and see them ripple under the skin, but a muscle is pretty useless unless it's attached to a bone, and the bones down there were gone.

I slipped off my chair to what was left of my knees and shuffled over to the stove. The feel of those limp and useless leg muscles squishing under me was repulsive but I was getting used to it.

* * * * *

It hit the kids and old people first, supposedly because their bones were a little soft to begin with, then moved on to the rest of us, starting at the bottom and working its way up—sort of like a Horatio Alger success story.

At least that was the way it worked in most people. There were exceptions, of course, like that newscaster. I had followed true to form: My left lower leg collapsed at the end of last month; my right went a few days later. It wasn't a terrible shock. My feet had already gone soft so I knew the legs were next.

Besides, I'd heard the sound.

The sound comes in the night when all is quiet. It starts a day or two before a bone goes. A soft sound, like someone gently crinkling cellophane inside your head. No one else can hear it. Only you. I think it comes from the bone itself—from millions of tiny fractures slowly interconnecting into a mosaic that eventually causes the bone to dissolve into mush. Like an on-rushing train far, far away can be heard if you press your ear to the track, so the sound of each micro-fracture transmits from bone to bone until it reaches your middle ear.

I haven't heard the sound in almost four weeks. I thought I did a couple of times and broke out in a cold, shaking sweat, but no more of my bones have gone. Neither have Judy's. The average case goes from normal person to lump of jelly in three to four weeks. Sometimes it takes longer, but there's always a steady progression. Nothing more has happened to me or Judy since last month.

Somehow, some way, we're immune.

* * * * *

With my lower legs dragging behind me, I got to the counter of the kitchenette and kneed my way up the stepstool to where I could reach things. I filled a pot with water—at least the pressure was still up—and set it on the Sterno stove. With gas and electricity long gone, Sterno was a lifesaver.

While waiting for the water to boil I went to the window and looked out. The late afternoon March sky was full of dark gray clouds streaking to the east. Nothing moving on West 16th Street one floor below but a few windblown leaves from God-knows-where. I glanced across at the windows of George's apartment, looking for movement but found none, then back down to the street below.

I hadn't seen anybody but George on the street for ages, hadn't seen or smelled smoke in well over two months. The last fires must have finally burned themselves out. The riots were one result of the viral theory. Half the city went up in the big riot last fall—half the city and an awful lot of people. Seems someone got the bright idea that if all the people going soft were put out of their misery and their bodies burned, the plague could be stopped, at least here in Manhattan. The few cops left couldn't stop the mobs. In fact a lot of the city's ex-cops had been in the mobs. Judy and I lost our apartment when our building went up. Luckily we hadn't any signs of softness then. We got away with our lives and little else.

"Water's boiling, Dad," she said from across the room.

I turned and went back to the stove, not saying anything, still thinking about how fast our nice rent-stabilized apartment house had burned, taking everything we had with it.

Everything gone…furniture and futures…gone. All my plans. Gone. Here I stood—if you could call it that—a man with a college education, a B.S. in biology, a secure city job, and what was left? No job. Hell—no city.

I'd had it all planned for my dancer. She was going to make it so big. I'd hang on to my city job with all those civil service idiots in the Department of Health, putting up with their sniping and their back-stabbing and their lousy office politics so I could keep all the benefits and foot the bill while Judy pursued the dance. She was going to have it all. Now what? All her talent, all her potential…where was it going?

Going soft…

I poured the dry contents of the Lipton envelope into the boiling water and soon the odor of chicken noodle soup filled the room.

Which meant we'd have company soon.

I dragged the stepstool over to the door. Already I could hear their claws begin to scrape against the outer surface of the door, their tiny teeth begin to gnaw at its edges. I climbed up and peered through the hole I'd made last month at what had then been eye-level.

There they were. The landing was full of them. Gray and brown and dirty, with glinty little eyes and naked tails. Revulsion rippled down my skin. I watched their growing numbers every day now, every time I cooked something, but still hadn't got used to them.

So I did Cagney for them: "Yooou diiirty raaats!" and turned to wink at Judy on the far side of the fold-out bed. Her expression remained grim.

Rats. They were taking over the city. They seemed to be immune to the softness and were traveling in packs that got bigger and bolder with each passing day. Which was why I'd chosen this building for us: Each apartment was boxed in with pre-stressed concrete block. No rats in the walls here.

I waited for the inevitable. Soon it happened: A number of them squealed, screeched, and thrashed as the crowding pushed them at each other's throats, and then there was bedlam out there. I didn't bother to watch any more. I saw it every day. The pack jumped on the wounded ones. Never failed. They were so hungry they'd eat anything, even each other. And while they were fighting among themselves they'd leave us in peace with our soup.

Soon I had the card table between us and we were sipping the yellow broth and those tiny noodles. I did a lot of mmm-gooding but got no response from Judy. Her eyes were fixed on the walkie-talkie on the end table.

"How come we haven't heard from him?"

Good question—one that had been bothering me for a couple of days now. Where was George? Usually he stopped by every other day or so to see if we needed anything. And if he didn't stop by, he'd call us on the walkie-talkie. We had an arrangement that we'd both turn on our headsets every day at six p.m. just in case we needed to be in touch. I'd been calling over to George's place across the street at six o'clock sharp for three days running now with no result.

"He's probably wandering around the city seeing what he can pick up. He's a resourceful guy. Probably come back with something we can really use but haven't thought of."

Judy didn't flash me the anticipated smile. Instead, she frowned. "What if he went down to the research center?"

"I'm sure he didn't. He's a trusting soul, but he's not a fool."

I kept my eyes down as I spoke. I'm not a good liar. And that very question had been nagging at my gut. What if George had been stupid enough to present himself to the researchers? If he had, he was through. They'd never let him go and we'd never see him again.

For George wasn't an immune like us. He was different. Judy and I had caught the virus—or toxin—and defeated it. We were left with terrible scars from the battle but we had survived. We acquired our immunity through battle with the softness agent. George was special—he had remained untouched. He'd exposed himself to infected people for months as he helped everyone he could, and was still hard all over. Not so much as a little toe had gone soft on him. Which meant—to me at least—that George had been born with some sort of immunity to the softness.

Wouldn't those researchers love to get their needles and scalpels into him.

I wondered if they had. George might have been picked up and brought down to the research center against his will. He told me once that he'd seen official-looking vans and cars prowling the streets, driven by guys wearing gas masks or the like. But that had been months ago and he hadn't reported anything like it since. Certainly no cars had been on this street in recent memory. I warned him time and again about roaming around in the daylight but he always laughed good-naturedly and said nobody'd ever catch him—he was too fast.

What if he'd run into someone faster?

Only one thing to do.

"I'm going to take a stroll over to George's just to see if he's okay."

Judy gasped. "No, Dad! You can't! It's too far!"

"Only across the street."

"But your legs—"

"—are only half gone."

I'd met George shortly after the last riot. I had two hard legs then. I'd come looking for a sturdier building than the one we'd been burned out of. He helped us move in here.

I was suspicious at first, I admit that. I mean, I kept asking myself, What does this guy want? Turned out he only wanted to be friends. And so friends we became. He was soon the only other man I trusted in this whole world. And that being the case, I wanted a gun—for protection against all those other men I didn't trust. George told me he had stolen a bunch during the early lootings. I traded him some Sterno and batteries for a .38 and a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun with ammo for both. I promptly sawed off the barrel of the shotgun. If the need arose, I could clear a room real fast with that baby.

So it was the shotgun I reached for now. No need to fool with it—I kept its chamber empty and its magazine loaded with #5 shells. I laid it on the floor and reached into the rag bag by the door and began tying old undershirts around my knees. Maybe I shouldn't call them knees; with the lower legs and caps gone, "knee" hardly seemed appropriate.

From there it was a look through the peep hole to make sure the hall was clear, a blown kiss to Judy, then a shuffle into the hall. I was extra wary at first, ranging the landing up and down, looking for rats. But there weren't any in sight. I slung the shotgun around my neck, letting it hang in front as I started down the stairs one by one on hands and butt, knees first, each flabby lower leg dragging alongside its respective thigh.

Two flights down to the lobby, then up on my padded knees to the swinging door, a hard push through and I was out on the street.

Silence.

We kept our windows tightly closed against the cold and so I hadn't noticed the change. Now it hit me like a slap in the face. As a lifelong New Yorker I'd never heard the city like this. Make that not heard. Even when there'd been nothing doing on your street, you could always hear that dull roar pulsing from the sky and the pavement and the walls of the buildings. The life sound of the city, the beating of its heart, the whisper of its breath, the susurrant rush of blood through its capillaries.

It had stopped.

The shiver that ran over me was not just the March wind's sharp edge. The street was deserted. A plague had been through here, but no contorted bodies were strewn about. You didn't fall down and die on the spot with the softness. No, that would be too kind. You died by inches, by bone lengths, in back rooms, trapped, unable to make it to the street. No public displays of morbidity. Just solitary deaths of quiet desperation.

In a secret way I was glad everyone was gone—nobody around to see me tooling across the sidewalk on my rag-wrapped knees like some skid row geek.

The city looked different from down here. When you have legs to stand on you never realize how cracked the sidewalks are, how dirty. The buildings, their windows glaring red with the setting sun that had poked through the clouds over New Jersey, looked half again as high as they had when I was a taller man.

I shuffled to the street and caught myself looking both ways before sliding off the curb. I smiled at the thought of getting run down by a truck on my first trip in over a month across a street that probably hadn't seen the underside of a car since December.

Despite the absurdity of it, I hurried across, and felt relief when I finally reached the far curb. Pulling open the damn doors to George's apartment building was a chore, but I slipped through both of them and into the lobby. George's bike—a light-frame Italian model ten-speeder—was there. I didn't like that. George took that bike everywhere. Of course he could have found a car and some gas and gone sightseeing and not told me, but still the sight of that bike standing there made me uneasy.

I shuffled by the silent bank of elevators, watching my longing expression reflected in their silent, immobile chrome doors. The fire door to the stairwell was a heavy one, but I squeezed through and started up the steps—backward. Maybe there was a better way, but I hadn't found it. It was all in the arms: Sit on the bottom step, get your arms back, palms down on the step above, lever yourself up. Repeat this ten times and you've done a flight of stairs. Two flights per floor. Thank the Lord or Whatever that George had decided he preferred a second-floor apartment to a penthouse after the final power failure.

It was a good thing I was going up backward. I might never have seen the rats if I'd been faced around the other way.

Just one appeared at first. Alone, it was almost cute with its twitching whiskers and its head bobbing up and down as it sniffed the air at the bottom of the flight. Then two more joined it, then another half dozen. Soon they were a brown wave, undulating up the steps toward me.

I hesitated for an instant, horrified and fascinated by their numbers and all their little black eyes sweeping toward me, then I jolted myself into action. I swung the scattergun around, pumped a shell into the chamber, and let them have a blast. Dimly through the reverberating roar of the shotgun I heard a chorus of squeals and saw flashes of flying crimson blossoms, then I was ducking my face into my arms to protect my eyes from the ricocheting shot. I should have realized the danger of shooting in a cinderblock stairwell like this. Not that it would have changed things—I still had to protect myself—but I should have anticipated the ricochets.

The rats did what I'd hoped they'd do—jumped on the dead and near-dead of their number and forgot about me. I let the gun hang in front of me again and continued up the stairs to George's floor.

He didn't answer his bell but the door was unlocked. I'd warned him about that in the past but he'd only laughed in that carefree way of his. "Who's gonna pop in?" he'd say. Probably no one. But that didn't keep me from locking mine, even though George was the only one who knew where I lived. I wondered if that meant I didn't really trust George.

I put the question aside and pushed the door open.

It stank inside. And it was empty as far as I could see. But there was this sound, this wheezing, coming from one of the bedrooms. Calling his name and announcing my own so I wouldn't get my head blown off, I closed the door behind me—locked it—and followed the sound. I found George.

And retched.

George was a blob of flesh in the middle of his bed. Everything but some ribs, some of his facial bones, and the back of his skull had gone soft on him.

I stood there on my knees in shock, wondering how this could have happened. George was immune. He'd laughed at the softness. He'd been walking around as good as new just last week. And now…

His lips were dry and cracked and blue—he couldn't speak, couldn't swallow, could barely breathe. And his eyes…they seemed to be just floating there in a quivering pool of flesh, begging me…darting to his left again and again…begging me ...

For what?

I looked to his left and saw the guns. He had a suitcase full of them by the bedroom door. All kinds. I picked up a heavy-looking revolver—an S&W .357—and glanced at him. He closed his eyes and I thought he smiled.

I almost dropped the pistol when I realized what he wanted.

"No, George!"

He opened his eyes again. They began to fill with tears.

"George—I can't!"

Something like a sob bubbled past his lips. And his eyes ... his pleading eyes…

I stood there a long time in the stink of his bedroom, listening to him wheeze, feeling the sweat collect between my palm and the pistol grip. I knew I couldn't do it. Not George, the big, friendly, good-natured slob I'd been depending on.

Suddenly, I felt my pity begin to evaporate as a flare of irrational anger began to rise. I had been depending on George now that my legs were half gone, and here he'd gone soft on me. The bitter disappointment fueled the anger. I knew it wasn't right, but I couldn't help hating George just then for letting me down.

"Damn you, George!"

I raised the pistol and pointed it where I thought his brain should be. I turned my head away and pulled the trigger. Twice. The pistol jumped in my hand. The sound was deafening in the confines of the bedroom.

Then all was quiet except for the ringing in my ears. George wasn't wheezing anymore. I didn't look around. I didn't have to see. I have a good imagination.

I fled that apartment as fast as my ruined legs would carry me.

But I couldn't escape the vision of George and how he looked before I shot him. It haunted me every inch of the way home, down the now empty stairs where only a few tufts of dirty brown fur were left to indicate that rats had been swarming there, out into the dusk and across the street and up more stairs to home.

George…how could it be? He was immune.

Or was he? Maybe the softness had followed a different course in George, slowly building up in his system until every bone in his body was riddled with it and he went soft all at once. God, what a noise he must have heard when all those bones went in one shot. That was why he hadn't been able to call or answer the walkie-talkie.

But what if it had been something else? What if the virus theory was right and George was the victim of a more virulent mutation?

The thought made me sick with dread. Because if that were true, it meant Judy would eventually end up like George. And I was going to have to do for her what I'd done for George.

But what of me, then? Who was going to end it for me? I didn't know if I had the guts to shoot myself. And what if my hands went soft before I had the chance?

I didn't want to think about it, but it wouldn't go away. I couldn't remember ever being so frightened. I almost considered going down to Rockefeller Center and presenting Judy and myself to the leechers, but killed that idea real quick. Never. I'm no jerk. I'm college-educated. A degree in biology. I know what they'd do to us.

Inside, Judy had wheeled her chair over to the door and was waiting for me. I couldn't let her know.

"Not there," I told her before she could ask, and busied myself with putting the shotgun away so I wouldn't have to look her straight in the eyes.

"Where could he be?" Her voice was tight.

"I wish I knew. Maybe he went down to Rockefeller Center. If he did, it's the last we'll ever see of him."

"I can't believe that."

"Then tell me where else he can be."

She was silent.

I did Warner Oland's Chan: "Numbah One Dawtah is finally at loss for words. Peace reigns at last."

I could see that I failed to amuse, so I decided a change of subject was in order.

"I'm tired."

It was the truth. The trip across the street had been exhausting.

"Me, too." She yawned.

"Want to get some sleep?"

I knew she did. I was just staying a step or two ahead of her so she wouldn't have to ask to be put to bed. She was a dancer, a fine, proud artist. Judy would never have to ask anyone to put her to bed. Not while I was around. As long as I was able I would spare her the indignity of dragging herself along the floor.

I gathered Judy up in my arms. The whole lower half of her body was soft; her legs hung over my left arm like weighted drapes. It was all I could do to keep from crying when I felt them so limp and formless. My dancer…you should have seen her in Swan Lake. Her legs had been so strong, so sleekly muscular, like her mother's…

I took her to the bathroom and left her alone. Which left me alone with my daymares.

What if there really was a mutation of the softness and my dancer began leaving me again, slowly, inch by inch? What was I going to do when she was gone? My wife was gone. My folks were gone. My what few friends I'd ever had were gone. Judy was the only attachment I had left. Without her I'd break loose from everything and just float off into space. I needed her…

When she was finished in the bathroom I carried her out and arranged her on the bed. I tucked her in and kissed her goodnight.

Out in the living room I slipped under the covers of the fold-out bed and tried to sleep. Useless. The fear wouldn't leave me alone. I fought it, telling myself that George was a freak case, that Judy and I had licked the softness. We were immune and we'd stay immune. Let everyone else turn into puddles of Jell-O, I wasn't going to let them suck us dry to save themselves. We were on our way to inheriting the earth, Judy and I, and we didn't even have to be meek about it.

But still sleep refused to come. So I lay there in the growing darkness in the center of the silent city and listened…listened as I did every night…as I knew I would listen for the rest of my life…listened for that sound…that cellophane crinkling sound…

THE LAST “ONE MO’ ONCE GOLDEN OLDIES REVIVAL” 

INTRODUCTION

This is a “Just Desserts” story.

Horror fiction is a great way of getting even. I've been a rock fan since a summer night in 1955 when I first heard Chuck Berry's "Maybellene." Decades later I was reading a series of interviews with some of the originators of rock and how they were ripped off by dj's, record companies, and promoters—sometimes all wrapped up in a single slimy individual. I decided to get even for them.

Figuratively, of course.

And with tongue set firmly in cheek.

THE LAST “ONE MO' ONCE GOLDEN OLDIES REVIVAL"

The announcer broke in with the news—right into the middle of a song by the latest New Wave sensation, Polio. Philip "Flip" Goodloe was gone. The father and seminal stylist of the rock 'n' roll guitar was dead.

Lenny Winter leaned back and took a long draw on the Royal Jamaican delicately balanced between his pudgy thumb and forefinger. He certainly didn't mind anybody cutting Polio's music short—this New Wave crap was worse than the stuff he jockeyed in his heyday. And he wasn't all that surprised about Flip.

Dead ... the Flipper was dead. Lenny had sensed that coming last week. The only disconcerting thing was it had happened so soon after seeing him. Fifteen or twenty years without laying eyes on Flip Goodloe, then Lenny visits him, then he's dead, all within a few days' time. Definitely disconcerting.

He listened for details about the death but none came. Only a hushed voice repeating that the major influence on every rocker who had ever picked up an electric six-string was dead. Even guitarists who had never actually heard a Flip Goodloe record owed him a debt because, as the voice said, if you weren't directly influenced by Goodloe, you were influenced by somebody who got his licks from somebody else who got his licks from Flip Goodloe. "All riffs eventually lead to Goodloe," the voice said. It closed the break-in with: "...the exact cause of death is unknown at this time.

"I can tell you the exact cause of death," Lenny muttered to the empty room. "Smack. Flip Goodloe the hophead finally over-juiced himself."

The disc jockey—whoops, sorry, they liked to be called "radio personalities" now—yanked the Polio record and put on "Mary-Liz," Flip's first hit record. An instant Flip Goodloe retrospective was under way.

In spite of his personal knowledge of what a jerk Flip was, Lenny Winter suffered a pang of nostalgia as the frenetic guitar notes and wailing voice poured out of the twin Bose 901 s in the corners of the room. Nobody could play like the Flipper in his day. Flip didn't showboat and he didn't just doodle around the melody—he got behind his bands and pushed, driving them 'til they were cooking at white heat.

Lenny Winter put his cigar down and pulled his considerable bulk out of the recliner. He was pushing fifty-five and was at least that many pounds overweight. He waddled over to the north wall of his trophy room—one of the smaller of the eighteen rooms in his house. Where was it, now? He scanned along rows of gold records. There—the 45 with the Backgammon label. "Mary-Liz" by Flip Goodloe. A million sales, RIAA-certified. And beneath the title, the composer credit: (P. Goodloe-L. Weinstein). Lenny smiled. Not too many people knew that Lenny Winter's birth certificate read "Leonard Weinstein."

He wondered how many copies would sell in the inevitable surge of interest after Flip's death. Look how many Lennon records moved after he bought it. Lenny did not like to think of himself as one who made money off the dead, but a buck was a buck, and half of all royalties from sales and airplay of a good number of Flip's early songs belonged to Lenny. So it was only fair that he got what was rightfully his. He made a mental note to call BMI in the morning.

The radio segued into Goodloe's second big hit, "Little Rocker"—another P. Goodloe-L. Weinstein composition. A gold copy of that, too, was somewhere on the wall.

Those were the days when Lenny could do no wrong. Flip had it all then, too. But he blew it. Lenny had managed to stay at or near the top. Flip had been nowhere for years.

Which was why Lenny had visited him last week—to give the Flipper another chance.

He shook his head. What a mistake that had been.

* * * * *

It hadn't been easy to find Flip. He had moved back to Alexandria, Virginia, his old hometown. He still played an occasional solo gig in some of the M Street clubs in DC, but sporadically. He was unreliable. Club owners learned to expect him when they saw him. Everyone knew he was shooting shit again. No one had a phone number, but a bartender knew a girl who had gone home with him after a recent gig. Lenny found her. As expected, she was young and white. She remembered the address.

It was in a garden apartment complex that gave new meaning to the word "run-down." Waist-high weeds sprouted through cracks in the parking lot blacktop; a couple of stripped and rotting wrecks slumped amid the more functional cars; children's toys lay scattered over the dirt patch that had once been a lawn; on the buildings themselves the green of the previous coat of paint showed through cracks and chips in the current white coat, which was none too current.

This was where Flip Goodloe lived? Lenny shook his head. Flip could have had it all.

Building seven, apartment 4-D. Lenny pushed the bell button but heard no ring within. He did hear an acoustic guitar plunking away on the other side of the door, so he knocked. No answer. He knocked again, louder. The guitar kept playing, but not loud enough to drown out Lenny's pounding on the door. The player obviously heard Lenny; he was just ignoring him.

Typical.

He tried the doorknob. It turned. He went in.

A pigsty. That's what it was—a pigsty. Empty Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets caught the breeze from the door, rolling among the Big Mac boxes and countless candy bar wrappers littering the floor. Dust everywhere. The rug had once been red—possibly; hard to tell in the dim light. Cobwebs in all the ceiling corners. Clothes strewn everywhere. Acrid smoke layered out at three distinct levels in the air of the room, undulating sensuously in the draft.

And there in the middle of the room, sitting cross-legged like some black-skinned maharishi, his emaciated body naked but for a stained pair of jockey shorts, was Flip Goodloe, staring off into space while he picked and chorded an aimless melody from the Martin clutched before him. His hair was a rat's nest, looking like he had tried to weave a natural into dreadlocks but had given up halfway along.

"Flip," Lenny said, raising his voice to break through the noise. "Flip!"

Rheumy, red-rimmed eyes focused on Lenny through pinpoint pupils. A slow smile spread across Flip's features.

"Well, if it ain't my old friend, Lenny. Been seeing you on TV pushing those moldy oldies collections. You got fat, man. You look like Porky Pig on the tube. Yeah. L. Weinstein, a.k.a. Daddy Shoog, a.k.a. Lenny Winter, former dj, former owner of countless tiny record companies—bankrupt record companies—and now known as Mister Golden Oldies."

Lenny bowed—not an easy trick with his girth—more to escape the naked hostility in Flip's eyes and voice than to accept the sarcastic approbation.

"Oh, yeah. I almost forgot: former collaborator. I must be the only guy in rock who collaborated with someone who's never written a single lyric or note of music in his life."

Not the only, Lenny thought. Plenty of others.

Flip switched to a Kingfisher voice: "Ah guess dat makes yo' de collaborator, an' me de collaboratee."

"That's all water under the bridge, Flip," Lenny said, uncomfortable. This man had no class—no class at all. "Whatever disagreements we had in the past, we can bury now. I've got a deal for you. A great deal. It'll mean your comeback. Chuck Berry came back. You can, too—bigger than ever!"

Flip's smile finally faded. "What makes you think I wanna comeback?"

Lenny ignored the remark. Every has-been wants a comeback. He went on to explain the details of the ninth annual "One Mo' Once Golden Oldies Revival" tour, how it was going to be the biggest and best ever of its kind. And how he, Lenny Winter, out of the goodness of his heart, had decided to let Flip Goodloe headline the tour.

What he didn't say was that he needed Flip as headliner to put the icing on the cake, so to speak. The back-to-basics influence of the latest hits was having its effect, and Lenny was going to cash in on it. He'd always been able to pick up trends. It was his big talent, what had made him Daddy Shoog back in the old days. He sensed new interest growing in old-time rock 'n' roll, especially in the unpretentious, down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred guitar style of someone like the Flipper. Lenny could feel it in his gut—Flip Goodloe leading the bill would turn a successful, reasonably profitable tour into a gold rush.

He needed Flip. And he was going to get him. .

"Not interested," Flip said.

"You don't mean that. What else have you got going for you?"

"Religion, Lenny. I got religion."

Lenny kept his face straight but mentally rolled his eyes. Who's the guru this time?

"Born again?" he said.

"No way. I worship the great god Doolang."

"Doolang." Great.

"Yeah." Flip pointed toward the ceiling. "Behold His image."

Lenny squinted into the hazy air. Hanging from a thread thumbtacked to the ceiling was a wire coat hanger twisted into an "S"-like configuration…like a cross between a G-clef and a dollar sign.

"Doolang?"

"You got it. The God of Aging Rockers. I already burned my offering to Him and was just warming up to sing His favorite hymn."

"Is that what I smell? What did you burn?"

"Rod Stewart's latest." He giggled. "Know what hymn he likes best?"

Lenny sighed. "I'll bite—what?"

" 'He's So Fine.' By the Chiffons. Remember?"

Lenny thought back. Oh, yeah: Doolang-doolang-doolang.

He laughed. "I get it."

Flip began to laugh, too. "I can also sing Him 'My Sweet Lord.' I'm not sure ol' Doolang knows the difference."

He laughed harder. He flopped back on the floor and spread his arms and laughed from deep in his gut.

Lenny saw the tracks on Flip's arms and his own laughter died, strangled in coils of pity and revulsion. Flip must have noticed the direction of his gaze, for he suddenly fell silent. He sat up and folded his arms across his chest, hiding the scars.

"Doolang don't mind if someone shoots up once in a while. Especially if they been blackballed out of the industry."

Fury blasted a wave of heat through him. A hopped-up Flip Goodloe would be a liability rather than an asset. There'd be a constant risk of his getting busted making a score in K.C. or Montgomery or some other burg and that would be it for the tour. Finis. Caput. Dead.

"Don't give me this Doolang crap!" Lenny shouted. "You're screwing up your—"

Flip was on his feet in a flash, his face barely an inch from Lenny's.

"Don't you dare take the name of the great god Doolang in vain! Your lips aren't even worthy to speak His name in praise! You'd better watch out, L. Weinstein. Doolang's pretty pissed at you. You've screwed more rockers than anybody else in history. One day He may decide to get even!"

That did it. The Flipper was completely meshugge. His brain was fried. He'd mainlined once too often.

Lenny pulled five C-notes from his wallet and threw them on the floor.

"Here! Buy yourself a nice load of smack, a bunch of schmaltzy records, and a truckload of coat hangers. Twist the hangers into cute little curlicues, burn the records, and shoot up to your heart's content. I don't want to hear about it!"

He spun and lurched out the door, away from the stink, away from the madness, away from the sight of the man he had ruined twenty years ago.

* * * * *

Twenty years…had it been that long?

A third Goodloe song, "Coin' Home," immediately followed the second. Flip's music was starting to get on his nerves. He went back to where he had left his cigar. Smoke ran straight up in a thin wavering line from the tip. Near the ceiling it curled into a twisted shape almost like a G-clef.

Lenny gave it passing notice as he knocked off the ash, then wandered around the trophy room in a pensive mood.

Flip had accused him of screwing more rockers than anyone else in history. A rotten thing to say. Sure, a lot of them felt screwed, but in truth they owed Lenny Winter a debt of thanks for giving them a chance in the first place. He'd pulled some fast ones—no use kidding himself—but he felt no guilt. In fact, he could not help but take a certain amount of pride in his fancy footwork.

He had realized early on the power wielded by a New York City dj He could make a new artist by raving about the record and playing it every half hour, or he could abort a career simply by losing the record. Those were heady days. Every agent, every manager, every PR man for every label was pushing gifts, trips, girls, and cash at him. He took everything they offered—except the cash.

Not to say he didn't want the dough. He wanted that most of all. But he saw the dangers from the start. For obvious reasons, you couldn't declare the money as income, and that left you open to a federal charge of income tax evasion if a scandal arose. You wouldn't just lose your job then—you could be headed for Leavenworth if the IRS boys built up a good case against you.

So cash was out for Lenny unless it could be laundered and declared. It nearly killed him to say no to all the easy dinero being pushed at him…until the spring of '55 when he came up with a revolutionary scam. It happened the day a portly Negro—that was what they were called then—from a small Washington, DC label brought in a regional hit called "Georgia-Mae" by someone named Flip Goodloe. Lenny knew instantly it was special. He'd never heard a guitar played that way. It seemed to feed directly into the central nervous system. His sixth sense told him this artist and this record had almost everything needed for a big hit. Almost.

"There's just one problem," Lenny had told the company rep. "That name won't play around here."

"Y'mean 'Flip'?" the black had said.

"No. I mean 'Georgia-Mae.' It's too hick, daddy. City kids won't dig it."

Hard to believe now that he actually talked like that in those days.

The black guy shrugged. "He wrote it, he can change it. What's in a name?"

"Everything, as far as this record's concerned. Tell him to change it to something more…American sounding, if you get my drift." The message was clear: Change it to a white-sounding name. "Then I can make it a biggy."

The black guy had been sharp. "Can? Or will?"

Lenny had been ready to do his silent routine and see what was offered when it struck him that he had just made a significant contribution to this Flip Goodloe's song. Fighting a burst of excitement that nearly lifted him from his chair, he spoke calmly, as if making a routine proposal.

"I want to go down as co-composer of this song and of the B-side as well. And if I make it a hit—which I will—I want half credit on his next ten releases."

The company rep had shaken his head. "Don't know about that. I don't think the Flipper will go for it."

Lenny wrote "L. Weinstein" on a slip of paper, then stood and opened the door to his office.

"He will if he wants to get out of DC." He handed the slip to the rep. "And that's the name of his new songwriting partner."

Lenny never did find out what transpired back in the offices of Backgammon Records, but four weeks later he received a promo 45 by Flip Goodloe called "Mary-Liz"—exactly the same song but for the name. And under the title was "(P. Goodloe-L. Weinstein)."

Lenny began to play it two or three times an hour that very night. The record went gold before the summer. Half of all composer royalties went to Lenny. All legal, all aboveboard and, he knew, utterly brilliant.

Not a stunt he could pull if a song came from the Brill Building or one of the other Tin Pan Alley tune mills, but it became a standard practice for Lenny with new artists who wrote their own material. Trouble was, there weren't enough of them.

Then it occurred to him: He had struck gold at the composer level. Why not get in on other levels?

So he did. He started a record company and a publishing company, found an a-cappella group with a few songs of their own, recorded them with an instrumental backup, and published their music. All without anyone having the slightest notion that the famous Lenny Winter was involved. Lenny then pushed the record on his show and more often than not it became a hit. Lenny knew nothing about music, could not sing a note. But he knew what would sell.

When sales for the record had dried up and all the royalties were in, Lenny closed up his operation and opened up down the street under a different name. The artists came looking for their money and found an empty office.

Lenny followed the formula for years, funneling all profits through Winter Promotions, the company he had set up to finance his plans for live rock 'n' roll shows, the kind Alan Freed was doing hand-over-fist business with in places like the Brooklyn Paramount.

"Down the Road and Around the Bend," another Flip Goodloe hit, started through the speakers.

Come on! Too bad about Flip being dead and all, but enough was enough.

Lenny went over to the tuner. He noticed some wires had fallen out from behind the system. They were twisted into a configuration that looked something like a dollar sign. He kicked them back out of sight and twisted the tuner dial a few degrees to the left until he caught the neighboring FM station.

The opening chords of "You're Mine Mine Mine" by the Camellows filled the room.

Lenny smiled and shook his head. This must be oldies night or something. He had recorded the Camellows on his Landlubber label back in '58. This was their only hit. Unfortunately, Landlubber records folded before any royalties could be paid. Such a shame.

He moved along the wall to a poster from the fall of '59 proclaiming his first rock 'n' roll show. His own face—younger, leaner in the cheeks—grinned from the top, and below ran a list of his stars, some of them the very same acts he had recorded and deserted during the preceding years. A great lineup, even if he did say so himself.

The shows—that was where the money was. Continuous shows ten a.m. 'til midnight for a week or two straight. One horde of pimple-pussed kids after another buying tickets, streaming in with their money clutched in their sweaty fists, streaming out with programs and pictures and records in place of that money. Lenny had wanted a piece of that action.

But he had to start small. He didn't have enough to bankroll a really big show the first time out, so he found the Bixby, a medium-sized theatre in Astoria whose owners, what with the movie business in a slump and all, were interested in a little extra revenue. The place was a leftover from those Depression-era movie palaces and not adequately wired for the lighting needed for a live show. No matter: A wad of bills stuffed into the pocket of the local building inspector took care of that permit. From then on it was full speed ahead. The acts were lined up, and he began the buildup on his radio show.

Opening night was a smash. Every show was packed for the first three days. He should have known then it couldn't last. Things were running too smoothly. A screw-up was inevitable.

Lenny shifted his eyes to the right to where a framed newspaper photo showed his 1959 self-dashing wide-eyed and fright-faced from a smoking doorway carrying an unconscious girl in his arms. That photo occupied a well-deserved place of honor in his trophy room. It had saved his ass.

* * * * *

She had wandered backstage after the fourth show to meet the great Lenny Winter, the Daddy Shoog of radio fame—a fifteen-year-old blonde who looked older and was absolutely thrilled when he let her sit in his dressing room. They had a few drinks—she found Seven and Seven "really neat-tasting"—and soon she was tipsy and hot and on his lap. As his hand was sliding under her skirt and slip and up along the silky length of her inner thigh, someone yelled "Fire!"

Lenny dumped her on the cot and ran to look. He saw the smoke, heard the screams from the audience, and knew with icy-veined certainty that even if he got out of here alive, his career as Daddy Shoog was dead.

He glanced back into his dressing room and saw that the kid had passed out. It wouldn't do to have a minor with a load of booze in her blood found dead of smoke inhalation in his dressing room. Wouldn't do at all. So he picked her up and ran for the stage door. By some incredible stroke of luck, a Daily News photog had been riding by, seen the smoke, and snapped Lenny coming out the door with his unconscious burden.

A hundred and forty-six kids died in the Astoria Bixby fire—most of them trampled by their fellow fans. Fingers of blame were pointed in every direction—at rock 'n' roll, at the building inspectors, at the fire department, at teenagers in general. Everywhere but at Lenny Winter. Lenny was safe, protected by that photo.

Because that picture made page one in the News and was picked up by the wire services. Lenny Winter, "known as 'Daddy Shoog' to his fans," was a hero. He had risked his life to save one of his young fans who had been overcome by smoke.

And when the payola scandal broke shortly thereafter in the winter of '60, that dear, dear photo carried him through. The Senate panels and the New York grand jury questioned everyone—even Dick Clark—but they left Daddy Shoog alone. He was a hero. You didn't bring a hero in and ask him about graft.

* * * * *

Looking back now, Lenny realized that it really hadn't mattered much what happened then. The whole scene was in flux. Alan Freed went down, the scapegoat for the whole payola scandal. Rock 'n' roll was changing. Even its name was being shortened to just plain "rock." Radio formats were changing, too. Lenny found himself out of the New York market in '62, and completely out of touch during the British invasion in the mid-sixties. Those were lean years, but he started coming back in the seventies with his series of "One Mo' Once Golden Oldies Revival" tours. He was no longer Daddy Shoog, but Mr. Golden Oldies. He sold mail-order collections of oldies on TV. He was a national figure again.

You can't keep a good man down.

A new song came on—"I'm on My Way" by the Lulus. A little bell chimed a sour note in the back of his brain. The Lulus had been one of his groups, too. Coincidence.

Lenny turned his attention back to the wall and spotted another framed newspaper clipping. He didn't know why he kept this one. Maybe it was just to remind himself that when Lenny Winter gets even, he gets even.

A 1962 UPI story. He could have cut it from the Times but he preferred the more lurid News version. The subject of the piece was Flip Goodloe and how he had been discovered en flagrant with a sixteen-year-old white girl. His career took the long slide after that. And even when it had all blown over, he had messed himself up too much with heroin to come back.

Strange how one thing leads to another, Lenny thought.

Shortly before the incident described in the article, Flip had refused to give Lenny any further composer credit on his songs. He had called Lenny all sorts of awful things like a no-talent leech, a bloodsucker, a slime ball, and other more colorful street-level epithets. Lenny didn't get mad. He got even. He knew Flip's fondness for young stuff—young white stuff. He found a little teenage slut, paid her to get it on with Flip, then sent in the troops. She disappeared afterward, so the case never came to trial. But the morals charges had been filed and the newspaper stories had run and Flip Goodloe was ruined.

To think: If it hadn't been for the teenybopper incident during the fire at the Bixby, Lenny might never have dreamed up the scam he pulled on Flip. Yes…strange how one thing leads to another.

But Flip's overdose. Maybe that was really Lenny's fault. Maybe the five hundred he had left the Flipper last week— guilt money?—had been too much cash at once. Maybe it had let him go out and get some really pure stuff. A lot of it. And maybe that was why he was dead—because of the money Lenny had left him.

The Lulus faded out, followed without commercial interruption or dj comment by the Pendrakes' "I'm So Crazy for You."

Another of Lenny's groups from the fifties.

He felt a tingle crawl up from the base of his spine. What was going on here? Coincidence was one thing, but this made seven songs in a row he was connected with. Seven!

Lenny strode back to the tuner and spun the knob. Stations screeched by until the indicator came to rest in the nineties. Flip Goodloe once again shouted the chorus of "Little Rocker" from the speakers. Lenny gasped and gave the knob a vicious turn. Another screech and then the Boktones—another group on one of Lenny's short-lived labels—were singing "Hey-Hey Momma!"

Sweat broke out along Lenny's upper lip. This was crazy. It was Lenny Winter night all over the dial!

One more chance. Steadying his hand, he guided the indicator to the all-news station. The only tunes you ever heard there were commercial jingles. He found the number—

—and reeled away from the machine as the familiar opening riffs of "Mary-Liz" rammed against him.

With a quaking index finger stretched out before him, he forced himself forward and hit the power button. Silence. Blessed silence.

He realized he was trembling. Why? It was all just a coincidence, nothing more. The Flipper's death had put the stations into a retrospective mood. They were playing old Goodloe tunes and other stuff from his era. And the all-news station…probably doing a feature on Goodloe, and Lenny had tuned in just as they were airing a sample of his work.

Sure. That was it.

So why not turn the radio back on? Why not indeed?

Because he had to go out now. Yes. Out. For some air. Lenny fled the trophy room and went to the front hall. It was spring but still cool out here along the Long Island Sound, and he'd need a coat. He pulled the closet door open and stopped. At first glance he thought the closet was empty. Then he saw the coats and jackets on the floor. They'd all fallen off their hangers.

And those hangers…they didn't look like hangers anymore.

They hung on the closet pole in a neat row, but they'd been twisted into an odd shape that was becoming too familiar…something like a cross between a G-clef and a dollar sign. They hung there, swaying gently, the light from the hall gleaming dully along the contorted lengths of wire.

Lenny stared at them dumbly, feeling terror expand with the memory of where he had first seen that shape: Goodloe's apartment.

Flip had been squatting under a hanger shaped just like these when Lenny had last seen him. He'd called it the great god Doolang or some such nonsense. Just a junkie fever dream— but what had happened to these?

Someone was in the house! That was the only explanation.

Some buddy of Flip's had come here to twist these things into knots and scare him. Well, it was working. Lenny was terrified. Not of any supernatural mumbo-jumbo, but of the very idea of one of Flip's junkie friends in his house. Probably upstairs right now, waiting. He had to get out.

He snatched a coat from the floor and stumbled toward the front door. He'd be safer outside. He could run around to the garage and take the car. Then he'd phone the police and have them go through the house. That was the best way, the safest way.

As the door slammed behind him, he waited for a blast of cool air. It never came. Instead, it was warm out here. The air was stale, heavy with the smell and humidity of packed bodies. And it was dark…darker than it should be. Where were the lights of downtown Monroe?

Pain shot through Lenny's abdomen as his intestines twisted in fear. This wasn't his front yard. This was someplace else. He turned back to his front door. It was gone, replaced by a pair of wide, flat, swinging panels, each with a small glass rectangle at eye level. Through the glass he could see what appeared to be a lighted theatre lobby with Art Deco designs on the walls, popcorn machine and all. But deserted. He pounded on the doors, but it was like pounding against the base of a skyscraper; they didn't even rattle.

He turned. A light was growing out where the apron of his driveway should have been. Something was moved in the glow. As his eyes adjusted he could see rows of theatre seats stretching away on either side, and a filthy carpet leading down to a stage where the light continued to grow.

Noise filtered in like someone turning up the volume of an amplifier. Music: the driving rhythm of "Mary-Liz" and Flip Goodloe himself shouting the lyrics.

With his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth, Lenny took a faltering step or two toward the stage. It couldn't be.

But it was. No mistaking those gyrations, or the voice, or the riffs: the Flipper.

He heard crowd noises—cheers, hoots, shouts, hands clapping—and tore his gaze from the stage. The seats around him were filled with kids jumping up and down and gyrating wildly to the music. But there was no excitement in their slack faces, or in their cold eyes. Lenny knew this place. And he recognized those kids.

The Bixby in Astoria. But that was impossible—the Bixby was gone—burned out back in '59 during his first rock show and torn down a few months later.

Lenny ran back to the swinging doors and slammed against them. They still wouldn't budge. He pounded on the glass but there was no one in the outer lobby to hear. Had to find another way out, another exit. He was halfway down the aisle when he smelled it.

Smoke.

A cough. Another. Then someone shouted "Fire!" and the panic began. The crowd leaped out of its seats and surged into the aisle, enveloping Lenny like a hungry amoeba. As he went down under the press of panicked bodies, he caught a glimpse of the stage. Flip Goodloe was still up there, hurling his wild riffs into the smoky air, oblivious to the flames that ringed him. Flip smiled fiercely his way, and then Lenny was down, his back slamming against the filthy carpet.

Pain. Shoes kicked at him, heels high and low dug into his face and abdomen in frantic efforts to get by. Bodies fell on him. The weight atop him grew until he heard his ribs crack and shatter; but the lancinating pain from the bone splinters was overwhelmed by his hunger for air. He couldn't breathe! Stale air clogged in his lungs. The odor of old popcorn and dried chewing gum from the carpet was becalmed in his nasal passages.

Vision dimmed, tunneling down to a narrow circle of hazy light filtering through the chaos that swirled around him. And there on the ceiling of the theatre he saw a chandelier. But not the tassled punch-bowl affair that had hung in the old Bixby. This was a huge fluorescent tube, glowing redly, twisted into that same shape…the Doolang shape…

THE YEARS THE MUSIC DIED

INTRODUCTION

This is the companion piece to "The Last ‘One Mo’ Once Golden Oldies Revival’" and it appeared in another of Stu Schiff’s Whispers collections for Doubleday.

It was born one day as I was thumbing through the Rolling Stone Rock Almanac and noted all the deaths, injuries, drop-outs, and plain bad luck that had befallen every single major name in rock ’n’ roll during a two-year period in the late fifties. They had dropped like the proverbial flies. Most people would say, "Isn't that something," and read on.

I, of course, saw a hideous conspiracy.

(I revisited the house in Harbingers.)

THE YEARS THE MUSIC DIED

Nantucket in November. Leave it to Bill to make a mockery of security. And of me. The Atlantic looked mean today. I watched its gray, churning surface from behind the relative safety of the double-paned picture windows. I would have liked a few more panes between me and all that water. Would have liked a few miles between us, in fact.

Some people are afraid of snakes, some of spiders. With me, it's water. And the more water, the worse it is. I get this feeling it wants to suck me down. Been that way since I was a kid. Bill has known about the phobia for a good twenty years. So why did he do it? Bad enough to set up the meeting on this dinky little island, but to hold it on this narrow spit of land between the head of the harbor and an uneasy ocean with no more than a hundred yards between the two was outright cruel. And a nor'easter coming. If that awful ocean ever reared up…

I shuddered and turned away. But no turning away in this huge barn of a room with all these picture windows facing east, west, and north. Like a goddamn goldfish bowl. Not even curtains I could pull closed. I felt naked and exposed in this open pine-paneled space. Eight hours to go until dark blotted out the ocean. But then I'd still be able to hear it.

Why would my own son do something like this to me?

Security, Bill had said.

A last-minute off-season rental of an isolated house on a summer resort island in the chill of November. The Commission members could fly in, attend the meeting, then fly out again with no one ever knowing they were here. What could be more secure?

I'm a stickler for security, too, but this was ludicrous. This was—

Bill walked into the room, carefully not looking in my direction. I studied my son a moment: a good-looking man with dark hair and light blue eyes; just forty-four but looking ten years older. A real athlete until he started letting his weight go to hell. Now he had the beginnings of a hefty spare tire around his waist. I've got two dozen years on him and only half his belly.

Something was wrong with the way he was walking ... a little unsteady. And then I realized.

Good Lord, he's drunk.

I started to say something but Bill beat me to it.

"Nelson's here. He just called from the airport. I sent the car out for him. Harold is in the air."

I managed to say, "Fine," without making it sound choked.

My son, half-lit at a Commission meeting, and me surrounded by water—this had a good chance of turning into a personal disaster. All my peers, the heads of all the major industries in the country, were downstairs at the buffet brunch. Rockefeller was on the island, and Vanderbilt was on his way; they would complete the Commission in its present composition. Soon they'd be up here to start the agenda. Only Joe Kennedy would be missing. Again. Too bad. I've always liked Joe. But with a son in the White House, we all had serious doubts about his objectivity. It had been a tough decision, but Joe had gracefully agreed to give up his seat on the Commission for the duration of Jack's presidency.

Good thing, too. I was glad he wouldn't be here to see how Bill had deteriorated.

His son's going down in history while mine is going down the drain.

What a contrast. And yet, on the surface, I couldn’t see a single reason why Bill couldn't be where Jack Kennedy was. Both came from good stock, both had good war records and plenty of money behind them. But Jack had gone for the gold ring and Bill had gone for the bottle.

I wasn't going to begrudge Joe his pride in his son. All of us on the Commission were proud of the job Jack was doing. I remember that inner glow I felt when I heard, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." That's just the way I feel. The way everybody on the Commission feels.

I heard ice rattle and turned to see Bill pouring himself a drink at the bar.

"Bill! It's not noon yet, for God's sake!"

Bill raised his glass mockingly. "Happy anniversary, Dad."

I didn't know what to say to that. Today was nobody's anniversary.

"Have you completely pickled your brains?"

Bill's eyebrows rose. "How soon we forget. Six years ago today: November eighth, 1957. Doesn't that ring a bell?"

"No." I could feel my jaw clenching as I stepped toward him. "Give me that glass."

"That was the day the Commission decided to 'do something' about rock 'n' roll."

"So what?"

"Which led to February 3, 1959."

That date definitely had a familiar ring.

"You do remember February 3, don't you, Dad? An airplane crash. Three singers. All dead."

I took a deep breath. "That again."

"Not again. Still." He raised his glass. "Salud." Taking a long pull on his drink, he dropped into a chair.

I stood over him. The island, the drinking…here was what it was all about. I've always known the crash bothered him, but never realized how much until now. What anger he must have been carrying around these past few years. Anger and guilt.

"You mean to tell me you're still blaming yourself for that?" The softness of my voice surprised me.

"Why not? My idea, wasn't it?"

"The plane crash was nobody's idea. How many times do we have to go over this?"

"There never seems to be a time when I don't go over it. And now it's November eighth, 1963. Exactly six years to the day after I opened my big mouth at the Commission meeting."

"Yes, you did." And how proud I was of him that day. "You came up with a brilliant solution that resolved the entire crisis."

"Hah! Some crisis!"

A sudden burst of rain splattered against the north and east windows. The storm was here.

I sat down with my back to most of the glass and tried to catch Bill's eye.

"And you talk about how soon I forget? You had a crisis in your own home—Peter. Remember?"

Bill nodded absently.

I pressed on. Maybe I could break through this funk he was wallowing in, straighten him out before the meeting.

"Peter is growing to be a fine man now and I'm proud to call him my grandson, but back in '57 he was only eleven and already thoroughly immersed in rock and roll—"

"Not 'rock and roll,' Dad. You've got to be the only one in the country who pronounces the 'and.' It's 'rock 'n' roll'—like one word."

"It's three words and I pronounce all three. But be that as it may, your house was a war zone, and you know it."

That had been a wrenching time for the whole McCready clan, but especially for me. Peter was my only grandson then and I adored him. But he had taken to listening to those atrocious Little Richard records and combing his hair like Elvis Presley. Bill banned the music from the house but Peter was defying everyone, sneaking records home, listening to it on the radio, plunking his dimes into jukeboxes on the way home from school.

But Bill's house was hardly unique. The same thing was happening in millions of homes all over the country. Everyone but the kids seemed to have declared war on the music. Old-line disc jockeys were calling it junk noise and were having rock and roll record-smashing parties on the air; television networks were refusing to broadcast Presley below the waist; church leaders were calling it the Devil's music, cultural leaders were calling it barbaric, and a lot of otherwise mild-mannered ordinary citizens were calling it nigger music.

They should have guessed what the result of such mass persecution would be: The popularity of rock and roll soared.

"But the strife in your home served a useful purpose. It opened my eyes. I say with no little pride that I was probably the only man in the country who saw the true significance of what rock and roll was doing to American society."

"You thought you saw significance, and you were very persuasive. But I don't buy it anymore. It was only music."

I leaned back and closed my eyes. Only music...

Bill was proving to be a bigger and bigger disappointment with each passing year. I'd had such high hopes for him. I'd even started bringing him to Commission meetings to prepare him to take my seat someday. But now I couldn't see him ever sitting on the Commission. He had no foresight, no vision for the future. He couldn't be trusted to participate in the decisions the Commission had to make. Nor could I see myself leaving my controlling interest in the family business to him.

I have a duty to the McCready newspaper chain: My dad started it with a measly little local weekly in Boston at the turn of the century and built it to a small string. I inherited that and sweated my butt to expand it into a publishing empire that spans the country today. There was no way in good conscience I could leave the McCready Syndicate to Bill. Maybe this was a signal to start paying more attention to Jimmy. He was a full decade younger but showing a lot more promise.

Bill had shown promise in '57, though. I'll never forget the fall meeting of the Commission that year when Bill sat in as a non-voting member. I was set to address the group on what I saw as an insidious threat to the country. I knew I was facing a tough audience, especially on the subject of music. I drew on every persuasive skill I had to pound home the fact that rock and roll was more than just music, more than just an untrained nasal voice singing banal lyrics to a clichéd melody backed by a bunch of guitar notes strung together over a drumbeat.

It had become a social force.

Music as a social force—I knew that concept was unheard-of, but the age of mass communication was here and life in America was a new game. I saw that. I had to make the Commission see it. The Commission had to learn the rules of the new game if it wanted to remain a guiding force. In 1957, rock and roll was a pivotal piece in the game.

Irritating as it was, I knew the music itself was unimportant. Its status as a threat had been created by the hysterically negative reaction from the adult sector of society. As a result, untold millions of kids under eighteen came to see it as their music. Everyone born before World War II seemed to be trying to take it away from them. So they were closing ranks against all the older generations. That frightened me.

It did not, however, impress the other members of the Commission.

So for weeks before our regular meeting, I hammered away, throwing facts and figures at them, sending newspaper accounts of rock and roll riots, softening them up for my pitch.

And I was good that day. God, was I good. I can still remember my closing words:

"And gentlemen, as you all know, the upcoming generation includes the post-war baby boom, making it the largest single generation in the nation's history. If that generation develops too much self-awareness, if it begins to think of itself as a group outside the mainstream, catastrophe could result.

"Consider, gentlemen: In ten years most of them will be able to vote. If the wrong people get their ear, the social and political continuity that this Commission has sworn to safeguard could be permanently disrupted.

"The popularity of the music continues to expand, gathering momentum all the time. If we don't act now, next year may be too late. We cannot silence this music, because that will only worsen the division. We must find a way to temper rock and roll…make it more palatable to the older generations, fuse it to the mainstream. Do that, and the baby boom generation will fall in line! Do nothing and I see only chaos ahead!"

But in the ensuing discussion it became quite clear that nobody, including myself, had the foggiest notion of how to change the music.

Then someone—I forget who—made a comment about how it was too bad all these rock and roll singers couldn't give up their guitars and go into the religion business like Little Richard had just done.

Bill had piped up then: "Or the Army. I'd love to see a military barber get a hold of Elvis Presley. Can't we get him drafted?"

The room suddenly fell silent as the Commission members—all of us—shared an epiphany:

Don't go after the music—go after the ones who make the music. Get rid of the raucous leaders and replace them with more placid, malleable types.

Brilliant! It might never have occurred to anyone without Bill's remark.

* * * * *

The tinkling of the ice in Bill's glass as he took another sip dragged me back to the present, to Nantucket and the storm. In what I hoped he would take as a friendly gesture, I slapped Bill on the knee.

"Don't you remember the excitement back then after the Commission meeting? You and I became experts on rock and roll. We listened to all those awful records, got to know all about the performers, and then we began to zero in on them."

Bill nodded. "But I had no idea where it was going to end."

"No one did. Remember making the list? We sat around for weeks, going through the entertainment papers and picking out the singers most closely associated with the music, the leaders, the trendsetters, the originals."

I still savor the memory of that time of closeness with Bill, working together with him, both of us tingling with the knowledge that we were doing something important.

Elvis was the prime target, of course. More than anyone else, he personified everything that was rock and roll. His sneers, his gyrations, everything he did on stage was a slap in the face to the older generations. And his too-faithful renditions of colored music getting airplay all over the country, the screaming, fainting girls at his concerts, the general hysteria. Elvis had to go first.

And he turned out to be the easiest to yank from sight. With the Commission's vast influence, all we had to do was pass the word. In a matter of weeks, a certain healthy twenty-two-year-old Memphis boy received his draft notice. And on March 24, 1958—a landmark date I'll never forget—Elvis Presley was inducted into the US Army. But not to hang around stateside and keep up his public profile. Oh, no. Off to West Germany. Bye-bye, Elvis Pelvis.

Bill seemed to be reading my thoughts. "Too bad we couldn't have taken care of everyone like that."

"I agree, son." Bill seemed to be perking up a little. I kept up the chatter, hoping to bring him out some more. "But someone would have smelled a rat. We had to move slowly, cautiously. That was why I rounded up some of our best reporters and had them start sniffing around. And as you know, it didn't take them long to come up with a few gems."

The singers weren't my only targets. I also wanted to strike at the ones who spread the music through the airwaves. That proved easy. We soon learned that a lot of the big-time rock and roll disc jockeys were getting regular payoffs from record companies to keep their new releases on the air. We made sure that choice bits of information got to congressmen looking to heighten their public profile, and we made sure they knew to go after Alan Freed.

Oh, how I wanted Freed off the air back then. The man had gone from small-time Cleveland d.j. to big-time New York music show impresario. By 1959 he had appeared in a line of low-budget rock and roll movies out of Hollywood and was hosting a nationwide music television show. He had become "Mr. Rock 'n' Roll." His entire career was built on the music and he was its most vocal defender.

Alan Freed had to go. And payola was the key. We set the gears in motion and turned to other targets. And it was in May, only two months after Presley's induction, that the reporters turned up another spicy morsel.

"Remember, Bill? Remember when they told us that Jerry Lee Lewis had secretly married his third cousin in November of '57? Hardly a scandal in and of itself. But the girl was only fourteen. Fourteen! Oh, we made sure the McCready papers gave plenty of press to that, didn't we. Within days he was being booed off the stage. Yessir, Mr. Whole Lotta Shakin' / Great Balls of Fire was an instant has-been."

I laughed, and even Bill smiled. But the smile didn't last.

"Don't stop now, Dad. Next comes 1959."

"Bill, I had nothing to do with that plane crash. I swear it."

"You told your operatives to 'get Valens and Holly off the tour.' I heard you myself."

"I don't deny that. But I meant 'off the tour'—not dead! We couldn't dig up anything worthwhile on them so I intended to create some sort of scandal. We discussed it, didn't we? We wanted to see them replaced by much safer types, by pseudo-crooners like Frankie Avalon and Fabian. I did not order any violence. The plane crash was pure coincidence."

Bill studied the ceiling. "Which just happened to lead to the replacement of Holly, Valens, and that other guy with the silly name—The Big Bopper—by Avalon, Fabian, and Paul Anka. Some coincidence!"

I said nothing. The crash had been an accident. The operatives had been instructed to do enough damage to the plane to keep it on the ground, forcing the three to miss their next show. Apparently they didn't do enough, and yet did too much. The plane got into the air, but never reached its destination. Tragic, unfortunate, but it all worked out for the best. I couldn't let Bill know that, though.

"I can understand why you lost your enthusiasm for the project then."

"But you didn't, did you, Dad? You kept right on going."

"I had a job to do. An important one. And when one of our reporters discovered that Chuck Berry had brought that Apache minor across state lines to work in his club, I couldn't let it pass."

Berry was one of the top names on my personal list. Strutting up there on stage, swinging his guitar around, duck-walking across back and forth, shouting out those staccato lyrics as he spread his legs and wiggled his hips, and all those white girls clapping and singing along as they gazed up at him. I tell you it made my hackles rise.

"The Mann Act conviction we got on him has crippled his career. And then later in '59 we finally spiked Alan Freed. When he refused to sign that affidavit saying he had never accepted payola, he was through. Fired from WNEW-TV, WABC-TV, and WABC radio—one right after the other."

What a wonderful year.

"Did you stop there, Dad?"

"Yes." What was he getting at? "Yes, I believe so."

"You had nothing to do with that car crash in sixty—Eddie Cochran killed, Gene Vincent crippled?"

"Absolutely not!" Damn! The booze certainly wasn't dulling Bill's memory. That crash had been another unfortunate, unintended mishap caused by an overly enthusiastic operative. "Anyway, it remains a fact that by the middle of 1960, rock and roll was dead."

"Oh, I don't know about that—"

"Dead as a threat. What had been a potent, divisive social force is now a tiny historical footnote, a brief, minor cultural aberration. Only two years after we started, Elvis was out of the service but he was certainly not the same wild man who went in. Little Richard was in the ministry, Chuck Berry was up to his ears in legal troubles, Jerry Lee Lewis was in limbo as a performer, Alan Freed was out of a job and appearing before House subcommittees."

Bill tossed off the rest of his drink and glared at me. "You forgot to mention that Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and Eddie Cochran were dead."

"Unfortunately and coincidentally, yes. But not by my doing. I say again: Rock and roll was dead then, and remains dead. Even Presley gave up on it after his discharge. He got sanitized and Hollywoodized and that's fine with me. More power to him. I bear him no ill will."

"There's still rock 'n' roll," Bill mumbled as he got up and stood by the bar, glass in hand.

"I disagree, son," I said quickly, hoping he wouldn't pour himself another. "I stay current on these things and I know. There's still popular music they call rock and roll, but it has none of the abrasive, irritating qualities of the original. Remember how some of those songs used to set your teeth on edge and make your skin crawl? That stuff is extinct."

"Some of it's still pretty bad."

"Not like it used to be. Its punch is gone. Dried up. Dead." I pointed to the radio at the end of the bar. "Turn that thing on and I'll show you."

Bill did. A newscast came on.

"Find some music."

He spun the dial until the sweet blend of a mixed duet singing "Hey, Paula" filled the room.

"Hear that? Big song. I can live with it. Find another so-called rock 'n' roll station." He did and the instrumental "Telstar" came on. "Monotonous, but I can live with that, too. Try one more." As a d.j. announced the number one song in the country, a twelve-string guitar opening led into "Walk Right In."

Bill nodded and turned the radio off. "I concede the point."

"Good. And you must also concede that the wartime and post-war generations are now firmly back in the fold. There are pockets of discontent, naturally, but they are small and isolated. There is no clear-cut dividing line—that's what's important. Jack's doing his part in the White House. He's got them all hot for his social programs like the Peace Corps and such where their social impulses can be channeled and directed by the proper agencies. They see themselves as part of the mainstream, involved in the social continuum rather than separate from it.

"And we saved them, Bill—you, me, and the Commission."

Bill only stared at me. Finally, he said, "Maybe we did. But I never really understood about Buddy Holly—"

I felt like shouting, but controlled my voice.

"Can't you drop that? I told you—"

"Oh, I don't mean the crash. I mean why he was so high on your list. He always struck me as an innocuous four-eyes who hiccupped his way through songs."

"Perhaps he was. But like Berry and Little Richard and Valens and Cochran, he had the potential to become a serious threat. He and the others originated the qualities that made the music so divisive. They wrote, played, and sang their own songs. That made me extremely uneasy."

Bill shook his head in bafflement. "I don't see..."

"All right: Let's suppose the Commission hadn't acted and had let things run their course. And now, here in sixty-three, the wartime and post-war baby boom generation is aware of itself and a group, psychologically separate and forming its own subculture within ours. A lot of them are voting age now, and next year is an election year. Let's say one of these self-styled rock and roll singers who writes his own material gets it into his head to use his songs to influence the generation that idolizes him. Think of it: a thinly disguised political message being played over and over again, on radios, TVs, in homes, in jukeboxes, hummed, sung in the shower by all those voters. With their numbers, God knows what could happen at the polls."

I paused for breath. It was a truly frightening thought.

"But that's all fantasy," I said. "The airwaves are once again full of safe, sane Tin Pan Alley tunes."

Bill smiled.

I asked, "What's so funny?"

"Just thinking. When I was in London last month I noticed that Britain seems to be going through the same kind of thing we did in '57. Lots of rock and roll bands and fans. There's one quartet of guys who wear their hair in bangs—can't remember the name now—that's selling records like crazy and packing the kids into the old music halls where they're screaming and fainting just like in Elvis Presley's heyday. And I understand they write and play and sing their own music, too."

I heard the windows at my back begin to rattle and jitter as hail mixed with the rain. I did not turn to look.

"Forget Britain. England is already a lost cause."

"But what if their popularity spreads over here and the whole process gets going again?"

I laughed. That was a good one.

"A bunch of Limeys singing rock and roll to American kids? That'll be the day."

But I knew that if such a thing ever came to pass, the Commission would be there to take the necessary measures.

DAT-TAY-VAO

INTRODUCTION

I'd originally intended to use a much shorter version of "Dat-tay-vao" as either a flashback or a prologue in The Touch, but no matter how I tried to work it in, it simply wouldn't fit. Used early on, it gave away too much of the mystery of what would be happening to Alan Bulmer in the body of the novel; inserted later, it seemed redundant. So I scrapped it.

After the novel was finished I returned to it and fleshed it out to make it a stand-alone story—a prequel to The Touch. It appeared in the March 1987 issue of Amazing Stories. The story takes place exactly nineteen years before its publication...right about the time of Reborn, another novel in the Secret History of the World. The events in Reborn trigger the Dat-tay-vao's migration to the US where it plays an important part in the Secret History, as you will see when the revised Nightworld is published down the road.

DAT-TAY-VAO

1

Patsy cupped his hands gently over his belly to keep his intestines where they belonged. Weak, wet, and helpless, he lay on his back in the alley and looked up at the stars in the crystal sky, unable to move, afraid to call out. The one time he’d yelled loud enough to be heard all the way to the street, loops of bowel had squirmed against his hands, feeling like a pile of Mom’s slippery-slick homemade sausage all gray from boiling and coated with her tomato sauce. Visions of his insides surging from the slit in his abdomen like spring snakes from a novelty can of nuts had kept him from yelling again.

No one had come.

He knew he was dying. Good as dead, in fact. He could feel the blood oozing out of the vertical gash in his belly, seeping around his fingers and trailing down his forearms to the ground. Wet from neck to knees. Probably lying in a pool of blood...his very own homemade marinara sauce.

Help was maybe fifty feet away and he couldn’t call for it. Even if he could stand the sight of his guts jumping out of him, he no longer had the strength to yell. Yet help was out there...the nightsounds of Quang Ngai streetlife...so near...

Nothing ever goes right for me. Nothing. Ever.

It had been such a sweet deal. Six keys of Cambodian brown. He could’ve got that home to Flatbush no sweat and then he’d have been set up real good. Uncle Tony would’ve known what to do with the stuff and Patsy would’ve been made. And he’d never be called Fatman again. Only the grunts over here called him Fatman. He’d be Pasquale to the old boys, and Pat to the younger guys.

And Uncle Tony would’ve called him Kid, like he always did.

Yeah. Would have. If Uncle Tony could see him now, he’d call him Shit-for-Brains. He could hear him now:

Six keys for ten G’s? Whatsamatta witchoo? Din’t I always tell you if it seems too good to be true, it usually is? Ay! Gabidose! Din’t you smell no rat?

Nope. No rat smell. Because I didn’t want to smell a rat. Too eager for the deal. Too anxious for the quick score. Too damn stupid as usual to see how that sleazeball Hung was playing me like a hooked fish.

No Cambodian brown.

No deal.

Just a long, sharp K-bar.

The stars above went fuzzy and swam around, then came into focus again.

The pain had been awful at first, but that was gone now. Except for the cold, it was almost like getting smashed and crashed on scotch and grass and just drifting off. Almost pleasant. Except for the cold. And the fear.

Footsteps...coming from the left. He managed to turn his head a few degrees. A lone figure approached, silhouetted against the light from the street. A slow, unsteady, almost staggering walk. Whoever it was didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Hung? Come to finish him off?

But no. This guy was too skinny to be Hung.

The figure came up and squatted flatfooted on his haunches next to Patsy. In the dim glow of starlight and streetlight he saw a wrinkled face and a silvery goatee. The gook babbled something in Vietnamese.

God, it was Ho Chi Minh himself come to rob him.

Too late. The money’s gone. All gone.

No. Wasn’t Ho. Couldn’t be. Just an old papa-san in the usual black pajamas. They all looked the same, especially the old ones. The only thing different about this one was the big scar across his right eye. Looked as if the lids had been fused closed over the socket.

The old man reached down to where Patsy guarded his intestines and pushed his hands away. Patsy tried to scream in protest but heard only a sigh, tried to put his hands back up on his belly but they’d weakened to limp rubber and wouldn’t move.

The old man smiled as he singsonged in gooktalk and pressed his hands against the open wound in Patsy’s belly. Patsy screamed then, a hoarse, breathy sound torn from him by the searing pain that shot in all directions from where the old gook’s hands lay. The stars really swam around this time, fading as they moved, but they didn’t go out.

By the time his vision cleared, the old gook was up and turned around and weaving back toward the street. The pain, too, was sidling away.

Patsy tried again to lift his hands up to his belly, and this time they moved. They seemed stronger. He wiggled his fingers through the wetness of his blood, feeling for the edges of the wound, afraid of finding loops of bowel waiting for him.

He missed the slit on the first pass. And missed it on the second. How could that happen? It had been at least a foot long and had gaped open a good three or four inches, right there to the left of his belly button. He tried again, carefully this time...

...and found a thin little ridge of flesh.

But no opening.

He raised his head—he hadn’t been able to do that before—and looked down at his belly. His shirt and pants were a bloody mess, but he couldn’t see any guts sticking out. And he couldn’t see any wound, either. Just a dark wet mound of flesh.

If he wasn’t so goddamn fat he could see down there! He rolled onto his side—God, he was stronger!—and pushed himself up to his knees to where he could slump his butt onto his heels, all the time keeping at least one hand tight over his belly. But nothing came out, or even pushed against his hand. He pulled his shirt open.

The wound was closed, replaced by a thin, purplish vertical line.

Patsy felt woozy again. What’s going on here?

He was in a coma—that had to be it. He was dreaming this.

But everything was so real—the rough ground beneath his knees, the congealing red wetness of the blood on his shirt, the sounds from the street, even the smell of the garbage around him. All so real...

Bracing himself against the wall, he inched his way up to his feet. His knees were wobbly and for a moment he thought they’d give out on him. But they held and now he was standing.

He was afraid to look down, afraid he’d see himself still on the ground. Finally, he took a quick glance. Nothing there but two clotted puddles of blood, one on each side of where he’d been lying.

He tore off the rest of the ruined shirt and began walking—very carefully at first—toward the street. Any moment now he would wake up or die, and this craziness would stop. No doubt bout that. But until then he was going to play out this little fantasy to the end.

2

By the time he made it to his bunk—after giving the barracks guards and a few wandering night owls a story about an attempted robbery and a fight—Patsy had begun to believe that he was really awake and walking around.

It was so easy to say it had all been a dream, or maybe hallucinations brought on by acid slipped into his after-dinner coffee by some wise-ass. He managed to convince himself of that scenario a good half dozen times. And then he would look down at the scar on his belly, and at the blood on his pants...

Patsy sat on his rack in a daze.

It really happened! He just touched me and closed me up!

A hushed voice in the dark snapped him out of it.

“Hey! Fatman! Got any weed?”

It sounded like Donner from two bunks over, a steady customer.

“Not tonight, Hank,”

“What? Fatman’s never out of stock!”

“He is tonight”

“You shittin’ me?”

“Good night, Hank.”

Actually, he had a bunch of bags stashed in his mattress, but Patsy didn’t feel like dealing tonight. His mind was too numb to make change. He couldn’t even mourn the loss of all his cash—every red cent he’d saved up from almost a year’s worth of chickenshit deals with guys like Donner. All he could think about, all he could see, was that old one-eyed gook leaning over him, smiling, babbling, and touching him.

He’d talk to Tram tomorrow. Tram knew everything that went on in this goddamn country. Maybe he’d heard something about the old gook. Maybe he could be persuaded to look for him.

One way or another, Patsy was going to find that old gook. He had plans for him. Big plans.

3

Somehow he managed to make it through breakfast without perking the powdered eggs and scrambling the coffee.

It hadn’t been easy. He’d been late getting to the mess hall kitchen. He’d got up on time but had stood in the shower staring at that purple line up and down his belly for he didn’t know how long, remembering the cut of Hung’s knife, the feel of his intestines in his hands.

Did it really happen?

He knew it had. Accepting it and living with it was going to be the problem.

Finally he’d pulled on his fatigues and hustled over to the kitchen. Rising long before sunup was the only bad thing about being an army cook. The guys up front might call him a pogue but it sure beat hell out of being a stupid grunt in the field. Anything was better than getting shot at. Look what happened in Hue last month, and the whispers about My Lai. Only gavones got sent into the field. Smart guys got mess assignments in nice safe towns like Quang Ngai.

At least smart guys with an Uncle Tony did.

Patsy smiled as he scraped hardened scrambled egg off the griddle. He’d always liked to cook. Good thing too. Because in a way, the cooking he’d done for Christmas last year had kept him out of the fight this year.

As always, Uncle Tony had come for Christmas dinner. At the table Pop edged around to the big question: What to do about Patsy and the draft. To everyone’s surprise, he’d passed his induction physical...

...another example of how nothing ever went right for him. Patsy had learned that a weight of 225 pounds would keep a guy his height out on medical deferment. Since he wasn’t too many pounds short of that, he gorged on everything in sight for weeks. It would’ve been fun if he hadn’t been so desperate. But he made the weight: On the morning of his induction physical the bathroom scale read 229.

But the scale they used downtown at the Federal Building read 224.

He was in and set to go to boot camp after the first of the year.

Pop finally came to the point: Could Uncle Tony maybe...?

Patsy could still hear the disdain in Uncle Tony’s voice as he spoke around a mouthful of bread.

“You some kinda peacenik or somethin’?”

No, no, Pop had said, and went on to explain how he was afraid that Patsy, being so fat and so clumsy and all, would get killed in boot camp or step on a mine his first day in the field. You know how he is.

Uncle Tony knew. Everybody knew Patsy’s fugazi reputation. Uncle Tony had said nothing as he poured the thick red gravy over his lasagna, gravy Patsy had spent all morning cooking. He took a bite and pointed his fork at Patsy.

“Y’gotta do your duty, kid. I fought in the big one. You gotta fight in this here little one.” He swallowed. “Say, you made this gravy, dincha? It’s good. It’s real good. And it gives me an idea of how we can keep you alive so you can go on making this stuff every Christmas.”

So Uncle Tony pulled some strings and Patsy wound up an army cook.

He finished with the cleanup and headed downtown to the central market area, looking for Tram. He smelled the market before he got to it—the odors of live hens, thit heo, and roasting dog meat mingled in the air.

He found Tram in his usual spot by his cousin’s vegetable stand, wearing his old ARVN fatigue jacket. He’d removed his right foot at the ankle and was polishing its shoe.

“Nice shine, yes, Fatman?” he said as he looked up and saw Patsy.

“Beautiful.” He knew Tram liked to shock passersby with his plastic lower leg and foot. Patsy should have been used to the gag by now, but every time he saw that foot he thought of having his leg blown off...

“I want to find someone.”

“American or gook?” He crossed his right lower leg over his left and snapped his foot back into place at the ankle. Patsy couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable about a guy who called his own kind gooks.

“Gook.”

“What name?”

“Uh, that’s the problem. I don’t know.”

Tram squinted up at him. “How I supposed to find somebody without a name?”

“Old papa-san. Looks like Uncle Ho.”

Tram laughed. “All you guys think old gooks look like Ho!”

“And he has a scar across his eye”—Patsy put his index finger over his right eye—“that seals it closed like this.”

4

Tram froze for a heartbeat, then snapped his eyes back down to his prosthetic foot. He composed his expression while he calmed his whirling mind.

Trinh...Trinh was in town last night! And Fatman saw him!

He tried to change the subject. Keeping his eyes down, he said, “I am glad to see you still walking around this morning. Did Hung not show up last night? I warned you—he number ten bad gook.”

After waiting and hearing no reply, Tram looked up and saw that Fatman’s eyes had changed. They looked glazed.

“Yes,” Fatman finally said, shaking himself. “You warned me.” He cleared his throat. “But about the guy I asked you about—”

“Why you want find this old gook?”

“I want to help him.”

“How?”

“I want to do something for him.”

“You want do something for old gook?”

Fatman’s gaze wandered away as he spoke. “You might say I owe him a favor.”

Tram’s first thought was that Fatman was lying. He doubted this young American knew the meaning of returning a favor.

“Can you find him for me?” Fatman said.

Tram thought about that. And as he did, he saw Hung saunter out of a side street into the central market. He watched Hung’s jaw drop when he spotted Fatman, watched his amber skin pale to the color of boiled bean curd as he spun and hurriedly stumbled away.

Tram knew in that instant that Hung had betrayed Fatman last night in a most vicious manner, and that Trinh had happened by and saved Fatman with the Dat-tay-vao.

It was all clear now.

On impulse, Tram said, “He lives in my cousin’s village. I can take you to him.”

“Great” Fatman said, grinning and clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ll get us a jeep!”

“No jeep,” Tram said. “We walk.”

“Walk?” Fatman’s face lost much of its enthusiasm. “Is it far?”

“Not far. Just a few klicks on the way to Mo Due. A fishing village. We leave now.”

“Now? But—”

“Could be he not there if we wait.”

This wasn’t exactly true, but he didn’t want to give Fatman too much time to think. Tram watched reluctance and eagerness battle their way back and forth across the American’s face. Finally...

“All right. Let’s go. Long as it’s not too far.”

“If not too far for man with one foot, not too far for man with two.”

5

As Tram led Fatman south toward the tiny fishing village where Trinh had been living for the past year, he wondered why he’d agreed to bring the two of them together. His instincts were against it, yet he’d agreed to lead the American to Trinh.

Why?

Why was a word too often on his mind, it seemed. Especially where Americans were concerned. Why did they send so many of their young men over here? Most of them were either too frightened or too disinterested to make good soldiers. And the few who were eager for the fight hadn’t the experience to make them truly valuable. They did not last long.

He wanted to shout across the sea: Send us seasoned soldiers, not your children!

But who would listen?

And did age really matter? After all, hadn’t he been even younger than these American boys in the fight against the French at Dien Bien Phu fifteen years ago? But he and his fellow Vietminh had had a special advantage on their side. They had all burned with a fiery zeal to drive the French from their land.

Tram had been a communist then. He smiled at the thought as he limped along on the artificial foot, a replacement for the real one he’d lost to a Cong booby trap last year. Communist...he had been young at Dien Bien Phu and the constant talk from his fellow Vietminh about the glories of class war and revolution had drawn him into their ideological camp. But after the fighting was over, after the partition, what he saw of the birth pangs of the glorious new social order almost made him long for French rule again.

He’d come south then and had remained here ever since. He’d willingly fought for the South until the finger-charge booby trap had caught him at the knee; after that he found that his verve for any sort of fight had departed with his leg.

He glanced at Fatman, sweating so profusely as he walked beside him along the twisting jungle trail. He’d come to like the boy, but he could not say why. Fatman was greedy, cowardly, and selfish, and he cared for no one other than himself. Yet Tram had found himself responding to the boy’s vulnerability. Something tragic behind the bluff and bravado. With Tram’s aid, Fatman had gone from the butt of many of the jokes around the American barracks to their favored supplier of marijuana. Tram could not deny that he’d profited well by helping him gain that position. He’d needed the money to supplement his meager pension from the ARVN, but that had not been his only motivation. He’d felt a need to help the boy.

And he was a boy, no mistake about that. Young enough to be Tram’s son. But Tram knew he could never raise such a son as this.

So many of the Americans he’d met here were like Fatman. No values, no traditions, no heritage. Empty. Hollow creatures who had grown up with nothing expected of them. And now, despite all the money and all the speeches, they knew in their hearts that they were not expected to win this war.

What sort of parents provided nothing for their children to believe in, and then sent them halfway around the world to fight for a country they had never heard of?

And that last was certainly a humbling experience—to learn that until a few years ago most of these boys had been blithely unaware of the existence of the land that had been the center of Tram’s life since he’d been a teenager.

“How much farther now?” Fatman said.

Tram could tell from the American’s expression that he was uneasy being so far from town. Perhaps now was the time to ask.

“Where did Hung stab you?” he said.

Fatman staggered as if Tram had struck him a blow. He stopped and gaped at Tram with a gray face.

“How...?”

“There is little that goes on in Quang Ngai that I do not know,” he said, unable to resist an opportunity to enhance his stature. “Now, show me where.”

Tram withheld a gasp as Fatman pulled up his sweat-soaked shirt to reveal the purple seam running up and down to the left of his navel. Hung had gut cut him, not only to cause an agonizing death, but to show his contempt.

“I warned you...”

Fatman pulled down his shirt. “I know, I know. But after Hung left me in the alley, this old guy came along and touched me and sealed it up like magic. Can he do that all the time?”

“Not all the time. He has lived in the village for one year. He can do it some of the time every day. He will do it many more years.”

Fatman’s voice was a breathy whisper. “Years! But how? Is it some drug he takes? He looked like he was drunk.”

“Oh, no. Dat-tay-vao not work if you drunk.”

“What won’t work?”

“Dat-tay-vao...Trinh has the touch that heals.”

“Heals what? Just knife wounds and stuff?”

“Anything.”

Fatman’s eyes bulged. “You’ve got to get me to him!” He glanced quickly at Tram. “So I can thank him...reward him.”

“He requires no reward.”

“I’ve got to find him. How far to go?”

“Not much.” He could smell the sea now. “We turn here.”

As he guided Fatman left into thicker brush that clawed at their faces and snagged their clothes, he wondered again if he’d done the right thing by bringing him here. But it was too late to turn back.

Besides, Fatman had been touched by the Dat-tay-vao. Surely that worked some healing changes on the spirit as well as the body. Perhaps the young American truly wanted to pay his respects to Trinh.

6

He will do it many more years!

The words echoed in Patsy’s ears and once again he began counting the millions he’d make off the old gook. God, it was going to be so great! And so easy! Uncle Tony’s contacts would help get the guy into the states where Patsy would set him up in a “clinic.” Then he would begin to cure the incurable.

And oh God the prices he’d charge.

How much to cure someone of cancer? Who could say what price was too high? He could ask anything—anything!

But Patsy wasn’t going to be greedy. He’d be fair. He wouldn’t strip the patients bare. He’d just ask for half—half of everything they owned.

He almost laughed out loud. This was going to be so sweet! All he had to do was—

Just ahead of him, Tram shouted something in Vietnamese. Patsy didn’t recognize the word, but he knew a curse when he heard one. Tram started running. They had broken free of the suffocating jungle atop a small sandy rise. Out ahead, the sun rippled off a calm sea. A breeze off the water brought blessed relief from the heat. Below lay a miserable villa—a jumble of huts made of odd bits of wood, sheet metal, palm fronds, and mud.,

One of the huts was burning. Frantic villagers were hurling sand and water at it.

Patsy followed Tram’s headlong downhill run at a cautious walk. He didn’t like this. He was far from town and doubted he could find his way back; he was surrounded by gooks and something bad was going down.

He didn’t like this at all.

As he approached, the burning hut collapsed in a shower of sparks. To the side, a cluster of black pajama-clad women stood around a supine figure. Tram had pushed his way through to the center of the babbling group and now knelt beside the figure. Patsy followed him in.

“Aw, shit!”

He recognized the guy on the ground. Wasn’t easy. He’d been burned bad and somebody had busted caps all over him, but his face was fairly undamaged and the scarred eye left no doubt that it was the same old gook who’d healed him up last night. His good eye was closed and he looked dead, but his chest still moved with shallow respirations. Patsy’s stomach lurched at the sight of all the blood and charred flesh. What was keeping him alive?

Suddenly weak and dizzy, Patsy dropped to his knees beside Tram. His millions...all those sweet dreams of millions and millions of easy dollars were fading away.

Nothing ever goes right for me!

“I share your grief,” Tram said, looking at him with sorrowful dark eyes.

“Yeah. What happened?”

Tram glanced around at the frightened, grieving villagers. “They say the Cong bring one of their sick officers here and demand that Trinh heal him. Trinh couldn’t. He try to explain that the time not right yet but they grow angry and tie him up and shoot him and set his hut on fire.”

“Can’t he heal himself?”

Tram shook his head slowly, sadly. “No. Dat-tay-vao does not help the one who has it. Only others.”

Patsy wanted to cry. All his plans...it wasn’t fair!

“Those shitbums!”

“Worse than shitbums,” Tram said. “These Charlie say they come back soon and destroy whole village.”

Patsy’s anger and self-pity vanished in a cold blast of fear. He peered at the trees and bushes, feeling naked with a thousand eyes watching him.

...they come back soon...

His knees suddenly felt stronger.

“Let’s get back to town.” He began to rise to his feet, but Tram held him back.

“Wait. He looking at you.”

Sure enough, the old gook’s good eye was open and staring directly into his. Slowly, with obvious effort, he raised his charred right hand toward Patsy. His voice rasped something.

Tram translated: “He say, ‘You the one.’ ”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Patsy didn’t have time for this dramatic bullshit. He wanted out of here. But he also wanted to stay tight with Tram because Tram was the only one who could lead him back to Quang Ngai.

“I don’t know. Maybe he mean that you the one he fix last night.”

Patsy was aware of Tram and the villagers watching him, as if they expected something of him. Then he realized what it was: He was supposed to be grateful, show respect to the old gook. Fine. If it was what Tram wanted him to do, he’d do it. Anything to get them on their way out of here. He took a deep breath and gripped the hand, wincing at the feel of the fire-crisped skin—

Electricity shot up his arm.

His whole body spasmed with the searing bolt. He felt himself flopping around like a fish on a hook, and then he was falling. The air went out of him in a rush as his back slammed against the ground. It was a moment before he could open his eyes, and when he did he saw Tram and the villagers staring down at him with gaping mouths and wide, astonished eyes. He glanced at the old gook.

“What the hell did he do to me?”

The old gook was staring back, but it was a glassy, unfocused, sightless stare. He was dead.

The villagers must have noticed this too because some of the women began to weep.

Patsy staggered to his feet.

“What happened?”

“Don’t know,” Tram said with a puzzled shake of his head. “Why you fall? He not strong enough push you down.”

Patsy opened his mouth to explain, then closed it. Nothing he could say would make sense.

He shrugged. “Let’s go.”

He felt like hell and just wanted to be gone. It wasn’t only the threat of Charlie returning; he was tired and discouraged and so bitterly disappointed he could have sat down on the ground right then and there and cried like a wimp.

“Okay. But first I help bury Trinh. You help, too.”

“What? You kidding me? Forget it!”

Tram said nothing, but the look he gave Patsy said it all: It called him fat, lazy, and ungrateful.

Screw you! Patsy thought.

Who cared what Tram or anybody else in this stinking sewer of a country thought. It held nothing for him anymore. All his money was gone, and his one chance for the brass ring lay dead and fried on the ground before him.

7

As he helped dig a grave for Trinh, Tram glanced over at Fatman where he sat in the elephant grass staring morosely out to sea. Tram could sense that he was not grief-stricken over Trinh’s fate. He was unhappy for himself.

So...he had been right about Fatman from the first: The American had come here with something in mind other than paying his respects to Trinh. Tram didn’t know what it was, but he was sure Fatman had not had the best interests of Trinh or the village at heart.

He sighed. He was sick of foreigners. When would the wars end? Wars could be measured in languages here. He knew numerous Vietnamese dialects, Pidgin, French, and now English. If the North won, would he then have to learn Russian? Perhaps he would have been better off if the booby trap had taken his life instead of just his leg. Then, like Trinh, the endless wars would be over for him.

He looked down into the empty hole where Trinh’s body soon would lie. Were they burying the Dat-tay-vao with him? Or would it rise and find its way to another? So strange and mysterious, the Dat-tay-vao...so many conflicting tales. Some said it came here with the Buddha himself, some said it had always been here. Some said it was as capricious as the wind in the choice of its instruments, while others said it followed a definite plan.

Who was to say truly? The Dat-tay-vao was a rule unto itself, full of mysteries not meant to be plumbed.

As he turned back to his digging, Tram’s attention was caught by a dark blot in the water’s glare. He squinted to make it out, then heard the chatter of one machine gun, then others, saw villagers begin to run and fall, felt sand kick up around him.

A Cong gunboat!

He ran for the tree where Fatman half sat, half crouched with a slack, terrified expression. He was almost there when something hit him in the chest and right shoulder with the force of a sledgehammer, and then he was flying through the air, spinning, screaming with pain.

He landed with his face in the sand and rolled. He couldn’t breathe! Panic swept over him. Every time he tried to take a breath, he heard a sucking sound from the wound in his chest wall, but no air reached his lungs. His chest felt ready to explode. Black clouds encroached on his dimming vision.

Suddenly, Fatman was leaning over him, shouting through the typhoon roaring in his ears.

“Tram! Tram! Jesus God get up! You gotta get me outta here! Stop bleeding f’Christsake and get me out of here!”

Tram’s vision clouded to total darkness and the roaring grew until it drowned out the voice.

8

Patsy dug his fingers into his scalp.

How was he going to get back to town? Tram was dying, turning blue right here in front of him, and he didn’t know enough Vietnamese to use with anyone else and didn’t know the way back to Quang Ngai and the whole area was lousy with Charlie.

What am I gonna do?

As suddenly as they started, the AKs stopped. The cries of the wounded and the terrified filled the air in their place.

Now was the time to get out.

Patsy looked at Tram’s mottled, dusky face. If he could stopper up that sucking chest wound, maybe Tram could hang on, and maybe tell him the way back to town. He slapped the heel of his hand over it and pressed.

Tram’s body arched in seeming agony. Patsy felt something too—electric ecstasy shot up his arm and spread through his body like subliminal fire. He fell back, confused, weak, dizzy.

What the hell—?

He heard raspy breathing and looked up. Air was gushing in and out of Tram’s wide-open mouth in hungry gasps; his eyes opened and his color began to lighten.

Tram’s chest wasn’t sucking anymore. As Patsy leaned forward to check the wound, he felt something in his hand and looked. A bloody lead slug sat in his palm. He looked at the chest where he’d laid that hand and what he saw made the walls of his stomach ripple and compress as if looking for something to throw up.

Tram’s wound wasn’t there anymore! Only a purplish blotch remained.

Tram raised his head and looked down at where the bullet had torn into him.

“The Dat-tay-vao! You have it now! Trinh passed it on to you! You have the Dat-tay-vao!”

I do? he thought, staring at the bullet rolling in his palm. Holy shit, I do!

He wouldn’t have to get some gook back to the States to make his mint—all he had to do was get himself home in one piece.

Which made it all the more important to get the hell out of this village. Now.

“Let’s go!”

“Fatman, you can’t go. Not now. You must help. They—”

Patsy threw himself flat as something exploded in the jungle a hundred yards behind them, hurling a brown and green geyser of dirt and underbrush high into the air.

Mortar!

Another explosion followed close on the heels of the first, but this one was down by the waterline south of the village.

Tram was pointing out to sea.

“Look! They firing from boat.” He laughed. “Can’t aim mortar from boat!”

Patsy stayed hunkered down with his arms wrapped tight around his head, quaking with terror as the ground jittered with each of the next three explosions. Then they stopped.

“See?” Tram said, sitting boldly in the clearing and looking out to sea. “Even they know it foolish! They leaving. They only use for terror. Cong very good at terror.”

No argument there, Patsy thought as he climbed once more to his feet.

“Get me out of here now, Tram. You owe me!”

Tram’s eyes caught Patsy’s and pinned him to the spot like an insect on a board. “Look at them, Fatman.”

Patsy tore his gaze away and looked at the ville. He saw the villagers—the maimed and bleeding ones and their friends and families—looking back at him. Waiting. They said nothing, but their eyes...

He ripped his gaze loose. “Those Cong’ll be back!”

“They need you, Fatman,” Tram said. “You are only one who can help them now.”

Patsy looked again, unwillingly. Their eyes...calling him. He could almost feel their hurt, their need.

“No way!”

He turned and began walking toward the brush. He’d find his own way back if Tram wouldn’t lead him. Better than waiting around here to get caught and tortured by Charlie. It might take him all day, but—

“Fatman!” Tram shouted. “For once in your life!”

That stung. Patsy turned and looked at the villagers once more, feeling their need like a taut rope around his chest, pulling him toward them. He ground his teeth. It was idiotic to stay, but. . .

One more. Just one, to see if I still have it.

He could spare a couple of minutes for that, then be on his way. At least that way he’d be sure what had happened with Tram wasn’t some sort of crazy freak accident.

Just one.

As he stepped toward the villagers, he heard their voices begin to murmur excitedly. He didn’t know what they were saying but felt their grateful welcome like a warm current through the draw of their need.

He stopped at the nearest wounded villager, a woman holding a bloody, unconscious child in her arms. His stomach lurched as he saw the wound—a slug had nearly torn the kid’s arm off at the shoulder. Blood oozed steadily between the fingers of the hand the woman kept clenched over the wound. Swallowing the revulsion that welled up in him, he slipped his hands under the mother’s to touch the wound—

—and his knees almost buckled with the ecstasy that shot through him.

The child whimpered and opened his eyes. The mother removed her hand from the wound.

Make that former wound. It was gone, just like Tram’s.

She cried out with joy and fell to her knees beside Patsy, clutching his leg as she wept.

Patsy swayed. He had it! No doubt about it—he had the goddamn Dat-tay-vao! And it felt so good! Not just the pleasure it caused, but how that little gook kid was looking up at him now with his bottomless black eyes and flashing him a shy smile. He felt high, like he’d been smoking some of his best merchandise.

One more. Just one more.

He disengaged his leg from the mother and moved over to where an old woman writhed in agony on the ground, clutching her abdomen.

Belly wound...I know the feeling, mama-san.

He knelt and wormed his hand under hers. That burst of pleasure surged again as she stiffened and two slugs popped into his hand. Her breathing eased and she looked up at him with gratitude beaming from her eyes.

Another!

On it went. Patsy could have stopped at any time, but found he didn’t want to. The villagers seemed to have no doubt that he would stay and heal them all. They knew he could do it and expected him to do it. It was so new, such a unique feeling, he didn’t want it to end. Ever. He felt a sense of belonging he’d never known before. He felt protective of the villagers. But it went beyond them, beyond this little ville, seemed to take in the whole world.

Finally, it was over.

Patsy stood in the clearing before the huts, looking for another wounded body. He checked his watch—he’d been at it only thirty minutes and there were no more villagers left to heal. They all clustered around him at a respectful distance, watching silently. He gave himself up to the euphoria enveloping him, blending with the sound of the waves, the wind in the trees, the cries of the gulls. He hadn’t realized what a beautiful place this was. If only—

A new sound intruded—the drone of a boat engine. Patsy looked out at the water and saw the Cong gunboat returning. Fear knifed through the pleasurable haze as the villagers scattered for the trees. Were the Cong going to land?

No. Patsy saw a couple of the crew crouched on the deck, heard the familiar choonk! of a mortar shell shooting out of its tube. An explosion quickly followed somewhere back in the jungle. Tram had been right. No way they could get any accuracy with a mortar on the rocking deck of a gunboat. Just terror tactics.

Damn those bastards! Why’d they have to come back and wreck his mood. Just when he’d been feeling good for the first time since leaving home. Matter of fact, he’d been feeling better than he could ever remember, home or anywhere else. For once, everything seemed right.

For once, something was going Patsy’s way, and the Cong had to ruin it.

Two more wild mortar shots, then he heard gunfire start from the south and saw three new gunboats roaring up toward the first. But these were flying the old red, white, and blue. Patsy laughed and raised his fist.

“Get ’em!”

The Cong let one more shell go choonk! before pouring on the gas and slewing away.

Safe!

Then he heard a whine from above and the world exploded under him.

9

...a voice from far away...Tram’s. . .

“...chopper coming, Fatman...get you away soon...hear it?...almost here. . .”

Patsy opened his eyes and saw the sky, then saw Tram’s face poke into view. He looked sick.

“Fatman!’ You hear me?”

“How bad?” Patsy asked.

“You be okay.”

Patsy turned his head and saw a ring of weeping villagers who were looking everywhere and anywhere but at him. He realized he couldn’t feel anything below his neck. He tried to lift his head for a look at himself but didn’t have the strength.

“I wanna see.”

“You rest,” Tram said.

“Get my head up, dammit!”

With obvious reluctance, Tram gently lifted his head. As Patsy looked down at what was left of him, he heard a high, keening wail. His vision swam, mercifully blotting out sight of the bloody ruin that had once been the lower half of his body. He realized that the wail was his own voice.

Tram lowered his head and the wail stopped.

I shouldn’t even be alive!

Then he knew. He was waiting for someone. Not just anyone would do. A certain someone.

A hazy peace came. He drifted into it and stayed there until the chopping thrum of a slick brought him out; then he heard an American voice.

“I thought you said he was alive!”

Tram’s voice: “He is.”

Patsy opened his eyes and saw the shocked face of an American soldier.

“Who are you?” Patsy asked.

“Walt Erskine. Medic. I’m gonna—”

“You’re the one,” Patsy said. Somehow, he bent his arm at the elbow and lifted his hand. “Shake.”

The medic looked confused. “Yeah. Okay. Sure.”

He grabbed Patsy’s hand and Patsy felt the searing electric charge.

Erskine jerked back and fell on his ass, clutching his hand. “What the hell?”

The peace closed in on Patsy again. He’d held on as long as he could. Now he could embrace it. One final thought arced through his mind like a lone meteorite in a starless sky. The Dat-tay-vao was going to America after all.

DOC JOHNSON

INTRODUCTION

Greystone Bay ("The City Horror Calls Its Own") was a shared-world anthology for horror fans. I read the first volume and was interested by the possibilities—a Thieves' World of contemporary horror. I wrote the editor, Charlie Grant, and told him that the town definitely needed a doctor and that I would gladly supply him. He agreed, told me to give it a shot, and sent me the particulars on the town of Greystone Bay.

I wound up supplying the town with two doctors. One is pretty straight, but the other...the other is Doc Johnson. You don't mess with ol' Doc Johnson.

Years later I transported it from Grant's turf to my own, calling the town Ludlum Bay and placing it near the Jersey Shore.

DOC JOHNSON

“I think you'd better take the call on oh-one," Jessie said, poking her head into the consultation room.

 glanced up from the latest issue of Cardiology and looked at my wife. It was Monday morning and I had a grand total of three patients scheduled.

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

That's what I get for hiring my wife as my nurse-receptionist, but I had to keep overhead down until I built up a decent practice and could afford a stranger...someone I could reprimand without paying for it later at home. I had to admit, though, Jessie was doing a damn fine job so far. She wasn't letting the pregnancy slow her down a bit.

"Who is it?"

She shrugged. "Not sure. Says she's never been here before but says her husband needs a doctor real bad."

"Got it."

Never turn down a patient in need. Especially one who might be able to pay. I picked up the phone.

"Hello. Doctor Reid."

"Oh, Doctor," said a woman's voice. "My husband's awful sick. Can you come see him?"

"A house call?" After all, I was a board-eligible internist. House calls were for GPs and family practitioners, not specialists. "What's wrong with your husband, Mrs....?"

"Mosely—Martha Mosely. My husband, Joseph, he's...he's just not right. Sometimes he says he wants a doctor and sometimes he says he doesn't. He says he wants one now."

"Can you be a little more specific?"

If this Mosely fellow was going to end up in the hospital, I'd rather have him transported there first and then see him.

"I wish I could, Doctor, but I can't."

"Who's his regular doctor?"

"Doc Johnson."

Ah-ha!

"And why aren't you calling him?"

"Joe won't let me. He says he doesn't ever want to see Doc Johnson again. He only wants you."

I hesitated. I didn't want to get into the house-call habit, but as the new kid in town, I couldn't afford to pass up a chance to score some points.

"All right. Give me the address and I'll be out after dinner."

* * * * *

He doesn't ever want to see Doc Johnson again.

I thought about that as I drove out to the Mosely house. An odd thing to say. Most people in Ludlum Bay swore by Johnson. You'd think he walked on water the way some of them talked. Which wasn't making it any easier for me to get started in the Bay. I'd been living—quite literally—off the crumbs he left behind. Joseph Mosely appeared to be a crumb, so I was on my way to gather him up.

I turned south off Port Boulevard onto New Hope Road, watching the homes change from post-World War II tract homes to smaller, older houses on bigger lots. The January wind slapped at my car.

This was my first winter in Ludlum Bay and it was cold. I grew up in Florida, went to med school and did my internal medicine residency at Emory in Atlanta. My idea of cold and these New Jerseyans’ idea of cold differed by a good twenty degrees.

The Bay natives like to say the nearness of the Atlantic tends to moderate the severity of the weather. Maybe that's true. According to the thermometer, it doesn't seem to get quite as cold here as it does inland, but I think the extra moisture sends the chill straight through to the bone.

But now the cold was locked outside the car and I was warm within. I had a bellyful of Jessie's tuna casserole, the Civic's heater-defrost system was blowing hard and warm. Snow blanketed the lawns and was banked on the curbs, but the asphalt was clean and dry. A beautiful, crystalline winter night for a drive. Too bad Jessie wasn't along. Too bad this wasn't a pleasure drive. People attach such rosy nostalgia to the house call, but here in the twenty-first century the house is a lousy place to practice medicine.

I slowed as the numbers on the mailboxes told me I was nearing the Mosely place. There: 620 New Hope Road. As I pulled into the driveway my headlamps lit up the house and grounds. I stopped the car halfway through the turn and groaned.

The Mosely house was a mess.

Every neighborhood has one. You know the type of house I mean. You drive along a street lined with immaculately kept homes, all with freshly painted siding and manicured lawns, all picture-perfect...except for one. There's always one house with a front yard where even the weeds won't grow; the Christmas lights are still attached to the eaves even though it might be June; if the neighborhood is lucky, only one rusting auto will grace the front yard, and the house's previous coat of paint will have merely peeled away, exposing much of the original color of the siding. If the neighborhood is especially cursed, the front yard will sport two or more automobile hulks in various stages of refurbishment, and the occupant will have started to paint the derelict home a hot pink or a particularly noxious shade of green and then quit halfway through.

The Mosely house was New Hope Road's derelict.

I turned off my engine and, black bag in hand, stepped out into the cold. No path had been dug through the snow anywhere I could see, but I found a narrow path where it had been packed down by other feet before me. It led across the front lawn. At least I think it was a lawn. The glow from a nearby streetlight limned odd bumps and rises all over the front yard. I could only guess at what lay beneath. A blanket of snow hides a multitude of sins.

I got a closer look at the house as I carefully picked my way toward it. The front porch was an open affair with its overhang tilted at a crazy angle. The paint was particularly worn and dirty up to a level of about two feet. Looked like a dog had spent a lot of time there but I saw no paw prints and heard no barking. The light from within barely filtered through the window shades.

The front door opened before I could knock. A thin, fiftyish woman wearing an old blue house dress and a stretched-out brown cardigan stood there with her hand on the knob.

"I'm terribly sorry, Doctor," she said in a mousy voice, "but Joe's decided he don't want to see a doctor tonight."

"What?" My voice went hoarse with shock. "You mean to tell me I came—”

"Oh, let him in, Martha!" said a rough voice from somewhere behind her. "Long as he's here, might as well get a look at him."

"Yes, Joe."

She stepped aside and I stepped in.

The air within was hot, dry, and sour. I wondered how many years since they'd had the windows open. A wood stove sat in a corner to my left. The only light in the room came from candles and kerosene lamps.

Joseph Mosely, the same age as his wife but thinner, sat in a rocker facing me. His skin was stretched tight across his high forehead and cheekbones. He had a full head lank hair and a three-day stubble.

Something familiar about him. As I watched, he sipped from a four-ounce tumbler clutched in his right hand; a half-empty bottle of no-name gin sat on a small table next to him. He stared at me. I've seen prosthetic eyes of porcelain and glass show more warmth and human feeling than Joe Mosely's.

"If that was your idea of a joke, Mr. Mosely—"

"Don't bother trying to intimidate me, Doctor Charles Reid. It's a waste of breath. Take the man's coat, Martha."

"Yes, Joe."

Sighing resignedly, I shrugged out of my jacket and turned to hand it to her. I stopped and stared at her face. A large black-and-purple hematoma, a good inch and a half across, bloomed on her right cheek. I hadn't noticed it when she opened the door. But now...I knew from the look of it that it couldn't be more than a couple of hours old.

"Better get the ice back on that bruise," he said to her from his rocker. "And careful you don't slip on the kitchen floor and hurt yourself again."

"Yes, Joe."

Clenching my teeth against the challenge that leaped into my throat, I handed her my coat and turned to her husband.

"What seems to be the problem, Mr. Mosely?"

He put the glass down and rolled up his right sleeve to show me a healing laceration on the underside of his forearm.

"This."

It ran up from the wrist for about five inches or so and looked to be about ten days to two weeks old. Three silk sutures were still in place.

My anger flared. "You brought me all the way out here for a suture removal?"

"I didn't bring you anywhere. You brought yourself. And besides—” He kicked up his left foot; it looked deformed within a dirty sock. "I'm disabled."

"All right," I said, cooling with effort. "How'd you cut yourself?"

"Whittling."

I felt like asking him if he'd been using a machete, but restrained myself.

"They sew it up at County General?"

"Nope."

“Then who?"

He paused and I saw that his eyes were even colder and flatter than before.

"Doc Johnson."

“Why'd he leave these three sutures in?"

'Didn't. Took them out myself. He won't ever get near me again—ever!" He half rose from the rocker. "I wouldn't take my dog to him if she was still alive!"

"Hey! Take it easy."

He calmed himself with another sip of gin.

"So why did you leave the last three in?"

He looked at the wound, then away.

" 'Cause there's something wrong with it."

I inspected it more closely. It looked fine. The wound edges had knitted nicely. Doc Johnson had done a good closure. I found no redness or swelling to indicate infection.

"Looks okay to me."

I opened my bag, got out an alcohol swab, and dabbed the wound. Then I took out scissors and forceps and removed those last three sutures.

"There. Good as new."

"There's still something wrong with it." He pulled his arm away to reach for the gin glass; he drained it,

then slammed it down. "There's something in there."

I almost laughed. "Pardon me?"

"Something's in there! I can feel it move every now and then. The first time was when I started taking the sutures out. There! Look!" He stiffened and pointed to the scar. "It's moving now!"

I looked and saw nothing the least bit out of the ordinary. But I thought I knew what was bothering him.

"Here." I took his left hand and laid the fingers over the underside of his forearm. "Press them here. Now, open and close your hand, making a fist. There...feel the tendons moving under the skin? You've probably got a little scar tissue building up in the deeper layers next to a tendon sheath and it's—"

"Something's in there, damn it! Doc Johnson put it there when he sewed me up!"

I stood. "That's ridiculous."

"It's true! I wouldn't make up something like that!"

"Did you watch him sew you up?"

"Yeah."

"Did you see him put anything in the wound?"

"No. But he's sneaky. I know he put something in there!"

"You'd better lay off the gin." I closed my bag. "You're having delusions."

"Shoulda known," he said bitterly, reaching for his bottle. "You doctors think you've got all the answers."

I took my coat off a hook by the door and pulled it on.

"What's that supposed to mean? And haven't you had enough of that for one night?"

"Damn you!" Eyes ablaze with fury, he hurled the glass across the room and leaped out of the rocker. "Who the hell do you think you are to tell me when I've had enough!"

He limped toward me and then I remembered why he looked familiar. The limp triggered it: I had seen him dozens of times in the Port Boulevard shopping area, usually entering or leaving Elmo’s liquors. He’d lied to me—he wasn't disabled enough to warrant a house call.

"You're drunk." I reached for the doorknob. "Sleep it off."

Suddenly he stopped his advance and grinned maliciously.

"Oh, I'll sleep, all right. But will you? Better pray nothing goes bad with this arm here, or you'll have another malpractice case on your hands. Like the one in Atlanta."

My stomach wrenched into a tight ball. "How do you know about that?"

I hoped I didn't look as sick as I felt.

"Checked into you. When I heard we had this brand-new doctor in town, fresh from a big medical center in Atlanta, I asked myself why a young, hot-shot specialist would want to practice in the Bay? So I did some digging. I'm real good at digging. ’Specially on doctors. They got these high an' mighty ways with how they dole out pills and advice like they're better'n the rest of us. Doctor Tanner was like that. That office you're in used to be his. I dug up some good dirt on Tanner but he disappeared before I could rub his face in it."

"Good night."

I stepped out on the porch and pulled the door closed behind me.

I had nothing else to say. I thought I’d left that malpractice nightmare behind me in Atlanta. The realization that it had followed me here threatened all the hopes I'd nursed of finding peace in Ludlum Bay. And to hear it from the grinning lips of someone like Joe Mosely made me almost physically ill.

* * * * *

I barely remembered the trip home. I seemed to be driving through the past, through interrogatories and depositions and sweating testimonies. I didn't really come back to the present until I parked the car and walked toward the duplex we were renting.

Jessie was standing on the front steps, wrapped in her parka, arms folded across her chest as she looked up at the stars under a full moon. Suddenly I felt calm. This was the way I had found her when we first met—standing on a rooftop gazing up at the night sky, looking for Jupiter. She owned two telescopes she used regularly, but she's told me countless times that a true amateur astronomer never tires of naked-eye stargazing.

She smiled as she saw me walk up. "How was the house call?"

I put on an annoyed expression. “Unnecessary." I wouldn't tell her about tonight. At least one of us should rest easy. I patted her growing belly. "How we doing in there?"

"You mean the Tap Dance Kid? Active as ever."

She turned back to the stars and frowned. I followed her upward gaze.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know. Something weird about the stars out here."

They looked all right to me, except that I could see a hell of a lot more of them than I'd ever seen in Atlanta.

Jessie slipped an arm around my back and seemed to read my expression without looking at me.

"Yeah. I said weird. They don't look right. I could get out a star map and I know everything would look fine. But something's just not right up there. The perspective's different somehow. Only another stargazer would notice. Something's wrong."

I had heard that expression too many times tonight.

"The baby wants to go in," I said. "He's cold."

"She’s cold."

"Anything you say."

* * * * *

I had trouble sleeping that night. I kept reliving the malpractice case and how I wound up scapegoat for a couple of department heads at the medical center. After all, I was only a resident and they had national reputations. I was sure they were sleeping well tonight while I lay here awake.

I kept seeing the plaintiff attorney's hungry face, hearing his voice as he tore me apart. I'm a good doctor, a caring one who knows internal medicine inside and out, but you wouldn't have thought so after that lawyer was through with me. He got a third of the settlement and I got the word that I shouldn't apply for a position on the staff when my residency was up. I supposed the big shots didn't want me around as a reminder.

Jessie wanted me to fight them for an appointment but I knew better. Every hospital staff application has a question that reads: "Have you ever been denied staff privileges at any other hospital?" If you answer Yes, they want to know all the particulars. If you say No, and later they find out otherwise, your ass is grass.

Discretion is the better part of valor, I always say. I knew they’d turn me down, and I didn't want to answer yes to that question for the rest of my life. So I packed up and left when my residency was over. The medical center reciprocated by giving me good recommendations.

Jessie says I'm too scared of making waves. She's probably right. She usually is. I do know I couldn't have made it through the trial without her. She stuck by me all the way.

She's right about the waves, though. All I want to do is live in peace and quiet and practice the medicine I've been trained for. That's all. I don't need a Porsche or a mansion. Just Jessie and our kids and enough to live comfortably. That's all I want. That's all I've ever wanted.

* * * * *

Wednesday afternoon, two days after the Mosely house call, I was standing on Doc Johnson's front porch, ringing his bell.

"Stop by the house this afternoon," he’d said on the phone a few hours ago. "Let's get acquainted."

I’d been in town seven months now and this was the first time he’d spoken to me beyond a nod and a good-morning while passing in the hall at County General. I couldn't use the excuse that my office was too busy for me to get away, so I accepted. Besides, I was curious as to why he wanted to see me.

I’d spotted Joe Mosely on my way over. He was coming out of the liquor store and saw me waiting at the light. He looked terrible. I wasn't sure if it was just the daylight or if he was actually thinner than the other night. His cheeks looked more sunken, his eyes more feverish. But his smile hadn't changed. The way he grinned at me had tied my stomach into a knot that was just now beginning to unravel.

I tried not to think of Mosely as I waited for someone to answer my ring. I inspected my surroundings. The Johnson house was as solid as they come, with walls built of the heavy gray native granite that rimmed the shore in these parts. Little mortar was visible. Someone had taken great pains to mate each stone nook and cranny against its neighbor. The resultant pattern was like the flip side of one of those thousand-piece Springbok jigsaw puzzles that Jessie liked to fiddle with.

His verandah here high on East Hill—the only real hill in town—offered a clear eastward view of the length and breadth of the bay all the way down to Blind Point; beyond the barrier island the Atlantic surged cold and gray. To the west lay the Parkway—the low drone of its traffic was audible most nights, but that was a minor concern when you considered how easy it made getting to places like picturesque Cape May to the south and glitzy Atlantic City to the north.

And beyond the Parkway, the deep and enigmatic Jersey Pine Barrens.

I could get used to this.

I thought about Doc Johnson. I'd heard he was a widower with no children, that his family had come over with Ludlum Bay's original settlers back in the seventeenth century. Doctors apparently came and went pretty regularly around the Bay, but "the Doc"—that's what the natives called him—was as constant as the moon, always available, always willing to come out to the house should you be too sick to go to him. If you were a regular patient of the Doc's he never let you down. People talked as if he'd always been here and always would. His practice seemed to encompass the whole town. That was impossible, of course. No one man could care for 20,000 people. But to hear folks talk—and to listen to the grumbling of the few other struggling doctors in town—that was the way it was.

The handle rattled and Doc Johnson opened the door himself. A portly man in his sixties with a full, friendly, florid face and lots of white hair combed straight back, he wore a white shirt, open at the collar, white duck pants, and a blue blazer with a gold emblem on the breast pocket. He looked more like a yacht club commodore than a doctor.

"Charles!" he said, shaking my hand. "So good of you to come! Come in out of the chill and I'll make you a drink!"

It wasn't as chilly as it had been the past few days but I was glad to step into the warmth. He was fixing himself a Sapphire gimlet with a dash of Cointreau and offered me one. I was through for the day, so I accepted. It was excellent.

He showed me around the house that one of his ancestors had built a couple of centuries ago. We made small talk during the tour until we ended up in his study before a fire. He was a gracious, amiable host and I took an immediate liking to him.

"Let's talk shop a minute," he said after I refused a refill on the gimlet and we’d settled into chairs. "I like to feel out a new doctor in town on his philosophy of medicine." His eyes penetrated mine. "Do you have one?"

I thought about that. Since starting med school I'd been so involved in learning whatever there was to know about medicine that I hadn't given much consideration to a philosophical approach. I was tempted to say Keeping my head above water but thought better of it. I decided to go Hippocratic.

"I guess I'd start with 'Above all else do no harm.''

He smiled. "An excellent start. But how would triage fit into your philosophy, Horatio?"

"Horatio?"

"I'm an avid reader. You will forgive me a literary reference once in a while, won't you? That was to Hamlet. A strained reference, I'll grant you, but Hamlet nonetheless."

"Of course. But triage...?"

"Under certain circumstances we have to choose those who will get care and those who won't. In disasters, for instance: We must ignore those whom we judge to be beyond help in order to aid those who are salvageable."

"Of course. That's an accepted part of emergency care."

"But aren't you doing harm by withholding care?"

“Not if a patient is terminal. Not if the outcome will remain unchanged no matter what you do."

"Which means we must place great faith in our judgment, then, correct?"

I nodded. "Yes, I suppose so."

Where was this going?

"And what if one must amputate a gangrenous limb in order to preserve the health of the rest of the body? Isn't that doing harm of sorts to the diseased limb?"

I said, "I suppose you could look at it that way, but if the health of the good tissue is threatened by the infected limb, and you can't cure the infection, then the limb's got to go."

"Precisely. It's another form of triage: The diseased limb must be lopped off and discarded. Sometimes I find that triage must be of a more active sort where radical decisions must be made. Medicine is full of life-and-death decisions, don't you think?"

I nodded once more. What a baffling conversation.

"I understand you had the pleasure of meeting the estimable Joseph Mosely the other night."

The abrupt change of subject left me reeling for a second.

"I don't know if I'd call it a pleasure."

He barked a laugh. "There'd be something seriously wrong with you if you did. A despicable excuse for a human being. Truly a hollow man, if you'll excuse the Yeats reference—or is that Eliot? No matter. It fits Joe Mosely well enough: no heart, no soul. An alcoholic who abused his children mercilessly. I patched up enough cuts and contusions on his battered boys, and I fear he battered his only daughter in a far more loathsome way. They all ran away as soon as they were able. So now he abuses poor Martha when the mood suits him, and that is too often. Last summer I had to strap up three broken ribs on that poor woman. But she won't press charges. Love's funny, isn't it?”

“It is,” I said. “But codependency isn’t.”

“You’ve got that right. Did you notice his mangled foot, by the way? That happened when he was working at the shoe factory. Talk is he stuck his foot in one of the machines on purpose, only he stuck it in farther than he intended and did too good a job of injuring himself. Anyway, he got a nice settlement out of it, which is what he wanted, but he drank it up in no time.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said, remembering his rapidly dwindling level in his gin bottle.

"And did you notice the lack of electricity? The power company caught him tampering with the meter and cut him off. I've heard he's blackmailing a few people in town. And he steals anything that's not nailed down. That cut on his arm I sewed up? That was the first time in all these years I'd ever had a chance to actually treat him. He tried to tell me he did it whittling. Ha! Never yet seen a right-handed man cut his right arm with a knife. No, he did that breaking into a house on Armondo Street. Did it on a storm window. Read in the Gazette how they found lots of blood at the scene and were checking ERs in the area to see if anybody had been sewn up. That was why he came to me. I tell you, he will make the world a brighter place by departing it."

"You didn't report him to the police?"

"No," he said levelly. "And I don't intend to. The courts won't give him his due. And calling the police is not my way of handling the likes of Joe Mosely."

I had to say it: "Mosely says you put something in the laceration when you sewed it up."

Doc Johnson's face darkened. "I hope you will consider the source and not repeat that."

"Of course not. I only mentioned it now because you were the accused."

"Good." He cleared his throat. "There's some things you should know about the Bay. We like it quiet here. We don't like idle chatter. You'll find that things have a way of working themselves out in their own way. You don't get outsiders involved if you can help it."

"Like me?"

"That's up to you, Charles. You can be an insider if you want to be. 'Newcomer' and 'insider' aren't mutually exclusive terms in Ludlum Bay. A town dies if it doesn't get some new blood. But discretion is all important. As a doctor in town you may occasionally see something out of the ordinary. You can take it as it comes, deal with it, and leave it at that—which will bring you closer to the inside. Or, you can talk about it a lot or maybe even submit a paper on it to something like the New England Journal of Medicine, and that will push you out. Far out. Soon you'd have to pack up and move away."

He stood and patted my shoulder.

"I like you, Charles. This town needs more doctors. I'd like to see you make it here."

"I'd like to stay here."

"Good! I do my own sort of triage on incoming doctors. If I think they'll work out, I send them my overflow." He sighed. "And believe me, I'm getting ready to increase my overflow. I'd like to slow down a bit. Not as young as I used to be."

"I'd appreciate that."

He gave me a calculating look. "Okay. We'll see. But first— " He glanced outside. "Well, here it comes!" He motioned me over to the big bay window. "Take a look!"

I stepped to his side and gazed out at the Atlantic—or rather, where the Atlantic had been. The horizon was gone, lost in a fog bank that was even now rolling into the bay itself.

Doc Johnson pointed south. "If you watch, you'll see Blind Pew disappear."

"Excuse me?"

He laughed. "Another reference, my boy. I've called Blind Point 'Blind Pew' ever since I read Treasure Island when I was ten. You remember Blind Pew, don't you?"

N. C. Wyeth's painting of the moonlit character suddenly flashed before my eyes. It had always given me the chills.

"Of course. But where's the fog coming from?"

"The Gulf Stream. For reasons known only to itself, it swings in here a couple of times a winter. The warm air from the stream hits the cold air on the land and then we have fog. And I do mean fog."

As I watched, lacy fingers of mist began to rise from the snow in the front yard.

"Yes, sir!" he said, rubbing his hands together and smiling. "This one's going to be a beauty!"

* * * * *

Mrs. Mosely called me Friday night.

"Doctor, you've got to come out and see Joe."

"No, thank you," I told her. "Once was quite enough."

"I think he's dying!"

"Then get him over to County General."

"He won't let me call an ambulance. He won't let me near him!"

"Then I'm sorry—”

"Please, Doctor Reid!" Her voice broke into a wail. "If not for him, then for me! I'm frightened!"

Something in her voice got to me. And I remembered that bruise on her cheek.

"Okay," I said reluctantly. "I'll be over in a half hour."

I knew I'd regret it.

* * * * *

The fog was still menacingly thick, and worse at night than during the day. At least you could pick out shadows in daylight. At night the headlights bounced off the fog instead of penetrating it. Like driving through cotton.

When I finally reached the Mosely place, the air seemed cooler and the fog appeared to be thinning. Somewhere above, moonlight struggled to get through. Maybe the predicted cold front from the west was finally moving in.

Martha Mosely opened the door.

"Thank you for coming, Doctor Reid. I don't know what to do! He won't let me touch him or go near him! I'm at my wit's end!"

"Where is he?"

"In bed."

She led me to a room in the back and stood at the door clutching her hands between her breasts as I entered.

By the light of the room's single flickering candle I could see Joe Mosely lying naked on the bed, stretched out like an emaciated corpse. In fact, for a moment I thought he was dead—his breathing was so shallow I couldn't see his chest move.

Then he turned his head a few degrees in my direction.

"So, it's you." His lips barely moved. The eyes were the only things alive in his face.

"Yeah. Me. What can I do for you?"

"First, you can close the door—with that woman on the other side."

Before I could answer, I heard the door close behind me. I was alone in the room with him.

"And second, you can keep your distance."

"What's the matter? Anything hurt?"

"No pain. But I'm a dead man. It's Doc Johnson's doing. I told you he put something in that cut."

His words were disturbing enough, but his completely emotionless tone made them even more chilling—as if whatever emotions he possessed had been drained away along with his vitality.

"You need to be hospitalized."

"No use. I'm already gone. But let me tell you about Doc Johnson. He did this to me. He's got his own ways and he follows his own rules. I've tailed him into the Pine Barrens a few times but I always lost him. Don't know what he goes there for, but it can't be for no good."

I took out my stethoscope as he raved. When he saw it, his voice rose in pitch.

"Don't come near me. Just keep away."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm here. I might as well see if I can do anything for you."

I adjusted the earpieces and went down on one knee beside the bed.

"Don't! Keep back!"

I pressed the diaphragm over his heart to listen—

—and felt his chest wall give way like a stale soda cracker.

My left hand disappeared up to the wrist inside his chest cavity. And it was cold in there! I yanked it out and hurled myself away from the bed, not stopping until I came up against the bedroom wall.

"Now you've done it," he said in that passionless voice.

As I watched, a yellow mist began to ooze out of the opening. It slid over his ribs and along the sheet, and from there down to the floor, like the fog from dry ice.

I looked at Mosely's face and saw the light go out of his eyes.

He was gone.

A wind began blowing outside, whistling under the doors and banging the shutters. I glanced out the window on the far side of the room and saw the fog begin to swirl and tear apart. Suddenly something crashed in the front room. I pulled myself up and opened the bedroom door. A freezing wind hit me in the face with the force of a gale, tearing the door from my grip and swirling into the room. I saw Martha Mosely get up from the sofa and struggle to close the front door against the rage of the wind.

The bedroom window shattered under the sudden pressure and now the wind howled through the house.

The yellow mist from Mosely's chest cavity caught the gale and rode it out the window, slipping along the floor and up the wall and over the sill in streaks that gleamed in the growing moonlight.

Then the mist was gone and I was alone in the room with the wind and Joe Mosely's empty shell.

And then that shell began to crumble, caving in on itself piece by piece, almost in slow motion, fracturing into countless tiny pieces that in turn disintegrated into a gray, dust-like powder. This too was caught by the wind and carried out into the night.

Joe Mosely was gone, leaving behind not so much as a depression in the bedcovers.

The front door finally closed with Martha's efforts and I heard the bolt slide home. She walked up to the bedroom door but did not step inside.

"Joe's gone, isn't he?" she said in a low voice.

I couldn't speak. I opened my mouth but no words would come. I simply nodded as I stood there trembling.

She stepped into the room then and looked at the bed. She looked at the broken window, then at me. With a sigh she sat on the edge of the bed and ran her hand over the spot where her husband had lain.

* * * * *

My home phone rang at eight o'clock the next morning. It didn't disturb my sleep. I’d been awake all night. Part of the time I'd spent lying rigid in bed, the rest here in the kitchen with all the lights on, waiting for the sun.

An awful wait. When I wasn't reliving the scene in the Mosely bedroom I was hearing voices. If it wasn't Joe telling me that Doc Johnson had put something in his wound, it was the Doc himself talking about making life-and-death decisions, about triage, all laced with literary references.

I hadn't told Jessie a thing. She'd think I was ready for a straitjacket. And if by some chance she did believe, she'd want to pack up and get out of town. But where to? We had the baby to think of.

I’d spent the time since dawn going over my options. And when the phone rang, I had no doubt who was calling.

"I understand Joe Mosely is gone," Doc Johnson said without preamble.

“Yes.”

...a hollow man...

"Any idea where?"

"Out the window." My voice sounded half dead to me. "Beyond that, I don't know."

...calling the police is not my way of handling the likes of Joe Mosely...

"Seen anything lately worth writing to any of the medical journals about?"

"Not a thing."

...the diseased limb has to be lopped off and discarded...

"Just another day in Ludlum Bay then?" Doc Johnson said.

"Oh, I hope not." I could not hide the tremor in my voice.

...sometimes triage has to be of a more active sort where radical decisions must be made...

He chuckled. "Charles, my boy, I think you'll do all right here. As a matter of fact, I'd like to refer a couple of patients to your office today. They've got complicated problems that require more attention than I can give them at this time. I'll assure them that they can trust you implicitly. Will you take them on?"

I paused. Even though my mind was made up, I took a deep breath and held it, waiting for some argument to come out of the blue and swing me the other way. Finally, I could hold it no longer.

"Yes," I said. "Thank you."

"Charles, I think you're going to do just fine in Ludlum Bay."

TRAPS

INTRODUCTION

I usually don’t write from experience and do write with a lot of dialogue. “Traps” is an exception to both of those usuals.

The story has no dialogue and is partially true. For a while I did have mice in my attic. And something else up there too. Because a couple of dead mice were devoured in the traps I'd set for them. I never did find out what else was up there, but when Alan Rogers asked me for a story for Night Cry, I began conjuring up possibilities as to what might have invaded my attic besides mice.

"Traps" is very close to home. It's set in the neighboring town south of where I was living at the time, the house is modeled on my own then, I have two daughters, and Hank has a lot of my attitudes.

I made up the final scene, though.

Really.

TRAPS

Skippy Super Chunk peanut butter worked best.

Hank smeared it on the pedals of the four traps he'd bought. Victors. Something about the way the big red V in their logo formed itself around the shape of a mouse's head gave him a feeling that they knew what they were about.

Not that he took any pleasure in killing mice. He may not have had the bumper sticker, but he most certainly did brake for animals. He didn't like killing anything. Even ants. Live and let live was fine with him, but he drew the line at the threshold of his house. They could live long and prosper out there, he would live in here. When they came inside, it was war.

He'd had a few in the basement of their last house and caught them all with Skippy-baited Victors. But he always felt guilty when he found one of the little things dead in the trap, so frail and harmless-looking with its white underbelly and little pink feet and tail. The eyes were always the worst—shiny black and guileless, wide open and looking at him, almost saying, Why? I don't eat much.

Hank knew he could be a real sentimental jerk at times.

He consoled himself with the knowledge that the mouse didn't feel any pain in the trap. Better than those warfarin poisons where they crawl off to their nest and slowly bleed to death. With a trap, the instant the nibbling mouse disturbs the baited pedal, wham! the bow snaps down and breaks its neck. It's on its way to mouse heaven before it knows what hit it.

Hank was doing this on the sly. Gloria wouldn't be able to sleep a wink if she thought there were mice overhead in the ceiling. And the twins, God, they'd want to catch them and make them pets and give them names. With the trip to Disney World just three days off, all they could talk about was Mickey and Minnie. They'd never forgive him for killing a mouse. Best to set the traps before they came home in the afternoon and dispose of the little carcasses in the morning after everyone was gone. Luckily, this was his slack season and he had some time at home to take care of it.

He wondered how the mice were getting in. He knew they were up there because he'd heard them last night. Something had awakened him at about 2:30 this morning—a noise, a bad dream, he didn't remember what—and as he was lying there spooned against Gloria he heard little claws scraping on the other side of the ceiling. It sounded like two or three of them under the insulation, clawing on the plasterboard, making themselves a winter home. He was ticked. This was a brand new two-story colonial, just built, barely lived in for six months, and already they had uninvited guests. And in the attic no less.

Well, they were in a woodsy area and it was fall, the time of year when woodsy things start looking for winter quarters. He wished them all a safe and warm winter. But not in this house.

Before setting the traps, he fitted a bolt on the attic door. The house had one of those swing-down contraptions in the hall ceiling right outside their bedroom. It had a pull-cord on this side and a folding ladder on the upper side. The twins had been fascinated with it since they moved in. The attic had always been off-limits to them, but you never knew. He had visions of one of them pulling the ladder down, climbing up there, and touching one of the traps. Instant broken finger. So he screwed a little sliding bolt in place to head off that trauma at the pass.

He took the four traps up to the attic and gingerly set the bows. As he stood on the ladder and spaced them out on the particle board flooring around the opening, he noticed an odd odor. The few times he had been up here before the attic had been filled with the clean smell of plywood and kiln-dried fir studs. Now there was a sour tint to the air. Vaguely unpleasant. Mouse b-o? He didn't know. He just knew that something about it didn't set well with him.

He returned to the second floor, bolted the ceiling door closed, and hit the switch that turned off the attic light. Everything was set, and well before Gloria and the girls got home.

* * * * *

Kate crawled into Hank's lap as he leaned back in the recliner and watched the six o'clock Eyewitness News. She was holding her well-thumbed "Mickey's book." As soon as Kim saw her, she ran in from the kitchen like a shot.

So with his two pale blonde seven-year old darlings snuggled up against him, Hank opened up "Mickey's book" for the nightly ritual of the past two weeks. Not a book actually, just a brochure touting all the park's attractions. But it had become a Holy Book of sorts for the twins and they never tired of paging through it. This had to be their twentieth guided tour in as many days and their blue eyes were just as wide and full of wonder this time as the first.

Only three days to go before they headed for Newark Airport and the 747 that would take them south to Orlando.

Hank had come to see Disney World as a religious experience for seven-year olds. Moslems had Mecca, Catholics had the Vatican, Japanese had Mount Fuji. Kids had Disney World on the East Coast and Disneyland on the West. Katie and Kim would start out on their first pilgrimage Thanksgiving morning.

He hugged them closer, absorbing their excitement. This was what life was all about. And he was determined to show them the best time of their lives. The sky was the limit. Any ride, any attraction, he didn't care how many times they wanted to go on it, he'd take them. Four days of fantasy at Mickey's Place with no real-world intrusions. No Times, no Daily News, no Eyewitness Special Reports, no background noise about wars or floods or muggings or bombings...or mousetraps.

Nothing about mousetraps.

* * * * *

The snap of the trap woke Hank with a start. It was faint, muffled by the intervening plasterboard and insulation. He must have been subconsciously attuned for it, because he heard it and Gloria didn't.

He checked the clock—12:42—and tried to go back to sleep. Hopefully, that was the end of that.

He was just dozing back off when a second trap sprang with a muffled snap. Two of them. Sounded like he had a popular attic.

He didn't know when he got to sleep again. It took a while.

* * * * *

When Hank had the house to himself again the next morning, he unbolted the ceiling door, pulled it down, and unfolded the ladder. Half way up, he hesitated. This wasn't going to be pleasant. He knew when he stuck his head up through that opening he'd be eye-level with the attic floor—and with the dead mice. Those shiny reproachful little black eyes...

He took a deep breath and stepped up a couple of rungs.

Yes, two of the traps had been sprung and two sets of little black eyes were staring at him. Eyes and little else. At first he thought it was a trick of the light, of the angle, but as he hurried the rest of the way up, he saw it was true.

The heads were still in the traps, but the bodies were gone. Little bits of gray fur were scattered here and there, but that was it. Sort of gave him the creeps. Something had eaten the dead mice. Something bigger than a mouse. A discomforting thought.

And that odor was worse. He still couldn't identify it, but it was taking on a stomach-turning quality.

He decided it was time for an inspection tour of the grounds. His home was being invaded. He wanted to know how.

He found the little buggers' route of invasion on the south side of the house. He had two heating-cooling zones inside, with one unit in the basement and one in the attic. The compressor-blowers for both were outside on the south side. The hoses to the upstairs unit ran up the side of the house to the attic through an aluminum leader.

That was how they were getting in.

There wasn't much space in the leader, but a mouse can squeeze through the tiniest opening. The rule of thumb—as all mouse experts knew—was that if it can get its head through, the rest of the body can follow. They were crawling into the leader, climbing up along the hoses inside, and following them into the attic. Simple.

But what had eaten them?

Up above the spot where the hoses ran through the siding, he noticed the triangular gable vent hanging free on its right side. Something had pulled it loose. As he watched, a squirrel poked its head out, looked at him, then scurried up onto the roof. It ran a few feet along the edge, jumped onto an overhanging oak branch, and disappeared into the reddening leaves.

Great! He was collecting a regular menagerie up there!

So much for the joys of a wooded lot. Gloria and he had chosen this semi-rural development because they liked the seclusion of an acre lot and the safety for the twins of living on a cul-de-sac. They both had grown up in New Jersey, and Toms River seemed like as good a place as any to raise kids. The house was expensive but they were a two-income family—she a teacher and he a CPA—so they went for it.

So far, theirs was the only house completed in this section, although two new foundations had just started. It would be nice to have neighbors. Until recently, the only other building in sight had been a deserted stone church of unknown age and long-forgotten denomination a few hundred yards south of here. The belfry of that old building had concerned him for a while—bats, you know. Very high rabies rate. But he spoke to the workmen when they bulldozed it down last week to start another cul-de-sac, and they told him they hadn't seen a single bat. Lots of animal droppings up there, but no bats.

He wondered: Would a squirrel eat a couple of dead mice? He thought they only ate nuts and berries. Maybe this one was a carnivore. Didn't matter. One way or another, something had to be done about that gable vent. He went to get the ladder.

* * * * *

He had everything taken care of by the time Gloria and the girls got home from their respective schools.

He'd tacked the gable vent back into place. He couldn't see how that squirrel had pulled it free, but it wouldn't get it out now. He also plugged up the upper and lower ends of the hose leader with an aerosol foam insulation he picked up at Home Depot. It occurred to him as he watched the mustard-colored gunk harden into a solid Styrofoam plug that he was cutting off the mouse exit as well as the mouse entryway. Hopefully they were all out for the day. When they came back they'd be locked out and would have to go somewhere else. And even more hopefully, the squirrel hadn't left a friend in the attic behind the re-secured gable vent.

* * * * *

Hank hardly slept at all that night. He kept listening for the snap of a trap, hoping he wouldn't hear it, yet waiting for it. Hours passed. The last time he remembered seeing on the clock radio LED was 3:34. He must have fallen asleep after that.

Dawn was just starting to bleach out the night when the snap came. He came wide awake with the sound. The clock said 5:10. But the noise didn't end with that single snap. Whatever was up there began to thrash. He could hear the wooden base of the trap slapping against the attic flooring. Something bigger than a mouse, maybe a squirrel, was caught but still alive. He heard another snap and a squeal of pain. God, it was alive and hurt! His stomach turned.

Gloria rolled over and sat up, a silhouette in the growing light. She was still nine-tenths asleep.

Suddenly the attic went still.

He patted her arm and told her to lie down and go back to sleep.

She did. He couldn't.

* * * * *

He approached the attic door with dread. He did not want to go up there. What if it was still alive? What if it was weak and paralyzed but still breathing? He'd have to kill it. He didn't know if he could do that. But he'd have to. It would be the only humane thing to do. How? Drown it? Smother it in a plastic bag? He began to sweat.

This was crazy. He was wimping out over a rodent in his attic. Enough already! He flipped the attic light switch, slipped the bolt, and pulled on the cord. The door angled down on its hinges.

But it didn't come down alone. Something came with it, flying right at his face.

He yelled like a fool in a funhouse and batted it away. Then he saw what it was: one of the mousetraps. At first glance it looked empty, but when he went to pick it up, he saw what was in it and almost tossed his cookies.

A furry little forearm, no longer than the last two bones on his pinkie finger, was caught under the bow. It looked like it once might have been attached to a squirrel, but now it ended in a ragged bloody stump where it had been chewed off just below the shoulder.

Where the hell was the rest of it?

Visions of the squirrel chewing off its own arm swam around him until he remembered that auto-amputation only occurred with arresting traps, the kind that were chained down. Animals had been known to chew off a limb to escape those. The squirrel could have dragged the mousetrap with it.

But it hadn't.

Hank stood at the halfway point on those steps a long while. He finally decided he had wasted enough time. He clenched his teeth, told himself it was dead, and poked his head up. He started and almost fell off the stairs when he turned his head and found the squirrel's tail only two inches from his nose. It was caught in the bow of another trap—the second snap he had heard this morning. But there was no body attached.

This was getting a bit gory. He couldn't buy a squirrel chewing off its arm and then its tail. If anything, it would drag the tail trap after it until it got stuck someplace.

Nope. Something had eaten it. Something that didn't smell too good, because the attic was really beginning to stink.

He ducked down the ladder, grabbed the flashlight he always kept in the night table, then hurried back up to the attic. Light from the single bulb over the opening in the attic floor didn't reach very far. And even with daylight filtering in through the gable vents, there were lots of dark spots. He wanted the flashlight so he could get a good look along the inside of the eaves and into all the corners.

He searched carefully, and as he moved through the attic he had a vague sense of another presence, a faint awareness of something else here, a tantalizing hint of furtive movement just out of his range of vision.

He shook it off. The closeness up here, the poor lighting, the missing animal carcasses—it had all set his imagination in motion. He gave the attic a thorough going over and found nothing but a few droppings. Big droppings. Bigger than something a mouse or squirrel would leave. Maybe possum-sized. Or raccoon-sized.

Was that the answer? A possum or a coon? He didn't know much about them, but he'd seen them around in the woods, and he knew every time he put turkey or chicken scraps in the garbage, something would get the lid off the trash can and tear the Hefty bag apart until every last piece of meat was gone. Raccoons were notorious for that. If they'd eat leftover chicken, why not dead mice and squirrels?

Made sense to him. But how was it getting in? A check of the gable vent he'd resecured yesterday gave him the answer. It had been pulled free again. Well, he'd fix that right now.

He went down to his workshop and got a hammer and some heavy nails. He felt pretty good as he pounded them into the edges of the vent, securing it from the inside. He knew what he was up against now and knew something that big would be easy to keep out. No raccoon or possum was going to pull this vent free again. And just to be sure, he went over to the north side and reinforced the gable vent there.

That was it. His house was his own again.

* * * * *

Wednesday night was chaotic. Excitement ran at a fever pitch with the twins packing their own little suitcases full of stuffed animals and placing them by the front door so they'd be all set to go first thing in the morning.

Hank helped Gloria with the final packing of the big suitcases and they both fell into bed around midnight. He had little trouble getting off to sleep. There probably weren't any mice left, there weren't any squirrels, and he was sure no raccoon or possum was getting in tonight. So why stay awake listening?

The snap of a trap woke him around 3:30. No thrashing, no slapping, just the snap. Another mouse. A second trap went off ten minutes later. Then a third. Damn! He waited. The fourth and final trap sprang at 4:00 a.m.

Hank lay tense and rigid in bed and wondered what to do. Everybody would be up at first light, just an hour or so from now, getting ready for the drive to Newark Airport. He couldn't leave those mouse carcasses up there all the time they were away—they'd rot and the whole house would be stinking by the time they got back.

He slipped out of bed as carefully as he could, hoping the movement wouldn’t awaken Gloria. She didn't budge. He grabbed the flashlight and closed the bedroom door behind him on his way out.

He didn't waste any time. He had to get up there and get rid of the dead mice before the girls woke up. These damn animals were really getting on his nerves. He slid the bolt, pulled down the door, and hurried up.

Hank stood on the ladder and gaped at the traps. All four had been sprung but lay empty on the flooring around him, the peanut butter untouched. No mice heads, no bits of fur. What could have tripped them without getting caught? It was almost like a game.

He looked around warily. He was standing in a narrow cone of light. The rest of the attic was dark. Very dark. The sense of something else up here with him was very strong now. So was the odor. It was worse than ever.

Imagination again.

He waved the flashlight around quickly but saw no scurrying or lurking shapes along the eaves or in the corners. He made a second sweep, more slowly this time, more careful. He crouched and moved all along the edges, bumping his head now and again on a rafter, his flashlight held ahead of him like a gun.

Finally, when he was satisfied nothing of any size was lurking about, he checked the gable vent.

It had been yanked loose again. Some of the nails had pulled free, and those that hadn't had ripped through the vent's plastic edge.

He was uneasy now. No raccoon was strong enough to do this. He didn't know many men who could do it without a crowbar. This was getting out of hand. He suddenly wanted to get downstairs and bolt the attic door behind him. He'd call a professional exterminator as soon as they got back from Orlando.

He spun about, sure that something had moved behind him, but all was still, all was dark but for the pool of light under the bulb. Yet...

Quickly now, he headed back toward the light, toward the ladder, toward the empty traps. As he sidled along, he checked in the corners and along the eaves one last time, and wondered how and why the traps had been sprung. He saw nothing. Whatever it was, if it had come in, it wasn't here anymore. Maybe the attic light had scared it off. If that was the case, he'd leave the light on all night. All week.

His big mistake was looking for it along the floor.

It got him as he came around the heating unit. He saw a flash movement as it swung down from the rafters—big as a rottweiler, brown scruffy fur, a face that was all mouth with huge countless teeth, four clawed arms extended toward him as it held onto the beams above with still two more limbs—and that was all. It engulfed his head and lifted him off the floor in one sweeping motion. For a few spasming seconds his fingers tore futilely at its matted fur and his legs kicked and writhed silently in the air. As life and consciousness fled that foul smothering unbearable agony, he sensed the bottomless pit of its hunger and thought helplessly of the open attic door, of the ladder going down, and of Gloria and the twins sleeping below.

MUSCLES

INTRODUCTION

This is my homage to the Time Square of my teens. I came of age in Manhattan—knew how to get mugs of porter at McSorley’s at 16, where in Chinatown to buy fireworks (illegal in New York), and which of the grindhouse theaters along the Deuce had the least-sticky seats. It became a grim place in the late sixties and seventies after the assassinations and the riots, and now Disneyfication has swung it to the opposite, family-friendly pole. But preserved here is the Times Square I knew, a Times Square we’ll never see again.

A Times Square I miss.

MUSCLES

Jay was dry, his mind a vast open plain, barren of the slightest sprig of an idea. It worried him no little bit.

He finished his coffee and sandwich at his desk, then sat there tapping a pencil on his blotter. He looked around the empty office. This was getting serious. He needed a lead story for next week's edition and he was completely blank.

He picked up the current issue of The Light lying open on his desk, exposing the weekly eye injury on page three. That was one of his rules: Every issue had to have an eye injury on page three, preferably with a photo. Page five was reserved for the weekly UFO story. The dependable appearance of features like those kept the regulars coming back week after week. But it was page one that caught the impulse buyers, and they were the gravy. He closed it over and scanned the front page.

FOUND IN SIBERIA!

TWO-HEADED BABY SPEAKS

ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN!

There followed an eyewitness account of the left head speaking Russian and the right answering in English—talk about internationalism!—along with a photo of a two-headed baby from the freak file.

Jay frowned. Another of his rules was that freaks were a last resort for the front page. The presence one in this week's lead was testimony to the aridity of his current dry spell. But you had to go for the gross when you were competing against something as juicy as the Profumo scandal in the dailies.

He got up and walked around the tiny office, stopping before the front page of the March 15, 1959 issue framed on the wall. He’d only just started at The Light then, but he’d made his mark with that one. Even today they still considered it a masterpiece.

SECRET VATICAN PAPERS REVEAL:

RICHIE VALENS WOULD

HAVE BEEN NEXT POPE!

He shook his head at the memory. Boy, had that ever sold papers. The text had been the usual bullshit about secret information leaked by a deep contact who would talk only to The Light. A source in a place like the Vatican was a safe bet because the Vatican was so secretive anyway and naturally would be expected to deny the story. Of course, the tried-and true standby was placing the source behind the Iron Curtain. No way anyone could prove you right or wrong when the story came from Siberia.

Look at me, he thought. Standing here reminiscing about 1959 like it was the good old days. Hell, it was only four years ago.

He shook his head. Acting like a has-been at thirty.

He needed some air, a walk, a change of scenery. Anything but these same old lousy walls.

He pulled on his coat and headed for the elevator. He knew where he wanted to go.

* * * * *

Ah, sleaze. Something in the air here in Times Square did something for Jay. Not any one particular thing. The amalgam stimulated him—a benny for his soul. And the Square looked especially sleazy today, buffeted by a chill wind under a low gray sky that promised rain or snow or a mix.

He wandered past the Tango Palace.

Continuous Dancing from 2 P.M. to 4 A.M.

To the Type of Music You Love

Presenting Beautiful Girls to Dance With

Then came the Square Theater showing a double bill of The Immoral Mr. Teas and Wild Women of Wongo, past the Garden Theatre with a double of B-O-I-N-N-N-G! and Goldilocks and the Three Bares, past Hubert's Museum and Flea Circus.

He’d been to the Tango Palace a number of times—through the plain door and up the stairs to where the music was not the type he loved and the women not the kind he cared to dance with—and had seen the movies twice each. He knew the attractions of Hubert's by heart.

But he never got tired of the aura of the Square. The regulars here were living by their wits on the edge of the law, on the far side of truth, justice, and the American way. The skells, the sky-grifters, the street-hawkers, the streetwalkers all worked as hard at their trades as any straight, but they didn't want it straight. They wanted it their way. Jay could not deny a feeling of kinship.

Lighted headlines crawled around the Times Building—something about Kennedy and Khrushchev—while a guy in cowboy boots and a Stetson gave Jay the eye. He ignored both. A lot of women had told him he looked like Anthony Perkins and maybe it was true. Tall, very slim, dark brown hair and an angular face—a look useful in attracting women, but had its drawbacks in that it attracted certain men too. Not so popular, though, a couple of years ago when Psycho was such a hit.

Jay crossed the street and slowed when he came to Harold's Mondo Emporium where a line of about half a dozen guys was filing past the ticket window.

Harold’s Mondo was a relative newcomer on the Square, a smaller, poor man's version of Hubert's Museum and Flea Circus. Hubert's had been on the Square since 1929. Ernie Rawson had opened up Harold's just last year. He’d sounded like he was going under when Jay had spoken to him a couple of weeks ago. Now he was doing gangbusters with the lunchtime crowd.

Jay showed his press card to the ticket girl and wandered inside to look around. Same old junk as Hubert's: a taxidermied two-headed cow, a snake charmer, a belly dancer, pickled punks, the trade's charming name for bottled embryos—25 bucks apiece from Del Rio, Texas. He came to a closed-off section with a separate admission. If Jay remembered correctly, the last time he was in it had housed "Sexology" lectures with visual aids by a professor from the Sorbonne. Uh-huh. Now it said simply, "Supergirl." That was where everyone was going.

Jay spotted Ernie and sneaked up behind him.

"I'm from DC Comics," he said in a gruff voice. "Where can I find the owner of this establishment?'

Ernie whirled, wide-eyed, then laughed, "Jay! How goes it?"

He was a plump, stubby man with a plump, stubby cigar jammed into a corner of his mouth. And he was grinning like an idiot.

"You look like a man who just won the Irish Sweepstakes, Ernie. What's going on?"

"Great new attraction. Wanna see?"

Jay tried to appear disinterested, but he’d been hoping for an invitation.

"All right. Maybe there's a story in her.

"Is there ever! See her first, then I'll tell ya."

Jay followed Ernie into the room and stood in the back and watched this Supergirl. She had curly red hair, fair, lightly freckled skin, and she was built—not just in her D-cup halter, but in her shoulders, arms, and legs.

Muscles.

The girl was loaded with them. And her skimpy two-piece Supergirl costume showed them all. Not bulging bodybuilder-type muscles, but thick sleek cords running under skin. She’d oiled up like the Mr. Universe guys so the light played off all the highlights when she flexed. She was good, too. Knew how to work the crowd. She'd smile, banter, do her lifts, bend her bars. She'd been around. It could have all been an elaborate scam, but the guys in the crowd didn't seem to mind. Just looking at her was worth the ticket price.

"Here comes the blow-off," Ernie said. "Wait'll ya see this!"

Turned out to be a good blow-off. Supergirl pulled a drape off a pressing bench, got two medium-sized volunteers from the audience and had them sit on each end of an iron bar racked over the bench. When they were set, she lay back—with her crotch toward the audience, natch—and bench-pressed the two guys. As the audience went wild, Ernie pulled Jay outside.

“She terrif or what?"

"She's good, yeah, but not much of a story in a strong-woman act."

"Don't count on that. Wait'll ya hear about her gettin raped tree years ago."

"Raped?" This was getting interesting now. Jay couldn't imagine anyone doing anything to that lady without her permission. "Who did it—Man Mountain Dean?"

"A ghost, she says. An anyways, she weren't muscled-up back then. Maybe ya seen her at Hubert's. She was the snake dancer back in sixty.”

"Tell you the truth, Ernie, I didn't get much of a look at her face."

Those muscles had fascinated him. He'd never seen anything like them on a woman before ...the way they moved under her skin...

“You an evybody else.”

"But what's this about a ghost raping her?"

"What she said back then. Hollered bout it to the cops, then clammed up soon as the papers come sniffin. Quit her job an disappeared. Coupla weeks ago she shows up in my office wit all these muscles and this act. I mean, is she dynamite or what? And if you can give me some good press on her, I can up the ticket price and still be packin em in. And should that come to fruitition, I'd be willing to maybe find a way to—”

Jay held up a hand. "Don't say it, Ernie. Either the story's worth writing or it's not."

Had to keep an eye on the journalistic integrity.

"Okay, okay. Just meet her an talk t’her and see whatcha think."

"Will do. Which way to the dressing room?''

Jay was looking forward to this.

* * * * *

Now that she was swathed in a terry-cloth bathrobe, Jay realized she was kind of pretty. Not beautiful, but pretty in a girlish, nice-smile way. Pushing thirty, maybe a little hard around the edges, but the trace of vulnerability in those blue eyes appealed to Jay. He wanted to get to know her.

"This is Jay," Ernie said. "He's a reporter. Wants a few woids."

She gave Jay an appraising look. "Long as it's only words he wants, otherwise the two of you can take off."

Jay smiled at her. "Just words, I assure you, Miss..." He curved the end of the word up into a question.

"Hansen." She returned the smile. "Olivia Hansen. You can call me Liv."

She seemed interested. Maybe she liked skinny guys.

"I wancha to give Jay a good story, Liv," Ernie said. "About the rape an evyting."

Suddenly the smile disappeared. Liv's expression became fierce. She lifted Ernie off the floor by his lapels and tossed him against the wall.

“I told you never to mention that!" she shouted as Ernie bounced off the wall and cowered away from her. "Didn't I? Didn’t I?”

"Yeah, Liv, but—"

“No buts!" She turned toward Jay. "What paper you from?"

"The Light."

"Oh, that's great! Just great! 'Flying Saucer Men Stick Needles in Woman's Eyes!' I can't stand it!" She snatched a beige raincoat off a hook and pulled it on over the robe. "You really are low, Ernie.”

"Where y'goin?" he said as she headed for the door.

"None of your business!"

"You got a two-o'clock show!"

"I'll be back."

And then she was gone.

"She betta come back," Ernie said, squaring his shoulders inside his rumpled jacket and trying to look like he was really the boss. He smiled wanly at jay. "That all think they're stars."

Jay nodded absently, thinking. He gauged Ernie's weight at a compact 170. Liv had handled him easily.

"Strong girl."

He smoothed his lapels. "Yeah."

"Sure she’s coming back?"

"Absotootly. She always goes out between shows." He sighed. "I think the broad's a man-hater. She got her share of stage-door Johnnies, an now and then I see her let one buy her a drink, but she’s got no steady. Prolly a dyke."

Jay thought about those muscular arms and legs wrapped around another woman...what a waste.

"But look," Ernie was saying. "Tonight's her early night. She's done at eight. Whyncha come back then and—”

Jay shrugged. "Don't see much of a story here, Ernie. Sorry."

"Maybe I can talk t’her, make her come aroun."

"Sure. Let me know."

Jay waved good-bye and headed down to 42nd Street. Followed it east to the Daily News building where he checked the morgue files for stories about a "ghost rape." Sure enough: a little story in the lower left corner of page six. Olivia Hansen's name in print, but no direct quotes. The story looked like it was culled from a police report.

Jay thought of Olivia up on that stage with those sleek, shining muscles and felt a little lead sneaking into his wood. He idly wondered if maybe he had some fruity tendencies that muscles could get to him like this, but reminded himself that they were on a woman. That was the important thing: a good-looking woman.

With muscles...

Back to the files: He checked a few more years and found two other similar reports: another "ghost rape" and a "monster rape." Both in the Times Square area.

The juices began flowing as he headed for the street. By the time he reached his office he was psyched. He had his story: Something prowled Times Square at odd intervals, ravaging women. Its victims said it was hideous, ghostlike. What was it? A man? Or something else? Was it perhaps the living excrescence of all the sleaze, disease, perversion, and depravity of Times Square? The embodied concentrate of the lost hopes and shattered dreams of the wretched, wrecked lives of those who haunted the Square?

Oooh, that sounded good.

And not all that farfetched. After all, the White House had been occupied by an Irish Catholic for the past couple of years. What could be more farfetched than that?

Readers would eat it up. All he needed was a final touch, an added ring of authenticity that would enable him to drag it out for two or three issues: personal testimony.

He needed to talk to Olivia Hansen.

* * * * *

It hadn't been easy coaxing her out of the cold and into Clancy's. Jay had used every ounce of persuasive skill he owned—and fervent promises of no talk of her past, just her present and immediate future—to cajole her into having one lousy drink with him before she went home. She hadn't removed her raincoat, just sat there opposite him in a rear booth and answered in monosyllables as she sipped her drink.

He’d poured on the charm and pushed the Anthony Perkins boyishness to the limit to stretch one drink into two, and then into three.

She was beginning to loosen up.

"I don't usually drink," she said. He heard a slur growing in her voice as she sipped her screwdriver. Yeah, she was getting very loose. "Bad for the muscles."

Hey, Paula was playing on the juke. The vodka in the screwdrivers had relaxed the anger lines in her face, making her softer, prettier. Jay sensed even more vulnerability in her eyes, and a faint tang of sweat in the air. He found it exciting as all hell.

"Tell me about the muscles."

"What about them?"

"Why have them?"

"I gotta be strong." Her expression was suddenly fierce. “Strong enough to keep any man from doing what he wants with me ever again."

Jay repressed a cheer. She’d opened the door.

He took a deep breath. Here goes nothing.

"You mean the rape?

"Hey! I thought you weren't going to mention that!"

"I didn't bring it up—you did."

She calmed.

"Want to talk about it?" Jay said softly.

"No!" She shook her head violently, then began to do what she said she wouldn’t. "It was awful! Horrible! I was in my dressing room at Hubert's, getting ready to go on with my snake dance when he—it—appeared out of nowhere. I mean, one minute I was alone in the room with all the lights on and the next minute he was there and everything went dark and cold."

"What he look like?"

She shuddered and Jay wondered uneasily what it took to get a shudder out of a girl who used to dance wrapped up in a boa constrictor.

"I only got a glance at him before everything went dark but he was old and greasy and unshaven and dirty and his skin wasn't right, like it wasn't human, and he was cold, so goddamn cold, and the things he did to me and the things he made me do, the things he made me do!"

She sobbed and Jay thought she was going to lose it.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "I was powerless, completely powerless. But that'll never happen again." He saw her flexing her muscles under her coat. "No one'll ever do something like that to me again. Ever!"

"But how come you clammed up about it back then? Maybe they could’ve caught this creep."

She shook her head slowly. "The way he comes and goes? Nobody’ll ever catch him. And besides, everyone was looking at me like I was crazy or trying a publicity stunt. Insult on top of injury. I didn't need it."

As the jukebox began Walk Like a Man, she glanced at the Schlitz clock on the wall.

“God! I've got to get home! The kid'll be starving!"

Kid?

Jay saw his story fading as she rose to her feet. He had to say something here, and quickly.

"I didn't know you were married."

"I'm not. Never was. Baby’s father was...well, we were just talking about him."

Jay was stunned. She got pregnant from the rape and kept the kid! What a headline!

Son of the Times Square Spook!

* * * * *

God, he could run this for months! Make Profumo and Christine Keeler look like the Knights of Columbus!

"Uh...” He didn't know how to phrase it. “Why...?"

"What was I to do? Risk an abortion and maybe die? Besides, it wasn't Baby's fault. He didn't do anything to me. And after carrying him for nine months I ... I couldn't give him up. I'm his mother, after all."

Here was one weird lady, but she’d be so easy to write about. The quotables just poured out of her. He couldn't let her go. Needed more time to work on her. If he could somehow get a picture of this kid—

"Let me take you home," he blurted.

“I don't need your protection."

Jay smiled, "I was hoping you'd protect me."

She laughed and Jay realized it was the first time she’d done that all night.

"Okay. It's only a few blocks. We can walk."

He used the walk to make contact.

First he took her elbow as they crossed the street, then kept a grip on her arm, then his arm was around her shoulders. By the time they reached her apartment house, she was leaning against him.

This was working out fine, he thought as he followed her up the stairs to the third floor. A little romance here, then handing her a line about helping protect other innocent women from this rapist spook by going public in The Light, and she'd come around for sure.

A shotgun apartment—a front room, back room, and a kitchen. Liv went immediately to the back, leaving Jay by the door. The front looked like a gym—barbells and dumbbells all about. A padded pressing bench sat where most people put a couch.

Liv returned from the back.

"Baby's sleeping."

"You leave him alone here all day? How old is he?"

She took off her coat, then loosened the tie on the terry-cloth bathrobe beneath.

"One and a half. He sleeps all day and most of the night. I check on him between shows."

he bathrobe was off now, revealing her Supergirl bikini and her muscles...ah, those muscles. Her breasts bobbed under the fabric as she walked over to him. She put her hands on his chest and looked up at him. He could tell the vodka had worked its magic.

"I need someone tonight. Want to stay?"

Jay ran his fingers up her biceps, over her deltoids and traps, and down to her lats. He pulled her close.

"I couldn't say no even if I wanted to."

He realized with a pang that this was probably the first completely honest statement he’d made all night.

She led him into the dark of the rear room. In the borrowed light from the front he dimly saw a bed against the wall and a crib in the far corner. He heard a rustle from the crib and saw the kid pull himself to his feet and look at them over the rail.

"He's awake, Liv."

"That's okay. We'll be in the dark here and he won't know what we're doing."

Jay glanced at the crib again. He couldn't make out any of the kid's features, just a shadow, craning his head and neck over the rail and staring at them. He didn't like the idea of an audience, even if it was just a one-and-a-half-year old, but then Liv had his shirt open and was kissing his chest and he forgot all about the kid.

* * * * *

She was crying, sobbing gently under him.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. That was so good. Sometimes I just need it. I tell myself I don't, but sometimes I just do. And that was so good."

It had been good, Jay thought.

He’d been good. Damn good. At the end there he’d thought she was going to squeeze him to death like a python. Even now, as he lay weak and limp atop her, she still had her arms and legs wrapped around him.

"You don't have to cry."

"Yes, I do. ’Cause I'm sorry."

"Sorry? You kidding? That was wonderful!"

"Oh, good. That makes me feel a little better."

Jay was trying to figure out what she was getting at when he heard a noise over by the crib. He glanced up. The crib was empty.

"I think your baby's out."

He felt her arms and legs tighten about him.

"I know."

He sensed movement along the floor, coming toward the bed, then a little face popped up over the mattress and looked at him from only inches away. He cried out in shock at the huge, dark, staring eyes and wide slit of a mouth crowded with teeth that would have been more at home in a shark. As the kid's teeth angled toward his throat, he struggled to free himself but could barely move, barely breathe.

"Let me go!"

Liv's arms and legs tightened around him even more, locking him helpless against her.

"I'm so sorry," she said through a sob, "but Baby needs you, too."

CUTS

INTRODUCTION

Wherever I go, people who've read Silver Scream never fail to mention "Cuts." I know it had great cathartic power for me. When Dave Schow approached me for a Hollywood-based story for Silver Scream, I knew immediately the kind of piece I'd do. I blasted straight through it and felt wonderful when I was finished. My mood was lighter, the world was brighter, even my digestion was better. I let it sit for a week or two before printing it out and reading it. When I finally read it, I was shocked. I hadn't meant to allow so much pent-up rage to spill onto the page. I pride myself on my cool and this was a little too self-revelatory. I sent it to Dave as was but mentioned that I might want to do a toned-down rewrite. Dave threatened me with bodily harm if I toned down a bloody thing.

If you've read Dave's fiction you know he's quite inventive in the area of bodily harm. So I left it as it was.

It’s rivaled only by “Pelts” as my nastiest story.

CUTS

It started in Milo's right foot. He awoke in the dark of his bedroom with a pins-and-needles sensation from the lower part of his calf to the tips of his toes. He sat up, massaged it, walked around the bedroom. Nothing helped. Finally, he took a Darvocet and went back to bed. He managed to get to sleep but was awake again by dawn, this time with both feet tingling. In the wan light, he inspected his lower legs.

A thin, faintly red line around each leg about three inches up from the ankle. Milo snapped on the night table light for a closer look. He touched the line. It was more than a line—an indentation, actually, like something left after wearing a pair of socks too tight at the top. But it felt as if the constricting band were still there.

He got up and walked around. It felt a little funny to stand on partially numb feet but he couldn't worry about it now. In just a couple of hours he was doing a power breakfast at the Polo with Regenstein from TriStar and he had to be sharp. He padded into the kitchen to put on the coffee.

* * * * *

As he wove through LA's morning commuter traffic, Milo envied the drivers with their tops down. He would have loved to have his 380 SL opened up to the bright early morning sun. Truthfully, he would have been glad for an open window. But for the sake of his hair he stayed bottled up with the a-c on. He couldn't afford to let the breeze blow his toupee around. It had been especially stubborn about blending in with his natural hair this morning and he didn't have any more time to fuss with it. And this was his good piece. His back-up had been stolen during a robbery of his house last week, an occurrence that still baffled the hell out of him. He wished he didn't have to worry about wearing a rug. He had heard about a new experimental lotion that was supposed to start hair growing again. If that ever panned out, he'd be first on line to—

His right hand started tingling. He removed it from the wheel and fluttered it in the air. Still it tingled. The sleeve of his sports coat slipped back and he saw a faint indentation running around his forearm, just above the wrist. For a few heartbeats he studied it in horrid fascination.

What's happening to me?

Then he glanced up and saw the looming rear of a truck rushing toward his windshield. He slammed on the brakes and slewed to a screeching stop inches from the tailgate. Gasping and sweating, Milo slumped in the seat and tried to get a grip. Bad enough he was developing mysterious little constricting bands on his legs and now his arm, he had almost wrecked the new Mercedes. This sucker cost more than his first house back in the seventies.

When traffic started up again, he drove cautiously, keeping his eyes on the road and working the fingers of his right hand. He had some weirdshit disease, he just knew it, but he couldn't let anything get between him and this breakfast with Regenstein.

* * * * *

"Look, Milo," Howard Regenstein said through the smoke from his third cigarette in the last twenty minutes. "You know that if it was up to me the picture would be all yours. You know that, man."

Milo nodded, not knowing that at all. He had used that same line himself a million times—maybe two million times. If it was up to me...

Yeah, right. The great cop-out: I'm a nice guy and I have all the faith in the world in you but those money guys, those faithless, faceless Philistines who hold the purse-strings won't let guys with vision like you and me get together and make a great film.

"Well, what's the problem, Howie? I mean, give it to me straight."

"All right," Howie said, showing his chicklet caps between his thin lips. He was deeply tanned, wore thick horn-rimmed glasses; his close cropped curly hair was sandy-colored and lightly bleached. "Despite my strong—and, Milo, I do mean strong—recommendation, the money boys looked at the grosses for The Hut and got scared away."

Well. That explained a lot of things, especially this crummy table half hidden in an inside corner. The real power players, the ones who wanted everybody else in the place to see who they were doing breakfast with, were out in the middle or along the windows. Regenstein probably had three breakfasts scheduled for this morning. Milo was wondering what tables had been reserved for the others when a sharp pain stabbed his right leg. He winced and reached down.

"Something wrong?" Regenstein said.

"No. Just a muscle cramp."

He lifted his trouser leg and saw that the indentation above his ankle was deeper. It was actually a cut now. Blood oozed slowly, seeping into his sock. He straightened up and forced a smile at Regenstein.

"The Hut, Howie? Is that all?" Milo said with a laugh. "Don't they know that project was a loser from the start? The book was a bad property, a piece of cliched garbage. Don't they know that?"

Howie smiled, too. "Afraid not, Milo. You know their kind. They look at the bottom line and see that Universal's going to be twenty mill in the hole on The Hut, and in their world that means something. And maybe they remember those PR pieces you did a month or so before it opened. You never even mentioned that the film was based on a book. Had me convinced the story was all yours, whole cloth."

Milo clenched his teeth. That had been when he had thought the movie was going to be a smash.

"I had a concept, Howie, one that cut through the bounds and limitations of the novel. I wanted to raise the level of the material but the producers stymied me at every turn."

Actually, he had been pretty much on his own down there in Haiti. He had changed the book a lot, made loads of cuts and condensations. He had made it "A Milo Gherl Film."

But somewhere along the way he had lost it. Unanimously hostile one-star reviews with leads like, "Shut The Hut" and "New Gherl Pix the Pits" hadn't helped. Twentieth had been pushing an offer in its television division and he had been holding them off—who wanted to do TV when you could do theatricals? But as the bad reviews piled up and the daily grosses plummeted, he grabbed the TV offer. It was good money, had plenty of prestige, but it was still television.

Milo wanted to do films, and very badly wanted in on the new package Regenstein was putting together for TriStar. Howie had Jack Nicholson, Bobby DeNiro, and Kathy Turner firm, and was looking for a director. More than anything else in his career, Milo wanted to be that director. But he wasn't going to be. He knew that now.

Well, at least he could use the job to pay the bills and keep his name before the public until The Hut was forgotten. That wouldn't be long. A year or two at most and he'd be back directing another theatrical. Not a package like Regenstein's, but something with a decent budget where he could do the screenplay and direct. That was the way he liked it—full control on paper and on film.

He shrugged at Regenstein and put on his best good-natured smile. "What can I say, Howie? The world wasn't ready for The Hut. Someday, they'll appreciate it."

Yeah, right, he thought as Regenstein nodded noncommittally. At least Howie was letting him down easy, letting him keep his dignity here. That was important. All he had to do now was—

Milo screamed as pain tore into his left eye like a bolt of lightning. He lurched to his feet, upsetting the table as he clamped his hands over his eye in a vain attempt to stop the agony.

Pain! Oh Christ, pain as he had never known it was shooting from his eye straight into his brain. This had to be a stroke! What else could hurt like this?

Through his good eye he had a whirling glimpse of everybody in the dining room standing and staring at him as he staggered around. He pulled one hand away from his eye and reached out to steady himself. He saw a smear blood on his fingers. He took the other hand away. His left eye was blind, but with his right he saw the dripping red on his palm. A woman screamed.

"My God, Milo!" Regenstein said, his chalky face swimming into view. "Your eye! What did you do to your eye?" He turned to a gaping waiter. "Get a doctor! Get a fucking ambulance!"

* * * * *

Milo was groggy from the Demerol they had given him. In the blur of hours since breakfast he'd been wheeled in and out of the emergency room so many times, poked with so many needles, examined by so many doctors, x-rayed so many times, his head was spinning.

At least the pain had eased off.

"I'm admitting you onto the vascular surgery service, Mr. Gherl," said the bearded doctor as he pushed back one of the white curtains that shielded Milo's gurney from the rest of the emergency room. His badge said, Edward Jansen, M.D., and he looked tired and irritable.

Milo struggled up the Demerol downgrade. "Vascular surgery? But my eye—!"

"As Dr. Burch told you, Mr. Gherl, your eye can't be saved. It's ruined beyond repair. But maybe we can save your feet and your hand if it's not too late already.

"Save them?"

"If we're lucky. I don't know what kind of games you've been into, but getting yourself tied up with piano wire is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard of."

Milo was growing more alert by the second now. Over Dr. Jansen's shoulder he saw the bustle of the emergency room personnel, saw an old black mopping the floor in slow, rhythmic strokes. But he was only seeing it with his right eye. He reached up to the bandage over his left. Ruined? He wanted to cry, but Dr. Jansen's piano wire remark suddenly filtered through to his consciousness.

"Piano wire? What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb. Look at your feet." Dr. Edwards pulled the sheet free from the far end of the gurney.

Milo looked. The nail beds were white and the skin below the indentations were a dusky blue. And the indentations had all become clean, straight, bloody cuts right through the skin and into the meat below. His right hand was the same.

"See that color?" Jansen was saying. "That means the tissues below the wire cuts aren't getting enough blood. You're going to have gangrene for sure if we don't restore circulation soon."

Gangrene! Milo levered up on the gurney and felt his toes with his good hand. Cold! "No! That's impossible!"

"I'd almost agree with you," Dr. Jansen said, his voice softening for a moment as he seemed to be talking to himself. Behind him, Milo noticed the old black moving closer with his mop. "When we did x-rays, I thought we'd see the wire embedded in the flesh there, but there was nothing. Tried Xero soft-tissue technique in case you had used fishing line or something, but that came up negative, too. Even probed the cuts myself but there's nothing in there. Yet the arteriograms clearly show that the arteries in your lower legs and right forearm are compressed to the point where very little blood is getting through. The tissues are starving. The vascular boys may have to do bypasses."

"I'm getting out of here!" Milo said. "I'll see my own doctor!"

"I'm afraid I can't allow that."

"You can't stop me! I can walk out of here anytime I want!"

"I can keep you seventy-two hours for purposes of emergency psychiatric intervention."

"Psychiatric!"

"Yeah. Self-mutilation. Your mind worries me almost as much as your arteries, Mr. Gherl. I'd like to make sure you don't poke out your other eye before you get treatment."

"But I didn't—!"

"Please, Mr. Gherl. There were witnesses. Your breakfast companion said he had just finished giving you some disappointing news when you screamed and rammed something into your eye."

Milo touched the bandage over his eye again. How could they think he had done this to himself?

"My God, I swear I didn't do this!"

"That kind of trauma doesn't happen spontaneously, Mr. Gherl, and according to your companion, no one was within reach of you. So one way or the other, you're staying. Make it easy on both of us and do it voluntarily."

Milo didn't see that he had a choice. "I'll stay," he said. "Just answer me one thing: You ever seen anything like this before?"

Jansen shook his head. "Never. Never heard of anything like it either." He took a sudden deep breath and smiled through his beard with what Milo guessed was supposed to be doctorly reassurance. "But, hey. I'm only an ER doc. The vascular boys will know what to do."

With that, he turned and left, leaving Milo staring into the wide-eyed black face of the janitor.

"What are you staring at?" Milo said.

"A man in big trouble," the janitor said in a deep, faintly accented voice. He was pudgy with a round face, watery eyes, and two days' worth of silvery growth on his jowls. With a front tooth missing on the top, he looked like Leon Spinks gone to seed for thirty years. "These doctors can't be helpin' what you got. You got a Bocor mad at you and only a Houngon can fix you."

"Get lost!" Milo said.

He lay back on the gurney and closed his good eye to shut out the old man and the emergency room. He hunted for sleep as an escape from the pain and the gut-roiling terror, praying he'd wake up and learn that this was all just a horrible dream. But those words wouldn't go away. Bocor and Houngon...he knew them somehow. Where?

And then it hit him like a blow—The Hut! They were voodoo terms from the novel, The Hut! He hadn't used them in the film—he'd scoured all mention of voodoo from his screenplay—but the author had used them in the book. If Milo remembered correctly, a Bocor was an evil voodoo priest and a Houngon was a good one. Or was it the other way around? Didn't matter. They were all part of Bill Franklin's bullshit novel.

Franklin! Wouldn't he like to see me now! Milo thought. Their last meeting had been anything but pleasant. Unforgettable, yes. His mind did a slow dissolve to his new office at Twentieth two weeks ago...

* * * * *

"Some conference!"

The angry voice startled Milo and he spilled hot coffee down the front of his shirt. He leaped up from behind his desk and bent forward, pulling the steaming fabric away from his chest. "Jesus H.—"

But then he looked up and saw Bill Franklin standing there and his anger cooled like fresh blood in an arctic breeze. Maggie's anxious face peered over Franklin's narrow shoulder.

"I tried to stop him, Mr. Gherl, honest I did, but he wouldn't listen!"

"You've been ducking me for a month, Gherl!" Franklin said in his nasal voice. "No more tricks!"

Maggie said, "Shall I call security?"

"I don't think that will be necessary, Maggs," he said quickly, grabbing a Kleenex from the oak tissue holder on his desk and blotting at his stained shirt front. Milo had moved into this office only a few weeks ago, and the last thing he needed today was an ugly scene with an irate writer. He could tell from Franklin's expression that he was ready to cause a doozy. Better to bite the bullet and get this over with. "I'll talk to Mr. Franklin. You can leave him here." She hesitated and he waved her toward the door. "Go ahead. It's all right."

When she had closed the door behind her, he picked up the insulated brass coffee urn and looked at Franklin. "Coffee, Billy-boy?"

"I don't want coffee, Gherl! I want to know why you've been ducking me!"

"But I haven't been ducking you, Billy!" he said, refreshing his own cup. He would have to change this shirt before he did lunch later. "I'm not with Universal anymore. I'm with Twentieth now, so naturally my offices are here." He swept an arm around him. "Not bad, ay?"

Milo sat down and tried his best to look confident, at ease. Inside, he was anything but. Right now he was a little afraid of the writer stalking back and forth before the desk like a caged tiger. Nothing about Franklin's physical appearance was the least bit intimidating. He was fair-haired and tall with big hands and feet attached to a slight, gangly frame. He had a big nose, a small chin, and a big Adam's apple—Milo had noticed on their first meeting two years ago that he could slant a perfectly straight line along the tips of those three protuberances. A moderate overbite did not help the picture. Milo's impression of Franklin had always been that of a patient, retiring, rational man who never raised his voice.

But today he was barging about with a wild look in his eyes, shouting, gesticulating, accusing. Milo remembered an old saying his father used to quote to him when he was a boy: Beware the wrath of a patient man.

Franklin had paused and was looking around the spacious room with its indirect lighting, its silver-gray floor-to-ceiling louvered blinds and matching carpet, the chrome and onyx wet bar, the free-form couches, the abstract sculptures on the Lucite coffee table and on Milo's oversized desk.

"How did you ever rate this after perpetrating a turkey like The Hut?"

"Twentieth recognizes talent when it sees it, Billy."

"My question stands," Franklin said.

Milo ignored the remark. "Sit down, Billy-boy. What's got you so upset?"

Franklin didn't sit. He resumed his stalking. "You know damn well what! My book!"

"You've got a new one?" Milo said, perfectly aware of which book he meant.

"No! I mean the only book I've ever written—The Hut!—and the mess you made out of it!"

Milo had heard quite enough nasty criticism of that particular film to last him a lifetime. He felt his anger flare but suppressed it. Why get into a shouting match?

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Billy, but let's face facts." He spread his hands in a consoling gesture. "It's a dead issue. There's nothing more to be done. The film has been shot, edited, released, and—"

"—and withdrawn!" Franklin shouted. "Two weeks in general release and the theater owners sent it back! It's not just a flop, it's a catastrophe!"

"The critics—killed it."

"Bullshit! The critics blasted it, just like they blasted other 'flops' like Flashdance and Top Gun and Ernest Goes to Camp. What killed it, Gherl, was word of mouth. Now I know why you wouldn't screen it until a week before it opened: You knew you'd botched it!"

"I had trouble with the final cut. I couldn't—"

"You couldn't get it to make sense! As I walked out of that screening I kept telling myself that my negative feelings were due to all the things you'd cut out of my book, that maybe I was too close to it all and that the public would somehow find my story in your mass of pretensions. Then I heard a guy in his early twenties say, 'What the hell was that all about?' and his girlfriend say, 'What a boring waste of time!' and I knew it wasn't just me." Franklin's long bony finger stabbed through the air. "It was you! You raped my book!"

Milo had had just about enough of this. "You novelists are all alike!" he said with genuine disdain. "You do fine on the printed page so you think you're experts at writing for the screen. But you're not. You don't know the first goddam thing about visual writing!"

"You cut the heart out of my story! The Hut was about the nature of evil and how it can seduce even the strongest among us. The plot was like a house of cards, Gherl, built with my sweat. Your windbag script blew it all down! And after I saw the first draft of the script, you were suddenly unavailable for conference!"

Milo recalled Franklin's endless stream of nit-picking letters, his deluge of time-wasting phone calls. "I was busy, dammit! I was writer-director! The whole thing was on my shoulders!"

"I warned you that the house of cards was falling due to the cuts you made. I mean, why did you remove all mention of voodoo and zombiism from the script? They were the two red herrings that held the plot together."

"Voodoo! Zombies! That's old hat! Nobody would pay to see a voodoo movie!"

"Then why set the movie in Haiti, f'Christsake? Might as well have been in Pasadena! And that monster you threw in at the end? Where in hell did you come up with that? I looked like the Incredible Hulk in drag! I spent years in research. I slaved to fill that book with terror and dread—all you brought to the screen were cheap shocks!"

"If that's your true opinion—and I disagree with it absolutely—you should be glad the film was a flop. No one will see it!"

Franklin nodded slowly. "That gave me comfort for a while, until I realized that the movie isn't dead. When it reaches the video stores and the cable services, tens of millions of people will see it—not because it's good, but simply because it's there and it's something they've never heard of before and certainly have never seen. And they'll be directing their rapt attention at your corruption of my story, and they'll see 'Based on the Novel by William Franklin' and think that the pretentious, incomprehensible mishmash they're watching represents my work. And that makes me mad, Gherl! Fucking-ay crazy mad!"

The ferocity that flashed across Franklin's face was truly frightening. Milo rushed to calm him. "Billy, look: Despite our artistic differences and despite the fact that The Hut will never turn a profit, you were paid well into six figures for the screen rights. What's you're beef?"

Franklin seemed to shrink a little. His shoulders slumped and his voice softened. "I didn't write it for money. I live off a trust fund that provides me with more than I can spend. The Hut was my first novel—maybe my only novel ever. I gave it everything. I don't think I have any more in me."

"Of course you do!" Milo said, rising and moving around the desk toward the subdued writer. Here was his chance to ease Franklin out of here. "It's just that you've never had to suffer for your art! You've had it too soft, too cushy for too long. Things came too easy on that first book. First time at bat you got a major studio film offer that actually made it to the screen. That hardly ever happens. Now you've got to prove it wasn't just a fluke. You've got to get out there and slog away on that new book! Deprive yourself a little! Suffer!"

"Suffer?" Franklin said, a weird light starting to glow in his eyes. "I should suffer?"

"Yes!" Milo said, guiding him toward the office door. "All great artists suffer."

"You ever suffer, Milo Gherl?"

"Of course." Especially this morning, listening to you!

"Look at this office. You don't look like you're suffering for what you did to The Hut."

"I did my suffering years ago. The anger you feel about The Hut is small change compared to the dues I've had to pay." He finally had Franklin across the threshold. "I'm through suffering," he said as he slammed the door and locked it.

From the other side of the thick oak door he thought he heard Franklin say, "No, you're not."

* * * * *

"Missing any personal items lately, mister?" said a voice.

Milo opened his good eye and saw the big black guy standing over him, leaning on his mop handle. What was wrong with this old fart? What was his angle?

"If you don't leave me alone I'm gonna call—" He paused. "What do you mean, 'personal items?' "

"You know—clothing, nail clippings, a brush or comb that might hold some of your hair. That kinda stuff."

A chill swept over Milo's skin like an icy breeze in July.

The robbery!

Such a bizarre thing—a pried-open window, a few cheap rings gone, his drawers and closets ransacked, an old pair of pajamas missing. And his toupee, the second-string hairpiece...gone. Who could figure it? But he had been shaken up enough to go out and buy a .38 for his night table.

Milo laughed. This was so ludicrous. "You're talking about a voodoo doll, aren't you?"

The old guy nodded. "It got other names, but that'll do."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Name's Andre but folks call me Andy. I got connections you gonna need."

"You need your head examined!"

"Maybe. But that doctor said he was lookin' for the wires that was cuttin' into your legs and your arm but he couldn't find them. That's because the wires are somewheres else. They around the legs and arm of a doll somebody made on you."

Milo tried to laugh again but found he couldn't. He managed a weak, "Bullshit."

"You believe me soon enough. And when you do, I take you to a Houngon who can help you out."

"Yeah," Milo said. "Like you really care about me."

The old black showed his gap-tooth smile. "Oh, I won't be doin' you a favor, and neither will the Houngon. He'll be wantin' money for pullin' you fat out the fire."

"And you'll get a finder's fee."

The smile broadened. "Thas right."

That made a little more sense to Milo, but still he wasn't buying. "Forget it!"

"I be around till three. I keep checkin' up on you case you change you mind. I can get you out here when you want to go."

"Don't hold your breath."

Milo rolled on his side and closed his eyes. The old fart had some nerve trying to run that corny scam on him, and in a hospital yet! He'd report him, have him fired. This was no joke. He'd lost his eye already. He could be losing his feet, his hand! He needed top medical-center level care, not some voodoo mumbo-jumbo...

...but no one seemed to know what was going on, and everyone seemed to think he'd put his own eye out. God, who could do something like that to himself? And his hand and his feet—the doc had said they were going to start rotting off if blood didn't get flowing back into them. What on earth was happening to him?

And what about that weird robbery last week? Only personal articles had been stolen. All the high-ticket stereo and video stuff had been left untouched.

God, it couldn't be voodoo, could it? Who'd even—

Shit! Bill Franklin! He was an expert on it after all those years of research for The Hut. But he wouldn't...he couldn't...

Franklin's faintly heard words echoed in Milo's brain: No, you're not.

Agony suddenly lanced through Milo's groin, doubling him over on the gurney. Gasping with the pain, he tore at the clumsy stupid nightshirt they'd dressed him in and pulled it up to his waist. He held back the scream that rose in his throat when he saw the thin red line running around the base of his penis. Instead, he called out a name.

"Andy! Andy!"

* * * * *

Milo coughed and peered through the dim little room. It smelled of dust and sweat and charcoal smoke and something else—something rancid. He wondered what the hell he was doing here. He knew if he had any sense he'd get out now, but he didn't know where to go from here. He wasn't even sure he could find his way home from here.

The setting sun had been a bloody blob in Milo's rearview mirror as he'd hunched over the steering wheel of his Mercedes and followed Andy's rusty red pick-up into one of LA's seamier districts. Andy had been true to his word: He'd spirited Milo out of the hospital, back to the house for some cash and some real clothes, then down to the garage near the Polo where his car was parked. After that it was on to Andy's Houngon and maybe end this agony.

It had to end soon. Milo's feet were so swollen he was wearing old slippers. He had barely been able to turn the ignition key with his right hand. And his dick—God, his dick felt like it was going to explode!

After what seemed like a ten-mile succession of left and right turns during which he saw not a single white face, they had pulled to a stop before a dilapidated storefront office. On the cracked glass was painted:

M. Trieste

Houngon

Andy had stayed outside with the car while Milo went in.

"Mr. Gherl?"

Milo started at the sound and turned toward the voice. A balding, wizened old black, six-two at least, stood next to him. His face was a mass of wrinkles. He was dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and thin black tie.

Milo heard his own voice quaver: "Yes. That's me."

"You are the victim of the Bocor?" His voice was cultured, and accented in some strange way.

Milo pushed back the sleeve of his shirt to expose his right wrist. "I don't know what I'm the victim of, but Andy says you can help me. You've got to help me!"

He stared at the patch over Milo's eye. "May I see?"

Milo leaned away from him. "Don't touch that!" It had finally stopped hurting. He held his arm higher.

M. Trieste examined Milo's hand, tracing a cool dry finger around the clotted circumferential cut at the wrist. "This is all?"

Milo showed him his legs, then reluctantly, opened his fly.

"You have a powerful enemy in this Bocor," M. Trieste said, finally. "But I can reverse the effects of his doll. It will cost you five hundred dollars. Do you have it with you?"

Milo hesitated. "Let's not be too hasty here. I want to see some results before I fork over any money." He was hurting, but he wasn't going to be a sucker for this clown.

M. Trieste smiled. He had all his teeth. "I have no wish to steal from you, Mr. Gherl. I shall accept no money from you unless I can effect a cure. However, I do not wish to be cheated either. Do you have the money with you?"

Milo nodded. "Yes."

"Very well." M. Trieste struck a match and lit a candle on a table Milo hadn't realized was there. "Please be seated," he said and disappeared into the darkness.

Milo complied and looked around. The wan candlelight picked up an odd assortment of objects around the room: African ceremonial masks hung side by side with crucifixes on the wall; a long conga drum sat in a corner to the right while a statue of the Virgin Mary, her small plaster foot trodding a writhing snake, occupied the one on his left. He wondered when the drums would start and the dancers appear. When would they begin chanting and daubing him with paint and splattering him with chicken blood? God, he must have been crazy to come here. Maybe the pain was affecting his mind. If he had any smarts he'd—

"Hold out your wrist," M. Trieste said, suddenly appearing in the candlelight opposite him. He held what looked like a plaster coffee mug in his hand. He was stirring its contents with a wooden stick.

Milo held back. "What are you going to do?"

"Help you, Mr. Gherl. You are the victim of a very traditional and particularly nasty form of voodoo. You have greatly angered a Bocor and he is using a powerful loa, via a doll, to lop off your hands and your feet and your manhood."

"My left hand's okay," Milo said, gratefully working the fingers in the air.

"So I have noticed," M. Trieste said with a frown. "It is odd for one extremity to be spared, but perhaps there is a certain symbolism at work here that we do not understand. No matter. The remedy is the same. Hold your arm out on the table."

Milo did as he was told. His swollen hand looked black in the candlelight. "Is...is this going to hurt?"

"When the pressure is released, there will be considerable pain as the fresh blood rushes into the starved tissues."

That kind of pain Milo could handle. "Do it."

M. Trieste stirred the contents of the cup and lifted the wooden handle. Instead of the spoon he had expected, Milo saw that the man was holding a brush. It gleamed redly.

Here comes the blood, he thought. But he didn't care what was in the cup as long as it worked.

"Andre told me about your problem before he brought you here. I made this up in advance. I will paint it on the constrictions and it will nullify the influence of the loa of the doll. After that, it will be up to you to make peace with this Bocor before he visits other afflictions on you."

"Sure, sure," Milo said, thrusting his wrist toward M. Trieste. "Let's just get on with it!"

M. Trieste daubed the bloody solution onto the incision line. It beaded up like water on a freshly waxed car and slid off onto the table. Milo glanced up and saw a look of consternation flit across the wrinkled black face towering above him. He watched as the red stuff was applied again, only to run off as before.

"Most unusual," M. Trieste muttered as he tried a third time with no better luck. "I've never..." He put the cup down and began painting his own right hand with the solution. "This will do it. Hold up your hand."

As Milo raised his arm, M. Trieste encircled the wrist with his long dripping fingers and squeezed. There was an instant of heat, and then M. Trieste cried out. He released Milo's wrist and dropped to his knees cradling his right hand against his breast.

"The poisons!" he cried. "Oh, the poisons!"

Milo trembled as he looked at his dusky hand. The bloody solution had run off as before. "What poisons?"

"Between you and this Bocor! Get out of here!"

"But the doll! You said you could—!"

"There is no doll!" M. Trieste said. He turned away and retched. "There is no doll!"

With his heart clattering against his chest wall, Milo pushed himself away from the table and staggered to the door. Andy was leaning on his truck at the curb.

"Wassamatter?" he said straightening off the fender as he saw Milo. "Didn't he—?"

"He's a phony, just like you!" Milo screamed, letting his rage and fear focus on the old Black. "Just another goddam phony!"

As Andy hurried into the store, Milo started up his Mercedes and roared down the street. He'd drive until he found a sign for one of the freeways. From there he could get home.

And from home, he knew where he wanted to go...where he had to go.

* * * * *

"Franklin! Where are you, Franklin?"

Milo had finally found Bill Franklin's home in the Hollywood Hills. Even though he knew the neighborhood fairly well, Milo had never been on this particular street, and so it had taken him a while to track it down. The lights had been on inside and the door had been unlocked. No one had answered his knocking, so he'd let himself in.

"Franklin, goddamit!" he called, standing in the middle of the cathedral-ceilinged living room. His voice echoed off the stucco walls and hardwood floor. "Where are you?"

In the ensuing silence, he heard a faint voice say, "Milo? Is that you?"

Milo tensed. Where had that come from? "Yeah, It's me! Where are you?"

Again, ever so faintly: "Down here...in the basement!"

Milo searched for the cellar door, found it, saw the lights ablaze from below, and began his descent. His slippered feet were completely numb now and he had to watch where he put them. It was as if his feet had been removed and replaced with giant sponges.

"That you, Milo?" said a voice from somewhere around the corner from the stairwell. It was Franklin's voice, but it sounded slurred, strained.

"Yeah, it's me."

As he neared the last step, he pulled the .38 from his pocket. He had picked it up t the house along with a pair of wirecutters on his way here. He had never fired it, and he didn't expect to have to tonight. But it was good to know it was loaded and ready if he needed it. He tried to transfer it to his right hand but his numb, swollen fingers couldn't keep hold of the grip. He kept it in his left and stepped onto the cellar floor—

—and felt his foot start to roll away from him. Only by throwing himself against the wall and hugging it did he save himself from falling. He looked around the unfinished cellar. Bright, reflective objects were scattered all along the naked concrete floor. He sucked in a breath as he saw the hundreds of sharp curved angles of green glass poking up at the exposed ceiling beams. The looked like shattered wine bottles—big, green, four-liter wine bottles smashed all over the place. And in among the shards were scattered thousands of marbles.

"Be careful," said Franklin's voice. "The basement's mined." The voice was there, but Franklin was nowhere in sight.

"Where the hell are you, Franklin?"

"Back here in the bathroom. I thought you'd never get here."

Milo began to move toward the rear of the cellar where brighter light poured from an open door. He slid his slippered feet slowly along the floor, pushing the green glass spears ahead of him, rolling the marbles out of the way.

"I've come for the doll, Franklin."

Milo heard a hollow laugh. "Doll? What doll, Milo? There's just me and you, ol' buddy."

Milo shuffled around the corner into view of the bathroom. And froze. The gun dropped from his fingers and further shattered some of the glass at his feet. "Oh, my God, Franklin! Oh, my God!"

William Franklin sat on the toilet wearing Milo's rings, his old slippers, his stolen pajamas, and his other hairpiece. His left eye was patched and his feet and his right hand were as black and swollen as Milo's. There was a maniacal look in his remaining eye as he grinned drunkenly and sipped from a four-liter green-glass bottle of white wine. The cuts in his flesh were identical to Milo's except that a short length of twisted copper wire protruded from each. A screwdriver and a pair of pliers lay in his lap.

M. Trieste's parting words screamed through his brain: There is no doll!

"See?" Franklin said in a slurred voice. "You said I had to suffer."

Milo wanted to be sick. "Christ! What have you done?"

"I decided to suffer. But I didn't think I should suffer alone. So I brought you along for company. Sure took you long enough to figure it out."

Milo bent and picked up the pistol. His left hand wavered and trembled as he pointed it at Franklin. "You...you..." He couldn't think of anything to say.

Franklin casually tossed the wine bottle out onto the floor where it shattered and added to the spikes of glass. Then he pulled open the pajama top. "Right here, Milo, old buddy!" he said, pointing to his heart. "Do you really think you want to put a slug into me?"

Milo thought about that. It might be like putting a bullet into his own heart. He felt his arm drop. "Why...how...I don't deserve..."

Franklin closed his eye and grimaced. He looked as if he were about to cry. "I know," he said. "It's gone too far. Maybe you really don't deserve all this. I've always known I was a little bit crazy, but maybe I'm a lot crazier than I ever thought I was."

"Then for God's sake, man, loosen the wires!"

"No!" Franklin's eye snapped open. The madness was still there. "I entrusted my work to you. That's a sacred trust. You were responsible for The Hut's integrity when you took on the job of adapting it to the screen."

"But I'm an artist, too!" Why was he arguing with this nut? He slipped the pistol into his front pocket and reached around back for the wire cutters.

"All the more reason to respect another man's work! You didn't own it—it was only on loan to you!"

"The contract—"

"Means nothing! You had a moral obligation to protect my work, one artist to another."

"You're over-reacting!"

"Am I? Imagine yourself a parent who has sent his only child to a reputable nursery school only to learn that the child has been raped by the faculty—then you will understand some of what I feel! I've come to see it as my sacred duty to see to it that you don't molest anyone else's work!"

Enough of this bullshit! If Franklin wouldn't loosen the wires, Milo would cut them off! He pulled the wire cutters from his rear pocket and began to shuffle toward Franklin, sweeping the marbles and daggers of glass ahead of him.

"Stay back!" Franklin cried. He grabbed the pliers and pushed them down toward his lap, grinning maliciously. "Didn't know I was left-handed, did you?" He twisted something.

Searing pain knifed into Milo's groin. He doubled over but kept moving toward Franklin. Less than a dozen feet to go. If he could just—

He saw Franklin drop the pliers and pick up the screwdriver, saw him raise it toward his right eye, the good eye. Milo screamed,

"NOOOOO!"

And then agony exploded in his eye, in his head, robbing him of the light, sending him reeling back in sudden impenetrable blackness. As he felt his feet roll across the marbles, he reached out wildly. His legs slid from under him and despite the most desperate flailings and contortions, he found nothing to grasp on the way down but empty air.

PERFORMANCE

INTRODUCTION

Toward the end of 1999, Richard Laymon called, wanting to know if I could do a story for an anthology he was editing for Cemetery Dance. He planned on calling it Bad News.

I’d known Dick for about a decade and a half then. Our only contact was at conventions (often World Fantasy) where I’d run into him, usually with his shy young daughter Kelly, and we’d hang out and talk. A gentle family man with a big, easy smile who wrote some of the bloodiest, seat-of-your-pants horror novels you’ll ever read.

I asked him what kind of story. He told me anything I wanted to write.

Anything?

Yeah—if he liked it, he’d buy it.

So I sat down and started typing...free associating at first, but then it began to take shape, becoming this weird paranoid thing that wandered around Lower Manhattan, into Queens, and back. I had no idea how to categorize it. And after rereading it for inclusion here, I can’t imagine where I came up with something as bizarre as contraction art. Sometimes I confound myself.

I sent it to Dick fully expecting him to reject it. He wanted it.

Weird guy.

Richard Laymon died fifteen months later on Valentine’s Day, 2001.

I dedicated The Haunted Air to him and Poul Anderson.

This one’s just for you, Dick.

PERFORMANCE

It’s the little things, always the little things that trip you up.

But I’ve got to hand it to them, they’re sharp. The first two tails they put on me this run were males, both of whom I ditched within an hour of spotting them. Now they’ve sent a woman and she’s good. I don’t know how long she’s been on me, and that’s a bit worrisome.

What has she seen?

The little thing that gave her away is truly little: a lump on her chin. It sits there just left of midline, maybe half the size of an M&M sliced along its wide axis. I haven’t been close enough to figure out if it’s a mole or a pimple or a little cyst, and I don’t really care. Whatever it is I could kiss it. Probably saved my reputation.

She can change her clothes, her hair, contacts, make-up, lipstick, bust, even her shape, every imaginable thing—and trust me, she has—but the lump remains. Yesterday morning I noticed a blond woman with a lump on her chin. It was in an Andrew’s Coffee Shop, one of the half dozen or so Andrews Coffee Shops I rotate through at random. (Yes, I like Andrews Coffee Shops; transform the damn city into Starbucksville if you must, but leave me my Andrew’s.) Nothing particularly noticeable about her beyond the lump, and nothing particularly noticeable about the lump itself except the way the light happened to hit it at that moment and cast a small shadow down her chin.

By chance last night I happened to look up at dinner at a little bistro in the Flatiron district and spot this redhead sitting alone a few tables away by the window—I never sit by a window—reading a book. A redhead with a lump on her chin. Could be a coincidence, I told myself, but in my business a coincidence is cause for alarm. I wished I’d got a better look at the blonde that morning, but I was a blank. So I studied this woman’s reflection in the window and memorized everything I could about her, storing up for the next time—if there was to be a next time.

There was. This morning I stopped at the dog run in Washington Square and watched the people watch their dogs. Pets are high on my Things-I-Don’t-Get list, right up there with sports columns and body piercing. She was a brunette this time; her nostril ring, shoe-polish-black hair and kohled eyes that made her leukemia makeup all the paler fit right in. But the lump on her chin spotlighted her for me.

Three different wigs on three different looks in three different places, but one chin lump. The leitmotif of the lump, as it were. No question. I’d picked me up another tail.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this. It’s good to know I’ve identified her, but now that I have, I’m on the spot. Performance anxiety, you might say. Now that I’ve made her, I’ve got to lose her.

And here’s where the art of the ditch comes in. I can’t look like I’m losing her. I must play the naif and make it seem natural, like it’s her fault, her carelessness or lack of skill, rather than my doing. If I make an obvious attempt to ditch her, it means I’ve got something to hide. And then I lose, because the whole point of the tail is to determine just that.

I take a leisurely stroll along Waverly to Sixth Avenue. I buy a Diet Pepsi from the pushcart there and casually check behind me. With a start I realize she’s not there. Could I have been wrong? No. Impossible.

I stand on the curb, tilting my head back as I sip from the Pepsi can—an excellent cover for a surreptitious scan—and I spot her a block downtown to my left. The clever bitch. She paralleled me along Washington Place.

Oh, she’s good. Very good.

Time for the taxi dodge. This one works almost every time because it negates the skill of the tailer. Even the best of them are helpless when this works.

I watch the uptown flow of cabs. It’s a sunny July day and they’re plentiful, flowing past in yellow schools, mostly empty and hungry for fares, but I’m patient. Finally I see my chance. A break in the traffic with one lonely cab bringing up the rear. Not another for blocks behind him. He’s cruising the center fire lane like a lemon shark, ready to dart left or right should a meal appear. I step off the curb and flag him down: Hello, lunch here.

He swerves to a stop in front of me and I hop in.

“Fourteenth and Third,” I tell him. “And hurry. I’m late.”

As he puts his foot in the tank and we gun away, I remove a small palm-size mirror from my pocket and angle it so I can watch through the rear window. I see Ms. Tail lunge into the street and start waving her arms in frantic search of a cab of her own. No such luck, my dear.

I settle back and sigh. Too easy.

I have the cab turn uptown on Third and drop me off in Kips Bay. I walk over to the theater on Second and spend two hours semi-snoozing through Mamet’s latest. Nothing like really disappearing from the street as a coup de grace.

* * * * *

When I get out I’m hungry so I look around and spot a Burger King sign a few blocks down. I don’t like most fast food, but I have this fondness for Whoppers. Maybe it’s the mayo, or maybe the onions. Whatever, I indulge in three or four a week.

I buy my Whopper and a diet cola—yes, I’m well aware how ludicrous that is—and seat myself at a single table at the very rear of the store. I’m on my second bite when I see this slim blonde in a Sugar Ray T-shirt dump her trash in the bin and go back to the counter.

I freeze for an instant when I spot the lump on her chin, then I force myself to keep chewing.

Somehow she followed me to Kips Bay. She must have caught a lucky break back there in the Village—a cab must have pulled out of a side street and picked her up. Either that or she has motorized backup. They wouldn’t issue her that unless I’ve given myself away, and I haven’t. But that’s not what’s making my Whopper taste like wet cardboard.

She was here before me. She knew I’d come in here.

Wait. No. She didn’t know I’d come in here, but she’s done her homework and assumed I’d opt for a Whopper when I came out of the theater. She gambled.

And she won.

Now I’m impressed. Truly impressed. This is one gutsy lady.

I think I’m in love.

With the challenge, that is. It’s going to be difficult to ditch this one, but not impossible. I know I’ll win. I am the maestro here. I shall confound, confuse, baffle, and bewilder her; I’ll dazzle her with my footwork, just as I’ve done with so many other tails. It’s simply going to take a little more effort.

With this new game afoot, my taste buds revive. I finish the Whopper, then take my leave and stroll over to Penn Station, stopping at a Duane Reade along the way to buy some sunscreen. At the station I catch a train to Flushing Meadow. The Mets are playing today—I heard it on the radio this morning—and I’m going to test Ms. Tail’s mettle. Everyone’s got a weakness, a tender spot. I am going to find hers.

While aboard the train I carefully but surreptitiously check my clothing for a tracer, just in case she’s taking unfair advantage. After a thorough search, going so far as partially disrobing in the bathroom, I’m satisfied we’re on a level playing field.

Excellent. I did not want to think less of her.

* * * * *

Shea Stadium is not quite quarter full. I seat myself in the super-sun section of the bleachers and unfold the prize I picked up in the concession area. It’s one of those goofy umbrella hats you tend to see on a certain class of Manhattan tourist—the kind who arrive in an Airstream and wander around wearing yellow Bermuda shorts with gray knee socks and brown sandals. But it’s practical, it’s portable shade, it’s done up in Mets blue and orange, and should send an unmistakable signal to Ms. Tail that I am an artist and as such allowed to play with fewer than fifty-two in my deck.

I am immediately glad for the sunblock and umbrella hat. Shea is a Godzilla wok today, waiting for the big guy to trundle by and spray us with peanut oil. Ms. Tail is six rows back and to my left. I use my palm mirror to see how she’s handling the heat. Somewhere along the way she shifted back to brunette, and to my great chagrin she’s got her blouse off revealing one of those gray exercise bras. Obviously she works out; her muscles are well-developed and close to the skin. She’s thrown her head back and I just know her eyes are closed behind her Ray-Bans.

The bitch is sunbathing! On my time!

And now I have an epiphany: She knows she’s been made, and she knows I’ve already tried to ditch her—which means she knows I’m on a run. Yet she hasn’t called for backup as she’s supposed to.

Why not?

I can think of only one reason.

She wants to take me down single-handed. She knows deliveries are time sensitive and she intends either to witness my drop, or to keep me from it, all without backup.

Not only will I be beaten, I will be humiliated.

That does it. I’m outta here. Besides, I’m suffering from major league longueurs anyway. I hate baseball.

As I make my way back to the train station I don’t check to see if she’s following. Why bother? She’s superbly trained and ready for anything. Or so she thinks. Now that we’re aware of each other, I have carte blanche to use every trick I know to lose her. And I know plenty. I can lose her. But simple evasion will not be enough.

I must break this woman.

And to do that I must engage her on a more visceral level. She’s got a weak spot. Everybody does. I’ve simply got to find hers.

* * * * *

Back in the city, I stroll over to Eighth Avenue. Some of the cheesier businesses that used to rent in midtown have migrated to the Thirties. I see a porn shop and I’m tempted to make her follow me inside, but that’s too transparent. Beneath me, really.

But here’s something: calls itself an “Oddity Emporium.” Reminds me of the old “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” arcade I used to see on Times Square in the pre-Disneyfication days. I buy my ticket and enter.

Dingy inside. I wander past booths with stuffed two-headed cows, wax models of the Elephant Man, the Lobster Boy, and then a dramatically lit display of deformed fetuses floating in jars of preservative. The old carny folk used to call them “pickled punks.” These may be real or may be latex, but whatever they are they’re not pretty.

I check my little palm mirror and notice she hasn’t bothered to change her shirt or her hair. Another slap in the—

Whoa. Aperçu. What’s this expression I catch on our girl? Could that be disgust? Revulsion?

I think so. In fact, I’m sure.

Well, well, well. I’ve learned something valuable here. This arrogant little puss has got a squeamish side. Let’s see how we can exploit this.

After drawing out my stay in the Oddity Emporium to a full hour, I leave and wander over to Bryant Park. I pick up the Voice and the pink-sheeted New York Observer along the way and spend the rest of the afternoon perusing them.

By dinnertime I have my plan, and I’m amazed at my luck. The timing is so perfect it’s almost as if this confrontation were preordained. I am all but consumed with anticipation. I make a point of eating at a Korean restaurant in Chelsea that is utterly unrestrained in its use of peppers and garlic, which only stokes my fires. I don’t know what it does to Ms. Tail’s stomach but I hope nothing good. I am fairly aflame when I leave and head for SoHo.

The cab drops me off at the theater. At least it calls itself a theater. From out here it’s a dark green doorway. Its marquee is a hand-printed poster:

TONIGHT ONLY

THE ANNUAL

KAREN PIEDMONT

PERFORMANCE

8 PM

I make my way in, hoping something hasn’t gone awry and I’ve missed it. I’ve heard about Karen Piedmont—who hasn’t? She’s long been the succès de scandale of the art world, even in New York. But this is the first time I’ve ever had a yen to see her act.

I enter the tiny theater, little more than a black box, really. Ms. Piedmont, a very pregnant brunette who looks to be in her mid-thirties, is wearing a delicate headset microphone and nothing else. She lies on her back, propped up on a center-stage hospital bed. Her right side is toward me; her swollen breasts and distended belly stretch toward the projection screen dangling above her. An IV of some clear solution runs into her left arm, wires run from her belly to a black box under the bed.

I look around for a seat. Maybe fifty folding chairs, most of them occupied, are arrayed before the tiny stage. Ms. Tail arrives as I find one in the last row. I hide a grin. She has to sit three rows ahead of me. Now I’ll be watching her. Irony can be so sweet.

Good timing. Ms. Piedmont’s obstetrician has induced labor and is leaving the stage for a front row seat. The lights go down and all is dark except for the naked Ms. Piedmont, spotlighted on her bed, her skin as pale the sheets. If not for her dark hair and stretch marks she’d seem a part of the bed. The projection screen lights but I see no image, only a fine black line crawling across the bottom.

“Welcome everyone,” she says. “This is my fifth annual performance and exhibition. Those of you who’ve attended in the past know the routine. You newcomers should realize that, as I am only partially in control here, patience can be a very necessary virtue with my performance. I—”

She breaks off and grimaces—and I notice the line begin to curve upward on the screen—then she smiles.

“Well, well. Looks like we’ve got one coming already. I’ll start with something simple, just to get my chops back. This isn’t the kind of thing you can practice between performances, you know.”

Appreciative laughter from the audience, especially the females. I glance at Ms. Tail and I can make out her face in the wash of light from stage and screen. She’s not smiling.

“Here we go,” Ms. Piedmont says. “Mount Fuji.”

The line on the screen—I see now it’s a projection of the contraction monitor wired to her belly—crawls up a gentle slope, flattens briefly, then begins its descent in a mirror image of the upslope.

As it flattens to the baseline, we applaud.

“Please,” the artist says. “That’s really nothing.”

She talks about the genesis of contraction art, how she noticed the patterns on the monitor during her first labor and found she could alter their configuration by controlling her breathing and musculature. She refined her art through two subsequent pregnancies, then went public with her fourth.

Another contraction starts.

“Whoa!” she says. “So soon. And this feels like a big one. Okay! See who’s first to recognize this.”

As she starts panting, my eyes are glued to the screen. The diagonal course of the line takes an abrupt upward turn and runs almost vertical for a foot or so on the screen, then falls, angling back to the horizontal, then up again. It’s beginning to look like a flight of foot-high steps, but I say nothing.

A woman calls out, “Staircase!” and I’m glad I held back when Ms. Piedmont says, “Nope.”

The pattern flattens out on top for a couple of feet, then begins stepping down.

“A Mayan pyramid!” someone else shouts, and Ms. Piedmont says, “Give that man a round of applause.”

But the applause that fills the impromptu theater is for her and her alone. I watch how Ms. Tail claps—utterly without enthusiasm. In fact, she looks a little ill.

Ms. Piedmont talks now of how to date she’s the only practitioner of contraction art and of how she hopes someday to open a school to teach the principles and technique.

Another contraction begins and someone, a man, calls out, “Care to try the Seattle Needle?” to which she good-naturedly replies, “Care to try to fuck yourself?”

I watch agog as she limns the Taj Mahal.

I am amazed, I am overwhelmed. This is not some exhibitionist épater-les-bourgeois poseur prattling aphorisms as she smears herself with paint or chocolate or a less pleasant substance. This is a woman who truly has succeeded in living her art, an art that is uniquely hers, purely autotelic, and truly of the moment.

But Ms. Tail looks more appalled than transported.

I hear a moan from Ms. Piedmont. Even here in the last row I am close enough to see the perspiration beading her pain-wracked face. The sound of her panting fills the air as we watch the contraction line zip up and down the screen, soaring vertically, crawling horizontally, creating peaks, plateaus, valleys, ledges, crevices, her breaths crescendoing into rapid whimpers. Her knees have lifted and her legs are spread as she finishes with an iconic phallic shape.

“The Empire State Building?” someone murmurs, then shouts, “That’s the New York skyline!”

Yes, it is. Unquestionably. I leap to my feet, slamming my hands together, leading the applause that fills the room, but a wail from the artist cuts us off.

Breathless I watch the obstetrician hurry from the front row. More amplified moans and whimpers among the harsh staccato breaths, and then another sound, the high-pitched wail of a newborn infant.

The obstetrician places the squalling baby on his mother’s abdomen. Ms. Piedmont holds the bloody, glistening child aloft.

“I’m sorry labor was so short this time,” she says. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”

With the notable exception of Ms. Tail we are all on our feet, applauding, cheering. My throat is tight, my eyes are full. I am galvanized. I am inspired to raise forever the level of my own performance or die trying.

A stagehand wheels out a curtain rack to shield mother and child, signaling the end of the performance. As people begin to shuffle toward the exit, I drop into a squat and fumble with a shoelace, pretending to tie it. I linger there a few seconds, then straighten. As I rise I catch the panic flickering across Ms. Tail’s wan and worn features.

Gotcha! For a heartbeat or two you thought you’d lost me, didn’t you.

But I detect no relief at my reappearance. Only defeat. I’ve beaten her and she knows it. Although she might have been aghast at the performance, she was transfixed by it as well. And during the time it held her prisoner, I could have brought down our own curtain by slipping out and disappearing into the night.

She is beaten, yes, but not broken. Bent almost to the breaking point, but she hasn’t snapped. All she needs is a little shove, the right sort of nudge to make her break off her surveillance and desert me. Then my victory shall be complete.

But how?

As I’m leaving I ask the young tattooed and pierced-to within-an-inch-of-his-life fellow at the door if there is any other performance art in the neighborhood tonight.

“Yeah. Just around the corner there, you know, like, usually around ten or so, Harry Adamski’ll be like doing his stool art.”

“You mean like furniture?”

“No, uh, like—”

“Never mind. I get it.” Oh, perfect. “And where exactly is this going to take place...?”

THE WRINGER

INTRODUCTION

In August of 1991, Ed Gorman called requesting a story for the third Stalkers anthology. I don’t know where I came up with “The Wringer” or its sick villain. The anthology was titled Night Screams and wasn’t published until 1996(!) The story was never reprinted and I loved its cat-and-mouse dynamic too much to let it molder forever in an out-of-print paperback, so in 2010 I included it in Fatal Error.

THE WRINGER

1

Munir stood on the curb, unzipped his fly, and tugged his penis free. He felt it shrivel in his hand at the cool caress of the breeze, as if shrinking from the sight of all these passing strangers.

At least he hoped they were strangers.

Please let no one who knows me pass by. Or, Allah forbid, a policeman.

He stretched his flabby, reluctant member and urged his bladder to empty. He’d drunk two quarts of Gatorade in the past two hours to be sure that it would be full to bursting, but he couldn’t go. His sphincters were clamped as tightly shut as his jaw.

Off to his left the light at the corner where 45th Street met Broadway turned red and the traffic slowed to a stop. A woman in a cab glanced at him through her window and started when she saw how he was exposing himself to her. Her lips tightened and she shook her head in disgust as she turned away. He could almost read her mind: A guy in a suit exposing himself on a Sunday afternoon in the theater district – New York’s going to Hell even faster than they say it is.

But it has become hell for me, Munir thought.

He closed his eyes to shut out the bright marquees and the line of cars idling before him, tried to block out the tapping, scuffing footsteps of the pedestrians on the sidewalk behind him as they hurried to the matinees, but a child’s voice broke through. “Look, Mommy. What’s that man–?”

“Don’t look, honey,” said a woman’s voice. “It’s just someone who’s sick.”

Tears were a pressure behind Munir’s sealed eyelids. He bit back a sob of humiliation and tried to imagine himself in a private place, in his own bathroom, standing over the toilet. He forced himself to relax, and soon it came. As the warm liquid streamed out of him, the waiting sob burst free, propelled equally by shame and relief.

He did not have to shut off the flow. When he opened his eyes and saw the glistening puddle before him on the asphalt, saw the drivers and passengers and passers-by staring, the stream dried up on its own.

I hope that is enough, he thought. Please let that be enough.

Averting his eyes, Munir zipped up and fled down the sidewalk, all but tripping over his own feet as they ran.

2

The phone was ringing when Munir got to his apartment. He hit the RECORD button on his answering machine as he snatched up the receiver and jammed it against his ear.

“Yes!”

Pretty disappointing, Mooo neeer,” said the now familiar electronically distorted voice. “Are all you Ay rabs such mosquito dicks?”

“I did as you asked! Just as you asked!”

“That wasn’t much of a pee, Mooo neeer.”

“It was all I could do! Please let them go now.”

He glanced down at the caller ID. A number had formed in the LCD window. A 212 area code, just like all the previous calls. But the seven digits following were a new combination, unlike any of the others. And when Munir called it back, he was sure it would be a public phone. Just like all the others.

“Are they all right? Let me speak to my wife.”

Munir didn’t know why he said that. He knew the caller couldn’t drag Barbara and Robby to a pay phone.

“She can’t come to the phone right now. She’s, uh… all tied up at the moment.”

Munir ground his teeth as the horse laugh brayed through the phone.

“Please. I must know if she’s all right.”

“You’ll have to take my word for it, Mooo neeer.”

“She may be dead.” Allah forbid! “You may have killed her and Robby already.”

“Hey. Ain’t I been sendin’ you pichers? Don’t you like my pretty pichers?”

“No!” Munir cried, fighting a wave of nausea. Those pictures – those horrible, sickening photos. “They aren’t enough. You could have taken all of them at once and then killed them.”

The voice on the other end lowered to a sinister, nasty, growling tone.

“You callin’ me a liar, you lousy, greasy, two bit Ay rab? Don’t you ever doubt a word I tell you. Don’t even think about doubtin’ me. Or I’ll show you who’s alive. I’ll prove your white bitch and mongrel brat are alive by sending you a new piece of them every so often. A little bit of each, every day, by Express Mail, so it’s nice and fresh. You keep on doubtin’ me, Mooo neeer, and pretty soon you’ll get your wife and kid back, all of them. But you’ll have to figure out which part goes where. Like the model kits say: Some assembly required.”

Munir bit back a scream as the caller brayed again.

“No no. Please don’t hurt them anymore. I’ll do anything you want. What do you want me to do?”

“There. That’s more like it. I’ll let your little faux pas pass this time. A lot more generous than you’d ever be – ain’t that right, Mooo neeer. And sure as shit more generous than your Ay rab buddies were when they killed my brother over there in Baghdad.”

“Yes. Yes, whatever you say. What else do you want me to do? Just tell me.”

“I ain’t decided yet, Mooo neeer. I’m gonna have to think on that one. But in the meantime, I’m gonna look kindly on you and bestow your request. Yessir, I’m gonna send you proof positive that your wife and kid are still alive.”

Munir’s stomach plummeted. “No! Please! I believe you! I believe!”

“I reckon you do, Mooo neeer. But believin’ just ain’t enough sometimes, is it? I mean, you believe in Allah, don’t you? Don’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, of course I believe in Allah.”

“And look at what you did on Friday. Just think back and meditate on what you did.”

Munir hung his head in shame and said nothing.

“So you can see where I’m comin’ from when I say believin’ ain’t enough. Cause if you believe, you can also have doubt. And I don’t want you havin’ no doubts, Mooo neeer. I don’t want you havin’ the slightest twinge of doubt about how important it is for you to do exactly what I tell you to. ‘Cause if you start thinking it really doesn’t matter to your bitch and little rat faced kid, that they’re probably dead already and you can tell me to shove it, that’s not gonna be good for them. So I’ve gonna have to prove to you just how alive and well they are.”

“No!” He was going to be sick. “Please don’t!”

“Just remember. You asked for proof.”

Munir’s voice edged toward a scream. “PLEASE!”

The line clicked and went dead.

Munir dropped the phone and buried his face in his hands. The caller was mad, crazy, brutally insane, and for some reason he hated Munir with a depth and breadth Munir found incomprehensible and profoundly horrifying. Whoever he was, he seemed capable of anything, and he had Munir’s wife and child hidden away somewhere in the city.

The helplessness overwhelmed Munir and he began to sob. He had allowed only a few to escape when he heard a pounding on his door.

“Hey. What’s going on in there? Munir, you okay?”

Munir stiffened as he recognized his neighbor’s voice. He straightened in his chair but said nothing. Charlie lived in the apartment next door. A retired city worker who had taken a shine to Barbara and Robby. A harmless busybody, Barbara called him. He couldn’t let Charlie know anything was wrong.

“Hey!” Charlie said, banging on the door again. “I know someone’s in there. You don’t open up I’m gonna assume something’s wrong and call the emergency squad. Don’t make a fool out of me.”

The last thing Munir needed was a bunch of EMTs swarming around his apartment. The police would be with them and who knew what the crazy man who held Barbara and Robby would do if he saw them. He cleared his throat.

“I’m all right, Charlie.”

“The hell you are,” Charlie said, rattling the doorknob. “You didn’t sound all right a moment ago when you screamed and you don’t sound all right now. Just open up so I can–”

The door swung open, revealing Charlie Akers – fat, balding, a cigar butt in his mouth, the Sunday comics in his hand, dressed in wrinkled blue pants, a T shirt, and suspenders – looking as shocked as Munir felt.

In his haste to answer the phone, Munir had forgotten to latch the door behind him. Quickly, he wiped his eyes and rose to close it.

“Jesus, Munir,” Charlie said. “You look like hell. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, Charlie.”

“Hey, don’t shit me. I heard you. Sounded like someone was stepping on your soul. Anything I can do?”

“I’m okay. Really.”

“Yeah, right. You in trouble? You need money? Maybe I can help.”

Munir was touched by the offer. He hardly knew Charlie. If only he could help. But no one could help him.

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Is it Barbara and the kid? I ain’t seen them around for a few days. Something happen to–?” Munir realized it must have shown on his face. Charlie stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “Hey, what’s going on? Are they all right?”

“Please, Charlie. I can’t talk about it. And you mustn’t talk about it either. Just let it be. I’m handling it.”

“Is it a police thing? I got friends down the precinct house–”

“No! Not the police! Please don’t say anything to the police. I was warned” – in sickeningly graphic detail–”about going to the police.”

Charlie leaned back against the door and stared at him.

“Jesus… is this as bad as I think it is?”

Munir could do no more than nod.

Charlie jabbed a finger at him. “Wait here.”

He ducked out the door and was back in less than two minutes with a slip of paper in his hand.

“My brother gave me this a couple of years ago. Said if I was ever in a really bad spot and there was no one left to turn to, I should call this guy.”

“No one can help me.”

“My brother says this guy’s good people, but he said make sure it was my last resort because it was gonna cost me. And he said make sure the cops weren’t involved because this guy don’t like cops.”

No police… Munir reached for the slip of paper. And money? What did money matter where Barbara and Robby were concerned?

A telephone number was written on the slip. And below it, two words: Repairman Jack.

3

I’m running out of space, Jack thought as he stood in the front room of his apartment and looked for an empty spot to display his latest treasure.

His Sky King Magni Glow Writing Ring had just arrived from his connection in southeast Missouri. It contained a Mysterious Glo signaler (“Gives a strange green light! You can send blinker signals with it!”). The plastic ruby unfolded into three sections, revealing a Secret Compartment that contained a Flying Crown Brand (“For sealing messages!”); the middle section was a Detecto Scope Magnifying Glass (“For detecting fingerprints or decoding messages!”); and the outermost section was a Secret Stratospheric Pen (“Writes at any altitude, or under water, in red ink!”).

Neat. Incredibly neat. The neatest ring in Jack’s collection. Far more complex than his Buck Rogers Ring of Saturn, or his Shadow ring, or even his Kix Atomic Bomb Ring. It deserved auspicious display. But where? His front room was already jammed with neat stuff. Radio premiums, cereal give aways, comic strip tie ins – crassly commercial junk from a time before he was born. Why did he collect them? After years of accumulating his hoard, Jack still hadn’t found the answer. So he kept buying. And buying.

Old goodies and oddities littered every flat surface on the mismatched array of Victorian golden oak furniture crowding the room. Certificates proclaiming him an official member of The Shadow Society, the Doc Savage Club, the Nick Carter Club, Friends of the Phantom, the Green Hornet G J M Club, and other august organizations papered the walls.

Jack glanced at the Shmoo clock on the wall above the hutch. He had an appointment with a new customer in twenty minutes or so. No time to find a special spot for the Sky King Magni Glo Writing Ring, so he placed it next to his Captain Midnight radio decoder. He pulled a worn red windbreaker over his shirt and jeans and headed for the door.

4

Outside in the growing darkness, Jack hurried through the West Seventies, passing trendy boutiques and eateries that catered to the local yuppies and their affluent subgroup, dinks – double income, no kids. They types who were paying $9.50 for a side dish of the Upper West Side’s newest culinary rage – mashed potatoes.

The drinkers stood three deep around the bar at Julio’s. Two hundred dollar shirts and three hundred dollar sweaters were wedged next to grease monkey overalls. Julio’s had somehow managed to hang onto its old clientele despite the invasion of the Giorgio Armani and Donna Karen set. The yups and dinks had discovered Julio’s a while back. Thought it had “rugged charm,” found the bar food “authentic,” and loved its “unpretentious atmosphere.”

They drove Julio up the wall.

Julio was behind the bar, under the “Free Beer Tomorrow…” sign. Jack waved to let him know he was here. As Jack wandered the length of the bar he overheard a blond dink in a blue Ralph Lauren blazer, holding a mug of draft beer; he’d been here maybe once or twice before, and was pointing out Julio’s famous dead succulents and asparagus ferns hanging in the windows to a couple who were apparently newcomers.

“Aren’t they just fabulous?”

“Why doesn’t he just get fresh ones?” the woman beside him asked. She was sipping white wine from a smudged tumbler. She grimaced as she swallowed.

Julio made a point of stocking the sourest Chardonnay on the market.

“I think he’s making a statement,” the guy said.

“About what?”

“I haven’t the faintest. But don’t you just love them?”

Jack knew what the statement was: Callousless people go home – this is a working man’s bar. But they didn’t see it. Julio was purposely rude to them, and he’d instructed his help to follow his lead, but it didn’t work. The dinks thought it was a put on, part of the ambiance. They ate it up.

Jack stepped over the length of rope that closed off the back half of the seating area and dropped into his usual booth in the darkened rear. As Julio came out from behind the bar, the blond dink flagged him down.

“Can we get a table back there?”

“No,” Julio said.

The muscular little man brushed by him and nodded to Jack on his way to assuming the welcoming committee post by the front door.

Jack pulled an iPod from his jacket pocket and set up a pair of lightweight headsets while he mentally reviewed the two phone calls that had led to this meet. The first had been on the answering machine he kept in a deserted office on Tenth Avenue. He’d called it from a pay booth this morning and heard someone named Munir Habib explaining in a tight, barely accented voice that he needed help. Needed it bad. He explained how he’d got the number. He didn’t know what Jack could do for him but he was desperate. He gave his phone number and said he’d be waiting. “Please save my family!” he’d said.

Jack then made a couple of calls on his own. Mr. Habib’s provenance checked out so Jack had called him back. From the few details he’d allowed Habib to give over the phone, Jack had determined that the man was indeed a potential customer. He’d set up a meet in Julio’s.

A short, fortyish man stepped through Julio’s front door and looked around uncertainly. His light camel hair sport coat was badly wrinkled, like he’d slept on it. He had milk chocolate skin, a square face, and bright eyes as black as the stiff, straight hair on his head. Julio spoke to him, they exchanged a few words, then Julio smiled and shook his hand. He led him back toward Jack, patting him on the back, treating him like a relative. Close up, the guy looked halfway to zombie. Even if he weren’t, he wouldn’t have a clue that he’d just been expertly frisked. Julio indicated the seat opposite Jack and gave a quick O K behind his back as the newcomer seated himself.

When Julio got back to the bar, the blond guy in the blazer stopped him again.

“How come they get to sit over there and we don’t?”

Julio swung on him and got in his face. He was a good head shorter than the blond guy but he was thickly muscled and had that air of barely restrained violence. It wasn’t an act. Julio was feeling mean these days.

“You ask me one more time about those tables, man, and you outta here. You hear me? You out and you never come back!”

As Julio strutted away, the blond guy turned to his companions, grinning.

“I just love this place.”

Jack turned his attention to his own customer. He extended his hand.

“I’m Jack.”

“Munir Habib.” His palm was cold and sweaty. “Are you the one who…?”

“That’s me.”

A few beats of silence, then, “I was expecting…”

“You and everybody else.” They all arrived expecting someone bigger, someone darker, someone meaner looking. “But this is the guy you get. You’ve got the down payment on you?”

Munir glanced around furtively. “Yes. It is a lot to carry around in cash.”

“It’s safe here. Keep it for now. I haven’t decided yet whether we’ll be doing business. What’s the story?”

“As I told you on the phone, my wife and son have been kidnapped and are being held hostage.”

A kidnap. One of Jack’s rules was to avoid kidnappings. They were the latest crime fad in the city these days, usually over drugs. They attracted feds and Jack had less use for Feds than he had for local cops. But this Munir guy had sworn he hadn’t called the cops. Said he was too scared by the kidnapper’s threats. Jack didn’t know if he could believe him.

“Why call me instead of the cops?”

Munir reached inside his jacket and pulled out some Polaroids. His hand trembled as he passed them over.

“This is why.”

The first showed an attractive blond woman, thirty or so, dressed in a white blouse and a dark skirt, gagged and bound to a chair in front of a blank, unpainted wall. A red plastic funnel had been inserted through the gag into her mouth. A can of Drano lay propped in her lap.

Her eyes held Jack for a moment – pale blue and utterly terrified. Caution: Contains lye was block printed across the bottom of the photo.

Jack grimaced and looked at the second photo. At first he wasn’t sure what he was looking at, like one of those pictures you get when the camera accidentally goes off in your hand. A big meat cleaver took up most of the frame, but the rest was –

He repressed a gasp when he recognized the bare lower belly of a little boy, his hairless pubes, his little penis laid out on the chopping block, the cleaver next to it, ominously close.

Okay. He hadn’t called the cops.

Jack handed back the photos.

“How much do they want?”

“I don’t believe it is a ‘they.’ I think it is a ‘he.’ And he does not seem to want money. At least not yet.”

“He’s a psycho?”

“I think so. He seems to hate Arabs – all Arabs – and has picked on me.” Munir’s features suddenly constricted into a tight knot as his voice cracked. “Why me?”

Jack realized how close this guy was to tumbling over the edge. He didn’t want him to start blubbering here.

“Easy, guy,” he said softly. “Easy.”

Munir rubbed his hands over his face, and when next he looked at Jack, his features were blotchy but composed.

“Yes. I must remain calm. I must not lose control. For Barbara. And Robby.”

Jack had a nightmare flash of Gia and Vicky in the hands of some of the psychos he’d had to deal with and knew at that moment he was going to be working with Munir. The guy was okay.

“An Arab hater. One of Kahane’s old crew, maybe?”

“No. Not a Jew. At least not that I can tell. He keeps referring to a brother who was killed in the Trade Towers. I’ve told him that I’m an American citizen just like him. But he says I’m from Saudi Arabia, and Saudis brought down the Towers and an Arab’s an Arab as far as he’s concerned.”

“Start at the beginning,” Jack said. “Any hint that this was coming?”

“Nothing. Everything has been going normally.”

“How about someone from the old country.”

“I have no ‘old country.’ I’ve spent more of my life in America than in Saudi Arabia. My father was on long term assignment here with Saud Petroleum. I grew up in New York. I was in college here when he was transferred back. I spent two months in the land of my birth and realized that my homeland was here. I made my Hajj, then returned to New York. I finished school and became a citizen.”

“Still could be someone from over there behind it. I mean, your wife doesn’t look like she’s from that part of the world.”

“Barbara was born and raised in Westchester.”

“Couldn’t marrying someone like that drive one of these fundamentalists–”

“No. Absolutely not.” Munir’s face hardened. Absolute conviction steeled his voice. “An Arab would never do what this man has done to me.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“He made me… he made me eat…” The rest of the sentence seemed to be lodged in Munir’s throat. “…pork. And made me drink alcohol with it. Pork!”

Jack almost laughed. Munir was most assuredly a Moslem. But still, what was the big deal? Jack could think of things a whole lot worse he could have been forced to do.

“What’d you have to do – eat a ham on rye?”

“No. Ribs. He told me to go to a certain restaurant on Forty seventh Street last Friday at noon and buy what he called ‘a rack of baby back ribs.’ Then he wanted me to stand outside on the sidewalk to eat them and wash them down with a bottle of beer.”

“Did you?”

Munir bowed his head. “Yes.”

Jack was tempted to ask if he liked the taste but stifled the question. Some folks took this stuff very seriously. He’d never been able to fathom how otherwise intelligent people allowed their dietary habits to be controlled by something written in book hundreds or thousands of years ago by someone who didn’t have indoor plumbing. But then he didn’t understand a lot of things about a lot of people. He freely admitted that. And what they ate or didn’t eat, for whatever reasons, was the least of those mysteries.

“So you ate pork and drank a beer to save your wife and child. Nobody’s going to call out the death squads for that. Or are they?”

“He made me choose between Allah and my family,” Munir said. “Forgive me, but I chose my family.”

“I doubt if Allah or any sane person would forgive you if you hadn’t.”

“But don’t you see? He made me do it at noon on Friday.”

“So?”

“That is when I should have been in my mosque, praying. It is one of the five duties. No follower of Islam would make a fellow believer do that. He is not an Arab, I tell you. You need only listen to the tape to know that.”

“Okay. We’ll get to the tape in a minute. Munir had told Jack that he’d been using his answering machine to record the nut’s calls since yesterday. “Okay. So he’s not an Arab. What about enemies? Got any?”

“No. We lead a quiet life. I run the auditing department at Saud Petrol. I have no enemies. Not many friends to speak of. We keep very much to ourselves.”

If that was true – and Jack had learned the hard way over the years never to take what the customer said at face value – then Munir was indeed the victim of a psycho. And Jack hated dealing with psychos. They didn’t follow the rules. They tended to have their own queer logic. Anything could happen. Anything.

“All right. Let’s start at the beginning. When did you first realize something was wrong?”

“When I came home from work Thursday night and found our apartment empty. I checked the answering machine and heard a distorted voice telling me that he had my wife and son and that they’d be fine if I did as I was told and didn’t go to the police. And if I had any thought of going to the police in spite of what he’d said, I should look on the dresser in our bedroom. The photographs were there.” Munir rubbed a hand across his eyes. “I sat up all night waiting for the phone to ring. He finally called me Friday morning.”

“And told you that you had to eat pork.”

Munir nodded. “He would tell me nothing about Barbara and Robby except that they were alive and well and were hoping I wouldn’t ‘screw up.’ I did as I was told, then hurried home and tried to vomit it up. He called and said I’d ‘done good.’ He said he’d call me again to tell me the next trick he was going to make me do. He said he was going to ‘put me through the wringer but good.’ “

“What was the next trick?”

“I was to steal a woman’s pocketbook in broad daylight, knock her down, and run with it. And I was not to get caught. He said the photos I had were ‘Before.’ If I was caught, he would send me ‘After.’“

“So you became a purse snatcher for a day. A successful one, I gather.”

Munir lowered his head. “I’m so ashamed… that poor woman.” His features hardened. “And then he sent the other photo.”

“Yeah? Let’s see it.”

Munir suddenly seemed flustered. “It’s – it’s at home.”

He was lying. Why?

“Bull. Let me see it.”

“No. I’d rather you didn’t–”

“I need to know everything if I’m going to help you.” Jack thrust out his hand. “Give.”

With obvious reluctance, Munir reached into his coat and passed across another still. Jack immediately understood his reluctance.

He saw the same blond woman from the first photo, only this time she was nude, tied spread eagle on a mattress, her dark pubic triangle toward the camera, her eyes bright with tears of humiliation; an equally naked dark haired boy crouched in terror next to her.

And I thought she was a natural blonde was written across the bottom.

Jack’s jaw began to ache from clenching it closed. He handed back the photo.

“And what about yesterday?”

“I had to urinate in the street before the Imperial Theater at a quarter to three in the afternoon.”

“Swell,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Sunday matinee time.”

“Correct. But I would do it all again if it would free Barbara and Robby.”

“You might have to do worse. In fact, I’m sure you’re going to have to do worse. I think this guy’s looking for your limit. He wants to see how far he can push you, wants to see how far you’ll go.”

“But where will it end?”

“Maybe with you killing somebody.”

“Him? Gladly! I–”

“No. Somebody else. A stranger. Or worse – somebody you know.”

Munir blanched. “No. Surely you can’t be…” His voice trailed off.

“Why not? He’s got you by the balls. That sort of power can make a well man sick and a sick man sicker.” He watched Munir’s face, the dismay tugging at his features as he stared at the tabletop. “What’ll you do?”

A pause while Munir returned from somewhere far away. “What?”

“When the time comes. When he says you’ve got to choose between the lives of your wife and son, and the life of someone else. What’ll you do?”

Munir didn’t flinch. “Do the killing, of course.”

“And the next innocent victim? And the one after that, and the one after that? When do you say enough, no more, finis?”

Munir flinched. “I… I don’t know.”

Tough question. Jack wondered how he’d answer if Gia and Vicky were captives. How many innocent people would die before he stopped? What was the magic number? Jack hoped he never had to find out. The Son of Sam might end up looking like a piker.

“Let’s hear that tape.”

Munir pulled a cassette out of side pocket and slid it across. Jack slipped it into the Walkman. Maybe listening to this creep would help him get a read on him.

He handed Munir one headset and slipped the other over his ears. He hit PLAY.

The voice on the tape was electronically distorted. Two possible reasons for that. One obviously to prevent voice print analysis. But he also could be worried that Munir would recognize his voice. Jack listened to the snarling Southern accent. He couldn’t tell through the electronic buzz if it was authentic or not, but no question about the sincerity of the raw hate snaking through the phone line. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the voice.

Something there… something about this guy… a picture was forming…

5

Munir found it difficult to focus on the tape. After all, he had listened to that hated voice over and over until he knew by heart every filthy word, every nuance of expression. Besides, he was uneasy here. He never frequented places where liquor was served. The drinking and laughter at the bar – they were alien to his way of life. So he studied this stranger across the table from him instead.

This man called Repairman Jack was most unimpressive. True, he was taller than Munir, perhaps five eleven, but with a slim, wiry physique. Nothing at all special about his appearance. Brown hair with a low hairline, and such mild brown eyes; had he not been seated alone back here, he would have been almost invisible. Munir had expected a heroic figure – if not physically prepossessing, at least sharp, swift, and viper deadly. This man had none of those qualities. How was he going to wrest Barbara and Robby from their tormentor’s grasp? It hardly seemed possible.

And yet, as he watched him listening to the tape with his eyes closed, stopping it here and there to rewind and hear again a sentence or phrase, he became aware of the man’s quiet confidence, of a hint of furnace hot intensity roaring beneath his ordinary surface. And Munir began to see that perhaps there was a purpose behind Jack’s manner of dress, his whole demeanor being slanted toward unobtrusiveness. He realized that this man could dog your steps all day and you would never notice him.

When the tape was done, the stranger took off his headphones, removed the cassette from the player, and stared at it.

“Something screwy here,” he said finally.

“What do you mean?”

“He hates you.”

“Yes, I know. He hates all Arabs. He’s said so, many times.”

“No. He hates you.”

“Of course. I’m an Arab.”

What was he getting at?

“Wake up, Munir. I’m telling you this guy knows you and he hates your guts. This whole deal has nothing to do with nine-eleven or Arabs or any of the bullshit he’s been handing you. This is personal, Munir. Very personal.”

No. It wasn’t possible. He had never met anyone, had never been even remotely acquainted with a person who would do this to him and his family.

“I do not believe it.” His voice sounded hoarse. “It cannot be.”

Jack leaned forward, his voice low. “Think about it. In the space of three days this guy has made you offend your God, offend other people, humiliate yourself, and who knows what next? There’s real nastiness here, Munir. Cold, calculated malice. Especially this business of making you eat pork and drink beer at noon on Friday when you’re supposed to be at the mosque. I didn’t know you had to pray on Fridays at noon, but he did. That tells me he knows more than a little about your religion – studying up on it, most likely. He’s not playing this by ear. He’s got a plan. He’s not putting you through this ‘wringer’ of his just for the hell of it.”

“What can he possibly gain from tormenting me?”

“Torment, hell. This guy’s out to destroy you. And as for gain, I’m guessing on revenge.”

“For what?” This was so maddening. “I fear you are getting off course with this idea that somehow I know this insane man.”

“Maybe. But something he said during your last conversation doesn’t sit right. He said he was being ‘a lot more generous than you’d ever be.’ That’s not a remark a stranger would make. And then he said ‘faux pas’ a little while after. He’s trying to sound like a redneck but I don’t know too many rednecks with faux pas in their vocabulary.”

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean he knows me personally.”

“You said you run a department in this oil company.”

“Yes. Saud Petrol. I’m head of Stateside operations division.”

“Which means you’ve got to hire and fire, I imagine.”

“Of course.”

“Look there. That’s where you’ll find this kook – in your personnel records. He’s the proverbial Disgruntled Employee. Or Former Employee. Or Almost Employee. Someone you fired, someone you didn’t hire, or someone you passed over for promotion. I’d go with the first – some people get very personal about being fired.”

Munir searched his past for any confrontations with members of his department. He could think of only one and that was so minor –

Jack was pushing the tape cassette across the table.

“Call the cops,” he said.

Fear wrapped thick fingers around Munir’s throat and squeezed. “No! He’ll find out! He’ll–”

“I can’t help you, pal. This isn’t my thing. You need more than I can give you. You need officialdom. You need a squad of paper shufflers doing background checks on the people past and present in your department. I’m small potatoes. No staff, no access to fingerprint files. You need all of that and more if you’re going to get your family through this. The FBI’s good at this stuff. They can stay out of sight, work in the background while you deal with this guy up front.”

“But–”

He rose and clapped a hand on Munir’s shoulder as he passed.

“Good luck.”

And then he was walking away… blending into the crowd around the bar… gone.

6

Charlie popped out his door down the hall just as Munir was unlocking his own.

“Thought that was you.” He held up a Federal Express envelope. “This came while you were out. I signed for it.”

Munir snatched it from him. His heart began to thud when he saw the name Trade Towers in the sender section of the address label.

“Thanks, Charlie,” he gasped and practically fell into his apartment.

“Hey, wait. Did you–?”

The door slammed on Charlie’s question as Munir’s fingers fumbled with the tab of the opening strip. Finally he got a grip on it and ripped it across the top. He looked inside. Empty except for shadows. No. It couldn’t be. He’d felt a bulge, a thickness within. He up ended it.

A photograph slipped out and fluttered to the floor.

Munir dropped to a squat and snatched it up. He groaned as he saw Barbara – naked, gagged, bound spread eagle on the bed as before, but alone this time. Something white was draped across her midsection. Munir looked closer.

A newspaper. A tabloid. The Post. The headline was the same he’d seen on the newsstands this morning. And Barbara was staring at the camera. No tears this time. Alert. Angry. Alive.

Munir wanted to cry. He pressed the photo against his chest and sobbed once, then looked at it again to make sure there was no trickery. No, it was real.

At the bottom was another one of the madman’s hateful inscriptions: She watched.

Barbara watched? Watched what? What did that mean?

Just then the phone rang. Munir leaped for it. He pressed the RECORD button on the answerphone as soon as he recognized the distorted voice.

Finished barfing yet, Mooo neeer?”

“I – I don’t know what you mean. But I thank you for this photo. I’m terribly relieved to know my wife is still alive. Thank you.”

He wanted to scream that he ached for the day when he could meet him face to face and flay him alive, but said nothing. Barbara and Robby could only be hurt by angering this madman.

“‘Thank you’?” The voice on the phone sounded baffled. “Whatta you mean, ‘thank you’? Didn’t you see the rest?”

Munir went cold all over. He tried to speak but words would not come. It felt as if something were stuck in his throat. Finally, he managed a few words.

“Rest? What rest?”

“I think you’d better take another look in that envelope, Mooo neeer. Take a real good look before you think about thankin’ me. I’ll call you back later.”

“No–!”

The line went dead.

Panic exploded within Munir as he hung up and rushed backed to the foyer.

Didn’t you see the rest?

What rest? Please, Allah, what did he mean? What was he saying?

He snatched up the stiff envelope. Yes, something still in it. A bulge at the bottom, wedged into the corner. He smacked the open end of the envelope against the floor.

Once. Twice.

Something tumbled out. Something in a small zip loc bag.

Short. Cylindrical. A pale, dusky pink. Bloody red at the ragged end.

Munir jammed the back of his wrist against his mouth. To hold back the screams. To hold back the vomit.

And the inscription on Barbara’s photograph came back to him.

She watched.

The phone began to ring.

7

“Take it easy, guy,” Jack said to the sobbing man slumped before him. “It’s going to be all right.”

Jack didn’t believe that, and he doubted Munir did either, but he didn’t know what else to say. Hard enough to deal with a sobbing woman. What do you say to a blubbering man?

He’d been on his way home from Gia’s over on Sutton Square when he stopped off at the St. Moritz to make one last call to his voice mail. He never used his apartment phone for that and did his best to randomize the times and locations of his calls. When he was on Central Park South he rarely passed up a chance to call in from the lobby of the Plaza or one of its high priced neighbors.

He heard Munir’s grief choked voice: “Please… I have no one else to call. He’s hurt Robby! He’s hurt my boy! Please help me, I beg you!”

Jack couldn’t say what was behind the impulse. He didn’t want to, but a moment later he found himself calling Munir back, coaxing an address out of the near hysterical man, and coming over here. He’d pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves before entering the Turtle Bay high rise where Munir’s apartment was located. He was sure this mess was going to end up in the hands of officialdom and he wished to leave behind nothing that belonged to him, especially his fingerprints.

Munir had been so glad to see him, so grateful to him for coming that Jack practically had to peel the man off of him.

He helped him to the kitchen and found a heavy meat cleaver lying on the table there. Several deep gouges, fresh ones, marred the tabletop. Jack finally got him calmed down.

“Where is it?”

“There.” He pointed to the upper section of the refrigerator. “I thought if maybe I kept it cold…”

Munir slumped forward on the table, face down, his forehead resting on the arms crossed before him. Jack opened the freezer compartment and pulled out the plastic bag.

It was a finger. A kid’s. The left pinkie. Cleanly chopped off. Probably with the cleaver in the photo of a more delicate portion of the kid’s anatomy he’d seen earlier this evening.

The son of a bitch.

And then the photograph of the boy’s mother. And the inscription.

Jack felt a surge of blackness from the abyss within him. He willed it back. He couldn’t get involved in this, couldn’t let it get personal. He turned to look back at the kitchen table and found Munir staring at him.

“Do you see?” Munir said, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “Do you see what he has done to my boy?”

Jack quickly stuffed the finger back into the freezer.

“Look, I’m really sorry about this but nothing’s changed. You still need more help than one guy can offer. You need the cops.”

Munir shook his head violently. “No! You haven’t heard his latest demand! The police can not help me with this! Only you can! Please, come listen.”

Jack followed him down a hall. He passed a room with an inflatable fighter jet hanging from the ceiling and a New York Giants banner tacked to the wall. In another room at the end of the hall he waited while Munir’s trembling fingers fumbled with the rewind controls. Finally he got it playing. Jack barely recognized Munir’s voice as he spewed his grief and rage at the caller. Then the other voice laughed.

VOICE: Well, well. I guess you got my little present.

MUNIR: You vile, filthy, perverted –

VOICE: Hey hey, Mooo neeer. Let’s not get too personal here. This ain’t between you’n me. This here’s a matter of international diplomacy.

MUNIR: How… (a choking sound) how could you?

VOICE: Easy, Mooo neeer. I just think about how your people blew my brother to bits and it becomes real easy. Might be a real good idea for you to keep that in mind from here on in.

MUNIR: Let them go and take me. I’ll be your prisoner. You can… you can cut me to pieces if you wish. But let them go, I beg you!

VOICE: (laughs) Cut you to pieces! Mooo neeer, you must be psychic or something. That’s what I’ve been thinking too! Ain’t that amazing?

MUNIR: You mean you’ll let them go?

VOICE: Someday – when you’re all the way through the wringer. But let’s not change the subject here. You in pieces – now that’s a thought. Only I’m not going to do it. You are.

MUNIR: What do you mean?

VOICE: Just what I said, Mooo neeer. I want a piece of you. One of your fingers. I’ll leave it to you to decide which one. But I want you to chop it off and have it ready to send to me by tomorrow morning.

MUNIR: Surely you can’t be serious!

VOICE: Oh, I’m serious, all right. Deadly serious. You can count on that.

MUNIR: But how? I can’t!

VOICE: You’d better find a way, Mooo neeer. Or the next package you get will be a bit bigger. It’ll be a whole hand. (laughs) Well, maybe not a whole hand. One of the fingers will already be missing.

MUNIR: No! Please! There must be –

VOICE: I’ll call in the mornin’ t’tell you how to deliver it. And don’t even think about goin’ to the cops. You do and the next package you get’ll be a lot bigger. Like a head. Chop chop, Mooo neeer.

He switched off the machine and turned to Jack.

“You see now why I need your help?”

“No. I’m telling you the police can do a better job of tracking this guy down.”

“But will the police help me cut off my finger?”

“Forget it!” Jack said, swallowing hard. “No way.”

“But I can’t do it myself. I’ve tried but I can’t make my hand hold still. I want to but I just can’t do it myself.” Munir looked him in the eyes. “Please. You’re my only hope. You must.”

“Don’t pull that on me.” Jack wanted out of here. Now. “Get this: Just because you need me doesn’t mean you own me. Just because I can doesn’t mean I must. And in this case I honestly doubt than I can. So keep all of your fingers and dial 9-1-1 to get some help.”

“No!” Anger overcame the fear and anguish in Munir’s face. “I will not risk their lives!”

He strode back to the kitchen and picked up the cleaver. Jack was suddenly on guard. The guy was nearing the end of his rope. No telling what he’d do.

“I wasn’t man enough to do it before,” he said, hefting the cleaver. “But I can see I’ll be getting no help from you or anyone else. So I’ll have to take care of this all by myself!”

Jack stood back and watched as Munir slammed his left palm down on the table top, splayed the fingers, and angled the hand around so the thumb was pointing somewhere past his left flank. Jack didn’t move to stop him. Munir was doing what he thought he had to do. He raised the cleaver above his head. It poised there a moment, wavering, like a cliff diver with second thoughts, then with a whimper of fear and dismay, Munir drove the cleaver into his hand.

Or rather into the table top where his hand had been.

Weeping, he collapsed into the chair then, and his sobs of anguish and self-loathing were terrible to hear.

“All right, goddammit,” Jack said. He knew this was going to be nothing but trouble, but he’d seen and heard all he could stand. He kicked the nearest wall. “I’ll do it.”

8

“Ready?”

Munir’s left hand was lashed to the tabletop. Munir himself was loaded up with every painkiller he’d had in the medicine cabinet – Tylenol, Advil, Bufferin, Anacin 3, Nuprin. Some of them were duplicates. Jack didn’t care. He wanted Munir’s pain center deadened as much as possible. He wished the guy drank. He’d have much preferred doing this to someone who was dead drunk. Or doped up. Jack could have scored a bunch of Dilaudids for him. But Munir had said no to both. No booze. No dope.

Tight ass.

Jack had never cut off anybody’s finger before. He wanted to do this right. The first time. No misses. Half an inch too far to the right and Munir would lose only a piece of his pinkie; half an inch too far to the left and he’d be missing the ring finger as well. So Jack had made himself a guide. He’d found a plastic cutting board, a quarter inch thick, and had notched one of its edges. Now he was holding the board upright with the notch clamped over the base of Munir’s pinkie; the rest of his hand was safe behind the board. All Jack had to do to sever the finger cleanly was chop down as hard as he could along the vertical surface.

That was all.

Easy.

Right.

“I am ready,” Munir said.

He was dripping with sweat. His dark eyes looked up at Jack, then he nodded, stuffed a dish rag in his mouth, and turned his head away.

Swell, Jack thought. I’m glad you’re ready. But am I?

Now or never.

He steadied the cutting board, raised the cleaver. He couldn’t do this.

Got to.

He took a deep breath, tightened his grip –

– and drove the cleaver into the wall.

Munir jumped, turned, pulled the dishrag from his mouth.

“What? Why–?”

“This isn’t going to work.” Jack let the plastic cutting board drop and began to pace the kitchen. “Got to be another way. He’s got us on the run. We’re playing this whole thing by his rules.”

“There aren’t any others.”

“Yeah, there are.”

Jack continued pacing. One thing he’d learned over the years was not to let the other guy deal all the cards. Let him think he had control of the deck while you changed the order.

Munir wriggled his fingers. “Please. I cannot risk angering this madman.”

Jack swung to face him. An idea was taking shape.

“You want me in on this?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then we do it my way. All of it.” He began working at the knots that bound Munir’s arm to the table. “And the first thing we do is untie you. Then we make some phone calls.”

9

Munir understood none of this. He sat in a daze, sipping milk to ease a stomach that quaked from fear and burned from too many pills. Jack was on the phone, but his words made no sense.

“Yeah, Pete. It’s me. Jack… Right. That Jack. Look, I need a piece of your wares… small piece. Easy thing… Right. I’ll get that to you in an hour or two. Thing is, I need it by morning. Can you deliver?… Great. Be by later. By the way – how much?… Make that two and you got a deal… All right. See you.”

Then he hung up, consulted a small address book, and dialed another number.

“Hey, Teddy. It’s me. Jack… Yeah, I know, but this can’t wait till morning. How about opening up your store for me? I need about ten minutes inside… That’s no help to me, Teddy. I need to get in now. Now… Okay. Meet you there in twenty.”

Jack hung up and took the glass from Munir’s hands. Munir found himself taken by the upper arm and pulled toward the door.

“Can you get us into your office?”

Munir nodded. “I’ll need my ID card and keys, but yes, they’ll let me in.”

“Get them. There a back way out of here?”

Munir took him down the elevator to the parking garage and out the rear door. From there they caught a late cruising gypsy cab down to a hardware store on Bleecker Street. The lights inside were on but the sign in the window said CLOSED. Jack told the cabby to wait and knocked on the door. A painfully thin man with no hair whatsoever, not even eyebrows, opened the door.

“You coulda broke in, Jack,” he said. “I wouldna minded. I need my rest, y’know.”

“I know, Teddy” Jack said. “But I need the lights on for this and I couldn’t risk attracting that kind of attention.”

Munir followed Jack to the paint department at the rear of the store. They stopped at the display of color cards. Jack pulled a group from the brown section and turned to him.

“Give me your hand.”

Baffled, he watched as Jack placed one of the color cards against the back of Munir’s hand, then tossed it away. And again. One after another until –

“Here we go. Perfect match.”

“We’re buying paint?”

“No. We’re buying flesh – specifically, flesh with Golden Mocha number 169 skin. Let’s go.”

And then they were moving again, waving good bye to Teddy, and getting back into the cab.

To the East Side now, up First Avenue to Thirty first Street. Jack ran inside with the color card, then came out and jumped back into the cab empty handed.

“Okay. Next stop is your office.”

“My office? Why?”

“Because we’ve got a few hours to kill and we might as well use them to look up everyone you fired in the past year.”

Munir thought this was futile but he had given himself into Jack’s hands. He had to trust him. And as exhausted as he was, sleep was out of the question.

He gave the driver the address of the Saud Petrol offices.

10

“This guy looks promising,” Jack said, handing him a file. “Remember him?”

Until tonight, Munir never had realized how many people he hired and fired – “down-sized” was the current euphemism – in the course of a year. He was amazed.

He opened the file. Richard Hollander. The name didn’t catch until he read the man’s performance report.

“Not him. Anyone but him.”

“Yeah? Why not?”

“Because he was so…” As Munir searched for the right word, he pulled out all he remembered about Hollander, and it wasn’t much. The man hadn’t been with the company long, and had been pretty much a nonentity during his stay. Then he found the word he was looking for. “Ineffectual.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. He never got anything done. Every assignment, every report was either late or incomplete. He had a wonderful academic record – good grades from an Ivy League school, that sort of thing – but he proved incapable of putting any of his learning into practice. That was why he was let go.”

“Any reaction? You know, shouting, yelling, threats?”

“No.” Munir remembered giving Hollander his notice. The man had merely nodded and begun emptying his desk. He hadn’t even asked for an explanation. “He knew he’d been screwing up. I think he was expecting it. Besides, he had no southern accent. It’s not him.”

Munir passed the folder back but instead of putting it away, Jack opened it and glanced through it again.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Accents can be faked. And if I was going to pick the type who’d go nuts for revenge, this guy would be it. Look: He’s unmarried, lives alone–”

“Where does it say he lives alone?”

“It doesn’t. But his emergency contact is his mother in Massachusetts. If he had a lover or even a roomie he’d list them, wouldn’t you think? ‘No moderating influences,’ as the head docs like to say. And look at his favorite sports: swimming and jogging. This guy’s a loner from the git go.”

“That does not make him a psychopath. I imagine you are a loner, too, and you…”

The words dribbled away as Munir’s mind followed the thought to its conclusion.

Jack grinned. “Right, Munir. Think about that.”

He reached for the phone and punched in a number. After a moment he spoke in a deep, authoritative voice: “Please pick up. This is an emergency. Please pick up.” A moment later he hung up and began writing on a note pad. “I’m going to take down this guy’s address for future reference. It’s almost four a.m. and Mr. Hollander isn’t home. His answering machine is on, but even if he’s screening his calls, I think he’d have responded to my little emergency message, don’t you?”

Munir nodded. “Most certainly. But what if he doesn’t live there anymore?”

“Always a possibility.” Jack glanced at his watch. “But right now I’ve got to go pick up a package. You sit tight and stay by the phone here. I’ll call you when I’ve got it.”

Before Munir could protest, Jack was gone, leaving him alone in his office, staring at the gallery family photos arrayed on his desk. He began to sob.

11

The phone startled Munir out of a light doze. Confusion jerked him upright. What was he doing in his office? He should be home…

Then he remembered.

Jack was on the line: “Meet me downstairs.”

Out on the street, in the pale, predawn light, two figures awaited him. One was Jack, the other a stranger – a painfully thin man of Munir’s height with shoulder length hair and a goatee. Jack made no introductions. Instead he led them around a corner to a small deli. He stared through the open window at the lights inside.

“This looks bright enough,” Jack said.

Inside he ordered two coffees and two cheese Danish and carried them to the rearmost booth in the narrow, deserted store. Jack and the stranger slid into one side of the booth, Munir the other, facing them. Still no introductions.

“Okay, Munir,” Jack said. “Put your hand on the table.

Munir complied, placing his left hand palm down, wondering what this was about.

“Now let’s see the merchandise,” Jack said to the stranger.

The thin man pulled a small, oblong package from his pocket. It appeared to be wrapped in brown paper hand towels. He unrolled the towels and placed the object next to Munir’s hand.

A finger. Not Robby’s. Different. Adult size.

Munir pulled his hand back onto his lap and stared.

“Come on, Munir,” Jack said. “We’ve got to do a color check.”

Munir slipped his hand back onto the table next to the grisly object, regarding it obliquely. So real looking.

“It’s too long and that’s only a fair color match,” Jack said.

“It’s close enough,” the stranger said. “Pretty damn good on such short notice, I’d say.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Jack handed him an envelope. “Here you go.”

The goateed stranger took the envelope and stuffed it inside his shirt without opening it, then left without saying good bye.

Munir stared at the finger. The dried blood on the stump end, the detail over the knuckles and around the fingernail – even down to the dirt under the nail – was incredible. It almost looked real.

“This won’t work,” he said. “I don’t care how real this looks, when he finds out it’s a fake–”

“Fake?” Jack said, stirring sugar into his coffee. “Who said it’s a fake?”

Munir snatched his hand away and pushed himself back. He wanted to sink into the vinyl covering of the booth seat, wanted to pass through to the other side and run from this man and the loathsome object on the table between them. He fixed his eyes on the seat beside him and managed to force a few words past his rising gorge.

“Please… take… that… away.”

He heard the soft crinkle and scrape of paper being folded and dragged across the table top, then Jack’s voice:

“Okay, Cinderella. You can look now. It’s gone.”

Munir kept his eyes averted. What had he got himself into? In order to save his family from one ruthless madman he was forced to deal with another. What sort of world was this?

He felt a sob build in his throat. Until last week, he couldn’t remember crying once since his boyhood. For the past few days it seemed he wanted to cry all the time. Or scream. Or both.

He saw Jack’s hand pushing a cup of coffee into his field of vision.

“Here. Drink this. Lots of it. You’re going to need to stay alert.”

An insane hope rose in Munir.

“Do you think… do you think the man on the phone did the same thing? With Robby’s finger? Maybe he went to a morgue and…”

Jack shook his head slowly, as if the movement pained him. For an instant he saw past the wall around Jack. Saw pity there.

“Don’t torture yourself,” Jack said.

Yes, Munir thought. The madman on the phone was already doing too good a job of that.

“It’s not going to work,” Munir said, fighting the blackness of despair. “He’s going to realize he’s been tricked and then he’s going to take it out on my boy.”

“No matter what you do, he’s going to find an excuse to do something nasty to your boy. Or your wife. That’s the whole idea behind this gig – make you suffer. But his latest wrinkle with the fingers gives us a chance to find out who he is and where he’s holed up.”

“How?”

“He wants your finger. How’s he going to get it? He can’t very well give us an address to mail it to. So there’s going to have to be a drop – someplace where we leave it and he picks it up. And that’s where we nab him and make him tell us where he’s got your family stashed.”

“What if he refuses to tell us?”

Jack’s voice was soft, his nod almost imperceptible. Munir shuddered at what he saw flashing through Jack’s eyes in that instant.

“Oh… he’ll tell us.”

“He thinks I won’t do it,” Munir said, looking at his fingers – all ten of them. “He thinks I’m a coward because he thinks all Arabs are cowards. He’s said so. And he was right. I couldn’t do it.”

“Hell,” Jack said, “I couldn’t do it either, and it wasn’t even my hand. But I’m sure you’d have done it eventually if I hadn’t come up with an alternative.”

Would I have done it? Munir thought. Could I have done it?

Maybe he’d have done it just to demonstrate his courage to the madman on the phone. Over the years Munir had seen the Western world’s image of the Arab male distorted beyond recognition by terrorism: the Arab bombed school buses and beheaded helpless hostages; Arab manhood aimed its weapons from behind the skirts unarmed civilian women and children.

“If something goes wrong because of this, because of my calling on you to help me, I… I will never forgive myself.”

“Don’t think like that,” Jack said. “It gets you nothing. And you’ve got to face it: No matter what you do – cut off one finger, two fingers, your left leg, kill somebody, blow up Manhattan – it’s never going to be enough. He’s going to keep escalating until you’re dead. You’ve got to stop him now, before it goes any further. Understand?”

Munir nodded. “But I’m so afraid. Poor Robby… his terrible pain, his fear. And Barbara…”

“Exactly. And if you don’t want that to go on indefinitely, you’ve got to take the offensive. Now. So let’s get back to your place and see how he wants to take delivery on your finger.”

12

Back in the apartment, Jack bandaged Munir’s hand in thick layers of gauze to make to look injured. While they waited for the phone to ring, he disappeared into the bathroom with the finger to wash it.

“We want this to be as convincing as possible,” he said. “You don’t strike me as the type to have dirty fingernails.”

When the call finally came, Munir ground his teeth at the sound of the hated voice.

Jack was beside him, gripping his arm, steadying him as he listened through an earphone he had plugged into the answering machine. He had told Munir what to say, and had coached him on how to say it, how to sound.

“Well, Mooo neeer. You got that finger for me?”

“Yes,” he said in the choked voice he had rehearsed. “I have it.”

The caller paused, as if the caller was surprised by the response.

“You did it? You really did it?

“Yes. You gave me no choice.”

Well, I’ll be damned. Hey, how come your voice sounds so funny?”

“Codeine. For the pain.”

“Yeah. I’ll bet that smarts. But that’s okay. Pain’s good for you. And just think: Your kid got through it without codeine.”

Jack’s grip on his arm tightened as Munir stiffened and began to rise. Jack pulled him back to a sitting position.

“Please don’t hurt Robby anymore,” Munir said, and this time he did not have to feign a choking voice. “I did what you asked me. Now let them go.”

“Not so fast, Mooo neeer. How do I know you really cut that finger off? You wouldn’t be bullshitting me now, would you?”

“Oh, please. I would not lie about something as important as this.”

Yet I am lying, he thought. Forgive me, my son, if this goes wrong.

“Well, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we? Here’s what you do: Put your offering in a brown paper lunch bag and head downtown. Go to the mailbox on the corner where Lafayette, Astor, and Eighth come together. Leave the bag on top of the mailbox, then walk half a block down and stand in front of the Astor Place Theater. Got it?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so.”

“Of course you do. Even a bonehead like you should be able to handle those instructions.”

“But when should I do this?”

“Ten a.m.”

“This morning?” He glanced at his watch. “But it is almost 9:30!”

“Aaaay! And he can tell time too! What an intellect! Yeah, that’s right, Mooo neeer. And don’t be late or I’ll have to think you’re lying to me. And we know what’ll happen then, don’t we.”

“But what if–?”

“See you soon, Mooo neeer.”

The line went dead. His heart pounding, Munir fumbled the receiver back onto its cradle and turned to Jack.

“We must hurry! We have no time to waste!”

Jack nodded. “This guy’s no dummy. He’s not giving us a chance to set anything up.”

“I’ll need the… finger,” Munir said. Even now, long after the shock of learning it was real, the thought of touching it made him queasy. “Could you please put it in the brown bag for me?”

Jack nodded. Munir led him to the kitchen and gave him a brown lunch bag. Jack dropped the finger inside and handed the sack back to him.

“You’ve got to arrive alone, so you go first,” Jack said. “I’ll follow a few minutes from now. If you don’t see me around, don’t worry. I’ll be there. And whatever you do, follow his instructions – nothing else. Understand? Nothing else. I’ll do the ad libbing. Now get moving.”

Munir fairly ran for the street, praying to Allah that it wouldn’t take too long to find a taxi.

13

Somehow Jack’s cab made it down to the East Village before Munir’s. He had a bad moment when he couldn’t find him. Then a cab screeched to a halt and Munir jumped out. Jack watched as he hurried to the mailbox and placed the brown paper bag atop it. Jack retreated to a phone booth on the uptown corner and pretended to make a call while Munir strode down to the Astor Place Theater and stopped before a Blue Man Group poster.

As Jack began an animated conversation with the dial tone, he scanned the area. Midmorning in the East Village. Members of the neighborhood’s homeless brigade seemed to be the only people about, either shuffling aimlessly along, as if dazed by the bright morning sun, or huddled on the sidewalks like discarded rag piles. The nut could be among them. Easy to hide within layers of grime and ratty clothes. But not so easy to hide a purpose in life. Jack hunted for someone who looked like he had somewhere to go.

Hollander… he wished there’d been a photo in his personnel file. Jack was sure he was the bad guy here. If only he’d been able to get over to his apartment before now. Maybe he’d have found –

And then Jack spotted him. A tall bearded guy traveling westward along Eighth Street, weaving his way through the loitering horde. He was squeezed into a filthy, undersized Army fatigue jacket, the cuffs of at least three of the multiple shirts he wore under the coat protruding from the too short sleeves; the neck of a pint bottle of Mad Dog stuck up like a periscope from the frayed edge of one of the pockets; the torn knees of his green work pants revealed threadbare jeans beneath. Piercing blue eyes peered out from under a Navy watch cap.

The sicko? Maybe. Maybe not. One thing was sure: This guy wasn’t wandering; he had someplace to go.

And he was heading directly for the mailbox.

When he reached it he stopped and looked over his shoulder, back along the way he had come on Eighth, then grabbed the brown paper bag Munir had left there. He reached inside, pulled out the paper towel wrapped contents, and began to unwrap it.

Suddenly he let out a strangled cry and tossed the finger into the street. It rolled in an arc and came to rest in the debris matted against the curb. He glanced over his shoulder again and began a stumbling run in the other direction, across Eighth, toward Jack and away from Munir.

“Shit!” Jack said aloud, working the word into his one way conversation, making it an argument, all the while pretending not to notice the doings at the mailbox.

Something tricky was going down. But what? Had the sicko sent a patsy? Jack had known the guy was sly, but he’d thought the sicko would have wanted to see the finger up close and personal, just to be sure it was real.

Unless of course the sicko was the wino and he’d done just that a few seconds ago.

He was almost up to Jack’s phone booth now. The only option Jack saw was to follow him. Give him a good lead and –

He heard pounding footsteps. Munir was coming this way – running this way, sprinting across the pavement, teeth bared, eyes wild, reaching for the tall guy.

Jack repressed an alarmed impulse to get between the two of them. It wouldn’t do any good. Munir was out of control and had built up too much momentum. Besides, no use in tipping off his own part in this.

Munir grabbed the taller man by the elbow and spun him around.

“Where are they?” he screeched. His face was flushed; tiny bubbles of saliva collected at the corners of his mouth. “Tell me, you swine!”

Swine? Maybe that was a heavy duty insult from a Moslem but it was pabulum around here.

The tall guy jerked back, trying to shake Munir off. His open mouth revealed gapped rows of rotting teeth.

“Hey, man–!”

“Tell me or I’ll kill you!” Munir shouted, grabbing the man’s upper arms and shaking his lanky frame.

“Lemme go, man,” he said as his head snapped back and forth like a guy in a car that had just been rear ended. Munir was going to give him whiplash in a few seconds. “Don’t know whatcher talking about!”

“You do! You went right to the package. You’ve seen the finger – now tell me where they are!”

“Hey, look, man, I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout whatcher sayin’. Dude stopped me down the street and told me to go check out the bag on top the mailbox. Gave me five to do it. Told me to hold up whatever was inside it.”

“Who?” Munir said, releasing the guy and turning to look back down Eighth. “Where is he?”

“Gone now.”

Munir grabbed the guy again, this time by the front of his fatigue jacket.

“What did he look like?”

“I dunno. Just a guy. Whatta you want from me anyway, man? I didn’t do nothin’. And I don’t want nothin’ to do with no dead fingers. Now getcher hands offa me!”

Jack had heard enough.

“Let him go,” he told Munir, still pretending to talk into the phone.

Munir gave him a baffled look. “No. He can tell us–”

“He can’t tell us anything we need to know. Let him go and get back to your apartment. You’ve done enough damage already.”

Munir blanched and loosened his grip. The guy stumbled back a couple of steps, then turned and ran down Lafayette. Munir looked around and saw that every rheumy eye in the area was on him. He stared down at his hands – the free right and the bandaged left – as if they were traitors.

“You don’t think–?”

“Get home. He’ll be calling you. And so will I.”

Jack watched Munir move away toward the Bowery like a sleepwalker. He hung up the phone and leaned against the booth.

What a mess. The nut had pulled a fast one. Got some wino to make the pickup. But how could a guy that kinked be satisfied with seeing Munir’s finger from afar? He seemed the type to want to hold it in his grubby little hand.

But maybe he didn’t care. Because maybe it didn’t matter.

Jack pulled out the slip of paper on which he’d written Richard Hollander’s address. Time to pay Saud Petrol’s ex-employee a little visit.

14

Munir paced his apartment, going from room to room, cursing himself. Such a fool! Such an idiot! But he couldn’t help it. He’d lost control. When he’d seen that man walk up to the paper bag and reach inside it, all rationality had fled. The only thing left in his mind had been the sight of Robby’s little finger tumbling out of that envelope last night.

After that, everything was a blur.

The phone began to ring.

Oh, no! he thought. It’s him. Please, Allah, let him be satisfied. Grant him mercifulness.

He lifted the receiver and heard the voice.

“Quite a show you put on there, Mooo neeer.”

“Please. I was upset. You’ve seen my severed finger. Now will you let my family go?”

“Now just hold on there a minute, Mooo neeer. I saw a finger go flying through the air, but I don’t know for sure if it was your finger.”

Munir froze with the receiver jammed against his ear.

“Wha, what do you mean?”

“I mean, how do I know that was a real finger? How do I know it wasn’t one of those fake rubber things you buy in the five and dime?”

“It was real! I swear it! You saw how your man reacted!”

“He was just a wino, Mooo neeer. Scared of his own shadow. What’s he know?”

“Oh, please! You must believe me!”

“Well, I would, Mooo neeer. Really, I would. Except for the way you grabbed him afterward. Now it’s bad enough you went after him, but I’m willing to overlook that. I’m far more generous about forgiving mistakes than you are, Mooo neeer. But what bothers me is the way you grabbed him. You used both your hands the same.”

Munir felt his blood congealing, sludging though his arteries and veins.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I got trouble seeing a man who just chopped off one of his fingers doing that, Mooo neeer. I mean, you grabbed him like you had two good hands. And that bothers me, Mooo neeer. Sorely bothers me.”

“Please. I swear–”

“Swearing ain’t good enough, I’m afraid. Seeing is believing. And I believe I saw a man with two good hands out there this morning.”

“No. Really…”

“So I’m gonna have to send you another package, Mooo neeer.”

“Oh, no! Don’t–”

“Yep. A little memento from your wife.”

“Please, no.”

He told Munir what that memento would be, then he clicked off.

“No!”

Munir jammed his knuckles into his mouth and screamed into his fist.

“NOOOOO!”

15

Jack stood outside Richard Hollander’s door.

No sweat getting into the building. The address in the personnel file had led Jack to a rundown walk up in the West Eighties. He’d checked the mailboxes in the dingy vestibule and found R. Hollander still listed for 3B. A few quick strokes with the notched flexible plastic ruler Jack kept handy, and he was in.

He knocked – not quite pounding, but with enough urgency to bring even the most cautious resident to the peephole.

Three tries, no answer. Jack put his picks to work on the deadbolt. A Quickset. He was rusty. Took him almost a minute, and a minute was a long time when you were standing in an open hallway fiddling with someone’s lock – the closest a fully clothed man could come to feeling naked in public.

Finally the bolt snapped back. He drew his 9mm backup and entered in a crouch.

Quiet. Didn’t take long to check out the one bedroom apartment. Empty. He turned on the lights and did a thorough search.

Neat. The bed was made, the furniture dusted, clothes folded in the bureau drawers, no dirty dishes in the sink. Hollander either had a maid or he was a neatnik. People who could afford maids didn’t live in this building; that made him a neatnik. Not what Jack had expected from a guy who got fired because he couldn’t get the job done.

He checked the bookshelves. A few novels and short story collections – literary stuff, mostly – salted in among the business texts. And in the far right corner, three books on Islam with titles like Understanding Islam and An Introduction To Islam.

Not an indictment by itself. Hollander might have bought them for reference when he’d been hired by Saudi Petrol.

And he might have bought them after he was fired.

Jack was willing to bet on the latter. He had a gut feeling about this guy.

On the desk was a picture of a thin, pale, blond man with an older woman. Hollander and his mother maybe?

He went through the drawers and found a black ledger, a checkbook, and a pile of bills. Looked like he’d been dipping into his savings. He’d been paying only the minimum on his Master Card. A lot of late payment notices, and a couple of bad news letters from employment agencies. Luck wasn’t running his way, and maybe Mr. Richard Hollander was looking for someone to blame.

Folded between the back cover and the last page of the ledger was a receipt from the Brickell Real Estate Agency for a cash security deposit and first month’s rental on Loft #629. Dated last month. Made out to Sean McCabe.

Loft #629. Where the hell was that? And why did Richard Hollander have someone else’s cash receipt? Unless it wasn’t someone else’s. Had he rented loft #629 under a phony name? That would explain using cash. But why would a guy who was almost broke rent a loft?

Unless he was looking for a place to do something too risky to do in his own apartment.

Like holding hostages.

Jack copied down the Brickell agency’s phone number. He might need that later. Then he called Munir.

Hysteria on the phone. Sobbing, moaning, the guy was almost incoherent.

“Calm down, dammit! What exactly did he tell you?”

“He’s going to cut her… he’s going to cut her… he’s going to cut her…”

He sounded like a stuck record player. If Munir had been within reach Jack would have whacked him alongside the head to unstick him.

“Cut her what?”

“Cut her nipple off!”

“Oh, Jeez! Stay right there. I’ll call you right back.”

Jack retrieved the receipt for the loft and dialed the number of the realtor. As the phone began to ring, he realized he hadn’t figured out an angle to pry out the address. They wouldn’t give it to just anybody. But maybe a cop…

He hoped he was right as a pleasant female voice answered on the third ring. “Brickell Agency.”

Jack put a harsh, Brooklynese edge on his voice.

“Yeah. This is Lieutenant Adams of the Twelfth Precinct. Who’s in charge there?”

“I am.” Her voice had cooled. “Esther Brickell. This is my agency.”

“Good. Here’s the story. We’ve got a suspect in a mutilation murder but we don’t know his whereabouts. However, we did find a cash receipt among his effects. Your name was on it.”

“The Brickell Agency?”

“Big as life. Down payment of some sort on loft number six two nine. Sound familiar?”

“Not offhand. We’re computerized. We access all our rental accounts by number.”

“Fine. Then it’ll only take you a coupla seconds to get me the address of this place.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I have a strict policy of never giving out information about my clients. Especially over the phone. All my dealings with them are strictly confidential. I’m sure you can understand.”

Swell, Jack thought. She thinks she’s a priest or a reporter.

“What I understand,” he said, “is that I’ve got a crazy perp out there and you think you’ve got privileged information. Well, listen, sweetie, the First Amendment don’t include realtors. I need the address of your six two nine loft rented to” – he glanced at the name on the receipt – “Sean McCabe. Not later. Now. Capsice?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I can’t do that. Good day, lieutenant – if indeed you are a lieutenant.”

Shit! But Jack wasn’t giving up. He had to get this address.

“Oh, I’m a lieutenant, all right. And believe me, sweetie, you don’t come across with that address here and now, you’ve got trouble. You make me waste my time tracking down a judge to swear out a search warrant, make me come out to your dinky little office to get this one crummy address, I’m gonna do it up big. I’m gonna bring uniforms and blue and white units and we’re gonna do a thorough search. And I do mean a thorough. We’ll be there all day. And we’ll go through all your files. And while we’re at it you can explain to any prospective clients who walk in exactly what we’re doing and why – and hope they’ll believe you. And if we can’t find what we want in your computer we’ll confiscate it. And keep it for a while. And maybe you’ll get it back next Christmas. Maybe.”

“Just a minute,” she said.

Jack waited, hoping she hadn’t gone to another phone to call her lawyer and check on his empty threats, or call the Twelfth to check on a particularly obnoxious lieutenant named Adams.

“It’s on White Street,” she said suddenly in cold, clipped tones. “Eighteen twenty two. Two D.”

“Thank–”

She hung up on him. Fine. He had what he needed.

White Street. That was in TriBeCa – the trendy triangle below Canal Street. Lots of lofts down there. Straight down Lafayette from where he and Munir had played the mailbox game. He’d been on top of the guy an hour ago.

He punched in Munir’s number.

“Eighteen twenty two White,” he said without preamble. “Get down there now.”

No time for explanations. He hung up and ran for the door.

16

The building looked like a deserted factory. Probably was. Four stories with no windows on the first floor. Maybe an old sweat shop. A “NOW RENTING” sign next to the front door. The place looked empty. Had the Brickell lady stiffed him with the wrong address?

With his trusty plastic ruler ready in his gloved hand, Jack hopped out of the cab and ran for the door. It was steel, a leftover from the building’s factory days. An anti-jimmy plate had been welded over the latch area. Jack pocketed the plastic and inspected the lock: a heavy duty Schlage. A tough pick on a good day. Here on the sidewalk, with the clock ticking, in full view of the cars passing on the street, a very tough pick.

He ran along the front of the building and took the alley around to the back. Another door there, this one with a big red alarm warning posted front and center.

Two-D… that meant the second floor had been subdivided into at least four mini lofts. If Hollander was here at all, he’d be renting the cheapest. Usually the lower letters meant up front with a view of the street; further down the alphabet you got relegated to the rear with an alley view.

Jack stepped back and looked up. The second floor windows to his left were bare and empty. The ones on the right were completely draped with what looked like bedsheets.

And running right smack past the middle of those windows was a downspout. Jack tested the pipe. This wasn’t some flimsy aluminum tube that collapsed like a beer can; this was good old fashioned galvanized pipe. He pulled on the fittings. They wiggled in their sockets.

Not good, but he’d have to risk it.

He began to climb, shimmying up the pipe, vising it with his knees and elbows as he sought toeholds and fingerholds on the fittings. It shuddered, it groaned, and half way up it settled a couple of inches with a jolt, but it held. Moments later he was perched outside the shrouded second floor windows.

Now what?

Sometimes the direct approach was the best. He knocked on the nearest pane. It was two foot high, three foot wide, and filthy. After a few seconds, he knocked again.

Finally a corner of one of the sheets lifted hesitantly and a man stared out at him. Blond hair, wide blue eyes, pale face in need of a shave. The eyes got wider and the face faded a few shades paler when he saw Jack. He didn’t look exactly like the guy in the photo in Hollander’s apartment, but he could be. Easily.

Jack smiled and gave him a friendly wave. He raised his voice to be heard through the glass.

“Good morning. I’d like to have a word with Mrs. Habib, if you don’t mind.”

The corner of the sheet dropped and the guy disappeared. Which confirmed that he’d found Richard Hollander. Anybody else would have asked him what the hell he was doing out there and who the hell was Mrs. Habib?

So now Jack had to move quickly. If he had Hollander pegged right, he’d be tripping full tilt down the stairs for the street. Which was fine with Jack. But there was a small chance he’d take a second or two to do something gruesome or even fatal to the woman and the boy before he fled. Jack didn’t anticipate any physical resistance – a gutless creep who struck at another man through his wife and child was hardly the type for mano a mano confrontation.

Bracing his hands on the pipe, Jack planted one foot on the three inch window sill and aimed a kick at the bottom pane.

Suddenly the glass three panes above it exploded outward as a rusty steel L bar smashed through, narrowly missing Jack’s face and showering him with glass.

On the other hand, he thought, even the lowliest rat had been known to fight when cornered.

Jack swung back onto the pipe and around to the windows on the other side. The bar retreated through the holes it had punched in the sheet and the window. As Jack shifted his weight to the opposite sill, he realized that from inside he was silhouetted on the sheet. Too late. The bar came crashing through the pane level with Jack’s groin, catching him in the leg. He grunted with pain as the corner of the bar tore through his jeans and gouged the flesh across the front of his thigh. In a sudden burst of rage, he grabbed the bar and pulled.

The sheet came down and draped over Hollander. He fought it off with panicky swipes, letting go of the bar in the process. Jack pulled it the rest of the way through the window and dropped it into the alley below. Then he kicked the remaining glass out of the pane and swung inside.

Hollander was dashing for the door, something in his right hand.

Jack started after him, his mind registering strobe flash images as he moved: a big empty space, a card table, two chairs, three mattresses on the floor, the first empty, a boy tied to the second, a naked woman tied to the third, blood on her right breast.

Jack picked up speed and caught him as he reached the door. He ducked as Hollander spun and swung a meat cleaver at his head. Jack grabbed his wrist with his left hand and smashed his right fist into the pale face. The cleaver fell from his fingers as he dropped to his knees.

“I give up,” Hollander said, coughing and spitting blood. “It’s over.”

“No,” Jack said, hauling him to his feet. The darkness was welling up in him now, whispering, taking control. “It’s not.”

The wide blue eyes darted about in confusion. “What? Not what?”

“Over.”

Jack drove a left into his gut, then caught him with an uppercut as he doubled over, slamming him back against the door.

Hollander retched and groaned as he sank to the floor again.

“You can’t do this,” he moaned. “I’ve surrendered.”

“And you think that does it? You’ve played dirty for days and now that things aren’t going your way anymore, that’s it? Finsies? Uncle? Tilt? Game over? I don’t think so. I don’t think so.”

“No. You’ve got to read me my rights and take me in.”

“Oh, I get it,” Jack said. “You think I’m a cop.”

Hollander looked up at him in dazed confusion. He pursed his lips, beginning a question that died before it was asked.

“I’m not.” Jack grinned. “Mooo neeer sent me.”

He waited a few heartbeats as Hollander glanced over to where Munir’s naked wife and mutilated child were trussed up, watched the sick horror grow in his eyes. When it filled them, when Jack was sure he had tasting a crumb of what he’d been putting Munir through for days, he rammed the heel of his hand against the creep’s nose, slamming the back of his head against the door. He wanted to do it again, and again, keep on doing it until the gutless wonder’s skull was bone confetti, but he fought the urge, pulled back as Hollander’s eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed the rest of the way to the floor.

He went first to the woman. She looked up at him with terrified eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Munir’s on his way. It’s all over.”

She closed her eyes and began to sob through her gag.

As Jack fumbled with the knots on her wrists, he checked out the fresh blood on her left breast. The nipple was still there. An inch long cut ran along its outer margin. A bloody straight razor lay on the mattress beside her.

If he’d tapped on that window a few minutes later…

As soon as her hands were free she sat up and tore the gag from her mouth. She looked at him with tear flooded eyes but seemed unable to speak. Sobbing, she went to work on her ankle bonds. Jack stepped over to where the fallen sheet lay crumpled on the floor and draped it over her.

“That man, that… beast,” she said. “He told us Munir didn’t care about us, that he wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t do anything he was told.”

Jack glanced over at Hollander’s unconscious form. Was there no limit?

“He lied to you. Munir’s been going crazy doing everything the guy told him.”

“Did he really cut off his…?”

“No. But he would have if I hadn’t stopped him.”

“Who are you?”

“Nobody.”

He went to the boy. The kid’s eyes were bleary. He looked flushed and his skin was hot. Fever. A wad of bloody gauze encased his left hand. Jack pulled the gag from his mouth.

“Where’s my dad?” he said hoarsely. Not Who are you? or What’s going on? Just worried about his dad. Jack wished for a son like that someday.

“On his way.”

He began untying the boy’s wrists. Soon he had help from Barbara. A moment later, mother and son were crying in each other’s arms. He found their clothing and handed it to them.

While they were dressing, Jack dragged Hollander over to Barbara’s mattress and stuffed her gag in his mouth. As he finished tying him down with her ropes, he heard someone pounding on the downstairs door. He ushered the woman and the boy out to the landing, then went down and found Munir frantic on the sidewalk.

“Where–?”

“Upstairs,” Jack said.

“Are they–?”

Jack nodded.

He stepped aside to allow Munir past, then waited outside awhile to give them all a chance to be alone together. Five minutes, then he limped back upstairs. It wasn’t over yet. The kid was sick, needed medical attention. But there wasn’t an ER in the city that wouldn’t be phoning in a child abuse complaint as soon as they saw Robby’s left hand. And that would start officialdom down a road that might lead them to Jack.

But Jack knew a doc who wouldn’t call anyone. Couldn’t. His license had been on permanent suspension for years.

17

Jack was sitting and waiting with Barbara and Munir. Doc Hargus had stitched up Barbara’s breast first because it was a fresh wound and fairly easy to repair. Robby, he’d said, was going to be another story.

“I still cannot understand it,” Munir said for what seemed like the hundredth time but was probably only the twentieth. “Richard Hollander… how could he do this to me? To anybody? I never hurt him.”

“You fired him,” Jack said. “He’s probably been loony tunes for years, on the verge of a breakdown, walking the line. Losing his job just pushed him over the edge.”

“But people lose their jobs every day. They don’t kidnap and torture–”

“He was ready to blow. You just happened to be the unlucky one. It was his first job. He had to blame somebody – anybody but himself – and get even for it. He chose you. Don’t look for logic. The guy’s crazy.”

“But the depth of his cruelty…”

“Maybe you could have been gentler with him when you fired him,” Barbara said. The words sent a chill through Jack, bringing back Munir’s plea from his first telephone call last night.

Please save my family!

Jack wondered if that was possible, if anyone could save Munir’s family now. It had begun to unravel as soon as Barbara and Robby were kidnapped. It still had been salvageable then, up to the point when the cleaver had cut through Robby’s finger. That was probably the deathblow. Even if nothing worse had happened from there on in, that missing finger would be a permanent reminder of the nightmare, and somehow it would be Munir’s fault.

If he’d already gone to the police, it would be because of that; since he hadn’t, it would be his fault for not going to the police. Munir would always blame himself; deep in her heart Barbara also would blame him. And later on, maybe years from now, Robby would blame him too.

Because there’d always be one too few fingers on Robby’s left hand, always be that scar along the margin of Barbara’s nipple, always the vagrant thought, sneaking through the night, that Munir hadn’t done all he could, that if he’d only been a little more cooperative, Robby still would have ten fingers.

Sure, they were together now, and they’d been hugging and crying and kissing, but later on Barbara would start asking questions: Couldn’t you have done more? Why didn’t you cut your finger off when he told you to?

Even now, Barbara was suggesting that Munir could have been gentler when he’d fired Hollander. The natural progression from that was to: Maybe if you had, none of this would have happened.

The individual members might still be alive, but Munir’s family was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.

And that saddened Jack. It mean that Hollander had won.

Doc Hargus shuffled out of the back room. He had an aggressively wrinkled face and a Wilford Brimley mustache.

“He’s sleeping,” Doc said. “Probably sleep through the night.”

“But his hand,” Barbara said. “You couldn’t–?”

“No way that finger could be reattached, not even at the Mayo Clinic. Not after spending a night in a Federal Express envelope. I sewed up the stump good and tight. You may want to get a more cosmetic repair in a few years, but it’ll do for now. He’s loaded up with antibiotics and painkillers at the moment.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Munir said.

“And how about you?” Doc said to Barbara. “How’re you feeling?”

She cupped a hand over her breast. “Fine… I think.”

“Good. Your sutures can come out in five days. We’ll leave Robby’s in for about ten.”

“How can we ever repay you?” Munir said.

“In cash,” Doc said. “You’ll get my bill.”

As he shuffled back to where Robby was sleeping, Barbara pressed her head against her husband’s shoulder.

“Oh, Munir. I can’t believe it’s over.”

Jack watched them and knew he hadn’t completely earned his fee.

Save my family…

Not yet. Hollander hadn’t won yet.

“It’s not over,” Jack said.

They both turned to look at him.

“We’ve still got Richard Hollander tied up in that loft. What do we do with him?”

“I never want to see him again!” Barbara said.

“So we let him go?”

“No!” Munir spoke through his teeth. “I want him to hang! I want him to fry! He has to pay for what he did to Robby! To Barbara!”

“You really think he’ll pay if we turn him in? I mean, how much faith do you have in the courts?”

They looked at him. Their bleak stares told him they felt like everybody else: No faith. No faith at all.

“So your only other option is to go back there and deal with him yourself.”

Munir was nodding slowly, his mouth a tight line, his eyes angry slits. “Yes… I would like that.” He rose to his feet. “I will go back there. He has… things to answer for. I must be sure this will never happen again.”

Barbara was on her feet too, a feral glint in her eyes.

“I’m coming with you.”

“But Robby–”

“I’ll stay here,” Jack said. “He knows me now. If he wakes up, I’ll be here.”

They hesitated.

Save my family…

If the Habibs were going to make it they were going to have to face Hollander together and resolve all those as-yet-unasked questions by settling their scores with him. All their scores.

“Get going,” he said. “I never made it past Tenderfoot in the Boy Scouts. Who knows how long my knots will last?”

Jack watched them hurry out, hand in hand. Maybe this would fix their marriage, maybe it wouldn’t. All he knew for sure was that he was glad he wasn’t Richard Hollander tonight.

He got up and went looking for Doc Hargus. The doc was never without a stock of good beer in his fridge.

INTERLUDE AT DUANE’S

INTRODUCTION

In January 2005, David Morrell and I were instructors at the Borderlands “Bootcamp for Writers”. David had helped start the International Thriller Writers organization the previous year and induced me to join. ITW in turn induced me to donate a Repairman Jack story to their anthology (Thriller) to raise funds for the organization.

Thus was "Interlude at Duane’s" born. The Thriller table of contents is a Who’s Who of thriller writers. All contributors were limited to a 5K word count. I could have used more. Toward the end I was on fire, burning up the keyboard. I wish I could write with that speed and intensity all the time.

As you’ll see, this one was fun.

Thriller went on to become one of the best if not the bestselling anthology of all time. And I didn’t get a dime royalty. But I did gain a ton of new readers. Many of the zillion or so people who bought the anthology had never heard of Jack. Since then I regularly run into devoted Jack fans who say their first contact with the character was in Thriller. (I’ll bet a fair number of you are reading this collection because of that story.) Doing well while doing good…nothing wrong with that.

Ed Gorman chose it for his anthology The Deadly Bride and Other Great Mystery and Crime Stories of 2005.

INTERLUDE AT DUANE’S

“Lemme tell you, Jack,” Loretta said, blotting perspiration from her fudgcicle skin, “these changes gots me in a baaaad mood.

They’d just finished playing some real-life Frogger jaywalking 57th and were now chugging west.

“Real bad. My feets killin me too. Nobody better hassle me afore I’m home and on the outside of a big ol glass of Jimmy.”

Jack nodded, paying just enough attention to be polite. He was more interested in the passersby and was thinking how a day without your carry was like a day without clothes.

He felt naked. Had to leave his trusty Glock and backup home today because of his annual trip to the Empire State Building. He’d designated April 19th King Kong Day. Every year he made a pilgrimage to the observation deck to leave a little wreath in memory of the Big Guy. The major drawback to the outing was the metal detector everyone had to pass through before heading upstairs. That meant no heat.

He didn’t think he was being paranoid. Okay, maybe a little, but he’d pissed off his share of people in this city and didn’t care to run into them naked.

After the wreath-laying ceremony, he ran into Loretta and walked her back toward Hell’s Kitchen. Oh, wait. It was Clinton now.

They went back a dozen or so years to when both waited tables at a now-extinct trattoria on West Fourth. She’d been fresh up from Mississippi then, and he only a few years out of Jersey. Agewise, Loretta had a good decade on Jack, maybe more – might even be knocking on the door to fifty. Had a good hundred pounds on him too.

Her Rubenesque days were just a fond, slim memory, but she was solid – no jiggle. She’d dyed her Chia Pet hair orange and sheathed herself in some shapeless, green-and-yellow thing that made her look like a brown manatee in a muumuu.

She stopped and stared at a black cocktail dress in a boutique window.

“Ain’t that pretty. Course I’ll have to wait till I’m cremated afore I fits into it.”

They continued to Seventh Avenue. As they stopped on the corner and waited for the walking green, two Asian women came up to her.

The taller one said, “You know where Saks Fifth Avenue?”

Loretta scowled. “On Fifth Avenue, fool.” Then she took a breath and jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “That way.”

Jack looked at her. “You weren’t kidding about the bad mood.”

“You ever know me to kid, Jack?” She glanced around. “Sweet Jesus, I need me some comfort food. Like some chocolate-peanut-butter-swirl ice cream.” She pointed to the Duane Reade on the opposite corner. “There.”

“That’s a drugstore.”

“Honey, you know better’n that. Duane’s got everything. Shoot, if mine had a butcher section I wouldn’t have to shop nowheres else. Come on.”

Before he could opt out, she grabbed his arm and started hauling him across the street.

“I specially like their makeup. Some places just carry Cover Girl, y’know, which is fine if you a Wonder Bread blonde. Don’t know if you noticed, but white ain’t zackly a big color in these parts. Everybody darker. Cept you, a course. I know you don’t like attention, Jack, but if you had a smidge of coffee in your cream you’d be really invisible.”

Jack expended a lot of effort on being invisible. He’d inherited a good start with his average height, average build, average brown hair, and nondescript face. Today he’d accessorized with a Mets cap, flannel shirt, worn Levi’s, and battered work boots. Just another guy, maybe a construction worker, ambling along the streets of Zoo York.

Jack slowed as they approached the door.

“Think I’ll take a raincheck, Lo.”

She tightened her grip on his arm. “Hell you will. I need some company. I’ll even buy you a Dew. Caffeine still your drug of choice?”

“Guess…till it’s time for a beer.” He eased his arm free. “Okay, I’ll spring for five minutes, but after that, I’m gone. Things to do.”

“Five minutes ain’t nuthin, but okay.”

“You go ahead. I’ll be right with you.”

He slowed in her wake so he could check out the entrance. He spotted a camera just inside the door, trained on the comers and goers.

He tugged down the brim of his hat and lowered his head. He was catching up to Loretta when he heard a loud, heavily accented voice.

“Mira! Mira! Mira! Look at the fine ass on you!”

Jack hoped that wasn’t meant for him. He raised his head far enough to see a grinning, mustachioed Latino leaning against the wall next to the doorway. A maroon gym bag sat at his feet. He had glossy, slicked-back hair and prison tats on the backs of his hands.

Loretta stopped and stared at him. “You better not be talkin a me!”

His grin widened. “But señorita, in my country it is a privilege for a woman to be praised by someone like me.”

“And just where is this country of yours?”

“Ecuador.”

“Well, you in New York now, honey, and I’m a bitch from the Bronx. Talk to me like that again and I’m gonna Bruce Lee yo ass.”

“But I know you would like to sit on my face.”

“Why? Yo nose bigger’n yo dick?”

This cracked up a couple of teenage girls leaving the store. Mr. Ecuador’s face darkened. He didn’t seem to appreciate the joke.

Head down, Jack crowded close behind Loretta as she entered the store.

She said, “Told you I was in a bad mood.”

“That you did, that you did. Five minutes, Loretta, okay?”

“I hear you.”

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Mr. Ecuador pick up his gym bag and follow them inside.

Jack paused as Loretta veered off toward one of the cosmetic aisles. He watched to see if Ecuador was going to hassle her, but he kept on going, heading toward the rear.

Duane Reade drugstores are a staple of New York life. The city has hundreds of them. Only the hoity-toitiest Upper East Siders hadn’t visited one. Their most consistent feature was their lack of consistency. No two were the same size or laid out alike. Okay, they all kept the cosmetics near the front, but after that it became anyone’s guess where something might be hiding. Jack could see the method to that madness: The more time people had to spend looking for what they had come for, the greater their chances of picking up things they hadn’t.

This one seemed fairly empty and Jack assigned himself the task of finding the ice cream to speed their departure. He set off through the aisles and quickly became disoriented. The overall space was L-shaped, but instead of running in parallel paths to the rear, the aisles zigged and zagged. Whoever laid out this place was either a devotee of chaos theory or a crop circle designer.

He was wandering among the six-foot-high shelves and passing the hemorrhoid treatments when he heard a harsh voice behind him.

“Keep movin, yo. Alla way to the back.”

Jack looked and saw a big, steroidal black guy in a red tank top. The overhead fluorescents gleamed off his shaven scalp. He had a fat scar running through his left eyebrow, glassy eyes, and held a snub-nose .38 caliber revolver – the classic Saturday night special.

Jack kept his cool and held his ground. “What’s up?”

The guy raised the gun, holding it sideways like in movies, the way no one who knew squat about pistols would be caught dead holding one.

“Ay yo, get yo ass in gear fore I bust one in yo face.”

Jack waited a couple more seconds to see if the guy would move closer and put the pistol within reach. But he didn’t.

Not good. On the way to the rear, the big question was whether this was personal or not. When he saw the gaggle of frightened-looking people – the white-coated ones obviously pharmacists – kneeling before the rear counter with their hands behind their necks, he figured it wasn’t.

A relief… sort of.

He spotted Mr. Ecuador standing over them with a gleaming nickel-plated .357 revolver.

Robbery.

The black guy pushed him from behind.

“Assume the position, asshole.”

Jack spotted two cameras trained on the pharmacy area. He knelt at the end of the line, intertwined his fingers behind his neck, and kept his eyes on the floor.

Okay, just keep your head down to stay off the cameras and off these bozos’ radar, and you’ll walk away with the rest of them.

He glanced up when he heard a commotion to his left. A scrawny little Sammy Davis-size Rasta man with his hair packed into a red, yellow, and green striped knit cap appeared. He was packing a sawed-off pump-action twelve and driving another half dozen people before him. A frightened-looking Loretta was among them.

And then a fourth – Christ, how many were there? This one had dirty, sloppy, light-brown dreads, piercings up the wazoo, and was humping the whole hip-hop catalog: peak-askew trucker cap, wide, baggy, ass-crack-riding jeans, huge New York Giants jersey.

He pointed another special as he propelled a dark-skinned, middle-age Indian or Pakistani by the neck.

Both the Rasta and the new guy had glazed eyes. Stoned. Maybe it would make them mellow.

What a crew. Probably met in Rikers. Or maybe the Tombs.

“Got Mister Maaaanagerrrr,” the white guy singsonged.

Ecuador looked at him. “You lock the front door?”

Whitey jangled a crowded key chain and tossed it on the counter.

“Yep. All locked in safe and sound.”

“Bueno. Get back up there and watch in case we miss somebody. Don’t wan nobody gettin out.”

“Yeah, in a minute. Somethin I gotta do first.”

He shoved the manager forward, then slipped behind the counter and disappeared into the pharmacy area.

“Wilkins! I tol you get up front!”

Wilkins reappeared carrying three large plastic stock bottles. He plopped them down on the counter. Jack spotted “Percocet” and “Oxy-Contin” on the labels.

“These babies are mine. Don’t nobody touch em.”

Ecuador spoke through his teeth. “Up front!”

“Dude, I’m gone” Wilkins said and headed away.

Scarbrow grabbed the manager by the jacket and shook him

“The combination, mofo – give it up.”

Jack noticed the guy’s name tag: J. Patel. His dark skin went a couple of shades lighter. The poor guy looked ready to faint.

“I do not know it!”

Rasta man raised his shotgun and pressed the muzzle against Patel’s quaking throat.

“You tell de mon what he want to know. You tell him now!”

Jack saw a wet stain spreading from Patel’s crotch.

“The manager’s ou-out. I d-don’t know the combination.”

Ecuador stepped forward. “Then you not much use to us, eh?”

Patel sagged to his knees and held up his hands. “Please! I have a wife, children!”

“You wan see them again, you tell me. I know you got armored car pickup every Tuesday. I been watchin. Today is Tuesday, so give.”

“But I do not–!”

Ecuador slammed his pistol barrel against the side of Patel’s head, knocking him down.

“You want die to save you boss’s money? You want see what happen when you get shot inna head? Here. I show you.” He turned and looked at his prisoners. “Where that big bitch with the big mouth?” He smiled as he spotted Loretta. “There you are.”

Shit.

Ecuador grabbed her by the front of her dress and pulled, making her knee-walk out from the rest. When she’d moved half a dozen feet he released her.

“Turn roun, bitch.”

Without getting off her knees, she swiveled to face her fellow captives. Her lower lip quivered with terror. She made eye contact with Jack, silently pleading for him to do something, anything, please!

Couldn’t let this happen.

His mind raced through scenarios, moves he might make to save her, but none of them worked.

As Ecuador raised the .357 and pointed it at the back of Loretta’s head, Jack remembered the security cameras.

He raised his voice. “You really want to do that on TV?”

Ecuador swung the pistol toward Jack.

“What the fuck?”

Without looking around, Jack pointed toward the pharmacy security cameras.

“You’re on Candid Camera.”

“The fuck you care?”

Jack put on a sheepish grin. “Nothing. Just thought I’d share. Done some boosting in my day and caught a jolt in Riker’s for not noticing one of them things. Now I notice – believe me, I notice.”

Ecuador looked up at the cameras and said, “Fuck.”

He turned to Rasta man and pointed. Rasta smiled, revealing a row of gold-framed teeth, and raised his shotgun.

Jack started moving with the first booming report, when all eyes were on the exploding camera. With the second boom he reached cover and streaked down an aisle.

Behind him he heard Ecuador shout, “Ay! The fuck he go? Wilkins! Somebody comin you way!”

The white guy’s voice called back, “I’m ready, dog!”

Jack had hoped to surprise Wilkins and grab his pistol, but that wasn’t going to happen now. Christ! On any other day he’d have a couple dozen 9mm hollowpoints loaded and ready.

He’d have to improvise.

As he zigged and zagged along the aisles, he sent out a silent thank-you to the maniac who’d laid out these shelves. If they’d run straight, front to back, he wouldn’t last a minute. He felt like a mouse hunting for cheese, but this weird, maze-like configuration gave him a chance.

He hurried along, looking for something, anything to use against them. Didn’t even have his knife, damn it.

Batteries… notebooks… markers… pens… gum… greeting cards…

No help.

He saw a comb with a pointed handle and grabbed it. Without stopping, he ripped it from its package and stuck it in his back pocket.

He heard Ecuador yelling about how he was going this way and Jamal should go that way, and Demont should stay with the people.

Band-Aids… ice cream… curling iron – could he use that? Nah

Hair color… humidifiers… Cheetos… beef jerky –

Come on!

He turned a corner and came to a summer cookout section. Chairs – no help. Umbrella – no help. Heavy-duty spatula – grabbed it and hefted it. Nice weight, stainless steel blade, serrated on one edge. Might be able to do a little damage with this. Spotted a grouping of butane matches. Grabbed one. Never hurt to have fire.

Fire… he looked up and saw the sprinkler system. Every store in New York had to have one. A fire would set off the sprinklers, sending an alert to the NYFD.

Do it.

He grabbed a can of lighter fluid and began spraying the shelves. When he’d emptied half of it and the fluid was puddling on the floor, he reached for the butane match –

A shot. A whizzz! past his head. A quick glance down the aisle to where Scarbrow – who had to be the Jamal Ecuador had called to – stood ten yards away, leveling his .38 for another go.

“Ay yo I found him! Over here!

Jack ducked and ran around a corner as the second bullet sailed past, way wide. Typical of this sort of oxygen waster, he couldn’t shoot. Junk guns like his were good for close-up damage and little else.

With footsteps behind him, Jack paused at the shelf’s endcap and took a quick peek at the neighboring aisle. No one in sight. He dashed across to the next aisle and found himself facing a wall. Ten feet down to his right – a door.

EMPLOYEES ONLY

He pulled it open and stuck his head inside. Empty except for a table and some sandwich wrappers. And no goddamn exit.

Feet pounded his way from behind to the left. He slammed the door hard and ran right. He stopped at the first endcap and dared a peek.

Jamal rounded the bend and slid to a halt before the door, a big grin on his face.

“Gotcha now, asshole.”

In a crouch, gun ready, he yanked open the door. After a few heartbeats he stepped into the room.

Here was Jack’s chance. He squeezed his wrist through the leather thong in the barbecue spatula’s handle, raised it into a two-handed kendo grip, serrated edge forward.

Then he moved, gliding in behind Jamal and swinging at his head. Maybe the guy heard something, maybe he saw a shadow, maybe he had a sixth sense. Whatever the reason, he ducked to the side and the chop landed wide. Jamal howled as the edge bit into his meaty shoulder. Jack raised the spatula for a backhand strike, but the big guy proved more agile than he looked. He rolled and raised his pistol.

Jack swung the spatula at it, made contact, but the blade bounced off without knocking the gun free.

Time to go.

He was in motion before Jamal could aim. The first shot splintered the doorframe a couple of inches to the left of his head as he dove for the opening. He hit the floor and rolled as the second went high.

Four shots. That left two – unless Jamal had brought extras. Jack couldn’t imagine a guy like Jamal thinking that far ahead.

On his way toward the rear, switching aisles at every opportunity, he heard Ecuador shouting from the far side of the store.

“Jamal! You get him? You get him?”

“No. Fucker almost got me! I catch him I’m gonna skin him alive.”

“Ain’t got time for that! Truck be here soon! Gotta get inna the safe! Wilkins! Get back here and start lookin!”

“Who’s gonna watch the front, dog?”

“Fuck the front! We’re locked in, ain’t we?

“Yeah, but–”

“Find him!”

“A’ight. Guess I’ll have to show you boys how it’s done.”

Jack now had a pretty good idea where Ecuador and Jamal were – too near the barbecue section to risk going back. So he moved ahead. Toward Wilkins. He sensed that if this chain had a weak link, Wilkins was it.

Along the way he scanned the shelves. He still had the spatula, the comb, and the butane match but needed something flammable.

Antibiotic ointments… laxatives… marshmallows…

Shit.

He zigged and zagged until he found the hair-care aisle. Possibilities here. Needed a spray can.

What the–?

Every goddamn bottle was pump action. He wanted fluorocarbons. Where were fluorocarbons when you needed them?

He ran down to the deodorant section. Everything here was either a roll-on or a smear-on. Whatever happened to Right Guard?

He spotted a green can on a bottom shelf, half hidden behind a Mitchum’s floor display. Brut. He grabbed it and scanned the label.

DANGER: Contents under pressure… flammable…

Yes!

Then he heard Wilkins singsonging along the neighboring aisle, high as the space station.

“Hello, Mister Silly Man. Where aaaare youuu? Jimmy’s got a present for you.” He giggled. “No, wait. Jimmy’s got six – count em – six presents for you. Come and get em.”

High as the space station.

Jack decided to take him up on his offer.

He removed the Brut cap as he edged to the end of the aisle and flattened against the shelf section separating him from Wilkins. He raised the can and held the tip of the match next it. The instant Wilkins’s face came into view, Jack reached forward, pressing the nozzle and triggering the match. A ten–inch jet of flame engulfed Wilkins’s eyes and nose.

He howled and dropped the gun, lurched away, kicking and screaming. His dreads had caught fire.

Jack followed him. He used the spatula to knock off the can’s nozzle. Deodorant sprayed a couple of feet into the air. He shoved the can down the back of Wilkins’s oversized jeans and struck the match. His seat exploded in flame. Jack grabbed the pistol and trotted into an aisle. Screams followed him toward the back.

One down, three to go.

He checked the pistol as he moved. An old .38 revolver with most of its bluing rubbed off. He opened the cylinder. Six hardball rounds. A piece of crap, but at least it was his piece of crap.

The odds had just become a little better.

A couple of pairs of feet started pounding toward the front. As he’d hoped, the screams were drawing a crowd.

He heard cries of “Oh, shit” and “Oh, fuck!” and “What he do to you, bro?”

Wilkins wailed in a glass-breaking pitch. “Pepe! Help me, man! I’m dyin!”

Pepe… now Ecuador had a name.

“Si,” Pepe said. “You are.”

Wilkins screamed, “No!”

A booming gunshot – had to come from the .357.

“Fuck!” Jamal cried. “I don’t believe you did that!”

A voice called from the back. “What goin on dere, mon? What hoppening?”

“‘S’okay, Demont!” Pepe called back. “Jus stay where you are!” Then, in a lower voice to Jamal: “Wilkins jus slow us down. Now find that fuck fore he find a phone!”

Jack looked back and saw a plume of white smoke rising toward the ceiling. He waited for the alarm, the sprinklers.

Nothing.

What did he have to do – set a bonfire?

He slowed as he came upon the employee lounge again. Nah. That wasn’t going to work twice. He kept going. He was passing the ice cream freezer when something boomed to his right and a glass door shattered to his left. Ice cream sandwiches and cones flew, gallons rolled.

Jack spotted Demont three aisles away, saw him pumping another shell into the chamber of his shotgun. He ducked back as the top of the nearest shelf exploded in a cloud of shredded tampons.

“Back here, mon! Back here!”

Jack hung at the opposite endcap until he heard Demont’s feet crunch on broken glass in the aisle he’d just left. He eased down the neighboring lane, listening, stopping at the feminine hygiene area as he waited for Demont to come even.

As he raised his pistol and held it two inches from the flimsy metal of the shelving unit’s rear wall, he noticed a “personal” douche bag box sitting at eye level. Personal? Was there a community model?

When he heard Demont arrive opposite him, he fired two shots. He wanted to fire four but the crappy pistol jammed. On the far side Demont grunted. His shotgun went off, punching a hole in the dropped ceiling.

Jack tossed the pistol. Demont would be down but not out. Needed something else. Douche bags had hoses didn’t they? He opened the box. Yep – red and ribbed. He pulled it out

Footsteps pounded his way from the far side of the store as he peeked around and spotted Demont clutching his right shoulder. He’d dropped the shotgun but was making for it again.

Jack ran up and kicked it away, then looped the douche hose twice around his scrawny neck and dragged him back to the ruined ice cream door. He strung the hose over the top of the metal frame and pulled Demont off his feet. As the little man kicked and gagged, Jack slammed the door, trapping the hose. He tied two quick knots to make sure it didn’t slip, then dove through the empty frame for the shotgun. He pumped out the spent shell, chambered a new one, and pulled the trigger just as Jamal and Pepe rounded the corner.

Pepe caught a few pellets, but Jamal, leading the charge, took the brunt of the blast. His shirtfront dissolved as the double-ought did a pulled-pork thing on his overdeveloped pecs. Pepe was gone by the time Jack chambered another shell. Looked back: Demont’s face had gone pruney, his kicks feeble. Ahead: Jamal lay spread eagled, staring at the ceiling with unblinking eyes.

Now what? Go after Pepe or start that fire?

Fire. Start a big one. Get those red trucks rolling.

But which way to the barbecue section? He remembered it being somewhere near the middle.

Three aisles later he found it – and Pepe too, who was looking back over his shoulder as he passed it. Jack raised the shotgun and fired, but Pepe went down just before the double ought arrived. Not on purpose. He’d slipped in the spilled lighter fluid.

The shot went over his head and hit the barbecue supplies. Bags of briquettes and tins of lighter fluid exploded. Punctured cans of Raid whirly-gigged in all directions, fogging the air with bug killer.

Pepe slipped and slid as he tried to regain his feet – would have been funny if he hadn’t been holding a .357. Jack pumped again, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

Clink.

The hammer fell on an empty chamber.

Pepe was on his knees. He smiled as he raised his pistol. Jack ducked back and dove for the floor as one bullet after another slammed through the shelving of the cough and cold products, smashing bottles, drenching him with Robitussin and Nyquil and who knew what else.

Counted six shots. Didn’t know if Pepe had a speed loader and didn’t want to find out. Yanked the butane match from his back pocket and lit her up. Jammed a Sucrets pack into the trigger guard, locking the flame on, then tossed it over the shelf. He heard no whoomp! like gasoline going up, but he did hear Pepe cry out in alarm. The cry turned to screams of pain and terror as the spewing Raid cans caught.

Jack crept back and peeked around the corner.

Pepe was aflame. He had his arms over his eyes, covering them against the flying, flaming pinwheels of Raid as he rolled in the burning puddle, making matters worse. Black smoke roiled toward the ceiling.

And then it happened. Clanging bells and a deluge of cold water.

Yes.

Jack saw the .357 on the floor. He sprinted by, kicking it ahead of him as he raced through the downpour to the pharmacy section. After dancing through an obstacle course of popsicles and gallons of ice cream, he found Loretta and the others cowering behind the counter. He picked up the key ring and tossed it to Patel.

“Out! Get everybody out!”

As the stampede began, he heard Loretta yelling.

“Hey, y’all! This man just saved our lives. You wanna pay him back, you say you never seen him. He don’t exist. You say these gangstas got inna fight and killed each other. Y’hear me? Y’hear?”

She blew Jack a kiss and joined the exodus. Jack was about to follow when a bullet smashed a bottle of mouthwash near his head. He ducked back as a second shot narrowly missed. He dove behind the pharmacy counter and peeked over the top.

A scorched, steaming, sodden Pepe shuffled Jack’s way through the rain with a small semi-auto clutched in his outstretched hand. Jack hadn’t counted on him having a backup. Hell, he hadn’t counted on him doing anything but burn. The sprinkler system had saved him.

Pepe said nothing as he approached. Didn’t have to. He had murder in his eyes. And he had Jack cornered.

He fired again. He bullet hit the counter six inches to Jack’s right, showering him with splinters as he ducked.

Nowhere to hide. Had to find a way to run out Pepe’s magazine. How? A lot of those baby semis held ten shots.

Another peek. Pepe’s slow progress had brought him within six feet. Jack was about to duck again when he saw a flash of bright green and yellow.

Loretta.

Moving faster than Jack ever would have thought possible, she charged with a gallon container of ice cream held high over her head in a two-handed grip. Pepe might have heard her without the hiss and splatter of the sprinklers. But he remained oblivious until she streaked up behind him and smashed the container against the back of his head.

Jack saw his eyes bulge with shock and pain as he pitched toward the floor. Probably felt like he’d been hit with a cinder block. As he landed face first, Loretta stayed on him – really on him. She jumped, landing knees first on the middle of his back… like Gamera on Barugon. The air rushed out of him with an agonized groan as his ribs shattered like glass.

But Loretta wasn’t finished. Shouting, she started slamming the rock-hard container against his head and neck, matching the rhythm of her words to the blows.

“NOW you ain’t NEVER pointin NO gun to MY head EVER aGAIN!”

Jack moved up beside her and touched her arm.

“Hey, Lo? Lo! Loretta barada nikto.”

She looked up at him. “Huh?”

“I think he’s got the message.”

She looked back down at Pepe. His face was flattened against the floor, his head canted at an unnatural angle. He wasn’t breathing.

She nodded. “I do believe you right.”

Jack pulled her to her feet and pushed her toward the front.

“Go!”

But Loretta wasn’t finished. She turned and kicked Pepe in the ribs.

“Told you I was a bitch!”

“Loretta – come on!”

As they hustled toward the front she said, “We even, Jack?”

“Even Steven.”

“Did I happen to mention my bad mood?”

“Yes, you did, Loretta. But sometimes a bad mood can be a good thing.”

DO-GOODER

INTRODUCTION

This was originally printed as a broadside in an edition of 200 copies in 2006. Since it’s a one-sheet, I was limited to around 700 words.

It’s more of a vignette than a full story, but it’s here for the completists.

Flyboy707’s actual one-sheet

Signed, No. 163 (of 200)

DO-GOODER

Pure luck, that’s what it was. A minute earlier or ten seconds later and he woulda missed him. As it was, Perry reached the corner just as the guy opened his door and stepped inside. Yeah, it was dark, but no mistaking him.

He’d called himself Jack when he’d set Perry up, but who knew if that was his real name. Perry had had a sweet scam going on the old lady circuit, relieving old bitches of their excess cash. This Jack had come along and said he had some flush marks but wanted a cut for the info. Fair enough. But turned out the first one he delivered had an NYPD sergeant for a son. Perry’d been busted and busted up, but good. And Jack? Jack was gone like he’d never been.

Perry beat it back to his apartment for the sawed-off twelve he kept around for protection. When he returned to the block he peeked in the townhouse window and spotted the guy with a good-looking blonde and a kid. Thought about busting in but that was stupid. Be patient.

The block dead-ended at a little park hanging over the FDR. He hid in the shadows there, took the sawed-off from under his coat, and listened to the traffic below as he waited.

Sutton Square. Ritzy block. What was this guy, some rich do-gooder getting his jollies by screwing up things for working men like Perry? Well, his do-gooder days was over. When he came out Perry would get close, cut him in half with both barrels, and keep walking like nothing happened. And then –

“Hello, Perry.”

Perry jumped and started to spin at the sound of the soft voice so close behind but stopped when the muzzle of a pistol pressed against his cheek. He recognized the voice and his bladder clenched.

“Jesus, Jack. Hey, what’re you doing here?”

“That’s my question.” He took the shotgun from Perry’s hands.

“I’m hidin. Got on the wrong side of a shy and he’s got some boys lookin for me.”

“You’re watching that townhouse, Perry.”

“No, I–”

“I saw you peek in the window.”

Shit!

“No, I swear I was just–”

“Shhhhhh. You’ve got a sawed off. Isn’t that against parole?”

He’d just finished his jolt in the joint. Last thing he wanted was go back inside. But that would be the do-gooder thing to do: drop a dime on him.

“You ain’t gonna turn me in, are you?”

“No, Perry. Nothing like that.”

“Really?” Thank God. “Hey, Jack, that’s really–”

He started to turn again but the muzzle jabbed his cheek. Hard.

“The shotgun’s for me, isn’t it.”

That soft voice, so calm, so cold . . . giving him the creeps.

“No way. Look, you can take it.”

“Already have it. But seems we have a problem, Perry. You’ve got a hard-on for me and now you know where people I care about live. That can’t be.”

Can’t be? He didn’t like the sound of that. But wait . . .

He forced a laugh. “You tryin t’scare me, Jack?”

“Nope.”

“Yeah, y’are. But it won’t work. Y’know why? Because you see yourself as a do-gooder. Better’n me. Helpin old ladies. The Equalizer. Batman without no cape.”

“Wrong, Perry. The daughter of one of your marks hired me to get you.”

“Hired? Bullshit.” He steeled his guts and grinned as he rose to face him. “You’re a do-gooder and you ain’t gonna do nothin.”

Perry saw a blur of motion and then pain exploded on the left side of his head as Jack’s pistol smashed against his skull. His knees went Jell-O. A second blow left him face first in the dirt, the world tilting.

Then he felt himself lifted, carried toward the barrier overhanging the highway.

On, no! Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no!

“But . . .” His lips wouldn’t move right. “But you’re a do-gooder.”

“Wrong, Perry. I’m more into doing the right thing. And when I see myself and my two ladies threatened, the right thing to do is eliminate the threat.”

Perry felt himself hoisted atop the railing. When a break in the traffic came, Jack pushed him over.

All the way down his mind screamed that this couldn’t be happening. This self-styled, bullshit do-gooder had…

RECALLED

INTRODUCTION

In the summer of 2006, Christopher Conlon emailed me, wondering if I’d be interested in writing a story for a Richard Matheson tribute anthology. Of course I would, but only if I could do a sequel to one of my all-time favorite stories, “The Distributor.”

About “The Distributor”…it's rare that a story won't go away. Most are forgotten as soon as you turn the page; some linger for a while, then join their brethren in the void. But every so often you encounter one with a special, mysterious quality that encodes it into your synapses, making it a part of you. We all have our own set of special stories. “The Distributor” is one of mine.

But first, a little background. I was thirteen when I decided to write horror fiction. That was in 1959 – a banner year for me. I discovered Lovecraft in Donald A. Wolheim's The Macabre Reader, and then went out and bought everything good ol' H.P. had in print. When I exhausted him, I started in on the rest of the old masters: Bloch, Howard, Derleth, Long, Hodgson, Leiber, and whoever else I could find. The reading exacerbated a lifelong writing itch, one I'd started scratching in second grade. Now I began to believe I could write this stuff. Not at age thirteen, but later on. I could do it. I would do it. But for now, I'd keep reading.

Here's the point to all this me-focused stuff: All along I wanted to write horror fiction; all along I was convinced I could do it. No question about it: "Someday I'll do this."

Then I picked up a paperback called Shock by Richard Matheson. I'd read Matheson's work before, had been deeply touched by "Born of Man and Woman," and suitably impressed by many of his other stories. Here was a guy who delivered. And Shock was okay. Lots of interesting stories – sf, social commentary, suspense – but not much horror.

Then I came to the last story. "The Distributor" stopped me dead. All along I'd been telling myself, "I can do this."

Now I was muttering and mumbling, "No way I can do that."

I don't know how it is with other writers, but most of the time when I finish a story or novel, I may be pleased, I may even be impressed, but somewhere in the back of my mind I'm thinking, I could have done that.

Every so often, though, you come across a piece of fiction that blows you away, not just because you've been hanging onto every word, but because when you're done you have to admit, I couldn't have done that.

That's what makes certain stories special to me; those are the ones I admire most: the ones I lack the talent or insight or command of the language to write myself.

“The Distributor” was first published in Playboy in 1957 and look what's happened to the country since. "Mr. Gordon" (or whatever his real name is) and his fellow distributors have been busy, busy, busy.

Maybe it's a little dated. What used to be scandalous is now daily fodder for today's talk shows (more evidence of Mr. Gordon's handiwork?), but change maybe fifty words, substituting incest and pedophilia – not too many people anxious to wave those flags yet – for a couple of passé taboos, and the story is right up to date.

Why did I say I can't do that after reading "The Distributor"? Not because I couldn't sit down and imitate it – I couldn't have originated it.

Notice the utterly flat affect. "The Distributor" is an epiphany in that sense. All horror fiction I'd read until then pulsed with vibrant emotion – rage, hate, fear, lust for revenge. "The Distributor" has none of that. And that's what makes it so horrifying.

The story is a parade of simple declarative sentences (hell, he uses fewer adverbs than Elmore Leonard) with only an occasional off-the-wall adjective to let us know "Mr. Gordon" is well educated. We spend the entire story in Mr. Gordon's point of view but experience no emotion; we witness only the surfaces of events. This is one of the most effective uses of minimalist technique you will ever see.

Mr. Gordon doesn't hate the residents of Sylmar Street. Nothing personal here. They're just people and this is just another town along his distribution route. It's just a job, folks.

Just a job.

But who does he work for?

That's Matheson's final coup. If he'd revealed that Mr. Gordon worked for the CIA or the KGB, or even some invented secret organization or cult, "The Distributor" would have migrated to short story limbo long ago. But he didn't. Who is behind this? Where is their home office? What is their agenda? Why are they doing this?

I wanted to know in 1961.

I still want to know.

So as a tribute to Matheson and his story, I wrote “Recalled.” I took the same story as “The Distributor,” but flipped it on its head and made it my own.

Its simple presence here gives away the twist, but I think you’ll enjoy it anyway.

RECALLED

(a sequel to “The Distributor” by Richard A. Matheson)

Time to move.

Monday, April 26

Another town, another rental in another peaceful, unsuspecting neighborhood.

That was the easy part. As for the rest . . . it used to be so much simpler.

Listen to me, he thought. I sound like an old fart.

Well, he was an old fart. He’d been at this for decades, but instead of becoming routine, it had grown increasingly difficult. And he knew the problem wasn’t with him.

The world had changed.

Used to be reputations could be ruined with a mere hint of impropriety – adultery, drunkenness, wantonness, porn peeping. Now it was anything goes. Only incest and pedophilia seemed to lack champions in the mass media, and it was anyone’s guess as to how long before their paladins appeared and hoisted their flags.

People daily bragged on TV about what in the good old days would have had them afraid to show their faces in public. And nowadays the love that once dared not speak its name would not shut up.

But other, newer taboos had arisen from what used to be a matter of course.

And the ability to improvise was the greatest asset of an effective distributor.

* * * * *

The last town had been a quiet little place in central Jersey known as Veni Woods. He’d called himself Clay Evanson there, a name he’d used before, way back when. Just last week, before arriving here in Wolverton, a quaint little town on Long Island’s south shore, he decided to use another alias from the past: Theodore Gordon.

Every night before his arrival he’d closed his eyes and made the name his own. He was Theodore Gordon. All other names faded. He was Theodore Gordon and no one else.

After a little research, he found a furnished rental in the racially mixed Pine View Estates development on the eastern end of town. It had come down to a choice between that and another area half a mile west, but when he saw a woman wearing a striped hijab get out of a Dodge SUV on Fannen Street in Pine View and let herself into one of the houses, his decision was made.

He’d spent last Thursday night introducing himself around. As usual, he was a widower – not quite two years since his poor, dear Denise passed – and a financial consultant who worked from home, renting with intent to buy. Seven other houses made up this block of Fannen Street. He met the McCuins and their sullen fifteen-year-old son, Colin; the very Catholic Fabrinis and Robinsons; the waspish Woolbrights; the irreligious Hispanic Garcias with their noisy dog; the Muslim Rashids; and the very black Longwells. He made a point of inquiring at each stop about the best Internet access in the area. This induced Mr. Robinson and Mr. Woolbright to brag about the wi-fi networks they’d installed in their homes. Theodore had been hoping for one; two was a blessing.

Over the weekend he’d used his digital Nikon with the telephoto lens to snap photos of as many of his neighbors as possible as they worked in the garden or mowed the lawn, washed the car, or collected the mail. Between shoots he’d wandered Fannen Street, saying hello, helping unload a van, or transplant a bush. In the process he’d managed to see most of the backyards.

Since the Catholics held the majority, he’d attended mass at St. Bartholomew’s yesterday morning, making sure he introduced himself to Father Bain in sight of the Fabrinis and Robinsons.

Tonight he’d be ready to go. He’d made starting on Monday a tradition.

The Pine View houses all sat on well-wooded half-acre lots. Four of the homes on this block – the Longwell, Woolbright, Rashid, and Fabrini places across the street – backed up to the woods that lent the development its name. His place sat directly across from the Rashids; the Robinsons were stage left on the corner, the Garcias next door to the right, and the McCuins next door to them on the far corner.

He spent the daylight hours observing the comings and goings and refining his notes. Mr. Robinson and Mr. Rashid carpooled. This was Mr. Rashid’s week to drive. Theodore watched Mr. Robinson open the rear door to Mr. Rashid’s car, place his briefcase on the seat, then take the passenger seat in front. Mrs. Rashid, a secretary at the grammar school, drove Robinson’s girl, Chelsea, to school along with her own daughter, Farah, both ten.

Theodore noted the times of the comings and goings of everyone on the block. Today’s were all consistent with last week’s.

He admired consistency.

During the course of the day he used his laptop to access Mr. Robinson’s wi-fi network next door, but could not enter the system due to a firewall. He would work on breaching that during the week. Firewalls were handy in that they gave people a false sense of security. He’d try the Woolbrights tonight.

* * * * *

Shortly before midnight he wound his way among the pines behind the houses across the street until he came to the rear extreme of the Woolbright’s property. There he turned on his laptop and slowly made his way closer to the darkened house, stopping every dozen feet or so to see if he could access the wi-fi signal from their home network.

He could, and when it was good and strong, he tapped in and discovered that Mr. Woolbright had accommodatingly left his computer on and his webmail program open. Theodore had found this increasingly common over the years. Folks liked to hop out of bed and check their email before running off to work, and didn’t want to fuss with all that log-in nonsense.

Theodore found that Mrs. Woolbright’s password was also stored and so he switched over to her account and logged in to the Village Voice’s online classified site. There he used her email address to apply for membership. He waited for the verification email, then followed the instructions. As soon as he was officially registered, he placed an ad as Mr. Woolbright in the men-seeking-men category. He described himself as “rich and horny and into young stuff. Send a picture or no go.”

That done, he turned off his computer and crept to the tool shed by the fence between the Woolbright and Robinson properties. Easing open the door, he slipped a couple of gay porn magazines inside, then reclosed it.

When he returned home he removed a tray of ice cubes from his freezer and carried it to the extra bedroom on the second floor. He raised the window and the screen about twelve inches, then pulled his Firestorm High Performance slingshot from the night table drawer. He popped an ice cube out of the tray, loaded it into the sling, then winged it toward the wooden doghouse where Daisy, the Garcias’ short-furred bitch mutt, spent her nights. Theodore had become expert with the slingshot over the years, and rarely missed, even at this distance.

The cube shattered against the doghouse, startling Daisy to full-throated wakefulness. She rushed out with a howl that progressed to frenzied barking.

Finally, after inspecting the six-foot picket fence that defined the perimeter of her domain, she quieted down. With some satisfied gruffs, growls, and grumbles, she returned to her abode.

Theodore gave her time to settle down, then let fly another cube.

As Daisy repeated her howls and barks, he heard Mr. McCuin shout from a window on the Garcias’ far side, “For Christ sake, Garcia, shut up that goddamn mutt or bring her inside!”

Theodore closed the screen and the window.

He made an entry in his ledger and went to bed.

A good start.

Tuesday, April 27

He waited until 9:30 A.M., watching the various carpool and solitary departures, before knocking on the Woolbrights’ door. He’d learned last Thursday that Mrs. Woolbright was a stay-at-home wife.

She looked pale and uncertain when she answered. Perhaps she had received some disturbing emails. He gave her his brightest smile.

“Good morning, Mrs. Woolbright. My lawnmower seems to be on the fritz and I was wondering if I might borrow your husband’s.”

“My husband’s?” She blinked and paused, as if she were translating the words. “Oh, yes. I suppose so. It’s around back in the shed.”

“Could you show me?” To underscore his probity, he added, “I’ll walk around the side and meet you there.”

They converged at the shed in the backyard.

“It’s in here.” She pulled open the doors.

“Thank you.”

He waited for her to notice the magazines, then realized they weren’t there. He poked his head in and looked around, but they were gone.

He took hold of the lawn mower handle and pulled it out, wondering if they had slipped beneath. But no . . . no magazines.

“Did your husband come out to the shed this morning?”

“What? No. He was running late. Skipped breakfast and ran. In a big hurry to get to . . . the city.”

“Yes. I’m sure. I’ll be sure to have it back by tonight.”

She only nodded, looking distracted.

Theodore wheeled the mower across the street. Where were those magazines? He’d ponder that while he mowed the grass – something he hadn’t counted on. He always hired a lawn service whenever he moved into a new town, but he’d put it off because of the Woolbrights. Today he’d planned to be so upset by the sight of those magazines that he’d forget about the mower. But now that he had it, he was obliged to use it.

* * * * *

He turned off the mower. Finally. He’d forgotten what a noisy, monotonous chore it was. Plus he was no spring chicken. He was puffing a little and had wet rings in his armpits. He’d clean off the mower – always be a good neighbor – and wait for Mr. Woolbright’s return before wheeling it back across the street. Might catch an earful of domestic strife along the way – though not as much as there could have been had she found those magazines. Someone had taken them. But who?

He saw the mail truck pull up to his box. Even though he’d never receive anything but flyers and contest come-ons at this address, he’d introduced himself to the mailman, whose name was Phil. He waved and Phil waved back.

After the mail truck moved on, Theodore slipped into the backyard and stood behind the big rhododendron next to the post-and-rail fence that divided his property from the Robinsons’. The bush shielded him from the street. Once he was sure no one was in line of sight, he climbed over the fence. In the old days he would have hopped it, but he wasn’t as spry or as flexible as he used to be.

He hurried to their back door. When helping Mr. Robinson transplant a spirea on Saturday, he’d noted that the back door lock was a Schlage. He inserted a Schlage bump key, gave it a twist as he tapped it with a little rubber hammer, and he was in. He’d seen no evidence of an alarm system on his introductory visit, so no worry about disarming that.

He hurried upstairs and had no problem locating Chelsea Robinson’s room – pink wallpaper, posters of the latest boy group. He went to her dresser and found her underwear drawer. He removed a pair of panties – pink, of course – and stuffed them into his pocket.

Then he was on his way down the stairs, out the way he’d come in – making sure to lock the door behind him – and back over the fence.

Five minutes from leaving his yard to returning. And no one the wiser.

Now that he had the panties, he could pick which photos of Chelsea to print out.

* * * * *

He watched the Rashid house until all was dark except for the glow of a TV from the master bedroom. He’d printed out half a dozen photos of Chelsea – close ups of her face, and crops centered on her flat chest and her little rump. With these trapped under his shirt, and the panties in his pocket, he stole across the street and into the Rashids’ backyard. On Sunday he’d helped carry bags of wood-chip mulch from the van to the rear, and had made note that the backdoor to their garage was secured by another Schlage. No surprise. Development builders invariably used the same hardware on their houses.

A tap and a twist of the bump key and he was in. He opened the rear passenger door of Mr. Rashid’s Volvo sedan and placed the photos and the panties on the floor where the pink could not fail to catch Mr. Robinson’s eye. Then he would see the photos beneath.

Theodore pulled out a penlight and snooped around until he came upon an expensive-looking socket wrench set. He tucked that under his arm and slipped back outside, locking the door behind him.

Before heading for the Longwell house, he detoured to the Fabrinis’ front yard where he pulled up every geranium Mr. Fabrini had planted over the weekend and scattered them across the front lawn.

He strolled the starlit street to the other end of the block where he slipped into the back of the Longwells’ corner lot and hid the wrench set under the deck.

Back home, he slung ice cubes at Daisy’s doghouse until Mr. McCuin screamed again from his window.

After making his daily entry in the ledger, he went to bed.

Wednesday, April 28

Theodore had set his alarm to be sure he’d be awake to see Mr. Rashid pick up Mr. Robinson. He’d given himself enough time to make coffee first.

So now, steaming cup in hand, he sat by his front picture window to wait and watch.

Right on time, Mr. Rashid pulled out of his garage and backed into the street. Equally punctual, Mr. Robinson strode from his front door to the Rashid sedan. He opened the rear door . . .

. . . now the good part . . .

. . . and placed his briefcase in the rear . . .

. . . here we go . . .

. . . then slammed the door and slipped into the passenger seat. Mr. Rashid gunned the car and off they went.

Theodore found himself on his feet, staring through the window. How could Robinson have missed the panties and the pictures? Impossible. Unless . . .

Unless they weren’t there.

He focused on the yard next to the Rashids where he’d pulled all the geraniums last night . . . where the lawn should have been littered with dead or dying plants.

But wasn’t. At least it didn’t appear so from here.

He threw on some clothes and hurried outside, slowing as he reached the sidewalk. Had to be calm. Had to appear to be going for a morning stroll, a constitutional, as they used to say back in the day.

But his inner pace was anything but leisurely as he passed the Fabrini yard and saw that each and every geranium he’d torn out last night had been replanted. He might have convinced himself that he’d dreamed what he’d done but for the orange petals and scattered clumps of potting dirt here and there on the lawn.

He heard a garage door rolling and saw Mr. Fabrini smiling and waving as he backed out of his driveway.

“Good morning!” he called. “Beautiful day, isn’t it.”

Theodore nodded. “Yes. Beautiful.”

Another wave, another smile – “Have a good one!” – and Mr. Fabrini was on his way, acting nothing at all like a man who’d been forced to spend his first waking hours repairing mindless vandalism. Theodore had been all set to tell him that he’d glanced out his window last night and thought he’d seen the McCuin boy in the front yard, but no point now.

Someone was on to him.

Hard to see how that was possible. He knew no one in town, especially on this block, and no one knew him.

Or was he wrong about that?

He supposed it was possible. In fact, statistically it might even be inevitable that after all these years he would run into someone from a previous distribution point.

But he was always so careful, so circumspect. How could someone connect him with the unfortunate incidents that occurred during his brief stays?

He couldn’t avoid the possibility that someone had. Judging from the missing porn magazines, the replanted geraniums, and what he had to assume were the missing panties and photos, the possibility looked more like a certainty.

Someone was undoing his work. And that meant someone was following him around, watching his every move.

But who?

He was sure he would have noticed.

It had to be someone with good tracking skills – and other skills as well. Theodore had locked the Rashids’ garage door behind him. To remove the panties and photos, the one shadowing him would have to be adept at lock picking.

Who, damn it?

He took a deep breath and told himself to be calm. He prided himself on never becoming upset, never emotionally involved. This was a job, and he a professional.

And a professional could always out think an amateur.

He spent the rest of the day planning and making a few purchases. Midafternoon he placed one call using his untraceable ATT Go Phone.

“Mrs. Woolbright?” he said when she answered, dropping his voice an octave. “Sorry to bother you. This is Harold Mapleton with the Suffolk County parole board.”

“Parole board? I have nothing to do with the parole board.”

“Of course you don’t, Mrs. Woolbright. But your neighbor, Cletus Longwell, does. I’m his parole officer.”

“What? He’s on parole? For what?”

“Grand theft. But he won’t be on parole much longer. His three years will be up next month and I’m just calling to see what kind of neighbor he’s been. Any reported thefts around the neighborhood? Anything missing from your premises?”

“No . . . not that I know of.”

“Well, good. But ask around will you? Just in case. Sorry to bother you. Have a nice day.”

Shortly before midnight he took his laptop into his yard and tried again to access the Robinsons’ wi-fi network but couldn’t find the signal.

Frustrated, he took up his position in the extra bedroom and set the Garcia dog to barking until Mr. McCuin screamed from his window.

After that he made a ledger entry but did not go to bed.

Thursday, April 29

Around 1:30 Theodore slipped outside and into the overcast night. He paused in the deeper shadows of the arbor vitae flanking his front door and scanned the neighborhood.

Was someone out there now, watching, waiting to undo his work?

Thursday was garbage pickup day in Pine View Estates. Everyone on the block except Theodore had their cans waiting at curbside. Fannen Street lay empty before him. Still, he had a feeling of being watched. Real? Or paranoia?

He had to assume someone was watching, but could not let that disrupt his schedule. He’d made adjustments to prevent that.

He crossed the street to the Fabrini house and emptied a can of Speed Weed, a fast-acting herbicide, on the geraniums. Nobody was going to save them now. Then he walked to the other end of the block, took the lid off the McCuin garbage can, and left the Speed Weed container on top in plain sight.

Before leaving, he dropped the lid on the grass, pulled a baggy from his pocket, and emptied a dog turd onto it.

Next he stopped back at his place and picked up a ten-quart plastic container and a wrench. Mrs. Robinson always left her car parked in the driveway. Theodore wriggled beneath it and felt around for the drain plug on the crankcase. When he found it he loosened it and let the oil empty into the container. When it was completely drained, he took the container and the plug and carried them across the street, making sure to spill a little oil every six-to-eight feet or so along the way to the Fabrinis’ driveway. He left everything in their backyard.

He wondered how far Mrs. Robinson would get before her engine seized up and self-destructed.

Though tired when he returned to his house, sleep was not in tonight’s equation. He set himself up in his front window – where he had a pair of Rigel 3250 compact night vision goggles and a carafe of hot coffee waiting – and settled in to watch. He had no view of the McCuin house; he could see the Fabrinis’ front yard but not their back where he’d left the oil and drain plug.

But he could see the Robinson car, right next door, not a hundred feet away. If anyone tried to undo Theodore’s work there, he’d spot them and identify them with the help of his binocs. Then he’d start some countermeasures of his own.

* * * * *

Theodore yawned in the dark and checked his watch. Four A.M. Did his quarry suspect that the car was under surveillance? If so –

He felt a cool breeze around his ankles. Where was that coming from?

His chest tightened. He kept all the windows closed. Had someone opened one?

He rose and walked to the stairs. No flow from the second floor. He moved through the dark dining room to the even darker kitchen –

And froze when he saw the back door standing open. He’d locked that, he was sure of it.

His heart pounded as he pushed it closed and scanned the backyard. It hadn’t opened itself. What had the intruder wanted? Had he taken anything? What if he was still out there?

Theodore’s heart rate doubled as a terrifying possibility struck: What if he was still in the house?

He flipped on the kitchen lights. Nothing out of place, nothing obvious missing.

He turned on all the lights on the first floor. No sign of anyone. But what about the second floor? Had he sneaked past while he’d been on sentry duty?

Was he after the ledger? It catalogued all his work. If it fell into the wrong hands –

He dashed upstairs, flipping every light switch within reach as he moved. He fairly leaped into his bedroom, turned on the lights, then dropped to his knees and jammed his hand between the mattress and box spring.

There. The ledger. He pulled it out. Safe.

But why–?

Diversion!

He ran back to the living room and peered at the Robinson car. It stood alone, just as he’d left it.

Relieved but still unsettled, he turned out all the lights and resumed his watch until dawn.

* * * * *

As the neighborhood came alive, Theodore wheeled his garbage can to the curb. There he made a show of stretching and yawning as he glanced down the block toward the McCuin place. He was pleased to see the lid still off their container. He couldn’t see the herbicide can but didn’t expect to at this distance.

Across the street he saw Mr. Fabrini scratching his head as he looked at one of his gardens. Theodore wandered over.

“Beautiful morning, isn’t it,” he said in a most neighborly way.

Mr. Farbini turned but didn’t smile. “What? Oh, hi, Mister Gordon.”

“Theodore, please.”

“Right. Yeah, beautiful for us maybe.” He pointed to the bed of wilted, shriveling geraniums. “But not for these things. Yesterday they were perfect. Today . . .”

Theodore knelt and touched a browning leaf. He rubbed it between his fingers, then sniffed.

“Hmm.”

“What?”

Theodore tore off the leaf and handed it to Fabrini.

“Smell.”

Mr. Fabrini did and made a face. “It smells . . . chemical.”

“Right. Like Round Up or some other weed killer.”

Mr. Fabrini looked dumbfounded. “Weed killer? But who . . .?” He voice trailed off.

Theodore leaned closer. “I saw someone in your yard last night. At the time I thought it was you. Now I’m not so sure.”

“It wasn’t me, I can tell you that. Did you see his face?”

“No, but he looked young . . . like a teenager.” He let his gaze drift toward the McCuin house.

Mr. Fabrini followed and said, “You don’t think it was Colin, do you?”

Theodore backed away a step, as if the conversation had just entered taboo territory. “I’m not pointing any fingers. Like I said, I didn’t see a face.” He clapped Mr. Fabrini on the upper arm. “Don’t take it personally. Some kids have a lot of anger to work out of their systems.” With that he turned and waved. “Have a nice day.”

Mr. Fabrini’s drive to work would take him past the McCuin house. He’d be looking at it. He’d see the Speed Weed can – if it was still there. If someone had interfered and removed it, no matter. A seed had been planted.

As he crossed the street he glanced at the blacktop, searching for the trail of oil he’d left. Where–?

He stopped and stared at a discolored spot on the pavement. It might have been an oil splotch at one time, but now it was . . . something else. It looked like someone had sprayed it with a detergent solution, emulsifying the oil . . . erasing the trail.

When? When had this happened?

He jumped at the sound of a toot. When he looked around he saw Mr. Rashid smiling and waving from his car. Theodore realized he was standing in the middle of the street.

He managed a smile and stepped toward the curb. As he did he glanced at the Robinson car and almost tripped when he saw the puddle of oil spreading out from beneath it. Where had that come from?

Unless . . . while Theodore had been searching the house for an intruder, perhaps his nemesis had tried to replace the drained oil. But that wouldn’t have worked because of the missing drain plug. Whatever he added would have ended on the driveway.

Standing next to the vehicle was a very angry looking Mr. Robinson.

“What the hell?” he was saying. “What the fucking hell?”

“My goodness,” Theodore said, walking over to him. “It looks like you’ve sprung a leak.”

He was looking at the oil. It didn’t look fresh at all. In fact it looked well used, ready for a change.

“Leak, hell. The plug’s missing. Somebody did this.”

Theodore put on a shocked expression. “Someone from around here?”

“Who knows? But why me?” He looked past Theodore and waved to Mr. Rashid. “Be right there, Munaf.”

Theodore made a point of looking up and down the block. “Maybe it was simply opportunity. After all, you are the only one who leaves a car out overnight. Has anyone ever complained about that?”

Robinson made a face. “No. And as for–” He broke off and stepped around to the front of the car, pointing at the driveway. “I’ll be damned. Look at this – footprints.”

Theodore did look, and hid his shock as he saw clear imprints of treaded footprints – sneakers, most likely – leading from the oil slick, across the driveway, and into the grass between Theodore’s house and the Robinsons’.

“They head toward your place.”

He started across the grass. Theodore, hiding his alarm, followed to his front walk where Robinson stopped, pointing. “They go right to your front door.”

He was right. They were fainter here, but no mistaking them.

He wheeled on Theodore. “What the hell’s going on, Gordon?”

Theodore didn’t have to feign shock. “You can’t think I had anything to do with this!”

Robinson pointed to the prints. “What else am I supposed to think?”

“I barely know you. Why would I do this? And I don’t own any shoes with soles like that. And have a little respect for my intelligence. Would I be dumb enough to leave a trail right to my front door?”

“Maybe you’re a dumbass, what do I know? But I do know there’s been some strange shit going on lately.”

“Like . . . like what?”

“Like someone hacking into Herb Woolbright’s computer system and signing him up for a gay website or classified or some such shit. Herb’s about as gay as I am. That convinced me to shut mine down. Yesterday Munaf found his socket wrench set gone, and now my car.” He fixed Theodore with a narrow-eyed glare. “Nothing like this ever happened around here before you moved in.”

Nothing like this had happened to Theodore so early. Later in a job, when a neighborhood was falling apart, suspicion naturally drifted to the newcomer, but by then he was packing up to leave. This was only day four.

But he held his ground.

“I won’t stand here and be spoken to like this. And I warn you, if you slander me with these lies, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

He turned and stomped to his front door. But once inside, he slumped against the door, mind racing, thoughts whirling.

He went to the window and watched Mr. Fabrini pull out of his driveway and coast down the block. He slowed as he passed the McCuin house – within a few feet of their open garbage can – but he didn’t stop to inspect it, merely drove on.

Theodore ground his teeth. His nemesis had most likely removed the herbicide can. Blocked at every turn. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

An unfamiliar sensation began to burn in his gut: uncertainty.

What to do? Abort?

* * * * *

Theodore spent the rest of the day debating it, finally deciding on no – he’d never aborted a job and wasn’t about to blemish his record now.

He went to his front window and looked out. The commuters were all home by now, eating dinner or having a drink with their spouses. Well, not everyone. Look at this . . .

Across the street, at the far end of the block, he saw Mr. Rashid and Mr. Longwell in what looked like animated conversation – perhaps even an argument.

He decided a stroll might be in order.

As he neared, he saw Mr. Longwell’s usually placid black face contorted in anger.

“So, you’re missing something from your garage, and what’s the first thing you do? You think of the neighborhood nigger? Is that it?”

Mr. Rashid looked offended. “I have never used the N-word in my life!”

The N-word . . . really, the world had become pathetic.

“You came to me looking for stolen property. Why me? Why not your buddy, Robinson?”

“Because he isn’t on parole for robbery!”

Mr. Rashid looked instantly regretful for saying that, while Mr. Longwell gaped in shock.

“What? What did you say? Me? On parole? Where’d you hear that bullshit?”

“Your parole office called Jean Woolbright yesterday and–”

“My parole officer?” He stared at the Woolbright house. “I know she never liked us living next door, but I never thought she’d stoop to this. Is she insane?” He glanced at Theodore. “What are you looking at?”

Theodore had hoped his bold stare would trigger just that remark.

“Sorry. I couldn’t help overhearing.”

“This doesn’t concern you.”

“Well, I am a member of this community now. Perhaps, as a disinterested third party, I might help mediate this disagreement.” Before either could object he turned to Mr. Rashid. “You are apparently missing something, and you think Mister Longwell might have it.” He turned to Mr. Longwell. “Since I’m sure you don’t, why not let Mister Rashid check your grounds and, say, your garage and–?”

“Nobody’s snooping through my property without a search warrant, so you both can go to hell!”

So saying, he turned and stomped back into his house.

“My, my,” Theodore said. “You’d think if he had nothing to hide he’d want to clear this up.”

Mr. Rashid nodded. “Yes. You’d think he would.”

He shook his head and walked away toward his home.

Thinking that this job could yet be salvaged, Theodore continued his walk. Even if his nemesis had removed the wrench set from the Longwell yard, Mr. Longwell’s refusal to let Mr. Rashid look would be perceived as a sign of guilt.

He began to whistle.

* * * * *

Around 11:30 he began his nightly task or inciting Daisy. Finally, just shy of midnight, he heard Mr. McCuin shout, “I’m gonna kill that dog if you don’t shut it up!”

Just what Theodore had been waiting for.

He waited until Daisy calmed down, then whacked her dog house with another ice cube. As she renewed her frenzied barking, Theodore shut the window and went down to the kitchen refrigerator.

He pulled out the nice piece of sirloin he’d been saving. He removed a box of mole poison from under the sink. The label said each tablet contained 1.0 mg. of strychnine. He estimated Daisy’s weight at thirty pounds. A dozen tablets would be plenty.

Just to be sure, he cut fifteen angled slits into the meat and pressed a pellet into each.

Thursday, April 29

At exactly 3 A.M. he tossed the meat over the fence so that it landed near Daisy’s house. She came out with a howl but stopped when she caught the scent of the meat. She was on it in an instant, wolfing it down in a single gulp.

Good dog.

Next he pulled out another can of Speed Weed and used it to write on Mr. Longwell’s lawn. He’d thought of using gasoline to burn the word into the grass, but decided this would be more discrete.

Under normal circumstances he would hide the box of poison in the McCuin garage and the empty herbicide can in the Rashids’ bushes, but his nemesis would undoubtedly remove them.

He returned home and stood on his front steps where he surveyed dark and slumbering Fannen Street. He sent out a challenge:

Let’s see you undo these.

* * * * *

He was up early the next morning, waiting. At 7:10 he heard Mr. Garcia’s distraught wail.

“Daisy? Oh, my God, Daisy!”

Theodore immediately stepped out onto his rear deck and called over the fence.

“Mister Garcia? Is anything wrong?”

“It’s Daisy! She’s not breathing!”

“Oh, dear. Quick! Bring her around front and I’ll get my car and take you to the vet.”

Never pass up an opportunity to be a good neighbor.

* * * * *

Theodore comforted the sobbing Mr. Garcia on the way home. Daisy’s corpse lay draped across his legs.

“Was the vet sure she was poisoned? Who would do such an awful thing?”

Mr. Garcia’s tear-stained face contorted into a mask of rage. “I have a pretty goddamn good idea.”

Theodore glanced at Daisy. He’d had nothing against the dog. He had nothing against anyone. Collateral damage.

“Oh, dear,” he said as he turned onto Fannen Street and saw the police car. “What’s happened here?”

He slowed and watched Mr. Longwell pointing to the browned letters spelling NIGGER on his lawn, then down the street toward the Rashid house.

A hate crime was such a terrible thing.

* * * * *

He’d intended to spend the rest of the day making notes in his ledger and quietly planning his next moves – a productive way to while away the time before Mr. McCuin and Mr. Rashid came home to the inevitable confrontations with, respectively, Mr. Garcia and Mr. Longwell.

A knock on the door interrupted him. He found Phil the postman glaring at him. He thrust something into Theodore’s hands.

“What do you think you’re doing, Gordon?”

Theodore looked down and started when he saw the two gay porn magazines he’d left in Mr. Woolbright’s shed. They’d been wrapped in clear plastic and addressed to someone he’d never heard of. The return address was his.

“I don’t care what you’re into, but you oughta know you can’t mail something like that so it’s out there for everyone to see.”

He turned and strode back to his truck before Theodore could answer. He stared at the magazines. They must have been in his mailbox. He closed the door and dropped them on the dining room table. He stood there thinking.

What was happening now? Had the contest moved to another level, with his nemesis switching from defense to offense?

He went to the window where he saw Phil, the postman, across the street talking to Mrs. Woolbright. Theodore saw him pointing his way.

Perhaps it was indeed time to abort. He’d make that decision tonight after seeing how things went with the McCuin-Garcia and Longwell-Rashid bouts.

* * * * *

Shortly after six, Theodore positioned a chair at his front window, hoping for some fireworks. He was about to seat himself when he heard a sound. He whirled and saw a man standing behind him, but had only a glimpse before a fist smashed into his gut. He doubled over and turned away. Two more blows followed, one to each kidney, driving him to his knees and then onto his side, writhing in agony.

“That was for the dog,” said a voice.

When Theodore’s pain-blurred vision cleared, he saw a man sitting in a chair, looking down at him. He was average height, average build, average features, with brown hair and eyes. Theodore thought he was the most nondescript man he had ever seen.

A silenced, small-caliber pistol rested on his thigh, pointed in Theodore’s direction.

“I’m really pissed about the dog,” he said in a flat tone. “That was the last straw. I’m seriously thinking of kneecapping you for that.”

Kneecapping? A vision of that almost made him forget the agony in his kidneys.

“No, wait. Who are you? Do I know you? Why are you doing this?”

“You don’t know me, and I’m here because someone’s paying me to be.”

“Paying? Who–?”

“Remember Nelson Pershall, former resident of Veni Woods, New Jersey?”

Mr. Pershall . . . was that what this was about?

“I’ve never heard of Veni Woods. I don’t even like New Jersey.”

“You did a good job of pretending to when you were living there and calling yourself Clay Evanson.”

How did he know all this?

“Ridiculous!”

Slowly, painfully, he started to push himself off the floor but the intruder kicked him back down.

“I prefer you on your belly. Anyway, Nelson Pershall hung himself after being caught in a kiddie-porn sting. His computer was loaded with graphic photos.”

“If you’re looking for sympathy for a pedophile, you’re in the wrong house.”

“His daughter swears he wasn’t. He lived alone and ran a website that published poetry by codgers like himself.”

“What does a daughter know about a parent’s hidden life?

“That’s what I thought at first. But she said he was something of a techie and had set up a wi-fi network in his house. Someone could have been using his computer without him knowing it. Sound familiar?”

Theodore said nothing. That was exactly what had happened. He’d even triggered the police sting through Mr. Pershall’s computer. But he certainly wasn’t admitting it to this thug.

“She said she suspected a man named Clay Evanson. Told me her father’s neighborhood had been friendly and peaceful until shortly after this clown arrived. Before he moved on, two people were dead – her father and a woman killed by her husband for cheating – a house had burned to the ground, one man had been arrested for assaulting his next-door neighbor, and another arrested for a hate crime. Are we seeing a pattern here?”

Theodore’s felt ice sludging through his gut.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what this has to do with me. I’ve never heard of this Clay Evanson. And this woman is obviously paranoid.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought, but she wanted me to fix it and she had the fee. Since I had the time, I took the job. Funny thing was, the day I started, you moved out. So I followed you here. And all of a sudden you’re Theodore Gordon. I decided to stick around.” He shook his head. “Whoever you really are, you’re one sick bastard.”

“You’re mistaken, I tell you. I–”

“Shut up.” He cocked his head. “Listen. Sounds like your neighbors. Let’s take a look.”

He grabbed Theodore by the back of his neck and hauled him into the chair he’d set up by the window. He was stronger than he looked. Theodore felt the muzzle of the pistol press against the base of his neck.

“Ever wonder what it’s like being a quadriplegic? Do anything stupid and you’ll find out.”

Through the picture window he saw Mr. Robinson between Mr. Rashid and Mr. Longwell. The side window was open so he could hear their angry words. Normally it would be music to his ears. Mr. Fabrini and Mr. Woolbright came out of their houses to try to calm things down. Mr. McCuin joined them.

Suddenly, seemingly from nowhere, Mr. Garcia was racing across the street. He took Mr. McCuin down with a flying tackle. It took three men to pull him off.

“Hold it, guys,” Mr. Robinson shouted. “Hold it for just one goddamn minute!” When the men calmed, he said, “Look at us. We were never like this. What’s going on here?”

“I can tell you what’s going on,” Mr. Longwell said, pointing a finger at Mr. Rashid. “He calls me a thief and writes ‘nigger’ on my lawn!”

Mr. Robinson said, “Hold it! Hold it! Do you know what kind of abuse Munaf gets? He gets called a ‘towel head’ or a ‘terrorist’ or – you’ll like this one, Cletus – a ‘sand nigger.’ You really think he’s gonna write ‘nigger’ on you lawn? And by the way, I heard the story about Cletus’s parole and asked a friend in the DA’s office to do a little checking. The call was a lie.”

“Who’d do something like that?”

“Look around,” Mr. Robinson said. “Who’s not here?”

Theodore held his breath as all heads swiveled his way.

“All this started after Gordon moved in. And I’m pretty damn sure he drained my crankcase.”

“And that homo classified I got signed up for,” Mr. Woolbright said. “Phil told Jean he had gay porn in his mailbox today.”

“But why?” Mr. Garcia said.

“Why don’t we go ask him?”

The muzzle pressed harder against his spine.

“That’s what I want to know. Why? That ledger of yours – looks like you’re writing reports. Who are they going to?”

He had the ledger! How–?

How didn’t matter. Everything was falling apart. And he was asking the question Theodore never would answer. Never.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The muzzle pressed deeper into his flesh, then was removed.

“If we had time, you’d tell. But things are moving faster than I’d planned. Robinson is sharp, and you’re about to have some very angry people on your doorstep.”

“I’ll talk to them, reason with them.”

“No amount of talk will calm them after they see what’s in your garage.”

“My garage?”

“Yeah. I raised the door halfway. Front and center is Rashid’s wrench set. But there’s also an empty can of Speed Weed, some strychnine-containing rat poison, and Robinson’s drain plug along with pink panties and photos of his daughter.”

Theodore felt as if his bones were dissolving.

“What do you think Robinson is going do when he sees all that?” the intruder continued. “Oh, and I called the vet. I said I was from poison control and he told me it looked like the Garcia dog died from strychnine. So I called Garcia – again as poison control – and told him to make sure he didn’t have any strychnine-containing pest control around. How do you think he’ll react when he sees that box of rat poison?”

Theodore closed his eyes and trembled.

“You’re busted, pal. I’d love to have more time with you, but I don’t want to be here when company comes calling. Have a nice day.”

Rising on wobbly legs, Theodore turned and faced him. He found his voice. “You’d make a good distributor.”

“Is that your game?”

Game? It wasn’t a game. It was serious business.

“Who would I be working for?”

Theodore shook his head.

A gloved hand shot out and smashed against his jaw, rocking his head back and sending him to the floor.

“Just in case you thought I’d forgotten about the dog.”

Theodore lay there, groaning. After a moment he heard the back door open and close. And then he heard the voices in his front yard.

“What if he’s not home?”

“He’s always home – haven’t you noticed?”

“Maybe he – hey! That’s my wrench set! What’s it doing–?”

The voices moved toward the garage.

“Speed Weed! That kills grass doesn’t?”

“And geraniums too.”

“What’s this? Pictures of Chelsea and – oh shit!”

“Rat poison! The motherfucker!”

An angry babble rose as someone began pounding on the door.

Theodore struggled to his feet and stumbled upstairs.

Exposed . . . bad enough, but losing the ledger was the final humiliation

He was finished. Nothing to do now but bow out and avoid further embarrassment.

He jumped at the sound of smashing glass. Something had crashed through the front window.

His shaking fingers removed the cyanide capsule from its container. He put it between his teeth and bit hard.

Time to move.

PINEY POWER

INTRODUCTION

In mid-2008 I agreed to donate a short young-adult thriller to another ITW-sponsored anthology. Once again, I’d be limited to 5k words. At the time I was deep into the young-adult Repairman Jack novels I’d contracted to write and had introduced some piney kids into the trilogy.

(If you’re not familiar with what a piney is, it’s explained in the story.)

I thought maybe I’d take them out for a spin in their own story (with young Jack along, of course) and see what they could do.

PINEY POWER

1

Old Man Foster had the signs posted all over his land.

NO FISHING

NO HUNTING

NO TRAPPING

NO TRESPASSING

No kidding. And no big deal.

Jack never paid them much attention. He figured since he wasn’t involved in the first three, he deserved a pass on the last. No, what caught Jack’s eye was the bright red object tacked to the bark just below the sign.

“Hey, check it out,” he said, hitting the brakes. His tires skidded in the sandy soil as his BMX came to a stop. “Who’d put a reflector way out here?”

Weezy stopped her bike beside his. “Doesn’t make sense.”

Her birth certificate said “Louise” but no one had called her that since she turned two. She was older than Jack – hit fifteen last week, while Jack still had a few months to go. As usual, she was all in black – sneaks, jeans, Bauhaus T-shirt. She’d wound her dark hair into two braids today, giving her a Wednesday Addams look.

“Never noticed it before.”

“Because it wasn’t there,” she said.

Jack accepted that as fact. They used this firebreak trail a lot when they were cruising the Barrens, and if the reflector had been here before, she’d remember. Weezy never forgot anything. Ever.

He touched the clear sap coating on the head of the nail that fixed it to the tree. His fingertip came away wet. He showed her.

“This is fresh – really fresh.”

Weezy touched the goop and nodded. “Like maybe this morning.”

Jack checked the ground and saw tire tracks. It had rained last night and these weren’t washed out in the slightest.

“Looks like a truck,” he said, pointing.

Weezy nodded. “Two sets – coming and going. And one’s deeper than the other.” She looked at Jack. “Hauled something in or took something out.”

“Maybe it was Old Man Foster himself.”

“Could be.”

Foster had supposedly owned this chunk of the Jersey Pine Barrens forever, but no one had ever seen him. No one had ever seen anyone posting the land, either, but the signs were everywhere.

“Want to follow?”

She glanced at her watch and shook her head. “Got to go to Medford with my mom.”

“Again? What’s this – an every Wednesday thing?”

She looked away. “No. Just works out that way.” When she looked back, disappointment shone in her eyes. “You going without me?”

Jack sensed she wanted them to go together, but he didn’t think he could hold off.

“Yeah. Probably nothing to see. If I find anything, we can come back together.”

She nodded and offered half a smile. “Sure you won’t get lost without me?”

He glanced at the sun sliding down the western sky. Every year, people – mostly hunters – entered the Barrens and were never seen again. Folks assumed they got lost and starved. No big surprise in a million-plus acres of mostly uninhabited pine forest. If a vanilla sky moved in, you could lose all sense of direction and wander in circles for days. But with the sun visible, Jack knew all he had to do was keep heading west and he’d hit civilization.

 “I’ll manage somehow. See you later.”

 He watched her turn her Schwinn, straddle the banana seat, and ride off with a wave. After the trees had swallowed her, Jack turned off the fire trail and began following the tire tracks along the narrow passage – little more than two ruts separated by a grassy ridge and flanked by the forty-foot scrub pines that dominated the Barrens. They formed a thick wall, crowding the edges of the path, reaching over him with their crooked, scraggly branches.

The passage forked and the tracks bore to the right. A half dozen feet into the fork he spotted another reflector. At the next fork the tracks bore left, and sure enough, another reflector.

Odd. He’d figured the first had been a marker for the starting point of the trail. Grass and trees could thicken over a growing season and obscure what had once been an obvious opening. But whoever had come along here this morning was marking every turn, placing reflectors where headlights would pick them up as they approached. That meant he was planning to come back in the dark. Maybe tonight. Maybe many nights.

Why?

Jack found the answer a half mile farther on where the tire tracks ended in a clearing with a large, solitary oak in its center. Near its base someone had dumped a dozen or more 55-gallon oil drums – old ones, rusted, banged up, and leaky.

He jumped at the sound of a car engine roaring his way. A few seconds later a weird-looking contraption bounced into the clearing on the far side. It had the frame of a small Jeep, maybe a Wrangler, with no roof, sides, or hood. The engine was exposed, though the firewall was still in place, and instead of a steering wheel, someone had fixed a long-handled wrench to the column. The front and rear seats had been replaced by a pair of ratty-looking sofas occupied by three kids in their mid-teens. Jack recognized the driver: Elvin Neolin from his civics class. He’d seen the other boy around school as well, but the white-haired girl was new.

Pineys.

They lived out here in the woods. Some had jobs in the towns around the Pines, and some lived off the land – hunting, fishing, gardening. All were poor and a few were a little scary looking in their mismatched, ill-fitting clothes and odd features. Hard to say why they seemed odd. Not like they had bug eyes and snaggle teeth; more like looking at a reflection in one of those old-time mirrors where the glass wasn’t even.

Some folks called them inbreds, talking about brothers and sisters getting together and having kids. Jack didn’t know if any of that was true. People liked to talk, and some people just naturally exaggerated as they went along. But no one could deny that some Pineys didn’t look quite right.

The kid riding shotgun was Levi Coffin, a sophomore at SRB High. Coffin was an old Quaker name that Jack envied. Jack Coffin… how cool to have a name like that.

Levi jumped out and strode toward Jack. He was tall and lanky, and his clothes were too short in the arms and legs. His mismatched eyes – one blue and one brown – blazed.

“This your doin’?”

Jack tensed. Levi looked a little scary.

“No way. I just got here.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, north. “Followed tire tracks from back there. They ended here.”

Levi glanced over his shoulder at Elvin who was staring his way. Elvin was on the short side with piercing dark eyes, stiff black hair, and high cheekbones. Looked like he might have some Lenape Indian in him.

Their eyes locked, then Levi turned away, muttering, “All right, all right.”

What’s that all about? Jack wondered.

Levi inspected the tire tracks while Elvin hopped out and walked over to the drums. Jack sensed the white-haired girl staring at him from the buggy. He realized with a start that she had pink irises. White hair… milk-white skin… what was that called…?

Albino… she was an albino.

“I can’t see him, Levi,” she said in a high-pitched voice.

Was she blind?

“What?” Levi swiveled to stare at Jack.

Elvin was struggling with the top to one of the drums. He looked toward Levi who turned back, then gave his head a sideways jerk toward Jack.

Elvin nodded, saying, “Hey, Levi. Gimme a hand.”

Levi walked over and touched the lid – barely touched it – and it popped loose.

Jack felt a funny sensation ripple down his spine as he remembered an incident in school with Levi. Something way strange here. He hesitated, then started toward the drums as the two boys lifted the lid. They dropped it when they saw what was inside.

“Damn!” Levi said. “Damn them to hell!”

Jack might have quipped about where else you could damn someone to, but the rage in Levi’s voice warned him off. He stepped up and saw the thick, cloudy green liquid; his nose stung from the sharp chemical odor.

“What is it?”

“Some sort of toxic crap,” Levi said. “They’re using this spot as a dumping ground.”

“Who?”

“Crooks from upstate. We’ve found stuff like this before.”

Jack said, “Better than dumping it in some river, I guess.”

Levi glared at him and pointed to a barrel on its side. The sand near its top was wet with gunk.

“That one’s leaking. It sinks into the ground water. And guess who gets their water from wells out here. We do. But who cares about Pineys.”

Jack understood some of the reaction. Kids at school tended to rag on the Pineys, make fun of their clothes, joke about the brother-sister connections. But Jack wasn’t one of those and didn’t like being lumped in with them.

“No fair.”

Another look passed between Levi and Elvin, and then Levi shrugged. “Forget it. El says you’re okay.”

Fine, but Jack hadn’t heard El say anything.

“We should tell the cops,” Jack said. “My sister used to date a deputy and–”

Levi and Elvin and the girl were shaking their heads… same direction, same speed, moving as one. Jack was getting creeped.

“Uh-uh,” Levi said. “Cops ain’t gonna go patrolling the Pines looking for someone they don’t know, who might or might not come back.”

“Oh, they’ll be back.”

Levi’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”

“Because they marked the path with reflectors.”

“Yeah? Show us.”

As Jack reached for his bike, Elvin pointed to the weird buggy. “With us.”

“You’re old enough to drive?”

The two boys laughed.

“Plenty old enough to drive,” Levi said. Elvin never said much at school and didn’t seem to have much more to say out here. “Just not old enough for a license.”

“Aren’t you af–?” Jack began, then cut himself off. Afraid of being caught? Out here? By what – the Jersey Devil in a sheriff’s Stetson? Stupid question.

He spotted a “Piney Power” sticker on the rusted rear bumper.

“What’s that mean?”

Levi shrugged. “Some folks hereabouts think Pineys should get organized and vote and all that.” He glanced at Elvin. “We just like the sound of it.”

Elvin laughed. “Yeah. Sounds cool.”

The girl said nothing, simply stared at him.

Jack gave the buggy another once-over. Without sides, a top, or even a roll bar, it had to be the most dangerous car he’d ever seen. He’d be risking his life in that thing.

“Well,” Levi said, “you ridin’ or not?”

Jack couldn’t wait.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

As he seated himself on the rear sofa, the albino girl scooched away and squeezed against the far end. Her pink gaze never wavered from his face.

“I can’t see him.”

“Yeah?” Levi turned in the front sofa and looked at Jack. “El says he’s okay.”

“But I can’t see him!”

Jack waved his hand between them and she flinched.

“You can see me.”

“That’s Saree,” Levi said. “She’s talking about a different kind of seeing.”

Jack was going to ask what he meant but then Elvin started the engine with a roar.

Trying to ignore Saree’s unwavering stare, he directed Elvin down the path, following his own bike tracks, till they came to the firebreak trail. Elvin turned around and drove back.

Levi was right. The Burlington County sheriff’s department didn’t have the manpower to stake out Old Man Foster’s land or even this one path. Could be weeks before the dumpers made a return trip. Had to be a way to make them give themselves away. Or better yet…

An idea began to form.

“What’s down that way?” Jack said, pointing left as they approached the first fork.

“More of the same,” Levi said. “Why?”

“Wondering if there’s a spong nearby… the deeper and wetter the better.”

“I know a cripple,” Saree said, still staring.

Elvin followed her directions through a few more forks that left Jack totally disoriented.

“You know where we are, right?”

Saree rolled her eyes.

Okay, dumb question to ask a Piney. But at least she seemed to be relaxing a little.

A few minutes later, she said, “Right up here.”

Elvin rolled to a stop before a thirty-foot-wide cripple – a water-filled depression half-surrounded by white cedars. Without the cedars it would have been called a spong.

Jack couldn’t help smiling when he saw it.

“Yeah, this’ll do.”

“Do what?”

When he told them their eyes lit. Saree even smiled.

“I still can’t see you,” she said. “But I think you’re okay.”

Weird. Too weird.

2

“What’s wrong with inbreeding?” Jack said as he spooned some niblets into the well he’d made in his mashed potatoes.

His mother gasped. “Not at the dinner table.”

“No, really. I want to know.”

His father cleared his throat and adjusted his steel-rimmed glasses. “Thinking of marrying Kate?”

Kate laughed as Jack said, “No!”

His folks sat at opposite ends while Jack and his older sister Kate sat across from each other. Only his missing brother Tom kept it from being a full family meal. Jack didn’t miss him. Tom was a pain.

“Then where’s this coming from?”

Jack shrugged. “Kids at school talk about Pineys…”

He couldn’t get those weird kids out of his mind. They seemed so different… like they had their own language… an unspoken one. And that lid on the barrel… Elvin couldn’t budge it but Levi just touched it and it popped free. It reminded Jack of the time Levi and Jake Shuett faced off in the caf a couple of weeks ago over some remark Jake had made about Pineys. Suddenly a catsup pack Jake was holding squirted all over him and his lunch plate dumped in his lap. Jack had written it off to a spaz attack. He hadn’t given it much thought, but now…

He wasn’t expecting much information from his folks, but Kate was home on a laundry run from medical school – it was only in Stratford, barely thirty miles away – and maybe she’d know.

He glanced at her. “Why’s it bad?”

Kate was slim with pale blue eyes and faint freckles. After starting med school she’d cut her long blond hair back to a short, almost boyish length. Jack still wasn’t used to it.

She paused, then said, “It’s bad because we all have defective ‘recessive genes’ hidden in our DNA that are passed on from parent to child. Now, as long as that defective recessive gene is matched up with a working gene, all is well. But if a mother and a father both have the same recessive gene, and each gives it to a child, that child could have problems.”

“I saw an albino girl today–”

She nodded. “Perfect example: Two normal-skinned parents, each carrying an albino gene, have a one-in-four chance of having an albino child. Family members tend to share a lot of the same recessives, and so inbreeding – when close relatives have children – increases the risk of genetic diseases, because the closer you’re related, the greater the odds of matching up the same recessives in your kids.”

Now the important question: “But are all recessive genes bad? Could there be ones for, like, big muscles or a good memory?”

Kate smiled. “You’re thinking. That’s good. Yes, plants and animals are bred for drought resistance and giving more milk and the like.”

“Well, in that case, inbreeding people could have some good effects, right?”

“Theoretically, yes. But for every Einstein or Muhammad Ali, you could get a number of kids with cystic fibrosis.”

Or weird powers?

Or maybe I read too much science fiction, Jack thought.

3

Jack awoke to the sound of someone whispering his name… coming from the window. He hopped out of bed and crossed his darkened room. The high moon lit the grinning face on the far side of the screen.

“Levi?”

“Would you believe they came back again tonight?”

Jack felt his heart rate kick into high gear. “They took the bait?”

“Hook, line, and sinkhole. Figured since it was your idea, you oughta come see. We got the car. Wanna?”

“Be right there.”

He pulled on jeans and a rugby shirt, stepped into his Vans, then unlatched the screen and slipped into the night. Levi led him around the corner to where Elvin and Saree were waiting in the buggy, Saree behind the wheel – no, wrench. Her white hair looked silver in the moonlight. They hopped in and Saree took off without a word. At least she couldn’t stare at him.

The Pines were practically in Jack’s backyard, but she entered along a path he didn’t know. She made seemingly random turns through the trees but seemed to know where she was going. Finally she stopped in a small clearing.

“Gotta walk from here,” Levi said, “else they’ll hear us.”

The four of them hopped out and this time Saree led the way, single file, down a deer path.

“They fell for it, Jack,” Levi said from behind him. “Just like you said. I never would’ve thought of that in a million years. You got a twisted mind. I like that.”

Jack enjoyed the praise, but thought the solution had been obvious. Whoever had dumped those barrels didn’t know the Pines, otherwise he wouldn’t have needed to post reflectors. So Jack’s idea had been to move the reflectors off the path to the dumping ground and onto a path that led to the cripple instead.

He heard angry voices before he saw anyone. Saree slowed her pace and gradually a glow began to grow through the trunks. They crouched as they neared the treeline.

Jack peeked through the underbrush and saw a flatbed truck angled nose down into the cripple. Its headlights were still on and its motor running. A blue tarp covered whatever was stacked in its bed. Its front end sat bumper deep in the water and its rear wheels had dug ruts in the soil from trying to reverse its way out.

One man was cursing and swearing as he stood in the two-foot-deep water and pushed against the front grille while another gunned the engine and spun the tires.

“Now that we’ve got them,” Jack said, “what do we do with them? Call the sheriff?”

Levi shook his head. “No way. We bring in some grownups. They’ll take care of them.”

“Take care of them how?”

“Piney justice.”

Piney justice… Jack had heard about that. He was going to say something, but right then the one in the water gave up pushing and slammed a hand on the hood.

“Ain’t gonna happen, Tony!”

Tony – dark, heavyset with a thick mustache – jumped out and began kicking the water in a rage.

“Save it, man,” said the other guy as he splashed past him, heading toward the rim of the cripple. “We’re gonna have to offload this stuff to get outa here.”

“How’d this happen, Sammy? We marked the trail!”

“Must’ve made a wrong turn. Or…” He stopped and looked around. “Or somebody moved the markers.”

Tony stared at him. “Who?”

“Wise-ass locals, my guess. Probably out there right now having a good laugh.”

Uh-oh, Jack thought. Time to leave.

“Yeah?” Tony reached into the truck cab and pulled out a revolver. “Well, laugh at this!”

He began firing wildly. One of the slugs zipped through the brush between Jack and Saree, narrowly missing them. Jack froze in terrified shock while Saree let out a shrill yelp of surprise.

“There!” Sammy shouted, pointing their way.

Levi yanked on Jack’s arm. “Run!”

Jack didn’t need to be told twice – or even once. The next half minute became a riot of crouched running, snapping brush and branches, darkness ahead, shouting behind, and then a high-pitched scream that brought everything to an abrupt, panting halt.

“Saree?” Levi said, looking back. “I thought she was – aw, man, they got Saree!” He turned to Jack. “Go with El for help!”

“You’re staying?”

He nodded. “Can’t leave her.”

Jack wavered. Why had he come here? He wanted to be home. Then Saree screamed again.

“I’ll stay with you.”

“No way. You go–”

“Elvin doesn’t need help. Saree does.”

Elvin was already at the car, starting it up. He wasn’t waiting. That settled it.

“I don’t get it,” Levi said as he turned and started back toward the cripple.

“What’s there to get?”

“You don’t owe her. She’s not kin.”

Jack couldn’t see what that had to do with anything. He wished he’d stayed in bed, but he was here now.

“We came together, we leave together.”

Levi didn’t reply. They were almost back to the cripple.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” a voice was sing-songing. “We got your ugly girlfriend.”

Jack peeked through the brush. The moonlight and backwash from the headlights revealed Tony standing on the rim of the cripple by the rear of the truck. He had his gun in one hand and a fistful of Saree’s hair in the other. She looked terrified.

Sammy, standing a few feet to his right, shouted, “The rest of you get out here now. We ain’t gonna hurt you. Just put you to work. You got us into this mess, so you’re gonna get us out.”

Jack saw three options. Help was on the way, so until it arrived they either could do nothing, find ways to distract them, or show themselves and do whatever they wanted.

“Get out here or this could get ugly,” Tony said, twisting Saree’s hair and making her wince. “You don’t wanna see how ugly.”

Jack winced too, and crossed doing nothing off the list. He decided on distraction. He could always show himself if that didn’t work.

“Stay here,” he whispered. “Gonna try something.”

“Wait–” Levi grabbed for his arm but Jack pulled out of reach.

He moved counterclockwise along the treeline, feeling around the ground until he found a fist-sized hunk of shale.

Perfect.

He backed up, cocked his arm, and let fly toward the truck. The rock bounced off the tarp with a gonging sound, then splashed in the water.

“Son of a bitch!” Sammy yelled, flinching.

“You guys deaf?” Tony shouted. “Remember what I said about things getting ugly?”

Oh no. Jack’s gut knotted as he saw Tony yank Saree backward. She lost her balance and fell into the water. Tony stayed with her and held her head under the surface as her arms and legs thrashed and splashed. It was only a couple of feet deep, but plenty enough to drown her.

“She stays under till you come out!” Tony yelled.

Jack couldn’t take it. Only option three remained.

“Okay! Okay!”

His bladder ached to empty as he jumped out of the bushes with his hands raised.

To his left Levi also stepped out, hands high, saying, “Let her up!”

As Sammy started toward them, Tony pointed the gun their way and grinned. “When I’m damn good and ready. You kids – aah!” He dropped the gun and released Saree as he grabbed his right hand with his left. “She broke my finger!”

Saree sat up, choking and gasping and crying. Jack had seen one of her thrashing arms come near Tony’s hand but no way it touched him. She lurched to her feet and staggered away toward dry ground.

Tony started after her. “You little – my gun!” He turned and bent, feeling around underwater.

As Sammy turned to look at his buddy, Jack took off toward Saree. He grabbed her outstretched hand and pulled her up the bank of the cripple.

Sammy started toward them. “Hey–!”

Suddenly he tripped and fell face first into the water. But instead of rebounding to his feet, he stayed down and began kicking and thrashing as Saree had. He couldn’t seem to get up.

Tony finally noticed. “What the hell are you doing?”

He started toward Sammy but tripped himself. He went down and stayed down too. Were they stuck in the mud? No, their arms and legs were free. It almost looked like they were being held down. But –

Jack saw Levi on his knees, white-faced, eyes focused on the men in the cripple. As Jack headed for him, Saree grabbed his arm.

“Leave Levi be.”

Jack pulled free. As he neared he could see the boy’s lips pulled back in a snarl. His face and hair dripped sweat, his shirt was soaked, and air hissed between his clenched teeth like he was bench pressing twice his own weight.

“Levi…?”

He glanced at Jack and just then the two men in the cripple got their heads back above water. But not for long. Before they could draw a full breath they plunged their faces back beneath the surface.

And then everything seemed to happen at once. Elvin roared out of the trees in the buggy followed by a pickup full of rough-clothed men with shotguns, Levi let out a breath and slumped forward onto his hands, the two men in the cripple got their heads out of water and sucked air.

When they caught their breath and looked around they found themselves staring into the headlights of the buggy and the pickup, and down the muzzles of half a dozen shotguns. One of the Piney men, tall with a gray beard and features that looked like they’d been taken apart and put back together wrong, had lifted the tarp and was looking at the barrels hidden beneath.

“Not good,” he said, shaking his head. “Not good ay-tall.”

“You don’t wanna mess with us,” Tony said, still panting. “We’re connected, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m right sure of that,” the old Piney said. “And we’ll want to know who to.” He swiveled and his gaze fell on Jack. “Who’s this un?”

“Friend of ours,” Levi said, rising to his feet. He’d caught his breath. “He set the trap.”

“Well, we’re right grateful for that, but he ain’t one of us. Take him back wherever he came from.”

“What about them?” Jack said, pointing to Tony and Sammy.

“You forget about them. We’re all gonna have us a nice chat, then we’ll send ‘em home.”

“But–”

Levi grabbed his arm and pulled him away. “No questions. Let’s go.”

Elvin and Saree were already in the buggy. As soon as Jack and Levi settled on the rear couch, Elvin put it in gear and they roared off.

“What happened back there?” Jack said.

He was feeling weak and shaky. That guy had almost drowned Saree, and he’d never been shot at before – never dreamed it would ever happen and never wanted it to happen again. Ever.

Levi shook his head. “Nothing. And don’t go yakking about it.”

“You kidding? Tell my folks I snuck out tonight to see some toxic dumpers we trapped and wound up getting shot at? Yeah, right. Soon as I get home I’m gonna run into their bedroom and blab all about it.”

Levi laughed. “Okay.”

Of course he’d tell Weezy. She’d eat it up.

But Jack hadn’t been talking about the dumpers.

“I meant you. What did you do to those guys?”

The smiled vanished. “Nothing.”

“But I saw–”

He stared straight ahead. “You saw a couple of guys slipping around on a mucky cripple bottom and getting stuck. That’s all.”

He was sure it had been more than that. But what exactly?

Saree turned to face him. “Yeah, that’s all it was, Jack. But what about you? What’s your talent? Is it being able to hide? Is that why I can’t see you?”

What was she talking about?

“I don’t have any talent.”

“Maybe you just don’t know about it yet. You’re hiding something, but that’s okay. You came back for me. I never expected that. I still can’t see you, but I like you.”

Jack had no idea how to respond to that, so he didn’t.

They dropped him off about a block from his house. As they raced off he saw their bumper sticker flash in the moonlight.

Piney Power.

He had an idea why those kids liked the sound of it.

4

“I can’t believe all that happened without me,” Weezy said as they entered Jack’s house though the kitchen.

He’d waited till after school to tell her about it.

“Believe me, you were better off at home.” He shuddered at a vision of that Tony guy holding Weezy’s head underwater instead of Saree’s. “While it was happening, I wanted to be anywhere but there.”

As they stepped into the front room where his folks were watching the 6:30 news, a TV reporter said, “The two bodies found inside those barrels of toxic waste have been identified.”

Jack stiffened as he recognized the mug shots on the screen.

“Anthony Lapomarda and Santo ‘Sammy’ Carlopoli have long rap sheets. Their bodies were found outside a South Philly body shop this morning along with two dozen barrels of toxic waste. More waste was found inside the body shop, along with a number of stolen cars. The suspected chop shop–”

He nudged Weezy and whispered, “That’s them!”

The old Piney’s parting words came back: We’re all gonna have us a nice chat, then we’ll send ‘em home.

He hadn’t mentioned how they’d be sent home. He glanced at Weezy and found her staring back with wide, dark eyes.

“Piney justice,” he said, feeling a chill.

His father looked up. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Dad pointed to the TV. “That’s why we live out here. To get away from scum like that. You don’t have to worry about running into any of their sort in these parts.”

“I guess not, Dad.”

At least not anymore.

NIGHT DRIVE

INTRODUCTION

This is one of those experience-inspired stories I can trace back to a specific moment in my life.

In October of 1996 I took a trip to Cozumel. Since it just happened to be one of the meccas of the SCUBA world, I took a quickie diving course there to see what it was like. What a rush. How long had this been going on and why hadn’t anyone told me? No number of Jacques Cousteau specials on TV or the big screen can match the experience.

As soon as I got home I signed up for a PADI course to get certified. After that I became a diving fool—reefs, wrecks, walls. You name it, I’d dive it.

While I was in Mexico researching The Fifth Harmonic, I wound up in Zihuatanejo. El Niño was in full swing and the water off Mexico’s southwest coast was the temperature of blood. Someone suggested a night dive. Why not?

A couple of local dive junkies chugged a friend and me around to this little cove south of the harbor. Sheer rock walls rose on three sides, cutting off all light from Zihuatanejo. The moon wasn’t up, and even though the Milky Way was brighter than I’d ever seen it, it was dark…as in dark.

One problem, the guys told us, was some sort of local sea thingies (his English wasn’t great) that sting. They’re attracted to light so you’ve got to leave your dive lamps off during the first fifteen feet of descent. If they see the light they’ll come running and get you. Below fifteen feet you’re home free.

No problem. Or so I thought.

I do not scare. You can startle me, sure, but I never panic, and I’ve never lost my head.

That said, let me tell you, the complete, utter, absolute, unqualified, out-and-out (yes, I’m being redundant, but am I making my point?) all-encompassing, suffocating blackness that engulfed me during the first fifteen feet of that dive damn near unnerved me. I lost all orientation as to up and down—without weight I couldn’t depend on gravity to tell me, without a single visual point of reference (hell, I couldn’t even see my bubbles) I couldn’t depend on my eyes. It was damn near complete sensory deprivation. I felt my pulse and respiration rate jump and knew I’d be hyperventilating soon. I could banish the creeping panic simply by turning on my light. What’s a few stings compared to this. But nobody else was turning on their lights, so I’d be damned if I’d be the first.

Finally, somewhere ahead (or was that below?) one of the local guys flicked on his light because he’d hit the twenty-foot level.

Saved.

The rest of the dive was wonderful—you see creatures that never come out in the day. I did another night dive later off Grand Cayman and all was fine.

But those first fifteen feet off Zihuatanejo—I had to translate those feelings to a story.

Richard Chizmar bought it for his Cemetery Dance magazine.

So…hook your regulator to your tank, slip into your BCD, adjust your mask, and into the water…

NIGHT DRIVE

What is wrong? Silvio wondered as he cast his little net again.

He stood waist deep in the clear warm water near the big coral head. He held his thin brown arms high and squinted into the glare of the morning sun as gentle Caribbean swells lapped at his ribcage. Every morning for two years now, since he’d turned six, Silvio had waded offshore to net bait fish for his grandfather. A simple task. The shallows were alive with silversides, and one or two casts usually netted more than enough.

But not lately. Every day for the past week or so Silvio had found fewer fish wriggling in the fine mesh, and needed more and more casts to fill Granpa’s bait bucket. Today was the worst—eleven casts and nothing.

Granpa too was having bad luck in the deeper waters around the island. Usually he had no trouble bringing home enough snapper, barjack, and grouper to keep everyone well fed, but lately his catches had been falling off.

Silvio pulled on the string and hauled in his net for the twelfth time. It felt heavier. Success at last.

But when he lifted the net out of the water, instead of silversides he found a six-inch squirrel fish. He grinned. Never before had he caught anything this size in his little net. But his excitement faded as he took a closer look at the feebly flapping fish. The scales seemed to be sloughing from its red-and-white flanks, and its huge black eyes looked dull and blind. As he watched, it stretched its gills wide, then lay still.

Silvio lowered his net back into the water but the squirrel fish remained immobile. It looked dead. He reached into the net to examine it, but as he lifted the body it broke in half, releasing a sickening stink. Silvio cried out in shock and quickly washed off the putrid goo that coated his hand.

He was afraid now. Something was terribly wrong. Holding his net at arm’s length, he splashed toward shore. He had to show Granpa. Granpa would know what to do. This was Granpa’s island. He knew everything about the sandy land and the sea that enclosed it.

* * * * *

Michael Stover ascended along the mooring rope to a depth of about fifteen feet, then shut off his light and hung in the inky water. He waved his free arm back and forth in figure eights, watching bioluminescent plankton flash in its wake like a mini Fourth of July.

Cool.

He hadn’t been deep—fifty feet, max—so he didn’t need much of a safety stop. The water was warm and he was comfortable in his nylon bodysuit. He wished he could stay here all night, but the 300psi reading on his pressure gauge was a reality he couldn’t ignore. Reluctantly he released the rope and followed his bubbles to the surface.

Time to face the music.

Cries of relief and concern greeted his arrival on the surface. He lowered his mask and blinked his eyes. A moonless night, with bright stars glittering above, and the bars and hotels glowing along Seven Mile beach far to his right. The voices came from the dive boat looming over him.

“Are you okay?”...“Need any help?”...“Thank God! We’ve been worried sick about you!”

“I’m fine,” Stover said.

He shot a little more air into his BCD and stroked to the platform at the rear of the boat. He clung to the ladder as he removed his fins, then climbed aboard.

“Shit, man!”

Stover looked up and saw his assigned dive buddy—Lawson or Dawson or something like that—a bearded, balding, overweight talker. Like Stover he’d booked as a single and the dive master had paired them up.

“What happened? We hit bottom, you give me the O-K, we start toward the others, then a minute later I look around and you’re gone!”

He and the half-dozen other divers on board were crowded around him now.

“I got lost,” Stover said, seating himself on a side bench and sliding his tank into an empty slot. “I got disoriented down there in the dark. I didn’t know where everyone—“

“Bullshit!” said another voice.

Stover saw the divemaster pushing through the semicircle.

Uh-oh. Here it comes.

His name was Jim—or was it Tim?—late twenties like Stover, blond, deeply tanned, with one of those thorny freeform tattoos encircling each of his considerable biceps. An affable dude on the trip out, but thoroughly pissed at the moment.

“Pardon?”

“You heard me,” Jim-Tim said. “You weren’t lost. Our lights were visible from a hundred-fifty feet down there.”

“Then why didn’t you see mine?”

“We should have...unless you were hiding behind a coral head. Anyway, if you were lost you would’ve surfaced and come back to the boat. But you never came up. What the fuck’s your problem, man?”

Michael Stover’s problem was that he preferred to dive alone, a preference that broke one of the sacred rules of diving. No, he wasn’t stupid—the buddy system made tons of safety sense—and no, he wasn’t a loser loner—he sort of liked the crowded dive boats and the après-dive sharing of wonders seen below.

But during a dive...

Once he was under, Stover had his own priorities. First off, he loved the silence. Once below, all you heard was your own breath bubbling through the regulator. And tagging along with the silence was this wonderful sense of solitude. He loved to imagine he was the only person on the planet with a scuba rig, and that his were the first human eyes to gorge on the wonders of a Caribbean reef. But having a dive buddy—or worse, being part of an excursion group—shattered that illusion. Plus you had to go where someone else wanted to go.

So Stover tended to sneak off on his own as soon as he hit target depth.

In the world of scuba, this was sacrilege, anathema, the ultimate no-no. And Stover couldn’t blame them, really: The divemaster descends with eight divers; a few minutes later he looks around and counts only seven. He raps on his tank with his knife handle, but no answering clang comes back. He goes back to the surface and no one on the boat has seen the missing diver. That’s when his wetsuit tends to acquire a brown stain.

Thirty minutes later, when Stover surfaces, there’s the all-too-brief joyous celebration, followed quickly by anger: Where the hell did you go? Don’t you know better than...blah-blah-blah...yadda-yadda-yadda...

Was it worth it? he asked himself as the red-faced Jim-Tim rattled on.

Yeah. Especially on a night dive when you chance upon a coral head as spectacular as the one he’d found tonight. The colors alone are worth the grief. Water leaches the sunlight as it filters down from the surface, so even in the extraordinarily clear waters of the Caymans, you get down to a hundred feet and the brightest gobies and hydroids look faded. But at night, when you shine your torch from six inches away, the colors leap out at you. Tonight he’d found diamondback blennies among the anemones, and brilliant Christmas tree worms jutting from a brain coral formation, and he’d spent a good ten minutes watching two bright red hermit crabs battling over an empty shell.

But colors were only part of the story. Lots of things that stay hidden during the day come out when it’s dark—octopus, squid, eels, snakes—and they’re all hungry. The waters are alive with death. And Stover liked to participate in the feeding frenzy—not by eating, but by playing maestro with the eaters and the eaten.

Hold your flash still and the beam will fill with teeny wriggling filament worms. When the cone of light gets crowded, slowly lower the beam to a sea anemone and watch it gorge until it’s so full it hauls in its tentacles and shuts down for the night.

Diving in the dark—the best, man.

But then the grief.

Stover remained properly contrite during the lecture until Jim-Tim finally ran out of steam, then he promised never to do it again. But Jim-Tim was still mad as he stomped to the helm to steer them back to George Town...where Jim-Tim would no doubt hit the bars and blow-off the rest of that steam.

And that was where Stover’s real problems began. These divemasters all know each other, all hang out at the same bars. Jim-Tim starts talking about the asshole who almost gave him a heart attack tonight, and another says, Hey, I had a guy like that, and pretty soon they find out they’re all talking about the same guy.

The result was like major deodorant failure. Worse. If scuba were the Catholic Church, Michael Stover was excommunicated. If scuba were Hinduism, he became a member of the untouchable caste. He could offer double and triple the going rate for a dive—something his trust fund allowed without a second thought—and exhaust his charm and Jason Patric looks on the female bookers, but the answer was the same all over: Dive with someone else, Michael Stover.

Stover was already blacklisted in Cozumel, Belize, and had been edging toward that status here in the Caymans. And he couldn’t book a dive under a different name because the certified outfits wanted a look at your C-card. Once they saw his name, that was it. And as for the uncertified fly-by-night dive shops, that was like playing Russian roulette. Stover had tried one of those, but a test whiff from one of their tanks smelled like midpoint in the Lincoln Tunnel, and he’d canceled out.

He’d approached the Caymans with a game plan, starting on the smaller out islands—deep dives at the Blacktip Tunnels on Little Cayman, and Cemetery Wall on Cayman Brac—before moving here to the main island. He’d done only two Grand Cayman dives—hundred-footers at Twisted Sister on the south wall and Main Street on the north wall—and already word was out. But the dive shop he’d booked tonight apparently hadn’t heard about him. After this run, though, his name would be mud all the way out to Rum Point.

Ah, well. He hadn’t been to Bon Aire yet. And all of Micronesia waited.

* * * * *

Stover took his wetsuit off the hanger and checked for moisture: dry. Should be. He’d rinsed it out two days ago and hadn’t had it on since. Just as he’d expected, the dive shops had shut him out. Time to move on.

Only when in transit did he miss having a buddy. Soloing in an airport or on a plane was a whole different breed of isolation from soloing on a reef. He loathed it. But he’d yet to find a sympatico companion—a diver rich enough to have unlimited free time but who’d go his own way once they were underwater.

Maybe someday.

A knock on the door. Stover glanced at his watch. He’d told the front desk to send the porter by at nine; it was only 8:30. He pulled open the door.

“Look, I’m not packed yet so—“

He stopped. This dude was no porter.

“You dey man who dive alone?” said an old black guy who looked like a cross between Nelson Mandela and Redd Foxx, dressed by Dumpsters ‘R’ Us. A featherstar of a man, bright eyes with black-hole centers set in sun-blasted furrows of brain-coral skin, a ghost of a beard clinging to his jaws like Spanish moss.

“Who wants to know?”

The old man thrust out a spidery hand. “I am Ernesto.”

Stover shook it with no enthusiasm, then began to close the door. “Great. Look, I’m packing to leave, so if you’ll—“

“Oh, you do not want to be packed so soon,” he said with that melodic island cadence. “Not until you have had the chat with Ernesto.”

“Really? And just what is it you want, Ernesto?”

Ernesto stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind him. Stover didn’t see how he’d had enough room to manage that, but suddenly he was in. He wasn’t afraid of the old man. Hardly enough muscle on those matchstick arms to break, well, a matchstick. But still...the guy had an urgency about him...

“It be not what Ernesto want. It be what dey man who dive alone want. Do he want to be diving dey Atalaya Wall?”

Stover widened his eyes. “The Atalaya Wall? Ooooh, neeeeat! And how about we swing by the Seven Gold Cities of Cibola along the way?”

“Ernesto not be following dis talk.”

“Come on, old man. You don’t really think I’m going to fall for that, do you? What do I look like?”

“You look like dey man who want to be diving dey Atalaya Wall.”

“And next you’ll tell me you can take me there.”

A shrug. “Ernesto lives on Atalaya.”

Stover stared at him. No guile in those bottomless eyes. Could it be...?

Naw. The Atalaya Wall was a Caribbean myth.

Facts: The Cayman Trench runs from the Yucatan basin, passing the Caymans and snaking between Jamaica and Cuba to end up somewhere in Haiti’s backyard. Troughs along its course reach depths just this side of five miles, the deepest spots in the Carib.

The concentrations of sea life along the trench walls are as dense as anywhere in the world, and make the Caymans an international dive mecca. But is that enough? No way. The scubaheads have to conjure up a Shangri-La called Atalaya, a lost island perched on the edge of a four-mile trough with a vertical reef that’s absofuckinlutely the best dive site in the world...if only someone could find it. Those who search for it come back defeated, or don’t come back at all.

“Ernesto be taking you dere if you want.”

Okay, Stover thought. I’ll play along. “Yeah? Why me?”

“Only dey man who wishes to be alone in dey sea, to be one with dey reef, can see dey Atalaya Wall.”

“And I’m that man?”

“Dat is what dey be telling Ernesto.”

“Too bad you didn’t come by sooner. I’ve got a flight to Tampa in a couple of hours.”

“Oh,” Ernesto said. “Okay den.” He turned and reached for the doorknob. “Perhaps dat be a good thing.”

What? No hard sell?

“Why do you say that?”

“Because dey Atalaya Wall be ruinin’ you for aaaaall other places. Once you see it, you not want to be diving anywhere else.”

Stover put a hand on the old man’s bony shoulder. “Hold on a sec.” I know I’m going to hate myself for this, he thought, but asked anyway. “How much you want to take me there?”

“Five hundred dollars.”

“Five hundred!” The average two-tank dive ran fifty-sixty.

“Cayman dollars.”

That added another twenty-five percent. “Ernesto, my man, I do believe you’re a few fins short of a whole fish.”

“Is a long trip, and Ernesto must be sailing all dey way himself.”

“Sail?” This was bugfuck crazy.

But just crazy enough to be the real thing. What con artist would dream up this approach? And hell, the money was nothing. Why not go for it? He had no firm plans other than hanging out with the manatees in Florida while he planned his next dive trip. And even if this guy took him someplace other than Atalaya, he’d be diving alone, on a reef he could call his own, with no grief afterwards.

But what if Ernesto really did know the way to the Atalaya Wall?

The prospect became a thousand pounds of sand, engulfing him.

“All right. When do we leave?”

Ernesto’s eyes all but disappeared in parchment furrows as he smiled. “As soon as come dey dark.”

“A night dive, then?”

“A night trip. Ernesto only travel in dey dark...so dat others may not be following him.”

“Gotcha.”

Sneaking off in the night to dive. This was getting better every minute.

* * * * *

Stover huddled on a bench on the windward side of Ernesto’s small ketch as it slid across the starlit water. He clutched the handle of the six-inch, saw-toothed diving knife in the pocket of his windbreaker. No moon overhead, land was a memory, and Ernesto had the tiller.

Alone at sea with a crazy old man.

Crazy, yeah. Little doubt on that score. Anyone who truly thought he knew the way to the Atalaya was probably missing a couple of hoses on his regulator. But dangerous? Stover didn’t think so. But he couldn’t be sure. Thus the knife.

So why am I here?

Just as crazy.

But not stupid.

It had occurred to him earlier, on his way to the docks, that the old guy might plan to rob him, kill him, then toss him overboard. He’d almost chickened out, but then flashed on a deal: the first hundred bucks up front, and the other four when they got back to George Town. Which made Stover more valuable alive than dead.

Yeah, you had to get up pretty early in the morning to keep Mike Stover in your wake.

Ernesto didn’t seem to have a problem with the arrangement. And Stover had no problem with the air tanks Ernesto had brought along. Rented from Bob Soto’s shop. Good stuff.

And the old coot was a damn good sailor. He had only the foresail up but they were making good time running west with the swells. Up and down, up and down...a primal rhythm...soothing...lulling...

* * * * *

“Wake up, diver man.”

Dark...smelly...something wrapped around his face, around his body. Stover thrashed violently, fighting the encircling coils, and felt himself falling.

Sunlight seared his eyes as he hit a hard surface and rolled free. He blinked, looked around. Still on the ketch. Sitting on the deck. A dirty, threadbare blanket that might have been navy blue once—might have been clean once—lay coiled around his feet. He kicked it away. Christ, for a moment there—

“We are here, diver man.” Ernesto stood over him, grinning.

“Where?”

He gestured over the gunwale. “Atalaya.”

Stover scrambled to his feet. A hundred yards away lay a short white beach lined with coconut palms, Caribbean pines, and a cluster of corrugated metal shacks. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but he’d pictured something a little more impressive than this oversized sandbar, the mirror image of a zillion other tiny Caribbean islands.

“That’s it?”

“Atalaya not be looking like too much above dey water. Ah, but below...below she have many, many charms.”

She’d better, Stover thought. He was feeling a bit cranky at the moment. His limbs were stiff, and his back felt like he’d been sleeping with an air tank strapped on all night.

He glanced around. The sail was down, tumbled around the boom like an old bed sheet, and the sun sat maybe ten degrees above the horizon in a pristine sky.

“How long’ve we been here?”

“Just arrived.”

“What happened to my night dive?”

“First you do daylight dive. Atalaya must be seen in day to appreciate. And while you down, you choose where you wish to be night diving.”

Made sense.

“And not to be worrying. You will dive in dey dark. Ernesto promises.”

Stover climbed up onto the deck and stood by the foremast for a better look. To his right, the sandy bottom lay a dozen feet below, a pale, pale turquoise expanse running in a gentle slope from the beach to the boat, marred here and there by dark splotches of coral heads. But directly under the keel the aquamarine hue darkened abruptly to a deeper, almost cobalt blue that stretched to his left as far as he could see. The color line ran directly under the boat, from the fore horizon to the aft. The lip of the Cayman Trench, a sheer almost vertical drop, where units of depth switched from feet to miles.

The Atalaya Wall, he thought. If this is really it...and if it’s half as spectacular as the fables say...Christ, the stories I’ll be able to tell.

The aches and pains drained away. He hopped back down to the deck and unzipped his dive bag.

“Let’s do it.”

As Stover was attaching his regulator to the first tank, he spotted movement on the island: a skinny little boy, a stick figure drawn with magic marker, ran down to the waterline and waved.

“Who’s that?”

“Dat be Silvio, Ernesto’s grandboy.”

“Yeah? Tell you what—I’ll bring him back a nice fat conch for dinner.”

Stover thought he saw Ernesto’s eyes cloud for an instant before he turned away and stared at the water.

“Silvio like dey conch,” the old man said softly.

Stover was suited up and ready to rock in less than ten minutes. He seated himself on the starboard gunwale, waved to Ernesto, then flopped backward into the water. He released some air from his BCD and let himself sink to within a couple of feet of the bottom. He started kicking, scanning the sand as he moved.

Where were the fish? Shallow open water and sandy bottoms had nowhere near the life of a coral head, but he was used to seeing something—a flounder, a ray, a snapper or two, a school of baitfish. He found nothing, not even in the boat’s shadow, usually a favorite hang for barracuda and others.

Not an auspicious start, but he was sure all that would change once he reached the storied Atalaya Wall. And that lay just a dozen feet ahead.

Stover stayed low, kicking for speed. He imagined himself in a single-seater plane, flying low over the desert, coming to what looked like the end of the world and zooming over the edge. But instead of finding the corrugated walls of the Grand Canyon...

Nothing but blue emptiness, deepening steadily in hue ahead and below as the miles of water beneath him swallowed the light...he was floating above eternity...the closest thing to flying without wings, to spacewalking without a rocket.

Stover relished the solitude a moment, looking into the abyss...and feeling suddenly uneasy as he sensed it looking into him.

Shaking off the feeling, he did a one-eighty and kicked back toward the wall.

What the hell?

Where was the color? Where was the life? The hard coral looked bleached and dead, and the soft coral looked like it had been turned to stone—the fans stood rigid instead of undulating gracefully in the currents, and the sponges looked like terra cotta pottery.

Stover’s mouth went dry. What was going on here? Had some asshole started using the trench as a toxic waste dump?

He bled a little more air from his vest and sank deeper, studying the wall. Except for the need to pop his ears, he had no sensation of sinking; rather, the wall seemed to be rising. But nothing changed: the coral was as dead down here as it had been on the rim. And not one damn fish.

This was getting scarier by the minute. Something heavy going down here, something bad in this water, and Stover wanted no part of it. He wanted out. Now.

A shadow passed over him.

Jesus!

Stover whirled and looked up, expecting a manta or some other—equally harmless, he hoped—pelagic, but saw nothing but water. Darker water. A cloud must have found the sun. Funny, he didn’t remember seeing any when he’d entered the water.

As he checked his depth—ninety-five feet—another shadow passed like a dark wing, and now the water was definitely darker, almost if it were sunset up there.

Stover’s heart began to hammer. Something very wrong here, and getting wronger by the second. He kicked toward the surface at a faster speed than usually recommended, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t been down long enough to absorb enough nitrogen to trigger the bends. And fuck the safety stop for the same reason.

Get me out of here!

And then it grew even darker, so dark he could barely see the wall to his right.

Terrified now, Stover began kicking frantically, bringing his arms into play to increase his velocity toward the surface shimmering so faintly above.

Another flicker of shadow and now even the shimmer was gone.

Stover heard himself whimper in fright through his regulator as he stroked and kicked upward. No! This wasn’t happening—couldn’t be happening. The sun doesn’t just go out. Even if a total eclipse was going on, there’d be some light up there.

He was getting winded. Jesus, he should have reached the surface by now. Still kicking, he found his instrument pack and held it before his mask. He could barely make out the luminescent dial on the depth gauge, but he swore it read 120 feet.

He blinked a couple of times and rechecked the gauge. No question: 120 feet.

Had to be some mistake. He’d been ninety-five feet down when he’d started for the surface.

His checked his pressure gauge: 2000psi—he’d started off at 3100. He was breathing too fast, chewing up his air supply. Had to relax. No panic. Think.

Use the BCD—it wasn’t called a buoyancy control device for nothing. Let it do the work.

Stover popped a little air into the vest’s bladder and felt himself start to rise. He calmed himself, controlled his breathing. He was going to be all right. Somewhere there was a rational explanation for all this, but he’d wait till he was on the surface before worrying about it.

He held up his depth gauge again, and damn, he couldn’t see the dial. The water seemed to be eating the light. He fumbled in his vest pocket and pulled out his flash. The meager glow barely lit the dial, but he almost lost his mouthpiece when he saw the numbers—150 feet.

No! Not possible!

Nitrogen narcosis. That had to be it. Too much nitrogen made you giddy, crazy. Divers hallucinated, tore off their masks and regulators and tried to breathe water. The rapture of the deep, they called it.

But Stover felt no rapture, only panic. He pointed his flash above him and watched the bubbles rise. He was following his bubbles, that meant he was rising...so how could his depth gauge be reading deeper.

Air—Christ, he was down to 1000psi.

His weight belt. He carried eight pounds of lead around his waist to compensate for the body’s natural buoyancy.

Dump it!

He grabbed the quick release buckle, pulled it free, let it go...

...and felt it slide away to his right. To his right!

He reached out and caught it, and yes, that was the way it was tugging him...to the right...perpendicular to the path of his bubbles.

But how...?

Oh, God, help! He was down here alone in the impenetrable dark with no idea of where was up or where was down. Somebody please—!

A rush of turbulence spun him half way around and tugged the belt from his grasp. What was that? A wave surge? That meant he was near the surface.

Stover turned and started swimming in the opposite direction, away from his bubble trail, toward where all his senses told him was down. Had to try it. Nothing else made sense. What did he have to lose?

Everything. He sobbed through his regulator. Absolutely everything.

Another swirl of turbulence, stronger this time, and Stover knew no wave or subsurface current had caused that. Something was moving out there in the dark, something big...big as the wall itself maybe.

But what could be that big? Something from the floor of the trench? God knew what could sleep in those deeps.

He redoubled his swimming efforts—toward the surface, he prayed. All he knew was that he had to keep going, keep moving, had to reach the surface before his tank ran out. The surface—air, light! It was somewhere ahead.

Had to be...

Oh, please! Please!

* * * * *

Please, Silvio thought as he made his first cast into the sparkling water. Please guide the fish to me.

He watched the fine mesh sink beneath the gentle waves, then hauled it back toward him. His heart leaped at he pulled the net from the water and saw the squirming, fluttering mass of silversides flashing in the sun.

They’re back! The fish have come back!

“Granpa!” he cried joyously as he splashed toward the beach.

Granpa had been so quiet since that diver man had disappeared yesterday. Almost sad. Silvio had heard other adults comforting him, saying he had done what must be done.

Silvio didn’t understand. All he knew was that the water was alive again—he had proof right here. And he hoped that would make Granpa smile again.

MEMOIRS OF THE EFFSTER

INTRODUCTION

This isn't really a story. Call it "fictional ephemera."

A little background: I’m not sure when—I think it was back in 1990—and I’m not sure where—maybe at one of Gary Lovisi’s annual paperback collector conventions in Manhattan. Anyway, I was listening to the late Michael Avallone discuss his favorite subject (Michael Avallone) and about how he once wrote an entire novel in a day and a half, and how he used to write the entire contents of magazines issue after issue, and so on, all of which I knew. But here’s what got me: The hero of these exploits isn’t “I” or “me”...it’s “the Avo.” I listened in awe. Not only is this man referring to himself in the third person, but he’s given himself a nickname.

Maybe it was the fumes, but later that day as I was crawling through the Lincoln Tunnel on my way home I began imagining the grandiose exploits of a wildly prolific writer known to one and all (including himself) as the Effster. I typed up a short piece about him for my own amusement, then sent it to Ed Gorman to see if he recognized the inspiration for the character. He not only recognized the Avo immediately, he wanted to publish it in Mystery Scene. I said go ahead, figuring no one would read it. To my amazement (and consternation), I show up at the 1991 NECon and people are calling me “Effster.”

I did a second “memoir” a year or so later, planned others but never got to them. So here they are, the complete memoirs of the Effster to date. I’ve put them in internal chronological order (“Summer ‘73” was written first). I toyed with the idea of writing a third memoir for inclusion but decided not to subject you to too much of this guy at once.

The Effster is nothing if not empathetic.

MEMOIRS OF THE EFFSTER

First Day of Spring '61

So we're sitting around this table near the back door at Gerde's Folk City in the Village, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and the Effster, all recovering from last night's party at LeRoi Jones's apartment, Allen still loaded on psilocybin and Jack already stoked with his own drug of choice (Ripple red), and the two of them engaged in another episode of one of their interminable arguments while I'm scratching out a couple of chapters of the new novel on a yellow legal pad. A warm day for the first of spring, so we've got the door open and the sun's pouring in. Gerde never lets too much sun into Folk City. Easy to see why. Not too many places more depressing than a night spot at lunch hour.

The Effster's not the only one writing there that afternoon. Some baby-faced kid in blue work shirt and denims with curly light brown hair twisted this way and that like it hasn't been combed since New Year's eve is sitting on the edge of the stage hitting a few chords on his guitar then stopping to write some lyrics, then hitting the chords again. Allen called him Bobby when we came in, said the kid's been in town only a couple of months and already he's making waves in the folk scene around the Village.

The Effster's not real crazy about folk music.

"I gotta get out of New York," Allen says, scratching his beard. "It's stifling me."

The Effster knows just what he means. I've been here almost a year now and can sense a gradual waning of my literary production. I mean, here it is almost April already and I'm only half a dozen chapters into my third novel of the year (Stranger in a Strange Land under my Robert A. Heinlein pseudonym). I've already finished Ship of Fools and A Shade of Difference (the sequel to my 1960 blockbuster Advise and Consent under my Allen Drury pen name), but still have Failsafe and Seven Days in May to do before June.

By this time last year I'd already finished The Agony and the Ecstasy, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Three Hearts and Three Lions, Franny and Zooey, and Tropic of Cancer; and the year before that I'd already done Starship Troopers (another Heinlein title) and a real fat one called Hawaii under the Michener pseud.

Got to get cracking.

"Thank Krishna that Peter and I are heading back to Paris the end of the month," Allen sighs.

"What for?" Jack says with one of his demonic grins. "To meet up with Burroughs? You won't get much out of him these days. All he's doing is that cutting and pasting jive. That's not writing."

The Effster knows Willy B. pretty well. In fact, last time I was in Paris I convinced him to change the title of his novel to The Naked Lunch (he wanted to call it Word Horde), and finished it for him when he got sick from too much majoun.

"Gonna meet Corso there too," Allen says. "Paris in the spring. It's inspiring."

"Greg's the one who could use some inspiration," Jack says. "Hasn't had much since The Happy Birthday of Death."

I agree but keep my comments to myself.

The Effster does not put down other writers. That's reserved for critics and reviewers.

But I've been thinking Allen might be losing his touch as well since he began hanging out with Tim Leary and dipping into mushrooms and meth. He read me his latest poem, "Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamber," and I thought it missed the point. But again I kept my opinions to myself.

The Effster is nothing if not sensitive to other writers' feelings.

"Greg's Happy Birthday is truly a fine work," Allen says heatedly. He and Gregory Corso are old friends. "And ‘The Bomb’ is one of the greatest poems ever written about the nuclear age."

"Nowhere near as good as his 'Marriage'," Kerouac counters, "but who would've noticed ‘Bomb’ if the old Effster here hadn't suggested Greg have it typeset in the shape of a mushroom cloud?"

"Greg owes the Effster for that one,” Allen says. “We all owe the Effster one way or another. You, Jack—what would've happened to On the Road if old F. here hadn't convinced Millstein to give it that rave review in the Times? You wouldn't be King of the Beats now."

Jack nods. "No argument there. And where’d you be if the Effster hadn't made a few phone calls and got Ferlinghetti arrested for selling 'Howl' in Frisco?"

"Yeah," Allen says somberly. "No obscenity trial, no notoriety." Then grins through his beard. “And no extra printings. You're the greatest, F."

I merely shrug. The Effster has never seen any sense in belaboring the obvious.

Just then the folk singer wanders by, frowning.

"Hey, Bobby," Allen calls. "Why so glum?"

"Lyric troubles," Bobby says, running his fingers through his bed-head hair. "Got a song full of questions but no answers."

"Then you've come to the right place," Allen says, gesturing dramatically. "Myself and my two friends here, Jack and the Effster, are the world's greatest answer men. Aren't we, F.?"

I say, "Sometimes the answers are so obvious you can't hear them. Sometimes they're just blowing in the wind."

Bobby's eyes widen. He snatches paper and pencil from the breast pocket of his work shirt and begins scribbling. "I'm gonna use that, if you don't mind."

I shrug. The Effster is nothing if not generous with his bon mots.

"This is for a folk song, I presume."

"Yeah," he says. "Need some original material for my gigs. Want a real mix. Some standards, some new, some serious, some funny, and some just strange. Don't know how the original stuff'll go over, though."

"Anything original these days is good," I say. "The times they are a-changing."

Bobby jerks like he's been kicked and starts scribbling some more. "Can I use that too?" he says.

I shrug once again. "Why not? It's merely a statement of fact."

"Thanks a lot, F. Thanks a million."

I wave off his thanks. "Don't think twice, it's all right."

He scribbles again. "And that? Can I use that?"

I nod and refrain from saying another word. The Effster fears this Bobby character will copy down his order for another beer.

"Thanks again, F," he says, heading for the door.

I look at the sky outside and see the gathering thunderheads and figure it should be safe to mention the weather.

"Better hurry," I say. "Looks like a hard rain's gonna fall."

He starts scribbling again as he goes out the back door.

I wish him well.

The Effster is nothing if not generous with his well-wishes for fellow writers, even if they're folk singers. And I have a feeling that with proper guidance from the Effster, this Bobby What's-His-Name might do all right.

Back to work.

Summer '73

So here’s the Effster, sitting around the gat-shaped pool (a concrete .45 automatic with steps at the clip end of the grip) at my Left Coast hideaway playing chess with Stevie Spielberg between knocking out chapters of my new horror novel in progress,

"So F," Stevie says, sliding a pawn toward my knight, "what do we do with all those subplots?"

He's talking about Jaws, the novel the Effster recently finished under his Peter Benchley pseudonym. Stevie just read it in manuscript and wants to direct it.

"Dump them," I tell him. "They're ballast. I just put them in there to fill out the page count. This is a movie, Stevie. You've got to learn that what works in a book doesn't necessarily work on the screen. Dump the subplots and keep that shark on the screen; and while you're at it, work some sort of basso obligato into the score whenever the shark's around. You'll have yourself a winner. The Effster guarantees it."

I glance at the board and take his queen with my king's bishop. "Hey, thanks, F."

"For what? Taking your bishop?"

"No—for the advice."

I smile. The Effster is nothing if not generous with his advice.

Just then Georgie Lucas climbs out of the pool and hangs over the chess board as he dries off.

'I tell you, F," he says, "that computerized camera idea of yours is really working out on the special-effects tests. It's going to take years to do but I think you're going to love the final product."

"I hope so," I tell him as I type another chapter on the new novel. "l mean, you know how 'Star Wars' is the Effster's favorite of all the scripts he's written this year. Didn't want to give it to you if you couldn't make it look right."

"Speaking of writing," Stevie says, obviously trying to distract me as he slides his rook down the right hand side of the board, "you're really taking your time with that new book there."

“Damn right," I say. "It's going to be important, so the Effster's spending a whole day on it, start to finish."

"A whole day!" Georgie says. "You've never spent more than a few hours on a novel!"

"I know that. But it's for Brian."

They both say, "Oh."

I take Stevie's remaining bishop with my queen.

"Yeah, he came to the Effster last week. Wants to do something with teenagers after 'Sisters.' You know DePalma—likes all that red stuff in his movies. I told him the Effster would whip something together for him but I want to do it as a novel first. I mean, you guys know how the Effster has been trying for years to get this horror thing rolling, but it remains dead in the water. I don't know what it is. I thought I'd jump started it with Rosemary's Baby under my Levin moniker, but even with a hit movie it never got going. Did I tell you I'm going to do another Levin novel soon? Calling it The Boys from Brazil. Anyway, I waited a couple of years and tried again with The Exorcist under my Blatty pen name. Another bestseller, but still the horror thing is just sputtering along. I'm hoping this new one will turn the corner."

The Effster is nothing if not persistent.

"If anyone can do it, F," Stevie says, "you can."

"I know. I know. I've just got to set my mind to it."

"Look what you did for international thrillers with your Ludlum books."

Stevie's trying to sneak up on the Effster's queen but I see what he's doing.

"Maybe that's it," I say. "Maybe the Effster should start a new pseudonym and pump a horror novel or two a year into the market under that name. Create a Ludlum of horror. Yeah. That's what I'II do. But what name will I use?”

"Yo, F!" says a new voice.

"Yo, Sly!” I say as Stallone saunters into the backyard. "What's happenin'?"

'Not much. Whatcha workin' on?"

"New novel called Carrie."

He eyes the roll of paper at the rear of the typewriter.

"Slow goin', huh?"

I should explain, for those of you unfamiliar with the Effster Method, that I type on a continuous sheet of paper; it rolls from below the machine and flows onto a take-up roller after the Effster has had his way with it. I call it a Word Processor. (When I get a few minutes I'II work out a way to get this done electronically, but for now this will have to do.) My secretary unrolls it later, cuts it into separate sheets, boxes the manuscript, and sends it off to the publisher.

The Effster never rewrites. He doesn't have to.

Sly says, "I assume this means you finished that screenplay you was doin' for me."

"It certainly does."

I reach under the table and pull a script from the box there. I hand it to him.

"There you go."

He stares at the top sheet. "'Rocky?'"

"It's perfect for you, Sly. Tailor made for you by the Effster. It's gonna make you."

He flashes a lopsided grin. "You're da greatest, F."

"Ain’t it da troot," I say In Brooklynese so he can understand better.

The Effster is nothing if not gracious.

"Now," I say as I turn to the chess board and move my queen's bishop three squares, "if I could only think of a catchy pseudonym for my new series of horror novels. Checkmate, by the way."

Stevie gapes as Georgie and Sly laugh.

Stevie says, "Got me again, F," and knocks over his king.

Which gives me an idea.

"Thanks," l say.

"For what?"

"For giving me the surname of my new pseudonym. And for helping me out, I'm going to make the first name Steven—though I might change the spelling a little—in your honor. "

The Effster is nothing if not demonstrative of his gratitude.

"Now get out of here, you guys. The Effster's got too much to do."

They wave and leave.

So much to do. I mean, I'm planning Slapstick, a new novel under my Kurt Vonnegut pseud, plus Ragtime under my Doctorow name for the snobs, and not one but two Jack Higgins novels, Storm Warning and The Eagle Has Landed. I'm finishing up The Forever War under my Haldeman name, plus Hef's been calling all week, wanting the Effster to do the entire December issue of Playboy. Which is okay, but I'd only agreed to do all the fiction. Now he wants the Effster to do all the editorials and non-fiction too. I'm not terribly interested in writing non-fiction, but I agreed.

The Effster's nothing if not accommodating.

Back to work.

RUMORS

INTRODUCTION

A little background: I traveled to England over the Halloween weekend of 1988 to attend the World Fantasy convention in London. There I met Rob Meades and David Wake of The Drabble Project who asked me to contribute to their upcoming anthology, Drabble II—Double Century. All profits were to go to the Royal National Institute for the Blind.

A drabble is a story/vignette/whatever of exactly one hundred words. Not one more, not one less. I liked the challenge. It was almost as restrictive as doing a teleplay for Monsters. The key is using those 100 words to give readers enough so they can fill in the blanks.

(Look at this: The intro is longer than the story.)

RUMORS

I tightened my grip on the dwarf's throat.

"Your ring—now!"

"Why my ring?"

"I've heard it grants knowledge! Power!"

"It won't fit!"

"I've heard it fits all!" I squeezed his throat. "Give it!"

"Stop!" he rasped and stuck out his hand. "Take it!"

I pulled it from his finger and dropped him, then pushed the ring against my fingertip. It expanded, slipping easily over the knuckle.

"Ah! Now—"

The dwarf suddenly looked larger while I...I was shrinking. And the ring—it wouldn't come off!

"But—?"

The looming former dwarf leered.

"Now you know: Don't believe everything you hear."

HUNTERS

INTRODUCTION

Another drabble.

I get hunting to eat, to live.

I don’t get hunting for sport.

HUNTERS

I asked the hunter what degree of soullessness was required to take aim with a high-powered rifle at a graceful herbivore and snuff it out with a finger-twitch.

"I hunt just for sport," he replied.

“That’s sport?”

“Understand that it’s so much more than mere shooting: fresh air, the outdoors, the oneness with nature, the camaraderie with your fellow hunters as you ring the campfire and swap tales.”

"You could use blanks and still do all that."

He laughed. "That would take the fun out of it!"

So I shot him. Just for sport.

He was right.

It was fun.

DREAMS

INTRODUCTION

Byron Preiss called asking for a contribution to one of his three “Ultimate” books. I had my choice of The Ultimate Dracula, The Ultimate Werewolf, or The Ultimate Frankenstein. I’d already done a long vampire story earlier in the year (the novella Midnight Mass) and had never found werewolves all that interesting, so I chose Frankie. My challenge was to come up with something fresh on the monster in the allotted 3,500 to 5,000 words. Another restriction was that the story had to be based on the movie version, not Mary Shelley’s original. (Thus the reference to the monster’s creator as Henry rather than Victor.)

As is my custom, I inverted expectations, turned tropes on their heads, and came up with an angle that delighted me. As I wrote the first line of “Dreams,” I already knew the last. It is also, you will note, a nice little exercise in dramatic irony.

DREAMS

The nightmare again.

I almost dread falling asleep. Always the same, and yet never quite the same. The events differ dream to dream, yet always I am in a stranger’s body, a huge, monstrous, patchwork contraption that reels through the darkness in such ungainly fashion. It’s always dark in the dream, for I seem to be a creature of the night, forever in hiding.

And I can’t remember my name.

The recent dreams are well formed. My head has cleared in them. So unlike the early dreams, which I can barely remember. Those are no more than a montage of blurred images now—a lightning-drenched laboratory, a whip-wielding hunchback, fear, a stone-walled cell, chains, loneliness, a little girl drowning among floating blossoms, a woman in a wedding gown, townsfolk with torches, fire, a burning windmill, pain, rage, PAIN!

But I’m all right now. Scarred but healing. And my mind is clear. The pain from the fire burned away the mists. I remember things from dream to dream, and more and more bits and pieces from long ago.

But what is my name?

I know I must stay out of sight. I don’t want to be burned again. That’s why I spend the daylight hours hiding here in the loft of this abandoned stable on the outskirts of Goldstadt. I sleep most of the day. But at night I wander. Always into town. Always to the area around the Goldstadt Medical College. I seem to be attracted to the medical college. The reason rests here in my brain, but it scampers beyond my grasp whenever I reach for it. One day I’ll catch it and then I’ll know.

So many unanswered questions in these dreams. But aren’t dreams supposed to be that way? Don’t they pose more questions than they answer?

My belly is full now. I broke into a pastry shop and gorged myself on the unsold sweets left over from yesterday, and now I’m wandering the back alleys, drinking from rain barrels, peering from the shadows into the lighted windows I pass. I feel a warm resonance within when I see a family together by a fire. Once I must have had a life like that. But the warmth warps into rage if I watch too long, because I know such a scene will never be mine again.

I know it’s only a dream. But the rage is so real.

As I pass the rear of a tavern, the side door opens and two men step out. I stumble farther back into the shadows, wanting to run but knowing I’d make a terrible racket. No one must see me. No one must know I’m alive. So I stay perfectly still, waiting for them to leave.

That’s when I hear the voice. The deep, delicious voice of a handsome young man with curly blond hair and fresh clear skin. I know this without seeing him. I even know his name.

Karl.

I lean to my right and peer down the alley. My heart leaps at the sight of him. It’s not my heart; it’s the huge, ponderous heart of a stranger, but it responds nonetheless, thudding madly in my chest. I listen to his clear, rich laughter as he waves good-bye to his friend and strolls away toward the street.

Karl.

Why do I know him?

I follow. I know it’s dangerous but I must. But I don’t go down the alley after him. Instead I lumber along in the back alleys, splattering through puddles, scattering rats, dodging stinking piles of trash as I keep pace with him, catching sight of his golden-haired form between buildings as he strides along.

He’s not heading for home. Somewhere in my head I know where he lives and he’s headed in the wrong direction. I follow him to a cottage at the north end of Goldstadt, watch him knock, watch a raven-haired beauty open the door and leap into his arms, watch them disappear inside. I know her too.

Maria.

The rage spewing up in me is nearly as uncontainable as it is unexplainable. It’s all I can do to keep myself from bursting through that door and tearing them both apart.

Why? What are these emotions? Who are these people? And why do I know their names and not my own?

I cool. I wait. But Karl doesn’t reappear. The sky lightens and still no Karl. I must leave before I am seen. As I head back toward the stable that has become my nest, my rage is gone, replaced by a cold black despair. Before I climb to the loft I pause to relieve myself. As I lower my heavy, crudely stitched pants I pray that it will be different this dream, but there it is—that long, thick, slack member hanging between my legs. It repulses me. I try to relieve myself without touching it.

I am a woman. Why do these dreams place me in the body of a man?

Awake again.

I’ve spent the day talking, laughing, discussing the wisdom of the ages. Such a relief to be back to reality, back in my own body—young, lithe, smaller, smoother, with slim legs, dainty fingers, and firm, compact breasts. So good to be a woman again.

But my waking hours aren’t completely free from confusion. I’m not sure where I am. I do know that it’s warm and beautiful. Grassy knolls flow green through the golden sunshine toward the majestic amethyst-hued mountains that tower in the distance. Sweet little hummingbirds dart about in the hazy spring air.

And at least when I’m awake I know my name: Eva. Eva Rucker.

I just wish I knew why I was here. Don’t misunderstand. I love it here. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Friendly people wandering the hills, wise men stopping by to discuss the great philosophies of the ages. It’s like the Elysian Fields I read about in Greek mythology, except I’m alive and this is all real. I simply don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this.

I have a sense that I was brought here as compensation for an unpleasantness in my past. I seem to remember some recent ugliness in which I was unwittingly involved, unjustly accused, something so darkly traumatic that my mind shies from the memory of it. But the wrong was righted and I’ve been sent here to recuperate.

I think of Karl and how he became part of my dream last night. Karl…so handsome, so brilliant, so dashing. I haven’t thought of him since I arrived here. How could I forget the man I love?

A cloud passes across the sun as my thoughts darken with the memory of the dream-Karl in the dream-Maria’s arms. Maria is Karl’s sister! They would never!

How perverse these nightmares! I shouldn’t let them upset me.

The sun reemerges as I push the memory away. It’s wonderful here. I never want to leave. But I’m tired now. The golden wine I had with dinner has made me drowsy. I’ll just lie back and rest my eyes for a moment…

Oh, no! The dream again!

I’m in that horrid body, stumbling through the night. Can’t I close my eyes even for a few seconds without falling into this nightmare? I want to scream, to burst from this cocoon of dream and return to my golden fields. But the nightmare tightens its steely grip and I lurch on.

I stop at a schoolhouse. I’m hungry but there’s something more important than food inside. I break down the door and enter the single classroom with its rows of tiny desks. I rip the top off one desk after the other and carry it to the shafts of moonlight pouring through the windows until I find the paper and pencil I seek. I bring them to the teacher’s desk. I’m too large to seat myself, so I kneel beside the desk and force my huge ungainly fingers to grasp the pencil and write.

I know this is a dream, but still I feel compelled to let the dream-Karl know that even though my body has metamorphosed into this huge ungainly monstrosity, his Eva still cares for him.

After many tries, I manage a legible note:

KARL

I LOVE YOU

YOUR EVA

I fold the sheet and take it with me. At Karl’s uncle’s house—where Karl lives—I slip it under the door. Then I stand back in the shadows and wait. And as I wait, I remember more and more about Karl.

We met near the University of Goldstadt where he was a student at the medical college. That was in my real life. I assume he remains a student in my dreams. I so wanted to attend the university but the Regents wouldn’t hear of it. They were scandalized by my application. No women in the College of Arts and Sciences, and especially in the medical college. Especially not a poor farm girl.

So I’d hide in the rear of the lecture halls and listen to Dr. Waldman’s lectures on anatomy and physiology. Karl found me there but kept my secret and let me stay. I fell in love with him immediately. I remember that. I remember all our secret meetings, in fields, in lofts. He’d teach me what he learned in class. And then he’d teach me other things. We became lovers. I’d never given myself to any man before. Karl was the first, and I swear he’ll be the only one. I don’t remember how we became separated. I—

Here he comes. Oh, look at him! I want to run to him but I couldn’t bear for him to see me like this. What torture this nightmare is!

I watch him enter his uncle’s house, see him light the candles in the entry-way. I move closer as he picks up my note and reads it. But no loving smile lights his features. Instead, his face blanches and he totters back against the wall. Then he’s out the door and running, flying through the streets, my note clutched in his hand. I follow him as best I can but he outdistances me. No matter. I know the route. I sense where he’s going.

When I arrive at Maria’s house he’s already inside. I lurch to a lighted window and peer within. Karl stands in the center of the room, his eyes wild, the ruddy color still gone from his cheeks. Maria has her arms around his waist. She’s smiling as she comforts him.

“—only a joke,” she says. “Can’t you see that, my love? Someone’s trying to play a trick on you!”

“Then it’s a damn good trick!” Karl holds my note before her eyes. “This is how she always signed her notes—‘Your Eva.’ No one else knew that. Not even you. And I burned all those letters.”

Maria laughs. “So what are you telling me? That Eva wrote you this note? That’s certainly not her handwriting.”

“True, but—”

“Eva is dead, my love.”

The words strike like hammer blows to my brain. I want to shout that I’m here, alive, transformed into this creature. But I keep silent. I have no workable voice. And after all, this is only a dream. I must keep telling myself that.

Only a dream.

Nothing here is true and therefore none of it matters.

Yet I find a horrid fascination in it.

“They hung her,” Maria is saying. “I know because I went and watched. You couldn’t stomach it but I went to see for myself.” Her smile fades as an ugly light grows in her eyes. “They hung her, Karl. Hung her till she stopped kicking and swung limp in the breeze. Then they cut her down and took her off to the medical college just as she requested. The noble little thing: Wanted her body donated to science. Well, by now she’s in a thousand little pieces.”

“I know.” Karl’s color is returning, but his flush seems more a shade of guilt than good health. “I saw her brain, Maria. Eva’s brain! Dr. Waldman kept it in a glass jar on one of the lab tables as an example of an abnormal brain. ‘Dysfunctio Cerebri’ his label said, right next to a supposedly normal brain. I had to sit there during all his lectures and stare at it, knowing the whole time who it had belonged to, and that it was not abnormal in the least.”

“It should have been labeled a ‘stupid’ brain.” Maria laughs. “She believed you loved her. She thought I was your sister. She believed everything we told her, and so she wound up taking the blame for your uncle’s murder. As a result, you’re rich and you don’t ever have to think about her again. She’s gone.”

“Her brain’s gone too. I was so glad when pranksters stole it and I no longer had to look at it.”

“Now you can look at me.”

Maria steps back and unbuttons her blouse, baring her breasts. As Karl locks her in an embrace, I reel away from the window, sobbing, retching, running blindly for the stables I call home.

Awake again.

Back in my Elysian fields, but still I cannot shake off the effects of the nightmare. The dream-Maria’s words have roused memories in my waking mind. They are partly true.

How could I have forgotten?

There was a murder. Karl’s rich uncle. And I was accused. I remember now…remember that night. I was supposed to meet Karl at the house. He was going to introduce me to his uncle and bring our love out into the open at last. But when I got there, the door was open and a portly old man lay on the floor, bleeding, dying. I tried to help him but he had lost too much blood. Then the Burgomeister’s men arrived and found me with the slain man’s blood on my hands and the knife that had killed him at my feet.

And Karl was nowhere to be found.

I never saw Karl again. He never came to visit me. Never answered my notes. In fact, his barrister came to the jail and told me to stop writing to Karl—that Karl didn’t know who I was and wanted nothing to do with the murderer of his uncle.

No one believed that I knew Karl. No one but his sister Maria had ever seen us together, and Maria said I was a complete stranger. I remember the final shock when I was told that Maria wasn’t his sister at all.

After that the heart went out of me. I gave up. I lost the will to defend myself. I let them do with me as they wished. My only request was that my body be given to the medical college. That was my private joke on the regents—I would be attending the university after all.

I remember walking to the gallows. I remember the rope going around my neck. After that…

…I was here. So I must have been saved from execution. If only I could remember how. No matter. It will come. What does matter is that since arriving here my life has been a succession of one blissful day after another. Perfect…

Except for the dreams.

But now clouds gather over my Elysian fields as I remember Karl’s betrayal. I’d thought he avoided me in order to protect his family name, but the dream-Maria’s words have not only awakened my memory, they’ve shed new light on all the things that happened to me after that night I went to Karl’s uncle’s house.

The clouds darken and thunder rumbles through the distant mountain passes as my anger and suspicion grow. I don’t know if Karl lied and betrayed me as the dream-Maria said, and I don’t know if he was the one who killed his uncle, but I do know that he deserted me in my hour of most dire need. And for that I will never forgive him.

The clouds obscure the sun and darken the sky, the storm threatens but it doesn’t rain. Not yet.

The nightmare again.

Only this time I don’t fight it. I’m actually glad to be in this monstrous body. I’m a curious thing. Not a seamless creature, but a quilt of human parts. And powerful. So very powerful. My years of farm work left me strong for a girl, but I never had strength like this. Strength to lift a horse or knock down a tree. It feels good to be so strong.

I head for Maria’s cottage.

She’s home. She’s alone. Karl is nowhere about. I don’t bother knocking. I kick down the door and step inside. Maria starts to scream but I grab her by the throat with one of my long-fingered hands and choke off all sound. She laughed at me last night, called me stupid. I feel the anger surge and I squeeze tighter, watching her face purple. I straighten my arm and lift her feet off the floor, let them kick the empty air, just as she said mine did in the dream-death she watched. I squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, watching the blood vessels burst in her eyes and face, watching her tongue protrude and turn dusky until she hangs in my hand like a doll. I loosen my grip and shake her but she remains limp.

What have I done?

I stand there, shocked at the rage within me, at the violence it makes me capable of. For a moment I grieve for Maria, for myself, then I shake it off.

This is a dream. A dream! It isn’t real. I can do anything in this nightmare body and it doesn’t matter. Because it’s only happening in my sleeping mind.

The realization is a dazzling white light in my brain. I can do anything I wish in my dream-life. Anything! I can vent any emotion, give in to any whim, any desire or impulse, no matter how violent or outrageous.

And I will do just that. No restraint while I’m dreaming. Unlike my waking life, I will act without hesitation on whatever occurs to me. I’ll lead a dream-life untempered by sympathy, empathy, or any other sane consideration.

Why not? It’s only a dream.

I look down and see the note I wrote Karl. It lies crumpled on the floor. I look at Maria, hanging limp from my hand. I remember her derisive laughter at how I’d donated my body for the furtherance of science, her glee at the thought of my being dissected into a thousand pieces.

And suddenly I have an idea. If I could laugh, I would.

After I’m finished with her, I set the door back on its hinges and wait beside it. I do not have to wait long.

Karl arrives and knocks. When no one answers, he pushes on the door. It falls inward and he sees his lover, Maria…all over the room…in a thousand pieces. He cries out and turns to flee. But I am there, blocking the way.

Karl staggers back when he sees me, his face working in horror. He tries to run but I grab him by the arm and hold him.

“You! Good Lord, they said you’d burned up in the mill fire! Please don’t hurt me! I never harmed you!”

What a wonder it is to have physical power over a man. I never realized until this instant how fear has influenced my day-to-day dealings with men. True, they run the world, they have the power of influence—but they have physical power as well. Somewhere in the depths of my mind, running as a steady undercurrent, has been the realization that almost any man could physically overpower me at will. Although I never before recognized its existence, I see now how it has colored my waking life.

But in my dream I am no longer the weaker sex.

I do not hurt Karl. I merely want him to know who I am. I hold up the note from last night and press it against my heart.

“What?” he cries hoarsely. “What do you want of me?”

I show him the note again, and again I press it to my heart.

“What are you saying? That you’re Eva? That’s impossible. Eva’s dead! You’re Henry Frankenstein’s creature.”

Henry Frankenstein? The baron’s son? I’ve heard of him—one of Dr. Waldman’s former students, supposedly brilliant but highly unorthodox. What has he to do with any of this?

I growl and shake my head as I rattle the paper and tighten my grip on his arm.

He winces. “Look at you! How could you be Eva? You’re fashioned out of different parts from different bodies! You’re—” Karl’s eyes widen, his face slackens. “The brain! Sweet lord, Eva’s brain! It was stolen shortly before you appeared!”

I am amazed at the logical consistency of my nightmare. In real life I donated my body to the medical college, and here in my dream my brain has been placed in another body, a patchwork fashioned by Baron Frankenstein’s son from discarded bits and pieces. How inventive I am!

I smile.

“Oh, my God!” Karl wails. His words begin to trip over each other in their hurry to escape. “It can’t be! Oh, Eva, Eva, Eva, I’m so sorry! I didn’t want to do it but Maria put me up to it. I didn’t want to kill my uncle but she kept pushing me. It was her idea to have you blamed, not mine!”

As I stare at him in horror, I feel the rage burst in my heart like a rocket. So! He did conspire to hang me! A crimson haze blossoms about me as I take his head between my hands. I squeeze with all the strength I possess and don’t stop until I hear a wet crunching noise, feel hot liquid running between my fingers.

And then I’m sobbing, huge alien sounds rumbling from my chest as I clutch Karl’s limp form against me. It’s only a dream, I know, but still I hurt inside. I stand there for a long time. Until I hear a voice behind me.

“Hello? What’s happened here?”

I turn and see one of the townsfolk approaching. The sight of him makes my blood boil. He and his kind chased me to that mill on the hill and tried to burn me alive. I toss Karl’s remains aside and charge after him. He is too fast for me and runs screaming down the street.

Afraid that he’ll return with his neighbors, I flee. But not before setting fire to Maria’s cottage. I watch it burn a moment, then head into the countryside, into the friendly darkness.

Awake once more.

I have spent the entire day thinking about last night’s dream. I see no reason to skulk around in the darkness any longer when I’m dreaming. Why should I? The townsfolk realize by now that I’m still alive. Good. Let all those good citizens know that I am back and that they must deal with me again—not as poor Eva Rucker, but as the patchwork creature from Henry Frankenstein’s crazed experiments. And I will not be mistreated anymore. I will not be looked down on and have doors shut in my face simply because I am a farm girl. No one will say no to me ever again!

I will be back. Tomorrow night, and every night thereafter. But I shall no longer wander aimlessly. I will have a purpose in my dreams. I will start by taking my dream-revenge on the university regents who denied me admission to the medical college. I shall spend my waking hours devising elaborate ways for them to die, and in my dreams I shall execute those plans.

It will be fun. Harmless fun to kill them off one by one in my dreams.

I’m beginning to truly enjoy the dreams. It’s so wonderful to be powerful and not recognize any limits. It’s such an invigorating release.

I can’t wait to sleep again.

THE NOVEMBER GAME

INTRODUCTION

In September I was banging away on Nightworld when dat ol’ debil Marty Greenberg pulled me away with an offer I couldn’t refuse: He and Bill Nolan were editing The Bradbury Chronicles, an anthology of stories in tribute to Ray Bradbury—would I like to contribute? Like, duh.

I knew immediately that I’d have to write a sequel to Ray’s “The October Game.” It’s a masterpiece of subtly growing menace, and one of the most perfectly focused short stories ever written, as effective today as it was when it appeared in Weird Tales.

I discovered it on a summer night in 1959 in Hitchcock’s 13 More Stories They Wouldn’t Let Me Do on TV. I consider reading “The October Game” one of the pivotal moments in my life. Just thirteen at the time, I found the last line (“Then…some idiot turned on the lights.”) confusing. I sat there, book in hand, puzzled, wondering at that crazy closing sentence. Why on earth—?

BLAM!

It hit me. I got it. And it blew me away, utterly and completely. Left me gasping. Lowered the temperature of the room by twenty degrees. And made me decide that someday, some way, I would write a story that would do unto others what this one had done unto me. I’m still trying.

Ray seems ambivalent about “The October Game.” I’ll bet he still appreciates the finesse of his younger self’s technique, but I think the subject matter appalls the older Ray. But the lesson this story pounds home is how less can be so much more. The oblique descriptions in the dark throughout the “game” are never visually realized by the author. The reader is left to construct them after the lights come on.

“The November Game” picks up shortly after Ray’s story. It’s lurid where Ray’s is subtle, but over the years I’d been unable to let go of the need to balance the scales. What goes around, comes around. And now…it’s Daddy’s turn.

I was so psyched I knocked out the first draft in one day.

THE NOVEMBER GAME

Two human eyeballs nestle amid the white grapes on my dinner tray. I spot them even as the tray slides under the bars of my cell.

“Dinner, creep,” says the guard as he kicks the tray forward with his shoe.

“The name is Mich, Hugo,” I say evenly, refusing to react to the sight of those eyes.

“That translates into creep around here.”

Hugo leaves. I listen to the squeaky wheels of the dinner cart echo away down the corridor. Then I look at the bowl of grapes again.

The eyes are still there, pale blue, little-girl blue, staring back at me so mournfully. They think they can break me this way, make me pay for what I did. But after all those years of marriage to Louise, I don’t break so easily.

When I’m sure Hugo’s gone I inspect the rest of the food—beef patty, string beans, French fries, Jell-O. They all look okay—no surprises in among the fries like last night.

So I take the wooden spoon, the only utensil they’ll let me have here, and go to the loose floor tile I found in the right rear corner. I pry it loose. A whiff of putrefaction wafts up from the empty space below. Dark down there, a dark that seems to go on forever. If I were a bit smaller I could fit through. I figure the last occupant of this cell must have been a little guy, must have tried to dig his way out. Probably got transferred to another cell before he finished his tunnel, because I’ve never heard of anyone breaking out of here.

But I’m going to be a little guy before long. And then I’ll be out.

I upend the bowl of grapes and eyeballs over the hole first, then let the rest of the food follow. Somewhere below I hear it all plop onto the other things I’ve been dumping down there. I could flush the eyes and the rest down the stained white toilet squatting in the other corner, but they’re probably listening for that. If they hear a flush during the dinner hour they’ll guess what I’m doing and think they’re winning the game. So I go them one better. As long as they don’t know about the hole, I’ll stay ahead in their rotten little game.

I replace the tile and return to my cot. I tap my wooden spoon on the Melmac plates and clatter them against the tray while I smack my lips and make appropriate eating noises. I only drink the milk and water. That’s all I’ve allowed myself since they put me in here. And the diet’s working. I’m losing weight. Pretty soon I’ll be able to slip through the opening under that tile, and then they’ll have to admit I’ve beaten them at their own rotten game.

Soon I hear the squeak of the wheels again. I arrange my tray and slip it out under the bars and into the corridor.

“An excellent dinner,” I say as Hugo picks up the tray.

He says nothing.

“Especially the grapes. The grapes were delicious—utterly delicious.”

“Up yours, creep.”

Hugo squeaks away.

I miss my pipe.

They won’t let me have it in here. No flame, no sharps, no shoelaces, even. As if I’d actually garrote myself with string.

Suicide watch, they call it. But I’ve come to realize they’ve got something else in mind by isolating me. They’ve declared psychological war.

They must think I’m stupid, telling me I’m in a solitary cell for my own protection, saying the other prisoners might want to hurt me because I’m considered a “short eyes.”

But I’m not a child molester—that’s what “short eyes” means in prison lingo. I never molested a child in my life, never even thought of doing such a thing. Especially not Marion, not little eight-year-old Marion.

I only killed her. Nothing more.

I made her part of the game. The October game. I handed out the parts of her dismembered body to the twenty children and twelve adults seated in a circle in my cellar and let them pass the pieces around in the Halloween darkness. I can still hear their laughter as their fingers touched what they thought were chicken innards and grapes and sausages. They thought it was a lark. They had a ball until some idiot turned on the lights.

But I never molested little Marion.

And I never meant her any harm, either. Not personally. Marion was an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire between her mother and father. Louise was to blame. Because it was Louise I wanted to hurt. Louise of the bleached-out eyes and hair, Louise the ice princess who gave birth to a bleached-out clone of herself and then made her body incapable of bearing any more children. So where was my son—my dark-eyed, dark-haired counterpoint to Marion?

Eight years of Louise’s mocking looks, of using the child who appeared to be all of her and none of me as a symbol of my failures—in business, in marriage, in fatherhood, in life. When autumn came I knew it had to stop. I couldn’t stand the thought of another winter sealed in that house with Louise and her miniature clone. I wanted to leave, but not without hurting Louise. Not without an eight-year payback.

And the way to hurt Louise most was to take Marion from her.

And I did. Forever. In a way she’ll never forget.

We’re even, Louise.

(suck…puff)

“And you think your wife is behind these horrific pranks?” Dr. Hurst says, leaning back in his chair and chewing on his pipe stem.

I envy that pipe. But I’m the supposedly suicidal prisoner and he’s the prison shrink, so he gets to draw warm, aromatic smoke from the stem and I get pieces of Marion on my food tray.

“Of course she is. Louise was always a vindictive sort. Somehow she’s gotten to the kitchen help and the guards and convinced them to do a Gaslight number on me. She hates me. She wants to push me over the edge.”

(suck…puff )

“Let’s think about this,” he says. “Your wife certainly has reason to hate you, to want to hurt you, to want to get even with you. But this conspiracy you’ve cooked up is rather farfetched, don’t you think? Focus on what you’re saying: Your wife has arranged with members of the prison staff to place pieces of your dismembered daughter in the food they serve you. Would she do something like that with her daughter’s remains?”

“Yes. She’d do anything to get back at me. She probably thinks it’s poetic justice or some such nonsense.”

(suck…puff )

“Mmmmm. Tell me again what, um, parts of Marion you’ve found in your food.”

I think back, mentally cataloging the nastiness I’ve been subjected to.

“It started with the baked potatoes. They almost fooled me with the first one. They’d taken some of Marion’s skin and molded it into an oblong hollow shape, then filled it with baked potato. I’ve got to hand it to them—it looked quite realistic. I almost ate it.”

Across his desk from me, Dr. Hurst coughs.

(suck…puff )

“How did you feel about that?”

“Disgusted, of course. And angry too. I’m willing to pay for what I did. I’ve never denied doing it. But I don’t think I should be subjected to mental torture. Since that first dinner it’s been a continual stream of body parts. Potato after potato encased in Marion’s skin, her fingers and toes amid the French fries, a thick slice of calf’s liver that didn’t come from any calf, baby back ribs that were never near a pig, loops of intestine supposed to pass at breakfast as link sausage, a chunk of Jell-O with one of her vertebrae inside. And just last night, her eyes in a bowl of grapes. The list goes on and on. I want it stopped.”

(suck…puff )

“Yes…” he says after a pause. “Yes, of course you do. And I’ll see to it that it is stopped. Immediately. I’ll have the warden launch a full investigation of the kitchen staff.”

“Thank you. It’s good to know there’s at least one person here I can count on.”

(suck…puff )

“But tell me, Mich. What have you done with all these parts of Marion’s body you’ve been getting in your food? Where have you put them?”

A chill comes over me. Have I been wrong to think I could trust Dr. Hurst? Has he been toying with me, leading me down the garden path to this bear trap of a question? Or is it a trap? Isn’t it a perfectly natural question? Wouldn’t anyone want to know what I’ve been doing with little Marion’s parts?

As much as I want to be open and honest with him, I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t let anyone know about the loose tile and the tunnel beneath it. As a prison official he’ll be obligated to report it to the warden and then I’ll be moved to another cell and lose my only hope of escape. I can’t risk that. I’ll have to lie.

I smile at him.

“Why, I’ve been eating them, of course.”

(suck… )

Dr. Hurst’s pipe has gone out.

I’m ready for the tunnel.

My cell’s dark. The corridor has only a single bulb burning at the far end. It’s got to be tonight.

Dr. Hurst lied. He said he’d stop the body parts on my trays but he didn’t. More and more of them, a couple with every meal lately. But they all get dumped down the hole along with the rest of my food. Hard to believe a little eight-year-old body like Marion’s could have so many pieces. So many I’ve lost track. But in a way that’s good. I can’t see how there can be much more of her left to torment me with.

But tomorrow is Thanksgiving and God knows what they’ll place before me then.

It’s got to be tonight.

At least the diet’s working.

Amazing what starvation will do to you. I’ve been getting thinner every day. My fat’s long gone, my muscles have withered and atrophied. I think I’m now small enough to slip through that opening.

Only one way to find out.

I go to the loose tile and fit my fingers around its edges. I pried it up with the spoon earlier and left it canted in its space. It comes up easily now. The putrid odor is worse than ever. I look down into the opening. It’s dark in my cell but even darker in that hole.

A sense of waiting wafts up with the odor.

How odd. Why should the tunnel be waiting for me?

I shake off the gnawing apprehension—I’ve heard hunger can play tricks with your mind—and position myself for the moment of truth. I sit on the edge and slide my bony legs into the opening. They slip through easily. As I raise my buttocks off the floor to slide my hips through, I pause.

Was that a sound? From below?

I hold still, listening. For an instant there I could have sworn I heard the faintest rustle directly below my dangling feet. But throughout my frozen, breathless silence, I hear nothing.

Rats.

The realization strikes me like a blow. Of course! I’ve been throwing food down there for weeks. I’d be surprised if there weren’t a rat or two about.

I don’t like the idea but I’m not put off. Not for a minute. I’m wearing sturdy prison shoes and stiff, tough prison pants. And I’m bigger than they are.

Just like I was bigger than Marion…

I slip my hips through the opening, lower my waist through, but my chest and shoulders won’t go, at least not both shoulders at once. And there’s no way to slip an arm through ahead of me.

I can see only one solution. I’m not comfortable with it but there’s no way around it: I’m going to have to go down headfirst.

I pull myself out and swivel. I slip my left arm and shoulder through, then it’s time for my head. I’m tempted to hold my breath but why bother? I’m going to have to get used to that stench. I squeeze my head through the opening.

The air is warm and moist and the odor presses against my face like a shroud freshly torn from a moldering corpse. I try to mouth-breathe but the odor worms its way into my nose anyway.

And then I hear that sound again, a rustle of movement directly below—a wet rustle. The odor grows stronger, rising like a dark cloud, gagging me. Something has to be behind that movement of stinking air, propelling it. Something larger than a rat!

I try to back up out of the opening but I’m stuck. Wedged! The side of my head won’t clear the edge. And the odor’s stronger, oh god, it’s sucking the breath right out of me. Something’s near! I can’t see it but I can hear it, sense it! And it wants me, it hungers for me! It’s so close now, it’s—

Something wet and indescribably foul slides across my cheek and lips. The taste makes me retch. If there were anything in my stomach it would be spewing in all directions. But the retching spasms force my head back out of the hole. I tear my arm and shoulder free of the opening and roll away toward the bars, toward the corridor. Who would have thought the air of a prison cell could smell so sweet, or a single sixty-watt bulb a hundred feet away be so bright.

I begin to scream. Unashamed, unabashed, I lay on my belly, reach through the bars and claw the concrete floor as wails of abject terror rip from my throat. I let them go on in a continuous stream until somebody comes, and even then I keep it up. I plead, sob, beg them to let me out of this cell. Finally they do. And only when I feel the corridor floor against my knees and hear the barred door clang shut behind me does the terror begin to leach away.

“Doctor Hurst!” I tell them. “Get Doctor Hurst!”

“He ain’t here, creep.”

I look up and see Hugo hovering over me with two other guards from the third shift. A circle of faces completely devoid of pity or compassion.

“Call him! Get him!”

“We ain’t disturbin’ him for the likes o’ you. But we got his resident on the way. Now what’s this all—?”

“In there!” I say, pointing to the rear of the cell. “In that hole in the back! Something’s down there!”

Hugo jerks his head toward the cell. “See what he’s yapping about.”

A young blond guard steps into my cell and searches around with his flash-light.

“In the back!” I tell him. “The right rear corner!”

The guard returns, shaking his head. “No hole in there.”

“It must have pulled the tile back into place! Please! Listen to me!”

“The kid killer’s doing a crazy act,” Hugo says with a snarl. “Trying to get off on a Section Eight.”

“No-no!” I pull at his trousers as I look up at him. “Back there, under one of the tiles—”

Hugo looks away, down the corridor. “Hey, Doc! Can you do something to shut this creep up?”

A man in a white coat appears, a syringe in his hand.

“Got just the thing here. Doctor Hurst left a standing order in the event he started acting up.”

Despite my screams of protest, my desperate, violent struggles, they hold me down while the resident jabs a needle into my right buttock. There’s burning pain, then the needle is withdrawn and they loosen their grip.

I’m weak from lack of food, and spent from the night’s exertions. The drug acts quickly, sapping what little strength remains in my limbs. I go with it. There’s no more fight left in me.

The guards lift me off the floor and begin to carry me. I close my eyes. At least I won’t have to spend the night in the cell. I’ll be safe in the infirmary.

Abruptly I’m dropped onto a cot. My eyes snap open as I hear my cell door clang shut, hear the lock snap closed.

No! They’ve put me back in the cell!

I open my lips to scream but the inside of my mouth is dry and sticky. My howl emerges as a whimper. Footsteps echo away down the corridor and the overheads go out.

I’m alone…for a while.

And then I hear the sound I knew would come. The tile moves. A gentle rattle at first, then a long slow sliding rasp of tile upon tile. The stinking miasma from below insinuates its way into my cell, permeating my air, making it its own.

Then a soft scraping sound, like a molting snake sliding between two rocks. Followed by another sound, a hesitant, crippled shuffle, edging closer.

I try to get away, to roll off the cot, but I can’t move. My body won’t respond.

And then I see it. Or rather I see a faint outline, greater darkness against lesser darkness: slim, between four and five feet high. It leans over the bed and reaches out to me. Tiny fingers—cold, damp, ragged fingers—flutter over my face like blind spiders, searching. And then they pause, hovering over my mouth and nose. My God, I can’t stand the odor. I want to retch but the drug in my system won’t let me.

And then the fingers move. Quickly. Two of them slip wetly into my nostrils, clogging them, sealing them like corks in the necks of wine bottles. The other little hand darts past my gasping lips, forces its way between my teeth, and crawls down my throat.

The unspeakable obscenity of the taste is swept away by the hunger for air. Air! I can’t breathe! I need air! My body begins to buck as my muscles spasm and cry for oxygen.

It speaks then. In Marion’s little voice.

Marion’s…yet changed, dried and stiff like a fallen leaf blown by autumn gusts from bright October into lifeless November.

“Daddy…”

WHEN HE WAS FAB

INTRODUCTION

Early on in 1990 my goombah Tom Monteleone asked me to contribute to the first of a series of anthologies he was starting. The Borderlands guidelines were and have always been: no topic, no restrictions, and above all, no clichés.

“Surprise me,” Tom said.

Well, with one project or another—Reprisal, Freak Show, Nightworld, and all the short stories—tugging me this way and that, I kept putting it off. So it wasn’t until late in the year that I started “When He Was Fab” for Tom.

This is one of those stories where I give a blank look when asked where the idea came from. I have a vague memory that it might involve watching the original The Blob for the umpteenth time. My favorite scene has always been the one where the old guy removes the goo from the meteorite; as he holds it up on the end of a stick it seems to leap onto his arm. I may have done my turn-it-over thing and thought, What if the goo has something else in mind besides lunch? I can look back and say it’s a Cinderfella story, but during the writing it was simply happening. The working title was “Dying Outside” (pace Bob Silverberg).

As I was finishing it, Weird Tales came along and said they wanted to do a special “F. Paul Wilson Issue.” The magazine that had introduced H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, and other behemoths in the genre wanted to devote an issue to moi? How could I refuse? They needed stories—soon. One of the pieces I sent them was “When He Was Fab.” It’s not true horror, just strange…weird. Perfect for Weird Tales.

Tom was ticked. So I promised him another for Borderlands 2. It’s hard to say no to Tom; you get the feeling you might end up sleeping with the fishes.

(NB: As you read, keep in mind when this was written.)

WHEN HE WAS FAB

Floor drains.

Sheesh. Doug hated them.

Being super of this old rattrap building wasn’t a bad job. The hours could play hell with you sometimes, but he got a free room, he got his utilities, and he got a salary—if you wanted to call that piddly amount in his weekly check a salary. But you couldn’t knock the deal too hard. Long as he stayed on the job, he had shelter, warmth, and enough money for food, enough time to work out with his weights. Wasn’t glamorous, but a guy with his education—like, none to speak of besides seventh grade and postgrad courses in the school of hard knocks—couldn’t ask for a whole helluva lot more.

’Cept maybe for drains that worked.

The basement floor drain was a royal pain. He hovered over it now in his rubber boots, squatting ankle deep in the big stinky puddle that covered it. Around him the tenants’ junk was stacked up on the high ground against the walls like a silent crowd around a drowning victim. Third time this month the damn thing had clogged up. Course there’d been a lot of rain lately, and that was part of the problem, but still the drain shoulda been working better than this.

Now or never, he thought, unfolding his rubber gloves. He wished he had more light than that naked sixty-watter hanging from the beam overhead.

Would’ve loved one of those big babies they used at night games up at Yankee Stadium.

Jeez but he hated this part of the job. Last week the drain had clogged and he’d reached down like he was about to do now and had come up with a dead rat.

He shuddered with just the memory of it. A monster Brooklyn brown rat. Big, tough mother that could’ve easily held its own with the ones down on the docks. Didn’t know how it had got in this drain, but the grate had been pushed aside, and when he’d reached down, there it was, wedged into the pipe. So soft, at first he’d thought it was a plastic bag or something. Then he’d felt the tail. And the feet. He’d worked it loose and pulled it free.

Just about blew lunch when he’d looked at it, all soft, puffy, pulpy, and drippy, the eyes milk white, the sharp yellow buck teeth bared, the matted hair falling off in clumps. And God, it stunk. He’d dumped it in his plastic bucket, scooped up enough of the rapidly draining water to cover it, then run like hell for the Dumpster.

“Whatta y’got for me this week, you sonuvabitch?” he said aloud.

He didn’t usually talk to floor drains, but his skin was crawling with the thought of what might’ve got stuck down there this time. And if he ever grabbed something that was still moving…forget about it.

He pulled the heavy rubber gloves up to his elbows, took a deep breath, and plunged his right hand into the water.

“What the hell?”

The grate was still in place. So what was blocking it?

Underwater, he poked his fingers through the slots and pulled the grate free, then worked his hand down the funnel and into the pipe.

“What now, you mother? What now?”

Nothing. The water felt kind of thick down there, almost like Jell-O, but the pipe was empty as far as his fingers could reach. Probably something caught in the trap. Which meant he’d have to use the snake. And dammit to hell, he’d left it upstairs.

Maybe if he squeezed his fingers down just a little farther he’d find something. Just a little—

Doug reached down too far. Water sloshed over the top of his glove and ran down the inside to his fingers. It had a strange, warm, thick feel to it.

“Damn it all!”

But when he went to pull back, his hand wouldn’t come. It was stuck in the hole and all his twisting and pulling only served to let more of the cloudy water run into his glove.

And then Doug noticed that the water was no longer running down his arm—it was running up.

He stared, sick dread twisting in his gut, as the thick, warm fluid moved up past his elbow—crawled was more like it. After a frozen moment he attacked it with his free hand, batting at it, wiping it off. But it wouldn’t wipe. It seemed to be traveling in his skin, becoming part of it, seeping up his arm like water spreading through blotter paper.

And it was hot where it moved. The heat spread up under the half sleeve of his work shirt. He tore at the buttons but before he could get them undone the heat had spread across his chest and up his shoulder to his neck.

Doug lost it then. He began whimpering and crying, clawing at himself as he splashed and scrambled and flopped about like an animal caught in a trap, trying to yank his right hand free. He felt the heat on his face now, moving toward his mouth. He clamped his lips shut but it ran into his nostrils and through his nose to his throat. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound would come. A film covered his eyes, and against his will his muscles began to relax, lowering him into the water, letting it soak into him, all through him. He felt as if he were melting, dissolving into the puddle…

* * *

Marc hopped out of the cab in front of the Graf Spee’s entrance, paid the driver with his patented flourish, and strolled past the velvet cords that roped off the waiting dorks.

Bruno was on the door tonight. A burly lump of muscle with feet; at thirty-five he was maybe ten years older than Marc; his hair was a similar brown but there the resemblance stopped. As Marc approached the canopied entrance he wondered what Bruno had looked like as an infant, or if the doorman’s mother had been prescient. Because Bruno had grown up to be the epitome of Brunoness.

“Ay, Mista Chevignon,” Bruno said with a wide grin and a little bow. “How ya doon tanight?”

“Fine, Bruno. Just fine.”

Keeping his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his Geoffrey Beene tweed slacks, and trapping his open, ankle-length Moschino black leather coat behind his elbows while exposing his collarless white Armani shirt, buttoned to the throat, Marc swiveled and surveyed the line of hopefuls awaiting the privilege of admission to the Spee.

“Real buncha loooosuhs tanight, Mista C.”

Marc let his eyes roam the queue, taking in all the well-off and the trying-to-look-it, some natives, some tunnel rats and bridge trolls, all dressed in their absolute best or their most fashionably tacky ensembles, trying to look so cool, so with-it, so very-very, but unable to hide the avid look in their eyes, that hunger to be where it was most in to be, to dance on the rotating floor of the Spee and search for the famous faces that would be on the “Star Tracks” page of next week’s People.

“Have they been good little aspirants, Bruno?”

“Yeah. No wise guys so far.”

“Then let’s make someone’s day, shall we?”

“Whatever you say, Mista C.”

He sauntered along outside the cords, watching them stare his way and whisper without taking their eyes off him. Who’s he?…You ever seen him before?…Looks like Johnny Depp…Nah, his shoulders is too big…Gawd, he’s gawgeous!…Well, if he ain’t somebody, how come he’s getting in ahead of us?…I dunno, but I seen him around here before.

Indeed you have, sweetheart, he thought.

The last speaker was a bony, brittle, bottle blonde with a white hemline up to here and a black neckline down to there. Knobby knees knocking in the breeze, spiky hair, a mouth full of gum, three different shades of eye shadow going halfway up her forehead, and wearing so many studs and dangles her ears had to be Swiss cheese when her jewelry was off.

Perfect.

“What’s your name, honey?”

She batted her lashes. “Darlene.”

“Who you with?”

“My sister Marlene.” She reached back and pulled forward an identically dressed clone. “Who wants t’know?”

He smiled. “Twins. More than perfect.” He lifted the velvet cord. “Come on, girls. You don’t have to wait any longer.”

After exchanging wide-eyed glances, they ducked the velvet and followed him to the canopy. Some of the dorks grumbled but a few of them clapped. Soon they were all clapping.

He ushered them to the door where Bruno stepped aside and passed the giggling twins through into the hallowed inner spaces of the Graf Spee.

“You’re a prince, Mista C,” Bruno said, grinning.

“How true.”

He slowed, almost tripped. What a lame remark. Surely he could have come up with something better than that.

Bruno stepped into the dark passageway and touched his arm.

“You feelin’ okay, Mista C?”

“Of course. Why?”

“You look a little pale, is all. Need anyting?”

“No, Bruno. Thanks, but I’m fine.”

“Okay. But you need anyting, you lemme know an’ it’s done. Know what I’m sayin’?”

Marc clapped Bruno on the shoulder and nodded. As he walked down the narrow black corridor that led past the coat checkroom he wondered what Bruno had meant. Did he look pale? He didn’t feel pale. He felt fine.

The twins were hovering near the coat check window, looking lost. They’d finally achieved their dream: They’d made it to the swirling innards of the Spee, and they weren’t sure what to do about it. So they stood and numbly watched the peristalsis. One of them turned to Marc as he approached.

“Thanks a million, mister. It was, like, really great of you to get us in and like if, you know, you, like, want to get together later, you know, we’d, like, really be glad to show our appreciation, know what I mean?”

The second twin batted her eyes over the other’s shoulder.

“Yeah. We really would. But do you mind if I, like, ask, uh…are you someone?”

Just as he was thinking how pathetic they were, he reminded himself that once he’d had to wait on line like them. That had been years ago, back in the days when King Kong had been the place. But after he’d been let in once, he’d never stood on line again. He’d taken his chance and capitalized on it. And as time had passed and his status had risen, he’d developed the nightly ritual of picking one or two of the hoi polloi for admission to the inner sanctum of whatever club he was gracing with his presence that night.

“Everyone is someone. I happen to be Marc.”

“Which is your table?” said Twin One.

“They’re all my tables.”

Twin Two’s eyes bulged. “You own this place?”

He laughed. “No. Of course not. That would be too much trouble.” And besides, he thought, these places stay hot for something like the life span of a housefly. “I just go where the action is. And tonight the action is here. So you two wiggle in there and enjoy yourselves.”

“All right!” said Twin One.

She turned to her sister and they raised their fists and gave each other a gutteral Arsenio Hall salute.

Marc shuddered as he watched them hurry toward the main floor. They might be just vulgar enough to amuse someone. He opened the door marked PRIVATE and took the narrow stairway up to the gallery. Gunnar, Bruno’s Aryan soul mate, was on duty at the top of the steps. He waved Marc into the sanctum sanctorum of alcoved tables overlooking the dance floor.

The Manhattan In-Crowd was out in force tonight, with various Left Coast luminaries salted among them. Madonna looked up from her table and waved as she whispered something in a pert brunette’s ear. Marc stuck his tongue out and kept moving. Bobby De Niro and Marty Scorsese nodded, Bianca blew him a kiss, and on and on…

This was what it was all about. This was what he lived for now, the nightlife that made the drudgery of his daylife bearable. Knowing people, important people, being known, acknowledged, sought out for a brush with that legendary Marc Chevignon wit. It was that wit, that incisive, urbane flippancy that had got him here and changed his nightlife. Soon it would be changing his daylife. Everything was falling into place, beautifully, flawlessly, almost as if he’d planned it this way.

And he hadn’t.

All he’d wanted was a little excitement, to watch the watchables, to be where the action was. He’d never even considered the possibility of being in the play, he’d simply hoped for a chance to sit on the sidelines and perhaps catch a hint of breeze from the hem of the action as it swirled by.

But when lightning struck and he got through the door of the Kong a couple of years ago, things began to happen. He’d sat at the bar and fallen into conversation with a few of the lower-level regulars and the quips had begun to flow. He hadn’t the faintest where they’d come from, they simply popped out. The cracks stretched to diatribes using Buckley-level vocabulary elevated by P. J. O’Rourke–caliber wit, but bitchy. Very bitchy. The bar-hangers lapped it up. The laughter drew attention, and some mid-level regulars joined the crowd. He was invited back to an after-hours party at the Palladium, and the following night when he showed up at King Kong with a few of the regulars, he was passed right through the door.

A few nights and he was a regular. Soon he was nobbing with the celebs. They all wanted him at their tables. Marc C made things happen. He woke people up, got them talking and laughing. Wherever he sat there was noise and joviality. He could turn just-another-night-at-the-new-now-club into an event. If you wanted to draw the people who mattered to your table, you needed Marc Chevignon.

And his wit didn’t pass unnoticed by the select few who recognized obscure references and who knew high-level quick-draw quippery when they heard it. Franny Lebowitz said he could be the next Tom Wolfe. And LuAnn agreed.

He stopped at LuAnn’s table.

“Hiya, Marky,” she said, reaching for his hand.

Her touch sent a wave of heat through him. He and LuAnn were an item these days. They had a thing going. He spent three or four nights a week at her place. Always at her place. Never at his. No one saw his place. Ever.

That, he knew, was part of his attraction for these people. They’d taken the measure of his quality and found it acceptable, even desirable. But he was an unknown quantity. Where he came from, who he came from, where he lived, what he did in the day were all carefully guarded secrets. Marc Chevignon, the cagey, canny mystery man, the acid-tongued enigma.

He suspected that LuAnn genuinely cared for him, but it was hard to tell. She tended to let down her pan ties a lot quicker than her guard. She’d been around the scene so much longer than he, seemed to have had so many lovers—Christ, when he walked her into some of the private after-hours parties he could be pretty sure she’d screwed half the guys there, maybe some of the women too—but she seemed truly interested in him. At least now. At least for the moment.

She was the one who’d been pressing him to write down his more incisive observations so she could show them to a few editors she knew—and she knew all the important ones. She was sure she could land him a regular spot in the Voice, and maybe Esquire, if not both.

Thus the tape recorder in his pocket. During the day he never could remember a thing he’d said the night before. So he’d decided to record himself in action and transcribe the best stuff the next morning.

Nothing so far tonight worth writing down. Hadn’t really come up with anything last night either. No inspiration, he guessed.

But it would come. Because it was happening. He was happening. Everything coming his way. Esquire, the Voice, maybe an occasional freelance piece for GQ later on. He wasn’t going to be a mere hanger-on anymore, someone who merely knew Somebodies. He was going to be one of those Somebodies.

But the best part of it all was having LuAnn. LuAnn…twenty-eight with the moon-white skin of a teenager who’d never been to the beach, night-dark hair, pale blue, aventurine eyes, and the trademark ruby lipstick. All day long he ached for the sight of her. He couldn’t tell her that, of course. Had to play it cool because Marc C was cool. But, man, sometimes it was hard to hide. Most times it was hard to hide. Most times he wanted to fall at her feet professing his undying love and begging her never to leave him.

Sure, it scanned like a third-rate Tin Pan Alley ditty, but that was how he felt.

“Ms. Lu,” he said, bending and kissing her. God, he loved the soft, glossy touch of her lips.

She jerked back.

“What’s wrong, Lu?”

“Your lips. They feel…different.”

“Same ones I wore last night.” He tugged at them. “I don’t remember changing them.”

LuAnn gave him a patient smile and pulled him down next to her. He waved and nodded hellos in the dimness to the LuAnn-table regulars, then turned his attention to the lady herself. Her eyes sparkled with excitement as she leaned toward him and whispered close in his ear; the caress of her warm breath raised gooseflesh down his left side.

“I hear you gave Liz’s guy the slip last night.”

“Liz’s guy?”

“Don’t be coy, Marc. I heard it earlier this afternoon. Liz had one of her people tail you home from my place last night—or at least try to tail you.”

Any warmth he’d been drawing from her vanished in a chilly draft of unease. She could only mean Liz Smith, the columnist who’d been trying to get the scoop on him for months now. He guessed she was tired of tagging him with the “mystery man” line when she did a piece on the club scene. Other people had tried to tail him before but he’d spotted them easily. Whoever this guy was must have been good. Marc hadn’t had the slightest suspicion…

“He said you ducked into an old apartment house in Brooklyn and never came out.”

“Oh, yes…” Marc said carefully. “I spotted him shortly after I left your place. He was good. I couldn’t lose him in the usual manner so I led him all the way into Bay Ridge and used the key I have from the owner of this dump there—in the front door and out the back. I always do that when I think I’m being followed.” He rubbed his chin, Bogart style. “So he was one of Liz’s boys. That’s interesting.”

More than interesting—terrifying.

“Yeah, she’s determined to track you down,” LuAnn said, snuggling closer. “But she’s not going to be first, is she, Marky? You’re going to take me to your place firstest, aren’t you?”

“Sure, Lu. You’ll be the first. But I warn you, you’ll be disappointed when the day comes.”

“No I won’t.”

Yes, you will. I guarantee it.

He sat next to her and tried to keep from shaking. God, that had been close! He’d been right on the edge of having his cover blown and hadn’t had an inkling. Suddenly Marc didn’t feel so good.

“Excuse me a moment,” he said, rising. “I need to make a pit stop.” He winked. “It’s a long ride from Bay Ridge.”

LuAnn laughed. “Hurry back!”

Feeling worse by the minute, he headed straight for the men’s room. As he pushed into the bright fluorescent interior, he saw Karl Peaks turning away from the sink, licking a trace of white powder from his index finger.

“Marc?” Peaks said, sniffing and gawking. “Is that you, man?”

“No. It’s Enrico Caruso.” Enrico Caruso? Where the hell did that come from?

“It’s your face, man. What’s happened to it?”

Alarmed, Marc stepped over the mirror. His knees almost buckled when he saw himself.

My face!

His skin was sallow, leaching into yellow under the harsh light. And the left side was drooping, the corners of his mouth and left eye sagging toward his chin.

My God! What’s happening?

He couldn’t stay here, couldn’t let anyone see him like this. Because it wasn’t going to get better. Somehow he knew that the longer he waited the worse it would sag.

He spun and fled past Peaks, turned a hard right and went down the back steps, through the kitchen, and out into the rear alley.

It had started raining. He slunk through the puddles like a rat until he found an intersecting alley that took him out to West Houston. He flagged a cab and huddled in the protective darkness of the rear seat as it carried him through the downpour, over the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn. Home.

* * *

Doug watched Marc flow back into the bucket, sliding down his arm, over his wrist and hand, to ooze off his fingertips like clear, warm wallpaper paste. A part of him was furious with Marc for letting him down tonight, but another part knew something was seriously wrong. He’d half-sensed it during the last time they’d been together. And tonight he was sure. Marc wasn’t acting right.

Marc…Christ, why did he call this pile of goo Marc? It was goo. A nameless it. Marc Chevignon was someone who existed only when Doug was wearing the goo. He’d picked the name Marc because it sounded classy, like Marc Antony, that Roman guy in the Cleopatra movie. And Chevignon? He’d borrowed that from the label inside some fancy leather coat he’d seen in a men’s shop.

Somewhere along the way he’d started thinking of the goo as a friend…a friend named Marc.

“What’s the matter, Marc?” he whispered into the bucket when the goo had all run off him. “What’s goin’ on, man?”

Marc didn’t answer. He just sat in his bucket under the harsh light of the white-tiled bathroom. Marc never answered. At least not from the bucket. Marc only spoke when he was riding Doug. Marc was brilliant when he was riding Doug. At least till now.

Doug remembered the first time Marc climbed on him, down in the basement, when he’d reached into the plugged drain…remembered the heat, the suffocating feeling. He’d been so scared then, afraid he’d been caught in some real-life replay of The Blob, absolutely sure he was going to die. But he hadn’t died. After blacking out for a minute or so, he’d come to on the basement floor, half in, half out of the shrinking puddle. He’d scrambled to his feet, looked at his hands, felt his neck, his face. The goo was gone—not a trace of it left on him. Everything seemed almost normal.

Almost. His skin didn’t feel quite right. Not slimy or nothing, just…different. He ran upstairs to his place, the super’s apartment on the first floor. He seemed to be moving a little different, his steps quicker, surer. Almost, like, graceful. He got to the bathroom and stared in the mirror.

He’d changed. He looked the same, but then again he didn’t. His normally wavy brown hair was darker, straighter, maybe because it was wet and slicked back. Even his eyebrows looked a little darker. His eyes were still blue but they seemed more intense, more alive.

And he felt different inside. Usually when he finished a day’s work he liked to get a six-pack, flip on the tube, and mellow out for the night. Now he wanted to move. He felt like going places, doing things, making things happen instead of letting them happen.

He stared at the reflection for a long time, telling himself over and over he wasn’t crazy. He’d just had some sort of daymare or something. Or maybe fumes—yeah, some sort of fumes bubbling up from the drain had screwed up his head for a little bit. But he was okay now. Really.

Finally, when he sort of believed that, he staggered back to the basement. Still had to do something with that water.

But the water was gone. The drain had unclogged and all that was left of the stinking puddle was a big round glistening wet spot. Relieved that he didn’t have to stick his arm down that pipe again, Doug collected his gloves and junk and headed back upstairs.

In the hall he ran into Theresa Coffee, the busty blond graduate student in 308. He gave her his usual smile—at least he thought it was his usual smile—and expected her usual curt nod in return. She’d caught him staring at her underwear down in the laundry room once too often and had been giving him the cold shoulder ever since. Treated him like a perv. Which he wasn’t. But her underwear, man—looked like it came straight out of a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog. Whoa.

But this time she actually stopped and talked to him. And he actually talked back to her. Like, intelligent. He sounded like he had a brain in his head. Like a guy who’d finished high school. College even. He didn’t have the faintest idea where all that talk came from, all he knew was that for the first time in his life he sounded brainy. She seemed to think so too. She even invited him up to her place. And before too long she was modeling all that underwear for him.

Much later, when he left her, he didn’t go back to his apartment to sack out. He went back to change into his best clothes—which weren’t much then, for sure—and headed for Manhattan. For the King Kong.

The rest was history.

History…the celebrity friends, the notoriety, the promised writing career, LuAnn, a way up and out…history.

Yeah. History. Only right now history seemed to be coming to an end.

Doug stared down at the two-gallon bucketful of goo. Cloudy goo. Marc used to be clear. Crystal clear. Like Perrier. What kind of game was it trying to run?

“C’mon, guy,” Doug said, rolling up his sleeve. “One more time.”

He slipped his right hand up to his wrist in the goo. He noticed how Marc was cooler than usual. In the past there’d always been a near-body-temperature warmth to it. Slowly it began to slide up his forearm.

“There y’go!”

But it only made a few inches before it started to slide back into the bucket.

“You bastard!”

Doug couldn’t help being mad. He knew he owed a lot to Marc—everything, in fact—but he couldn’t help feel that he’d been teased along and now he was being dumped. He wanted to kick the bucket over. Or better yet, upend it over the toilet and flush it down to the sewers. See if Marc liked it down there in the dark with the crocodiles.

“So what’s up, here, Marc? What’s doin’? You gonna put me through the wringer? Gonna make me crawl? Is that it? Well, it won’t work. Because I don’t need you, Marc. I owe you, I’ll give you that. But if you think I can’t live without you, f’get about it, okay?”

For Doug had arrived at the conclusion that he didn’t need Marc anymore. Marc hadn’t really done nothing. Marc just was like the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz. How’d that song go? “Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn’t already have.” Right. And Doug was the Tin Man. All that sharp wit and grooviness had been hiding in him all along. All Marc had done was bring it to the surface—and take credit for it. Well, Marc wasn’t going to take credit no more. Doug was taking the wheel now. He knew he had it in him. All the doors were already open. All he had to do was walk through and make this city his oyster.

“Okay.” He rose to his feet. “If that’s the way you want it, fine. You make plans for the sewer, I’ll head for the Spee.”

On his way out the door he should have felt great, free, lighter than air. So how come he felt like he’d just lost his best friend?

* * *

“Yo, Bruno,” Doug said as he stepped under the canopy and headed toward the entrance of the Graf Spee. “I’m back.”

Bruno straightened his arm and stopped Doug with a palm against his chest. It was like thumping against a piling.

“Glad to hear it,” Bruno said, deadpan. “Now get back in line.”

Doug smiled. “Bruno, it’s me. Marc.”

“Sure. An’ I’m David Bowie.”

“Bruno—”

“Ay! Fun’s fun, guy, an’ I ’preciate a good scam much as the next fella, but don’t wear it out, huh? When the real Mista Chevignon comes out, maybe I’ll introduce you. He’ll geta kick outta you. Maybe even pass you in. He’s good like dat.”

“I snuck out the back, Bruno. Now I’m—”

The piling became a pile driver, thumping Doug out from under the canopy and back into the rain. Bruno was speaking through his teeth now.

“I’m startin’ to get pissed. You may dress like him, you may comb your hair like him, you may even look sompin’ like him, but you ain’t Marc Chevignon. I know Marc Chevignon, and you ain’t no Marc Chevignon.” Bruno’s face broke into a grin. “Ay. I sound like a president debater, don’t I? I’ll have to tell Mista Chevignon—the real one—when he comes out.”

“At least let me get, like, a message to LuAnn. Please, Bruno.”

Bruno’s grin vanished like a pulse from one of the strobes winking over the Spee’s dance floor. “Miz Lu’s gone home. The real Marc Chevignon would know where dat is. Now lose yourself afore I kick your butt downa Chinatown.”

Doug stumbled away through the rain in shocked disbelief. What was happening here? Why didn’t Bruno recognize him?

He stopped and checked his reflection in the darkened grimy window of a plumbing supply place. He couldn’t see himself too well, but he knew he looked right. The same tweed slacks, same leather coat, same white shirt. What was wrong?

At first he’d thought it was because Bruno hadn’t seen him leave, but there was more to it than that. They’d stood within a foot of each other and Bruno thought he was somebody else.

LuAnn! He had to see LuAnn. Bruno had said she’d gone home. Early for her, but maybe she was looking for Marc.

Well, okay. She was going to find him.

Doug flagged down a cruising cab and rode it up to the West Eighties. LuAnn’s condo was in a refurbished old apartment house with high-tech security. Doug knew the routine. He rang her bell in the building’s foyer and waited under operating-room floodlights while the camera ogled him from its high corner perch.

“Marc!” her voiced squawked from the speaker. “Great! Come on up!”

On the eighth floor the elevator opened onto a three-door atrium. The middle was LuAnn’s. She must have heard the elevator because her door opened before Doug reached it.

Her smile was bright, welcoming. “Marky! Where on earth did you disappear to? I was—”

And then the smile was gone and she was backing away.

“Hey! What is this? You’re not Marc!”

As she turned and started to close the door, Doug leapt forward. He wasn’t going to be shut out twice tonight. He had to convince her he was Marc.

“No! LuAnn, wait!” He jammed his foot against the closing door. “It’s me! Marc! Don’t do this to me!”

“I don’t know what your game is, buddy, but I’m going to start screaming bloody murder in a minute if you don’t back off right now!”

Doug could see how scared she was. Her lips were white and she was puffing like a locomotive. He had to calm her down.

“Look, Lu,” he said softly. “I don’t unnerstand what’s come over you, but if I, like, step back, will you, like, leave the door open just a crack so we can talk and I can prove I’m Marc? Okay. Ain’t that fair?”

Without waiting for a reply, he pulled his foot free of the door, took the promised step back, and held his hands up, under-arrest style. When he saw LuAnn relax, he started talking. In a low voice, he described how they’d made it last night, the positions they’d used, the hard-core videos she’d insisted on running, even the yellow rose tattooed on her left cheek. But instead of wonder and recognition in her eyes, he saw growing disgust. She was looking at him like he might look at a sink one of the tenants had tried to fix on his own.

“I don’t know what your game is, clown, and I don’t know what Marc’s up to, but you can tell him LuAnn is not amused.”

“But I am Marc.”

“You don’t even come close. And get some diction lessons before you try to pull this off again, okay?”

With that she slammed the door. Doug pounded on it.

“LuAnn! Please!”

“I’m calling security right now,” she said through the door. “Beat it!”

Doug beat it. He didn’t want no police problems. No way.

And when he got outside to the street, he felt awfully small, while the city looked awfully, awfully big.

It didn’t seem the least little bit like an oyster.

* * *

“What d’ya need, Marc?” Doug said softly over the bucket once he was home and back in the bathroom.

Something awful had occurred to him on his way home. What if Marc was sick? Or worse yet—dying?

The thought had been a sucker punch to the gut.

“Just lemme know an’ I’ll get it for you. Anything. Anything at all.”

But Marc wasn’t talking. Marc could talk only when Doug was wearing him. So Doug shoved his hand and forearm into the bucket again, deep, all the way to the bottom. He noticed how the goo was even cooler than before. Another bad sign.

“Come on, Marc. Make me say what you need. I’ll hear it and then I’ll get it for you. What d’ya need?”

Nothing. Doug’s lips remained slack, forming not even a syllable. Frustration bubbling into anger, he yanked his arm free, rose to his feet, and smashed his moist fist into the mirror. The glass spider-webbed, slicing up his reflection. His knuckles stung…and bled.

He stared at the crimson puddles forming between his knuckles and dripping into the sink. He turned to look at the bucket.

And had an idea.

“This what y’want?” he said. “Blood? You want my blood? Awright. I’ll give it to you.”

So saying, he jammed his fist back into the bucket and let the blood flow into the goo. When the bottom of the bucket turned red, he withdrew his hand and looked at it. The cuts had stopped bleeding and were almost healed.

Doug tried to stand but felt a little woozy, so he sat on the toilet seat cover and stared into the reddened goo.

Marc wanted blood—needed blood. That had to be it. Maybe the goo was some sort of vampire or something. Didn’t matter. If Marc wanted blood, Doug would find it for him. He’d said he’d get anything Marc needed, hadn’t he? Well, he meant it. Problem was…where?

As he watched the goo that was Marc he noticed the red of his blood begin to swirl and coalesce in its depths, flowing to a central point until all the red was concentrated in a single golf ball–sized globule. And then the globule began to rise. As it approached the surface it angled toward the edge of the bucket. It broke the surface next to the lip and spilled its contents over the side. The rejected blood ran down over the metal and puddled stark red against the white bathroom tiles.

A cold bleakness settled in his chest.

“All right. So you don’t want no blood. What do you want, man?”

Marc lay silent in his galvanized metal quarters.

“You’re sick, aren’t you? Well, who the hell do I take you to? A vet?”

And then it hit him: Maybe Marc wanted to go home.

Aw, man. No way. He couldn’t let Marc go. Without him, he was nothing.

Which was pretty much what he was now. But maybe…

Slowly, reluctantly, Doug lifted the bucket by its handle and trudged through his apartment, out into the hall, down to the basement. Wet down here again, but the floor drain wasn’t backed up. Not yet, anyway. He knelt by the grate, lifted the bucket—And paused. This was pretty radical. Pouring Marc down the drain…no coming back from that. Once he was back down there it was pretty good odds he was gone for good.

Or maybe not. Maybe he’d come back. Who knew? What choice did Doug have anyway? Maybe Marc just needed to get back to the drain to re-charge his batteries. Maybe he had friends or family down there. Might as well put him back where he came from because he’d didn’t look like he was gonna last too much longer up here.

Doug lifted the grate and tipped the bucket. The goo almost leapt over the side, diving for the opening. It slid through the grate, oozed down the pipe, and splashed when it hit the water in the trap below.

Doug sat down and waited, wishing, hoping, praying for Marc to come bubbling back up the drain and crawl onto his arm again. He didn’t know how long it would take, maybe days, maybe weeks, but he’d keep waiting. What else could he do? Without Marc he’d have to be Doug all the time.

And he didn’t want to be Doug anymore.

FOET

INTRODUCTION

The spark for “Foet” flashed in my brain on or about three A.M. on November 11, 1990. (I know because I wrote it down on a daily calendar sheet.)

It came as I lay awake after an argument with someone over fur coats. (Such a deal, she’d bought two.) She wasn’t fazed at all that anal electrocution—ramming an electrode through the anus and into the innards, then turning on the current—is the method of choice for killing minks. (Mustn’t mess up the pelts, you know.) Her attitude: Animals are here for our use, to do with as we please. Another woman at the table agreed. My wife, Mary, didn’t want to hear. She was squeezing my thigh under the table as she does when she knows I’m about to ignite. I realized then that you cannot have a serious conversation about the humane treatment of animals when vanity or fashion has hijacked the helm. These folks would never harm a dog or a cat. Yet inform them that a bunch of little animals were broiled alive from the inside to make their coat and they shrug it off because it’s so beauuuuuutiful.

I remember thinking that night that they’d probably wear human skin if the fashionistas said it was in vogue.

And thus was “Foet” born. Tom Monteleone picked it up for Borderlands 2.

Think of it as a companion piece to “Pelts.”

FOET

Denise didn’t mind the January breeze blowing against her back down Fifth Avenue as she crossed Fifty-seventh Street. Her favorite place in the world was Manhattan, her favorite pastime was shopping, and when she was shopping in midtown—heaven.

At the curb she stopped and turned to stare at the pert blonde who’d just passed. She couldn’t believe it.

“Helene? Helene Ryder, is that you?”

The blonde turned. Her eyes lit with recognition.

“Ohmigod, Denise! Imagine meeting you here! How long has it been?”

They hugged and air kissed.

“Oh, I don’t know. Six months?”

“At least! What are you doing in the city?”

“Just shopping. Accessory hunting.”

“Me, too. Where were you headed?”

“Actually I was looking for a place to get off my feet and have a bite to eat. I skipped lunch and I’m famished.”

“That sounds good.” Helene glanced at her watch. A diamond Piaget, Denise noticed. “It’s tea time at the Waldorf. Why don’t we go there?”

“Wonderful!”

During the bouncy cab ride down Park Avenue, Denise gave Helene a thorough twice-over and was impressed. Her short blond hair was fashionably tousled; her merino wool topcoat, camel’s-hair sweater, and short wool-and-cashmere skirt reeked of Barney’s and Bergdorf’s.

Amazing what could happen when your husband got a big promotion. You could move from Fairfield to Greenwich, and you could buy any little thing your heart desired.

Not that Helene hadn’t always had style. It was just that now she could afford to dress in the manner to which she and Denise had always hoped to become accustomed.

Denise was still waiting to become accustomed. Her Brian didn’t have quite the drive of Helene’s Harry. He still liked to get involved in local causes and in church functions. And that was good in a way. It allowed him more time at home with her and the twins. The downside, though, was that she didn’t have the budget to buy what she needed when she needed it. As a result, Denise had honed her shopping skills to the black-belt level. By keeping her eyes and ears ever open, buying judiciously, and timing her purchases to the minute—like now, for instance, in the post-holiday retail slump—she managed to keep herself looking nearly as in style as someone with a pocketbook as deep as Helene’s.

And on the subject of pocketbooks, Denise could not take her eyes off Helene’s. Fashioned of soft, silky, golden brown leather that seemed to glow in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the grimy windows of the cab, it perfectly offset the colors of her outfit. She wondered if Helene had chosen the bag for the outfit, or the outfit for the bag. She suspected the latter. The bag was exquisite, the stitchwork especially fascinating in its seemingly random joining of odd-sized and odd-shaped pieces. But it was the material itself that drew and captured her attention. She had an urge to reach out and touch it. But she held back.

Later. She’d ask about it during tea.

* * *

Sitting here with Helene on a settee along the wall in Peacock Alley at the Waldorf, sipping tea and nibbling on petites fours from the tray on the table before them, Denise felt as if she were part of the international set. The room whispered exotic accents and strange vowels. Almost every nationality was represented—the Far East most strongly—and everyone was dressed to the nines. The men’s suits were either Armani or Vacca, and a number of the women outshone even Helene. Denise felt almost dowdy.

And still…that handbag of Helene’s, sitting between them on the sofa. She couldn’t escape the urge to caress it, could not keep her eyes off it.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Helene said.

“Hmmm?” Denise felt a flash of embarrassment at being caught staring, and wondered if the envy showed in her eyes. “The bag? Yes, it is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

“I’d be surprised if you had.” Helen pushed it closer. “Take a look.”

Soft. That was the first thing Denise noticed as she lifted it. The leather was so soft, a mix of silk and down as her fingers brushed over the stitched surface. She cradled it on her lap. It stole her breath.

“Um…very unusual, isn’t it?” she managed after a moment.

“No. Not so unusual. I’ve spotted a few others around the room since we arrived.”

“Really?” Denise had been so entranced by Helene’s bag that the others had gone unnoticed. That wasn’t like her. “Where?”

Helene tilted her head to their left. “Right over there. Two tables down, in the navy blue sweater chemise and matching leggings.”

Denise spotted her. A Japanese woman, holding the bag on the coffee table before her. Hers was black, but the stitching was unmistakable. As Denise scanned the room she noticed another, this one a deep coffee brown. And she noticed something else—they belonged to the most exquisitely dressed women in the room, the ones draped in Helmut Lang and Versace. Among all the beautifully dressed people here in Peacock Alley, the women who stood out, who showed exceptional flair and style in their ensembles, were the ones carrying these bags.

Denise knew in that instant that she had to have one. No matter how much it cost, this was the accessory she’d been looking for, the touch that would set her apart, lift her to a higher fashion plane.

The Japanese woman rose from her table and walked past. She glanced at Denise on her way by. Her gaze dropped to the bag on Denise’s lap and she smiled and nodded. Denise managed to smile back.

What was that? It almost seemed as if the women with these bags had formed some sort of club. If so, Denise wanted to be a member.

Helene smiled knowingly when Denise looked back at her.

“I know what you’re thiiiinkiiiing,” she sing-songed.

“Do you?”

“Uh-huh. ‘Where do I get one?’ Right?”

Right. But Denise wasn’t going to admit it. She hated being obvious.

“Actually I was wondering what kind of leather it is.”

A cloud crossed Helene’s face.

“You don’t know?” She paused, then: “It’s foet.”

“Feet? Whose feet?” And then Denise realized what Helene had said. “Oh…my…God!”

“Now, Denise—”

Foet! She’d heard of it but had never thought she’d see it or actually touch it, never dreamed Helene would buy any. Her gorge rose.

“I don’t believe it!”

Denise pushed the bag back onto the sofa between them and glared at Helene.

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not as if I committed a crime or anything.”

“How could you, Helene?”

“Look at it.” She lifted the bag. “How could I not?”

Denise was captured again by the golden glow of the leather. She felt her indignation begin to melt.

“But it’s human skin!” she said, as much to remind herself of that hideous fact as to drag it out into the open.

“Not human…at least according to the Supreme Court.”

“I don’t care what those old farts say, it’s still human skin!”

Helene shook her head. “Fetal skin, Denise. From abortions. And it’s legal. If fetuses were legally human, you couldn’t abort them. So the Supreme Court finally had to rule that their skin could be used.”

“I know all about that, Helene.”

Who didn’t know about Ranieri v. Verlaine? The case had sent shock waves around the country. Around the world! Denise’s church had formed a group to go down to Washington to protest it. As a matter of fact—

“Helene, you were out on Pennsylvania Avenue with me demonstrating against the ruling! How could you—?”

Helene shrugged. “Things change. I’m still antiabortion, but after we moved away from Fairfield and I lost contact with our old church group, I stopped thinking about it. Our new friends aren’t into that sort of stuff and so I, well, just kind of drifted into other things.”

“That’s fine, but how does that drift you into buying something like…” She pointed to the bag and, God help her, she still wanted to run her hands over it. “This!”

“I saw one. We went to a reception—some fund-raiser for the homeless, I think—and I met a woman who had one. I fell in love with it immediately. I hemmed and hawed, feeling guilty for wanting it, but finally I went out and bought myself one.” She beamed. “And believe me, I’ve never regretted it.”

“God, Helene.”

“They’re already dead, Denise. I don’t condone abortion any more than you do, but it’s legal and that’s not likely to change. And as long as it stays legal, these poor little things are going to be killed day after day, weeks after week, hundreds and thousands and millions of them. We have no control over that. And buying foet accessories will not change that one way or another. They’re already dead.”

Denise couldn’t argue on that point. Yes, they were dead, and there was nothing anyone could do about that.

But…

“But where do they sell this stuff? I’ve never once seen it displayed or even advertised.”

“Oh, it’s in all the better stores, but it’s very discreet. They’re not stupid. Foet may be legal but it’s still controversial. Nobody wants trouble, nobody wants a scene. I mean, can you imagine a horde of the faithful hausfraus from St. Paul’s marching through Bergdorf’s? I mean really!”

Denise had to smile. Yes, that would be quite a sight.

“I guess it would be like the fur activists.”

“Even worse.” Helene leaned closer. “You know why those nuts are antifur? Because they’ve never had a fur coat. It’s pure envy with them. But foet? Foet is tied up with motherhood and apple pie. It’s going to take a long time for the masses to get used to foet. So until then, the market will be small and select. Very select.”

Denise nodded. Select. Despite all her upbringing, all her beliefs, something within her yearned to be part of that small, select market. And she hated herself for it.

“Is it very expensive?”

Helene nodded. “Especially this shade.” She caressed her bag. “It’s all hand sewn. No two pieces are alike.”

“And where’d you buy yours?”

Helene was staring at her appraisingly. “You’re not thinking of starting any trouble, are you?”

“Oh, no. No, of course not. I just want to look. I’m…curious.”

More of that appraising stare. Denise wanted to hide behind the settee.

“You want one, don’t you?”

“Absolutely not! Maybe it’s morbid on my part, but I’m curious to see what else they’re doing with…foet these days.”

“Very well,” Helene said, and it occurred to Denise that Helene had never said Very well when she’d lived in Fairfield. “Go to Blume’s—it’s on Fifth, a little ways up from Gucci’s.”

“I know it.”

“Ask for Rolf. When you see him, tell him you’re interested in some of his better accessories. Remember that: ‘better accessories.’ He’ll know what you’re looking for.”

* * *

Denise passed Blume’s three times, and each time she told herself she’d keep right on walking and find a taxi to take her down to Grand Central for the train back to Fairfield. But something forced her to turn and go back. Just once more. This time she ducked into a slot in the revolving door and swung into the warm, brightly lit interior.

Where was the harm in just looking?

When he appeared, Rolf reminded her of a Rudolf Valentino wannabe—stiletto thin in his black pinstripe suit, with plastered-down black hair and mechanical-pencil mustache. He was a good ten years younger than Denise and barely an inch taller, with delicate, fluttery hands, lively eyes, and a barely audible voice.

He gave Denise a careful up-and-down after she’d spoken the code words, then extended his arm to the right.

“Of course. This way, please.”

He led her to the back of the store, down a narrow corridor, and then through a glass door into a small, indirectly lit showroom. Denise found herself surrounded by glass shelves lined with handbags, belts, even watch bands. All made of foet.

Rolf closed the door behind them.

“The spelling is adapted from the archaic medical term.”

“Really?”

She noticed he didn’t actually say the word: foetal.

“Now…what may I show you?”

“May I browse a little?”

“Mais oui. Take your time.”

Denise wandered the pair of aisles, inspecting the tiers of shelves and all the varied items they carried. She noticed something: Almost everything was black or very dark.

“The bag my friend showed me was a lighter color.”

“Ah, yes. I’m sorry, but we’re out of white. That goes first, you know.”

“No, this wasn’t white. It was more of a pale, golden brown.”

“Yes. We call that white. After all, it’s made from white hide. It’s relatively rare.”

“‘Hide’?”

He smiled. “Yes. That’s what we call the…material.”

The material: white fetal skin.

“Do you have any pieces without all the stitching? Something with a smoother look?”

“I’m afraid not. I mean, you must understand, we’re forced by the very nature of the source of the material to work with little pieces.” He gestured around. “Notice too that there are no gloves. None of the manufacturers wants to be accused of making kid gloves.”

Rolf smiled. Denise could only stare at him.

He cleared his throat. “Trade humor.”

Little pieces.

Hide.

Kid gloves.

Suddenly she wanted to run, but she held on. The urge passed.

Rolf lifted a handbag from atop a nearby display case. It was a lighter brown than the others, but still considerably darker than Helene’s.

“A lot of people are going for this shade. It’s reasonably priced. Imported from India.”

“Imported? I’d have thought there’d be plenty to go around just from the U.S.”

He sighed. “There would be if people weren’t so provincial in their attitudes about giving up the hides. The tanneries are offering a good price. I don’t understand some people. Anyway, we have to import from the Third World. India is a great source.”

Denise picked up another, smaller bag of a similar shade. So soft, so smooth, just like Helene’s.

“Indian, too?”

“Yes, but that’s a little more expensive. That’s male.”

She looked at him questioningly.

His eyes did a tiny roll. “They hardly ever abort males in India. Only females. Two thousand to one.”

Denise put it down and picked up a similar model, glossy, ink black. This would be a perfect accent to so many of her ensembles.

“Now that’s—”

She held up her free hand. “Please don’t tell me anything about it. Just the price.”

He told her. She repressed a gasp. That would just about empty her account of the money she’d put aside for all her fashion bargains. On one item. Was it worth it?

She reached into her old pocketbook, the now dowdy-looking Fendi, and pulled out her gold MasterCard. Rolf smiled and lifted it from her fingers.

Minutes later she was back among the hoi polloi in the main shopping area, but she wasn’t one of them. She’d been where they couldn’t go, and that gave her a special feeling.

Before leaving Blume’s, Denise put her Fendi in the store bag and hung the new foet bag over her arm. The doorman gave her a big smile as he passed her through to the sidewalk.

A cold wind had sprung up in the dying afternoon. She stood in the fading light with the breeze cutting her like an icy knife and suddenly felt horrible.

I’m toting a bag made from the skin of an unborn child.

Why? Why had she bought it? What had possessed her to spend that kind of money on such a ghoulish…artifact? Because that was just what it was—not an accessory, an artifact.

She opened the store bag and reached in to switch the new foet for her trusty Fendi. She didn’t want to be seen with it.

And Brian! Good God, how was she going to tell Brian?

* * *

“What?”

Brian never talked with food in his mouth. He had better manners than that. But Denise had just told him about Helene’s bag and at the moment his mouth, full of sautéed spinach, hung open as he stared at her with wide eyes.

“Brian, please close your mouth.”

He swallowed. “Helene? Helene had something made of human skin?”…not human…at least according to the Supreme Court…

“It’s called foet, Brian.”

“I know damn well what it’s called! They could call it chocolate mousse but it would still be human skin. They give it a weird name so people won’t look at them like they’re a bunch of Nazis when they sell it! Helene—how could she?”

…they’re already dead, Denise…

Brian’s tone became increasingly caustic. Denise felt as if he were talking to her.

“I don’t believe it! What’s got into her? One person kills an unborn child and the other makes the poor thing’s skin into a pocketbook! And Helene of all people! My God, is that what a big pay raise and moving to Greenwich does to you?”

Denise barely heard Brian as he ranted on. Thank God she’d had the good sense not to tell him about her own bag. He’d have been apoplectic.

No doubt about it…she was going to return that bag as soon as she could get back into the city.

* * *

Denise stood outside Blume’s, dreading the thought of facing Rolf in that tiny showroom and returning her foet, her beautiful foet.

She pulled it out of the shopping bag and stared at it. Exquisite. Strange how a little extra time could alter your attitude. The revulsion that had overwhelmed her right after she’d bought it had faded. Perhaps because every day during the past week—a number of times each day, to be honest—she’d taken it out and looked at it, held it, caressed it. Inevitably, its true beauty had shown through and captured her. Her initial infatuation had returned to the fore.

But the attraction went beyond mere beauty. This sort of accessory said something. Exactly what, she wasn’t sure. But she knew a bold fashion statement when she saw one. This however was a statement she didn’t have quite the nerve to make. At least not in Fairfield. So different here in the city. The cosmopolitan atmosphere allowed the elite to flash their foet—she liked the rhyme. She could be so very in here. But it would make her so very out with her crowd in Fairfield—out of her home too, most likely.

Small minds. What did they know about fashion? In a few years they’d all be buying it. Right now, only the leaders wore it. And for a few moments she’d been a member of that special club. Now she was about to resign.

As she turned to enter Blume’s, a Mercedes stretch limo pulled into the curb beside her. The driver hopped out and opened the door. A shapely brunette of about Denise’s age emerged. She was wearing a dark gray short wrap coat of llama and kid over a long-sleeved crepe-jersey catsuit. She held a black clutch purse with the unmistakable stitching of foet. Her eyes flicked down to Denise’s handbag, then back up to her face. She smiled. Not just a polite passing-stranger smile, but a warm, we-know-style smile.

As Denise returned the smile, all doubt within her melted away as if it had never been. Suddenly she knew she was right. She knew what really mattered, what was important, where she had to be, fashion-wise.

And Brian? Who said Brian had to know a thing about it? What did he know about fashion anyway?

Denise turned and strode down Fifth with her new foet bag swinging from her arm for all the world to see.

Screw them all. It made her feel good, like she was somebody. What else mattered?

She really had to make a point of getting into the city more often.

PLEASE DON’T HURT ME

INTRODUCTION

This baby clocks in at barely over 2,000 words, but even then I almost missed the deadline.

The late J. N. Williamson called me looking for a story for Masques IV. I’d been in the first anthology and Jerry wanted me back. I said yes, then regretted it because I had to squeeze it out at odd moments between revising Nightworld, finishing the wraparound story for Freak Show, checking the copyedited manuscript for Berkley’s Reprisal, outlining Virgin (more on that later), introing the Sandman collection, and afterwording the “Buckets” paperback for Pulphouse. Lucky for me, other authors were late, so the deadline was extended.

As a challenge to myself (and as a way to cut the story’s word count) I decided to write it as pure dialogue—not one word of narrative. It didn’t save me the time I thought it would. In fact it took me longer because I had to find ways to convey setting and action via the gab. And that’s not easy to do without creating dialogue that sounds like, “Oh, just toss your herringbone tweed coat on that Louis XIV love seat under the Chagall.”

A lagniappe (I’m told I overuse that word) is that the story works beautifully at readings.

PLEASE DON’T HURT ME

“Real nice place you’ve got here.”

“It’s a dump. You can say it—it’s okay. Sure you don’t want a beer or something?”

“Honey, all I want is you. C’mon and sit next to me. Right over here on the couch.”

“Okay. But you won’t hurt me, will you?”

“Now, honey—Tammy’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Tammy Johnson. I told you that at least three times in the bar.”

“That’s right. Tammy. I don’t remember things too good after I’ve had a few.”

“I’ve had a few too and I remember your name. Bob. Right?”

“Right, right. Bob. But now why would someone want to hurt a sweet young thing like you, Tammy? I told you back there in the bar you look just like that actress with the funny name. The one in Ghost.”

“Whoopi Goldberg?”

“Oh, I swear, you’re a funny one. Funny and beautiful. No, the other one.”

“Demi Moore.”

“Yeah. Demi Moore. Why would I want to hurt someone who looks like Demi Moore? Especially after you were nice enough to invite me back to your place.”

“I don’t know why. I never know why. But it just seems that men always wind up hurting me.”

“Not me, Tammy. No way. That’s not my style at all. I’m a lover not a fighter.”

“How come you’re a sailor, then? Didn’t you tell me you were in that Gulf War?”

“But I didn’t see battle. Don’t let the uniform scare you. Like I said, I’m really a lover at heart.”

“Do you love me?”

“If you’ll let me.”

“My father used to say he loved me.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’m talking about that kinda love.”

“Good. Because I didn’t like that. He’d say he loved me and then he’d hurt me.”

“Sometimes a kid needs a whack once in a while. I know my pop loved me, but every once in a while I’d get too far out of line—like a nail that starts working itself loose from a fence post?—and so he’d have to come along every so often and whack me back into place. I don’t think I’m any the worse for it.”

“Ain’t talking about getting ‘whacked,’ sailor man. If I’d wanted to talk about getting ‘whacked’ I woulda said so. I’m talking ’bout getting hurt. My daddy hurt me lotsa times. And he did it for a long, long time.”

“Yeah? Like what he do to hurt you?”

“Things. And he was all the time making me do things.”

“What sort of things?”

“Just…things. Doin’ things to him. Things he said made him feel good. Then he’d do things to me that he said would make me feel good but they never did. They made me feel crummy and rotten and dirty.”

“Oh. Well, uh, gee…didn’t you tell your mom?”

“Sure I did. Plenty of times. But she never believed me. She always told me to stop talking dirty and then she’d whack me and wash my mouth out with soap.”

“That’s terrible. You poor thing. But let’s forget about all that. Here…snuggle up against me now. How’s that?”

“Fine, I guess, but what was worse, my momma’d tell Daddy and then he’d get mad and really hurt me. Sometimes it got so bad I thought ’bout killing myself. But I didn’t.”

“I can see that. And I’m sure glad you didn’t. What a waste that would’ve been.”

“Anyway, I don’t want to talk about Daddy. He’s gone and I don’t hardly think about him anymore.”

“Ran off?”

“No. He’s dead. And good riddance. He had a accident on our farm, oh, some seven years ago. Back when I was twelve or so.”

“That’s too bad…I think.”

“People said it was the strangest thing. This big old tractor tire he had stored up in the barn for years just rolled out of the loft and landed right on his head. Broke his neck in three places.”

“Imagine that. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Yeah. My momma thought somebody musta pushed it, but I remember hearing the insurance man saying how there’s so many accidents on farms. Bad accidents. Anyway, Daddy lived for a few weeks in the hospital, then he died.”

“How about that. But about you and me. Why don’t we—?”

“Nobody could explain it. The machine that was breathing for him somehow got shut off. The plug just worked its way out of the wall all by itself. I saw him when he was just fresh dead—I was first one in the room, in fact.”

“That sounds pretty scary.”

“It was. Here, let me unzip this. Yeah, his face was purple-blue and his eyes were all red and bulgy from trying to suck wind. My momma was sad for a while, but she got over it. Do you like it when I do you like this?”

“Oh, honey, that feels good. That feels wonderful.”

“That’s what Daddy used to say. Ooh, look how big and hard you got. My momma’s Joe used to get big and hard like this.”

“Joe?”

“Yeah. Pretty soon after Daddy died my momma made friends with this man named Joe and after a time they started living together. Like I said, I was twelve or so at the time and Joe used to make me do this to him. And then he’d hurt me with it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Don’t stop. Don’t…stop.”

“I won’t. Yours is a pretty one. Not like Joe’s. His was crooked. Maybe that’s why his hurt me even more than Daddy’s.”

“Hey, don’t squeeze so hard.”

“Sorry. Joe liked me to—”

“Do we have to talk about this Joe?”

“No, but…”

“Hey, don’t stop.”

“But I feel like talking about him.”

“Okay, okay. So how’d you finally get away from him?”

“Oh, I didn’t. He got hurt.”

“Really? Another farm accident?”

“Nah. We weren’t even on the farm no more. We was livin’ in this dumpy old house up Lottery Canyon way. My momma still worked but all Joe did was fiddle on this big old Cadillac of his—you know, the kind with the fins?”

“Yeah. A fifty-nine?”

“Who knows. Anyways, he was always fiddlin’ with it. And he always made me help him—you know, stand around and watch what he was doin’ and hand him tools and stuff when he asked for them. He taught me a lot about cars, but if I didn’t do everything just right, he’d hurt me.”

“And I’ll bet you hardly ever did everything ‘just right.’”

“Nope. Never. Not even once. How on earth did you know?”

“Lucky guess. What finally happened to him?”

“Those old brakes on that old Caddy just up and failed on him one night when he was making one of his trips down the canyon road to the liquor store. Went off the edge and dropped about a hundred feet.”

“Killed?”

“Yeah, but not right away. He got tossed from the car and then the car rolled over on him. Broke his legs in about thirty places. Took a while before anybody even realized he was missing, and took almost an hour for the rescue squad to get to him. And they say he was screamin’ like a stuck pig the whole time.”

“Oh.”

“Something wrong?”

“Uh, no. Not really. I guess he deserved it.”

“Damn right he did. Never made it to the hospital though. Went into shock when they rolled the car off him and he saw what was left of his legs. Died in the ambulance. But here…let me do this to you. Hmmmmmmm. You like that?”

“Oh, God.”

“Does that mean yes?”

“You’d better believe that means yes!”

“My boyfriend used to love this.”

“Boyfriend? Hey, now wait a minute—”

“Don’t get all uptight now. You just lie back there and relax. My ex-boyfriend. Very ex.”

“He’d better be. I’m not falling for any kind of scam here.”

“Scam? What do you mean?”

“You know—you and me get started here and your boyfriend busts in and rips me off.”

“Tommy Lee? Bust in here? Oh, hey, I don’t mean to laugh, but Tommy Lee Hampton will not be bustin’ in here or anywheres else.”

“Don’t tell me he’s dead too.”

“No-no. Tommy Lee’s still alive. Still lives right here in town, as a matter of fact. But I betcha he wishes he didn’t. And I betcha he wishes he’d been nicer to me.”

“I’ll be nice to you.”

“I hope so. Tommy and Tammy—seemed like we was made for each other, don’t it? Sometimes Tommy Lee was real nice to me. A lot of times he was real nice to me. But only when I was doin’ what he wanted me to do. Like this…like what I’m doin’ to you now. He taught me this and he wanted me to do it to him all the time.”

“I can see why.”

“Yeah, but he’d want me to do him in public. Or do other things. Like when we’d be driving along in the car he’d want me to—here, I’ll show you…”

“Oh…my…God!”

“That’s what he’d always say. But he’d want me to do it while we was drivin’ beside one of those big trucks so the driver could see us. Or alongside a Greyhound bus. Or at a stoplight. Or in an elevator—I mean, who knew when it was going to stop and who’d be standing there when the doors open? I’m a real lovable girl, y’know? But I’m not that kind of a girl. Not ay-tall.”

“He sounds like a sicko.”

“I think he was. Because if I wouldn’t do it when he wanted me to, he’d get mad and then he’d get drunk, and then he’d hurt me.”

“Not another one.”

“Yeah. Can you believe it? I swear I got the absolute worst luck. He was into drugs too. Always snorting something or popping one pill or another, always trying to get me to do drugs with him. I mean, I drink some, as you know—”

“Yeah, you sure can put those margaritas away.”

“I like the salt, but drugs is just something I’m not into. And he’d get mad at me for sayin’ no—called me Nancy Reagan, can you believe it?—and hurt me something terrible.”

“Well, at least you dumped him.”

“Actually, he sort of dumped himself.”

“Found himself someone else, huh?”

“Not exactly. He took some ’ludes and got real drunk one night and fell asleep in bed with a cigarette. He was so drunk and downered he got burned over most of his body before he finally woke up.”

“Jesus!”

“Jesus didn’t have nothin’ to do with it—except maybe with him survivin’. Third degree burns over ninety percent of Tommy Lee’s body, the doctors at the burn center said. They say it’s a miracle he’s still alive. If you can call what he’s doing livin’.”

“But what—?”

“Oh, there ain’t much left to him. He’s like a livin’ lump of scar tissue. Looks like he melted. Can’t walk no more. Can barely talk. Can’t move but two or three fingers on his left hand, and them just a teensie-weensie bit. Some folks that knew him say it serves him right. And that’s just what I say. In fact I do say it—right to his face—a couple of times a week when I visit him at the nursing home.”

“You…visit him?”

“Sure. He can’t feed himself and the nurses there are glad for any help they can get. So I come every so often and spoon-feed him. Oh, does he hate it!”

“I’ll bet he does, especially after the way he treated you.”

“Oh, that’s not it. I make sure he hates it. You see, I put things in his food and make him eat it. Just yesterday I stuck a live cockroach into a big spoonful of his mashed potatoes. Forced it into his mouth and made him chew. Crunch-crunch, wiggle-wiggle, crunch-crunch. You should have seen the tears—just like a big baby. And then I—

Hey. What’s happened to you here? You’ve gone all soft on me. What’s the matter with—?

“Hey, where’re you goin’? We was just starting to have some fun…Hey, don’t leave…Hey, Bob, what’d I do wrong?…What’d I say?…Bob! Come back and—

“Well! Can you believe that? I swear…sometimes I just don’t understand men.”

ARYANS AND ABSINTHE

INTRODUCTION

Early in the summer of 1993 Douglas E. Winter called to tell me about his idea for an anthology that would consist of a novella for every decade of the century, each story centering on some apocalyptic event. He said pick a decade. I picked the 1920s—Weimar Germany, specifically. The arts were flourishing but the economic chaos and runaway inflation of the times were so surreal, so devastating to everyone’s day-to-day life that people—Jew and gentile alike—were looking for a savior. A foppish little guy named Hitler came to prominence presenting himself as that savior.

I did extensive research for “Aryans and Absinthe.” Charles Bracelen Flood’s remarkable Hitler: The Path to Power (Houghton Mifflin, 1989) was a major source. I wanted to get the details right so I could make you feel you were there. I finished in August and was pretty high on it. I thought I’d captured the tenor and tempo of the times, felt I’d conveyed an apocalyptic experience.

But I’d have to wait four years before seeing it in print. The anthology, Revelations, wouldn’t appear until 1997.

ARYANS AND ABSINTHE

Today it takes 40,000 marks to buy a single US dollar.

—Volkischer Beobachter, May 4, 1923

Ernst Drexler found the strangest things entertaining. That was how he always phrased it: entertaining. Even inflation could be entertaining, he said.

Karl Stehr remembered seeing Ernst around the Berlin art venues for months before he actually met him. He stood out in that perennially scruffy crowd with his neatly pressed suit and vest, starched collar and tie, soft hat either on his head or under his arm, and his distinctive silver-headed cane wrapped in black rhinoceros hide. His black hair swept back sleek as linoleum from his high forehead; the bright blue eyes that framed his aquiline nose were never still, always darting about under his dark eyebrows; thin lips, a strong chin, and tanned skin, even in winter, completed the picture. Karl guessed Ernst to be in his mid-thirties, but his mien was that of someone older.

For weeks at a time he would seem to be everywhere, and never at a loss for something to say. At the Paul Klee show where Klee’s latest, “The Twittering Machine,” had been on exhibition, Karl had overheard his sarcastic comment that Klee had joined the Bauhaus not a moment too soon. Ernst was always at the right places: at the opening of Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, at the cast party for that Czech play R.U.R., and at the secret screenings of Murnau’s Nosferatu, to name just a few.

And then he’d be nowhere. He’d disappear for weeks or a month without a word to anyone. When he returned he would pick up just where he’d left off, as if there’d been no hiatus. And when he was in town he all but lived at the Romanisches Cafe where nightly he would wander among the tables, glass in hand, a meandering focus of raillery and bavardage, dropping dry, witty, acerbic comments on art and literature like ripe fruit. No one seemed to remember who first introduced him to the cafe. He more or less insinuated himself into the regulars on his own. After a while it seemed he had always been there. Everyone knew Ernst but no one knew him well. His persona was a strange mixture of accessibility and aloofness that Karl found intriguing.

They began their friendship on a cool Saturday evening in the spring. Karl had closed his bookshop early and wandered down Budapesterstrasse to the Romanisches. It occupied the corner at Tauentzien across from the Gedachtniskirche: large for a cafe, with a roomy sidewalk area and a spacious interior for use on inclement days and during the colder seasons.

Karl had situated himself under the awning, his knickered legs resting on the empty chair next to him; he sipped an aperitif among the blossoming flower boxes as he reread Siddhartha. At the sound of clacking high heels he’d glance up and watch the “new look” women as they trooped past in pairs and trios with their clinging dresses fluttering about their knees and their smooth tight caps pulled down over their bobbed hair, their red lips, mascaraed eyes, and coats trimmed in fluffy fur snuggled around their necks.

Karl loved Berlin. He’d been infatuated with the city since his first sight of it when his father had brought him here before the war; two years ago, on his twentieth birthday, he’d dropped out of the university to carry on an extended affair with her. His lover was the center of the art world, of the new freedoms. You could be what you wanted here: a free thinker, a free lover, a communist, even a fascist; men could dress like women and women could dress like men. No limits. All the new movements in music, the arts, the cinema, and the theater had their roots here. Every time he turned around he found a new marvel.

Night was upon Karl’s mistress when Ernst Drexler stopped by the table and introduced himself.

“We’ve not formally met,” he said, thrusting out his hand. “Your name is Stehr, I believe. Come join me at my table. There are a number of things I wish to discuss with you.”

Karl wondered what things this man more than ten years his senior could wish to discuss, but since he had no other plans for the evening, he went along.

The usual crowd was in attendance at the Romanisches that night. Lately it had become the purlieu of Berlin bohemia—all the artists, writers, journalists, critics, composers, editors, directors, scripters, and anyone else who had anything to do with the avant garde of German arts, plus the girlfriends, the boyfriends, the mere hangers-on. Some sat rooted in place, others roved ceaselessly from table to table. Smoke undulated in a muslin layer above a gallimaufry of scraggly beards, stringy manes, bobbed hair framing black-rimmed eyes, homburgs, berets, monocles, pince-nez, foot-long cigarette holders, baggy sweaters, dark stockings, period attire ranging from the Hellenic to the pre-Raphaelite.

“I saw you at Siegfried the other night,” Ernst said as they reached his table in a dim rear corner, out of the peristaltic flow. Ernst took the seat against the wall where he could watch the room; he left the other for Karl. “What do you think of Lang’s latest?”

“Very Germanic,” Karl said as he took his seat and reluctantly turned his back to the room. He was a people watcher.

Ernst laughed. “How diplomatic! But how true. Deceit, betrayal, and backstabbing—in both the figurative and literal sense. Germanic indeed. Hardly Neue Sachlichkeit, though.”

“I think New Realism was the furthest thing from Lang’s mind. Now, Die Strasse, on the other hand—”

“Neue Sachlichkeit will soon join Expressionism in the mausoleum of movements. And good riddance. It is shit.”

“Kunst ist Scheisse?” Karl said, smiling. “Dada is the deadest of them all.”

Ernst laughed again. “My, you are sharp, Karl. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. You’re very bright. You’re one of the few people in this room who will be able to appreciate my new entertainment.”

“Really? And what is that?”

“Inflation.”

Before Karl could ask what he meant, Ernst flagged down a passing waiter.

“The usual for me, Freddy, and—?” He pointed to Karl, who ordered a schnapps.

“Inflation? Never heard of it. A new card game?”

Ernst smiled. “No, no. It’s played with money.”

“Of course. But how—”

“It’s played with real money in the real world. It’s quite entertaining. I’ve been playing it since the New Year.”

Freddy soon delivered Karl’s schnapps. For Ernst he brought an empty stemmed glass, a sweaty carafe of chilled water, and a small bowl of sugar cubes. Karl watched fascinated as Ernst pulled a silver flask from his breast pocket and unscrewed the top. He poured three fingers of clear green liquid into the glass, then returned the flask to his coat. Next he produced a slotted spoon, placed a sugar cube in its bowl, and held it over the glass. Then he dribbled water from the carafe, letting it flow over the cube and into the glass to mix with the green liquid…which began to turn a pale yellow.

“Absinthe!” Karl whispered.

“Quite. I developed a taste for it before the war. Too bad it’s illegal now—although it’s still easily come by.”

Now Karl knew why Ernst frequently reserved this out-of-the-way table. Instinctively he glanced around, but no one was watching.

Ernst sipped and smacked his lips. “Ever tried any?”

“No.”

Karl had never had the opportunity. And besides, he’d heard that it drove you mad.

Ernst slid his glass across the table. “Take a sip.”

Part of Karl urged him to say no, while another pushed his hand forward and wound his fingers around the stem of the glass. He lifted it to his lips and took a tiny sip.

The bitterness rocked his head back and puckered his cheeks.

“That’s the wormwood,” Ernst said, retrieving his glass. “Takes some getting used to.”

Karl shuddered as he swallowed. “How did that ever become a craze?”

“For half a century, all across the continent, the cocktail hour was known as l’heure verte after this little concoction.” He sipped again, closed his eyes, savoring. “At the proper time, in the proper place, it can be…revelatory.”

After a moment, he opened his eyes and motioned Karl closer.

“Here. Move over this way and sit by me. I wish to show you something.”

Karl slid his chair around to where they both sat facing the crowded main room of the Romanisches.

Ernst waved his arm. “Look at them, Karl. The cream of the city’s artists attended by their cachinating claques and coteries of epigones and acolytes, mixing with the city’s lowlifes and lunatics. Morphine addicts and vegetarians cheek by jowl with Bolsheviks and boulevardiers, arrivistes and anarchists, abortionists and antivivisectionists, directors and dilettantes, doyennes and demimondaines.”

Karl wondered how much time Ernst spent here sipping his absinthe and observing the scene. And why. He sounded like an entomologist studying a particularly interesting anthill.

“Everyone wants to join the parade. They operate under the self-induced delusion that they’re in control: ‘What happens in the Berlin arts today, the rest of the world copies next week.’ True enough, perhaps. But this is the Masque of the Red Death, Karl. Huge forces are at play around them, and they are certain to get crushed as the game unfolds. Germany is falling apart—the impossible war reparations are suffocating us, the French and Belgians have been camped in the Ruhr Valley since January, the communists are trying to take over the north, the right-wingers and monarchists practically own Bavaria, and the Reichsbank’s answer to the economic problems is to print more money.”

“Is that bad?”

“Of course. It’s only paper. It’s been sending prices through the roof.”

He withdrew his wallet from his breast pocket, pulled a bill from it, and passed it to Karl.

Karl recognized it. “An American dollar.”

Ernst nodded. “‘Good as gold,’ as they say. I bought it for ten thousand marks in January. Care to guess what the local bank was paying for it today?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps…”

“Forty thousand. Forty thousand marks.”

Karl was impressed. “You quadrupled your money in four months.”

“No, Karl,” Ernst said with a wry smile. “I’ve merely quadrupled the number of marks I control. My buying power is exactly what it was in January. But I’m one of the very few people in this storm-tossed land who can say so.”

“Maybe I should try that,” Karl said softly, admiring the elegant simplicity of the plan. “Take my savings and convert it to American dollars.”

“By all means do. Clean out your bank account, pull every mark you own out from under your mattress and put them into dollars. But that’s mere survival—hardly entertainment.”

“Survival sounds good enough.”

“No, my friend. Survival is never enough. Animals limit their concerns to mere survival; humans seek entertainment. That is why we must find a way to make inflation entertaining. Inflation is here. There’s nothing we can do about it. So let’s have some fun with it.”

“I don’t know…”

“Do you own a house?”

“Yes,” Karl said slowly, cautiously. He didn’t know where this was leading. “And no.”

“Really. You mean it’s mortgaged to the hilt?”

“No. Actually it’s my mother’s. A small estate north of the city near Bernau. But I manage it for her.”

Father had died a colonel in the Argonne and he’d left it to her. But Mother had no head for money, and she hadn’t been quite herself in the five years since Father’s death. So Karl took care of the lands and the accounts, but spent most of his time in Berlin. His bookstore barely broke even, but he hadn’t opened it for profit. He’d made it a place where local writers and artists were welcome to stop and browse and meet; he reserved a small area in the rear of the store where they could sit and talk and sip the coffee he kept hot for them. His dream was that someday one of the poor unknowns who partook of his hospitality would become famous and perhaps remember the place kindly—and perhaps someday stop by to say hello with Thomas Mann or the reclusive Herman Hesse in tow. Until then Karl would be quite satisfied with providing coffee and rolls to starving scribblers.

But even from the beginning, the shop had paid nonpecuniary dividends. It was his entrée to the literati, and from there to the entire artistic caravan that swirled through Berlin.

“Any danger of losing it?”

“No.” The estate produced enough so that, along with Father’s army pension, his mother could live comfortably.

“Good. Then mortgage it. Borrow to the hilt on it, and then borrow some more. Then turn all those marks into US dollars.”

Karl was struck dumb by the idea. The family home had never had a lien on it. Never. The idea was unthinkable.

“No. I—I couldn’t.”

Ernst put his arm around Karl’s shoulder and leaned closer. Karl could smell the absinthe on his breath.

“Do it, Karl. Trust me in this. It’s an entertainment, but you’ll see some practical benefits as well. Mark my words, six months from now you’ll be able to pay off your entire mortgage with a single US dollar. A single coin.”

“I don’t know…”

“You must. I need someone who’ll play the game with me. It’s much more entertaining when you have someone to share the fun with.”

Ernst straightened up and lifted his glass.

“A toast!” He clinked his glass against Karl’s. “By the way, do you know where glass clinking originated? Back in the old days, when poisoning a rival was a fad among the upper classes, it became the practice to allow your companion to pour some of his drink into your cup, and vice versa. That way, if one of the drinks were poisoned, you’d both suffer.”

“How charming.”

“Quite. Inevitably the pouring would be accompanied by the clink of one container against another. Hence, the modern custom.” Once again he clinked his absinthe against Karl’s schnapps. “Trust me, Karl. Inflation can be very entertaining—and profitable as well. I expect the mark to lose fully half its value in the next six weeks. So don’t delay.”

He raised his glass. “To inflation!” he cried and drained the absinthe.

Karl sipped his schnapps in silence.

Ernst rose from his seat. “I expect to see you dollar rich and mark poor when I return.”

“Where are you going?”

“A little trip I take every so often. I like to swing up through Saxony and Thuringia to see what the local Bolsheviks are up to—I have a membership in the German Communist Party, you know. I subscribe to Rote Fahne, listen to speeches by the Zentrale, and go to rallies. It’s very entertaining. But after I tire of that—Marxist rhetoric can be so boring—I head south to Munich to see what the other end of the political spectrum is doing. I’m also a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party down there and subscribe to their Volkischer Beobachter.”

“Never heard of them. How can they call themselves ‘National’ if they’re not nationally known?”

“Just as they can call themselves Socialists when they are stridently fascist. Although frankly I, for one, have difficulty discerning much difference between either end of the spectrum—they are distinguishable only by their paraphernalia and their rhetoric. The National Socialists—they call themselves Nazis—are a power in Munich and other parts of Bavaria, but no one pays too much attention to them up here. I must take you down there sometime to listen to one of their leaders. Herr Hitler is quite a personality. I’m sure our friend Freud would love to get him on the couch.”

“Hitler? Never heard of him, either.”

“You really should hear him speak sometime. Very entertaining.”

* * *

Today it takes 51,000 marks to buy a single US dollar.

—Volkischer Beobachter, May 21, 1923

A few weeks later, when Karl returned from the bank with the mortgage papers for his mother to sign, he spied something on the door post. He stopped and looked closer.

A mezuzah.

He took out his pocket knife and pried it off the wood, then went inside.

“Mother, what is this?” he said, dropping the object on the kitchen table.

She looked up at him with her large, brown, intelligent eyes. Her brunette hair was streaked with gray. She’d lost considerable weight immediately after Father’s death and had never regained it. She used to be lively and happy, with an easy smile that dimpled her high-colored cheeks. Now she was quiet and pale. She seemed to have shrunken, in body and spirit.

“You know very well what it is, Karl.”

“Yes, but haven’t I warned you about putting it outside?”

“It belongs outside.”

“Not in these times. Please, Mother. It’s not healthy.”

“You should be proud of being Jewish.”

“I’m not Jewish.”

They’d had this discussion hundreds of times lately, it seemed, but Mother just didn’t want to understand. His father, the colonel, had been Christian, his mother Jewish. Karl had decided to be neither. He was an atheist, a skeptic, a free-thinker, an intellectual. He was German by language and by place of birth, but he preferred to think of himself as an international man. Countries and national boundaries should be abolished, and someday soon would be.

“If your mother is Jewish, you are Jewish. You can’t escape that. I’m not afraid to tell the world I’m Jewish. I wasn’t so observant when your father was alive, but now that he’s gone…”

Her eyes filled with tears.

Karl sat down next to her and took her hands in his.

“Mother, listen. There’s a lot of anti-Jewish feeling out there these days. It will die down, I’m sure, but right now we live in an inordinately proud country that lost a war and wants to blame someone. Some of the most bitter people have chosen Jews as their scapegoats. So until the country gets back on an even keel, I think it’s prudent to keep a low profile.”

Her smile was wan. “You know best, dear.”

“Good.” He opened the folder he’d brought from the bank. “And now for some paperwork. These are the final mortgage papers, ready for signing.”

Mother squeezed his hands. “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”

“Absolutely sure.”

Actually, now that the final papers were ready, he was having second thoughts.

Karl had arranged to borrow every last pfennig the bank would lend him against his mother’s estate. He remembered how uneasy he’d been at the covetous gleam in the bank officers’ eyes when he’d signed the papers. They sensed financial reverses, gambling debts, perhaps, a desperate need for cash that would inevitably lead to default and subsequent foreclosure on a prime piece of property. The bank president’s eyes had twinkled over his reading glasses; he’d all but rubbed his hands in anticipation.

Doubt and fear gripped Karl now as his mother’s pen hovered over the signature line. Was he being a fool? He was a bookseller and they were financiers. Who was he to presume to know more than men who spent every day dealing with money? He was acting on a whim, spurred on by a man he hardly knew.

But he steeled himself, remembering the research he’d done. He’d always been good at research. He knew how to ferret out information. He’d learned that Rudolf Haverstein, the Reichsbank’s president, had increased his orders of currency paper and was running the printing presses at full speed on overtime.

He watched in silence as his mother signed the mortgage papers.

He’d already taken out personal loans, using Mother’s jewelry as collateral. Counting the mortgage, he’d now accumulated 500 million marks. If he converted them immediately, he’d get 9,800 US dollars at today’s exchange rate. Ninety-eight hundred dollars for half a billion marks. It seemed absurd. He wondered who was madder—the Reichsbank or himself.

* * *

Today it takes 500,000,000 marks to buy a single US dollar.

—Volkischer Beobachter, September 1, 1923

“To runaway inflation,” Ernst Drexler said, clinking his glass of cloudy yellow against Karl’s clear glass of schnapps.

Karl sipped a little of his drink and said nothing. He and Ernst had retreated from the heat and glare of the late summer sun on the Romanisches Cafe’s sidewalk to the cooler, darker interior.

Noon on a Saturday and the Romanisches was nearly empty. But then, who could afford to eat out these days?

Only thieves and currency speculators.

Four months ago Karl hadn’t believed it possible, but for a while they had indeed had fun with inflation.

Now it was getting scary.

Less than four months after borrowing half a billion marks, his 9,800 US dollars were worth almost five trillion marks. Five trillion. The number was meaningless. He could barely imagine even a billion marks, and he controlled five thousand times that amount.

“I realized today,” Karl said softly, “that I can pay off all of my half-billion-mark debt with a single dollar bill.”

“Don’t do it,” Ernst said quickly.

“Why not? I’d like to be debt free.”

“You will be. Just wait.”

“Until when?”

“It won’t be long before the exchange rate will be billions of marks to the dollar. Won’t it be so much more entertaining to pay off the bankers with a single American coin?”

Karl stared at his glass. This game was no longer “entertaining.” People had lost all faith in the mark. And with good reason. Its value was plummeting. In a mere thirty days it had plunged from a million to the dollar to half a billion to the dollar. Numbers crowded the borders of the notes, ever-lengthening strings of ever more meaningless zeros. Despite running twenty-four hours a day, the Reichsbank presses could not keep up with the demand. Million-mark notes were now being over-stamped with TEN MILLION in large black letters. Workers had gone from getting paid twice a month to weekly, and now to daily. Some were demanding twice-daily pay so that they could run out on their lunch hour and spend their earnings before they lost their value.

“I’m frightened, Ernst.”

“Don’t worry. You’ve insulated yourself. You’ve got nothing to fear.”

“I’m frightened for our friends and neighbors. For Germany.”

“Oh, that.”

Karl didn’t understand how Ernst could be so cavalier about the misery steadily welling up around them like a rain-engorged river. It oppressed Karl. He felt guilty, almost ashamed of being safe and secure on his high ground of foreign currency. Ernst drained his absinthe and rose, his eyes bright.

“Let’s go for a walk, shall we? Let’s see what your friends and neighbors are up to on this fine day.”

Karl left his schnapps and followed him out into the street. They strolled along Budapesterstrasse until they came upon a bakery.

“Look,” Ernst said, pointing with his black cane. “A social gathering.”

Karl bristled at the sarcasm. The long line of drawn faces with anxious, hollow eyes—male, female, young, old—trailing out the door and along the sidewalk was hardly a social gathering. Lines for bread, meat, milk, any of the staples of life, had become so commonplace that they were taken for granted. The customers stood there with their paper bags, cloth sacks, and wicker baskets full of marks, shifting from one foot to the other, edging forward, staying close behind the person in front of them lest someone tried to cut into the line, constantly turning the count of their marks in their minds, hoping they’d find something left to buy when they reached the purchase counter, praying their money would not devalue too much before the price was rung up.

Karl had never stood in such a line. He didn’t have to. He needed only to call or send a note to a butcher or baker listing what he required and saying that he would be paying with American currency. Within minutes the merchant would come knocking with the order. He found no pleasure, no feeling of superiority in his ability to summon the necessities to his door, only relief that his mother would not be subject to the hunger and anxiety of these poor souls.

As Karl watched, a boy approached the center of the line where a young woman had placed a wicker basket full of marks on the sidewalk. As he passed her he bent and grabbed a handle on the basket, upended it, dumping out the marks. Then he sprinted away with the basket. The woman cried out but no one moved to stop him—no one wanted to lose his place in line.

Karl started to give chase but Ernst restrained him.

“Don’t bother. You’ll never catch him.”

Karl watched the young woman gather her scattered marks into her apron and resume her long wait in line, weeping. His heart broke for her.

“This has to stop. Someone has to do something about this.”

“Ah, yes,” Ernst said, nodding sagely. “But who?”

They walked on. As they approached a corner, Ernst suddenly raised his cane and pressed its shaft against Karl’s chest.

“Listen. What’s that noise?”

Up ahead at the intersection, traffic had stopped. Instead of the roar of internal combustion engines, Karl heard something else. Other sounds, softer, less rhythmic, swelled in the air. A chaotic tapping and a shuffling cacophony of scrapes and draggings, accompanied by a dystonic chorus of high-pitched squeaks and creaks.

And then they inched into view—the lame, the blind, the damaged, dismembered, demented, and disfigured tatterdemalions of two wars: The few remaining veterans of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870—stooped, wizened figures in their seventies and eighties who had besieged Paris and proclaimed Wilhelm of Prussia as Emperor of Germany in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles—were leading the far larger body of pathetic survivors from the disastrous Great War, the War to End All Wars, the valiant men whose defeated leaders five years ago had abjectly agreed to impossible reparations in that same Hall of Mirrors.

Karl watched aghast as a young man with one arm passed within a few meters of him dragging a wheeled platform on which lay a limbless man, hardly more than a head with a torso. Neither was much older than he. The Grand Guignol parade was full of these fractions of men and their blind, deaf, limping, stumbling, hopping, staggering companions. Karl knew he might well be among them had he been born a year or two earlier.

Some carried signs begging, pleading, demanding higher pensions and disability allowances; they all looked worn and defeated, but mostly hungry. Here were the most pitiful victims of the runaway inflation.

Karl fell into line with them and pulled Ernst along.

“Really,” Ernst said, “this is hardly my idea of an entertaining afternoon.”

“We need to show them that they’re not alone, that we haven’t forgotten them. We need to show the government that we support them.”

“It will do no good,” Ernst said, grudgingly falling into step beside him. “It takes time for the government to authorize a pension increase. And even if it is approved, by the time it goes into effect, the increase will be meaningless.”

“This can’t go on! Someone has got to do something about this chaos!”

Ernst pointed ahead with his black cane. “There’s a suggestion.”

At the corner stood two brown-shirted men in paramilitary gear and caps. On their left upper arms were red bands emblazoned with a strange black twisted cross inside a white circle. Between them they held a banner:

COME TO US, COMRADES!

ADOLF HITLER WILL HELP YOU!

“Hitler,” Karl said slowly. “You mentioned him before, didn’t you?”

“Yes. The Austrian Gefreiter. He’ll be at that big fascist rally in Nuremberg tomorrow to commemorate something or other. I hope to get to hear him again. Marvelous speaker. Want to come along?”

Karl had heard about the rally—so had all the rest of Germany. Upward of two hundred thousand veterans and members of every right-wing volkisch paramilitary group in the country were expected in the Bavarian town to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Sedan in the Franco-Prussian War.

“I don’t think so. I don’t like big crowds. Especially a big crowd of fascists.”

“Some other time, then. I’ll call you when he’s going to address one of the beer hall meetings in Munich. He does that a lot. That way you’ll get the full impact of his speaking voice. Most entertaining.”

Adolf Hitler, Karl thought as he passed the brown-shirted men with the strange armbands. Could he be the man to save Germany?

“Yes, Ernst. Do call me. I wish to hear this man.”

* * *

Today it takes 200 billion marks to buy a single US dollar.

—Volkischer Beobachter, October 22, 1923

“It’s like entering another country,” Karl murmured as he stood on the platform of the Munich train station.

Ernst stood beside him as they waited for a porter to take his bags.

“Not another country at all. Merely an armed camp filled with people as German as the rest of us. Perhaps more so.”

“People in love with uniforms.”

“And what could be more German than that?”

Ernst had sent him a message last week, scrawled in his reverse-slanted script on the blank back of a 100-million-mark note. Even with all its overworked presses running at full speed, the Reichsbank found itself limited to printing the new marks on only one side in order to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for currency. Ernst seemed to find it amusing to use the blank sides of the smaller denominations as stationery. And this note had invited Karl south to hear Herr Hitler.

Karl now wished he’d ignored the invitation. A chill had come over him as the train crossed into Bavaria; it began in the pit of his stomach, then encircled his chest and crept up his spine to his neck where it now insinuated icy fingers around his throat. Uniforms…military uniforms everywhere, lolling about the train station, marching in the streets, standing on the corners, and none of them sporting the comfortably familiar field gray of regular Reichswehr troops. Young men, middle-aged men, dressed in brown, black, blue, and green, all with watchful, suspicious eyes and tight, hostile faces.

Something sinister was growing here in the south, something unclean, something dangerous.

It’s the times, he told himself. Just another facet of the chaotic zeitgeist.

No surprise that Bavaria was like an armed camp. Less than three weeks ago its cabinet, aghast at what it saw as Berlin’s cowardly submission to the continuing Franco-Belgian presence in the Ruhr Valley, had declared a state of emergency and suspended the Weimar Constitution within its borders. Gustav von Kahr had been declared Generalstaatskommissar of Bavaria with dictatorial powers. Berlin had blustered threats but so far had made no move against the belligerent southern state, preferring diplomatic avenues for the moment.

But how long would that last? The communists in the north were trying to ignite a revolution in Saxony, calling for a “German October,” and the more radical Bavarians here in the south were calling for a march on Berlin because of the government’s impotence in foreign and domestic affairs, especially in finance and currency.

Currency…when the mark had sunk to five billion to the dollar two weeks ago, Karl had paid off the mortgage on the estate plus the loans against his mother’s jewelry with a US ten-cent piece—what the Americans called a “dime.”

Something had to happen. The charges were set, the fuse was lit. Where would the explosion occur? And when?

“Think of them as human birds,” Ernst said, pointing to their left at two groups in different uniforms. “You can tell who’s who by their plumage. The gray are soldaten…regular Reichswehr soldiers, of course. The green are Bavarian State Police. And as we move through Munich you’ll see the city’s regular police force, dressed in blue.”

“Gray, green, blue,” Karl murmured.

“Right. Those are the official colors. The unofficial colors are brown and black. They belong in varying mixes to the Nazi SA—their so-called storm troopers—and the Reichskriegsflagge and Bund Oberland units.”

“So confusing.”

“It is. Bavaria has been a hotbed of fascism since the war, but mostly it was a fragmented thing—more feisty little paramilitary groups than you could count. But things are different these days. The groups have been coalescing, and now the three major factions have allied themselves into something called the Kampfbund.”

“The ‘Battle Group’?”

“Precisely. And they’re quite ready for battle. There are more caches of rifles and machine guns and grenades hidden in cellars or buried in and around Munich than Berlin could imagine in its worst nightmares. Hitler’s Nazis are the leading faction of the Kampfbund, and right now he and the Bavarian government are at odds. Hitler wants to march on Berlin, General Commissioner Kahr does not. At the moment, Kahr has the upper hand. He’s got the Green Police, the Blue Police, and the Reichswehr regulars to keep the Kampfbund in line. The question is, how long can he hold their loyalty when the hearts of many of his troops are in the Nazi camp, and Hitler’s speeches stir more and more to the Nazi cause?”

Karl felt the chill tighten around his throat. He wished Ernst hadn’t invited him to Munich. He wished he hadn’t accepted.

“Maybe now is not a good time to be here.”

“Nonsense! It’s the best time! Can’t you feel the excitement in the air? Don’t you sense the huge forces at work around us? Stop and listen and you’ll hear the teeth of cosmic gears grinding into motion. The clouds have gathered and are storing their charges. The lightning of history is about to strike and we are near the ground point. I know it as surely as I know my name.”

“Lightning can be deadly.”

Ernst smiled. “Which makes it all the more entertaining.”

* * *

“Why a beer hall?” Karl asked as they sat in the huge main room of the Burgerbraukeller.

A buxom waitress set a fresh pair of liter steins of lager on the rough planked table before them.

Ernst waved a hand around. “Because Munich is the heart of beer-drinking country. If you want to reach these people, you speak to them where they drink their beer.”

The Burgerbraukeller was huge, squatting on a sizable plot of land on the east side of the Isar River that cut the city in two. After the Zirkus Krone, it was the largest meeting place in Munich. Scattered inside its vast complex were numerous separate bars and dining halls, but the centerpiece was the main hall. All its 3,000 seats were filled tonight, with latecomers standing in the aisles and crowded at the rear.

Karl quaffed a few ounces of lager to wash down a mouthful of sausage. All around him were men in black and various shades of brown, all impatient for the arrival of their Führer. He saw some in business suits, and even a few in traditional Bavarian lederhosen and Tyrolean hats. Karl and Ernst had made instant friends with their table neighbors by sharing the huge platter of cheese, bread, and sausage they had ordered from the bustling kitchen. Even though they were not in uniform, not aligned with any Kampfbund organization, and wore no armbands, the two Berlin newcomers were now considered komraden by the locals who shared their long table. They were even more welcome when Ernst mentioned that Karl was the son of Colonel Stehr who’d fought and died at Argonne.

Far better to be welcomed here as comrades, Karl thought, than the opposite. He’d been listening to the table talk, the repeated references to Adolf Hitler in reverent tones as the man who would rescue Germany from all its enemies, both within and without, and lead the Fatherland back to the glory it deserved. Karl sensed that even the power of God might not be enough to save a man in this crowd who had something to say against Herr Hitler.

The hazy air was ripe with the effluvia of any beer hall: spilled hops and malt, tobacco smoke, the garlicky tang of steaming sausage, sharp cheese, sweaty bodies, and restless anticipation. Karl was finishing off his latest stein when he heard a stir run through the crowd. Someone with a scarred face had arrived at the rostrum on the bandstand. He spoke a few words into the increasing noise and ended by introducing Herr Adolf Hitler.

With a thunderous roar the crowd was on its feet and shouting “Heil! Heil!” as a thin man, about five-nine or so, who could have been anywhere from mid-thirties to mid-forties in age, ascended the steps to the rostrum. He was dressed in a brown wool jacket, a white shirt with a stiff collar, a narrow tie, with brown knickers and stockings on his short, bandy legs. Straight brown hair parted on the right and combed across his upper forehead; sallow complexion, almost yellow; thin lips under a narrow brush of a mustache. He walked stooped slightly forward with his head canted to the left and his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets.

Karl could hardly believe his eyes.

This is the man they call Führer? He looks like a shopkeeper, or a government clerk. This is the man they think is going to save Germany? Are they all mad or drunk…or both?

Hitler reached the rostrum and gazed out over the cheering audience, and it was then that Karl had his first glimpse of the man’s unforgettable eyes. They shone like beacons from their sockets, piercing the room, staggering Karl with their startling pale blue fire. Flashing, hypnotic, gleaming with fanaticism, they ranged the room, quieting it, challenging another voice to interrupt his.

And then he began to speak, his surprisingly rich baritone rising and falling like a Wagnerian opus, hurling sudden gutturals through the air for emphasis like fist-sized cobblestones.

For the first ten minutes he spoke evenly and stood stiffly with his hands trapped in his jacket pockets. But as his voice rose and his passion grew, his hands broke free, fine, graceful, long-fingered hands that fluttered like pigeons and swooped like hawks, then knotted into fists to pound the top of the rostrum with sledgehammer blows.

The minutes flew, gathering into one hour, then two. At first Karl had managed to remain aloof, picking apart Hitler’s words, separating the carefully selected truths from the half truths and the outright fictions. Then, in spite of himself, he began to fall under the man’s spell. This Adolf Hitler was such a passionate speaker, so caught up in his own words that one had to go along with him; whatever the untruths and specious logic in his oratory, no one could doubt that this man believed unequivocally every word that he spoke, and somehow transferred that fervent conviction to his audience so that they too became unalterably convinced of the truth of what he was saying.

He was never more powerful than when he called on all loyal Germans to come to the aid of a sick and failing Germany, one not merely financially and economically ill, but a Germany on its intellectual and moral deathbed. No question that Germany was sick, struck down by a disease that poultices and salves and cathartics could not cure. Germany needed radical surgery: The sick and gangrenous parts that were poisoning the rest of the system had to be cut away and burned before the healing could begin. Karl listened and became entranced, transfixed, unmindful of the time, a prisoner of that voice, those eyes.

And then this man, this Adolf Hitler, was standing in front of the rostrum, bathed in sweat, his hair hanging over his forehead, waving his arms, calling for all loyal Germans who truly cared for their Fatherland to rally around the Nazi Party and call for a march on Berlin where they would extract a promise from the feeble Weimar republicans to banish the Jews and the communists from all positions of power and drive the French and Belgian troops from the Ruhr Valley and once again make the Fatherland’s borders inviolate, or by God, there would be a new government in power in Berlin, one that would bring Germany to the greatness that was her destiny. German misery must be broken by German iron. Our day is here! Our time is now!

The main hall went mad as Hitler stepped back and let the frenzied cheering of more than three thousand voices rattle the walls and rafters around him. Even Karl was on his feet, ready to shake his fist in the air and shout at the top of his lungs. Suddenly he caught himself.

What am I doing?

* * *

“Well, what did you think of the Gefreiter?” Ernst said. “Our strutting lance corporal?”

They were out on Rosenheimerstrasse, making their way back to the hotel, and Karl’s ears had finally stopped ringing. Ahead of them in the darkness, mist rising from the Isar River sparkled in the glow of the lights lining the Ludwig Bridge.

“I think he’s the most magnetic, powerful, mesmerizing speaker I’ve ever heard. Frighteningly so.”

“Well, he’s obviously mad—a complete loon. A master of hyperbolic sophistry, but hardly frightening.”

“He’s so…so…so anti-Semitic.”

Ernst shrugged. “They all are. It’s just rhetoric. Doesn’t mean anything.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Ernst stopped and stood staring at Karl. “Wait. You don’t mean to tell me you’re…?”

Karl turned and nodded silently in the darkness.

“But Colonel Stehr wasn’t—”

“His wife was.”

“Good heavens, man! I had no idea!”

“Well, what’s so unusual? What’s wrong with a German officer marrying a woman who happens to be Jewish?”

“Nothing, of course. It’s just that one becomes so used to these military types and their—”

“Do you know that General von Seeckt, commander of the entire German army, has a Jewish wife? So does Chancellor Stresemann.”

“Of course. The Nazis point that out at every opportunity.”

“Right! We’re everywhere!” Karl calmed himself with an effort. “Sorry, Ernst. I don’t know why I got so excited. I don’t even consider myself a Jew. I’m a human being. Period.”

“Perhaps, but by Jewish law, if the mother is Jewish, then so are the children.”

Karl stared at him. “How do you know that?”

“Everybody knows that. But that doesn’t matter. The locals we’ve met know you as Colonel Stehr’s son. That’s what will count here in the next week or so.”

“Next week or so? Aren’t we returning to Berlin?”

Ernst gripped his arm. “No, Karl. We’re staying. Things are coming to a head. The next few days promise to be most entertaining.”

“I shouldn’t—”

“Come back to the hotel. I’ll fix you an absinthe. You look like you could use one.”

Karl remembered the bitter taste, then realized he could probably do with a bit of oblivion tonight.

“All right. But just one.”

“Excellent! Absinthe tonight, and we’ll plan our next steps in the morning.”

* * *

Today it takes 4 trillion marks to buy a single US dollar.

—Volkischer Beobachter, November 8, 1923

“Herr Hitler’s speaking in Freising tonight,” Ernst said.

They strolled through the bright, crisp morning air, past onion-cupolaed churches and pastel house fronts that would have looked more at home along the Tiber than the Isar.

“How far is that?”

“About twenty miles north. But I have a better idea. Gustav von Kahr, Bavaria’s honorable dictator, is speaking at the Burgerbraukeller tonight.”

“I’d rather hear Hitler.”

It was already more than a week into November and Karl was still in Munich. He’d expected to be home long ago but he’d found himself too captivated by Adolf Hitler to leave. It was a strange attraction, equal parts fascination and revulsion. Here was a man who might pull together Germany’s warring factions and make them one, yet then might wreak havoc upon the freedoms of the Weimar Constitution. But where would the Constitution be by year’s end with old mark notes now being over-printed with EINE BILLION?

Karl felt like a starving sparrow contemplating a viper’s offer to guard her nest while she hunts for food. Surely her nest would be well protected from other birds in her absence, but could she count on finding any eggs left when she returned?

He’d spoken to a number of Jews in Munich, shopkeepers mostly, engaging them in casual conversation about the Kampfbund groups, and Herr Hitler in particular. The seismic upheavals in the economy had left them frazzled and desperate, certain that their country would be in ruins by the end of the year unless somebody did something. Most said they’d support anyone who could bring the economic chaos and runaway inflation under control. Hitler and his Nazis promised definitive solutions. So what if the country had to live under a dictatorship for a while? Nothing—nothing—could be worse than this. After all, hadn’t the Kaiser been a dictator? And they’d certainly done better under him than with this Weimar Republic with its Constitution that guaranteed so many freedoms. What good were freedom of the press and speech and assembly if you were starving? As for the anti-Semitism, most of the Munich Jews echoed Ernst’s dismissal: mere rhetoric. Nothing more than tough talk to excite the beer drinkers.

Still uneasy, Karl found himself drawn back again and again to hear Hitler speak—in the Zirkus Krone, and in the Burgerbraukeller and other beer halls around the city—hoping each time the man would say something to allay his fears and allow him to embrace the hope the Nazis offered.

Absinthe only added to the compulsion. Karl had taken to drinking a glass with Ernst before attending each new Hitler speech, and as a result he had acquired a taste for the bitter stuff.

Because Herr Hitler seemed to be speaking all the time.

Especially since the failed communist putsch in Hamburg. It failed because the German workers refused to rally to the red flag and Reichswehr troops easily put down the revolution in its second day. There would be no German October. But the attempt had incited the Kampfbund groups to near hysteria. Karl saw more uniforms in Munich’s streets than he’d seen in Berlin during the war. And Herr Hitler was there in the thick of it, fanning the sparks of patriotic fervor into a bonfire wherever he found an audience.

Karl attended his second Hitler speech while under the influence of absinthe, and there he experienced his first hallucination. It happened while Hitler was reaching his final crescendo: The hall wavered before Karl, the light dimmed, all the color drained from his sight, leaving only black and white and shades of gray; he had the impression of being in a crowded room, just like the beer hall, and then it passed. It hadn’t lasted long enough for Karl to capture any details, but it had left him shivering and afraid.

The following night it happened again—the same flash of black and white, the same aftershock of dread.

It was the absinthe, he was sure. He’d heard that it caused delirium and hallucinations and even madness in those who overused it. But Karl did not feel he was going mad. No, this was something else. Not madness, but a different level of perception. He had a sense of a hidden truth, just beyond the grasp of his senses, beckoning to him, reaching for him. He felt he’d merely grazed the surface of that awful truth, and that if he kept reaching he’d soon seize it.

And he knew how to extend his reach: more absinthe.

Ernst was only too glad to have another enthusiast for his favorite libation.

“Forget Herr Hitler tonight,” Ernst said. “This will be better. Bavaria’s triumvirate will be there in person—Kahr, General Lossow, and Colonel von Seisser. Rumor has it that Kahr is going to make a dramatic announcement. Some say he’s going to declare Bavaria’s independence. Others say he’s going to return Crown Prince Rupprecht to the throne and restore the Bavarian monarchy. You don’t want to miss this, Karl.”

“What about Hitler and the rest of the Kampfbund?”

“They’re frothing at the mouth. They’ve been invited to attend but not to participate. It’s clear, I think, that Kahr is making a move to upstage the Kampfbund and solidify his leadership position. By tomorrow morning, Hitler and his cronies may find themselves awash in a hysterical torrent of Bavarian nationalism. This will be worse than any political defeat—they’ll be…irrelevant. Think of their outrage, think of their frustration.” Ernst rubbed his palms with glee. “Oh, this will be most entertaining!”

Reluctantly, Karl agreed. He felt he was getting closer and closer to that elusive vision, but even if Generalstaatskommissar Kahr tried to pull the rug out from under the Kampfbund, Karl was sure he would have plenty of future opportunities to listen to Herr Hitler.

* * *

Karl and Ernst arrived early at the Burgerbraukeller, and a good thing too. The city’s Blue Police had to close the doors at seven fifteen when the hall filled to overflowing. This was a much higher class audience than Hitler attracted. Well-dressed businessmen in tall hats and women in long dresses mingled with military officers and members of the Bavarian provincial cabinet; the local newspapers were represented by their editors rather than mere reporters. Everyone in Munich wanted to hear what Generalstaatskommissar Kahr had to say, and those left in the cold drizzle outside protested angrily.

They were the lucky ones, Karl decided soon after Gustav von Kahr began to speak. The squat, balding royalist had no earthshaking announcement to make. Instead, he stood hunched over the rostrum, with Lossow and Seisser, the other two thirds of the ruling triumvirate, seated on the bandstand behind him, and read a dull, endless anti-Marxist treatise in a listless monotone.

“Let’s leave,” Karl said after fifteen minutes of droning.

Ernst shook his head and glanced to their right. “Look who just arrived.”

Karl turned and recognized the figure in the light tan trench coat standing behind a pillar near the rear of the hall, chewing on a fingernail.

“Hitler! I thought he was supposed to be speaking in Freising.”

“That’s what the flyers said. Apparently he changed his mind. Or perhaps he simply wanted everyone to think he’d be in Freising.” Ernst’s voice faded as he turned in his seat and scanned the audience. “I wonder…”

“Wonder what?”

He leaned close and whispered in Karl’s ear. “I wonder if Herr Hitler might not be planning something here tonight.”

Karl’s intestines constricted into a knot. “A putsch?”

“Keep your voice down. Yes. Why not? Bavaria’s ruling triumvirate and most of its cabinet are here. If I were planning a takeover, this would be the time and place.”

“But all those police outside.”

Ernst shrugged. “Perhaps he’ll just take over the stage and launch into one of his speeches. Either way, history could be made here tonight.”

Karl glanced back at Hitler and wondered if this was what the nearly grasped vision was about. He nudged Ernst.

“Did you bring the absinthe?”

“Of course. But we won’t be able to fix it properly here.” He paused. “I have an idea, though.”

He signaled the waitress and ordered two snifters of cognac. She looked at him strangely, but returned in a few minutes and placed the glasses on the table next to their beer steins. Ernst pulled his silver flask from his pocket and poured a more than generous amount of absinthe into the cognac.

“It’s not turning yellow,” Karl said.

“It only does that in water.” Ernst lifted his snifter and swirled the greenish contents. “This was Toulouse-Lautrec’s favorite way of diluting his absinthe. He called it his ‘earthquake.’” Ernst smiled as he clinked his glass against Karl’s. “To earthshaking events.”

Karl took a sip and coughed. The bitterness of the wormwood was enhanced rather than cut by the burn of the cognac. He washed it down with a gulp of ale. He would have poured the rest of his “earthquake” into Ernst’s glass if he hadn’t felt he needed every drop of the absinthe to reach the elusive vision. So he finished the entire snifter, chasing each sip with more ale. He wondered if he’d be able to walk out of here unassisted at the night’s end.

He was just setting down the empty glass when he heard shouting outside. The doors at the rear of the hall burst open with a shattering bang as helmeted figures charged in brandishing sabers, pistols, and rifles with fixed bayonets. From their brown shirts and the swastikas on their red armbands Karl knew they weren’t the police.

“Nazi storm troopers!” Ernst said.

Pandemonium erupted. Some men cried out in shock and outrage while others shouted “Heil!” Some were crawling under the tables while others were climbing atop them for a better view. Women screamed and fainted at the sight of a machine gun being set up at the door. Karl looked around for Hitler and found him charging down the center aisle holding a pistol aloft. As he reached the bandstand he fired a shot into the ceiling.

Sudden silence.

Hitler climbed up next to General Commissioner von Kahr and turned toward the crowd. Karl blinked at the sight of him. He had shed the trench coat and was wearing a poorly cut morning coat with an Iron Cross pinned over the left breast. He looked…ridiculous, more like the maître d’ in a seedy restaurant than the savior of Germany.

But then the pale blue eyes cast their spell and the familiar baritone rang through the hall announcing that a national revolution had broken out in Germany. The Bavarian cities of Augsburg, Nuremberg, Regensburg, and Wurzburg were now in his control; the Reichswehr and State Police were marching from their barracks under Nazi flags; the Weimar government was no more. A new national German Reich was being formed. Hitler was in charge.

Ernst snickered. “The Gefreiter looks like a waiter who’s led a putsch against the restaurant staff.”

Karl barely heard him. The vision…it was coming…close now…the absinthe, fueled by the cognac and ale, was drawing it nearer than ever before…the room was flickering about him, the colors draining away…

And then the Burgerbraukeller was gone and he was in blackness…silent, formless blackness…but not alone. He detected movement around him in the palpable darkness…

And then he saw them.

Human forms, thin, pale, bedraggled, sunken-cheeked and hollow-eyed, dressed in rags or dressed not at all, and thin, so painfully thin, like parchment-covered skeletons through which each rib and each bump and nodule on the pelvis and hips could be touched and numbered, all stumbling, sliding, staggering, shambling, groping toward him out of the dark. At first he thought it a dream, a nightmare reprise of the march of the starving disabled veterans he’d witnessed in Berlin, but these…people…were different. No tattered uniforms here. The ones who had clothing were dressed in striped prison pajamas, and there were so many of them. With their ranks spanning to the right and left as far as Karl could see, and stretching and fading off into the distance to where the horizon might have been, their number was beyond counting…thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions…

And all coming his way.

They began to pick up speed as they neared, breaking into a staggering run like a herd of frightened cattle. Closer, now…their gaunt faces became masks of fear, pale lips drawn back over toothless mouths, giving no sign that they saw him…he could see no glint of light in the dark hollows of their eye sockets…but he gasped as other details became visible.

They had been mutilated—branded, actually. A six-pointed star had been carved into the flesh of each. On the forehead, between the breasts, on the belly—a bleeding Star of David. The only color not black, white, or gray was the red of the blood that oozed from each of those six-pointed brands.

But why were they running? What was spurring the stampede?

And then he heard a voice, shouting, faint and far off at first, then louder: “Alle Juden raus!” Over and over: “Alle Juden raus! Alle Juden raus!” Louder and louder as they approached until Karl had to clasp his hands over his ears to protect them.

“ALLE JUDEN RAUS! ALLE JUDEN RAUS!”

And then they were upon him, mobbing him, knocking him to his knees and then flat on his face in their panicked flight through the darkness, oblivious as they stepped on him and tripped over him in their blind rush to nowhere. He could not regain his feet; he did not try. He had no fear of being crushed because they weighed almost nothing, but he could not rise against their numbers. So he remained facedown in the darkness with his hands over his head and listened to that voice.

“ALLE JUDEN RAUS! ALLE JUDEN RAUS!”

After what seemed an eternity, they were past. Karl lifted his head. He was alone in the darkness. No…not alone. Someone else…a lone figure approaching. A naked woman, old, short, thin, with long gray hair, limping his way on arthritic knees. Something familiar about her—

“Mother!”

He stood paralyzed, rooted, unable to turn from her nakedness. She looked so thin, and so much older, as if she’d aged twenty years. And into each floppy breast had been carved a Star of David.

He sobbed as he held his arms out to her.

“Dear God, Mother! What have they done to you?”

But she took no notice of him, limping past as if he did not exist.

“Mother, I—!”

He turned, reaching to grab her arm as she passed, but froze in mute shock when he saw the mountain.

All the gaunt living dead who had rushed past were piled in a mound that dwarfed the Alps themselves, carelessly tossed like discarded dolls into a charnel heap that stretched miles into the darkness above him.

Only now they had eyes. Dead eyes, staring sightlessly his way, each with a silent plea…help us…save us…please don’t let this happen…

His mother—she was in there. He had to find her, get her out of there. He ran toward the tower of wasted human flesh, but before he reached it the blacks and whites began to shimmer and melt, bleeding color as that damned voice grew louder and louder…“ALLE JUDEN RAUS! ALLE JUDEN RAUS!”

And Karl knew that voice. God help him, he knew that voice.

Adolf Hitler’s.

Suddenly he found himself back in the Burgerbraukeller, on his feet, staring at the man who still stood at the rostrum. Only seconds had passed. It had seemed so much longer.

As Hitler finished his proclamation, the triumvirate of Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser were marched off the stage at gunpoint. And Hitler stood there with his feet spread and his arms folded across his chest, staring in triumphant defiance at the shocked crowd mingling and murmuring before him.

Karl now understood what he had seen. Hitler’s hate wasn’t mere rhetoric. This madman meant what he said. Every word of it. He intended the destruction of German Jewry, of Jews everywhere. And now, here in this beer hall, he was making a grab for the power to do just that. And he was succeeding!

He had to be stopped!

As Hitler turned to follow the captured triumvirate, Karl staggered forward, his arm raised, his finger pointing, ready to accuse, to shout out a denunciation. But no sound came from his throat. His lips were working, his lungs pumping, but his vocal cords were locked. Hoarse, breathy hisses were the only sounds he could make.

But those sounds were enough to draw the attention of the Nazi storm troopers. The nearest turned and pointed their rifles at him. Ernst leaped to his side and restrained him, pulling his arm down.

“He’s not well. He’s been sick and tonight’s excitement has been too much for him.”

Karl tried to shake free of Ernst. He didn’t care about the storm troopers or their weapons. These people had to hear, had to know what Hitler and his National Socialists planned. But then Hitler was leaving, following the captured triumvirate from the bandstand.

In the frightened and excited confusion that followed, Ernst steered Karl toward one of the side doors. But their way was blocked by a baby-faced storm trooper.

“No one leaves until the Führer says so.”

“This man is sick!” Ernst shouted. “Do you know who his father was? Colonel Stehr himself! This is the son of a hero of the Argonne! Let him into the fresh air immediately!”

The young trooper, certainly no more than eighteen or nineteen, was taken aback by Ernst’s outburst. It was highly unlikely that he’d ever heard of a Colonel Stehr, but he stepped aside to let them pass.

The drizzle had turned to snow, and the cold air began to clear Karl’s head, but still he had no voice. Pulling away from Ernst’s supporting arm, he half ran, half stumbled across the grounds of the Burgerbraukeller, crowded now with exuberant members of the Kampfbund. He headed toward the street, wanting to scream, to cry out his fear and warn the city, the country, that a murderous lunatic was taking over.

When he reached the far side of Rosenheimerstrasse, he found an alley, leaned into it, and vomited. After his stomach was empty, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and returned to where Ernst waited on the sidewalk.

“Good heavens, man. What got into you back there?”

Karl leaned against a lamppost and told him about the vision, about the millions of dead Jews, and Hitler’s voice and what it was shouting.

Ernst was a long time replying. His eyes had a faraway look, almost glazed, as if he were trying to see the future Karl had described.

“That was the absinthe,” he said finally. “Lautrec’s earthquake. You’ve been indulging a bit much lately and you’re not used to it. Lautrec was institutionalized because of it. Van Gogh cut off one of his ears under the influence.”

Karl grabbed the front of Ernst’s overcoat. “No! The absinthe is responsible, I’ll grant that, but it only opened the door for me. This was more than a hallucination. This was a vision of the future, a warning. He’s got to be stopped, Ernst!”

“How? You heard him. There’s a national revolution going on, and he’s leading it.”

A steely resolve, cold as the snow falling around them, was taking shape within Karl.

“I’ve been entrusted with a warning,” he said softly. “I’m not going to ignore it.”

“What are you going to do? Flee the country?”

“No. I’m going to stop Adolf Hitler.”

“How?”

“By any means necessary.”

* * *

Germany is having a nervous breakdown. There is nothing sane to report.

—Ben Hecht, 1923

The rest of the night was a fearful phantasm, filled with shouts, shots, and conflicting rumors—yes, there was a national revolution; no, there were no uprisings in Nuremberg or the other cities.

One thing was clear to Karl: A revolution was indeed in progress in Munich. All through the night, as he and Ernst wandered the city, they crossed paths again and again with detachments of brown-shirted men marching under the swastika banner. And lining the sidewalks were men and women of all ages, cheering them on.

Karl wanted to grab and shake each one of them and scream into their faces, You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t know what they’re planning!

No one was moving to stop the putsch. The Blue Police, the Green Police, the Reichswehr troops were nowhere in sight. Ernst led Karl across the river to the Reichswehr headquarters where they watched members of the Reichskriegsflagge segment of the Kampfbund strutting in and out of the entrance.

“It’s true!” Karl said. “The Reichswehr troops are with them!”

Karl tried to call Berlin to see what was happening there but could not get a phone connection. They went to the offices of the Munchener Post, a newspaper critical of Hitler in the past, but found its offices ransacked, every typewriter gone, every piece of printing equipment destroyed.

“The putsch is not even a day old and they’ve started already!” Karl said, standing on the glass-littered sidewalk in the wan dawn light and surveying the damage. “Crush anyone who disagrees with you.”

“Yes!” a voice cried behind them. “Crush them! Grind them under your heel!”

They turned to see a bearded middle-aged man waving a bottle of Champagne as he joined them before the Post offices. He wore a swastika armband over a tattered army coat.

“It’s our time now!” The man guzzled some of the Champagne and held it aloft. “A toast! Germany for the Germans, and damn the Jews to hell!” He thrust the bottle at Karl. “Here! Donated by a Jew down the street.”

Icy spikes scored the inner walls of Karl’s chest.

“Really?” he said, taking the half-full bottle. “Donated?”

“Requisitioned, actually.” He barked a laugh. “Along with his watch and his wife’s jewelry…after they were arrested!”

Uncontrollable fury, fueled by the growing unease of the past two weeks and the horror of his vision in the beer hall, exploded in Karl. He reversed his grip on the bottle and smashed it against the side of the man’s head.

“Karl!” Ernst cried.

The man stiffened and fell flat on his back in the slush, coat open, arms and legs akimbo.

Karl stared down at him, shocked by what he’d done. He’d never struck another man in his life. He knelt over him.

“He’s still breathing.”

Then he saw the pistol in the man’s belt. He gripped the handle and pulled it free. He straightened and cradled the weapon in his trembling hands as he turned toward Ernst.

“You asked me before how I was going to stop Hitler. Here is the answer.”

“Have you gone mad?”

“You don’t have to come along. Safer for you if you return to the hotel while I search out Herr Hitler.”

“Don’t insult me. I’ll be beside you all the way.”

Karl stared at Ernst, surprised and warmed by the reply.

“Thank you, Ernst.”

Ernst grinned, his eyes bright with excitement. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world!”

* * *

Throughout the morning, conflicting rumors traveled up and down the Munich streets with the regularity of the city trolleys.

The triumvirate has thrown in with Hitler…the triumvirate is free and planning countermoves against the putsch…the Reichswehr has revolted and is ready to march on Berlin behind Hitler…the Reichswehr is marching on Munich to crush this putsch just as it crushed the communist attempt in Hamburg last month…Hitler is in complete control of Munich and its armed forces…support for the putsch is eroding among some police units and the young army officers…

Karl chased each rumor, trying to learn the truth, but truth seemed to be an elusive commodity in Munich. He shuttled back and forth across the river, between the putsch headquarters in the Burgerbraukeller on the east bank and the government offices around Marianplatz on the west, his right hand thrust into his coat pocket, clutching the pistol, searching for Hitler. He and Ernst had separated, figuring that two searchers could cover more ground apart than together.

By noon Karl began to get the feeling that Hitler might not have as much control as he wished people to think. True, the putschists seemed to have an iron grip on the city east of the river, and a swastika flag still flew from a balcony of the New City Hall on the west side, but Karl had noticed the green uniforms of the Bavarian State Police gathering at the west ends of the bridges across the Isar. They weren’t blocking traffic, but they seemed to be on guard. And Reichswehr troops from the Seventh Division were moving through the city. Reichswehr headquarters on the west bank was still held by units of the Kampfbund, but the headquarters itself was now surrounded by two Reichswehr infantry battalions and a number of artillery units.

The tide is turning, Karl thought with grim satisfaction.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to use the pistol after all.

He was standing on the west side of the Ludwig bridge, keeping his back to the wind, when he saw Ernst hurrying toward him from the far side.

“They’re coming this way!” he shouted, his cheeks red with the excitement and the cold.

“Who?”

“Everyone! All the putschists—thousands of them. They’ve begun a march through the city. And Hitler’s leading them.”

No sooner had Ernst spoken than Karl spied the front ranks of the march—brown-shirted Nazis carrying the red and white flags that whipped and snapped in the wind. Behind them came the rest, walking twelve abreast, headed directly toward the Ludwig Bridge. He spotted Hitler in the front ranks wearing his tan trench coat and a felt hat. Beside him was General Ludendorf, one of the most respected war heroes in the nation.

A crowd of putsch supporters and the merely curious gathered as the Green Police hurried across to the east side of the bridge to stop the marchers. Before they could set up, squads of storm troopers swarmed from the flanks of the march, surrounding and disarming them.

The march surged across the bridge unimpeded.

Karl tightened his grip on the pistol. He would end this here, now, personal consequences be damned. But he couldn’t get a clear view of Hitler through the throng surrounding him. To his dismay, many bystanders from the crowd joined the march as it passed, further swelling its ranks.

The march streamed into the already crowded Marianplatz in front of City Hall where it was met with cheers and cries of adulation by the thousands mobbed there. A delirious rendition of “Deutschland Uber Alles” rattled the windows all around the plaza and ended with countless cries of “Heil Hitler!”

At no time could Karl get within a hundred yards of his target.

And now, its ranks doubled, the march was off again, this time northward up Wienstrasse.

“They’re heading for Reichswehr headquarters,” Ernst said.

“It’s surrounded. They’ll never get near it.”

Ernst shrugged. “Who’s going to stop them? Who’s going to fire with General Ludendorf at Hitler’s side and all those civilians with them?”

Karl felt his jaw muscles bunch as the memory of the vision surged through his brain, dragging with it the image of his elderly, withered, unclothed, bleeding mother.

“I am.”

He took off at a run along a course parallel to the march, easily outdistancing the slow-moving crowd. He calculated that the marchers would have to come up Residenzstrasse in order to reach the Reichswehr building. He ducked into a doorway of the Feldherrnhalle, near the top of the street and crouched there, panting from the unaccustomed exertion. Seconds later, Ernst joined him, barely breathing hard.

“You didn’t have to come.”

Ernst smiled. “Of course I did. We’re witnessing the making of history.”

Karl pulled the pistol from his coat pocket. “But after today someone other than Adolf Hitler will be making it.”

At the top of Residenzstrasse, where it opened into a plaza, Karl saw units of the Green Police setting up a barricade.

Good. It would slow the march, and that would be his moment.

“Here they come,” Ernst said.

Karl’s palms began to sweat as he searched the front ranks for his target. The pistol grip was slippery in his hand by the time he identified Hitler. This was it. This was his moment in history, to turn it from the horrors the vision had shown him.

Doubt gripped the base of his throat in a stranglehold. What if the vision was wrong? What if it had been the absinthe and nothing more? What if he was about to murder a man because of a drunken hallucination?

He tore free of the questions. No. No doubts. No hesitation. Hitler has to die. Here. Now. By my hand.

As he’d predicted, the march slowed when it neared the barricade and the storm troopers approached the Green Police shouting, “Don’t shoot! We are your comrades! We have General Ludendorf with us!”

Karl raised the pistol, waiting for his chance.

And then a passage opened between him and Hitler’s trench-coated form.

Now! It has to be now!

He took aim, cautiously, carefully. He wasn’t experienced with pistols. His father had taken him hunting with a rifle or a shotgun as a young man, but he’d never found much pleasure in it. He found no pleasure in this, only duty. But he knew how to aim, and he had the heart of this strutting little monster in his sights. He remembered his father’s words…“Squeeze, don’t pull…squeeze…be surprised by the shot…”

And while Karl waited for his surprise, he imagined the tapered lead cylinder blasting from the muzzle, hurtling toward Hitler, plunging into his chest, tearing through lung and heart, ripping the life from him before he could destroy the lives of the hapless, helpless, innocent millions he so hated. He saw Hitler twist and fall, saw a brief, violent spasm of rage and confusion as the milling putschists fired wildly in all directions, rioting until the Green Police and the regular army units closed in to divide their ranks, arrest their leaders, and disperse the rest. Perhaps another Jew hater would rise, but he would not have this man’s unique combination of personal magnetism and oratory power. The future Karl had seen would never happen. His bullet would sever the link from this time and place to that future.

And so he let his sweat-slick forefinger caress the curve of the trigger…squeezing…

But just as the weapon fired, something brushed against his arm. The bullet coughed into the chill air, high, missing Hitler.

Time stopped. The marchers stood frozen, some in midstride. All except Hitler. His head was turned Karl’s way, his pale blue eyes searching the doorways, the windows. And then those eyes fixed on Karl’s. The two men stared at each other for an instant, an eternity…then…Hitler smiled.

And with that smile time resumed its course as Karl’s single shot precipitated a barrage of gunfire from the Green Police and the Kampfbund troops. Chaos erupted on Residenzstrasse. Karl watched in horror as people ran in all directions, screaming, bleeding, falling, and dying. The pavement became red and slick with blood. He saw Hitler go down and stay down. He prayed that someone else’s bullet had found him.

Finally the shooting stopped. The guns were silent but the air remained filled with the cries of the wounded. To Karl’s shock he saw Hitler struggle to his feet and flee along the sidewalk, holding his arm. Before Karl could gather his wits and take aim again with his pistol, Hitler had jumped into a yellow Opel sedan and sped away.

Karl added his own shouts to those of the wounded. He turned to Ernst.

“It was you! Why did you hit my arm? I had him in my sights and you…you made me miss!”

“Terribly sorry,” Ernst said, avidly scanning the carnage on the street before them. “It was an accident. I was leaning over for a look and lost my balance. Not to worry. I think you accomplished your goal: This putsch is over.”

* * *

The Munich putsch definitely eliminates Hitler and his National Socialist followers.

—The New York Times, November 9, 1923

Karl was overjoyed when Adolf Hitler was captured by the Green Police two days later, charged with high treason, and thrown into jail. His National Socialist Party was disbanded and declared illegal. Adolf Hitler had lost his political firmament, his freedom, and because he was an Austrian, there even was a good possibility he would be deported after his trial.

While waiting for the trial, Karl reopened his bookstore and tried to resume a normal routine in Berlin. But the vision, and the specter of Adolf Hitler, haunted him. Hitler was still alive, might still wreak the horrors Karl had seen. He hungered for the trial, to see Hitler humiliated, sentenced to a minimum of twenty years. Or deported. Or best yet: shot as a traitor.

He saw less and less of Ernst during the months leading to the trial. Ernst seemed bored with Berlin. New, gold-backed marks had brought inflation under control, the new government seemed stable, there were no new putsches in the works…life was far less “entertaining.”

* * *

They met up again in Munich on the day of Hitler’s sentencing. Like the trial, the sentencing was being held in the main lecture hall of the old Infantry School because the city’s regular courtrooms could not accommodate the huge crowds. Karl had been unable to arrange a seat inside; nor, apparently, had Ernst. Both had to be content to stand outside under the bright midday sky and wait for the news along with the rest of their fellow citizens.

“I can’t say I’m surprised to see you here,” Ernst said as they shook hands.

“Nor I you. I suppose you find all this amusing.”

“Quite.” He pointed with his cane. “My, my. Look at all the people.”

Karl had already studied them, and they upset him. Thousands of Germans from all over the country swarmed around the large brick building, trying in vain to get into the courtroom. Two battalions of Green Police were stationed behind barbed wire barriers to keep the crowds at bay. During the twenty-five days of the trial, Karl had moved among them and had been horrified at how many spoke of Hitler in the hushed tones of adoration reserved for royalty, or a god.

Today the women had brought bouquets of flowers for their god, and almost everyone in the huge throng was wearing ribbons of red, white, and black—the Nazi colors.

“He’s a national figure now,” Ernst said. “Before the putsch no one had ever heard of him. Now his name is known all over the world.”

“And that name will soon be in jail,” Karl said vehemently.

“Undoubtedly. But he’s made excellent use of the trial as a national soap box.”

Karl shook his head. He could not understand why the judges had allowed Hitler to speak at such length from the witness box. For days—weeks—he went on, receiving standing ovations in the courtroom while reporters transcribed his words and published them for the whole country to read.

“But today it comes to an end. Even as we speak, his sentence is being pronounced. Today Adolf Hitler goes to prison for a long, long time. Even better: Today he is deported to Austria.”

“Jail, yes,” Ernst said. “But I wouldn’t count on deportation. He is, after all, a decorated veteran of the German army, and I do believe the judges are more than a little cowed by the show of support he has received here and in the rest of the country.”

Suddenly shouts arose from those of the huge crowd nearest the building, followed by wild cheering as word of the sentencing was passed down: five years in Landau Prison…but eligible for parole in six months.

“Six months!” Karl shouted. “No, this can’t be! He’s guilty of treason! He tried to overthrow the government!”

“Hush, Karl,” Ernst said. “You’re attracting attention.”

“I will not be silenced! The people have to know!”

“Not these people, Karl.”

Karl raised his arms to the circle of grim faces that had closed about him. “Listen to me! Adolf Hitler is a monster! They should lock him up in the deepest darkest hole and throw away the key! He—”

Sudden agony convulsed through his back as someone behind him rammed a fist into his right kidney. As Karl staggered forward another man with wild, furious eyes and bared teeth punched him in the face. He slumped to the ground with cries of “Communist!” and “Jew!” filling his ears. The circle closed about him and the sky was shut out by enraged, merciless faces as heavy boots began to kick at his back and belly and head.

Karl was losing his last grip on consciousness when the blows suddenly stopped and there was blue sky above him again.

Through blurry eyes he saw Ernst leaning over him, shaking his head in dismay.

“Good God, man! Do you have a death wish? You’d be a bloody pulp now if I hadn’t brought the police to your aid!”

Painfully, Karl raised himself on one elbow and spit blood. Scenes from the dark vision began flashing before his eyes.

“It’s going to happen!” he sobbed.

He felt utterly alone, thoroughly defeated. Hitler had a national following now. He’d be back on the streets and in the beer halls in six months, spreading his hatred. This trial wasn’t the end of him—it was the beginning. It had catapulted him into the national spotlight. He was on his way. He was going to take over.

And the vision would become reality.

“Damn you, Ernst! Why did you have to knock off my aim?”

“I told you, Karl. It was an accident.”

“Really?” During the months since that cold fall day, Karl’s thoughts had returned often to the perfectly timed nudge that had made him miss. “I wonder about that ‘accident,’ Ernst. I can’t escape the feeling that you did it on purpose.”

Ernst’s face tightened as he rose and stood towering over Karl.

“Believe what you will, Karl. But I can’t say I’m sorry. I, for one, am convinced that the next decade or two will be far more entertaining with Herr Hitler than without him.” His smile was cold, but his eyes were bright with anticipation. “I am rather looking forward to the years to come. Aren’t you?”

Karl tried to answer, but the words would not come. If only Ernst knew…

Then he saw the gleam in Ernst’s eyes and the possibility struck Karl like a hob-nailed boot: Perhaps Ernst does know.

Ernst touched the brim of his hat with the silver head of his cane. “If you will excuse me now, Karl, I really must be off. I’m meeting a friend—a new friend—for a drink.”

He turned and walked away, blending with the ever-growing crowd of red and white, black and brown.

OFFSHORE

INTRODUCTION

One of the conditions of my contract to edit the Diagnosis: Terminal anthology was that I had to contribute a story. Fine. But what? I hadn’t a clue until Hillary Clinton declared herself czarina of the US health system.

It really started back in February 1991, when my agent leant me his house in the Florida Keys for a week. I fell in love with the Lower Keys. Above Seven-Mile Bridge is pretty much an extension of South Florida. But something changes below it. It’s more like a separate Caribbean country, with a lazier rhythm and a sultrier vibe.

I knew I had to set a story there, but didn’t get around to it until 1994.

On rereading “Offshore” for this collection I was struck by parallels between Terry Havens and Repairman Jack. I think my subconscious wanted me to spend more time with Jack; and if I wasn’t going to do that, it would see to it that I wrote about someone like him. Eventually my subconscious would have its way. But not for a few years yet.

“Offshore” is a product of its times. If you remember, during the early 1990s Hillary Clinton had put herself in charge of revamping the country’s healthcare delivery system. What she came up with was so abstruse and unworkable that even her staunchest supporters backed away for fear of being tainted. Medical personnel shook their heads in dismay. (I poked fun at it in an essay in The New York Times Book Review.)

She and a lot of others seemed to be looking for a Canadian-style system. But you have to wonder: If the Canadian system is so great, why are the US hospitals along our northern border so full of Canadians?

So I took Theodore Sturgeon’s advice from ages ago and asked the next question: If Hillary succeeded in imposing a Canadian-style system on us, where would we find our safety valve?

Mexico?

Thanks, no.

We’d probably be forced to go…

OFFSHORE

“Got a doozie comin’, Terr.”

Ernie stood at the big picture window with his thumbs hooked in his belt on either side of the gut pouting over his buckle, and stared out at Upper Sugarloaf Sound.

Terry Havens looked up from the bar where he’d been making a wet Olympics symbol with the bottom rim of his sweating Red Stripe.

“Good. Maybe it’ll cool things off a little.”

Terry had been expecting the storm, looking forward to it, in fact. But not because it would cool things off.

“I think this mother might do more than cool things off. This’n looks mean.”

Terry took a swig of the Red Stripe and carried the bottle to the big window. He stood beside Ernie and took in the view. Bartenders always need something to talk about. Not much happening during off-season in the Keys, so some heavy weather would keep Ernie going through the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening.

And this looked pretty damn heavy. A cumulonimbus tower was building over the Gulf, dominating the western sky. Some big mother of a storm—a dark, bruise-purple underbelly crowding the entire span of the horizon while its fat, fluffy white upper body stretched a good ten miles straight up to where the shear winds flattened and sluiced its crown away to the north. Anvil-topped buggers like these could be downright mean.

“Where you got those glasses hid?”

Ernie limped back to the bar and brought out the battered field glasses he’d smuggled home from the Gulf War. Terry fitted them over his eyes and focused on the body of the storm. What looked like fluffy vanilla cotton candy to the naked eye became slowly boiling steam as violent updrafts and downdrafts roiled within.

Damn. He’d been looking for a storm, but this thing might be more than he could handle. Like casting light tackle out on the flats and hooking something bigger than your boat.

He lowered the glasses. He was going to have to risk it. He’d promised the Osler a delivery on this pass, and tonight was his last chance. The big boat would be out of range by tomorrow.

Besides, the worse the storm, the better his chances of being alone out there on the water. Not even Henriques would be out on patrol in the belly of the beast growling on the horizon.

Terry finished the rest of his Red Stripe. “One more of these before I get moving.”

“Sure thing,” Ernie said.

As Terry returned to his stool, he glanced across the horseshoe-shaped bar and saw two of the grizzled regulars poking into their wallets with nicotine-yellowed fingers. Reed-thin, wild-haired, leather-skinned, stubble-cheeked Conchs.

“Betcha that storm’s good for at least five spouts,” Rick said.

Boo flipped a sawbuck onto the bar. “Ten says you don’t see more’n three.”

Rick slapped a bill down on top of Boo’s. “Yer on.”

Terry smiled as he reached for the fresh bottle Ernie put in front of him. Those two bet on anything. He’d seen them wager on the number of times a fly would land on a piece of cheese, the number of trips someone would make to the head in an evening. Anything.

“I guess that means you two’ll be spending most of the night here,” Terry said.

“You betcha,” Rick said. “Watchin’ the storm.”

Boo nodded. “And countin’ the spouts.”

“Some guys sure know how to have fun.”

Rick and Boo laughed and hoisted their Rolling Rocks in reply.

They all quaffed together, then Terry glanced up at the TV monitor. The sight of a bunch of flak-jacketed federal marshals toting riot guns around a tandem tractor trailer shot a spasm through his stomach lining.

“Turn the sound up, will you, Ern?”

Ernie touched a button on the remote. The audio level display flashed on the screen, zipped to a preprogrammed volume, then disappeared as the announcer’s voice blared from the speakers bracketed on the ceiling.

“—tainly put a crimp in the black market in medical contraband. This haul was most likely bound for one of the renegade floating hospitals that ply their illicit trade outside the twelve-mile limit in the Gulf of Mexico.”

The screen cut to an interior of one of the trailers and panned its contents.

“Syringes, sterile bandages, dialysis fluid, even gas sterilizers, all bound for the booming offshore medical centers. President Nathan has called on Congress to enact stiffer penalties for medical smuggling and to pass legislation to push the offshore hospitals to a hundred-mile limit. Insiders on the Hill think he is unlikely to find much support on extending the twelve-mile limit due to the complexities of maritime law, but say he might get action on the stiffer penalties.”

The president’s intense, youthful face filled the screen.

“We are talking here about trading in human misery. Every medical item that is smuggled offshore deprives law-abiding citizens, right here at home, of needed medical supplies. These racketeers are little better than terrorists, sabotaging America’s medical system and health security. We’ve got to hit these criminals hard, and hit them where it hurts!”

“Okay, Ern,” Terry said. “I’ve heard enough.”

Poor President Nathan—thoroughly pissed that some folks were making an end run around the National Health Security Act.

Nothing new in the trucker bust, other than somebody got careless. Or got turned in. Terry wondered who it was, wondered if he knew them. He’d tuned in too late to catch where the bust had gone down.

“Excuse me,” said a voice to Terry’s right. “Is there a Mister Havens here?”

Terry didn’t turn his head. Rick and Boo acquired a sudden intense interest in the “33” inside the labels on their Rolling Rocks.

Ernie cleared his throat and said, “He comes in now and again. I can take a message for you.”

“We wish to hire him for a boat trip,” the voice said.

Terry swiveled on his barstool. He saw a moderately overweight golden-ager, white hair and a sunburned face, wearing cream slacks and a lime green golf shirt.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Are you Mr. Havens?” the guy said, eagerly stepping forward and thrusting out his hand.

Terry hesitated, then said, “That’s me.” Hard to lie to a guy who’s offering you his hand.

But the immediate relief in the guy’s eyes made him wish he hadn’t. Here was a man with a problem, and he seemed to think Terry was his solution. Terry was not in the problem-solving business.

“Joe Kowalski, Mister Havens,” he said, squeezing Terry’s hand between both of his. “I’m so glad we found you.” He turned and called over his shoulder. “It’s him, Martha!”

Terry looked past him at a rickety, silver-haired woman hobbling toward them, supporting herself on the bar with her right forearm and leaning on a four-footed cane clasped in her gnarled left hand. Her wrinkled face was pinched with pain. She couldn’t seem to straighten out her right leg, and winced every time she put weight on it.

“Thank God!” she said.

Terry was getting a bad feeling about this.

“Uh, just where is it you folks want to go?”

“Out to the Osler,” Joe said.

“You missed her. She took on her patients this morning and she’s gone.”

“I know. We missed the shuttle. Martha wanted to say good-bye to the kids before the surgery. You know, in case…you know. But our car broke down last night just as we were leaving and what they said would take an hour to fix wound up taking much longer. Damn car’s probably still up on the lift back there in Stewart. I finally rented a car and drove down here fast as I could. Collected two tickets along the way, but we still missed the boat. We’ve been driving up and down Route One all day trying to find someone to take us out. No one’s interested. I don’t understand. I don’t want a favor—I’m willing to pay a fair price. And it’s not like it’s a crime or anything.”

Right. Not a crime or anything to ferry someone out past the twelve-mile limit to one of the hospital ships. But bad things tended to happen to good boaters who engaged in the trade if officialdom got wind of it. Bad things like a Coast Guard stop and search every time you took your boat out; or all sorts of lost applications and inexplicable computer glitches when you wanted to renew your boating tags, your fishing permits, even your driver’s license. Terry had heard talk that the good folks in question seemed to suffer a significantly greater incidence of having their 1040 audited by the IRS.

No, not a crime, but lots of punishment.

Which was why the hospital ships ran their own shuttles.

“What excuse did they give?”

“Most said they were too busy, but let me tell you, they didn’t look it. And as soon as those clouds started gathering, they used the storm as an excuse.”

“Good excuse.”

Terry glanced back at the western horizon. The afternoon sun had been swallowed whole by the storm and its white bulk had turned a threatening gray.

“But I hear you’re not afraid of storms,” Joe said.

Terry stared at him, feeling his anger rise. Shit. “Who told you that?”

“Some fellow in a bar up on the next key—is it Cudjoe Key? Some cantina…”

“Coco’s.”

“That’s the place! Fellow with bleached hair and a fuzzy goatee.”

Tommy Axler. Terry wanted to strangle the bigmouthed jerk. In fact, he might give it a try next time he saw him.

“He must have thought you wanted to go fishing. Sometimes I take people fishing in the rain. I do lots of things, but I don’t ferry folks out to hospital ships.”

That last part, at least, was true.

Joe’s eyes got this imploring look. “I’ll pay you twice your regular charter fee.”

Terry shook his head. “Sorry.”

His face fell. He turned to his wife. “He won’t do it, Martha.”

She halted her labored forward progress as if she’d run into a wall.

“Oh,” she said softly, and leaned against one of the barstools. She stared at the floor and said no more.

“But let me buy you folks a drink.” Terry pointed to his Red Stripe. “You want one of these?”

“No,” Joe said through a sigh, then shrugged. “Aaah, why not? Martha? You want something?”

Still staring at the floor, Martha only shook her head.

Ernie set the bottle in front of Joe who immediately chugged about a third of it.

He stifled a burp, then said, “You won’t reconsider, even if I triple your usual fee?”

Terry shook his head. “Look, the Osler’ll probably be shuttling patients in and out of St. Petersburg in a day or two. Hop in your car and—”

“Martha’s got an appointment for a total hip replacement tomorrow. If she’s not on board the Osler today they’ll give her appointment to someone on the waiting list.”

“So reschedule.”

“It took us six months to get this appointment, and we were lucky. The fellow who had the original appointment died. Might be another ten months to a year before Martha can get rescheduled.”

“That’s as bad as the regular government wait lists.”

“No,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “There is no government wait list for Martha. Not anymore. She’s too old. HRAA passed a regulation barring anyone over age seventy-five from certain surgical procedures. Total hip replacement is on the list. And Martha’s seventy-seven.”

Martha’s head snapped up. “Don’t you be blabbing my age for all the world to hear!”

“Sorry, dear.”

Terry looked at him. “I thought the cutoff was eighty.”

“Right: was. They lowered it last year.”

Terry had assumed that most of the hospital ship patrons were well-heeled folks who didn’t want to wait in the long queues for elective surgery in the government-run hospitals. And since all the hospitals in America were now government run, they had to go elsewhere. But cutting people off from procedures…

The Health Resources Allocation Agency strikes again.

“I didn’t know they could do that.”

Joe sighed. “Neither did I. It wasn’t part of the regulations when the Health Security Act became law, but apparently the HRAA has the power to make new regs. So when they found out how far their Health Security Act was running over projections, they started making cuts. What really galls me is I supported the damn law.”

“So did I.”

“Yeah, we all thought we were getting a bargain. Ten years later we find out we got the shaft.”

“Welcome to the twenty-first century, Pops. Believe in the future but always read the fine print.”

“Tell me about it.” He slugged down some more beer and stared at the bottle in his hand. “It’s not fair, you know. We busted our butts since we got married—fifty years come next July—to make a good life for our family. We educated our kids, got them married and settled, then we retired. And now we’d like to enjoy the years we’ve got left. Nothing fancy. No trips around the world. Just hang out, play golf once in a while. But with Martha’s hip, we can’t even go for a walk after dinner.”

Terry said nothing as Joe polished off his beer. He was trying not to listen. He wasn’t going to get sucked into this.

Joe banged his bottle down on the bar. “You know what really bugs my ass? We’ve got the money to pay for the surgery. We don’t need the government to pay for it. Fuck ’em! We’ll pay. Gladly. But they won’t let her have the surgery—period. Their letter said total hip surgery at her age is ‘an inefficient utilization of valuable medical resources.’ I mean, what the hell did we work and skimp and save for if we can’t spend it on our health?”

“Wish I had an answer for you,” Terry said.

“Yeah.” He pushed away from the bar. “Thanks for the beer. Come on, Martha. We’ll keep looking.”

He took his wife gently by the arm and began helping her toward the door. Terry stared across the bar at Rick and Boo so he wouldn’t have to watch the Kowalskis. He saw a grinning Rick accepting a ten from a grumpy-looking Boo. He wondered what the bet had been this time.

He looked out the window at the towering storm, black as a hearse now, picking up speed and power. If he was going to head out, he’d better get moving.

Terry waited until Joe Kowalski had eased his wife into the passenger seat, then he waved to Rick, Boo, and Ernie and headed out. The August heat gave him a wet body slam as he stepped outside. He slid past the Kowalskis’ idling rental but couldn’t resist a glance through the windshield.

Martha was crying.

He averted his gaze and hurried to his pickup.

Life really sucked sometimes.

He jumped into the blisteringly hot cab.

That didn’t mean he had to get involved.

He turned the key and the old Ford shuddered to life.

Wasn’t his problem.

He threw it into reverse.

As he was backing out he saw Joe put an arm around his wife’s thin, quaking shoulders and try to comfort her.

He slammed on the brakes and yanked the gearshift back into neutral.

Shit.

Cursing himself for a jerk, Terry jumped out of the cab and stalked over to the Kowalskis’ car. He rapped on Joe’s window.

“Follow me,” he said as the glass slid down.

Joe’s eyes lit. “You mean—?”

“Just follow.”

As he was heading back to the pickup, he heard a voice call out behind him.

“Aw, Terry! Say it ain’t so!”

He turned and saw Rick standing in the doorway, dismay flattening his weathered features. Boo peered over his shoulder, grinning.

“You’re takin’ ’em, ain’t ya,” Boo said.

“None of your damn business.”

Boo nudged Rick none too gently and rubbed his palms together. “See. I toldja he would. I win. Gimme back my saw plus the one you owe me. Give it now, Rick.”

Rick handed the money to Boo and gave Terry a wounded look.

“Y’disappointed the shit outta me, Terr.”

“Yeah, well,” Terry muttered, slipping behind the wheel again, “there’s one born every minute.”

* * *

“You really think he’s going to risk this storm?” Cramer asked.

Pepe Henriques looked at his mate. Cramer’s round, usually relaxed boyish face was tight with tension.

He’s scared, he thought.

Which was okay. Showing it wasn’t.

Henriques looked past Cramer at the storm that filled the sky. Giant forks of lightning occasionally speared down to the Gulf but mostly jumped cloud to cloud, illuminating the guts of the storm with explosions of light. Thunder crashed incessantly, vibrating their fiberglass hull. He could see the rain curtain billowing toward them.

Almost here.

When it hit, visibility would be shot and they’d have to go on instruments. But so would the runner.

“He’ll be out here. Why else would that hospital ship be dawdling fourteen miles out? They’re waiting for a delivery. And our man’s going to make it. That is, he’s going to try. This’ll be his last run.”

He tossed Cramer a life jacket and watched him strap it on. Saw the black ATF across the yellow fabric and had to shake his head.

Me. An ATF agent.

He still couldn’t believe it. But he’d found he liked the regular paycheck, the benefit package, the retirement fund. Sure as hell beat taking tourists tarpon and bone fishing on the flats.

But he might be back to fishing those flats if he didn’t catch this runner.

Henriques had run up against him twice before, but both times he’d got away. Two things he knew for sure about the guy: He ran a Hutchison 686 and he was a Conch. Henriques had seen the Hutch from a distance. The registration numbers on the twenty-six-foot craft were bogus—no surprise there. What had been big surprises were the way the boat handled and its pilot’s knowledge of the waters around the Lower Keys. The Hutch 686 was popular as hell in these parts, but this one had done things a propeller-driven shouldn’t be able to do. It ran like a VMA impeller—like Henriques’s craft. The runner had customized it somehow.

And as for being a Conch, well…nobody could dodge among all these reefs and mangrove keylets like that runner unless he’d spent his life among them. A native of the Keys. A Conch. Took one to know one.

Take one to catch one.

And I’m the one, Henriques thought. Tonight’s his last run.

* * *

The rain hit just as they neared the inner rim of the reef. Terry pulled back on the throttle and idled the engine.

“Thank God!” Martha Kowalski said. She clung to the arms of her deck-fast seat with white knuckles. “That bouncing was making me sick!”

“What’re you doing now?” Joe shouted over the mad drumming of the big drops on the deck and the roof of the open cabin.

Terry didn’t answer. His passengers would see for themselves soon enough.

He unwrapped the molded black plastic panels and began scampering around the deck, snapping them onto the sides of the superstructure. Two of the strips for the hull sported a brand-new registration number, fresh off the decal sheets. Another went over the transom to cover the name, replacing his own admittedly corny Terryfied with Delta Sue.

Joe looked bewildered when Terry ducked back into the cabin enclosure.

“I don’t get it.”

“Just a little insurance.”

The less Joe knew, the better.

The panels changed the boat’s lines and color scheme. Nothing that would hold up against even casual inspection in good light, but from a distance, through lightning-strobed rain, his white, flat-bottomed VMA impeller craft looked an awful lot like a black-and-white V-hulled Hutchison 686. The black panels also broke up the boat’s outline, making it harder to spot.

“That’s what you said when you were playing around with the light on that channel marker,” Joe said.

“That’s right. Another kind of insurance.”

“But that could—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll undo it on my way back in. No questions—wasn’t that the deal?”

Joe nodded glumly. “But I still don’t get it.”

You’re not supposed to, Terry thought as he gunned the engine and headed into the wind.

The hull jumped, thudded, shimmied, and jittered with the staccato pounding of the waves, and all that rhythmic violence worked into every tissue of his body. Once he zipped through the cut in the barrier reef it got worse—two, three, maybe four times worse. Riding at this speed in this weather was a little like getting a total body massage. From King Kong. On speed. Add to that the tattoo of the rain, the howl of the wind, the booming thunder, and further talk was damn near impossible. Unless you shouted directly into someone’s ear. Which Martha was doing into Joe’s as she bounced around in her seat and hung on for dear life.

Joe sidled over. “Think you could slow down? Martha can’t take the pounding.”

Terry shook his head. “I ease up, we won’t make enough headway.”

Joe went back to Martha and they traded more shouts, none of which Terry could hear. Joe lurched back.

“Let’s go back. I’m calling the trip off. Martha’s afraid, and she can’t take this pounding.”

He’d been half expecting something like this. Damn. Should have left them back on Sugarloaf.

“Don’t wimp out on me, Joe.”

“It’s not me. Look, you can keep the money. Martha’s getting sick. Just turn around and take us back.”

“Can’t do that. No questions and no turning back—wasn’t that the deal?”

“Yes, but—”

“It’s still the deal. Tell Martha to hang on and she’ll have a new hip tomorrow.”

As Joe stumbled back to his wife, Terry concentrated on the infrared scanner. Clear and cold except for the faint blob of the Osler straight ahead. Good. Stay that way.

Terry liked rain. Besides lowering visibility, it played havoc with heat scanners. Radiant energy tended to get swallowed up in all that falling water. But that could be a two-edged sword: Terry couldn’t spot a pursuer until they were fairly close.

Didn’t worry him much at the moment. Weren’t too many craft that could outrun him in a sprint, and once he slipped past the twelve-mile limit, no one could touch him. Legally, anyway. Always the possibility that some frustrated ATF goon with a short fuse might blow a few holes in your hull—and you—and let the sharks clean up the mess.

He checked the compass, checked the Loran—right on course. Just a matter of time now. He looked up and froze when he saw Joe Kowalski pointing a pistol at him. The automatic—looked like a 9mm—wavered in the old guy’s hand but the muzzle never strayed far from the center of Terry’s chest.

“Turn around and take us back,” Joe shouted.

No way was Terry turning back. And no way was he telling Joe that at the moment. Guns made him nervous.

Terry eyed the gun. “Where’d that come from?”

“I brought it along…just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

“In case you tried to rob us. Or worse.”

“Whatever happened to trust?”

“The Health Resources Allocation Agency’s got mine.” His eyes bored into Terry’s. “Now turn this thing around. I told you you could keep the money. Just take us back.”

Terry shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t do that.”

Joe couldn’t seem to believe what he’d heard. “I’ve got a gun, dammit!”

Terry was well aware of that. He didn’t think Joe would pull that trigger, but you never knew. So maybe it was time to shake Joe up—more than physically.

“And I’ve got a cargo to deliver.”

“My wife is not cargo!”

“Take a look below,” Terry told him, jutting his chin toward the door to the belowdecks area.

Joe’s gaze darted from Terry to the door and back. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You wouldn’t try anything stupid, would you?”

Terry shrugged. “Take a look.”

Joe thought about that, then backed away and opened the door. More hesitation, then he slipped below. A moment later he appeared again, pale, his eyes wide. Terry could read his lips.

“Medical supplies! Martha, he’s a smuggler!”

Martha freed up a hand long enough to slap it over the O of her mouth, then returned it to the armrest.

“The way I see it, Joe, you’ve got two options. The first is you can shoot me and try to get the boat back home on your own. Not only will you have to guide it through the storm, but you’ll have to avoid the shore patrol. If they catch you you’ll go down for murder and smuggling. Or you can follow through with our original plan and—” A blip caught his eye on the infrared scanner, aport and astern, and closing. He forgot all about Joe Kowalski’s gun. “Shit!”

“What’s wrong?”

“We’ve got company.”

“Who?”

“ATF, most likely.”

“ATF? But they’re alcohol, tobacco and—”

“They added medical supplies to their list. Get over by Martha and hang on. This could get a little rough.”

“A little rough? It’s already—”

“Get out of my face, dammit!”

Henriques, Terry thought. Has to be him. No one else has such a bug up his ass that he’d brave this storm looking for a runner. Not just any runner. Looking for The One That Got Away.

Me.

He jammed the throttle all the way forward. Terryfied lifted farther out of the water and began bouncing along the tops of the waves. Like riding downhill in a boxcar derby on a cobblestone road. With steel wheels. Planing out was impossible, but this was as close as she’d get. The price was loss of control. The boat slewed wildly to port or starboard whenever she dipped into a trough.

How’d Henriques find him? Luck? Probably not. He was a Conch but even that wasn’t enough. Probably some new equipment he had. Price was no object for the ATF when taxes were paying for it.

Damn ATF. For years Terry had breezed in and out of the Keys on his supply runs until they’d got smart and started hiring locals for their shore patrols. Making a run these days had become downright dicey.

He concentrated on the Loran, the infrared scanner, and what little he could see of the water ahead. The blip had stopped gaining. And running on the diagonal as it had to, was actually losing ground. Terry didn’t let up. Unless he hit some floating debris or broached in a freak swell, he’d be first to cross the twelve-mile limit.

But he wouldn’t be celebrating.

* * *

“Oh, Lord!” Martha cried, staring up the sheer twenty feet of steel hull that loomed above her. “How am I going to get up there?”

“Don’t worry,” Terry said as he tried to hold his bobbing craft steady against the Osler. “We have a routine.”

Above them a winch supporting a pair of heavy-duty slings swung into view. The straps of the slings flapped and twisted in the gale-force winds as they were lowered over the side. Terry nosed his prow through the first when it hit water, then idled his engine and manually guided the second sling under the stern.

The winch began hauling them up.

Once they were on the deck the crew pulled a heavy canvas canopy over the boat and helped Martha into a wheelchair.

“Well, she made it,” Terry said.

Joe Kowalski stared at him. “I don’t know whether to thank you or punch you in the nose.”

“Think on it awhile,” Terry said. “Wait till you’re both sitting in a bar sipping a G ’n’ T after a round of golf. Then decide.”

Joe’s face softened. He extended his hand. They shook, then Joe followed Martha inside.

As the Osler’s crew offloaded the medical supplies, Terry ducked out from under the billowing canopy and fought the wind and rain to the deck rail. He squinted out at the lightning-shot chaos. A lot of hell left in this monster. But that didn’t mean Henriques had run home. No, that bastard was laying out there somewhere, waiting.

Not to arrest him. Couldn’t do that once the contraband was gone. And if Henriques did manage to catch him, Terry could thumb his nose and say he’d been out on a little jaunt to say hello to some old friends among the crew.

But even though Henriques had no case against him, Terry still couldn’t let him get near. It wasn’t fear of arrest that gnawed at the lining of his gut. It was being identified.

Once they knew his name, his runner career was over. He’d be watched day and night, followed everywhere, his phones tapped, his house bugged, and every time Terryfied left the slip he’d be stopped and inspected.

His whole way of life would be turned upside down.

One option was to stay on the Osler and make a break for the coast farther north. But the weather would be better then and officialdom would have copters hovering about, waiting to tag him and follow him home.

No, he had to use the heavy weather. But even that might not be enough. On the way out he’d had the advantage: Henriques didn’t know Terry’s starting point. Could have been anywhere along the lower twenty miles of the archipelago. But now Henriques had him pinpointed. All he had to do was wait for Terry to make his move. Didn’t even have to catch him. All he had to do was follow him home.

Yeah, getting back was going to be a real bitch.

* * *

“Maybe he’s not coming,” Cramer said. “Maybe he’s going to wait out the storm and hope that we drowned out here.”

Cramer’s whininess had increased steadily during the hour they’d been holding here. It was getting on Henriques’s nerves something bad now.

“He is coming out, and it’ll be during the storm, and we’re not going to drown.”

At least he hoped not. A couple of times during the past hour he hadn’t been so sure about that. He’d had Cramer keep the VMA low and slow in forward into the wind while he watched the lights of the Osler through his binocs. But every so often came a rogue wave or a gust of shear wind that damn near cap-sized them. Cramer had good reason to want to hightail for home.

But they weren’t turning around until the fuel gauge told them they had to.

Besides, according to the Doppler the rear end of the storm was only a few miles west. The runner would have to make his break soon.

And then you’re mine.

“We got heat action, chief. Lots of it.”

Henriques snapped the glasses down and leapt to the infrared scanner. Fanning out from the big red blob of the hospital ship were three smaller, fainter blobs.

“What’s going on, chief?”

“Decoys.”

The son of a bitch had two of the Osler’s shuttles running interference for him. One heat source was headed north-northeast, one north-northwest, and one right at them.

Henriques ground his teeth. The bastard had raised his odds from zero to two out of three. God damn him.

“All right, Cramer,” he said. “One of them’s our man. Which one?’

“I—I dunno.”

“Come on. Put yourself out here alone. You’ve got to chase one. Choose.”

Cramer chewed his lip and stared at the scanner. Probably doing eeny-meeny-miney-moe in his head. Henriques had already decided to ignore whichever Cramer chose. Cramer was never right.

“Well, it sure as hell ain’t the guy coming right at us, so I’ll choose…the…one…to…the…” His finger stabbed at the screen. “East!”

Henriques hesitated. Not a bad choice, actually. The Lower Keys were more heavily populated toward their western end, especially near Key West; coast guard base and naval air station down that way—all sorts of folks runners don’t like to meet. And the storm was heading northeast, so that direction would give the most rain cover. He might just have to go with Cramer this—

Wait a second.

Well, it sure as hell ain’t the guy coming right at us…

Yeah. The obvious assumption. So obvious that Henriques had bought into it without really thinking. But what if the runner was counting on that? Send the shuttles right and left, draw the heat toward them, then breeze through the empty middle.

And remember: Cramer is never right.

He grabbed Cramer’s wrist as he reached for the throttle. “Let’s hang here for a bit.”

“Why? He’s got to—”

“Just call it a feeling.”

Henriques watched the screen, tracking the trio of diverging blobs. As the center one neared, he lifted the glasses again. Nothing. Whoever it was was traveling without running lights.

Doubt wriggled in his gut. What if the runner had pulled a double reverse? If so, he was already out of reach…as good as home free.

“Getting close,” Cramer said. “See him yet?”

“No.”

“Still coming right at us. Think he knows we’re here?”

“He knows. He’s got infrared too.”

“Yeah, well, he ain’t acting like it. Maybe we should turn the running—”

And then a dazzling flash of lightning to the south and Henriques saw it. A Hutch 686.

He let out a whoop of triumph. “It’s him! We got him!”

“I see him!” Cramer called. “But he’s coming right at us. Is he crazy?”

“No, he’s not crazy. And he’s not going to hit us. Bring us about. We got us a chase!”

Cramer stood frozen at the wheel. “He’s gonna ram us!”

“Shit!”

Henriques grabbed the spotlight, thumbed the switch and swiveled it toward the oncoming boat. He picked up the charging bow, the flying spray, almost on top of them, and goddamn if it didn’t look like the bastard was really going to ram them.

Henriques braced himself as Cramer shouted incoherently and ducked behind the console. But at the last minute the runner swerved and flashed past to starboard, sending a wave of wake over the gunwale.

“After him!” Henriques screamed. “After him, goddamn it!”

Cramer was pushing on the throttle, yanking on the wheel, bringing them around. But the ankle-deep seawater sloshing back and forth in the cockpit slowed her response. The bilge pumps were overwhelmed at the moment, but they’d catch up. The VMA would be planing out again soon. That cute little maneuver had given the runner a head start, but it wouldn’t matter. Henriques had him now. Didn’t even have to catch him. Just follow him back to whatever dock he called home.

* * *

Terry caught himself looking over his shoulder. A reflex. Nothing to see in that mess of rain and wind. He cursed Henriques for not chasing one of the decoys. The guy seemed to read his mind. Well, why not? They were both Conchs.

Terry had only one trick left up his sleeve. If that didn’t work…

Then what? Sink the Terryfied? What good would that do? The ATF would just haul her up, find out who she belonged to, and then camp outside his door.

Face it: He doesn’t fall for this last one, I’m screwed.

And being a Conch, it was a damn good chance Henriques wouldn’t.

Terry spotted the breakers of the barrier reef ahead. Lightning helped him get his bearings and he headed for the channel. As soon as he cut through, the swells shrank by half and he picked up speed. Now was his one chance to increase the distance between Henriques and himself. If he could get close enough to shore, pull in near the parking lot of one of the waterside restaurants or nightspots, maybe he could merge his infrared tag with the heat from the cars and the kitchen.

And what would that do besides delay the inevitable? Henriques would—

A bolt of lightning slashed down at a mangrove keylet to starboard, starkly illuminating the area with a flash of cold brilliance. Terry saw the water, the rain, the mangrove clumps, and something else…something that gut-punched him and froze his hands on the wheel.

“Christ!”

Just off the port bow and roaring toward him, a swirling, writhing column of white stretching into the darkness above, throwing up a furious cloud of foam and spray as it snaked back and forth across the surface of the water.

He’d seen plenty of waterspouts before. Couldn’t spend a single season in the Keys without getting used to them, but he’d never—never—been this close to one. Never wanted to be. Waterspout…such an innocuous name. Damn thing was a tornado. That white frothy look was seawater spinning at two or three hundred miles an hour. Just brushing its hem would wreck the boat and send him flying. Catching the full brunt of the vortex would tear the Terryfied and its captain to pieces.

The hungry maw slithered his way across the surface, sucking up seawater and everything it contained, like Mrs. God’s vacuum hose. Somewhere downwind it would rain salt water and fish—and maybe pieces of a certain Conch and his boat if he didn’t do something fast.

It lunged toward him, its growing roar thundering like a fully-loaded navy cargo jet lifting off from Boca Chica, drowning out his own engine.

Terry shook off the paralysis and yanked the wheel hard to starboard. For a heartbeat he was sure he’d acted too late. He screamed into a night that had become all noise and water. The boat lurched, the port side lifted, spray drenched him, big hard drops peppering him like rounds from an Uzi. He thought he was going over.

And then Terryfied righted herself and the raging, swirling ghostly bulk was dodging past the stern, ten, then twenty feet from the transom. He saw it swerve back the other way before it was swallowed by the night and the rain. It seemed to be zigzagging down the channel. Maybe it liked the deeper water. Maybe it was trapped in the rut, in the groove…he didn’t know.

One thing he did know: If not for that lightning flash he’d be dead.

Would Henriques be so lucky? With the waterspout heading south along the channel and Henriques charging north at full throttle, the ATF could be minus one boat and two men in a minute or so.

Saved by a waterspout. Who’d ever believe it? No witness except Henriques, and he’d be…fish food.

Terry turned and stared behind him. Nothing but rain and dark. No sign of Henriques’s running lights. Which meant the waterspout was probably between them…heading right for Henriques.

“Shit.”

He reached for the Very pistol. He knew he was going to regret this.

* * *

“Mother of God!” Cramer shouted.

Henriques saw it too.

One instant everything was black, the next the sky was blazing red from the emergency flare sailing through the rain. And silhouetted against the burning glow was something dark and massive, directly in their path.

Henriques reached past Cramer and yanked the wheel hard to port, hard enough to nearly capsize them. The tower of water roared past like a runaway freight train, leaving them stalled and shaken but in one piece. Henriques watched it retreat, pink now in the fading glow of the flare.

He turned and scanned the water to the north while Cramer shook and sputtered.

“You see that? You ever see anything like that? Damn near killed us! Hadn’t been for that flare, we’d be goners!”

Henriques concentrated on the area around the lighted channel marker dead ahead. Something about that marker…

“There he is!” he shouted as he spotted a pale flash of wake. “Get him!”

“You gotta be kidding!” Cramer said. “He just saved our asses!”

“And I’ll be sure to thank him when he’s caught. Now after him, dammit!”

Cramer grumbled, started the engine, and turned east. He gunned it but Henriques could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

And he had to admit, some of the fight had gone out of him as well.

Why had the runner warned them? That baffled him. These guys were scum, running stolen or pilfered medical supplies out to the rich folks on their luxury hospital ships when there was barely enough to go around on shore. Yet the guy had queered his only chance of escape by sending up a warning flare.

I don’t get it.

But Henriques couldn’t let that stop him. He couldn’t turn his head and pretend he didn’t see, couldn’t allow himself to be bought off with a flare. He’d seen payoffs all his life—cops, judges, mayors, and plenty Conchs among them. But Pepe Henriques wasn’t joining that crowd.

The rain was letting up, ceiling lifting, visibility improving. Good. Where were they? He spotted the lights on the three radio towers, which put them off Sugarloaf. So where was the runner heading? Bow Channel, maybe? That would put him into Cudjo Bay. Lots of folks lived on Cudjo Bay. And one of them just might be a runner.

He retrieved his field glasses and kept them trained on the fleeing boat as it followed the channel. Didn’t have much choice. Neither of them did. Tide was out and even with the storm there wasn’t enough water to risk running outside the channel, even with the shallow draw of an impeller craft. As they got closer to civilization the channel would be better marked, electric lights and all…

Electric lights.

He snapped the glasses down but it was too late. Cramer was hauling ass past the red light marker, keeping it to starboard.

“NO!” Henriques shouted and lunged for the wheel, but too late.

The hull hit coral and ground to a halt, slamming the two of them against the console. The intakes sucked sand and debris, choked, and cut out.

Silence, except for Cramer’s cursing.

“God damn! God-damn-God-damn-God-damn-God damn! Where’s the fucking channel?”

“You’re out of it,” Henriques said softly, wondering at how calm he felt.

“I took the goddamn marker to starboard!”

Henriques nodded in the darkness, hiding his chagrin. He shouldn’t have been so focused on the runner’s boat. Should have been taking in the whole scene. Cramer hadn’t grown up on these waters. Like every seaman, he knew the three R’s: RED-RIGHT-RETURN. Keep the red markers on your right when returning to port. But Cramer couldn’t know that this marker was supposed to be green. Only a Conch would know. Somebody had changed the lens. And Henriques knew who.

He felt like an idiot but couldn’t help smiling in the dark. He’d been had but good. There’d be another time, but this round went to the runner.

He reached for the Very pistol.

* * *

“What the hell?”

The flare took Terry by surprise. What was Henriques up to? The bastard had been chasing him full throttle since dodging that waterspout, and now he was sending up a flare. It wouldn’t throw enough light to make any difference in the chase, and if he needed help, he had a radio.

Then Terry realized it had come from somewhere in the vicinity of the channel marker he’d tampered with. He pumped a fist into the air. Henriques was stuck and he was letting his prey know it. Why? Payback for Terry’s earlier flare? Maybe. That was all the break he’d ever get from Henriques, he guessed.

He’d take it.

Terry eased up on the throttle and sagged back in the chair. His knees felt a little weak. He was safe. But that had been close. Too damn close.

He cruised toward Cudjo, wondering if this was a sign that he should find another line of work. With Henriques out there, and maybe a few more like him joining the hunt, only a matter of time before they identified him. Might even catch him on the way out with a hold full of contraband. Then it’d be the slammer…hard time in a fed lock-up. Quitting now would be the smart thing.

Right. Someday, but not yet. A couple more runs, then he’d think about it some more.

And maybe someday after he was out of this, he and Henriques would run into each other in a bar and Terry would buy that Conch a Red Stripe and they’d laugh about these chases.

Terry thought about that a minute.

Nah.

That only happened in movies.

He gunned his boat toward home.

ITSBY-BITSY SPIDER

INTRODUCTION

In October Bob Weinberg and Jill Morgan approached me about collaborating with one of my children on a story for an anthology called Great Writers and Kids Write Spooky Stories. I loved the idea.

My daughter Meggan was twenty-two at the time and already writing on her own. I’d been helping her with a poem that she wanted to adapt to a children’s book. Since the poem (“No Tarantulas, Please”) derived from Meg’s lifelong fear of spiders, we decided to center the tale around that. We discussed—but did not write down—an outline of the story and how it should progress. I came up with a situation that I thought would allow Meg to tap into her fears and infuse them into the story; Meg came up with the diabolical ending. She sat down and banged out the first half of the story in one day. I embellished that and carried it to its close. Then we tweaked and polished it until we both were happy with the final form.

So here’s “Itsy Bitsy Spider” from a dad who thinks spiders are cool, and a daughter who forced herself to see Arachnophobia with me but kept her feet off the floor the whole time. It’s intended for a YA audience, but I think it’s pretty damn creepy no matter what your age.

ITSY-BITSY SPIDER

The moon was high before Toby spotted the first one. A hairy hunter—the hunters only came out at night. He hadn’t seen this one before. Big, but not thick and bulky like a tarantula. Its sleek body was the size of a German shepherd; its eight long, powerful legs spread half a dozen feet on either side, carrying its head and abdomen low to the ground. Moonlight gleamed off its short, bristly fur as it darted across the backyard, seeming to flow rather than run. Hunting, hunting, always hungry, always hunting.

A cool breeze began to blow through the two-inch opening of Toby’s screened window. He shivered and narrowed it to less than an inch, little more than a crack. It wasn’t the air making him shiver. It was the spider. You’d think that after a year of watching them every night, he’d be used to them. No way.

God, he hated spiders. Had hated them for the entire ten years of his life. Even when they’d been tiny and he could squash them under foot, they made his skin crawl. Now, when they were big as dogs—when there were no dogs because the spiders had eaten them all, along with the cats and squirrels and woodchucks and just about anything else edible, including people—the sight of them made Toby almost physically ill with revulsion.

And yet still he came to the window and watched. A habit…like tuning in a bad sitcom…it had become a part of his nightly routine.

He hadn’t seen this one before. Usually the same spiders traveled the same routes every night at about the same time. This one could be lost or maybe it was moving in on the other spiders’ territory. It darted to the far side of the yard and stopped at the swing set, touching the dented slide with a foreleg. Then it turned and came toward the house, passing out of Toby’s line of sight. Quickly he reached out and pushed down on the window sash until it clicked shut. It couldn’t get in, he knew, but not being able to see it made him nervous.

He clicked on his flashlight and flipped through his spider book until he found one that looked like the newcomer. He’d spotted all kinds of giant spiders in the last year—black widows, brown recluses, trap door spiders, jumping spiders, crab spiders. Here it was: Lycosidae—a wolf spider, the most ferocious of the hunting spiders.

Toby glanced up and stifled a scream. There, not two feet away, hovering on the far side of the glass, was the wolf spider. Its hairy face stared at him with eight eyes that gleamed like black diamonds. Toby wanted to run shrieking from the room but couldn’t move—didn’t dare move. It probably didn’t see him, didn’t know he was there. The sound of the window closing must have drawn it over. Sudden motion might make it bang against the glass, maybe break it, let it in. So Toby sat frozen and stared back at its cold black eyes, watched it score the glass with the claws of its poisonous falces. He had never been this close to one before. He could make out every repulsive feature; every fang, every eye, every hair was magnified in the moonlight.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the wolf spider moved off. Toby could breathe again. His heart was still pounding as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Good thing they don’t know glass is breakable, he thought, or we’d all be dead.

They never tried to break through anything. They preferred to look for a passage—an open window, an open door—

Door! Toby stiffened as a sudden chill swept over him. The back door to the garage—had he closed it all the way? He’d run some garbage out to the ditch in the back this afternoon, then had rushed back in—he was terrified of being outside. But had he pulled the door all the way closed? It stuck sometimes and didn’t latch. A spider might lean against it and push it open. It still couldn’t get into the house, but the first person to open the door from the laundry room into the garage…

He shuddered. That’s what had happened to the Hansens down the street. A spider had got in, wrapped them all up in a web, then laid a huge egg mass. The baby spiders hatched and went to work. When they finally found the remains of the Hansens, they looked like mummies and their corpses weighed only a few pounds each…every drop of juice had been sucked out of them.

The garage door…maybe he’d better check again.

Don’t be silly, he told himself. Of course I latched it. I’ve been doing the same thing for almost a year now.

Toby left the window and brushed his teeth. He tiptoed past his mother’s bedroom and paused. He heard her steady slow breathing and knew she was fast asleep. She was an early riser…didn’t have much to stay up late for. Toby knew she missed Dad, even more than he did. Dad had volunteered for a spider kill team—“doing my civic duty,” he’d said—and never came back from one of the search-and-destroy missions. That had been seven months ago. No one in that kill team had ever been found.

Feeling very alone in the world, Toby padded down the hall to his own room where even thoughts of monster spiders couldn’t keep him from sleep. He had a fleeting thought of the garage door—yes, he was sure he’d latched it—and then his head hit the pillow and instantly he was asleep.

* * *

Toby opened his eyes. Morning. Sunlight poured through the windows. A year or so ago it would be a day to go out and play. Or go to school. He never thought he’d miss school, but he did. Mostly he missed other kids. The spiders had made him a prisoner of his house, even in the daytime.

He dressed and went downstairs. He found his mother sitting in the kitchen, having a cup of instant coffee. She looked up when she saw him come in.

“Morning, Tobe,” she said and reached out and ruffled his hair.

Mom looked old and tired, even though she was only thirty-two. She was wearing her robe. She wore it a lot. Some days she never got out of it. What for? She wasn’t going out, no one was coming to visit, and she’d given up on Dad coming home.

“Hey, Mom. You should have seen it last night—the spiders, I mean. One crawled right up to the window. It was real scary; like it was looking right at me.”

Fear flashed in her eyes. “It came up to the window? That worries me. Maybe you shouldn’t sit by that window. It might be dangerous.”

“C’mon Mom. I keep the window shut. It’s not like I have anything else to do. Besides, it can’t break through the glass, right?”

“Probably not. But just play it safe, and move away if one looks like it’s coming near you, okay? I don’t know how you can stand to even look at those things.” She grimaced and shivered.

Toby shrugged and poured himself some cereal. They were running low on powdered milk, so he ate it dry. Dad had stocked the whole basement with canned and freeze-dried food before he left, but those wouldn’t last forever.

When he finished he turned on the TV, hoping there’d be some news about a breakthrough against the spiders. The cable had gone out three months ago; news shows and I Love Lucy reruns were about the only things running on the one channel they could pull in with the antenna.

At least they still had electricity. The telephone worked when it felt like it, but luckily their power lines were underground. People whose power came in on utility poles weren’t so fortunate. The spiders strung their webs from them and eventually shorted them all out.

No good news on the tube, just a rehash about the coming of the spiders. Toby had heard it all before but he listened again.

The spiders…no one knew where they came from, or how they got so big. Toby had first heard of them on the evening news about a year and a half ago. Reports from the Midwest, the farmlands, of cattle being killed and mutilated and eaten. Then whole families disappearing, their isolated houses found empty of life and full of silky webs. Wasn’t long before the first giant spiders were spotted. Just horrid curiosities at first, science-fictiony beasties. Local governments made efforts to capture and control them, and hunting parties went out with shotguns and high-powered rifles to “bag a big one.” But these weren’t harmless deer or squirrels or pheasant. These things could fight back. Lots of mighty hunters never returned. Toby wondered if the spiders kept hunters’ heads in their webs as trophies.

The army and the National Guard got involved and for a while it looked like they were winning, but the spiders were multiplying too fast. They laid a couple thousand eggs at once; each hatchling was the size of a gerbil, hungry as hell, and growing all the time. Soon they were everywhere—over-running the towns, infesting the cities. And now they ruled the night. The hunting spiders were so fast and so deadly, no one left home after dark anymore.

But people could still get around during the day—as long as they stayed away from the webs. The webbers were fat and shiny and slower; they stretched their silky nets across streets and alleys, between trees and bushes—and waited. They could be controlled…sort of. Spider kill teams could fry them with flamethrowers and destroy their webs, but it was a losing battle: Next day there’d be a new web and a new fat, shiny spider waiting to pounce.

And sometimes the spiders got the kill teams…like Dad’s.

Toby didn’t like to think about what probably happened to Dad, so he tuned the TV to its only useful purpose: PlayStation. NHL Hockey and Metal Gear Solid 7 were his favorites. They helped keep him from thinking too much. He didn’t mind spending the whole day with them.

Not that he ever got to do that. Mom eventually stepped in and made him read or do something “more productive” with his time. Toby couldn’t think of anything more productive than figuring out all of the MGS 7’s secrets, or practicing breaking the glass on NHL Hockey, but Mom just didn’t get it.

But today he knew he’d get in some serious MGS. Mom was doing laundry and she’d just keep making trips up and down to the basement and wouldn’t notice how long he had been playing.

As he was readying to pounce on an enemy guard he heard a cry and a loud crashing sound. He dropped the controller and ran into the kitchen. The basement door was open. He looked down and saw his mother crumpled at the bottom of the steps.

“Mom!” he cried, running down the steps. “Mom, what happened? Are you okay?”

She nodded weakly and attempted to sit up, but groaned with agony and clutched at her thigh.

“My leg! Oh, God, it’s my leg.”

Toby helped her back down. She looked up at him. Her eyes were glazed with pain.

“I tripped on the loose board in that step.” She pointed to the spot. “I think my leg is broken. See if you can help me get up.”

Toby fought back tears. “Don’t move, Mom.”

He ran upstairs and dialed Dr. Murphy, their family doctor, but the phone was out again. He pulled pillows and comforters from the linen closet and surrounded her with them, making her as comfortable as possible.

“I’m going to get help,” he said, ready for her reaction.

“Absolutely not. The spiders will get you. I lost your father. I don’t want to lose you too. You’re not going anywhere, and I mean it.” But her voice was weak. She looked like she was going into shock.

Toby knew he had to act fast. He kissed her cheek.

“I’m going for Doc Murphy. I’ll be right back.”

Before his mother could protest, he was on his way up the steps, heading for the garage. The Murphy house was only a few blocks away. He could bike there in five minutes. If Dr. Murphy wasn’t in, Mrs. Murphy would know how to help him.

He could do it. It was still light out. All he had to do was steer clear of any webs and he’d be all right. The webbers didn’t chase their prey. The really dangerous spiders, the hunters, only came out at night.

As his hand touched the handle of the door into the garage, he hesitated. The back door…he had closed it yesterday…hadn’t he? Yes. Yes, he was sure. Almost positive.

Toby pressed his ear against the wood and flipped the switch that turned on the overhead lights in the garage, hoping to startle anything lying in wait on the other side. He listened for eight long legs rustling about…but heard nothing…quiet in there.

Still, he was afraid to open the door.

Then he heard his mother’s moan from the basement and knew he was wasting time. Had to move. Now or never.

Taking a deep breath, he turned the handle and yanked the door open, ready to slam it closed again in an instant. Nothing. All quiet. Empty. Just the tools on the wall, the wheelbarrow in the corner, his bike by the back door, and the Jeep. No place for a spider to hide…except under the Jeep. Toby had a terrible feeling about the shadows under the Jeep…something could be there…

Quickly he dropped to one knee and looked under it—nothing. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

He closed the door behind him and headed for his bike. Toby wished he could drive. It’d be nothing to get to Doc Murphy’s if he could take the Jeep. He checked the back door—firmly latched. All that worry for nothing. He checked the backyard through the window in the door. Nothing moving. No fresh webs.

His heart began pounding against the inner surface of his ribs as he pulled the door open and stuck his head out. All clear. Still, anything could be lurking around the corner.

I’m going for Doc Murphy. I’ll be right back.

Sounded so simple down in the basement. Now…

Gritting his teeth, he grabbed his bike, pulled it through the door, and hopped on. He made a wide swing across the grass to give him a view of the side of the garage. No web, nothing lurking. Relieved, he pedaled onto the narrow concrete path and zipped out to the front of the house. The driveway was asphalt, the front yard was open and the only web in sight was between the two cherry trees to his left in front of the Sullivans’ house next door. Something big and black crouched among the leaves.

Luckily he wasn’t going that way. He picked up speed and was just into his turn when the ground to his right at the end of the driveway moved. A circle of grass and dirt as big around as a manhole cover angled up and a giant trapdoor spider leaped out at him. Toby cried out and made a quick cut to his left. The spider’s poisonous falces reached for him. He felt the breeze on his face as they just missed. One of them caught his rear wheel and he almost went over, almost lost control, but managed to hang on to the handlebars and keep going, leaving it behind.

Toby sobbed with relief. God, that had been close! He glanced back from the street and saw the trapdoor spider backing into its home, pulling the lid down over itself, moving fast, almost as if it was afraid. Toby started to yell at it but the words clogged in his throat. A brown shape was moving across his front lawn, big and fast.

Toby heard himself cry, “No!” The wolf spider from last night! It wasn’t supposed to be out in the day. It was a night hunter. The only thing that could bring it out in the day was…

Hunger.

He saw it jump on the lid to the trapdoor spider’s lair and try to force its way in, but the cover was down to stay. Then it turned toward Toby and started after him.

Toby yelped with terror and drove his feet against the pedals. He was already pedaling for all he was worth down the middle of the empty street, but fear added new strength to his legs. The bike leaped ahead.

But not far enough ahead. A glance back showed the wolf spider gaining, its eight legs a blur of speed as they carried it closer. It poisonous falces were extended, reaching hungrily for him.

Toby groaned with fear. He put his head down and forced every ounce of strength into his pumping legs. When he chanced another quick look over his shoulder, the wolf spider was farther behind.

“Yes!” he whispered, for he had breath enough only for a whisper.

And then he noticed that the wolf spider had slowed to a stop.

I beat him!

But when he faced front again he saw why the wolf had stopped—a huge funnel web spanned the street just ahead of him. Toby cried out and hit the brakes, turned the wheel, swerved, slid, but it was too late. He slammed into the silky net and was engulfed in the sticky strands.

Terror engulfed him as well. He panicked, feeling as if he was going to cry or throw up, or both. But he managed to get a grip, get back in control. He could get out of this. It was just a spider web. All he had to do was break free of these threads. But the silky strands were thick as twine, and sticky as Krazy Glue. He couldn’t break them, couldn’t pull them off his skin, and the more he struggled, the more entangled he became.

He quickly exhausted himself and hung there limp and sweaty, sobbing for breath. He had to get free! What about Mom? Who’d help her? Worry for her spurred him to more frantic squirming that only made the silk further tighten its hold. He began shouting for help. Someone had to hear him and help him out of this web.

And then a shadow fell over him. He looked up. Something was coming but it wasn’t help. The owner of the web was gliding down from the dark end of the funnel high up in the tree, and oh, God, she was big. And shiny black. Her abdomen was huge, almost too big for her eight long spindly legs to carry. Her eyes, blacker spots set in the black of her head, were fixed on him. She leapt the last six feet and grasped him with her forelegs.

Toby screamed and shut his eyes, waiting for the poisonous falces to pierce him.

Please let it be quick!

But instead of pain he felt his body being lifted and turned, and turned again, and again. He was getting dizzy. He opened his eyes and saw that the spider was rolling him over and over with her spindly legs, like a lumberjack on a log, all the while spinning yards and yards of web from the tip of her abdomen, wrapping his body in a cocoon, but leaving his head free. He struggled against the bonds but it was useless—he might as well have been wrapped in steel.

And then she was dragging him upward, higher into the web, into the funnel. He passed the shriveled-up corpses of squirrels and birds, and even another spider much like herself, but smaller. Her mate? Near the top of the funnel she spun more web and attached him to the wall, then moved off, leaving him hanging like a side of beef.

What was she doing? Wasn’t she going to kill him? Or was she saving him for later? His mind raced. Yes. Save me for later. As long as he was alive there was hope. Her web was across a street…good chance a kill team would come along and clear it…kill her, free him. Yes. He still had a chance…

Movement to his right caught his eye. About a foot away, something else was hanging from the web wall, also wrapped in a thick coat of silk. Smaller than Toby—maybe the size of a full grocery bag. Whatever was inside was struggling to get out. Probably some poor dog or raccoon that got caught earlier.

“Don’t worry, fella,” Toby said. “When the kill team gets me out, I’ll see you get free too.”

The struggle within the smaller cocoon became more frantic.

It must have heard my voice, he thought.

And then Toby saw a little break appear in the surface of the cocoon. Whatever was inside was chewing through! How was that possible? This stuff was tough as—

And then Toby saw what was breaking through.

A spider. A fist-sized miniature of the one that had hung him here emerged. And then another, and another, until the little cocoon was engulfed in a squirming mass of baby spiders.

Toby gagged. That wasn’t a cocoon. That was an egg mass. And they were hatching. He screamed, and that was the wrong thing because they immediately began swarming toward him, hundreds of them, thousands, flowing across the web wall, crawling up his body, burrowing into his cocoon, racing toward his face.

Toby screamed as he had never screamed in his life—

* * *

And woke up.

He blinked. He was paralyzed with fear, but as his eyes adjusted to the dawn light seeping through the window, he recognized his bedroom and began to relax.

A dream…but what a dream! The worst nightmare of his life! He was weak with relief. He wanted to cry, he wanted to—

“Toby!” His mother’s voice—she sounded scared. “Toby, are you all right?”

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

“Thank God! I’ve been calling you for so long! A spider got into the house! I opened the door to the garage and it was there!”

The back door! Oh, no! I didn’t latch it!

“It jumped on me and I fainted. But it didn’t kill me. It wrapped me up in web and then it left. Come get me free!”

Toby went to leap out of bed but couldn’t move. He looked down and saw that he wasn’t under his blanket—he and his bed were webbed with a thick layer of sticky silk. He struggled but after a few seconds he knew that he was trapped.

“Hurry up, Toby!” his mother cried. “There’s something else in here with me all wrapped up in web. And it’s moving. I’m scared, Toby. Please get me out!”

Panicked, Toby scanned the room. He found the egg mass attached to his bedpost, a few inches from his head, wriggling, squirming with internal life, a many-legged horde of internal life.

We’re going to end up like the Hansens!

“Oh, Mom!” he sobbed. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!”

And then the first wolf spider hatchling broke free of the egg mass and dropped onto his pillow.

Toby screamed as he had never screamed in his life.

But this time he wasn’t dreaming.

COPPE

INTRODUCTION

In the fall of 1994 I got a call from Janet Berliner asking me if I’d like to do a magic-related story for a David Copperfield anthology. His name would be on the cover but she’d be doing all the editing. I’d been kicking around an idea about a magic word—the right word. Whenever you used it to answer a question, the listener always heard the right answer, the best answer for you.

Powerful stuff. What a hook. Who wouldn’t want to know that word?

The story was the easy part. But the word…showing you some neologism you could pronounce would take you out of the story. But what if you couldn’t pronounce it? What if it appeared in the text as gibberish?

I instructed the typesetter to use a double overprint of DAVID / COPPE / RFIEL for the word. It worked. The result was COPPE. Pure gibberish.

David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible was released in the fall of 1995. We had a big signing at a Fifth Avenue Barnes and Noble, then a party at Manhattan’s Fashion Café. Janet and Matt and Ray Feist and other contributors were there, but we were relegated to the main-floor area while Copperfield and his supposed fiancée, Claudia Schiffer, kept to themselves on a raised, cordoned-off platform. We groundlings were allowed to look but not speak to or approach these ethereal beings. Freaking hilarious. I mean, what planet do these clowns hail from?

I love the story, though.

COPPE

As promised, the first installment of Dennis Nickleby’s Three Months to Financial Independence arrives exactly two weeks after I called the toll-free number provided by his infomercial. I toss out the accompanying catalogs and “Occupant” bulk mail, then tear at the edges of the cardboard mailer.

This is it. My new start. Today is the first day of the rest of my life, and starting today my life will be very different. I’ll be organized, I’ll have specific goals and a plan to achieve them—I’ll have an agenda.

Never had an agenda before. And as long as this agenda doesn’t involve a job, that’s cool. Never been a nine-to-fiver. Tend to ad-lib as I go along. Prefer to think of myself as an investor. Now I’ll be an investor with an agenda. And Dennis Nickleby’s tapes are going to guide me.

Maybe they can help me with my personal life too. I’m sort of between girlfriends now. Seem to have trouble keeping them. Denice was the last. She walked out two weeks ago. Called me a couch potato—said I was a fat slob who doesn’t do anything but read and watch TV.

Not fair. And not true. All right, so I am a little overweight, but not as overweight as I look. Lots of guys in their mid-thirties weigh more than I do. It’s just that at five-eight it shows more. At least I still have all my hair. And I’m not ugly or anything.

As for spending a lot of time on the couch—guilty. But I’m doing research. My folks left me some money and I’m always looking for a better place to put it to work. I’ve got a decent net worth, live in a nice high-rise in North Jersey where I can see the Manhattan skyline. I make a good income from my investments without ever leaving the house. But that doesn’t mean I’m not working at it.

Good as things are, I know I can do better. And the Nickleby course is going to take me to that next level. I can feel it. And I’m more than ready.

My hands shake as I pull the glossy vinyl video box from the wrapper. Grinning back at me is a young, darkly handsome man with piercing blue eyes and dazzling teeth. Dennis Nickleby. Thirty years old and already a multi-millionaire. Everything this guy touches turns to gold. But does he want to hoard his investing secrets? No way. He’s willing to share them with the little guy—guys like me with limited capital and unlimited dreams. What a mensch.

Hey, I’m no sucker. I’ve seen Tony Robbins and those become-a-real-estate-millionaire-with-no-money-down infomercials. I’m home a lot so I see lots of infomercials. Trust me, they roll off me like water off a duck. But Dennis Nickleby…he’s different. He looked out from that TV screen and I knew he was talking to me. To me. I knew what he was offering would change my life. The price was stiff—five hundred bucks—but well worth it if he delivered a mere tenth of what he was offering. Certainly a better investment than some of those do-nothing stocks in my account.

I whipped out my credit card, grabbed the phone, punched in his 800 number, and placed my order.

And now it’s here. I lift the lid of the box and—

“Shit!”

There’s supposed to be a videotape inside—lesson one. What do I find? An audiocassette. And it’s not even a new one. It’s some beat-up piece of junk.

I’m fuming. I’m so pissed I’m ready to dump this piece of garbage on the floor and grind it into the carpet. But I do not do this. I take three deep breaths, calm myself, then march to the phone. Very gently I punch in Mr. Nickleby’s 800 number—it’s on the back of the tape box—and get some perky little babe on the phone. I start yelling about consumer fraud, about calling the attorney general, about speaking to Dennis Nickleby himself. She asks why I’m so upset and I’m hardly into my explanation when she lets loose this high-pitched squeal.

“You’re the one! Ooh, goody! We’ve been hoping you’d call!”

“Hoping?”

“Yes! Mr. Nickleby was here himself. He was so upset. He learned that some- how the wrong kind of tape got into one of his Three Months to Financial Independence boxes. He instructed us that should we hear from anyone who got an audio cassette instead of a video cassette, we should tell them not to worry. A brand new video cassette of Three Months to Financial Independence would be hand delivered to them immediately! Now, what do you think of that?”

“I…I…” I’m flabbergasted. This man is on top of everything. Truly he knows how to run a business. “I think that’s incredible.”

“Just give us your name and address and we’ll get that replacement to you immediately!”

“It’s Michael Moulton.” I give her the address.

“Ooh! Hackensack. That’s not far from here!”

“Just over the GW Bridge.”

“Well, then! You should have your replacement very soon!”

“Good.”

Her terminal perkiness is beginning to get to me. I’m hurrying to hang up when she says, “Oh, and one more thing. Mr. Nickleby said to tell you not to do anything with the audiocassette. Just close it up in the box it came in and wait for the replacement tape. The messenger will take it in exchange for the videotape.”

“Fine. Good—”

“Remember that now—close the audiotape in the holder and wait. Okay?”

“Right. Cool. Good-bye.”

I hang up thinking, Whatever she’s taking, I want some.

Being a good boy, I snap the video box cover closed and am about to place it on the end table by the door when curiosity tickles me and I start to wonder what’s on this tape. Is it maybe from Dennis Nickleby’s private collection? A bootleg jazz or rock tape? Or better yet, some dictation that might give away one or two investment secrets not on the videotape?

I know right then there’s no way I’m not going to listen to this tape, so why delay? I pop it into my cassette deck and hit PLAY.

Nothing. I crank up the volume—some static, some hiss, and nothing else. I fast forward and still nothing. I’m about to hit STOP when I hear some high-pitched gibberish. I rewind a little and replay at regular speed.

Finally this voice comes on. Even with the volume way up I can barely hear it. I press my ear to the speaker. Whoever it is…whispering.

“The only word you need to know: COPPE.”

And that’s it. I fast forward all the way to the end and nothing. I go back and listen to that one sentence again. “The only word you need to know: COPPE.”

Got to be a garble. Somebody erased the tape and the heads missed a spot.

Oh, well.

Disappointed, I rewind it, pop it out, and close it up in the video box.

* * *

So here I am, not an hour later, fixing a sandwich and watching the stock quotes on CNBC when there’s a knock on my apartment door. I check through the peephole and almost choke.

Dennis Nickleby himself!

I fumble the door open and he steps inside.

“Mr. Nickleby!”

“Do you have it?”

He’s sweating and puffing like he sprinted the ten flights to my floor instead of taking the elevator. His eyes are darting everywhere so fast they seem to be moving in opposite directions—like a chameleon’s. Finally they come to rest on the end table.

“There! That’s it!”

He lunges for the video box, pops it open, snatches the cassette from inside.

“You didn’t listen to it, did you?”

Something in his eyes and voice tell me to play this one close to the vest. But I don’t want to lie to Dennis Nickleby.

“Should I have? I will if you want me to.”

“No-no,” he says quickly. “That won’t be necessary.” He hands me an identical video box. “Here’s the replacement. Terribly sorry for the mix-up.”

I laugh. “Yeah. Some mix-up. How’d that ever happen?”

“Someone playing games.” His eyes go subzero for an instant. “But no harm done.”

“You want to sit down? I was just making lunch—”

“Thank you, no. I’d love to but my schedule won’t permit it. Maybe some other time.” He extends his hand. “Once again, sorry for the inconvenience. Enjoy the tape.”

And then he’s out the door and gone. I stand there staring at the spot where he stood. Dennis Nickleby himself came by to replace the tape. Personally. Wow. And then it occurs to me: Check the new box.

I pop it open. Yes sir. There’s the Three Months to Financial Independence videotape. At last.

But what’s the story with that audio cassette? He seemed awful anxious to get it back. And what for? It was totally blank except for that one sentence—The only word you need to know: COPPE. What’s that all about?

I’d like to look it up in the dictionary, but who knows how to spell something so weird sounding. And besides, I don’t have a dictionary. Maybe I’ll try later at the local library—once I find out where the local library is. Right now I’ve got to transfer some money to my checking account so I can pay my Visa bill when the five-hundred-buck charge to Nickleby, Inc., shows up on this month’s statement.

I call Gary, my discount broker, to sell some stock. I’ve been in Castle Petrol for a while and it’s doing squat. Now’s as good a time as any to get out. I tell Gary to dump all 200 shares. Then it occurs to me that Gary’s a pretty smart guy. Even finished college.

“Hey, Gary. You ever hear of COPPE?”

“Can’t say as I have. But if it exists, I can find it for you. You interested?”

“Yeah. I’m very interested.”

“You got it.”

Yeah, well, I don’t get it. All right, maybe I do get it, but it’s not what I’m expecting, and not till two days later.

Meantime I stay busy with Dennis Nickleby’s videotape. Got to say, it’s kind of disappointing. Nothing I haven’t heard elsewhere. Strange…after seeing his infomercial, I was sure this was going to be just the thing for me.

Then I open an envelope from the brokerage. Inside I find the expected sell confirm for the two hundred shares of Castle Petrol at 10.25, but with it is a buy confirm for two thousand shares of something called Thai Cord, Inc.

What the hell is Thai Cord? Gary took the money from Castle Petrol and put it in a stock I’ve never heard of! I’m baffled. He’s never done anything like that. Must be a mistake. I call him.

“Hey, dude,” he says as soon as he comes on the line. “Who’s your source?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Thai Cord. It’s up to five this morning. Boy, you timed that one perfectly.”

“Five?” I swallow. I was ready to take his head off, now I learn I’ve made eight thousand in two days. “Gary…why did you put me into Thai Cord?”

“Why? Because you asked me to. You said you were very interested in it. I’d never heard of it, but I looked it up and bought it for you.” He sounds genuinely puzzled. “Wasn’t that why you called the other day? To sell Castle and buy Thai? Hey, whatever, man—you made a killing.”

“I know I made a killing, Gary, and no one’s gladder than me, but—”

“You want to stay with it?”

“I just want to get something straight: Yesterday I asked you if you’d ever heard of COPPE.”

“No way, pal. I know ParkerGen. NASDAQ—good high-tech, speculative stock. You said Thai Cord.”

I’m getting annoyed now. “COPPE, Gary. COPPE!”

“I can hear you, Mike. ParkerGen, ParkerGen. Are you all right?”

At this moment I’m not so sure. Suddenly I’m chilled, and there’s this crawly feeling on the nape of my neck. I say one thing—The only word you need to know—and Gary hears another.

“Mike? You still there?”

“Yeah. Still here.”

My mind’s racing. What the hell’s going on?

“What do you want me to do? Sell the Thai and buy ParkerGen? Is that it?”

I make a snap decision. Something weird’s going down and I want to check it out. And what the hell, it’s all found money.

“Yeah. Put it all into ParkerGen.”

“Okay. It’s running three and an eighth today. I’ll grab you three thousand.”

“Great.”

I get off the phone and start to pace my apartment. I’m wired. I’ve got this crazy idea cooking in my brain…

…the only word you need to know: COPPE.

What if…?

Nah. It’s too crazy. But if it’s true, there’s got to be a way to check it out.

And then I have it. The ponies. They’re running at the Meadowlands today. I’ll invest a few hours in research. If I hurry I can make the first race.

I know it’s completely nuts, but I’ve got to know…

* * *

I just make it. I rush to the ten-dollar window and say, “COPPE in the first.”

The teller doesn’t even glance up; he takes my ten, punches a few buttons, and out pops my ticket. I grab it and look at it: I’ve bet on some nag named Yesterday’s Gone.

I don’t bother going to the grandstand. I stand under one of the monitors. I see the odds on Yesterday’s Gone are three to one. The trotters are lined up, ready to go.

“And they’re off!”

I watch with a couple of other guys in polo shirts and polyester pants who’re standing around. I’m not too terribly surprised when Yesterday’s Gone crosses the finish line first. I’ve now got thirty bucks where I had ten a few minutes ago, but I’ve also got that crawly feeling at the back of my neck again.

This has gone from crazy to creepy.

With the help of the Daily Double and the Trifecta, by the time I leave the track I’ve parlayed my original ten bucks into sixty-two hundred. I could have made more but I’m getting nervous. I don’t want to attract too much attention.

As I’m driving away I can barely keep from flooring the gas pedal. I’m wired—positively giddy. It’s like some sort of drug. I feel like king of the world. I’ve got to keep going. But how? Where?

I pass a billboard telling me about “5 TIMES MORE DICE ACTION!” at Caesar’s in Atlantic City.

My question has been answered.

* * *

I pick Caesar’s because of the billboard. I’ve never been much for omens but I’m into them now. Big time.

I’m also trying to figure out what else I’m into with this weird word. The only word you need to know…

All you need to know to win. That has to be it: The word makes you a winner. If I say it whenever I’m about to take a chance—on a horse or a stock, at least—I’m a guaranteed winner.

This has got to be why Dennis Nickleby’s such a success. He knows the word. That’s why he was so anxious to get it back—he doesn’t want anybody else to know it. Wants to keep it all to himself.

Bastard.

And then I think, no, not a bastard. I’ve got to ask myself if I’m about to share the word with anybody else. The answer is a very definite en-oh. I get the feeling I’ve just joined a very exclusive club. Only thing is, the other members don’t know I’ve joined.

I also get the feeling there’s no such thing as a game of chance for me anymore.

Cool.

* * *

The escalator deposits me on the casino floor. All the way down the Parkway I’ve been trying to decide what to try first—blackjack, poker, roulette, craps—what? But soon as I come within sight of the casino, I know. Flashing lights dead ahead:

PROGRESSIVE SLOTS! $802,672!!!

The prize total keeps rising as players keep plunking their coins into the gangs of one-armed bandits.

I wind through the crowds and the smoke and the noise toward the progressive slots section. Along the way I stop at a change cart and hand the mini-togaed blonde a five.

“Dollars,” I say, “even though I’m going to need just one to win.”

“Right on,” she says, but I can tell she doesn’t believe me.

She will. I take my Susan B. Anthonys and say, “You’ll see.”

I reach the progressive section and hunt up a machine. It isn’t easy. Everybody here is at least a hundred years old and they’d probably give up one of their grandkids before they let somebody use their damn machine. Finally I see a hunched old blue-hair run out of money and leave her machine. I dart in, drop a coin in the slot, then I notice the machine takes up to three. I gather if I’m going to win the full amount I’d better drop two more. I do. I grab the handle…and hesitate. This is going to get me a lot of attention. Do I want that? I mean, I’m a private kind of guy. Then I look up at the $800,000-and-growing jackpot and know I want that.

Screw the publicity.

I whisper, “COPPE,” and yank the handle.

I close my eyes as the wheels spin; I hear them begin to stop: First window—choonk! Second window—choonk! Third window—choonk! A bell starts ringing! Coins start dropping into the tray! I did it!

Abruptly the bell and the coins stop. I open my eyes. There’s no envious crowd around me, no flashing cameras. Nobody’s even looking my way. I glance down at the tray. Six dollars. I check out the windows. Two cherries and an orange. The red LED reads, “Pays 6.”

I’m baffled. Where’s my $800,000 jackpot? The crawling feeling that used to be on my neck is now in the pit of my stomach. What happened? Did I blow it? Is the word wearing out?

I grab three coins from the tray and shove them in. I say, “COPPE,” again, louder this time, and pull that handle.

Choonk! Choonk! Choonk!

Nothing this time. Nothing!

I’m getting scared now. The power is fading fast. Three more coins, I damn near shout, “COPPE!” as I pull the goddamn handle. Choonk! Choonk! Choonk!

Nothing! Zip! Bupkis!

I slam my hand against the machine. “Damn, you! What’s wrong?”

“Easy, fella,” says the old dude next to me. “That won’t help. Maybe you should take a break.”

I walk away without looking at him. I’m devastated. What if I only had a few days with this word and now my time is up? I wasted it at the track when I could have been buying and shorting stocks on margin. The smoke, the crowds, the incessant chatter and mechanical noise of the casino is driving me to panic. I have to get out of here. I’m just about to break into a run when it hits me.

The word…what if it only works on people? Slot machines can’t hear…

I calm myself. Okay. Let’s be logical here. What’s the best way to test the word in a casino?

Cards? Nah. Too many possible outcomes, too many other players to muddy the waters.

Craps? Again, too many ways to win or lose.

What’s a game with high odds and a very definite winner?

I scan the floor, searching…and then I see it.

Roulette.

But how can I use the word at a roulette table?

I hunt around for a table with an empty seat. I spot one between this middle-aged nerd who’s got to be an optometrist, and a mousy, thirtyish redhead who looks like one of his patients. Suddenly I know what I’m going to do.

I pull a hundred-dollar bill from my Meadowlands roll and grip it between my thumb and index finger. Then I twist up both my hands into deformed knots.

As I sit down I say to the redhead, “Could I trouble you to place my bets for me?”

She glances at my face through her Coke-bottle lenses, then at my twisted hands. Her eyes dart back to my face. She gives me a half-hearted smile.

“Sure. No problem.”

“I’ll split my winnings with you.” If I win.

“That’s okay. Really.”

I make a show of difficulty dropping the hundred-dollar bill from my fingers, then I push it across the table.

“Tens, please.”

A stack of ten chips is shoved in front of me.

“All bets down,” the croupier says.

“Put one on COPPE, please,” I tell the redhead, and hold my breath.

I glance around but no one seems to hear anything strange. Red takes a chip off the top of my pile and drops it on 33.

I’m sweating bullets now. My bladder wants to find a men’s room. This has got to work. I’ve got to know if the word still has power. I want to close my eyes but I don’t dare. I’ve got to see this.

The ball circles counter to the wheel, loses speed, slips toward the middle, hits rough terrain, bounces chaotically about, then clatters into a numbered slot.

“Thirty-three,” drones the croupier.

The redhead squeals and claps her hands. “You won! Your first bet and you won!”

I’m drenched. I’m weak. My voice is hoarse when I say, “You must be my good luck charm. Don’t go anywhere.”

Truth is, it could be luck. A cruel twist of fate. I tell Red to move it all over to “COPPE.”

She looks shocked. “All of it? You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

She pushes the stack over to the 17 box.

Another spin. “Seventeen,” the croupier says.

Now I close my eyes. I’ve got it. The word’s got the power and I’ve got the word. The only word you need to know. I want to pump a fist into the air and scream “YES!” but I restrain myself. I am disabled, after all.

“Ohmigod!” Red is whispering. “That’s…that’s…!”

“A lot of money,” I say. “And half of it’s yours.”

Her blue eyes fairly bulge against the near sides of her lenses. “What? Oh, no! I couldn’t!”

“And I couldn’t play without your help. I said I’d split with you and I meant it.”

She has her hand over her mouth. Her words are muffled through her fingers. “Oh, thank you. You don’t know—”

“All bets down,” says the croupier.

No more letting it ride. My winnings far exceed the table limit. I notice that the pit boss has materialized and is standing next to the croupier. He’s watching me and eyeing the megalopolis skyline of chips stacked in front of me. Hitting the winning number two times in a row—it happens in roulette, but not too damn often.

“Put five hundred on sixteen,” I tell Red.

She does, and 22 comes up. Next I tell her five hundred on nine. Twelve comes up.

The pit boss drifts away.

“Don’t worry,” Red says with a reassuring pat on my arm. “You’re still way ahead.”

“Do I look worried?”

I tell her to put another five hundred on “COPPE.” She puts the chips on 19.

A minute later the croupier calls, “Nineteen.” Red squeals again. I lean back as the croupier starts stacking my winnings.

No need to go any further. I know how this works. I realize I am now the Ultimate Winner. If I want to I can break the bank at Caesar’s. I can play the table limit on one number after another, and collect a thirty-five-to-one payout every couple of minutes. A crowd will gather. The house will have to keep playing—corporate pride will force them to keep paying. I can own the place, damn it!

But the Ultimate Winner chooses not to.

Noblesse oblige.

What does the Ultimate Winner want with a casino? Bigger winnings await.

Winning…there’s nothing like it. It’s ecstasy, racing through my veins, tingling like bolts of electricity along my nerve endings. Sex is nothing next to this. I feel buoyant, like I could float off this chair and buzz around the room.

I stand.

“Where are you going?” Red says, looking up at me with those magnified blue eyes.

“Home. Thanks for your help.” I turn and start looking for an exit sign.

“But your chips…”

I figure there’s close to thirty G’s on the table, but there’s lots more where that came from.

“Keep them.”

What does the Ultimate Winner want with casino chips?

* * *

Next day, I’m home in my apartment, reading the morning paper. I see that ParkerGen has jumped two and one-eighth points to five and a half. Sixty-one percent profit overnight.

After a sleepless night, I’ve decided the stock market is the best way to use the word. I can make millions upon millions there and no one will so much as raise an eyebrow. No one will care except the IRS, and I will pay my taxes, every penny of them, and gladly.

Who cares about taxes when you’re looking at more money than you’ll ever spend in ten lifetimes? The feds will take half, leaving me to eke by on a mere five lifetimes’ worth of cash. I can hack that.

A hard knock on the door. Who the hell—?

I look through the peephole.

Dennis Nickleby! I’m so surprised, I pull open the door without thinking.

“Mr. Nickle—!”

He sucker-punches me in the gut. As I double over, groaning, he shoves me to the floor and slams the door shut behind him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he shouts. “You lied to me! You told me you didn’t listen to that tape! You bastard! If you’d been straight with me, I could have warned you. Now the shit’s about to hit the fan and we’re both standing downwind!”

I’m still on the floor, gasping. He really caught me.

I manage a weak, “What are you talking about?”

His face reddens and he pulls back his foot. “Play dumb with me and I’ll kick your teeth down your throat!”

I hold up a hand. “Okay. Okay.” I swallow back some bile. “I heard the word. I used it a few times. How’d you find out?”

“I’ve got friends inside the Order.”

“Order?”

“Never mind. The point is, you’re not authorized to use it. And you’re going to get us both killed if you don’t stop.”

He already grabbed my attention with the punch. Now he’s got it big time.

“Killed?”

“Yeah. Killed. And I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if it was just you. But they’ll send an actuator after me for letting you have it.”

I struggle to a crouch and slide into a chair.

“This is all bullshit, right?”

“Don’t I wish. Look, let me give you a quick history lesson so you’ll appreciate what you’ve gotten yourself into. The Order goes way back—way back. They’ve got powers, and they’ve got an agenda. Throughout history they’ve loaned certain powers to certain carefully chosen individuals.”

“Like who?”

“Like I don’t know who. I’m not a member so they don’t let me in on their secrets. Just think of the most powerful people in history, the movers and shakers—Alexander the Great, Constantine, some of the popes, the Renaissance guys—they all probably had some help from the Order. I’ve got a feeling Hitler was another. It would explain how he could sway a whole nation the way he did.”

“Oh.” I knew I had to be feeling a little better because I was also feeling sarcastic. “An order of evil monks, ruling the world. I’m shaking.”

He stares at me a long moment, then gives his head a slow shake. “You really are an ass, Moulton. First off, I never said they were monks. Just because they’re an order doesn’t mean they skulk around in hooded robes. And they don’t rule the world; they merely support forces or movements or people they feel will further their agenda. And as for evil…I don’t know if good or evil applies to these folks because I don’t know their goals. Look at it this way: I’ll bet the Order helped out the robber barons. Not to make a bunch of greedy bastards rich, but because it was on the Order’s agenda to speed up the industrialization of America. Are you catching the drift?”

“And so they came to you and gave you this magic word. What’s that make you? The next Rocke feller?”

He seems to withdraw into himself. His eyes become troubled. “I don’t know. I don’t have the foggiest idea why I was chosen or what they think I’ll accomplish with the Answer. They gave me the tape, told me to memorize the Answer, and then destroy the tape. They told me to use the Answer however I saw fit, and that was it. No strings. No goals. No instructions whatsoever other than destroying the tape.”

“Which you didn’t do.”

He sighs. “Which I didn’t do.”

“And you call me an ass?” I say.

His eyes harden. “Everything would have been fine if my soon-to-be-ex-wife hadn’t raided my safe deposit box and decided to play some games with its contents.”

“You think she’s listened to the tape?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. The tape is ashes now, so she won’t get a second chance. And if she did hear the Answer, she hasn’t used it, or figured out its power. You have to be pretty smart or pretty lucky to catch on.”

Preferring to place myself in the former category, I say, “It wasn’t all that hard. But why do you call it the Answer?”

“What do you call it?”

“I’ve been calling it ‘the word.’ I guess I could be more specific and call it ‘the Win Word.’”

He sneers. “You think this is just about winning? You idiot. That word is the Answer—the best answer to any question asked. The listener hears the most appropriate, most profitable, all-around best response. And that’s power, Michael Moulton. Power that’s too big for the likes of you.”

“Just a minute now. I can see how that worked with my broker, but I wasn’t answering questions when I was betting the ponies or playing roulette. I was telling people.”

The sneer deepens. “Horses…roulette…” He shakes his head in disgust. “Like driving a Maserati to the local 7-Eleven for a quart of milk. All right, I’ll say this slowly so you’ll get it: The Answer works with all sorts of questions, including implied questions. And what is the implied question when you walk up to a betting window or sit down at a gaming table? It’s ‘How much do you want to bet on what?’ When you say ten bucks on Phony Baloney, you’re answering that question.”

“Oh, right.”

He steps closer and stands over me. “I hope you enjoyed your little fling with the Answer. You can keep whatever money you made, but that’s it for you.”

“Hey, if you think I’m giving up a gold mine like that, you’re nuts.”

“I had a feeling you’d say something like that.”

He reaches into his suit coat pocket and pulls out a pistol. I don’t know what kind it is and don’t care. All I know is that its silenced muzzle is pointing in my face.

“Hey! Wait!”

“Good-bye, Michael Moulton. I was hoping to be able to reason with you, but you’re too big an asshole for that. You don’t leave me any choice.”

I see the way the gun wavers in his hand, I hear the quaver in his voice as he keeps talking without shooting, and I flash that this sort of thing is all new to him and he’s almost as scared as I am right now.

So I move. I leap up, grab the gun barrel, and push it upward, twisting it with everything I’ve got. Nickleby yelps as the gun goes off with a phut! The backs of his legs catch the edge of the coffee table and we go down. I land on him hard, knocking the wind out of him, and suddenly I’ve got the gun all to myself.

I get to my feet and now I’m pointing it at him. And then he makes a noise that sounds like a sob.

“Damn it! Damn it to hell! Go ahead and shoot. I’ll be a dead man anyway if you go on using the Answer. And so will you.”

I consider this. He doesn’t seem to be lying. But he doesn’t seem to be thinking either.

“I don’t think we need funeral plans yet. I mean, why should we be afraid of this Order? We have the word—the Answer. All we have to do is threaten to tell the world about it. Tell them we’ll record it on a million tapes—we’ll put it on every one of those videotapes you’re peddling. Hell, we’ll buy air time and broadcast it by satellite. They make one wrong move and the whole damn world will have the Answer. What’ll that do to their agenda?”

He looks up at me bleakly. “You can’t record it. You can’t tell anybody. You can’t even write it down.”

“Bullshit.”

This may be a trick so I keep the pistol trained on him while I grab the pen and pad from the phone. I write out the word. I can’t believe my eyes. Instead of the Answer I’ve written gibberish: COPPE.

“What the hell?”

I try again, this time block printing. No difference—COPPE again.

Nickleby’s on his feet now, but he doesn’t try to get any closer.

“Believe me,” he says, more composed now, “I’ve tried everything. You can speak the Answer into the finest recording equipment in the world till you’re blue in the face and you’ll hear gibberish.”

“Then I’ll simply tell it to everybody I know!”

“And what do you think they’ll hear? If they’ve got a question on their mind, they’ll hear the best possible answer. If not, they’ll hear gibberish. What they won’t hear is the Answer itself.”

“Then how’d these Order guys get it onto your tape?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. They have ways of doing all sorts of things—like finding out when somebody unauthorized uses the Answer. Maybe they know every time anybody uses the Answer. That’s why you’ve got to stop.”

I don’t reply. I glance down at the meaningless jumble I’ve written without intending to. Something big at work here. Very Big.

He goes on. “I don’t think it’s too late. My source in the Order told me that if I can silence you—and that doesn’t mean kill you, just stop you from using the Answer—then the Order will let it go. But if you go on using it…well, then, it’s curtains for both of us.”

I’m beginning to believe him.

A note of pleading creeps into his voice. “I’ll set you up. You want money, I’ll give you money. As much as you want. You want to play the market? Call and ask me the best stock to buy—I’ll tell you. You want to play the ponies? I’ll go to the track with you. You want to be rich? I’ll give you a million—two, three, four million a year. Whatever you want. Just don’t use the Answer yourself!”

I think about that. All the money I can spend…

What I don’t like about it is I’ll feel like a leech, like I’m being kept.

Then again: All the money I can spend…

“All right. I won’t use the word and we’ll work something out.”

Nickleby stumbles over to the sofa like his knees are weak and slumps onto it. He sounds like he’s gonna sob again.

“Thank you! Oh, thank you! You’ve just saved both our lives!”

“Yeah.”

Right. I’m going to live, I’m going to be rich. So how come I ain’t exactly overcome with joy?

* * *

Things go pretty well for the next few weeks. I don’t drag him to the track or to Atlantic City or anything like that. And when I phone him and ask for a stock tip, he gives me a winner every time. My net worth is skyrocketing. Gary the broker thinks I’m a genius. I’m on my way to financial independence, untold wealth…everything I’ve ever wanted.

But you know what? It’s not the same. Doesn’t come close to what it was like when I was using the Answer myself.

Truth is, I feel like Dennis Nickleby’s goddamn mistress.

But I give myself a daily pep talk, telling myself I can hang in there. And I do hang in there. I’m doing pretty well at playing the melancholy millionaire…

Until I hear on the radio that the next Pick 6 Lotto jackpot is thirty million dollars. Thirty million dollars—with a payout of a million and a half a year for the next twenty years. That’ll do it. If I win that, I won’t need Nickleby anymore. I’ll be my own man again.

Only problem is, I’ll need to use the Answer.

I know I can ask Nickleby for the winning numbers, but that won’t cut it. I need to do this myself. I need to feel that surge of power when I speak the Answer. And then the jackpot will be my prize, not Nickleby’s.

Just once…I’ll use the Answer just this once, and then I’ll erase it from my mind and never use it again.

I go driving into the sticks and find this hole-in-the-wall candy store on a secondary road in the woods. There’s a pimply-faced kid running the counter. How the hell is this Order going to know I’ve used the Answer one lousy time out here in Nowheresville?

I hand the kid a buck. “Pick Six please.”

“You wanna Quick Pick?”

No way I want random numbers. I want the winning numbers.

“No. I’ll give them to you: COPPE.”

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be able to say that word again…like snapping the reins on my own destiny.

The kid hits a button, then looks up at me. “And?”

“And what?”

“You got to choose six numbers. That’s only one.”

My stomach lurches. Damn. I thought one Answer would provide all six. Something tells me to cut and run, but I press on. I’ve already used the Answer once—might as well go all the way.

I say COPPE five more times. He hands me the pink and white ticket. The winning numbers are 3, 4, 7, 17, 28, 30. When the little numbered Ping-Pong balls pop out of the hopper Monday night, I’ll be free of Dennis Nickleby

So how come I’m not tap dancing back to my car? Why do I feel like I’ve just screwed up…big time?

* * *

I stop for dinner along the way. When I get home I check my answering machine and there’s Nickleby’s voice. He sounds hysterical.

“You stupid bastard! You idiot! You couldn’t be happy with more money than you could ever spend! You had to go and use the Answer again! Damn you to hell, Moulton! An actuator is coming for me! And then he’ll be coming for you! Kiss your ass good-bye, jerk!”

I don’t hesitate. I don’t even grab any clothes. I run out the door, take the elevator to the garage, and get the hell out of there. I start driving in circles, unsure where to go, just sure that I’ve got to keep moving.

Truthfully, I feel like a fool for being so scared. This whole wild story about the Order and impending death is so ridiculous…yet so is that word, the word that gives the right answer to every question. And a genuinely terrified Dennis Nickleby knew I’d used it.

I make a decision and head for the city. I want to be where there’s lots of people. As I crawl through the Saturday night crush in the Lincoln Tunnel I get on my phone. I need a place to stay. Don’t want some fleabag hotel. Want something with brightly lit halls and good security.

The Plaza’s got a room. A suite. Great. I’ll take it.

I leave my car with the doorman, register like a whirlwind, and a few minutes later I’m in a two-room suite with the drapes pulled and the door locked and chained.

And now I can breathe again. But that’s about it. I order room service but I can’t eat. I go to bed but I can’t sleep. So I watch the tube. My eyes are finally glazing over when the reporter breaks in with a new story: Millionaire financial boy-wonder Dennis Nickleby is dead. An apparent suicide, he jumped from the ledge of his Fifth Avenue penthouse apartment earlier this evening. A full investigation has been launched. Details as soon as they are available.

I run to the bathroom and start to retch, but nothing comes up.

The actuator—whatever that is—got him. Just like he said. He’s dead and oh God I’m next! What am I going to do?

First thing I’ve got to do is calm down. Got to think.

I do that. I make myself sit down. I calm myself. I analyze my situation. What are my assets? I’ve got lots of money, a wallet full of credit cards, and I’m mobile. I can go on the run.

And I’ve got one more thing: the Answer.

Suddenly I’m up and pacing. The Answer! I can use the Answer itself as a defense. Yes! If I have to go to ground, it will guide me to the best place to hide.

Suddenly I’m excited. It’s so obvious.

I throw on my clothes and hurry down to the street. They probably know my car, so I jump into one of the waiting cabs.

“Where to?” says the cabby in a thickly accented voice.

The backseat smells like someone blew lunch here not too long ago. I look at the driver ID card and he’s got some unpronounceable Middle Eastern name.

I say, “COPPE.”

He nods, puts the car in gear, and we’re off.

But where to? I feel like an idiot but I’ve got to ask. I wait till he’s made a few turns, obviously heading for the East Side.

“Where are you taking me?”

“LaGuardia.” He glances over his shoulder through the plastic partition, his expression fierce. “That is what you said, is it not?”

“Yes, yes. Just want to make sure you understood.”

“I understand. I understand very good.”

LaGuardia…I’m flying out of here tonight. A new feeling begins to seep through me: hope. But despite the hope, let me tell you, it’s très weird to be traveling at top speed with no idea where you’re going.

As we take the LaGuardia exit off Grand Central Parkway, the driver says, “Which airline?”

“COPPE.”

He nods and we pull in opposite the Continental door. I pay him and hurry to the ticket counter. I tell the pretty black girl there I want first class on the next flight out.

“Out to where, sir?”

Good question.

“COPPE.”

She punches a lot of keys and finally her computer spits out a ticket. She tells me the price. I’m dying to know where I’m going but how can I ask her? I hand over my American Express. She runs it through, I sign, and then she hands me the ticket.

Cheyenne, Wyoming. Not my first choice. Not even on my top-twenty list. But if the Answer tells me that’s the best place to be, that’s where I’m going. Trouble is, the flight doesn’t leave for another three hours.

* * *

I’m here. Now what?

The drinks I had at the airport and the extra glasses of Merlot on the flight have left me a little groggy. I wander about the nearly deserted terminal wondering what I do now. I’m in the middle of nowhere—Wyoming, for Christ sake. Where do I go from here?

Easy: Trust the Answer.

I go outside to the taxi area. The fresh air feels good. A taxi pulls into the curb. I grab it.

“Where to, sir?”

This guy’s American. Great.

“COPPE.”

“You got it.”

I try to concentrate on our route as we leave the airport, but I’m not feeling so hot. That’s okay. The Answer’s taking me in the right direction. I trust it. I close my eyes and rest them until I feel the cab come to a halt.

I straighten up and look around. It’s a warehouse district.

“Is this it?”

“You told me 2316 Barrow Street,” the cabby says. He points to a gray door on the other side of the sidewalk. “Here we are.”

I pay him and get out. 2316 Barrow Street. Never heard of it. The area’s deserted, but what else would you expect in a warehouse district on a Sunday morning?

Still, I’m a little uneasy now. Hell, I’m shaking in my boxer shorts. But I can’t stand out here all day. The Answer hasn’t let me down yet. Got to trust it.

I take a deep breath, step up to the door, and knock. And wait. No answer. I knock again, louder this time. Finally the door opens a few inches. An eye peers through the crack.

A deep male voice says, “Yes?”

I don’t know how to respond. Figuring there’s an implied question here, I say, “COPPE.”

The door opens a little wider. “What’s your name?”

“Michael Moulton.”

The door swings open and the guy who’s been peeking through straightens up. He’s wearing a gray, pinstripe suit, white shirt, and striped tie. And he’s big—damn big.

“Mr. Moulton!” he booms. “We’ve been expecting you!”

A hand the size of a crown roast darts out, grabs me by the front of my jacket, and yanks me inside. Before I can shout or say a word, the door slams behind me and I’m being dragged down a dark hallway. I try to struggle but someone else comes up behind me and grabs one of my arms. I’m lifted off my feet like a styrofoam mannequin. I start to scream.

“Don’t bother, Mr. Moulton,” says the first guy. “There’s no one around to hear you.”

They drag me onto a warehouse floor where my scuffling feet and their footsteps echo back from the far walls and vaulted ceiling. The other guy holding me also wears a gray suit. And he’s just as big as the first.

“Hey, look,” I say. “What’s this all about?”

They don’t answer me. The warehouse floor is empty except for a single chair and a rickety table supporting a hard-sided Samsonite suitcase. They dump me into the chair. The second guy holds me there while the first opens the suitcase. He pulls out a roll of duct tape and proceeds to tape me into the chair.

My teeth are chattering now. I try to speak but the words won’t come. I want to cry but I’m too scared.

Finally, when my body’s taped up like a mummy, they walk off and leave me alone. But I’m alone only for a minute. This other guy walks in. He’s in a suit, too, but pure white; he’s smaller and older; gray at the temples, with bright blue eyes. He stops a couple of feet in front of the chair and stares down at me. He looks like a cabinet member, or maybe a TV preacher, but he carries a black cane.

“Mr. Moulton,” he says softly with a slow, sad shake of his head and a hint of a German accent. “Foolish, greedy, Mr. Moulton.”

I find my voice. It sounds hoarse, like I’ve been shouting all night.

“This is about the Answer, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is.”

“Look, I can explain—”

“No explanation is necessary.”

“I forgot, that’s all. I forgot and used it. It won’t happen again.”

He nods. “Yes, I know.”

The note of finality in that statement makes my bladder want to let go.

“Please…”

“We gave you a chance, Mr. Moulton. We don’t usually do that. But because you came into possession of the Answer through no fault of your own, we thought it only fair to let you off the hook. A shame too.” He almost smiles. “You showed some flair at the end…led us on a merry chase.”

“You mean, using the Answer to get away? What did you do—make it work against me?”

“Oh, no. The Answer always works. You simply didn’t use it enough.”

“I don’t get it.” I don’t care, either, but I want to keep him talking.

“The Answer brought you to an area of the country where we have no cells. But the Answer can’t keep you from being followed. We followed you to LaGuardia, noted the plane you boarded, and had one of our members rush up from Denver and wait in a cab.”

“But when he asked me where to, I gave him the Answer.”

“Yes, you did. But no matter what you told him, he was going to bring you to 2316 Barrow Street. You should have used the Answer before you got in the cab. If you’d asked someone which cab to take, you surely would have been directed to another, and you’d still be free. But that merely would have delayed the inevitable. Eventually you’d have wound up right where you are now.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

He gazes down at me and his voice has all the emotion of a man ordering breakfast.

“We are going to kill you.”

That does it. My bladder lets go and I start to blubber.

“Mr. Moulton!” I hear him say as he taps his cane. “A little dignity!”

“Oh, please! Please! I promise—”

“We already know what your promise is worth.”

“But look—I’m not a bad guy…I’ve never hurt anybody!”

“Mr. Nickleby might differ with you about that. But don’t be afraid, Mr. Moulton. We are not cruel. We have no wish to cause you pain. That is not our purpose here. We simply have to remove you.”

“People will know! People will miss me!”

Another sad shake of his head. “No one will know. And only your broker will miss you. We have eliminated financiers, kings, even presidents who’ve had the Answer and stepped out of line.”

“Presidents? You mean—?”

“Never mind, Mr. Moulton. How do you wish to die? The choice is yours.”

How do you wish to die? How the hell do you answer a question like that? And then I know—with the best Answer.

“COPPE.”

He nods. “An excellent choice.”

For the first time since I started using the Answer, I don’t want to know what the other guy heard. I bite back a sob. I close my eyes…

AFTERSHOCK

INTRODUCTION

Aftershock is another instance where I can answer the where-do-your-stories-come-from? question.

Early in the year Peter Crowther e-mailed me about contributing an offbeat ghost story (somewhere in the 5K-word neighborhood) for an anthology he was editing, Hauntings. I said thanks, no, up to my lower lip and all that, and put it out of my head.

A few weeks or months later I came across a newspaper article about a support group for survivors of lightning strikes. Survivors? Could there be that many? Turned out there are—most of them along Florida’s “lightning alley.” Some had been hit three, even four times.

Four times? Almost sounded as if they were trying to get hit. Whoa…now there was a hook if I ever heard one. But why would someone want to get hit by lightning? I knew a story lurked there.

And then Peter’s ghost anthology bobbed to the surface and I had my answer.

After a trip to Venice and seeing a thunderstorm sweep through the Piazza San Marco, I had a location for the framing sequence.

Aftershock tied up late (October) and at nearly three times the word count Peter could handle, so I never sent it to him. Instead, Shawna McCarthy took it for Realms of Fantasy. But it will always be Peter Crowther’s story.

It was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and—wonder of wonders—won. After many trips to the altar as a bridesmaid, I’d finally come away with a ring.

And you know…it was kind of anticlimactic. Like that old Peggy Lee song, “Is That All There Is?” I didn’t even attend the ceremony—had Peter Straub accept it for me. The cool little haunted house sits on my mantle and looks nice there, but where’s the thrill?

AFTERSHOCK

“Please, signor,” the corporal says in fairly decent English, shouting over the rising wind. “You are not permitted up there!”

I look down at him. “I’m well aware of that, but I’m all right. Really. Get back inside before you get hurt.”

The patterned stone floor of the Piazza San Marco beckons three hundred feet below as he clings to one of the belfry columns and leans out just far enough to make eye contact with me up here on the top ledge. His hat is off, but his black shirt identifies him as one of the local Carabinieri. Hopefully a couple of his fellows have a good grip on his belt. I can tell he’s used up most of his courage getting this far. He’s not ready to risk joining me up here. Can’t say I blame him. One little slip and he’s a goner. I’ve developed a talent for reading faces, especially eyes, and his wide black pupils tell me how much he wants to go on living.

I envy that.

Less than an hour ago I was just another Venice tourist. I strolled through the crowded plaza, scattering the pigeon horde like ashes until I reached the campanile entrance. I stood on line for the elevator like everyone else and paid my eight thousand lire for a ride to the top.

The Campanile di San Marco—by far the tallest structure in Venice, and one of the newest. The original collapsed shortly after the turn of the century but they replaced it almost immediately with this massive brick phallus the color of vodka sauce. Thoughtful of them to add an elevator to the new one. I would have hated climbing all those hundreds of steps to the top.

The belfry doubles as an observation deck: four column-bordered openings facing each point of the compass, screened with wire mesh to keep too-ardent photographers from tumbling out. The space was packed with tourists when I arrived—French, English, Swiss, Americans, even Italians. Briefly I treated myself to the view—the five scalloped cupolas of San Marco basilica almost directly below, the sienna mosaic of tiled roofs beyond, and the glittering, hungry Adriatic Sea encircling it all—but I didn’t linger. I had work to do.

The north side was the least crowded so I chose that for my exit. I pulled out a set of heavy wire clippers and began making myself a doorway in the mesh. I knew I wouldn’t get too far before somebody noticed and, sure enough, I soon heard cries of alarm behind me. A couple of guys tried to interfere but I bared my teeth and hissed at them in my best impression of a maniac until they backed off: Let the police handle the madman with the wire cutter.

I worked frantically and squeezed through onto the first ledge, then used the mesh to climb to the second. That was hairy—I damn near slipped off. Once there, I edged my way around until I found a sturdy wire running vertically along one of the corners. I used the cutters to remove a three-foot section and left it on the ledge. Then I continued on until I reached a large marble sculpture of a griffinlike creature set into the brick on the south side. I climbed its grooves and ridges to reach the third and highest ledge.

And so here I am, my back pressed against the green-tiled pinnacle as it angles to a point another thirty feet above me. The gold-plated statue of some cross-wielding saint—St. Mark, probably—pirouettes on the apex. A lightning rod juts above him.

And in the piazza below I see the gathering gawkers. They look like pigeons, while the pigeons scurrying around them look like ants. Beyond them, in the Grand Canale, black gondolas rock at their moorings like hearses after a mass murder.

The young national policeman pleads with me. “Come down. We can talk. Please do not jump.”

Almost sounds as if he really cares. “Don’t worry,” I say, tugging at the rope I’ve looped around the pinnacle and tied to my belt. “I’ve no intention of jumping.”

“Look!” He points southwest to the black clouds charging up the coast of the mainland. “A storm is coming!”

“I see it.” It’s a beauty.

“But you will be strike by lightning!”

“That’s why I’m here.”

The look in his eyes tells me he thought from the start I was crazy, but not this crazy. I don’t blame him. He doesn’t know what I’ve learned during the past few months.

The first lesson began thousands of miles away, on a stormy Tuesday evening in Memorial Hospital emergency room in Lakeland, Florida. I’d just arrived for the second shift and was idly listening to the staff chatter around me as I washed up.

“Oh, Christ!” said one of the nurses. “It’s her again. I don’t believe it.”

“Hey, you’re right!” said another. “Who says lightning doesn’t strike twice?”

“Twice, hell!” said a third voice I recognized as Kelly Rand’s, the department’s head nurse. “It’s this gal’s third.”

Curious, I dried off and stepped into the hallway. Lightning strike victims are no big deal around here, especially in the summer—but three times?

I saw Rand, apple-shaped and middle-aged, with hair a shade of red that does not exist in the human genome, and asked if I’d heard her right.

“Yessiree,” she said. She held up a little metal box with a slim aerial wavering from one end. “And look what she had with her.”

I took the box. Strike Zone™ Early Warning Lightning Alert ran in red letters across its face.

“I’d say she deserves a refund,” Rand said.

“How is she?”

“Been through X-ray and nothing’s broken. Small third-degree burn on her left heel. Dr. Ross took care of that. Still a little out of it, though.”

“Where’d they put her?”

“Six.”

Still holding the lightning detector, I stepped into cubicle six and found a slim blonde, her hair still damp and stringy from the rain, semiconscious on the gurney, an IV running into her right arm. A nurse’s aide was recording her vitals. I checked the chart when she was done.

Kim McCormick, age thirty-eight, found “disrobed and unconscious” under a tree bordering the ninth fairway at a local golf course. The personal info had been gleaned from a New Jersey driver’s license. No known local address.

A goateed EMS tech stuck his head into the cubicle. “She awake yet, Doc?”

I shook my head.

“All right, do me a favor, will you? When she comes to and asks about her golf clubs, tell her they was gone when we got there.”

“What?”

“Her clubs. We never saw them. I mean, she was on a golf course and sure as shit she’s gonna be saying we stole them. People are always accusing us of robbing them or something.”

“It says here she was naked when you found her.”

“Not completely. She had on, like, sneakers, a bra, and you know, pan ties, but that was it.” He winked and gave me a thumbs-up to let me know he’d liked what he’d seen.

“Where were her clothes?”

“Stuffed into some sort of gym bag beside her.” He pointed to a vinyl bag under the gurney. “There it is. Her clothes was in there. Gotta run. Just tell her about the clubs, okay?”

“It’s okay,” said a soft voice behind me. I turned and saw the victim looking our way. “I didn’t have any clubs.”

“Super,” the tech said. “You heard her.” And he was gone.

“How do you feel?” I said, approaching the gurney.

Kim McCormick gazed at me through cerulean irises, dreamy and half obscured by her heavy eyelids. Her smile revealed white, slightly crooked teeth.

“Wonderful.”

Clearly she was still not completely out of her post-strike daze.

“I hear this is the third time you’ve been struck. How in the—?”

She was shaking her head. “It’s the eighth.”

I grinned at the put-on. “Right.”

“S’true.”

My first thought was that she was either lying or crazy, but she didn’t seem to care if I believed her. And in those half-glazed eyes I saw a secret pain, a deep remorse, a hauntingly familiar loss. The same look I saw in my bathroom mirror every morning.

I held up her lightning detector. “If that’s true, you should find one of these that really works.”

“Oh, that works just fine.”

“Then why—?”

“It’s the only way I can be with my little boy.”

I tried to speak but couldn’t find a word to say. Stunned, I watched her roll over and go to sleep.

No way I could let her leave without learning what she’d meant by that, so I kept looking in on her during my shift, waiting for her to wake up. After suturing the twenty-centimeter gash a kid from the local supermarket had opened in his thigh when his box cutter slipped, I checked room six again and found it empty.

The desk told me she’d paid by credit card and taken off in a cab, lightning detector and all.

I spent the next week hunting her, starting with her Jersey address; I left messages on the answering machine there, but they were never returned. Finally, after badgering the various taxi companies in town, I tracked Kim McCormick to a Travelodge out on 98.

I sat in my car in the motel parking lot one afternoon, gathering courage to knock on her door, and wondering at this bizarre urge. I’m not the obsessive type, but I knew her words would haunt me until I’d learned what they meant.

It’s the only way I can be with my little boy.

Taking a deep breath, I made myself move. August heat and humidity gave me a wet slap as I stepped out and headed for her door. Nickel clouds hung low and a wind-driven Wal-Mart flyer wrapped itself around my leg like a horny mutt. I kicked it away.

She answered my knock almost immediately, but I could tell from her expression she didn’t know me. To tell the truth, with her hair dried and combed, and color in her cheeks, I barely recognized her. She wore dark blue shorts and a white LaCoste—sans bra, I noticed. I hadn’t appreciated before how attractive she was.

“Yes?”

“Ms. McCormick, I’m Dr. Glyer. We met at the emergency room after you were—”

“Oh, yes! I remember you now.” She gave me a crooked grin that I found utterly charming. “This a house call?”

“In a way.” I felt awkward standing on the threshold. “I was wondering about your foot.”

She stepped back into the room but didn’t ask me in. “Still hurts,” she said. I noticed the bandage on her left heel as she slipped her feet into a pair of backless shoes. “But I get around okay in clogs.”

I scanned the room. A laptop sat on the nightstand, screen-saver fish gliding across its screen. The bed was unmade, two Chinese food containers in the wastebasket, a Wendy’s bag next to the TV on the dresser. The Weather Channel was on, showing a map of Florida with a bright red rectangle superimposed on its midsection. The words SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING crawled along the bottom of the screen.

“Glad to hear it. Listen, I’d…I’d like to talk to you about what you said when you were in the ER.”

“Sorry?” she said, cocking her head toward me. “I didn’t catch that.”

I repeated.

“What did I say?” She said it absently as she hurried about the room, stuffing sundry items into her gym bag, one of which I recognized as her lightning detector.

“Something about being with your little boy.”

That got her. She stopped and looked at me. “I said that?”

I nodded. “‘It’s the only way I can be with my little boy,’ to be exact.”

She sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that. I was still off my head from the shock, I guess. Forget it.”

“I can’t. It’s haunted me.”

She stepped closer, staring into my eyes. “Why should that haunt you?”

“Long story. That’s why I was wondering if we might sit down somewhere and—”

“Maybe some other time. I’m just on my way out.”

“Where? Maybe we can go together and talk on the way.”

“You can’t go where I’m going.” She slipped past me and closed the door behind her. She flashed me a bright, excited smile as she turned away. “I’m off to see my little boy.”

I watched her get into a white Mercedes Benz with Jersey plates. As she pulled away, I hurried to my car and followed. Her haste, the approaching storm, the lightning detector…I had a bad feeling about this.

I didn’t bother hanging back—I doubted she knew what kind of car I was driving, or would be checking for anyone following her. She turned off 98 onto a two-lane blacktop that ran straight as the proverbial arrow toward the western horizon. A lot of Florida roads are like that. Why? Because they can be. The state is basically a giant sandbar, flat as a flounder’s belly, and barely above sea level. Roads here don’t have to wind around hills and valleys, so they’re laid out as the shortest distance between two points.

Ahead the sky was growing rapidly more threatening, the gray clouds darkening; lightning flashed in their ecchymotic bellies.

The light had dimmed to late-dusk level by the time she turned off the blacktop and bounced northward along a sandy road. She stopped her car about fifty yards from a small rise where a majestic Nelson pine towered over the surrounding scrub. She got out with her gym bag in hand and hurried toward the tree in a limping trot. Wind whipped her shorts around her bare legs, twisted her hair across her face. A bolt of lightning cracked the sky far to my left, and thunder rumbled past a few seconds later. I gaped in disbelief as she pulled off her shirt and shorts, stuffed them into the bag, and seated herself on the far side of the trunk.

“She’s crazy!” I said aloud as I gunned the engine.

I pulled past her car and stopped as close to the tree as the road would allow. Amid more lightning and thunder, I jumped out and dashed up the rise.

“Kim!” I shouted. “This is insane! Get away from there!”

She started at the sound of my voice, looked up, and threw her free arm across her breasts. Her other hand gripped the lightning detector, its red warning light blinking madly.

“Leave me alone! I know what I’m doing!”

“You’ll be killed!” I picked up her gym bag and held it out to her. “Please! Get back in your car!”

Her face contorted with fury as she slapped the bag from my hand, then covered her breasts again. “Get out of here! You don’t understand and you’ll ruin everything!” Her voice rose to a scream. “Go away!”

I backed off, unsure of what to do. I debated grabbing her and wrestling her to safety, but did I have the right? As crazy as this seemed, Kim McCormick was a grown woman, and very determined to be here. A daylight-bright flash, followed instantaneously by a deafening crash of thunder and a torrent of cold rain decided it. I ducked back toward my car.

“Keep your windows closed!” I heard Kim shout behind me. “And don’t touch any metal!”

Drenched, I huddled on the front seat and did just that. The storm roared in with maniacal fury, lashing the car with gale-force winds and rain so heavy I felt as if I’d parked under a waterfall. I couldn’t see Kim—couldn’t even see the big Nelson pine. I hated the thought of her getting soaked and risking electrocution out there in the lightning-strobed darkness, but what could I do?

Mostly I resented feeling helpless. I fought the urge to throw the car into gear and leave Kim McCormick to her fate. I had to stay…needed to stay. I felt tenuously bound to this peculiar woman, by something unseen, un-spoken.

The lightning and thunder finally abated as the storm chugged off to the east. When the rain had eased to a steady downpour, I lowered the window and squinted at the pine, afraid of what I’d see.

Kim was still huddled against the trunk, looking miserable: hair a rattail tangle, knees drawn up, head down, but seemingly none the worse for the terrible risk she’d taken.

I stepped out and tried not to stare at her glistening, pale skin as I approached. She glanced up at me. The bright excitement of an hour ago had fled her eyes, leaving a hollow look. I reached into her bag and pulled out her shirt. I held it out to her.

“Now can we talk?”

Kim pointed to a pink scar that puckered her right palm. “This is from the first time I was hit.”

I’d followed her back to her motel, waited while she took a quick shower, then brought her here to Cajun Heat, my favorite restaurant. She’d seemed pretty down when we were seated, but a couple of Red Stripes and an appetizer of steamed spiced shrimp had perked her up some.

“That one was an accident,” she said. “I was visiting my sister in West Texas last year. She and her husband and I had been fishing on White River Lake when it started to get stormy. We came ashore and I was standing on the dock, helping unload the boat. It hadn’t even started raining yet, but somehow I took a direct hit.” She rubbed the scar. “I had a fishing rod in my hand, my palm against the reel. That’s all I remember. Karen and Bill were knocked off their feet but they told me later they saw me fly twenty feet through the air. I broke my forearm when I landed. My heart had stopped. They had to give me CPR.”

“You were lucky.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She stared at her palm with a rueful smile. Her wet hair was pulled back and fastened with an elastic band, making her look younger than her thirty-eight years. “Karen still jokes about how she thinks Bill was maybe a little too enthusiastic with the mouth-to-mouth.”

I said, “So the first strike was accidental. After what I saw today, I gather the next seven were anything but. Dare I ask why?”

Kim continued staring at her palm. “You already think I’m nuts. I don’t want you thinking I’m a complete psycho.”

“Try me.”

“Hmm?” She glanced up. “Sorry. I’m a little hard of hearing, especially when there’s background noise.”

“I said, Try me.”

She looked me in the eye, then let out a deep sigh. “Immediately after that first strike, I saw my son Timmy. I could see the lake and the dock and the boat, but they were faint and ghostly. I was standing right where I’d been when I got hit, but I could see my body sprawled behind me. Karen and Bill were running toward it, but slowly, like they were swimming through molasses, and they too looked faint, translucent. Timmy, though—he looked perfectly real and solid, but he was far away, hovering over the water, waving to me. He looked healthy, like he’d never been sick, but he was so far. He kept beckoning me closer but I couldn’t move. Then he faded away.”

The pieces fell into place, and there it was, staring me in the face. Somehow I’d sensed it. Now I knew.

“When did he die?”

She blinked in surprise, then looked away. “Almost three years ago.” Her eyes brimmed with tears but none spilled over. “Two years, eleven months, two weeks, and three days, to be exact.”

“You had a very vivid hallucin—”

“No,” she said firmly, shaking her head. “He was there. You can’t appreciate how real he was if you didn’t see him. I’m a hardheaded realist, Doctor Glyer, and—”

“Call me Joe.”

“Okay. Fine. But let’s get something straight, Doctor Joe. I’m no New-Agey hollow-head into touchy-feely spirituality. I was an investment banker, and a damn good one—Wharton MBA, Salomon Brothers, the whole nine yards. I dealt with the reality of cold hard cash and down-and-dirty bottom lines every day. As far as the afterlife was concerned, I was right up there with the big-time skeptics. To me, life began when you were born, you lived out your years, then you died. That was it. Game over, no replay. But not anymore. This is real. I don’t know what happened, or how it happened, but for an all-too-brief time after that lightning strike, I saw Timmy, and he saw me, and that changed everything.” She closed her eyes. “I thought I was getting over losing him, but…”

No, I thought as her voice trailed off. You never get over it.

But I said nothing.

“Anyway, at first I tried to duplicate the effect by shocking myself with my house current, but that didn’t work. I concluded I’d need the millions of volts only lightning can provide to see. So I went back to Texas and hung around that dock during half a dozen storms but I couldn’t buy another hit.”

“Are you trying to die? Is that it?”

She tossed me a withering look. “I have a Ruger nine-millimeter automatic back at my motel room. When I want to die, I’ll use that. I am not suicidal.”

“Then what else do you call flirting with death like you did today? And you’ve been hit eight times? The fact that you’re still alive is amazing—you’ve had a fantastic run of luck, but you’ve got to know that sooner or later it’s going to run out.”

The waitress arrived then and we dropped into silence as she set steaming plates of jambalaya before us.

“You don’t know much about lightning, do you,” Kim said when we were alone again.

“I’ve treated my share of—”

“But do you know that it’s usually not fatal, that better than nine out of ten victims survive?”

Truthfully, I hadn’t known the survival rate was that high. “Well, you’re closing in on number ten.”

She shrugged. “Just a number. The first shock on that dock in Texas should have killed me. The usual bolt carries a current of ten thousand amps at a hundred million volts. Makes the electric chair look like a triple-A battery. Of course the charge only lasts a tiny fraction of a second, but that first one was enough to put me into cardiac arrest. If Karen and Bill hadn’t known CPR, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

She dug into her jambalaya and chewed for a few seconds.

“Good, isn’t it,” I said.

She nodded. “Delicious.”

But she said it with no great conviction, and I got the feeling that eating was something Kim McCormick did simply to keep from feeling hungry.

“But where was I? Oh, yes. After failing to get hit a second time in Texas, I started studying up on lightning. We still don’t understand it completely, but what we do know is fascinating. Do you realize that worldwide, every second of every minute of every day there are almost a thousand lightning flashes? Most are cloud to cloud or cloud to air. Only fifteen percent hit the ground. Those are the ones I’m interested in.”

This was the most animated I’d seen her. I leaned across the table, drawn by her enthusiasm.

“But you’re from Jersey. You were first struck in Texas. What are you doing here?”

“It’s where the lightning is. The National Weather service keeps track of lightning—something called flash density ratings. According to their records, Central Florida is the lightning capital of the country, maybe the world. You’ve got this broad strip of hot, low-lying land between two huge, cooler bodies of water. Take atmospheric instability due to wide temperature gradients, add tons of moisture, and voilà—thunderstorm alley.”

“Seems you’ve been pretty successful around here—if you can call getting hit by lightning success.”

She smiled. “I do. I started up around the Orlando area because of all the lakes. Being out in a boat during a storm is the best way to get hit, but I started thinking it was too risky, too easy to get knocked overboard and drown. Or take a direct hit from a positive giant.”

“A what?”

“A positive giant. They originate at the very top of the storm cell, maybe fifty thousand feet up, and they can strike thirty miles ahead of the storm. You’ve heard of people getting struck down by a so-called ‘bolt from the blue’? That’s a positive giant. I don’t want to get hit by one of those because they’re so much more powerful than a regular bolt. Almost always fatal.” She pointed her fork at me. “See? Told you I’m not suicidal.”

“I believe you, I believe you.”

“Good. Anyway, I settled on golf courses as my best bet. The landscapers take down a lot of the little trees but tend to leave the really big ones between the fairways.” She showed me a pink, half-dollar-size scar on her right elbow. “That’s an exit burn from the strike at Ventura Country Club.” She parted her hair to reveal a quarter-size scar on her right parietal scalp. “This one’s an entry at Hunter’s Creek Golf Club. I could show you more, but not in public. I’ve got other scars you can’t see. Like a mild seizure disorder, for instance—I take Dilantin for that. And I’ve lost some of my hearing.”

I was losing my appetite. This poor, deranged woman. “And did you see…?”

“Timmy?” She smiled. Her eyes fairly glowed. “Yes. Every single time.”

Kim McCormick was delusional. Had to be. And yet she was so convincing. But then that’s the power of a delusion.

But what if it wasn’t a delusion? What if she really…?

I couldn’t let myself go there.

“One of these times…”

“You’re right, I suppose. And I’m prepared for it. I’ve got a solid will: How I’m to be cremated, where my ashes will go, and a list of all the charities that’ll share my assets. But I stack the deck in my favor when I go out. That’s why I get under a tree. Odds are against taking a direct hit that way. You get a secondary jolt—a flash that jumps from the primary strike point—and so far that’s worked just fine for my purposes. Plus I keep low to the ground to reduce my chance of being thrown too far.”

“But why do you undress?”

“I figure wet skin attracts a charge better than wet fabric.”

I shook my head. “How long are you going to keep this up?”

“Until I get closer to him. He seems nearer here than he was in Texas, but he’s still too far away.”

“Too far for what?”

“I need to see his eyes, hear his voice, read his lips.”

“Why? What are you looking for?”

A lost look tinged with terrible sorrow fluttered across her features. Her voice was barely audible. “Forgiveness.”

I stared at her.

“Don’t ask,” she whispered before I could speak. “Subject closed.” She shook herself and gave me a forced smile. “Let’s talk about something else. Anything but the weather.”

I stand alone on a rotted wharf, engulfed in fog. The stagnant pond before me carries a vaguely septic stench. No sound, no movement. I wait. Soon I hear the creak of wood, the gentle lap of a polished hull gliding through still water. A dark shape appears, with the distinctive curved bow of a gondola. It noses toward me through the fog, but as it nears I notice something unusual about the hull. It’s classic glossy black, like all gondolas, but the seating area is closed over. I realize with a start that the hull is a coffin…a child’s coffin…and bright red blood is oozing from under the lid. I shout to the gondolier. He’s gaunt, the traditional striped shirt hanging loose on his bony frame. His face is hidden by his broad straw hat until he lifts his head and stares at me. I scream when I see the scar running across his left eye. He grins and begins poling his floating sarcophagus away, back into the fog. I jump into the foul water and swim after him, stroking frantically as I try to catch up. But the gondola is too fast and the fog swallows it again, leaving me alone and lost in the water. I swim in circles, my arms growing weaker and weaker…finally they refuse to respond, dangling limply at my sides as I slip beneath the surface…water rushes into my nose and throat, choking me…

I awoke gagging and shaking, dangling half on, half off my bed. It took me a long time to shake off the aftereffects of the nightmare. I hadn’t had one like that in years. I knew why it had returned tonight: my afternoon with Kim McCormick.

Over the next few days I realized that Kim had invaded my life. I kept thinking of her alone in that motel room, eating fast food, her eyes glued to the Weather Channel as she tracked the next storm, planned her next brush with death. The image haunted me at night, followed me through the day. I found myself keeping the Weather Channel on at home, and ducking off to check it out on the doctors lounge TV whenever I had a spare moment.

I guess my preoccupation became noticeable because Jay Ravener, head of the emergency department, pulled me aside and asked me if anything was wrong. Jay could never understand why a board-certified cardiologist like myself wanted to work as an emergency room doc. He was delighted to have access to someone with my training, but he was always telling me how much more money I could make as a staff cardiologist. Today, though, he was talking about enthusiasm, giving me a pep talk about how we were a team, and we all had to be players. He went on about how I hardly speak to anyone on good days, and lately I’d barely been here.

Probably true. No, undoubtedly true. I don’t particularly care for anyone on the staff, or in the whole damn state, for that matter. I don’t care to make chitchat. I come in, do my job—damn efficiently, too—and then I go home. I live alone. I read, watch TV, videos, go to the movies—all alone. I prefer it that way.

I know I’m depressed. But imagine what I’d be like without the forty milligrams of Prozac I take every day. I wasn’t always this way, but it’s my current reality, and that’s how I choose to deal with it.

Fuck you, Jay.

I said none of this, however. I merely nodded and made concurring noises, then let Jay move on, satisfied that he’d done his duty.

But the episode made me realize that Kim McCormick had upset the delicate equilibrium I’d established, and I’d have to do something about her.

Just as she had researched lightning, I decided to research Kim McCormick.

Her driver’s license had listed a Princeton address. I began calling the New Jersey medical centers in her area, looking for a patient named Timothy McCormick. When I struck out there, I moved to Philadelphia. I hit pay dirt at CHOP—Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Being a doctor made it possible. Physicians and medical records departments are pretty tight-lipped about patient information when it comes to lawyers, insurance companies, even relatives. But when it’s one doctor to another…

I asked Timothy McCormick’s attending to call me about him. After having me paged through the hospital switchboard, Richard Andrews, M.D., pediatric oncologist, knew he was talking to a fellow physician, and was ready to open up. I told him I was treating Kim McCormick for depression that I knew stemmed from the death of her child, but she would give me no details. Could he help?

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” he told me in a staccato rattle. “Sad case. Osteosarcoma, started in his right femur. Pretty well advanced, mets to the lung and beyond by the time it was diagnosed. He deteriorated rapidly but we managed to stabilize him. Even though he was on respiratory assist, his mother wanted him home, in his own room. She was loaded and equipped a mini-intensive care unit at home with around-the-clock skilled nursing. What could we say? We let her take him.”

“And he died there, I gather?”

“Yeah. We thought we had all the bases covered. One thing we didn’t foresee was a power failure. Hospitals have backup generators, her house didn’t.”

I closed my eyes and suppressed a groan. I didn’t have to imagine what awful moments those must have been, the horror of utter helplessness, of watching her child die before her eyes and not being able to do a thing about it. And the guilt afterward…oh, lord, the crushing weight of self-doubt and self-damnation would be enough to make anyone delusional.

I thanked Dr. Andrews, told him what a great help he’d been, and struggled through the late shift. Usually I can grab a nap after two a.m. Not this time. I sat up, staring at the Weather Channel, watching with growing unease as the radar tracked a violent storm moving this way from Tampa.

I called Kim McCormick’s motel room but she didn’t answer. Did she guess it was me and knew I’d try to convince her to stay in? Or was she already out?

As the clock crawled toward six a.m. I stood with keys in hand inside the glass door to the doctor’s parking lot and watched the western sky come alive with lightning, felt the door shiver in resonance with the growing thunder. So much lightning and it was still miles off. If Kim was out there…

If? Who was I kidding? Of course she was out there. And I couldn’t leave until my relief arrived. I prayed he’d show up early, but if anything, the storm would delay him.

Jerry Ross arrived at 6:05, just ahead of a pair of ambulances, and I dashed for my car. The storm was hitting its stride as I raced along 98. I turned onto what I thought was the right road, fishtailing as I gunned along, searching for that Nelson pine. I almost missed it in the downpour, and damn near ditched the car as I slammed on the brakes when I spotted it. I reversed to the access road and kicked up wet gravel as I headed for the tree.

The sight of her Mercedes offered some relief, and I let out a deep breath when I spotted the pale form huddled against the trunk. I barely knew this strange, troubled woman, and yet somehow she’d become very important to me.

I skidded to a stop and ran up the rise to where she sat, looking like a drowned rat. Halfway there the air around me flashed noon bright and the immediate crash of thunder nearly knocked me off my feet, but Kim remained unscathed.

“Not again!” she cried, not bothering to cover her breasts this time. She waved me off. “Get out of here!”

“You can’t keep doing this!”

I dropped to my knees beside her and tried not to stare. I couldn’t help but notice that they were very nice breasts, not too big, not too little, just right, with deep brown nipples, jutting in the chill rain.

“I can do anything I damn well please! Now go away!”

I’d been here only seconds but already my clothes were soaked through. I leaned closer, shouting over the deafening thunder.

“I know what happened—about Timmy, bringing him home, the power failure. But you can’t go on punishing yourself.”

She gave me a cold blue stare. “How do you—?”

“Doesn’t matter. I just know. Tell me—was there a storm when the power went off?”

She nodded, still staring. The red blinker on her lightning detector was going berserk.

“Don’t you see how it’s all tied together? It’s guilt and obsession. You need medication, Kim. I can help.”

“I’ve been on medication. Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Tofranil, you name it. Nothing worked. I’m not imagining this, Doctor. Timmy is there. I can feel him.”

“Because you want him there!”

More lightning—so close I heard it sizzle.

“Damn you!” she gritted through clenched teeth during the ensuing thunderclap. I didn’t hear those words, but I could read her lips. She closed her eyes a second, as if counting to ten, then looked at me again. “Do you have any children?”

I didn’t hesitate. “No.”

“Well, if you did, you’d understand when I say you know them. I know Timmy, and I know he’s there. And since you’ve never had a child, then you can’t understand what it’s like to lose one.” Her eyes were filling, her voice trembling. “How you’ll do anything—risk everything—to have them back, even for an instant. So don’t tell me I need medication. I need my little boy!”

“But I do understand,” I said softly, feeling my own pain grow, wanting to stop myself before I went further but sensing it was already too late. “I—”

I stopped as my skin burst to life with a tingling, crawling sensation, and my body became a burning beehive with all its panicked residents trying to flee at once through the top of my head. I had a flash of Kim with strands of her wet hair standing out from her head and undulating like live snakes, and then I was at ground zero at Hiroshima…

…an instant whiteout and then the staticky blizzard wanes, leaving me kneeling by the tree, with Kim sprawled prone before me, flaming pine needles floating around like lazy fireflies, and a man tumbling ever so slowly down the slope to my right. With a start I realize he’s me, but the whole scene is translucent—I can see through the tree trunk. Everything is pale, drained of color, almost as if etched in glass, except…

…except for the tiny figure standing far across the marsh, a blotch of bright spring color in this polar landscape. A little girl, her dark brown hair divided into two ponytails tied with bright green ribbon, and she’s wearing a yellow dress, her favorite yellow dress…

…it’s Beth…oh, Christ, it can only be Beth…but she’s so far away.

A desperate cry of longing leaps to my lips as I reach for her, but I can make no sound, and the world fades to black, my Beth with it…

I sat up groggy and confused, my right shoulder alive with pain. I looked around. Lightning still flashed, thunder still bellowed, rain still gushed in torrents, but somehow the whole world seemed changed. What had happened just now? Could that have been my little Beth? Really Beth?

No. Not possible. And yet…

Kim’s still white form caught my eye. She lay by the trunk. I tried to stand but my legs wouldn’t go for it, so I crawled to her. She was still breathing. Thank God. Then she moaned and moved her legs. I tried to lift her but my muscles were jelly. So I cradled her in my arms, shielding her as best I could from the rain, and waited for my strength to return, my mind filled with wonder at what I had seen.

Could I believe it had been real? Did I dare?

Still somewhat dazed, I sat on Kim’s motel bed, a towel around my waist, my clothes draped over the lampshades to dry. When she’d come to, we staggered to my car and I drove us here.

The room looked exactly as before, except a Hardy’s bag had replaced the Wendy’s. Kim emerged from the bathroom wearing a flowered sundress, drying her hair with a towel. She was bouncing back faster than I was—practice, maybe. She looked pale but elated. I knew she must have seen her boy again.

I felt numb.

“Oh, God,” she said and leaned closer. “Look at that burn!”

I glanced at the large blister atop my left shoulder. “It doesn’t hurt as much as before.”

“Oh, Joe, I’m so sorry you caught that flash too. I feel terrible.”

“Don’t. Not as if you didn’t warn me.”

“Still…let me get some of the cream they gave me for my heel. I’ll make you—”

“I saw someone,” I blurted.

She froze, staring at me, her eyes bright and wide. “Did you? Did you really? You saw Timmy? Didn’t I tell you!”

“It wasn’t your son.”

She frowned. “Then who?”

“Remember by the tree, just before we got hit, when you asked me if I had any children? I said no, because…because I don’t. At least not anymore. But I did.”

Kim stared, wide-eyed. “Did?”

“A beautiful, beautiful daughter, the most wonderful little girl in the world.”

“Oh, dear God! You too?”

My throat had thickened to the point where I could only nod.

She stumbled to the bed and sat next to me. The thin mattress sagged deeply under our combined weight.

“You’re sure it was her?”

Again I nodded.

“I didn’t see her. And you didn’t see Timmy?”

I shook my head, trying to remember. Finally I could speak.

“Only Beth.”

“How old was she?”

“Eight.”

“Timmy was only five. Was it…?” Her own throat seemed to clog as she placed her hand on my arm. “Did she have cancer too?”

“No.” The memory began to hammer against the walls of the cell where I’d bricked it up. “She was murdered. Right in front of me.” I held up my left arm to show her the seven-inch scar running up from the underside of my wrist. “This was all I got, but Beth died. And I couldn’t save her.”

Kim made a choking noise and I felt her fingers dig into my arm, her nails like claws.

“No!” Her voice was muffled because she’d jammed the damp towel over her mouth. “Oh-no, oh-no, oh-no! You poor…oh, God, how…?”

I heard a sound so full of pain it transfixed me for an instant until I realized it had come from me.

“No. I can’t. Please don’t ask. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

How could I talk about what I couldn’t even think about it? I knew if I freed those memories, even for a single moment, I’d never cage them again. They’d rampage through my being as they’d done before, devouring me alive from the inside.

I buried my face against Kim’s neck. She cradled me in her arms and rocked me like a baby.

“What about Timmy’s father?” I said, biting into my Egg McMuffin. “Does he know about all this?”

After clinging to Kim for I don’t know how long, I’d finally pulled myself together. We were hungry, but my clothes were still wet. So she took my car and made a breakfast run to Mickey D’s. I sat on the bed, Kim took the room’s one upholstered chair. The coffee was warming my insides, the caffeine pulling me partway out of my funk, but I was still well below sea level.

“He doesn’t know Timmy exists. Literally. We never married. He’s a good man, very bright, but I dropped him when I learned I was pregnant.”

“I don’t follow.”

“He’d have wanted to marry me, or have some part in my baby’s life. I didn’t want that.” My expression must have registered how offensive I found that, because she quickly explained. “You’ve got to understand how I was then: a super career woman who could do it all, wanted it all, and strictly on her own terms. I went through the pregnancy by myself, took maternity leave at the last possible moment, figuring I’d deliver the child—I knew he was a boy by the third month—and set him up with a nanny while I jumped right back into the race. I saw myself spending a sufficient amount of quality time with him as I molded him to be a mover and a shaker, just like his mother.” She shook her head. “What a jerk.”

“And after the delivery?” I’d guessed the answer.

She beamed. “When they put that little bundle into my arms, everything changed. He was a miracle, by far the finest thing I’d ever done in my life. Once I got him home, I couldn’t stop holding him. And when I would finally put him into his bassinet, I’d pull up a chair and sit there looking at him…I’d put my pinkie against his palm and his little fingers would close around it, almost like a reflex, and that’s how I’d stay, just sitting and staring, listening to him breathe as he held my finger.”

I felt my throat tighten. I remembered watching Beth sleep when she was an infant, marveling at her pudgy cheeks, counting the tiny veins on the surfaces of her closed eyelids.

“You sound like a wonderful mother.”

“I was. That’s no brag. It’s just that it’s simply not my nature to do things halfway. Everything else in my life took a backseat to Timmy, I mean way back. It damn near killed me to end my maternity leave, but I arranged to do a lot of work from home. I wanted to be near him all the time.” She blinked a few times and sniffed. “I’m so glad I made the effort. Because he didn’t stay around very long.” She rubbed a hand across her face and looked at me with reddened eyes. “How long since Beth…?”

“Five years.” The longing welled up in me. “Sometimes I feel like I was talking to her just yesterday, other times it seems like she’s been gone forever.”

“But don’t you see?” Kim leaned forward. “She’s not gone. She’s still here.”

I shook my head. “I wish I could believe that.”

The lightning episode was becoming less and less real with each passing minute. Despite what I’d seen, I found myself increasingly reluctant to buy into this.

“But you saw her, didn’t you? You knew her. Isn’t seeing believing?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes believing is seeing.”

“But each of us saw our dead child. Can we both be crazy?”

“There’s something called shared delusion. I could be—”

“Damn it!” She catapulted from the chair. “I’m not going to let you do this!” She yanked my pants from atop the lampshade and threw them at my face. “You can’t take this from me! I won’t let you or anybody else tell me—”

I grabbed her wrist as she stormed past me. “Kim! I want to believe! Can’t you see there’s nothing in the world I want more? And that’s what worries me. I may want it too much.”

I pulled her into my arms and we stood there, clinging to each other in anguished silence. I could feel her hot breath on my bare shoulder. She lifted her face to me.

“Don’t fight it, Joe,” she said, her voice soft. “Go with it. Otherwise you’ll be denying yourself—”

I kissed her on the lips.

She drew back. I didn’t know where the impulse had come from, and it was a toss-up as to which of us was more surprised. We stared at each other for a few heartbeats, and then our lips were together again. We seemed to be trying to devour each other. She tugged at my towel, I pulled at her sun dress, she wore nothing beneath it, and we tumbled onto the unmade bed, skin to skin, rolling and climbing all over each other, frantic mouths and hands everywhere until we finally locked together, riding out a storm of our own making.

Afterward, we clung to each other under the sheet. I stroked her back, feeling guilty because I knew it had been better for me than her.

“Sorry that was so quick. I’m out of practice.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she murmured, kissing my shoulder. “Maybe it’s all the shocks I’ve taken, but orgasms seem to be few and far between for me these days. I’m just glad to have someone I can feel close to. You don’t know how lonely it’s been, keeping this to myself, unable to share it. It’s wonderful to be able to talk about it with someone who understands.”

“I wish I did understand. Why is this happening?”

“Maybe all those volts alter the nervous system, change the brain’s modes of perception.”

“But I’ve never heard of anything like this. Why don’t other lightning strike victims mention seeing a dead loved one?”

“Maybe they have seen them and never mentioned it. You’re the only one I’ve told. But maybe it has to be someone who died during a storm. Did Beth—?”

“No,” I said quickly, not allowing the scene to take shape in my mind. “Perfect weather.”

“Then maybe it has to do with the fact that they both died as children, and they’re still attached to their parents. They hadn’t let go of us in life yet, and maybe that carries over into death.”

“Almost sounds as if they’re waiting for us.”

“Maybe they are.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop and Kim snuggled closer.

Later, when we went back to pick up Kim’s car, we walked up to where the lightning had struck. The top of the Nelson pine was split and charred. As we stood under its branches, I relived the moment, seeing Beth again, reaching for her…

“I wish she’d been closer.”

“Yes.” Kim turned to me. “Isn’t it frustrating? When I took my second hit, up in Orlando, Timmy was closer than he’d been in Texas, and I thought he might move closer with each succeeding hit. But it hasn’t worked that way. He stays about fifty yards away.”

“Really? Beth seemed at least twice that.” I pointed to the marshy field. “She was way over there.”

Kim pointed north. “Timmy was that way.”

I swiveled back and forth between where I’d seen Beth, and where Kim had seen Timmy, and an idea began to take shape.

“Which way were you facing when you saw Timmy in Texas?”

She closed her eyes. “Let me think…the sun always rose over the end of the dock, so I guess I was facing northeast.”

“Good.” I took her shoulders and rotated her until she faced east. “Now, show me where Timmy was in relation to the end of the dock when he appeared in Texas.”

She pointed north.

“I’ll be damned,” I said and trotted down the slope.

“Where’re you going?”

I reached into my car and plucked the compass from my dashboard. Sometimes at night when I can’t sleep I go out for long aimless drives and wind up God knows where. At those times it’s handy to know which direction you’re headed.

“All right,” I said when I returned. “This morning Timmy was that way—the compass says that’s a few degrees east of north. If you followed that line from here, it would run through New Jersey, wouldn’t it?”

She nodded, her brow furrowing. “Yes.”

“But in Texas—where in Texas?”

“White River Lake. West Texas.”

“Okay. You saw him in a northeast direction. Follow that line from West Texas and I’ll bet it takes you—”

“To Jersey!” She was squeezing my upper arm with both hands and jumping up and down like a little girl. “Oh, God! That’s where we lived! Timmy spent his whole life in Princeton!”

It’s also where he died, I thought.

“I think a trip to Princeton is in order, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes! Oh, God, yes!” Her voice cranked up to light speed. “Do you think that’s where he is? Do you think he’s still at the house? Oh, dear God! Why didn’t I think of that?” She settled down and looked at me. “And what about Beth? You saw her…where?”

“East-northeast,” I said. I didn’t need the compass to figure that.

“Where does that line go? Orlando? Kissimmee? Did you live around there?”

I shook my head. “No. We lived in Tampa.”

“But that’s the opposite direction. What’s east-northeast from here?”

I stared at the horizon. “Italy.”

A week later we were sitting in the uppermost part of Kim’s Princeton home waiting for an approaching storm to hit.

She had to have been earning big bucks as an investment banker to afford this place. A two-story Victorian—she said it was Second Empire style—with an octagonal tower set in the center of its mansard roof. One look at that tower and I knew it could be put to good use.

I found a Home Depot and bought four eight-foot sections of one-inch steel pipe, threaded at both ends, and three compatible couplers. I drilled a hole near the center of the tower roof and ran a length through; I coupled the second length to its lower end, and ran that through, and so on until Kim had a steel lightning target jutting twenty-odd feet above her tower.

The tower loft was unfurnished, so I’d carried up a couple of cushions from one of her sofas. We huddled side by side on those. The lower end of the steel pipe sat in a large galvanized bucket of water a few feet in front of us—the bucket was to catch the rain that would certainly leak through my amateur caulking job at the roof line, the water to reduce the risk of fire.

I heard the first distant mutter of thunder and rubbed my hands together. Despite the intense dry heat up here, they felt cold and damp.

“Scared?” Kim said

“Terrified.”

My first brush with lightning had been an accident. I hadn’t known what was coming. Now I did. I was shaking inside.

Kim smiled and gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. “So was I, at first. Knowing I’m going to see Timmy helps, but still…it’s the uncertainty that does it: Is it or isn’t it going to hit?”

“How about I just say I don’t believe in lightning? That’ll make me feel better.”

She laughed. “Hey, whatever works.” She sidled closer. “But I think I know a better way to take your mind off your worries.”

She began kissing me, on my eyes, my cheeks, my neck, my lips. And I began undoing the buttons on her blouse. We made love on the cushions in that hot stuffy tower, and were glazed with sweat when we finished.

A flash lit one of the eight slim windows that surrounded us, followed by a deep rumble.

“Almost here,” I whispered.

Kim nodded absently. She seemed distant. I knew our lovemaking had once again ended too quickly for her, and I felt bad. Over the past week I’d tried everything I knew to bring her through, but kept running into a wall I could not breach.

“I wish—” I began but she placed a finger against my lips.

“I have to tell you something. About Timmy. About the day he died.”

I knew it had been tough on her coming back here. I’d seen his room—it lay directly below this little tower. Like so many parents who’ve lost a child, she’d kept it just as he’d left it, with toys on the counters and drawings on the wall. I would have done that with Beth’s room, but my marriage fell apart soon after her death and the house was sold. Another child occupied Beth’s room now.

“You don’t—”

“Shush. Let me speak. I’ve got to tell you this. I’ve got to tell someone before…”

“Before what?”

“Before I explode. I brought Timmy home from the hospital to a room that was set up like the finest ICU. All his vital signs were monitored by telemetry, he had round-the-clock skilled nursing to give him his chemotherapy, monitor his IVs, draw blood for tests, adjust his respirator.”

“Why the respirator?” I couldn’t help it—the doctor in me wanted to know.

“The tumor had spread to his lungs—he couldn’t breathe without it. It’d also spread to many of his bones, even his skull. He was in terrible pain all the time. They radiated him, filled him with poisons that made him sicker, loaded him with dope to ease the pain, and kept telling me he had a fighting chance. He didn’t have a chance. I knew it, and that was why I’d brought him home, so he could be in his own room, and so I could have every minute with him. But worse, Timmy knew it too. I could see it in his eyes when they weren’t glazed with opiates. He was hanging by a thread but no one would let it break. He wanted to go.”

I closed my eyes, thinking, Oh, no. Don’t tell me this…I don’t want to hear this…

“It was the hardest decision of my life. More than anything else in the universe, I wanted my little boy to live, because every second of his life seemed a precious gift to me. But why was I delaying the inevitable? For him, or for me? Certainly not for him, because he was simply existing. He couldn’t read, couldn’t even watch TV, because if he wasn’t in agony, he was in the Demerol zone. That meant I was prolonging his agony for me, because I couldn’t let him go. I had to let him go. As his mother, I had to do what was right for him, not for me.”

“You don’t have to go on,” I said as she paused. “I can guess the rest.”

Kim showed me a small, bitter smile. “No, I don’t think you can.” She let out a deep shuddering sigh and bit her upper lip. “So one day, as a thunderstorm came through, I dosed a glass of orange juice with some ipecac and gave it to Timmy’s nurse. Ten minutes later, while she was in the bathroom heaving up her lunch, I sneaked down to the basement and threw the main breaker for the house. Then I rushed back up to the second floor to be with Timmy as he slipped away. But he wasn’t slipping away. He was writhing in the bed, spasming, fighting for air. I…I was horrified, I felt as if my blood had turned to ice. I thought he’d go gently. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I couldn’t bear it.”

Tears began to stream down her face. The storm was growing around us but I was barely aware. I was focused on Kim.

“I remember screaming and running back down to the basement, almost killing myself on the way, and resetting the breaker. Then I raced back upstairs. But when I reached him, it was too late. My Timmy was gone, and I hadn’t been there. He died alone. Alone! Because of me! I killed him!”

And now she was sobbing, deep wracking sounds from the pit of her soul. I took her in my arms and held her tight against me. She virtually radiated pain. At last I understood what was fueling the engine of this mad compulsion. What an appalling burden to carry.

“It’s all right, Kim,” I whispered. “What you saw were muscle spasms, all involuntary. You did the right thing, a brave thing.”

“Was it right?” she blurted through her sobs. “I know it wasn’t brave—I mean, I lost my nerve and changed my mind—but was it right? Did Timmy really want to go, or was it me just thinking he did? Was his suffering too much for him to bear, or too much for me? That’s what I’ve got to know. That’s why I have to see him close up and hear what he’s trying to say. If I can do that, just once, I swear I’ll stop all this and run for a basement every time I hear a storm coming.”

As if on cue, a blast of thunder shook the little tower and I became aware again of the storm. Rain slashed the windows and the darkened sky was alive with flashes. I stared at the steel pole a few feet before me and wanted to run. I could feel my heart hammering against my ribs. This was insane, truly insane. But I forced myself to sit tight and think about something else.

“It all makes sense now,” I said.

“What?”

“Why we’re seeing Beth and Timmy…they didn’t give up their lives—life was taken from them.”

Kim bunched a fist against her mouth. She closed her eyes and moaned softly.

“Through love in Timmy’s case,” I said quickly. I cupped my hand behind her neck and kissed her forehead. “But not in Beth’s.”

Kim opened her eyes. “Can’t you tell me about it? Please?”

She’d shared her darkest secret with me, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. I was about to refuse her when a deafening blast of thunder stopped me. I was dancing with death in this tower. What if I didn’t survive? Kim should know. Suddenly I wanted her to know.

I closed my eyes and opened the gates, allowing the pent-up past to flow free. A mélange of sights, smells, sounds eddied around me, carrying me back five years…

I steeled myself and began: “It was the first time in years I’d allowed myself more than a week away from my practice. Twelve whole days in Italy. We were all so excited…”

Angela was first generation Italian-American and the three of us trooped to the Old Country to visit her grandparents—Beth’s great-grandparents. While Angela stayed in Positano, yakking in Italian to all her relatives, Beth and I dashed off for a quick, two-day jaunt to Venice. Yes, it’s an overpriced tourist trap. Yes, it’s the Italian equivalent of Disney World. But there’s not another place in the world like it, and since the city is supposedly sinking at the rate of two and a half inches per decade, I wanted Beth to experience it without a snorkel.

From the day she was born, Beth and I shared something special. I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone or anything more than that little baby. When I was home, I’d feed her; when I wasn’t on call, I’d get up with her at night. Most parents love their kids, but Beth and I bonded. We were soul mates. She was only eight, but I felt as if I’d known her all my life.

I wanted her to be rich in spirit and experience, so I never passed up a chance to show her the wonders of the world, the natural and the manmade. Venice was a little of both. We did all the touristy stuff—a gondola ride past Marco Polo’s and Casanova’s houses, shopping on the Rialto Bridge, eating gelato, crossing the Bridge of Sighs from the Doge’s palace into the prison; we took boats to see the glassblowers on Murano and the lace makers on Burano, snagged a table at Harry’s Bar where I treated her to a Shirley Temple while I tried a Bellini. But no matter where we went or what we did, Beth kept dragging me back to Piazza San Marco so she could feed the pigeons. She was bonkers for those pigeons.

Vendors wheel little carts through the piazza, selling packets of birdseed, two thousand lire a pop. Beth must have gone through a dozen packets during our two-day stay. Pigeons have been called rats with feathers, and that may not be far off, but these have got to be the fattest, tamest feathered rats in the world. Sprinkle a little seed into your palm, hold it out, and they’ll flutter up to perch on your hand and arm to eat it. Beth loved to stand with handfuls stretched out to both sides. The birds would bunch at her feet, engulf her arms, and even perch on her head, transforming her into a giggling mass of feathers.

I wasn’t crazy about her being that close to so many birds—thoughts of the avian-born diseases like psittacosis that I’d studied in med school kept darting through my head—so I tried to limit her contact. But she got such a kick out of them, how many times could I say no? I even went so far as to let her talk me into doing her two-handed feeding trick. Soon, holding my breath within a sea of fluttering wings, I was inundated with feathers. I couldn’t see Beth but I could hear her distinctive belly laugh. When I finally shook off the pigeons, I found her red-faced and doubled over with laughter.

What can be better than making a child laugh? The pigeons grossed me out, but so what? I grabbed more seed and did it again.

Finally it was time to leave Venice. The only flight we could book to Naples left Marco Polo at six thirty the next morning, and the first public waterbus of the day would make a number of stops along the way and get us to the airport with only a few minutes to spare. Since I didn’t want to risk missing the flight, I had the hotel concierge arrange for a private water taxi. It would pick us up at five a.m. at a little dock just a hundred feet from our hotel.

At ten of five, Beth and I were standing by our luggage at the end of Calle Larga San Marco. The tide was out and the canal smelled pretty rank. Even at this hour it was warm enough for short sleeves. I was taken with the silence of the city, the haunted emptiness of the dark streets: Venice on the cusp of a new day, when the last revelers had called it quits, and the earliest risers were just starting their morning coffee.

Beth was her usual bossy little self. As soon as she’d learned to string words together, she began giving directions like a sergeant major. She had no qualms about telling us what to wear, or what to buy in the supermarket or a department store, or setting up seating arrangements—“You sit there, Mommy, and Daddy, you sit there, and I’ll sit right here in the middle.” We called her “the Boss.” And here in Venice, without her mother around, Boss Beth took charge of me. I loved to humor her.

“Put the suitcases right there, Daddy. Yours on the inside and mine on the outside so that when the boat gets here we can put them right on. Now you stand right over here by me.”

I did exactly as she told me. She wanted me close and I was glad to comply. Her voice trailed off after that and I could see her glancing around uneasily. I wasn’t fully comfortable myself, but I talked about seeing Mommy in a few hours to take her mind off our isolation.

And then finally we heard it—the sputtering gurgle of an approaching taxi acquei. The driver, painfully thin, a cigarette drooping from his lips, pulled into the dock—little more than a concrete step-down—and asked in bad English if we were the ones going to the airport. We were, and as I handed him our two suitcases, I noticed the heavy droop of his left eyelid. My first thought was Bell’s palsy, but then I noticed the scar that parted his eyebrow and ridged the lid below it.

I also noticed that he wasn’t one to make contact with his good eye, and that his taxi didn’t look to be in the best shape. A warning bell sounded in my head—not a full-scale alarm, just a troubled chime—but I knew if I went looking now for another taxi, we’d almost certainly miss the plane.

If only I’d heeded my instincts.

Beth and I sat together in the narrow, low-ceilinged cabin amidships as the driver wound his way into the wider, better-lit Grand Canal where we were the only craft moving. We followed that for a while, then turned off into a narrower passage. After numerous twists and turns I was completely disoriented. Somewhere along the way the canal-front homes had been replaced by warehouses. My apprehension was rising, and when the engine began to sputter, it soared.

As the taxi bumped against the side of the canal, the driver stuck his head into the cabin and managed to convey that he was having motor trouble and needed us to come up front so he could open the engine hatch.

I emerged to find him standing in front of me with his arm raised. I saw something flash dimly in his hand as he swung it at me, and I managed to get my left arm up in time to deflect it. I felt a blade slice deep into my forearm and I cried out with the pain as I fell to the side. Beth started screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!” but that was all she managed before her voice died in a choking gurgle. I didn’t know what he’d done to Beth, I just knew he’d hurt her and no way in hell was he going to hurt her again. Bloody arm and all, I launched myself at him with an animal roar. He was light and thin, and not in good shape. I took him by surprise and drove him back against the boat’s console. Hard. He grunted and I swear I heard ribs crack. In blind fury I pinned him there and kept ramming my right forearm against his face and neck and kneeing him in the groin until he went limp, then I threw him to the deck and jumped on him a few times, driving my heels into his back to make sure he wouldn’t be getting up.

Then I leaped to Beth and found her drenched in blood and just about gone. He’d slit her throat! Oh Lord, oh God, to keep her from screaming he’d cut my little girl open, severing one of her carotid arteries in the process. The wound gaped dark and wet, blood was everywhere. Whimpering like a lost, frightened child, I felt around in the wound and found the feebly pumping carotid stump, tried to squeeze it shut but it was too late, too late. Her mouth was slack, her eyes wide and staring. I was losing her, my Beth was dying and I couldn’t do a thing to save her. I started shouting for help, I screamed until my throat was raw and my voice reduced to a ragged hiss, but the only replies were my own cries echoing off the warehouse walls.

And then the blood stopped pulsing against my fingers and I knew her little heart had stopped. CPR was no use because she had no blood left inside, it was all out here, soaking the deck and the two of us.

I held her and wept, rocking her back and forth, pleading with God to give her back to me. But instead of Beth stirring, the driver moved, groaning in pain from his broken bones. In a haze of rage as red as the sun just beginning to crawl over the horizon, I rose and began kicking and stomping him, reveling in the wonderful crunch of his bones beneath my soles. I shattered his limbs and hands and feet, crushed his rib cage, pulped the back of his skull, and I relished every blow. When I was satisfied he was dead, I returned to Beth. I cradled her in my arms and sobbed until the first warehouse workers arrived and found us.

Kim clutched both my hands; tears streamed down her cheeks. Her mouth moved as she tried to speak, but she made no sound.

“The rest is something of a blur. An official inquiry into the incident—two people were dead, so I couldn’t blame the Venice authorities for that—revealed that the killer had overheard the hotel arranging our water-taxi ride. He borrowed a friend’s boat and beat the scheduled taxi to the pickup spot. The court determined that he was going to kill us, steal whatever valuables we’d bought or brought, and dump our bodies in the Adriatic. They suspected that we weren’t his first victims.

“I was released, but then came the nightmare of red tape trying to return Beth’s body to the States. Finally we brought her home and buried her, but my life was changed forever by then. The world was never the same without Beth. Neither was my marriage. Angela never said so, but I know she secretly blamed me for Beth’s death. So did I. Angela and I split a year later. She couldn’t live with me. Who could blame her? I could barely live with myself. Still can’t.”

“But you’re not to blame.”

“I had a chance to back off before we stepped onto that water taxi, but I didn’t take it. And Beth paid for it.”

We sat in silence then, each mired in our pools of private guilt. Gradually I realized that the flashes outside were less frequent, the thunder not quite so loud.

“I think it’s passed us by,” I said.

Kim glanced around, frowning in disappointment. “Damn. We’ll have to wait for another storm. That could be next week or next month around here.” She pointed to the steel pole. “Oh, look. It’s wet.”

Fine rivulets of water were coursing down the surface of the steel.

“So much for my caulking skills. I’ll see what I can do tomorrow.”

Kim got on her knees and leaned forward to touch the wet surface and—

—the tower seemed to explode. I had an instant’s impression of a deafening buzz accompanied by a rainbow shower of sparks within a wall of blazing light; boiling water exploded from the galvanized bucket as multiple arcs of blue-white energy converged from the pole onto Kim’s outstretched arm. Her mouth opened wide in a silent scream while her body arched like a bow and shuddered violently, and then a searing bolt flashed from her opposite shoulder into me…

…the whiteout fades, as do the walls of the tower, leaving ghostly translucent afterimages, and I know which way to turn. I spot the tiny figure immediately, still in her yellow dress, standing so far away, suspended above the treetops. Beth! I call her name but there is no sound in this place. I try to move toward her but I’m frozen in space. I need to be closer, I need to see her throat…and then her hand goes to her mouth, and her eyes widen as she points to me. What? What’s the matter?

I realize she’s pointing behind me. I turn and see Kim’s ghostly figure on the floor…so still…too still…

I came to and crawled to Kim. Her right arm was a smoking ruin, charred to the elbow, and she wasn’t breathing. Panicked, I struggled upright and kneeled over her. I forced my rubbery arms to pound my fists on her chest to jolt her heart back to life—once, twice—then I started CPR, compressing her sternum and blowing into her mouth, five thrusts, one breath…five thrusts, one breath…

“Come on, Kim!” I shouted. I was so slick with sweat that my hands kept slipping off her chest. “Breathe! You can do it! Breathe, damn it!”

I saw her eyelids flutter. Her blue irises had lost their luster, but I sensed an exquisite joy in their depths as they fixed on me for a beseeching instant…the tiniest shake of her head, and then she was gone again.

I realized what she’d just tried to tell me: Don’t…please don’t.

But it wasn’t in me to kneel here and watch the life seep out of her. I lurched again into CPR but she resisted my best efforts to bring her back. Finally, I stopped. Her skin was cooling beneath my palms. Kim was gone.

I stared at her pale, peaceful face. What was happening in that other place? Had she found her Timmy and the forgiveness she craved? Was she with him now and preferring to stay there?

I felt an explosive pressure building in my chest, mostly grief, but part envy. I let out an agonized groan and gathered her into my arms. I ached for her bright eyes, her crooked-toothed smile.

“Poor lost Kim,” I whispered, stroking her limp hair. “I hope to God you found what you were looking for.”

Just as with Beth, I held Kim until her body was cold.

Finally, I let her go. I dressed her as best I could, and stretched her out on the cushions. I called the emergency squad, then drove my car to the corner and waited until I saw them wheel her body out to the ambulance. Then I headed for the airport.

I hated abandoning her to the medical examiner, but I knew the police would want to question me. They’d want to know what the hell we were doing up in that tower during a storm. They might even take me into custody. I couldn’t allow that.

I had someplace to go.

I arrived in Marco Polo Airport without luggage. The terminal snuggles up to the water, and the boats wait right outside the arrival terminal. I bought a ticket for the waterbus—I could barely look at the smaller, speedier water taxis—and spent the two-and-a-half mile trip across the Laguna Véneta fighting off the past.

I did pretty well leaving the dock and walking into the Piazza San Marco. I hurried through the teeming crowds, past the flooded basilica on the right—a Byzantine toad squatting in a tiny pond—and the campanile towering to my left. I almost lost it when I saw a little girl feeding the pigeons, but I managed to hold on.

I found a hotel in the San Polo district, bought a change of clothes, and holed up in my room, watching the TV, waiting for news of a storm.

And now the storm is here. From my perch atop the Campanile di San Marco I see it boiling across the Laguna Véneta, spearing the Lido with bolts of blue-white energy, and taking dead aim for my position. The piazza below is empty now, the gawkers chased by the thunder, rain, and lightning—especially the lightning. Even the brave young Carabinieri has discovered the proper relationship between discretion and valor and ducked back inside.

And me: I’ve cut the ground wire from the lightning rod above me. I’m roped to the tower to keep from falling. And I’m drenched with rain.

I’m ready.

Physically, at least. Mentally, I’m still not completely sure. I’ve seen Beth twice now. I should believe, I want to believe…but do I want it so desperately that I’ve tapped into Kim’s delusion system and made it my own?

I’m hoping this will be my last time. If I can see Beth up close, see her throat, know that her wound has healed in this place where she waits, it will go a long way toward healing a wound of my own.

Suddenly I feel it—the tingle in my skin as the charge builds in the air around me—and then a deafening ZZZT! as the bolt strikes the ungrounded rod above the statue of St. Mark. Millions of volts slam into me, violently jerking my body…

…and then I’m in that other place, that other state…I look around frantically for a splotch of yellow and I almost cry out when I see Beth floating next to me. She’s here, smiling, radiant, and so close I can almost touch her. I choke with relief as I see her throat—it’s healed, the terrible grinning wound gone without a trace, as if it never happened.

I smile at her but she responds with a look of terror. She points down and I turn to see my body tumbling from the tower. The safety rope has broken and I’m drifting earthward like a feather.

I’m going to die.

Strangely, that doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it should. Not in this place.

Then in the distance I see two other figures approaching, and as they near I recognize Kim, and she’s leading a beaming towheaded boy toward Beth and me.

A burst of unimaginable joy engulfs me. This is so wonderful…almost too wonderful to be real. And there lies my greatest fear. Are they all—Beth, Kim, Timmy—really here? Or merely manifestations of my consuming need for this to be real?

I look down and see my slowly falling body nearing the pavement.Very soon I will know.

ANNA

INTRODUCTION

Alan Clark’s Imagination Fully Dilated anthology (containing “Lysing Toward Bethlehem”) had been a success, so he decided to self-publish volume two. The same scenario: Pick one of his paintings and write a story around it. I chose “I Become My Resting Place.” It’s one of a series of bucolic landscapes focused on twisted pieces of wood that look like people or almost-people.

I looked at that painting and saw a wooden corpse. (Google the title if you want a peek.) I asked myself how that could come to be. The answer was “Anna,” a traditional horror story that draws on one of my favorite locales.

ANNA

The bushy-haired young man with long sideburns arrives on deck with two cups of coffee—one black for himself, the other laced with half-and-half and two sugars, the way his wife always takes it. Rows of blue plastic seats, half of them filled with tourists heading back to the mainland, sit bolted to the steel deck. He stops by a row under the awning. His wife’s navy blue sweatshirt is draped over the back of one of the seats but she’s not there. He looks around and doesn’t see her. He asks a nearby couple, strangers, if they saw where his wife went but they say they didn’t notice.

The man strolls through the ferry’s crowded aft deck but doesn’t see his wife. Still carrying the coffee, he ambles forward but she’s not there either. He wanders the starboard side, checking out the tourists leaning on the rails, then does the same on the port side. No sign of her.

The man places the coffee on the seat with her sweatshirt and searches through the inner compartments and the snack bar. He begins to ask people if they’ve seen a blond woman in her mid-twenties wearing a flowered top and bell-bottom jeans. Sure, people say. Dozens of them. And they’re right. The ferry carries numerous women fitting that description.

The man finds a member of the crew and tells him that his wife is missing. He is taken to the ferry’s security officer who assures him that his wife is surely somewhere aboard—perhaps she’s seasick and in one of the rest rooms.

The man waits outside the women’s rooms, asking at each if someone could check inside for his wife. When that yields nothing, he again wanders the various decks, going so far as to search the vehicle level where supply trucks and passengers’ cars make the trip.

When the ferry reaches Hyannis, the man stands on the dock and watches every debarking passenger, but his wife is not among them.

He calls his father-in-law who lives outside Boston. He explains that they were on their way over for a surprise visit but now his daughter is missing. The father-in-law arrives in his chauffeur-driven Bentley and joins the young man in storming the offices of the Massachusetts Steamship Authority, demanding a thorough, stem-to-stern search of the ferry and too damned bad if that will delay its departure. The father-in-law is a rich man, influential in Massachusetts politics. The ferry is detained.

The state police are called to aid in the search. The Coast Guard sends out a helicopter to trace and retrace the ferry’s route. But the wife is not to be found. No one sees her again. Ever.

* * *

“Ow!”

William Morley grabbed his right heel as pain spiked through it. His knee creaked and protested as he leaned back in the chair and pulled his foot up to where he could see it.

“I’ll be damned!” he said as he spotted the two-inch splinter jutting from the heel of his sock.

Blood seeped through the white cotton, forming a crimson bull’s-eye around the base of the splinter. Morley grabbed the end and yanked it free. The tip was stiletto sharp and red with his blood.

“Where the hell…?”

He’d been sitting here in his study, in his favorite rocker, reading the Sunday Times, his feet resting on the new maple footstool he’d bought just yesterday. How on earth had he picked up a splinter?

Keeping his bloody heel off the carpet, he limped into the bathroom, dabbed a little peroxide on the wound, then covered it with a Band-Aid.

When he returned to the footstool he checked the cushioned top and saw a small hole in the fabric where his heel had been resting. The splinter must have been lying in the stuffing. He didn’t remember moving his foot before it pierced him, but he must have.

Morley had picked up the footstool at Danzer’s overpriced furniture boutique on Lower Broadway. He’d gone in looking for something antiquey and come out with this brand-new piece. He’d spotted it from the front of the showroom; tucked in a far rear corner, it seemed to call to him. And once he’d seen the intricate grain—he couldn’t remember seeing maple grained like this—and the elaborate carving along the edge of the seat and up and down the legs, he couldn’t pass it up.

But careless as all hell for someone to leave a sharp piece of wood like that in the padding. If he were a different sort, he might sue. But what for? He had more than enough money, and he wouldn’t want to break whoever did this exquisite carving.

He grabbed two of the stool’s three legs and lifted it for a closer look. Marvelous grain, and—

“Shit!” he cried, and dropped it as pain lanced his hand.

He gaped in wonder at the splinter—little more than an inch long this time—jutting from his palm. He plucked the slim little dagger and held it up.

How the hell…?

Morley knelt next to the overturned stool and inspected the leg he’d been holding. He spotted the source of the splinter—a slim, pale crevice in the darker surface of the lightly stained wood.

How on earth had that wound up in his skin? He could understand if he’d been sliding his hand along, but he’d simply been holding it. And next to the crevice—was that another splinter angled outward?

As he adjusted his reading glasses and leaned closer, the tiny piece of wood popped out of the leg and flew at his right eye.

Morley jerked back as it bounced harmlessly off the eyeglass lens. He lost his balance and fell onto his back, but he didn’t stay down. He’d gained weight in his middle years and was carrying an extra thirty pounds on his medium frame, yet he managed to roll over and do a rapid if ungainly scramble away from the footstool on his hands and knees. At sixty-two he cherished his dignity, but panic had taken over.

My God! If I hadn’t been wearing glasses—!

Thankfully, he was alone. He rose, brushed himself off, and regarded the footstool from a safe distance.

Really—a “safe distance” from a little piece of furniture? Ridiculous. But his stomach roiled at the thought of how close he’d come to having a pierced cornea. Something very, very wrong here.

Rubbing his hands over his arms to counter a creeping chill, Morley surveyed his domain, a turn-of-the-century townhouse on East Thirty-first Street in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. He and Elaine had spent just shy of a million for it in the late eighties, and it was worth multiples of that now. Its four levels of hardwood floors, cherry wainscoting, intricately carved walnut moldings and cornices were all original. They’d spent a small fortune refurbishing the interior to its original Victorian splendor and furnishing it with period antiques. After the tumor in her breast finally took Elaine in 1995, he’d stayed on here, alone but not lonely. Over the years he’d gradually removed Elaine’s touches, easing her influence from the decor until the place was all him. He’d become quite content as lord of the manor.

Until now. The footstool had attracted him because of its grain, and because the style of its carving fit so seamlessly with the rest of the furniture, but he wouldn’t care now if it was a genuine one-of-a-kind Victorian. That thing had to go.

Tugging at his neat salt-and-pepper beard, Morley eyed the footstool from across the room. Question was…how was he going to get it out of here without touching it?

* * *

The owner of Mostly Maple was at the counter when Morley walked in. Though close to Morley in age, Hal Danzer was a polar opposite. Where Morley was thick, Danzer was thin, where Morley was bearded, Danzer was clean shaven, where Morley’s thin hair was neatly trimmed, Danzer’s was long and thick and tied into a short ponytail.

A gallimaufry of maple pieces of varying ages, ranging from ancient to brand new, surrounded them—claw-footed tables, wardrobes, breakfronts, secretaries, desks, dressers, even old kitchen phones. Morley liked maple too, but not to the exclusion of all other woods. Danzer had once told him that he had no firm guidelines regarding his stock other than it be of maple and strike his fancy.

Morley deposited the heavy-duty canvas duffel on the counter.

“I want to return this.”

Danzer stared at him. “A canvas bag?”

“No.” With difficulty he refrained from adding, you idiot. “What’s inside.”

Danzer opened the bag and peeked in. He frowned. “The footstool you bought Saturday? Something wrong with it?”

Hell, yes, something was wrong with it. Very wrong.

“Take it out and you’ll see.”

Morley certainly wasn’t going to stick his hand in there. Last night he’d pulled the old bag out of the attic and very carefully slipped it over the stool. Then, using a broom handle, he’d upended the bag and pushed the stool the rest of the way in. He was not going to touch it again. Let Danzer find out firsthand, as it were, what was wrong with it.

Danzer reached in and pulled out the footstool by one of its three carved legs. Morley backed up a step, waiting for his yelp of pain.

Nothing.

Danzer held up the footstool and rotated it back and forth in the light.

Nothing.

“Looks okay to me.”

Morley shifted his weight off his right foot—the heel was still tender. He glanced at his bandaged left hand. He hadn’t imagined those splinters.

“There, on the other leg. See those gaps in the finish? That’s where slivers popped out of the wood.”

Danzer twisted the stool and squinted at the wood. “I’ll be damned. You’re right. Popped out, you say?”

Morley held up his bandaged hand. “Right into my palm. My foot too.” He left off mention of the near miss on his eye.

But why isn’t anything happening to you? he wondered.

“Sorry about that. I’ll replace it.”

“Replace it?”

“Sure. I picked up three of them. They’re identical.”

Before Morley could protest, Danzer had ducked through the curtained doorway behind the counter. But come to think of it, how could he refuse a replacement? He couldn’t say that this footstool, sitting inert on the counter, had assaulted him. And it was a beautiful little thing…

Danzer popped back through the curtain with another, a clone of the first. He set it on the counter.

“There you go. I checked this one over carefully and it’s perfect.”

Morley reached out, slowly, tentatively, and touched the wood with the fingertips of his left hand, ready to snatch them back at the first sharp sensation. But nothing happened. Gently he wrapped his hand around the leg. For an awful instant he thought he felt the carving writhe beneath his palm, but the feeling was gone before he could confirm it.

He sighed. Just wood. Heavily grained maple and nothing more.

“While I was inspecting it,” Danzer said, “I noticed something interesting. Look here.” He turned the stool on its side and pointed to a heavily grained area. “Check this out.”

Remembering the near miss on his eye, Morley leaned closer, but not too.

“What am I looking for?”

“There, in the grain—isn’t the grain just fabulous? You can see a name. Looks like ‘Anna,’ doesn’t it?”

Simply hearing the name sent a whisper of unease through Morley. And damned if Danzer wasn’t right. The word “ANNA” was indeed woven into the grain. Seeing the letters hidden like that only increased his discomfiture.

Why this unease? He didn’t know anyone named Anna, could not remember ever knowing an Anna.

“And look,” Danzer was saying. “It’s here on the other one. Isn’t that clever.”

Again Morley looked where Danzer was pointing, and again made out the name “ANNA” worked into the grain.

Morley’s tongue felt as dry as the wood that filled this store. “What’s so clever?”

Danzer was grinning. “It’s got to be the woodworker. She’s doing a Hirschfeld.”

Morley’s brain seemed to be stuck in low gear. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Hirschfeld—Al Hirschfeld, the illustrator. You’ve seen him a million times in the Times and Playbill. He does those line caricatures. And in every one of them for the last umpteen years he’s hidden his daughter Nina’s name in the drawing. This Anna is doing the same thing. The shop probably doesn’t allow its woodworkers to sign their pieces, so she’s sneaked her name into the grain. Probably no one else but her knows it’s there.”

“Except for us now.”

“Yeah. Isn’t that great? I just love stuff like this.”

Morley said nothing as he watched the ebullient Danzer stuff the replacement footstool into the canvas duffel and hand it back.

“It’s all yours.”

Morley felt a little queasy, almost seasick. Part of him wanted to turn and run, but he knew he had to take that footstool home. Because it was signed, so cleverly inscribed, by Anna, whoever that was, and he must have it.

“Yes,” he mumbled through the sawdust taste in his mouth. “All mine.”

* * *

At home, Morley couldn’t quite bring himself to put the footstool to immediate use. He removed it from the canvas bag without incurring another wound—a good sign in itself—and set it in a corner of his study. He felt a growing confidence that what had happened yesterday was an aberration, but he could not yet warm to the piece. Perhaps in time…when he’d figured out why the name Anna stirred up such unsettling echoes.

He heard the clank of the mail slot and went down to the first floor to collect the day’s letters: a good-sized stack of the usual variety of junk circulars, come-ons, confirmation slips from his broker, and pitches from various charities. Very little of a personal nature.

Still shuffling through the envelopes, he had just reentered the study when his foot caught on something. Suddenly he was falling forward. The mail went flying as he flung out his arms to prevent himself from landing on his face. He hit the floor with a brain-jarring, rib-cracking thud that knocked the wind out of him.

It took a good half minute before he could breathe again. When he finally rolled over, he looked around to see what had tripped him—and froze.

The footstool sat dead center in the entry to the study.

A tremor rattled through Morley. He’d left the stool in the corner—he was certain of it. Or at least, pretty certain. He was more certain that furniture didn’t move around on its own, so perhaps he hadn’t put it in the corner, merely intended to, and hadn’t got around to it yet.

Right now he wasn’t certain of what he could be certain of.

* * *

Morley found himself wide awake at three a.m. He’d felt ridiculous stowing the footstool in a closet, but had to admit he felt safer with it tucked away behind a closed door two floors below. That name—Anna—was keeping him awake. He’d sifted through his memories, from boyhood to the present, and could not come up with a single Anna. The word was a palindrome, so reversing the order was futile; the only workable anagram was also worthless—he’d never known a “Nana” either.

So why had the sight of those letters set alarm bells ringing?

Not only was it driving him crazy, it was making him thirsty.

Morley reached for the bottle of Evian he kept on the night table—empty. Damn. He got out of bed in the dark and headed for the first floor. Enough light filtered through the windows from the city outside to allow him a faint view of where he was going, but as he neared the top of the stairs, he felt a growing unease in his gut. He slowed, then stopped. He didn’t understand. He hadn’t heard a noise, but he could feel the wiry hairs at the back of his neck rise in warning. Something not right here. He reached out, found the wall switch, and flicked it.

The footstool sat at the top of the stairway.

Morley’s knees threatened to give way and he had to lean against the wall to keep them from crumbling. If he hadn’t turned on the light he surely would have tripped over it and tumbled down the steps, very likely to his death.

* * *

“That footstool! Where did you get it?”

After a couple of seconds’ pause, Danzer’s voice came back over the line. “What? Who is this?”

Morley rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept all night. After kicking the footstool down the hallway and locking it in a spare bedroom, he’d sat up the rest of the night with the room key clutched in his fist. As soon as ten a.m. rolled around—the time when Danzer opened his damn store—he’d started dialing.

“It’s Bill Morley. Where did you buy that footstool?”

“At a regional woodworker’s expo on Cape Cod.”

“From whom? I need a name!”

“Why?”

“I just do! Are you going to tell me or not?”

“Hold your horses, will you? Let me look it up.” Papers shuffled, then: “Here it is…Charles Ansbach. ‘Custom and Original Woodwork.’”

“Charles? I thought it was supposed to be ‘Anna.’”

Danzer laughed. “Oh, you mean because of the name in the grain. Who knows? Maybe this Anna works for him. Maybe she bought his business. Maybe—”

“Never mind! Where can I find this Charles Ansbach?”

“His address is Twelve Spinnaker Lane, Nantucket.”

“Nantucket?” Morley felt his palm begin to sweat where it clutched the receiver in a sudden death grip. “Did you say Nantucket?”

“That’s what’s written here on his invoice.”

Morley hung up the phone without saying good-bye and sat there trembling.

Nantucket…of all places, why did it have to be Nantucket? He’d buried his first wife, Julie, there. And he’d sworn he’d never set foot on that damn island again.

But now he must break that vow. He had to go back. How else could he find out who Anna was? And he must learn that. He doubted he would sleep a wink until he did.

* * *

At least he hadn’t had to take the ferry. No matter how badly he wanted to track down this Anna person, nothing in the world could make him ride that ferry again.

After jetting in from LaGuardia, Morley stepped into one of the beat-up station wagons that passed for taxis on Nantucket and gave the overweight woman behind the wheel the address.

“Goin’ to Charlie Ansbach’s place, ay? You know him?”

“We’ve never met. Actually, I’m more interested in someone named Anna who works for him.”

“Anna?” the woman said as they pulled away from the tiny airport. “Don’t know of any Anna workin’ for Charlie. Tell the truth, don’t know of any Anna connected to Charlie at all.”

That didn’t bode well. Nantucket was less than fifteen miles long and barely four across at its widest point. The islanders were an insular group who weathered long, isolated off-seasons together; as a result they tended to know each other like kin, and were always into each other’s business.

As the taxi took him toward town along Old South Road, Morley marveled at the changes since his last look in the seventies. Decades and an extended bull market had transformed the island. New construction was everywhere. Even now, in post-season October, with the oaks and maples turning gold and orange, new houses were going up. Nantucket ordinances allow little variation in architecture—clapboard or cedar shakes or else—but the newer buildings were identifiable by their unweathered siding.

Nantucket had always been an old-money island, a summer hideaway for the very wealthy from New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts—Old Money attached to names that never made the papers. The Kennedys, the Carly Simons and James Taylors, the Spike Lees and other spotlight-hungry sorts preferred Martha’s Vineyard. Morley remembered walking through town here in the summer when the island’s population explodes, when the streets would be thick with tourists fresh off the ferry for the day. They’d stroll Main Street or the docks in their pristine, designer leisure wear, ogling all the yachts. Salted among them would be these middle-aged men in faded jerseys and torn shorts stained with fish blood, who drove around in rusty Wagoneers and rumbling Country Squires. Deck hands? No, these were the owners of the yachts, who lived in the big houses up on Cliff Road and on the bluffs overlooking Brant Point. The more Old Money they had, the closer to homeless they looked.

“Seems to be houses everywhere,” Morley said. “Whatever happened to the conservancy?”

“Alive and well,” the driver replied. “It’s got forty-eight percent of the land now, and more coming in. If nothing else, it’ll guarantee that at least half of the island will remain in its natural state, God bless ’em.”

Morley didn’t offer an “amen”. The conservancy had been part of all his troubles here.

The cab skirted the north end of town and hooked up with Madaket Road. More new houses. If only he’d held on to the land longer after Julie’s death, think what it might be worth now.

He shook his head. No looking back. He’d sold off the land piece by piece over the years, and made a handsome profit. Prudent investing had qua drupled the original yield. He had no complaints on that score.

He noticed groups of grouse-like birds here and there along the shoulder of the road, and asked the driver about them.

“Guinea hens. Cousins to the turkey, only dumber. We imported a bunch of them a few years ago and they’re multiplying like crazy.”

“For hunting?”

“No. For ticks. We’re hoping they’ll eat up the deer ticks. Lymes disease, you know.”

Morley was tempted to tell her that it was Lyme disease—no terminal s-but decided against it.

Spinnaker Lane was a pair of sandy ruts through the dense thicket of bay-berry and beach plum south of Eel Point Road. Number twelve turned out to be a well-weathered Cape Cod with a large work shed out back.

“Wait for me,” Morley told the driver.

He heard the whine of an electric saw from the shed so he headed that way. He found an angular man with wild salty hair leaning over a table saw, skinning the bark off a log. A kiln sat in the far corner. The man looked up at Morley’s approach, squinting his blue eyes through the smoke from the cigarette dangling at the corner of his mouth.

“Charles Ansbach?”

“That’s me.” His face was as weathered as the siding on his shed. “What’s up?”

Morley decided to cut to the chase. These islanders would talk your head off about nothing if you gave them half the chance.

“I’m looking for Anna.”

“Anna who?”

“She works for you.”

“Sorry, mister. No Anna working for me, now or ever.”

“Oh, no?” Morley said, feeling a flush of anger. He was in no mood for games. “Then why is she working her name into the grain of your furniture?”

Ansbach’s blue eyes widened, then he grinned. “So, you spotted that too, ay?”

“Where is she?”

“Told you: Ain’t no Anna.”

“Then you’re doing it?”

“Ain’t me, either. It’s in the grain. Damnedest thing I ever seen.” He glanced down and blew sawdust off the log he’d been working on. He pointed to a spot. “Here’s more of it, right here.”

Morley stepped closer and leaned over the table. The grain was less prominent in the unstained wood, but his gut began to crawl as he picked out the letters of “ANNA” fitted among the wavy lines.

“It’s uncanny,” he whispered.

“More than uncanny, mister. It’s all through every piece of wood I got from that tree. Downright spooky, if you ask me.”

“What tree?”

“From the old Lange place. When I heard they was taking down one of the big maples there, I went to see it. When I spotted the grain I realized it was a curly maple. You don’t see many curly maples, and I never seen one like this—magnificent grain. I bought the whole tree. Kept some for myself and sold the rest to a coupla custom wood workers on the mainland. Got a good price for it too. But I never…”

Ansbach’s voice faded into the growing roar that filled Morley’s ears. The strength seemed to have deserted his legs and he slumped against the table.

Ansbach’s voice cut through the roar. “Hey, mister, you all right?”

All right? No, he was not all right—he was far from all right. All right for him was somewhere out near Alpha Centauri. But he nodded and forced himself to straighten and stagger away.

“What’s wrong, mister?” Ansbach called after him but Morley didn’t reply, didn’t wave good-bye. He sagged into the rear seat of the taxi and sat there trying to catch his breath.

“You look like you just seen a ghost!” the driver said.

“Do you know the old Lange place?” Morley gasped.

“Course. Ain’t been a Lange there for a long time, though.”

“Take me there.”

My tree! My tree! Morley thought. Have they cut it down?

Perhaps not. Perhaps it had been another tree. He couldn’t remember any other maples on the house property, and yet it must have been another tree, not his tree. Because if they’d cut down his tree they would have removed the stump. And in doing so they inevitably would have found Julie’s bones.

* * *

The taxi pulled off Cliff Road and stopped in front of the Lange place. The house itself looked pretty much the same, but Morley barely recognized its surroundings. Once the only dwelling on a fifty-two-acre parcel between Cliff and Madaket Roads, it now stood surrounded by houses. Morley’s doing. He’d sold them the land.

Panic gripped him as he searched the roof line and saw no maple branches peeking over from the backyard. He told the driver to wait again and hurried around the north corner of the house, passing a silver Mercedes SUV on the way. He caught his breath when he reached the rear. His maple was gone, and in its place sat…a picnic table.

As he staggered toward it, he noticed the table’s base—a tree stump. His tree was gone but they hadn’t pulled the stump!

Morley dropped into a chair by the table and almost wept with relief.

“Can I help you?”

Morley looked up and saw a mid-thirties yuppie type walking his way across the lawn. His expression was wary, verging on hostile. With good reason: Who was this stranger in his yard?

Morley rose from the chair and composed himself. “Sorry for intruding,” he said. “I used to live here. I planted this tree back in the seventies.”

The man’s expression immediately softened. “No kidding? Are you Lange?”

“No. It was the Lange place before I moved in, and remained the Lange place while I was living here. It will always be known as the Lange place.”

“So I’ve gathered.”

“What happened to my tree?”

“It got damaged in that nor’easter last fall. Big branch tore off and stripped a lot of bark. I had a tree surgeon patch it up but by last spring it was obvious the tree was doomed. So I had it taken down. But I left the stump. Put it to pretty good use, don’t you think?”

“Excellent use,” Morley said with heartfelt sincerity. Bless you, sir.

“The center is drilled to hold an umbrella in season.”

“How clever. It’s a wonderful addition to the yard. Don’t ever change it.”

Morley suffered through a little more small talk before he could extract himself. He rode back to the airport in silent exhaustion. When he finally reached his first-class seat for the return to LaGuardia, he ordered a double Macallan on the rocks and settled back to try to sort out what the hell was going on. But when he glanced out his window and saw the Nantucket ferry chugging out of the harbor far below, the events of the most nerve-wracking and potentially catastrophic twenty-four hours of his life engulfed him in a screaming rush…

* * *

The trouble with Julie Lange was that she was a rich girl who didn’t know how to play the part. She didn’t appreciate the finer things money could buy. She was just as happy with something from the JC Penney’s catalog as a one-of-a-kind designer piece. She had no desire for the style of life and level of comfort to which her new husband desperately wished to become accustomed.

But young Bill Morley hadn’t realized this when he started courting her in the big-haired, long-sideburned, bell-bottomed late sixties and early seventies. All he knew was that she was pretty, bright, fun, and rich. And when they eventually married, he was ecstatic to learn that her father was giving them the Nantucket family summer house and adjacent acreage as a wedding present.

That was the good news. The bad news was that Julie wanted to live there year round. Bill had said he wanted to write, hadn’t he? Nantucket would be the perfect place, especially in the winter when there were no distractions.

No distractions…a magnificent understatement. The damn island was virtually deserted in the winter. Bill contracted island fever early on and was a raw nerve by the time spring rolled around. He begged Julie to sell the place and move to the mainland.

But oh no, she couldn’t sell the family home. She’d spent almost every summer of her life at the Lange place. Besides, who would want to leave Nantucket? It was the best place on earth.

She just couldn’t see: The island was paradise to her, but to him it was hell on earth.

Bill fumed. He could not survive another winter on this island. He cudgeled his brain for a way out, and came up with a brilliant solution: How about we keep the house but sell off the fifty acres of undeveloped land and use the money from that to buy a place near Boston? We can live there in the winter and still summer here. Cool, huh?

But Julie simply laughed and said she couldn’t bear the thought of anyone but a Lange living on the land where she’d roamed and camped out during her childhood. In fact, she’d been looking into donating it to the conservancy so that it would always remain in its wild, undeveloped state.

Which left Billy three choices, none of which was particularly appealing. He could stay with Julie on Nantucket and devolve into drooling incoherence.

Or he could file for divorce and never see this island again, but that would mean cutting himself off from the Lange estate, all of which would go to Julie when her old man died.

Or Julie could die.

He reluctantly opted for the last. He wasn’t a killer, and not a particularly violent man, but an entire winter on this glorified sandbar had shaken something loose inside. And besides, he deserved to come out of this marriage with something more than a bad memory.

But he’d have to make his move soon, before Julie handed fifty acres of prime land over to the stupid damn conservancy.

So he convinced Julie that the backyard needed some landscaping. And on a bright Friday afternoon in June, after solidifying the plan and setting up all the props he’d need, Bill Morley sat on his back porch and watched the landscapers put the finishing touches on the free-form plantings in the backyard. He waved to them as they left, then waited for Julie to return from town where she’d been running errands and shopping and doing whatever she did.

Carrying a three-iron casually across a shoulder, he met her in the foyer when she came home, and she looked so bright, so cheery, so happy to be alive that he gave her one last chance to change her mind. But Julie barely listened. She brushed off the whole subject, saying she didn’t want to talk about selling houses or land or moving because she had something to tell him.

Whatever it was, she never got the chance. He hit her with the golf club. Hard. Three times. She dropped to the floor like a sack of sand, not moving, not breathing.

As soon as it was dark, Bill began digging up one of the landscapers’ plantings. He removed the burlap-wrapped root ball of a young maple and dug a much larger hole under it. Julie and the three iron went into the bottom of that, the maple went on top of her, and everything was packed down with a nice thick layer of dirt. He wheel-barrowed the leftover soil into the woods she’d planned to give away, and spread it in the brush. He cleaned up before dawn, took a nap, then headed for town.

He parked their car in the Steamship Authority lot and bought two tickets to Hyannis on the next ferry, making sure to purchase them with a credit card. Then he ducked into the men’s room. In a stall, he turned one of Julie’s dark blue sweatshirts inside out and squeezed into it—luckily she liked them big and baggy. He put on the fake mustache he’d bought in Falmouth two weeks before, added big, dark sunglasses, then pulled the sweatshirt hood over his head.

The mustachioed man paid cash for his ticket and waited in line with the rest of the ferry passengers. As he stood there, he used the cover of his sunglasses to check out the women with long blond hair, cataloging their attire. He spotted at least four wearing flowered tops and bell-bottom jeans. Good. Now he knew what he’d say Julie was wearing.

Once aboard, the mustachioed man entered one of the ship’s rest rooms where he broke the sunglasses and threw them in the trash. After flushing the mustache he emerged as Bill Morley with the sweatshirt—now right-side out—balled in his hand. While passengers milled about the aft deck, he discreetly draped the sweatshirt over the back of a chair and headed for the snack bar.

After that he played an increasingly confused, frightened, and eventually panicked young husband looking for his lost wife. He’d gone to get her a cup of coffee, and when he came back she was…gone.

* * *

Morley smiled at how perfectly the plan had worked. The police and his father-in-law had been suspicious—wasn’t the husband always suspect?—but hadn’t been able to punch a hole in his story. And since Julie wasn’t carrying a speck of life insurance, no clear motive.

The disguise had proved a big help. If he’d stood on line as Bill Morley, someone very well might have remembered that he’d been alone. But as it turned out, no one could say they’d noticed Bill Morley at all, with or without his wife, until he’d begun wandering the decks, looking for her.

But it had been his fellow passengers who’d helped him the most. A number of them swore they’d seen a woman aboard matching Julie’s description. Of course they had—Morley had made sure of that. One couple even identified Julie’s picture. As a result, the long, unsuccessful search focused on the thirty-mile ferry route. No one gave a thought to digging up the yard back on Nantucket.

Final consensus: 1) Julia Lange Morley either fell or jumped unnoticed from the ferry; or 2) she was a victim of foul play—killed or knocked unconscious and transported off the ferry in the trunk of one of the cars riding on the lower deck.

Neither seemed likely, but once one accepted the fact that Julie had embarked but not debarked, those were the possibilities that remained.

Morley had kept the house for a while but didn’t live there. Instead he mortgaged it and used the money to lease an apartment in Greenwich Village. It was the disco seventies, with long nights of dancing, drugs, and debauchery. In the summers he rented out the Lange place for a tidy sum, and forced himself to pay a visit every so often. He was especially interested in the growth of a certain young maple—his maple.

And now it seemed his maple had come back to haunt him.

Haunt…poor choice of words.

And perhaps he should start calling it Julie’s maple.

All right: What did he know—really know?

Whether through extreme coincidence, fate, or a manipulation of destiny, he had purchased a piece of maple furniture made from the very tree he’d placed over Julie’s corpse nearly thirty years ago. That seemed to be the only hard fact he could rely on.

After that, the assumptions grew murky and fantastic. Much as he hated saying it, he had no choice: The wood from that tree appeared to be possessed.

Two days ago he would have laughed aloud at the very suggestion of a haunted footstool, but after numerous injuries and one potentially fatal close call, Morley was unable to muster even a sneer today.

He didn’t believe in ghosts or haunted houses, let alone haunted footstools, but how else to explain the events of the past two days?

But just for the sake of argument, even if it were possible for Julie’s soul or essence or whatever to become a part of that young maple as it grew—after all, its roots had fed on the nutrients released by her decomposing body—why wasn’t JULIE worked into the grain? Why ANNA?

Morley’s second scotch hit him and he felt his eyelids growing heavy. He let them close and drifted into a semiconscious state where floating woodgrains morphed from JULIE to ANNA and back again…JULIE…ANNA…JULIE…ANNA…JULIE—

“Dear God!” he cried, awakening with a start.

The flight attendant rushed to his side. “Is something wrong, sir?”

“No,” he gasped. “I’m all right. Really.”

But Morley wasn’t all right. His insides were strangling themselves in a Gordian knot. He’d just had an inkling about Anna, and if he was correct, nothing was all right. Nothing at all.

* * *

As soon as Morley was through the airport gate, he found a seat, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed Nantucket information. He asked the operator to read off all the names on the short list of doctors practicing on the island. She did, but none of them rang a bell.

“He might not be in practice anymore.” Might not even be alive, though Morley prayed he was. “He was a GP—my wife saw him back in the seventies.”

“That was probably Doc Lawrence. He’s retired now but his home phone’s listed.”

Lawrence! Yes, that was it! He dialed the number and a moment later found himself talking to Charles Lawrence, M.D., elderly, somewhat hard of hearing, but still in possession of most of his marbles.

“Of course I remember your wife. Saw Julie Lange at least twice a summer for one thing or another all the years she was growing up. Did they ever find her?”

“Not a trace.”

“What a shame. Such a nice girl.”

“She certainly was. But let me ask you something, Doctor. I was just out visiting the old place and it occurred to me that Julie had an appointment with you the day before she disappeared. Did you…discover anything that might have upset her?”

“Not at all. In fact, quite the opposite. She was absolutely overjoyed about being pregnant.”

Morley was glad he was already sitting as all of LaGuardia seemed to tilt under him. Even so, he feared he might tumble from the chair.

“Hello?” Dr. Lawrence said. “Are you still there?”

“Yes,” he croaked. His tongue felt like Velcro.

“You sound as if this is news to you. I assumed she told you.”

“Yes, of course she did,” Morley said, his mind racing. “That’s why we were heading for the mainland—to surprise her father. I never had the heart to tell him after she…”

“Yeah, I know. That made it a double tragedy.”

Morley extricated himself from the conversation as quickly as possible, then sat and stared at nothing, the cell phone resting in his sweating palm, cold damp terror clutching at his heart.

On the last day of her life, Julie had driven into town to run some errands and to see Doc Lawrence for “a check-up.” A check-up…young Bill Morley had been too involved in planning his wife’s demise to question her about that, but now he knew what had been going on. Julie must have missed her period. No such thing as a home pregnancy test back then, so she’d gone to the doctor to have it done. That was what she’d wanted to tell him before he cracked her skull with the three iron.

Julie had often talked about starting a family…not if—when. When she talked of a son, she never mentioned a name; but whenever she spoke of having a daughter, she knew what she wanted to call her. A name she loved.

Anna.

Julie had always intended to call her little girl Anna.

Morley felt weak. He closed his eyes. Something had invaded the wood of that tree, and the wood of that tree had invaded his house, his life. Was it Anna, the tiny little life that had been snuffed out along with her mother’s, or was it Julie, seeking vengeance in the name of the child who would never be born?

How did it go? Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

But what of a woman never allowed to be born?

Morley shuddered. It didn’t matter who, really. Either way, measures had to be taken, and he knew exactly what he needed to do.

* * *

Night had fallen by the time Morley got home. He entered his house cautiously, turning on lights in each room, hallway, and staircase before he proceeded. When he reached the living room he went directly to the fireplace, opened the flue, and lit the kindling beneath the stack of aged logs on the grate.

He waited until he had a roaring fire, then went to the hall closet and removed a heavy winter blanket. With this tucked under his arm, Morley headed up the stairs—turning lights on as he went—to the floor where he’d locked the footstool in the spare bedroom.

He hesitated outside the door, heart pounding, hands trembling. He tried the knob—still locked, thank God. He turned the key and opened the door just enough to snake his hand in and turn on the light. Then, taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open.

The footstool lay on its side, exactly as he had left it.

He felt a little silly now. What had he been afraid of? Had he been half expecting it to jump at him?

But Morley was taking no chances. He threw the blanket over the stool, bundled it up, and carried it downstairs where he dumped it in front of the fireplace. Using the log tongs, he pulled the stool free and consigned it to the flames.

He watched the curly maple burn.

He wasn’t sure what he expected next. A scream? The legs of the stool writhing in pain? None of that happened. It simply lay there atop the other logs and…burned. At one point he leaned closer, trying for one last peek at the name hidden in the grain, but the heat drove him back before he could find it.

Anna…his child’s name…he thought he should feel something, but he was empty of all emotions except relief. He never knew her…how could he feel anything for her? And as for Julie…

“It’s too bad you had to die,” he whispered as the varnish on the wood bubbled and blackened. “But you left me no choice. And as for coming back and interfering with my life, that’s not going to happen. I’d all but forgotten about you—and now I’ll go about forgetting you again.”

Morley watched the fabric and padding of the stool dissolve in a burst of flame, watched the wood of the seat and legs char and smoke and burn and crumble. He remained before the fire until every last splinter of the stool had been reduced to ash.

Finally he rose and yawned. A long, hard day, but a fruitful one. He looked around. His home was his again, purged of a malign influence. But how to keep it from re-entering?

Easy: Morley resolved never to buy another stick of furniture that wasn’t at least a hundred years old.

With that settled, he headed upstairs for a well-deserved night’s rest. In his bedroom he pulled out the third drawer in his antique pine dresser. As he bent to retrieve a pair of pajamas, the top drawer slid open and slammed against his forehead.

Clutching his head, Morley staggered back. His foot caught on the leg of a chair—a chair that shouldn’t have been there, hadn’t been there a moment ago—and he tumbled to the floor. He landed on his back, groaning with the pain of the impact. As he opened his eyes, he looked up and saw the antique mahogany wardrobe tilting away from the wall, leaning over him, falling!

With a terrified cry he rolled out of the way. The heavy wardrobe landed with a floor-jarring crash just inches from his face. Morley started to struggle to his feet but froze when he saw the letters worked into the grain of the wardrobe’s flank: ANNA.

With a hoarse cry he lunged away and rose to his hands and knees—just in time to see a two-foot splinter of wood stab through the oriental rug—exactly where he’d been only a heartbeat before. He clambered to his feet and ducked away as his dresser tumbled toward him. On its unfinished rear panel he saw the name ANNA wrapped around one of its knots.

Caught in the ice-fisted grip of blind, screaming panic, Morley lurched toward the door, dodging wooden spears that slashed through the rug. Julie…Anna…or whoever or whatever it was had somehow seeped out of the footstool and infected the entire room. He had to get out!

Ahead of him he saw the heavy oak door begin to swing shut. No! He couldn’t be trapped in here! He leaped forward and ducked through the door an instant before it slammed closed.

Gasping, Morley sagged against the hallway wall. Close. Too close. He—

Pain lanced into his ankle. He looked down and saw a foot-long splinter of floorboard piecing his flesh. And all up and down the hall the floorboards writhed and buckled, thrusting up jagged, quivering knife-sharp spikes.

Morley ran, dodging and leaping down the hall as wooden spears stabbed his lower legs, ripping his clothes. Where to go? Downstairs—out! He couldn’t stay in the house—it was trying to kill him!

He reached the stairs and kept going. He felt the wooden treads tilting under his feet, trying to send him tumbling. He grabbed the banister and it exploded into splinters at his touch, peppering him with a thousand wooden nails. He slammed against the stairwell wall but managed to keep his footing until the next to last step when he tripped and landed on the tiled floor of the front foyer.

What now? his fear-crazed mind screamed. Would the tiles crack into ceramic daggers and cut him to shreds?

But the foyer floor lay cool and inert beneath him.

Of course, he thought, rising to his knees. It’s not wood. Whatever was in the footstool has managed to infiltrate the wood of the house, but has no power over anything else. As long as I stay on a tile or linoleum floor—

Morley instinctively ducked at the sound of a loud crack! behind him, and felt something whiz past his head. When he looked up he saw one of the balusters from the staircase jutting from the wall, vibrating like an arrow in a bull’s-eye. At that instant the upper border of the wainscoting splintered from the wall and stabbed him in the belly—not a deep wound, but it drew blood.

And then the entire foyer seemed to explode—the wainscoting panels shredding and flying at him, balusters zipping through the air, molding peeling from the ceiling and lancing at him.

Morley dashed for the front door. Moving in a crouch, he reached the handle and pulled. He sobbed with joy when it swung open. He stumbled into the cool night air and slammed the door shut behind him.

Battered, bruised, bleeding, he gripped the wrought iron railing—metal: cold, hard, wonderful, reliable metal—and slumped onto the granite slabs of his front steps where he sobbed and retched and thanked the stars that years ago he’d taken a contractor’s advice and replaced the original oak door with a steel model. For security reasons, the contractor had said. That decision had just saved his life.

He’d lost his home. No place in that building was safe for him—even being this close to it could be dangerous. He fought to his feet and staggered across the glorious concrete of the sidewalk to lean against the magnificent steel of one of the parked cars. Safe.

And then something bounced off his head and dropped to the sidewalk. Morley squinted in the darkness. An acorn. Dear God!

He lurched away from the overhanging oak and didn’t stop moving until he was a good dozen feet from the tree.

An accident? A coincidence? After all, it was October, the time of year when oaks began dropping acorns.

But how could he be sure that even the trees hadn’t turned against him?

He needed a safe place where he could rest and tend his wounds and clear his head and not spend every moment fearing for his life. A place with no wood, a place where he could think! Tomorrow, in the light of day, he could solve this problem, but until then…

He knew the place. That newly restored hotel on West Thirty-fifth Street—the Deco. He’d been to an art show there last month and remembered how he’d loathed its decor—all gleaming steel and glass and chrome, so completely lacking in the warmth and richness of the wood that filled his home.

What a laugh! Now it seemed like Mecca, like Paradise.

The Deco wasn’t far. Giving the scattered trees a wide berth, Morley began walking.

* * *

“Sir, you’re bleeding,” said the clerk at the reception desk. “Shall I call a doctor?”

I know damn well I’m bleeding, Morley wanted to shout, but held his tongue. He was in a foul mood, but at least he wasn’t bleeding as much as before.

“I’ve already seen a doctor,” he lied.

“May I ask what happened?”

This twerp of a desk clerk had a shaved head, a natty little mustache, and a pierced eyebrow that rose as he finished the question. His name tag read Wölf. Really.

“Automobile accident.” Morley fumbled through his wallet. “My luggage is wrecked, but I still have this.” He slapped his Amex Platinum down on the black marble counter.

The clerk wiggled his eyebrow stud and picked up the card.

“I must stress one thing,” Morley said. “I want a room with no wood in it. None. Got that?”

The stud dipped as the clerk frowned. “No wood…let me think…the only room that would fit that is the Presidential Suite. It was just refurbished in metal and glass. But the rate is—”

“Never mind the rate. I want it.”

As the clerk nodded and got to work, Morley did a slow turn and looked around. What a wonderful place. Steel, brass, chrome, marble, glass, ceramic. Lovely because this was the way the future was supposed to look when the here-and-now was the future…a future without wood.

Lovely.

* * *

He did not let the bellhop go—though Morley had no luggage, the man had escorted him to the eighth floor—until he had made a careful inspection. The clerk had been right: not a stick of wood in the entire suite.

As soon as he was alone, Morley stripped and stepped into the shower. The water stung his wounds, but the warm flow eased his battered muscles and sluiced away the dried blood. He wrapped himself in the oversized terry cloth robe and headed straight for the bedroom.

As he reached for the covers he paused, struck by the huge chrome headboard. At its center, rising above the spread wings that stretched to the edges of the king-size mattress, was the giant head of a bald eagle with a wickedly pointed beak. So lifelike, Morley could almost imagine a predatory gleam in its metallic eye.

But no time for aesthetics tonight. He was exhausted. He craved the oblivion of sleep to escape the horrors of the day. Tomorrow, refreshed, clear-headed, he would tackle the problem head on, find a way to exorcise Julie or Anna from his home. But now, tonight…

Morley pulled back the covers and collapsed onto the silk sheets. Hello, Morpheus, good-bye, Anna…

* * *

Wölf spots the night manager crossing the lobby and motions him over.

“Mr. Halpern, I just had a guest here who insisted on a room with no wood—absolutely no wood in it. I gave him the Presidential Suite. I believe that’s all metal and glass and such, right?”

“It was until yesterday,” Halpern says. He’s fortyish and probably thinks the curly toupee makes him look thirtyish. It doesn’t. “The designer moved in a new headboard. Said he found it in a Massachusetts wood shop. Brand new and carved out of heavily grained maple. But he went and had it coated with so many layers of chrome paint it looks like solid steel. Said he couldn’t resist the eagle. Can’t say as I blame him—looks like it came straight off the Chrysler Building.”

“Should I inform the guest?”

“What? And disturb his sleep?” Halpern waves a dismissive hand and strolls away. “Let the man be. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

SOLE CUSTODY

INTRODUCTION

Kealan Patrick Burke contacted me in the spring about Quietly Now, a tribute anthology to Charles L. Grant. I was long out of the short story groove and told him so. But because this was for Charlie, a master of quiet horror and a good guy I’ve known forever, I said I’d give it a shot.

It took me six weeks of off-and-on writing to get it to where I felt it worthy of Charlie. I tried my best to keep it quiet and think I succeeded. Okay, the truck accident, the falling safe, and the drive-by shooting with machine pistols weren’t so quiet, but the horror was quiet, and that’s what counts.

This one’s for you, Charlie, wherever you are.

SOLE CUSTODY

“Yergundye am’row.”

The sound, a small, high voice, jars me from sleep. I roll over and lift my head. A pale wash of light from the streetlamp outside reveals a short, slim form standing close to my bed.

My son.

“Jason?” I shake the cobwebs from my brain and glance at the glowing numbers on the clock. “What’re you doing up at this hour? Is something wrong?”

“You’re going to die tomorrow.”

Now I’m awake. Believe me—fully awake.

“What?” I lever up to sitting and swing my legs from under the sheet. I grab his thin, knobby, seven-year-old shoulders. “What did you say?”

“You’re going to die tomorrow.”

Those words, spoken by my boy, my darling little boy, twist my gut. I fumble for the bedside lamp, find the switch, turn it on.

Jason stands stiff and straight; with his buzz-cut dark hair he looks like a soldier at attention; his brown eyes are wide and staring through me. I shake him. Gently.

“Jason! Jason, wake up! You’re having a dream!”

Jason doesn’t blink, doesn’t say a word. He simply turns and begins walking away.

“Jason?”

I say it softly this time because I realize he’s sleepwalking and I heard somewhere once that you shouldn’t wake a sleepwalker.

I follow. I’m scared for him, don’t want him falling down the cellar stairs. But he heads straight to his room. I’m close behind, turning on the light so neither of us will trip. I watch him slip under the covers. I stand over him as he closes his eyes…a few heartbeats later I can tell by his soft, even breathing that he’s back into normal sleep.

I stare down at my son.

You’re going to die tomorrow.

Christ, what a terrible thing for anyone to hear, but when it comes from your own little boy…

Then again, maybe not from Jason. Maybe from his grandmother.

Yeah. That would explain it.

* * *

Ralda hates me. Always has, always will. She never said so when Maria was alive. She didn’t have to. If actions speak louder than words, then Ralda’s body is the PA system at Dodger Stadium.

It all comes down to this: Ralda—her real name is Esmeralda but no one calls her that—has never forgiven me for stealing her daughter. If falling in love and getting married is stealing, then here—put on the cuffs and lock me up. I’m guilty.

Of course, eloping only made matters worse, but we didn’t see that we had much choice. No way we could have had a traditional wedding with both families in the same room. Maria was rom, a gypsy, and that translated to the uptight Brits who comprised most of my kin as thieves, whores, and ne’er-do wells. To Maria’s side I was gadje, a non-gypsy, and a rom marrying a gadje was unthinkable.

So we hopped a flight to Vegas and got married. When we returned and Maria told her mother, well, it was something to see. Ralda put on a day-long display of screaming and cursing, tearing her own clothes and throwing Maria’s out the front door. After that came the silent treatment, which was okay with me but damn near broke Maria’s heart. Over the years she had to endure a passel of silent treatments. Ralda has an advance degree in creative silence and a triathelete’s stamina.

She couldn’t spew all her anger at her only child—despite Ralda’s many faults, she truly loved Maria—and she couldn’t rail at her own husband who’d been dead (gratefully, I’ll bet) half a dozen years, so I became the target, the numero uno focus of her rage. Fine. Like I cared. It made for some uncomfortable meals at holidays, but I handled it.

I may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I was a good provider. I got through high school and made it halfway through year one at a community college before deciding I had a brighter future in the workforce than in the classroom. I was right. By the time Maria and I tied the knot I was bringing home decent money from my own little heavy equipment transport and specialty moving business. We began building a life together, and when Maria learned she was pregnant, I didn’t think life could get no better.

Ralda softened somewhat after Jason was born. Even though he was half gadje, she adored her grandson and lavished him with attention. It was almost scary the way she fixated on him when we came to visit. Like Maria and I weren’t there.

Life was good. My business was growing, Maria and I were talking about another baby, and then some rich eighteen-year-old fuck tooling around in his daddy’s Mercedes sport coupe plowed into the driver’s side of our minivan at ninety miles an hour. Maria and Jason were inside. J—that was what we’d started calling him—was strapped into his baby seat in the rear passenger side and, thank God, not even scratched. Maria didn’t last twenty-four hours.

At the funeral Ralda jabbed a bony finger at my heart and screamed, “You! You should have been driving!”

I couldn’t argue. I wished that too. Still wish it.

My brain and my life put themselves on hold for a while. I did a lot of couch time, remote in hand, switching channels like a robot, not watching nothing. I felt like I was coming apart. I kept thinking, What’s the use?

But I held it together for J’s sake, and we’re doing all right now. Not great. I mean, how good can a kid’s life be without his mother? How good can his dad’s life be without the love of his life? But we’re hanging in there.

The only problem has been Ralda. She’d like a recurring speed bump. Lately she’s been filling Jason’s head with her gypsy garbage—about how, even though he’s not a pure-blood rom, he’s still special, still has certain “gifts.” I’ve been doing my best to act like a counterweight, to drag him back to the real world, and I thought I’d been doing a decent job.

Obviously I’ve been fooling myself.

* * *

Jason awakens the next morning with his usual cheeriness. I quiz him gently as I pour his orange juice and nuke his frozen waffles—he likes them drowning in syrup and melted butter—but he don’t remember nothing about what he said or did last night.

So, after dropping him off at school, I pay a visit to Ralda’s little bungalow in Lomita.

As she opens the front door I get in her face, jabbing a finger right at her nose. “You’ve gone too far this time, lady!”

I’ve been thinking about last night all the way down here and by now I’m pissed. I mean really pissed.

She gives me her usual why-do-I-have-to-share-the-planet-with-this-gadje look. She’s wearing a pink housedress and fuzzy white slippers, her graying black hair is pulled back tight from her face. God, she’s ugly. She looks like that puppet Madame that used to be on Hollywood Squares. How Maria ever sprang from her has always been beyond me. Way, way, way beyond.

“What are you talking about?” She has this thin accent that ever so slightly rolls the r.

“What’d you do, hypnotize him?”

She squints at me. “You’re drinking again, aren’t you.”

I had a little problem after Maria’s death, but I’m well over that now. And I’m sure as hell not going to let her change this from being about her to being about me.

“Not a drop. But what about you? What’ve you been pouring into my boy? I know you’ve been filling his head with all your Gypsy bullshit, which is bad enough, but after what you made him do last night, your ass is cooked.”

“What?” She spreads her hands, palms up, like the whole world is turning against her and she don’t know why. “What did my little Jason do that was so terrible?”

“You know. You know damn well. And he’s not your little Jason. He’s mine. And that custody deal you worked out with the judge? That’s gonna be history when I tell him the games you’ve been playing with a little boy’s head!”

“Vincent, what are you talking about? What did he do?”

Her using my first name hangs me up for a second or two. She never uses my name. I’ve always been “him” or “that man.” Like she couldn’t get my name to pass her lips. But it passes today.

“He said just what you wanted him to say.” I turn and start stomping back to my pickup. “I never thought much of you, Ralda, but I never dreamed you’d use your own grandson to try to work a number on my head!”

“What did he say? Tell me what he said!”

Oh, she’s good, she’s really, really good. I didn’t know her better, I’d think she really and truly didn’t know.

But I ain’t gonna play her game. I give her an I’m-outta-here wave and hop in behind the wheel. I don’t have to crank up the truck because I never turned her off. As I put her in gear I hear Ralda’s voice calling to me.

“Whatever he said, Vincent, listen to him! He has the gift! Do you hear me? The gift!”

And I’m thinking, He ain’t got no gift, lady. He’s got a curse: you.

* * *

I’m not a crazy hothead. Really, I’m not. It’s just that this has been simmering for years and now I’m at the boiling point.

When Maria died, J was four and in preschool. Just the morning session. She hadn’t wanted to let him go, even for those few hours, but figured it would help with his socialization. Yeah, she used that word. She was always reading books on raising kids.

After Maria’s death, when I was lower-lip deep in my funk, J was the only thing that kept me from going under. I kept him in the morning session just so he could keep something of his old daily rhythm. But after I pulled my act together and got back to work, I had to add on the afternoon.

That worked out most of the time. But not all.

I had no trouble getting him there in the morning, but afternoons tended to be a problem. We live in a nice little two-bedroom ranch—the kind the real estate folk like to call “cozy”—in an okay neighborhood in Gardena. But sometimes me and my crew have jobs in places like Sylmar or Costa Mesa, which may not be all that far in miles, but in time…let me tell you, take anything bad you’ve heard about L.A. traffic and multiply it by ten for the reality. I just couldn’t guarantee that I’d make it back in time every day. So I arranged for aftercare, which is new speak for after-school daycare.

That was when Ralda played her hand.

Old bitch took me to court. Can you believe it? To family court! Petitioned the judge for some strange kind of joint custody where she could take care of Jason after school until I got home from the job. Let me tell you, she made a real heartstring yanker of a case for herself: Lived alone, J was her only grandchild, all that was left of her beloved daughter. Wasn’t it better that he spend his after-school hours with a loving grandparent than in the company of strangers?

Sounded good to the judge—who I think was a grandmother herself—and Ralda was awarded after-school custody. I had to hire a lawyer to try and get it undone but he was useless. Money down the sewer.

I wound up feeling more like a divorcé than a widower. I mean, my mother-in-law had joint custody of my kid.

Ralda loves J, I know that, and to be honest, for a while there it looked to be working out. J seemed happy with the arrangement and I have to admit I felt better knowing he was staying with someone who’d die rather than let anything happen to him.

But then J started coming home with Gypsy words and expressions and talking about having “gifts”—you know, second sight, clairvoyance, talking to animals, crazy stuff like that. I went right to Ralda and told her—no, wait, I asked her, real polite-like, to stop putting ideas like that into his head. People would think he was crazy.

Know what she said? She told me that into every third generation of her family is born a child with a “gift,” that J is that one, that there are many gifts and she is only trying to find out which one he has.

I asked her to stop. (See? I was still asking.) She said she couldn’t, that it would be a terrible sin to let his gift go undetected, undeveloped, that he’s been neglected too long already.

Neglected? I blew my stack at that and told her if she didn’t cease and desist—yeah, I said that; heard it on Law & Order or someplace—if she didn’t stop filling my little boy’s head with her garbage, I’d have her joint custody thing tossed out on its ear.

She gave me this hard look and said that I’d never have sole custody again. Then she slammed the door in my face.

Things were kind of at a stalemate for a while. J stopped using Gypsy talk around me, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t getting an earful from his grandmother and being told not to use or mention it at home.

But last night changes everything. I don’t care if the judge is a grandmother ten times over, no one can get away with teaching a child to say something like that to his own father.

So all this crapola is on my mind as I drive to today’s job in downtown. Yeah, there really is a downtown L.A. That’s where the city’s skyscrapers cluster in the basin. That’s where you find the convention center and city hall, that big tapering building everyone knows from Dragnet. The whole rotten situation’s on my mind when I park in a municipal lot, and I’m still steaming about it as I step off the curb to cross Figueroa.

I hear a voice behind me yell, “Oh, shit!” and I hear a horn blaring, and I look up to see this Ford F-150 pickup running the red light and making a beeline for me. I see the guy behind the wheel and he’s got one hand holding a cell phone against his ear and the other wrapped around a Starbucks cup, leaving his left pinky for steering; he’s looking down and I know, I just know he’s spilled some coffee in his lap. He ain’t got a clue as to what’s happening and I realize I’m a goner and somewhere in my head J’s voice is saying, You’re going to die tomorrow.

All this takes place during a single heartbeat and just as I start into a much-too-late dive back toward the curb this eighteen-wheeler tools into the intersection from the left, cruising with the green, and knocks the shit out of the pickup, knocks it into next week, leaving me in the middle of the lane shaking and sweating and sick and hoping I haven’t peed my pants.

I stagger to the other side and lower myself to the curb. I sit bent forward, holding my floating head in my shaking hands. Nobody notices me, which is fine. I’m not keen on having people watching as I hurl breakfast. Everybody’s gravitating toward the wreckage in the intersection. Everybody except this bent old black guy with a cane and a Fred Sanford beard.

“You gotta be the luckiest-assed man on God’s earth,” he says as he stops a couple of feet from me.

I look up at him but say nothing. I’m not lucky. I’m unlucky. I’ve got a witch for a mother-in-law. Oh, not a witch who casts spells and cooks up magic spells. No, she’s a witch who plays with your head. Because that’s what Gypsies do, and they’re good at it.

I see how this works now. She hypnotizes or does whatever she does to Jason to make him say whatever she wants him to say. You’re going to die tomorrow is a brilliant choice, especially when it comes from your son. It puts you on edge, throws you off your rhythm, distracts you. Distracts you to the point where you’re on autopilot. You see the little green walking man sign light up and you step off a curb without checking to see if anything’s coming your way.

“Here,” says the old guy. He’s holding out a pint bottle swathed in a paper bag. “Take a pull. You could use it.”

I wave him off and struggle to my feet. “Thanks, but I’m wobbly enough already.”

“Lucky guy,” he says as I walk away. “One lucky fucking guy.”

* * *

I’m better by the time I get to the job, but I’m still not right. Taking charge though, dividing up the crew into details and telling them to get their asses in gear takes my mind off what almost happened.

The job is in one of downtown’s older buildings. Real old. One of those narrow three-story dinosaurs that hung on through the ferro-concrete building boom. Me and my guys have been hired to move a big old Kelvinator-sized safe out of the third-floor office. Ordinarily not a problem, but in this case the building’s been renovated umpteen times since the safe was moved in, and one of those renovations was a major overhaul of the staircase. Mainly narrowing it to increase the square footage of rentable space around it. The result: the safe can’t go down the way it came up. The solution: knock out a window and enough wall around it to get the safe through, then winch it down to the sidewalk.

Yeah, I know, sounds like a mess, but trust me, the window and its wall are a much easier fix than a ripped-up stairwell.

By noon we’ve broken through the wall, the winch is in place, and the safe chained up and ready to go for a ride. I head downstairs to guide it from there and to make sure the landing pad stays clear of the curious. I’ve got about a mile of yellow caution tape wound around the area but over the years I’ve learned never to underestimate the stupidity of the average L.A. pedestrian. Even though my safety record’s just about perfect, my liability premium is still through the roof. One bad accident, just one, will put it on the space shuttle.

Nobody gets to play the old Looney Toons flattened-under-a-safe scene on my watch.

As I hit the sidewalk I see the old black dude from over on Figueroa standing at the front of the gaggle pressing against the tape.

I nod. “What’s up?”

He shrugs and smiles, showing two, maybe three teeth. “Nothing better to do.”

“Retired, huh?”

“You could say that.”

I get to work directing the guys on the roof with the winch and the guys inside with the safe. Pretty soon we’ve got the safe out and dangling in space. I signal the winch guys to start easing her down. As the winch starts cranking I look across the touchdown area and see some kid, a little Korean girl, no more than three, standing a couple of feet inside the tape. It’s not like she’s in danger or nothing, but I want her back where she belongs. I start toward her but I don’t go two steps before something squishes under my right boot.

I look down. “Shit!”

Which is exactly what it is. A nice fat pile of dog shit.

Behind me I hear the old man laugh and say, “Maybe you ain’t so lucky after all!”

As I stop to kick my boot against the concrete I hear a screech of stressed-out metal and hoarse shouts from above. Before I can look up, the safe slams onto and into the sidewalk directly in front of me.

For the next few seconds, all around me, there’s no sound. Then someone says “Madre!” and another voice laughs and soon it’s a babble that I barely hear. Because I’m looking at the safe and knowing that’s exactly where I would’ve been when it hit…if I hadn’t stepped in that dog shit.

I sense someone beside me. I turn and it’s that old black guy. He’s come through the tape and his wide brown eyes with yellowish whites are staring at me from inches away. He grabs my forearm and squeezes.

“Wh-what are you doing?” I feel like I’ve got a mouth full of epoxy.

“Jus wanna touch you, man. Thas all. I ain’t never had one lick of good luck in my whole damn life, and you…you gots enough for two, three even. Maybe some of it will rub off.”

I yank my arm free and pull away. Not toward the building and my guys. Away. Just away.

* * *

Half an hour later I’m in a bar, having lunch—a golden liquid with a foamy cap. Every since I pulled myself out of my post-Maria binge, I haven’t had a drink before five or six at night. Not one. But today is different. I’m quivering down to my intestinal lining.

Because now I know what’s happening. I had it all wrong. I thought Jason had been coached to tell me I was going to die today, but it wasn’t that at all. It’s Ralda. She’s put some kind of Gypsy curse on me. The joint custody agreement ain’t enough for her. She wants J all to herself.

And J…the old lady’s always said he has a “gift”…maybe some part of his subconscious sensed what his grandmother was up to and tried to warn me.

Or maybe…

Christ, what am I thinking? I don’t believe in any of this shit. Never have.

And yet…

Something’s wrong today. I can feel it. Not just that I was almost killed twice. Something more.

Maybe almost is the key word. I should’ve been flattened by that pickup, but the eighteen-wheeler saved me. I should’ve been crushed by that safe, but I stepped on a juicy dog turd at just the right moment to delay me just enough to stay alive.

Almost as if I’m caught in the middle of a tug of war. Ralda is out to get me, no question, but something—someone—else has been pulling me back from each brink she pushes me to.

Who? Only two possibilities that I can see. One is Jason—not consciously, because he would have told me about it last night or this morning. But maybe unconsciously he’s using his “gift” to fight for his dear old dad.

The thought brings tears to my eyes. My little boy, taking my side against his grandmother’s black magic.

The other possibility is Maria. I’ve never believed in an Other Side. I’ve always figured when you’re dead, you’re dead. But what if I’m wrong? I mean, I’ve been wrong about lots of things in my life, so why not add the afterlife to the list.

What if Maria’s here, invisible but hanging close to me, shielding me from her mother’s curse?

But what if it’s simply luck that’s keeping me alive? What if that old street dude is right? That I’m the luckiest man alive.

Fine. Great. But nobody’s luck lasts forever. When does mine run out? Maybe I’ve used up my share for the day or the week or the month and from now on I’m on my own.

Which means I have to make my luck.

I raise my beer glass but stop it halfway to my mouth. It’s only my second, but maybe that’s part of Ralda’s curse: drown my fears, get sloshed, and splatter my truck and myself against a bridge abutment.

No way. She doesn’t get me that easy.

I leave a sawbuck and the rest of my beer on the bar and get the hell out. I stand blinking in the sunlight, wondering where I can go to be safe. Not downtown L.A. Any second now someone could lose control of their car, jump the sidewalk, and flatten me against a wall like a swatted fly. I wish I was home but I’m sure as hell not risking the freeway to get there. Like jumping into a lion’s den.

I need a place that’s wide open. And public. Away from trucks and safes. Someplace I can get to without crossing too many streets. Only one place comes to mind.

I start walking, eyes on the move to check for threats above, below, and around. I hang back from the curbs at crosswalks, I don’t step onto the street until everything’s come to a dead stop, and then I stick close to my fellow pedestrians, figuring their presence will dilute the curse or whatever it is that’s dogging me.

It takes me longer than I ever could have imagined to reach Pershing Square, but I make it in one piece. I’ve been here before, just out of curiosity. It’s a pretty cool place with all this modern architecture-sculpture and landscaping and fountains, but I can’t appreciate any of that now. All I want is a safe spot, and I think this is it. If I hang out at the center here, no car can get to me, even if the driver’s been paid to run me down. It’s open enough so that nobody can sneak up on me. And it’s far enough from any buildings so that even if there’s an earthquake nothing can fall on me.

I buy a paper, find a good spot near Pershing’s statue, and hang here, reading, watching. Every so often someone from my crew calls my cell and I tell them what to do, but I never say where I am. Don’t want nobody knowing that.

My stomach starts to growl as the sun settles behind one of the taller buildings but I’m afraid to eat. What if it’s poisoned? Not like the hot dog guy is out to get me, but if I’ve got a curse on me and if there’s one poisoned frank in the city, it’ll find its way to me. Same goes for a drink. Never know when you might pick up a tampered cola.

I’m cursing myself for being so crazy paranoid, but all I need to do is survive the day, make it till midnight, and I’ll have beaten her.

So I keep waiting and watching. I should call to let Jason know I’ll be late, but I’d have to talk to her, and the last person on earth I want to talk to is her.

I hold my safe perch well into the dark. Finally I look at my watch: 10:58. Just a tad more than an hour to go.

And suddenly I want to be there in Ralda’s bungalow, eye to eye as the clock strikes twelve. I know it’s crazy but I can’t resist the urge. I want to laugh in her face when that moment arrives.

Real careful-like, I make my way back to the garage, get in my pickup, and start the trip to Lomita. My guts are tied in knots as I get on the 110 and head south. I keep my sweaty hands tight on the wheel and stick to a middle lane where I won’t be in the way of the speeders and won’t have to deal with on-ramps and off-ramps.

The Lomita exit is coming up and I’m checking my rearview to see if it’s safe to ease right when I spot two low-slung cars, one bright orange, the other canary yellow, racing my way through the traffic like candy-colored bullets, weaving in and out at suicidal speed.

Every muscle in my body clenches as I somehow know without a doubt that one of them is going to kill me. Not on purpose, but it’s going to happen. He’s being controlled by an unseen hand, just like me.

I realize now that the whole stupid idea of seeing Ralda at the last minute didn’t come from me, but from her, pushing me out of my safe spot and onto the road where she can finish me off.

Panicked, I freeze. Go left? Go right? Stay where I am? All I can be sure of is that whatever move I make will be wrong. But I’ve got—

What’s that popping noise? Oh, no, oh God, they’re shooting at each other. It’s some sort of gang thing and I’m going to be caught in the middle of it.

A sudden calm slips over me. The panic, the fear, the indecision melt away. I give myself over to the inevitability of what’s about to happen. It’s over…all over. This is where it ends for me and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

In this strange, peaceful mood, I hang in the center lane. The traffic seems to slow. The air thickens as the world around me grinds down into second gear, then into first. I hear rapid-fire pops, see flashes blooming from the windows of the onrushing cars as the orange one veers to my right, the yellow to my left. They continue their barrage as they flank me. The sound is deafening. My windows shatter on both sides, peppering me with an ice storm of semi-sharp safety glass. I can feel the whoosh of the slugs as they hurtle through the car, even feel one tug at the hair at the back of my head. I see—or at least think I do—the bullets whizzing past my face from opposite directions. And I brace for the one that will end me.

And then the two cars are past. They’re still shooting at each other but they’re moving on. And I’m still alive. The guy ahead of me ain’t so lucky. He winds up in the gunfire sandwich, just like me, only I see the silhouette of his head jerk left as it catches one and suddenly his car veers onto the shoulder and jumps the railing.

I roll my own car onto the shoulder a little past where he went over. I stop, open the door, and vomit. Or at least try to. I ain’t had a thing to eat since breakfast and so only a little bile comes up.

I look around and see other cars pulled over, people out and jumping the railing to go check on the guy who went over, others talking on their cell phones—to the cops, I hope.

I close the door and slump against the steering wheel, gasping for air. I should be dead. No way I should have survived that barrage. I should be down in that ravine with the other poor bastard.

But I’m not. And the only reason I can come up with is protection: Here’s further proof, damn near undeniable proof, that someone’s protecting me.

With that thought fixed firmly in my head and heart, I slip the car back into gear and head for Ralda’s house.

I have her beat. I want to see her face when she realizes it.

* * *

“Vincent!” Ralda says as she opens her front door. She’s traded this morning’s housedress for a ratty purple robe, but she’s still wearing those fuzzy white slippers. “Where have you been?”

I brush past her and turn to face her.

“Worried about me?” I say with a wolfish grin—at least it feels wolfish.

In fact I’m feeling pretty wolfish all over—tough and mean and pretty goddamn near invincible.

“Yes. And so was Jason. He kept listening to the news for word that you’d been killed like his mother. He was terrified.”

Some of the wolf dies. I hadn’t thought of that. One parent gets killed on the road and J can’t help worrying about the same thing happening to the other half of the team.

I look around but don’t see him.

“Where is he?”

“In my bed.” Ralda fixes me with this you-should-be-ashamed stare. “He fell asleep watching the late news, hoping he wouldn’t hear about you, praying you’d call soon.”

I feel like a shit, but only for an instant.

“I’d’ve been home on time if it wasn’t for you.”

Her eyes widen. “Me?”

“Yeah. You. You!” I hear my voice rising and I let it go. “Don’t think I don’t know about the curse you put on me. You were out to kill me today, but it didn’t work. First off, Jason warned me. And second, someone’s been protecting me. Someone more powerful that you, Ralda.” I laugh and I don’t particularly like the sound. “Christ, I couldn’t have died today if I tried!”

She’s looking at me like I’m a crackhead or something.

“Vincent, are you mad? Where did you ever get the idea that I could lay a curse on anyone? Others have that power, but I do not. And even if I could, do you think I would deprive Jason of his father, his only surviving parent? I may not like you, and I may think you’re hurting Jason by ignoring his gift, but I would never wish another tragedy on that poor boy.”

Something in what she’s saying and how she says it strikes home, hits true: Ralda don’t give a damn about me beyond what I mean to J. And she’d never do anything that might hurt him.

My head’s spinning. What’s been happening to me all day? I could have been killed three times but I walked away. What—?

“You’re going to die tomorrow.”

I jump at the sound of Jason’s voice. I turn and see him standing in Ralda’s bedroom doorway, looking through me with that same thousand-mile stare as last night.

And suddenly I’m furious again.

“Jesus Christ, Ralda, will you give it up!”

Her eyes are fixed on J as she waves me to silence.

“He has the gift,” she whispers. “I’ve been telling you that but you won’t listen.”

“Aw, don’t start in about gifts again. I told you—”

“He has the Sight.”

I’m getting more and more steamed.

“Ralda—”

“Listen to me. When he gets like this he can see the future. Only a day or two ahead now, and only as it applies to him—but with nurturing, that will improve.”

“Bullshit. Last night you had him say I was going to die today, and I didn’t, so now you’ve got him saying I’m going to die tomorrow. And what’ll happen tomorrow night at”—I check my watch—“eleven fifty-eight? Same thing?”

She whirls toward me. “What time was it when he first told you?”

“Who cares?”

“You do! It’s important!”

I think back to last night when he woke me up. I know I looked at the clock, but what did it say? And then I remember…

“One ten…ten after one.”

And then she’s staring at me with wonder and terror in her eyes and I know I’ve got to be looking back at her with the same.

I can barely hear her voice.

“It was after midnight when he told you. He wasn’t talking about today, he was talking about tomorrow.” She turns toward my lost-looking son. “He’s still talking about tomorrow.”

SEX SLAVES OF THE DRAGON TONG

INTRODUCTION

Yellow Peril…how can a phrase that reeks so of racism and paranoia yield a body of fiction so…cool?

The term originated in the late nineteenth century. Chinese immigrants were flooding our western shore and spreading throughout the country at a time when their homeland was growing more and more militaristic. Could this mass immigration be a silent first wave of an eventual invasion?

In polite conversation they were called Chinamen or Orientals (not “Asian,” as political correctness now dictates). Down on the street they were chinks and coolies.

Chinese villains became regulars in the penny dreadfuls. In 1913 Sax Rohmer created the paradigm for all Oriental evil from then on: Fu Manchu. I became enthralled with the good doctor at age fifteen when I met him in the pages of the Pyramid reprint of The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu. I became a fan of the pulps and particularly enjoyed the exotic yellow-peril stories they regularly featured. (Even the Shadow had an archnemesis named Shiwan Khan.)

So when Joe Lansdale asked me to contribute to an anthology called Retro Pulp Tales, I said it had to be Yellow Peril. I did a lot of research to find the right tone. I decided it would involve a face-off between two fictional titans of the times.* I came up with the most lurid title I could think of, and after that the story pretty damn near wrote itself.

SEX SLAVES OF THE DRAGON TONG

“You’ll find my Margot, won’t you?” Mr. Kachmar said. “Please?”

Detective Third Grade Brad Brannigan felt the weight of the portly man’s imploring gaze as Chief Hanrahan ushered him out of his office.

“Of course he will,” the chief told him. “He’s one of our best men.”

Brannigan smiled and nodded with a confidence as false as the chief’s words. He was baffled as to why he, the greenest detective in the San Francisco PD, had been called in on this of all cases.

When the door finally closed, sealing out Mr. Kachmar, the chief turned and exhaled through puffed cheeks.

“Lord preserve us from friends of the mayor with wayward daughters, aye, Brannigan?”

As Hanrahan dropped into the creaking chair behind his desk, Brannigan searched for a response.

“I appreciate the compliment, Chief, but we both know I’m not one of your best men.”

The chief smiled. “That we do, lad. That we do.”

“Then why—?”

“Because I’ll be knowing about Margot Kachmar and she’s a bit of a hellion. Twenty years old and not a thought in her head about anyone but herself. Probably found a fellow she sparked to and went off with him on a lark.

Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“But her father looked so worried.”

“I’d be worried too if I had a daughter like that. Kachmar has only himself to blame. Rich folks like him give their kids too long a leash. Make it tough for the rest of us. You should hear my own daughter.” He mimicked a young woman’s voice. “‘This isn’t the dark ages, Daddy. It’s nineteen thirty-eight.’” He huffed and returned to his normal tone. “I wouldn’t care if it was nineteen fifty-eight, you’ve got to be after watching your daughters every single minute. Watching ’em like a hawk.”

While trying his best to look interested in the chief’s domestic philosophy, Brannigan cut in as soon as he had a chance.

“Where was she last seen?”

“Washington and Grant.”

“Chinatown?”

“At least that’s what her girlfriend says.” Hanrahan winked. “Covering for her, I’ll bet. You give that one a bit of hard questioning and she’ll be coming around.”

“But Chinatown is…”

“Yes, Sorenson’s beat. But I can’t very well be asking him to look into it, can I.”

Of course he couldn’t. Sorenson was laid up in the hospital with some strange malady.

“And,” Chief Hanrahan added, “I can’t very well be pulling my best men off other cases and sending them to No-tickee-no-shirtee-ville to question a bunch of coolies about some young doxy who’ll show up on her own in a day or two. So you’re getting the nod, Detective Brannigan.”

Brad felt heat in his cheeks and knew they were reddening. For a fair-skinned redhead like him, a blush was always waiting in the wings, ready to prance onstage at an instant’s notice.

The chief’s meaning was clear: I don’t want to waste someone useful, so you take it.

Brad repressed a dismayed sigh. He knew this was because of the Jenkins case. Missing a vital clue had left him looking like an amateur. As a result the rest of the detectives at the station had had weeks of fun at his expense. But though the razzing was over, Chief Hanrahan still hadn’t assigned him to anything meaty. Brannigan wound up with the leftovers. If he didn’t get some arrests to his credit he’d never make second grade.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself, he thought. Your day will come. It just won’t be today.

Brannigan took the chief’s suggestion and called on Margot’s friend Katy Webber for a few answers. Katy lived in her parents’ home, a stone mansion in Pacific Heights.

Five minutes with her were all it took to convince him that she wasn’t covering for Margot. She was too upset.

“One moment she was with me,” she said through her tears, “and the next minute she wasn’t! I turned to look in a jewelry store window—that was why we went there, to look for some jade—and when I turned back to point out a necklace, she was gone!”

“And you didn’t see anyone suspicious hanging about? No one following you?”

“Not that I noticed. And Margot never mentioned seeing anyone. The streets were crowded with people and cars and…I don’t understand how she could have disappeared like that.”

Neither did Brannigan. “You must have seen something.”

“Well…”

“What?”

“It might be nothing, but I saw this black car pulling away and I thought…” She shook her head. “I thought I saw the back of a blond head through the rear window.”

“Margot’s head?”

Katy shrugged and looked miserable. “I don’t know. It was just a glimpse and then the car turned the corner.”

“Do you remember the license plate? The make? The model?”

Katy responded to each question with a shake of her head. “I don’t know cars. I did notice that it had four doors, but beyond that…”

Swell, Brannigan thought. A black sedan. San Francisco had thousands and thousands of them.

But Katy’s story convinced him that someone had kidnapped Margot Kachmar. In broad daylight to boot. He’d start where she was last seen, at Washington and Grant, and move out from there.

But he’d move on his own. This was his chance to get himself out of Dutch with the chief, so he’d keep it to himself for now. If Hanrahan got wind that this was a real kidnapping, he’d pull Brannigan and put someone else on it sure.

Someone in that area of Chinatown had to remember something. All he needed to do was ask the right person. And that meant his next step was good old-fashioned door-to-door detective work.

“Wah!” Yu Chaoyang cried. “Slow the car!”

Jiang Zhifu looked around, startled. He and Yu occupied the back of one of the black Packard sedans owned by Yan Yuap Tong. An underling Yu had brought from Singapore sat behind the wheel. All three wore identical black cotton outfits with high collars and frog-buttoned fronts, although Yu’s large girth required twice as much fabric as Jiang’s; each jacket was embroidered with a golden dragon over the left breast; each man wore his hair woven into a braid that dangled from beneath a traditional black skullcap.

“What is wrong?” Jiang said as the car slowed almost to a stop.

“Nothing is wrong, my tong brother. In fact, something is very right.” A chubby finger pointed toward the sidewalk. “Look and marvel.”

Jiang peered through the side window glass and saw a typical Chinatown scene: pushcarts laden with fruits and vegetables, fish live and dead, fluttering caged birds and roasted ducks; weaving among them was the usual throng of shoppers, a mix of locals and tourists.

Yu had come to America just last month on a mission for his father, head of the Yan Yuap Tong’s house in Singapore; Jiang had volunteered to guide him through the odd ways of this strange country.

Yu was proving to be a trial. Arrogant and headstrong, he did not give proper face to his tong brothers here in San Francisco. Some of that might be anticipated from the son of a tong chief from home, but Yu went beyond proper bounds. No one expected him to kowtow, but he should show more respect.

“I don’t understand,” Jiang said.

Yu turned to face him. He ran a long sinuous tongue over his lips, brushing his thin drooping mustache in the process. His smile narrowed further his puffy lids until they were mere slits through which his onyx eyes gleamed.

“Red hair! Red hair!”

Jiang looked again and saw a little girl, no more than ten years old, standing by a cart, looking at a cage full of sparrows. She wore a red dress with white trim; but her unruly hair was even redder: a bushy flame, flaring around her face like the corona of an eclipse.

“Look at her.” Yu’s voice became a serpent, slithering through the car. “What a price I can fetch for her!”

“But she’s a child.”

“Yes! Precisely! I have a buyer in Singapore who specializes in children, and a red-haired child…aieee! He will pay anything for her!”

Jiang’s stomach tightened. A child…

“Are you forgetting the conditions set by the Mandarin?”

“May maggots eat the eyes of your Mandarin!”

Jiang couldn’t help a quick look around. He thanked his ancestors that the windows were closed. Someone might have heard.

“Do not speak of him so! And do not even think of breaking your agreement with him!”

Yu leaned closer. “Where do your loyalties lie, Jiang? With your tong, or with this mysterious Mandarin you all kowtow to?”

“I am loyal to Yan Yuap, but I am also fond of my skin. And if you wish to keep yours, you will heed my warning. Those who oppose his will wind up dead or are never seen again.”

“Eh-yeh!” Yu waved a dismissive hand. “By tomorrow night I will be at sea with this barbarous country far behind me.”

“Yes. You will be gone, but I will still have to live here.”

Yu grinned, showing mottled teeth, stained from his opium pipe. “That is not my worry.”

“Do not be so sure. The Mandarin’s reach is long. He has never been known to break his word, and he has no mercy toward those who break theirs to him. I beg you not to do this.”

The grin turned into a sneer. “America has softened you, Jiang. You shake like a frightened old woman.”

Jiang looked away. This man was a fool. Yu had come to America for women—white women he could sell to the Singapore brothels. The lower level houses there and the streets around them were full of dolla-dolla girls shipped in from the farmlands. But the upper echelon salons that provided gambling as well as sex needed something special to bring in the high rollers. White women were one such draw. And blond white women were the ultimate lure.

Since nothing in San Francisco’s Chinese underworld happened without the Mandarin’s consent—or without his receiving a share of the proceeds—Yu had needed prior approval of his plan. How he had raged at the ignominy of such an arrangement, but he had been persuaded that he would have no success without it.

The Mandarin had set two conditions. First: take only one woman from San Francisco, all the rest from surrounding cities and towns. The second: no children. He did not care to weather a Lindbergh-style investigation.

Jiang said, “We took a girl here only yesterday, and now a child from these same streets. You will be breaking both conditions with this act.”

Yu smiled. “No, Jiang. We will be breaking them. We will watch and wait, and when the time is right, you will pluck this delicious little berry from her branch.”

Jiang agonized as Yu had the driver circle the block again and again. Yes, he was a member of the Yan Yuap Tong, but he was also a member of a more powerful and far-flung society. And the Mandarin was one of its leaders. Jiang was the Mandarin’s eyes within the Yan Yuap Tong, and as such he would have to report this. Not that he would mind the slightest seeing the worst happen to Yu, but he prayed to his ancestors that the Mandarin wouldn’t make him pay too for his part in the transgression.

“Wah!” Yu said. “She has turned the corner. There is no one about! Now! Now!”

Fumes filled the car as Jiang poured chloroform onto a rag. He jumped out, the soft slap of his slippers on the pavement the only sign of his presence; he clamped the rag over the child’s face and was dragging her back toward the car’s open door when a ball of light brown fur darted across the sidewalk toward them. Jiang heard a growl of fury, saw bared fangs, and then the thing was upon him, tearing at the flesh of his arm.

He cried out for help and received it in the report of a pistol. The dog yelped and tumbled backward to lie twitching on the sidewalk. The child’s wild struggles—she was a tough little one—slowed and ceased as the chloroform did its work. Jiang shoved her into the backseat between Yu and himself. The car lurched into motion. Jiang glanced back and saw a pool of blood forming around the head of the sandy-haired dog.

He looked at the now unconscious child and saw Yu caressing one of her pale, bare thighs.

“Ah, my little quail,” he cooed, “I would so like to use the trip home to teach you the thousand ways to please a man, but alas you must remain a virgin if I am to take full profit from you.”

Jiang closed his eyes and trembled inside. He had to tell the Mandarin of this. He prayed he’d survive the meeting.

“I’ve run into a blank wall,” Brannigan said.

“And so you’ve come to me for help.”

Looking at Detective Sergeant Hank Sorenson now, Brannigan wished he’d gone elsewhere.

He’d had a nodding acquaintance with Sorenson at the station, but the figure pressed between the sheets in the hospital bed before him was a caricature of the man Brannigan had known.

He tried not to stare at the sunken cheeks, the glassy, feverish eyes, the sallow, sweaty skin as pale as his hospital gown. The slow smile that stretched Sorenson’s lips and bared his teeth was ghastly.

“You mean to tell me you walked up to Chinatown residents and asked them what they saw?”

The whole afternoon had been a frustrating progression of singsong syllables, expressionless yellow faces with gleaming slanted eyes that told him nothing.

“I didn’t see that I had any other option.”

“You can’t treat chinks like regular people, Brad. You can’t ask them a direct question. They’re devious, crafty, always circling.”

Brannigan bristled at Sorenson’s attitude, like a teacher chiding a student for not knowing his lesson.

“Well, be that as it may, no one saw anything.”

Sorenson barked a phlegmy laugh. “Oh, they saw all right. They’re just not going to tell an outsider. Not if they know what’s good for them.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The Mandarin. You do not cross the Mandarin.”

Sorenson went on to explain about Chinatown’s lord of crime. Then he added, “If this Kachmar girl is a blond, you might be dealing with a white slave ring. The Yan Yuap Tong—also called the Dragon Tong because their symbol is a dragon—has been involved in that before. The tongsters probably have your missing girl’s photo on its way back to Singapore already, to get the bidding started.”

Brannigan had heard of Oriental rings that abducted white women for sex slaves, but he’d never expected that Margot Kachmar—

“Check Oakland and Marin and maybe San Jose,” Sorenson was saying. “See if they’ve had a blonde or two gone missing recently.”

“Why there?”

“Because police departments don’t communicate nearly enough. Someday they will, but with things as they are, spreading out the abductions lessens the chances of anyone spotting a pattern.”

Oakland…San Jose…that seemed like a lot of legwork with slim chance of turning up anything useful.

“Why don’t I go straight to the source? This Mandarin character…where do I find him?”

Sorenson began to shake with ague. His head fell back on the pillow. When the tremors eased…

“No one knows. He hides his identity even from his fellow Chinese. Just as well—you don’t want to find him. I came close and look what it got me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was homing in on the Mandarin’s identity, getting closer than anyone before me, and then, a week ago, something got into my house and bit me.”

“Something?”

“A giant millipede, bright red, at least eight inches long, crawled into my bed and bit me on the shoulder. I managed to smash it with a shoe as it raced away, but only got the back half. The front half broke off and escaped. Bug scientists over at the university say it only exists in Borneo.”

“But what’s that got to do—?”

“It was put in my house, you idiot!” Sorenson snapped, a faint tinge of color seeping into his cheeks. “By one of the Mandarin’s men. And look what it’s done to me!”

He pulled the hospital gown off his left shoulder to reveal a damp dressing. He ripped that off.

“It’s due for a change anyway. Have a look.”

Brannigan saw an ulcerated crater perhaps two inches across penetrating deep into the flesh of Sorenson’s shoulder. Its base was red and bloody. A quick look was more than enough for Brannigan, but as he was turning away he thought he saw something move within the bloody fluid. He looked again—

And jumped back.

Many little things were moving in the base of the ulcer.

“What—?”

Sorenson’s expression was bleak. Brannigan could see he was trying to keep up a brave face.

“Yeah. The bug didn’t poison me. I wish it had. Instead it laid a bunch of eggs in me, a thousand, maybe a million of them. And they keep hatching. I think they’re getting into my system, eating me alive from the inside.”

“Can’t the doctors stop it?”

He shook his head. “They’ve never seen anything like—”

He clasped a hand over his mouth as he broke off into a fit of coughing. The harsh barks seemed to be coming from somewhere around his ankles. With a final wet hack he stopped.

A look of horror twisted his features as he stared at his palm. It was filled with bloody phlegm, and Brannigan could swear he saw something wriggling within the glob, something with many, many legs.

“Oh, God!” Sorenson wailed, his composure finally broken. “Call the doctor! Get the nurse in here! Hurry!”

Brannigan turned and ran for the hallway. Behind him he heard the wrenching sound of a grown man sobbing.

Jiang could not keep his body from shaking as he knelt with his forehead pressed against the cold stone floor. The Mandarin stood over him, eerily silent. Jiang had told him what had transpired on the street. It had been hours ago, but he had come as soon as he could get away.

At last the master spoke, his voice soft, the tone sibilant.

“So…Yu Chaoyang has disobeyed me and endangered all we have worked for here. I half expected this from such a man. The Japanese are overrunning our China, slaughtering its people, and Yu thinks only of adding to his already swollen coffers.”

“Venerable, I tried to dissuade him but—”

“I am sure you did your best, Jiang Zhifu, but apparently it wasn’t enough.”

No-no-no! cried a terrified voice within Jiang. Let him not be angry!

But Jiang’s outer voice was wise enough to remain silent.

“However,” the master said, “I will allow you to redeem yourself.”

“Oh, Illustrious! This miserable offspring of a worm is endlessly grateful.”

“Rise.”

Jiang eased to his feet and stood facing the master, but looked at him only from the corner of his eye. The man known throughout Chinatown as the Mandarin—even Jiang did not know his true name—was tall, lean, high-shouldered, standing bamboo straight with his hands folded inside the sleeves of his flowing turquoise robe; his hair was thin and covered with a brimless cap beaded with coral. He had a high, domed forehead and thin lips, but his eyes—light green, their color intensified by the shade of his robe—were unlike any Jiang had ever seen.

“Where is the child now?”

“Yu has her in the tonghouse, but soon he will head for his ship and set sail. Shall I stop him? Shall I see to it that he suffers the same fate as that too-curious detective?”

The master shook his head. “No. Did the child see you?”

“No, Magnificent. I took her from behind and she was soon unconscious.”

“Then she cannot point a finger of blame at a Chinaman. Good. You will return to the tonghouse and light a red lamp in the room where the child is kept. I will send a few of my dacoits to see that she is returned to the streets. You must be present so that no suspicion falls on you. Then let Yu go to his ship and set sail with the rest of his cargo. He will never see home. He—Jiang, you are bleeding.”

“It is nothing, Eminent. The child’s dog bit me as I pulled her into the car. It is nothing.”

“The red-haired little girl had a dog, you say? What kind of dog?”

“A scruffy mongrel. May this unworthy snail ask why such an Esteemed One as you would ask?”

When the master did not answer, Jiang dared a glance at his face and saw the unimaginable: a look of uncertainty in those green eyes.

“Exalted…did this miserable slug say something wrong?”

“No, Jiang. I had a thought, that is all…about a certain little red-haired girl who must not be touched…ever.” He turned and stepped to the single high small window in the north wall of the tiny room. “It could not possibly be she, but if it is…and if she is harmed…all the ancestors of all the members of the Yan Yuap Tong will not save it from doom…a doom that could spread to us as well.”

Brannigan leaned against the center railing of the hospital’s front steps and sucked deep draughts of the foggy night air.

Sorenson…a tough, no-nonsense cop…reduced to a weeping child. It gave him a bad case of the willies. Who was this Mandarin? And more important, was he involved in Margot Kachmar’s disappearance?

Feeling steadier, Brannigan stepped down to the sidewalk and headed for his radio car. He needed to call in. A catchy song by Frances Day, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” echoed unwelcomed his head. From somewhere in the fog a newsboy called out the headlines of the evening edition. As he passed a silver Rolls Royce its rear door opened and an accented voice spoke from the dark interior.

“Please step inside. Someone wishes to speak to you.”

Someone? That could very well be the Mandarin. Well, Brannigan damn well wanted to speak to him too, but on his terms, not in the back of a mysterious limousine.

He backed away. “Have him meet me down at the station,” he said. “We’ll have a nice long chat there.”

Brannigan jumped at the sound of another voice close behind him, almost in his ear.

“He would speak to you now. Into the car, please.”

Brannigan reached for his pistol but his shoulder holster was empty. He whirled and found himself face-to-face with a gaunt Chinaman dressed in a black business suit, a white shirt, and a black tie. A black fedora finished off the look. His expression was bland, his tone matter-of-fact, but his features had a sinister, almost cruel cast.

He held up Brannigan’s .38 between them but did not point it at him. He gestured to the car with his free hand.

“Please.”

Brannigan’s first instinct was to run, but he figured all he’d gain by that was a slug in the back. Probably better than a millipede in his bed, but he decided on the car option. Maybe he’d find an opening along the way to make a break.

With his bladder clenching, he ducked inside. The door slammed behind him, drenching him in darkness. He could sense but not see whoever was seated across from him. As the car began moving—the thin chink was also the driver, it seemed—Brannigan leaned forward, straining to see his host.

“Are you…?” His mouth was dry so he wet his lips. “Are you the Mandarin?”

A soft laugh. “Oh, no. I would not serve that one.”

“Then why do you want to speak to me?”

“It is not I, Detective Brannigan. It is another. Hush now and save your words for him.”

The glare from a passing streetlight illuminated the interior for a second, leaving Brannigan in a state of shock. The other occupant was a turbaned giant who looked as if he’d just stepped out of Arabian Nights.

The car turned west on California, taking them away from Chinatown. A few minutes later they stopped at a side entrance to the Fairmont Hotel, perched atop Nob Hill like a granite crown. The driver and the giant escorted Brannigan to an elevator in an empty service hallway. Inside the car, the driver inserted a key into the control panel and up they went.

After a swift, stomach-sinking ride, the elevator doors opened into a huge suite, richly furnished and decorated with palm trees and ornate marble columns reaching to its high, glass-paned ceiling.

An older man rose from a sofa. He was completely bald with pale gray eyes. He wore black tuxedo pants and a white dress shirt ornamented with a huge diamond stickpin. Brannigan spotted a black dress jacket and tie draped over a nearby chair. A long thick cigar smoldered in his left hand; he extended the right as he strode forward.

“Detective Brannigan, I presume. Thank you for coming.”

Brannigan, flabbergasted, shook the man’s hand. This wasn’t at all what he’d expected.

“I didn’t have much choice.”

He eyed his two escorts as they took up positions behind his host. The driver had removed his hat, revealing a bald dome; glossy black hair fringed the sides and back of his scalp.

“Oh, I hope they didn’t threaten you.”

Brannigan was about to crack wise when he realized that they hadn’t threatened him at all. If anything they’d been overly polite.

He studied the bald man. Something familiar about him…

“I’ve seen you before.”

The man shrugged. “Despite my best efforts, my face now and again winds up in the papers.”

“Who are you?”

“Let’s just say I’m someone who prefers to move in and out of large cities without advertising his presence. Otherwise my time would be consumed by a parade of local politicians with their hands out, and I’d never get any work done.”

“What do you want with me?”

“You were in Chinatown today asking about a missing girl, Margot Kachmar.”

The statement startled Brannigan at first, but then he glanced at the Oriental driver and realized he shouldn’t be surprised.

“That’s police business.”

“And now it’s my business.” A sudden, steely tone put a knife edge on the words. “My daughter was abducted from that same area this afternoon.”

“She was? Did you tell the police?”

“That’s what I’m doing now.”

“I mean an official report and—never mind. Are you sure she was abducted?”

The bald man hooked a finger through the air and Brannigan followed him to the far side of a huge couch. Along the way he glanced out the tall windows and saw Russian Hill and San Francisco Bay stretching out below. This had to be the penthouse suite.

The man pointed to a sandy-furred mutt lying on a big red pillow. A thick bandage encircled its head.

“That’s her dog. She goes nowhere without him. He was shot—luckily the bullet glanced off his skull instead of piercing it—and that can only mean that he was defending her. He almost died, but he’s a tough one, just like his little owner.”

Two in two days from the same neighborhood…this was not the pattern Sorenson had described.

“How old is your daughter, and is she blond?”

“She’s a ten-year-old redhead—her hair’s the same shade as yours.”

Cripes. A kid. “Well, I’m sorry about what happened to her, but I don’t think she’s connected to the Kachmar girl. I—”

“What if I told you they were both dragged into a black Packard sedan? Most likely the same one?”

Katy Webber had described a black sedan. Maybe there was a connection after all.

The bald man said, “I have men out canvassing the neighborhoods right now, looking for that car.”

“That’s police business. You can’t—”

“I can and I am. Don’t worry—they’ll be very discreet. But I’ll make you a deal, detective: You share with me, I’ll share with you. If I locate Miss Kachmar, I’ll notify you. If you find my daughter alive and well I will see to it that you never have to worry about money for the rest of your life.”

Brannigan felt a flush of anger. “I don’t need to be bribed to do my job.”

“It’s not a bribe—it will be gratitude. Anything of mine you want you can have. I’ve made fortunes and lost them, gone from living in mansions to being penniless on the street and back to mansions. I’m good at making money. I can always replace my fortune. But I can’t replace that little girl.” The man seemed to lose his voice and Brannigan saw his throat work. When he recovered he added, “She means everything to me.”

The nods from the turbaned giant and the driver said they felt the same. Brannigan was touched. He couldn’t help it. And from the looks on all three faces he knew that if they were the first to discover the child’s abductor, the mugg would never see trial.

He couldn’t condone or allow the vigilantism he sensed brewing here. And for that reason he couldn’t tell them what Sorenson had said about the Dragon Tong. He’d keep that to himself.

“I promise you that if I find her, you’ll be the first to know.”

The bald man put his hand out to the Chinese driver who placed Brannigan’s pistol in it, then he fixed the detective with his pale gaze. “That is all I ask. Can my associates offer you a lift?”

“No thanks.” He’d seen enough of the old man’s chums for one evening. “I’ll grab a cab.”

He took the elevator down to the lobby level, but before going outside, he stopped at the front desk.

“Who’s staying in the penthouse suite?” he asked the clerk. He flipped open his wallet, showing his shield. “And don’t give me any malarkey about hotel policy.”

The man hesitated, then shrugged. After consulting the guest register he shook his head.

“Sorry. It’s unoccupied.”

“Baloney! I was just up there.”

Another shake of the head. “No occupant is listed. All I can tell you is this: The penthouse suite is on reserve—permanent reserve—but it doesn’t say for whom.”

Frustrated, Brannigan stormed from the hotel. He had more important things to do than argue with some hotel flunky.

Ten minutes later Brannigan was standing in the shadows across the street from the headquarters of the Dragon Tong. Its slanted cupola glistened with moisture from the fog. A few of the upper windows were lit, a pair of green-and-yellow paper lanterns hung outside the front entrance, but otherwise the angular building squatted dark and silent on its lot.

What now? Sorenson had told him how to find it, but now that he was here he couldn’t simply walk in. Much as he hated to admit it, he was going to have to call Hanrahan for backup.

As he turned to go back to his radio car he noticed movement along the right flank of the tonghouse. Three monkeylike shadows were scaling the wall. He hurried across the street and crept closer to investigate. He found a rope hanging along the wall, disappearing into a third-story window lit by a red paper lantern.

Apparently someone else was interested in the tonghouse. He knew the three he’d seen shimmying up this rope were too small and agile to have been the bald guy and company.

He looked at the rope, tempted. This was one hell of a pickle. Go up or get help?

The decision was taken out of his hands when the rope snaked up the wall and out of reach. He cursed as he watched it disappear into the window.

But then he noticed a narrow door just to his right. He tried the handle—unlocked—and pushed it open. The slow creaks from the old hinges sounded like a cat being tortured. He cringed as he slipped into some sort of kitchen. He pulled his pistol and waited to see if anyone came to investigate.

When no one came, he slipped through the darkness, listening. The tong-house seemed quiet. Most of the tongsters were probably home at this hour. But what of the hatchetmen the tongs reputedly used as guards and enforcers? Did they go home too? Brannigan hoped so, but doubted it.

He stepped through a curtain into a small chamber lit by a single oil lamp, its walls bare except for a black lacquered door ornamented with gold dragons uncoiling from the corners. The door pulled outward and Brannigan found himself in an exotic, windowless room, empty except for a golden Buddha seated in a corner; a lamp and joss sticks smoked before it, their vapors wafting toward the high ceiling.

Something about the walls…he stepped closer and gasped as he ran his fingers over what he’d assumed to be wallpaper. But these peacock plumes weren’t painted, they were the genuine article. And all four walls were lined with them.

Dazzled by its beauty, Brannigan stepped back to the center of the room and turned in a slow circle. No window, no door other than the one he’d come through. The room appeared to be a dead end.

But then he noticed the way the smoke from the joss sticks wavered on its path toward the ceiling. Air was flowing in from somewhere. He moved along the wall, inspecting the plumes until he found one with a wavering fringe. And another just below it. Air was filtering through a narrow crevice. He pushed at the wall on either side until he felt something give. He pushed harder and a section swung inward.

Ahead of Brannigan lay a long, dark, downsloping corridor, ending in a rectangle of wan, flickering light. The only sound was his own breathing.

He hesitated, then took a breath and started forward. He’d come this far…in for a dime, in for a dollar.

Pistol at the ready, he crept down the passage as silently as his heavy regulation shoes would allow, pausing every few steps to listen. Nothing. All quiet.

When he reached the end he stopped. All he could see ahead was bare floor and wall, lit by a lamp in some unseen corner. Still hearing nothing, he risked a peek inside—

—and ducked back as he caught a flash of movement to his left. A black-handled hatchet whispered past the end of his nose and buried itself in the wall just inches to the right of his head.

And then a black-pajama-clad tongster with a high-cheeked, pockmarked face lunged at him with a raised dagger. His brutal features were contorted with rage as he shouted rapid-fire gibberish.

The report from Brannigan’s pistol was deafening as it smashed a bullet through the chink’s chest and sent him tumbling backward. Another black-clad tongster, a raw-boned, beady-eyed bugger, replaced him immediately, howling the same cry as he swung a hatchet at Brannigan’s throat. He too fell with a bullet in his chest.

But then the doorway was filled with two more and then three, and more surging behind them. With only four rounds left in his revolver, Brannigan knew he had no chance of stopping this Mongol horde. He began backpedaling as the hatchetmen leaped over their fallen comrades and charged.

Brannigan fired as he retreated, making good use of his remaining rounds, slowing the black-clad gang’s advance, but a small, primitive part of him began screeching in panic as it became aware that he was not going to leave the tonghouse alive. Not unless he reached the door to the joss room in time to shut it and hold it closed against the swarm of hatchetmen.

After firing his last shot he turned and ran full tilt for the door. His foot caught on the sill as he rushed through and he tumbled to the floor. The horror of knowing that he was about to be hacked to death shot strength into his legs but he slipped as he started to rise and knew he was done for.

As he rolled, tensing for the first ax strike, preparing a last stand with his bare hands, he was startled by the sound of gunfire, followed immediately by shouts and screams of pain. He looked up and saw the old man’s turbaned Indian wielding a huge scimitar that lopped off heads and arms with slashing swipes, while the driver hacked away with a cutlass. The old man himself stood in the thick of it, firing a round-handled, long-barreled Mauser at any of the hatchetmen who slipped past his front line.

Brannigan pawed fresh shells from his jacket pocket and began to reload. But the melee was over before he finished. He sat up and looked around. More than joss-stick smoke hung in the air; blood had spattered the feathered walls and pooled on the floor. The old man and the Indian were unscathed; the driver was bleeding from a gash on his right arm but didn’t seem to notice.

“What…how…?”

The old man looked at him. “I sensed you weren’t telling us everything you knew, so we followed you. Good thing too, I’d say.”

Brannigan nodded as he struggled to his feet. He felt shaky, unsteady.

“Thank you. I owe you my—”

“Is she here?” the old man said. “Have you seen her?”

“I have her right here, Oliver,” said a sibilant, accented voice.

Brannigan turned and raised his pistol as a motley group filed into the small room: a green-eyed, turquoise-robed Chinaman entered, followed by a trio of gangly, brutal-looking, dark-skinned lugs dressed in loincloths and nothing else; one carried a red-haired girl in his arms; two black-pajamaed tongsters brought up the rear, one thin, one fat, the latter with his hands tied behind his back and looking as if he’d wound up on the wrong end of a billy club.

The lead Chinaman spoke again. “I feared you might have been drawn into this.”

“So it’s you, Doctor,” the old man said. At least Brannigan knew part of his name now: Oliver. “Striking at me through my child? I knew you were ruthless but—”

“Do not insult me, Oliver. I would gladly cut out your heart, but I would not break it.”

The doctor—doctor of what? Brannigan wondered—removed a bony, long-fingered hand from within a sleeve and gestured to the loinclothed crew. The one carrying the little girl stepped forward and handed her over to Oliver. She looked drugged but as the old man took her in his arms, her eyes fluttered open. Brannigan saw her smile.

The word was a whisper. “Daddy.”

Tears rimmed Oliver’s eyes as he looked down at her, then back to the doctor. “I don’t understand.”

“This was not my doing.” Without looking he flicked a finger toward the fat, bound tongster. “This doomed one broke an agreement.”

“I thought I left you back in Hong Kong. When was it…?”

“Three years ago. I understand you recently closed your factory there.”

He nodded. “The political climate in the Far East has accomplished what you could not. I’m gathering my chicks closer to the nest, you might say. A storm is brewing and I want to be properly positioned when it strikes.”

The doctor’s smile was acid. “To profiteer, as usual.”

Oliver shrugged. “Nothing wrong with doing well while doing good.”

Who were these two? Brannigan wondered. They stood, each with his own personal army, like ancient mythical enemies facing each other across a bottomless divide.

“And what of you, Doctor?” Oliver continued. “With your homeland being invaded, why are you here?”

“You heard what the Japanese dogs did in Nanking?”

“Yes. Ghastly. I’m sorry.”

“Then you can understand why I am here. To raise money from the underworld for weapons to repel the insects.”

Oliver’s faint smile looked bitter. “And all along you thought the enemy was people like me.”

“You still are. My goal remains unchanged: To drive all foreigners from Chinese soil. I will admit, however, that I singled out the white western world as the threat, never realizing that a yellow-skinned neighbor would prove a far more vicious foe.”

Something the doctor had said rang through Brannigan’s brain: To raise money from the underworld…that could only mean—

He pointed his pistol at the green-robed chink. “You’re the Mandarin! You’re—”

The green eyes glanced his way and the pure malevolence in them clogged the words in Brannigan’s throat. Before he could clear it, Oliver pointed to the bound chink and spoke.

“I’ll take him from here. My associates and I have a score to settle.”

“No, he is mine. He broke his word to me. I have experts in the Thousand Cuts. He will die long after he wishes to, I promise.”

Brannigan couldn’t believe his ears. These two acted like laws unto themselves. It was like listening to two sovereign nation-states argue over extradition of a prisoner.

“Hey, wait just a minute, you two.” He stepped closer to the Mandarin. “Neither of you is going to do anything.” The green eyes turned on him again. “I’m arresting you and your tongster buddy here for—”

Something smashed against the back of Brannigan’s skull, dropping him to his knees. He tried to regain his feet but the edges of his vision went blurry and he toppled forward into darkness.

Jiang Zhifu poised his fist over the fallen detective’s neck and looked to the master for permission to finish the worm. The master nodded. But as Jiang raised his hand for the death blow a shot rang out and a bullet plowed into the feathered wall beside him.

“That will be enough,” said the man called Oliver.

The master motioned Jiang back toward Yu and he obeyed, albeit reluctantly. He was confused. Who was this white devil to give orders in the master’s presence, and have the master acquiesce? Although this Oliver and the master seemed to be old enemies, the master treated him as an equal.

Something became clear to Jiang. It must have been because of this man that the master had sent Jiang to the Fairmont Hotel where he’d been instructed to ask a certain question of the kitchen staff. When Jiang returned with word that yes, meals were indeed being delivered to the penthouse suite, the master had changed his plans.

Jiang looked at the little red-haired girl in Oliver’s arms. Yu had brought all this to pass by abducting her. The master had hinted that consequences most dire and relentless would befall anyone even remotely connected with harming that child.

Jiang had doubted that, but looking around the joss room now, he believed. So many of his tong brothers

dead, shot or hacked to pieces. He and Yu were the only two members of Yan Yuap left alive in the house. Jiang would have to leave and return at dawn with the rest of the members, feigning shock at the carnage here.

“As I was saying, Oliver, before we were interrupted, this worthless one is mine to deal with, but if you wish I can have some expert seamstresses stitch his skin back together and make you a gift of it.”

“Thanks for the offer,” he said but did not look grateful. “I think I’ll pass on that.”

“Then I shall nail it to the wall of this tonghouse as a warning.”

Jiang jumped as a slurred voice said, “The only thing you’ll be doing is looking the wrong way through the bars of a jail cell.”

Aiii! The detective was conscious again. He must have a skull as thick as the walls of the Imperial Palace!

The master spoke without a trace of fear. “You have at most six shots, Detective. My dacoits will be upon you before you can shoot all of them.”

The detective leveled his pistol at the master’s heart.

“Yeah, but the first one will go into you.”

Yu started to move forward, crying, “Yes! Arrest me! Please!”

But Jiang yanked him back and struck him across the throat—not a killing blow, just enough to silence him.

The master only smiled. “You may arrest me if you wish, Detective, but that will doom the ten women this bloated slug collected for export.”

The detective’s eyes widened. “Ten? Good Christ, where are they?”

“In a ship in the harbor, moored at Pier Twelve. A ship wired to explode at midnight.”

“You’re lying!”

“He doesn’t lie, Brannigan,” said Oliver. “Over our years of conflict I’ve learned that the doctor is capable of just about anything, but he never lies.”

“If you look at your watch,” the master said, “you will see that you have time to bring me to your precinct house or rush to the harbor and save the women. But not both.”

Jiang could see the detective’s resolve wavering.

The master continued in a silky, almost seductive voice. “May I suggest the former course? Think what bringing in the mysterious and notorious Mandarin will do for your career. It will guarantee you the promotion you most surely desire.”

The detective looked to Oliver. “Will you hold him here until—?”

The older man cut him off with a quick shake of his head. “This is your show, kid.” He looked down at the child stirring in his arms. “I have what I came for. You choose.”

He backed toward the door.

“Damn you all!”

Then he turned and ran.

Jiang knew that if the young detective broke all speed records, he might reach the docks in time. Fortunately for him, he would meet little resistance aboard ship; most of the crew had deserted once word leaked out that Yu had displeased the Mandarin.

When the detective was gone, Oliver smiled. “Dear Doctor, you never fail to find interesting ways to test people. I’m glad he chose what he did, otherwise I’d have had to send my associates to the waterfront. As it is, I’ve got someone here who needs some attending to, and I have a call to make.”

He turned to go, then turned back.

“Oh, and those weapons your people need…if you have trouble buying through the usual channels, call me. I’m sure we can work something out.”

And then the master shocked Jiang by doing the unthinkable. He inclined his head toward this man named Oliver.

There’s still a chance, Brannigan thought as he jumped behind the wheel of his radio car. He’d call the station and send a squad of cars to the docks while he returned to the tonghouse and collared the Mandarin.

But when he snatched the microphone from its holder he noticed the frayed end of its coiled wire dangling in the air.

“Damn!”

He tossed the useless piece of garbage against the passenger door. No options left. He started the car, threw it into gear, and floored the gas pedal. He didn’t think he could make it, but he was going to try.

Traffic was light and with his siren howling he reached the docks in five minutes. He found Pier Twelve and raced up the gangplank of a rustbucket freighter, his pistol held before him.

He reached the deck and, with only that wash of light from the city behind him for illumination, looked around. The tub looked deserted. Two of the three cargo hatches lay open. He ran to the third and rapped on it with the gun butt.

“Hello! Anyone in there?”

The muffled chorus of female voices from below was a sweet symphony. He found the fasteners, released them, and pulled off the cover.

“Detective Brad Brannigan,” he said into the square of darkness below him, and the words had never sounded so good on his tongue. “Let’s get you gals out of there.”

As the captives shouted, cried, and sobbed with relief, Brannigan grabbed the rope ladder coiled by the hatch and tossed it over the edge.

“Squeeze the minutes, girls! We haven’t got much time.”

As the first climbed into view, a rather plain blonde, he grabbed her arm and hauled her onto the deck.

“Run! Get down the gangplank and keep going!”

He did this with each of the girls—amazingly, all blondes.

“I thought there were ten of you,” he said as he helped the ninth over the rim.

“Margot hurt her ankle when they grabbed her. She can’t climb up.”

Hell and damn. Margot Kachmar, the one who started all this for him. He wished he could see his watch. How much time did he have left, if any?

Didn’t matter. He hadn’t finished the job.

He directed number nine to the gangway, then leaned over the rim and called into the darkness below.

“Margot? Are you near the ladder?”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts. Put your good foot on a rung and hold on tight.”

“O-okay.” He felt the ropes tighten. “I’m on. Now what?”

“I bring you up.”

Brannigan sat on the deck, braced his feet against the hatch rim, and began hauling on the rope ladder. The coarse coils burned his palms and his back protested, but he kept at it, pulling rung after ropy rung up and over the edge until he saw a pair of hands grip the rim.

“Keep coming!” he shouted, maintaining tension on the rope.

When her face was visible and she had both elbows over the rim, he grabbed her and hauled her onto the deck.

“Oh, thank you!” she sobbed as she looked at the city. “I’d given up hope of ever seeing home again!”

“Don’t thank me yet.” He lifted her into his arms and carried her toward the gangway. “C’mon, kiddo. Your daddy’s waiting for you.”

His haste gave him a bad moment on the gangway as he slipped halfway down and nearly fell off. He was just stepping onto the dock with his burden safe and unharmed when a bright flash lit up the night.

“Hold it!” a man’s voice said. “One more!”

The purple afterimage of the flash blotted out whoever was talking.

“What?”

A second flash and then another voice saying, “Joe Stenson from the Chronicle. Your name’s Brannigan, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“That’s with a double ‘n’?”

“Get out of here!” Brannigan shouted as he began carrying Margot away from the ship. “The ship’s going to blow at midnight!”

“Blow?”

“As in explode!”

“But it’s already after midnight,” Stenson said.

Brannigan slowed for a few steps. Had he been duped? Then he remembered what Oliver had said about the Mandarin always keeping his word and resumed his frantic pace.

“Just get away from the ship!”

“If you say so.”

Stenson was pacing him to his left. A photographer ambled on his right.

“How come you two are down here?” Brannigan asked.

“Got a tip. Guy didn’t give his name, just told me to get down to Pier Twelve if I wanted to catch a hero cop in action, and am I ever glad I listened. The girls told me what happened to them, and that picture of you carrying this little lady down the gangplank—hoo boy, if that’s not front-page stuff, I’ll quit and open a flower shop.”

Ahead Brannigan could see the rest of the girls waiting near the street, cheering when they saw he had Margot. He set her down on the curb and they all gathered around, hugging her, hugging him, while the photographer flashed away.

“What was that about the ship exploding at midnight?” Stenson said. “Were you—?”

And then the pavement shook and the night lit up like day as huge explosions ripped through the old freighter, rupturing her hull and shooting hundred-foot columns of flame up from the hatches.

Stenson turned to his photographer. “Are you getting this, Louie?”

“I’m getting it, Joe. Am I ever getting it!”

The adrenaline began seeping away then, leaving Brannigan fagged. He’d missed collaring the Mandarin, but looking at these ten girls, all alive and well because of him, he couldn’t help but feel on top of the world.

But who in the world had called the Chronicle?

He sensed motion behind him and turned to see a silver Rolls Royce gliding by. A little red-haired girl smiled and waved from the rear window before the car was swallowed by the fog.

PART OF THE GAME

INTRODUCTION

During one of my signings at Dark Delicacies, Del Howison (co-owner with his wife, Sue) told me that he and Jeff Gelb were putting together an anthology of stories by people who’d signed at the store. They were calling it—surprise!—Dark Delicacies. He had no theme other than a riff on the title.

Delicacies…edibles…

I’d had such fun with my yellow-peril story that I decided to revisit the scene and write a new story, as pulpy as the last, that would intersect “Sex Slaves of the Dragon Tong.”

Some of the epithets might offend those of you with tender ears, but that’s the way they wrote ’em back in the 1930s.

PART OF THE GAME

“You have been brought to attention of a most illustrious one,” Jiang Zhifu said.

The Chinaman wore long black cotton pajamas with a high collar and onyx-buttoned front. He’d woven his hair into a braid that snaked out from beneath a traditional black skullcap. His eyes were as shiny and black as his onyx buttons and, typical of his kind, gave nothing away.

Detective Sergeant Hank Sorenson smiled. “I guess the Mandarin heard about my little show at Wang’s pai-gow parlor last night.”

Jiang’s mug remained typically inscrutable. “I not mention such a one.”

“Didn’t have to. Tell him I want to meet him.”

Jiang blinked. Got him! Direct speech always set these chinks back on their heels.

Hank let his cup of tea cool on the small table between them. He’d pretend to take a sip or two but not a drop would pass his lips. He doubted anyone down here would make a move against a bull, but you could never be sure where the Mandarin was concerned.

He tried to get a bead on this coolie. A call in the night from someone saying he was Jiang Zhifu, a “representative”—these chinks made him laugh—of an important man in Chinatown. He didn’t have to say who. Hank knew. The chink said they must meet to discuss important matters of mutual interest. At the Jade Moon. Ten a.m.

Hank knew the place—next to a Plum Street joss house—and he’d arrived early. First thing he’d done was check out the rear alley. All clear. Inside he’d chosen a corner table near the rear door and seated himself with his back to the wall.

The Jade Moon wasn’t exactly high end as Chinkytown restaurants went: dirty floors, smudged tumblers, chipped lacquer on the doors and trim, ratty-looking paper lanterns dangling from the exposed beams.

Not the kind of place he’d expect to meet a minion of the mysterious and powerful and ever-elusive Mandarin.

The Mandarin didn’t run Chinatown’s rackets. He had a better deal: He skimmed them. Never got his hands dirty except with the money that crossed them. Dope, prostitution, gambling…the Mandarin took a cut of everything.

How he’d pulled that off was a bigger mystery than his identity. Hank had dealt with the tongs down here—tough mugs one and all. Not the sort you’d figure to hand over part of their earnings without a fight. But they did.

Well, maybe there’d been a dustup and they lost. But if that was what had happened, it must have been fought out of sight, because he hadn’t heard a word about it.

Hank had been running the no-tickee-no-shirtee beat for SFPD since 1935 and had yet to find anyone who’d ever seen the Mandarin. And they weren’t just saying they’d never seen them—they meant it. If three years down here had taught him anything, it was that you never ask a chink a direct question. You couldn’t treat them like regular people. You had to approach everything on an angle. They were devious, crafty, always dodging and weaving, always ducking the question and avoiding an answer.

He’d developed a nose for their lies, but had never caught a whiff of deceit when he’d asked about the Mandarin. Even when he’d played rough with a character or two, they didn’t know who he was, where he was, or what he looked like.

It had taken Hank a while to reach the astonishing conclusion that they didn’t want to know. And that had taken him aback. Chinks were gossip-mongers—yak-yak-yak in their singsong voices, trading rumors and tidbits like a bunch of old biddies. For them to avoid talking about someone meant they were afraid.

Even the little people were afraid. That said something for the Mandarin’s reach.

Hank had to admit he was impressed, but hardly afraid. He wasn’t a chink.

Jiang had arrived exactly at ten, kowtowing before seating himself.

“Even if I knew of such a one,” the Chinaman said, “I am sure he not meet with you. He send emissary, just as my master send me.”

Hank smiled. These chinks…

“Okay, if that’s the way we’re going to play it, you tell your master that I want a piece of his pie.”

Jiang frowned. “Pie?”

“His cream. His skim. His payoff from all the opium and dolla-dolla girls and gambling down here.”

“Ah so.” Jiang nodded. “My master realize that such arrangement is part of everyday business, but one such as he not sully hands with such. He suggest you contact various sources of activities that interest you and make own arrangements with those establishments.”

Hank leaned forward and put on his best snarl.

“Listen, you yellow-faced lug. I don’t have time to go around bracing every penny-ante operation down here. I know your boss gets a cut from all of them, so I want a cut from him! Clear?”

“I afraid that quite impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible!” He leaned back. “But I’m a reasonable man. I don’t want it all. I don’t even want half of it all. I’ll settle for an even split of just his gambling take.”

Jiang smiled. “This a jest, yes?”

“I’m serious. Dead serious. He can keep everything from the dope and the heifer dens. I want half of the Mandarin’s gambling take.”

Hank knew that was where the money was in Chinatown. Opium was big down here, but gambling…these coolies gambled on anything and everything. They had their games, sure—parlors for fan-tan, mah-jongg, pai gow, sic bo, pak kop piu, and others—but they didn’t stop there. Numbers had a huge take. He’d seen slips collected day and night on street corners all over the quarter. Write down three numbers, hand them in with your money, and pray the last three Dow Jones digits matched yours at the end of trading.

They’d bet on just about any damn thing, even the weather.

They didn’t bother to hide their games either. They’d post the hours of operation on their doors, and some even had touts standing out front urging people inside. Gambling was in their blood, and gambling was where the money was, so gambling was where Hank wanted to be.

No, make that would be.

Jiang shook his head and began to rise. “So sorry, Detective Sorenson, but—”

Hank sprang from his chair and grabbed the front of Jiang’s black top.

“Listen, chink-boy! This is not negotiable! One way or another I’m going to be part of the game down here. Get that? A big part. Or else there’ll be no game. I’ll bring in squad after squad and we’ll collar every numbers coolie and shut down every lousy parlor in the quarter—mah-jongg, sic bo, you name it, it’s history. And then what will your boss’s take be? What’s a hundred percent of nothing, huh?”

He jerked Jiang closer and backhanded him across the face, then shoved him against the wall.

“Tell him he either gets smart or he gets nothing!”

Hank might have said more, but the look of murderous rage in Jiang’s eyes stalled the words in his throat.

“Dog!” the chink whispered through clenched teeth. “You have made this one lose face before these people!”

Hank looked around the suddenly silent restaurant. Diners and waiters alike stood frozen, gawking at him. But Hank Sorenson wasn’t about to be cowed by a bunch of coolies.

He jabbed a finger at Jiang. “Who do you think you are, calling me a—?”

Jiang made a slashing motion with his hand. “I am servant of one who would not wipe his slippers on your back. You make this one lose face, and that mean you make him lose face. Woe to you, Detective Sorenson.”

Without warning he let out a yelp and slammed the knife-edge of his hand onto the table, then turned and walked away.

He was halfway to the door when the table fell apart.

Hank stood in shock, staring down at the pile of splintered wood. What the—?

Never mind that now. He gathered his wits and looked around. He wanted out of here, but didn’t want to walk past all those staring eyes. They might see how he was shaking inside.

That table…if Jiang could do that to wood, what could he do to a neck?

Fending off that unsettling thought, he left by the back door. He took a deep breath of putrid, back-alley air as he stepped outside. The late morning sun hadn’t risen high enough yet to break up the shadows here.

Well, he’d delivered his message. And the fact that Jiang had struck the table instead of him only reinforced what he already knew: no worry about bull busting down here. No chink would dare lay a hand on a buzzer-carrying member of the SFPD. They knew what would happen in their neighborhoods if anyone ever did something like that.

He sighed as he walked toward the street. At least during his time in the restaurant he’d been thinking of something other than Tempest. But now she came back to him. Her face, her form, her voice…oh, that voice.

Tempest, Tempest, Tempest…

“I should have killed the dog for his insult to you, Venerable,” Jiang said as he knelt before the Mandarin and pressed his forehead against the stone floor.

Instead of his usual Cantonese, Jiang spoke in Mandarin—fittingly, the language the Mandarin preferred.

“No,” the master said in his soft, sibilant voice. “You did well not to harm him. We must find a more indirect path to deal with such a one. Sit, Jiang.”

“Thank you, Illustrious.”

Jiang raised his head from the floor but remained kneeling, daring only a furtive peek at his master. Many times he had seen the one known throughout Chinatown as the Mandarin—not even Jiang knew his true name—but that did not lessen the wonder of his appearance.

A high-shouldered man standing tall and straight with his hands folded inside the sleeves of his embroidered emerald robe; a black skullcap covered the thin hair that fringed his high, domed forehead. Jiang marveled as ever at his light green eyes that almost seemed to glow.

He did not know if his master was a true mandarin—he had heard someone address him once as “Doctor”—or merely called such because of the dialect he preferred. He did know the master spoke many languages. He’d heard him speak English, French, German, and even a low form of Hindi to the dacoits in his employ.

For all the wealth flowing through his coffers, the master lived frugally. The money went back to the homeland for to serve a purpose higher than mere creature comfort.

“So this miserable offspring of a maggot demands half the gambling tribute. Wishes to be—how did he put it?—‘part of the game’?”

“Yes, Magnificent.”

The master closed his eyes. “Part of the game…part of the game…by all means we must grant his wish.”

Jiang spent the ensuing moments of silence in a whirl pool of confusion. The master…giving in to the cockroach’s demands? Unthinkable! And yet he’d said—

An upward glance showed the master’s eyes open again and a hint of a smile curving his thin lips.

“Yes, that is it. We shall make him part of the game.”

Jiang had seen that smile before. He knew what usually followed. It made him three times glad that he was not Detective Sorenson.

Hank held up his double-breasted tuxedo and inspected it, paying special attention to the wide satin lapels. No spots. Good. He could get a few more wears before sending it for cleaning.

As always, he was struck by the incongruity of a tux in his shabby two-room apartment. Well, it should look out of place. It had cost him a month’s rent.

All for Tempest.

That babe was costing him a fortune. Trouble was, he didn’t have a fortune. But the Chinatown games would fix that.

He shook his head. That kind of scheme would have been unthinkable back in the days when he was a fresh bull. And if not for Tempest it would still be.

But a woman can change everything. A woman can turn you inside out and upside down.

Tempest was one of those women.

He remembered the first time he’d seen her at the Serendipity Club. Like getting gut-punched. She wasn’t just a choice piece of calico; she had the kind of looks that could put your conscience on hold. Then she’d stepped up to the mike and…a voice like an angel. When Hank heard her sing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” that was it. He was gone. He’d heard the song a hundred times on the radio, but Tempest…Tempest made him feel like she was singing to him.

Hank had stayed on through the last show. When she finished he followed her—a flash of his buzzer got him past the geezer guarding the backstage door—and asked her out. A cop wasn’t the usual stage-door Johnny and so she’d said okay.

Hank had gone all out to impress her, and they’d been on the town half a dozen times so far. She’d tapped him out without letting him get to first base. He knew he wasn’t the only guy she dated—he’d spied her out with a couple rich cake eaters—but Hank wasn’t the sharing kind. Trouble was, to get an exclusive on her was going to take moolah. Lots of it.

And he was going to get lots of it. A steady stream…

He yawned. What with playing the bon vivant by night and the soft heel by day, he wasn’t getting much sleep.

He dropped onto the bed, rolled onto his back, and closed his eyes. Tempest didn’t go on for another couple of hours, so a catnap would be just the ticket. He was slipping into that mellow, drowsy state just before dropping off to sleep when he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder, like he’d been stabbed with an ice pick.

As he bolted out of bed Hank felt something wriggling against his under-shirt. He reached back and felt little legs—lots of little legs. Fighting a sick revulsion he grabbed it and pulled. It writhed and twisted in his hand but held fast to his skin. Hank clenched his teeth and yanked.

As the thing came free, pain like he’d never known or imagined exploded in his shoulder, driving him to his knees. He dropped the wriggling creature and slapped a hand over the live coal embedded in his shoulder. Through tear-blurred vision he saw a scarlet millipede at least eight inches long scurrying away across the floor.

“What the—?”

He reached for something, anything to use against it. He grabbed a shoe and smashed it down on the thing. The heel caught the back half of its body and Hank felt it squish with a crunch. The front half spasmed, reared up, then tore free and darted under the door and out into the hallway before he could get a second shot.

Hell with it! His shoulder was killing him.

He brought his hand away and found blood on his palm. Not much but enough to shake him. He struggled to his feet and stepped into his tiny bathroom. The bright bulb over the speckled mirror picked up the beads of sweat on his brow.

He was shaking. What was that thing? He’d never seen anything like it. And how had it got in his room, in his bed, for Christ sake?

He half turned and angled his shoulder toward the mirror. The size of the bite surprised him—only a couple of punctures within a small smear of blood. From the ferocity of the pain he’d expected something like a .38 entry wound.

The burning started to subside. Thank God. He balled up some toilet tissue and dabbed at the wound. Looky there. Stopped bleeding already.

He went back to the front room and looked at the squashed remains of the thing. Damn. It looked like something you’d find in a jungle. Like the Amazon.

How’d it wind up in San Francisco?

Probably crawled off a boat.

Hank shuddered as he noticed a couple of the rearmost legs still twitching.

He kicked it into a corner.

“The usual table, Detective?” Maurice said with a practiced smile.

Hank nodded and followed the Serendipity’s maître d’ to a second-level table for two just off the dance floor.

“Thank you, Maurice.”

He passed him a fin he could barely afford as they shook hands. He ordered a scotch and water and started a tab. This was the last night he’d be able to do this until the Mandarin came across with some lucre.

He shook his head. All it takes is money. You don’t have to be smart or even good-looking, all you need is lots of do-re-mi and everybody wants to know you. Suddenly you’re Mr. Popularity.

As Hank sipped his drink and waited for Tempest to take the stage, he felt his shoulder start to burn. Damn. Not again. The pain had lasted only half an hour after the bite and then felt as good as new. But now it was back and growing stronger.

Heat spread from the bite, flowing through him, burning his skin, breaking him out in a sweat. Suddenly he had no strength. His hands, his arms, his legs…all rubbery. The glass slipped from his fingers, spilling scotch down the pleated front of his shirt.

The room rocked and swayed as he tried to rise, but his legs wouldn’t hold him. He felt himself falling, saw the curlicue pattern of the rug rushing at him.

Then nothing.

Hank opened his eyes and found himself looking up at a woman in white. She looked about fifty. He looked down. More white. Sheets. He was in a bed.

“Where—?”

She flashed a reassuring smile. “You’re in St. Luke’s and you’re going to be just fine. I’ll let your doctor know you’re awake.”

Hank watched her bustle out the door. He felt dazed. The last thing he remembered—

That bite from the millipede—poison. Had to be.

The pain had tapered to a dull ache, but he still felt weak as a kitty.

A balding man with a gray mustache strode through the door and stepped up to the bed. He wore a white coat with a pair of pens in the breast pocket and carried a clipboard under his arm.

“Detective Sorenson,” he said, extending his hand, “I’m Doctor Cranston, and you’ve got quite a boil on your back.”

“Boil?”

“Yes. A pocket of infection in your skin. You shouldn’t let those things go. The infection can seep into your system and make you very ill. How long have you had it?”

Hank pulled the hospital gown off his shoulder and gaped at the golf ball–size red swelling.

“That wasn’t there when I put on my shirt tonight.”

Dr. Cranston harrumphed. “Of course it was. These things don’t reach that size in a matter of hours.”

A flash of anger cut through Hank’s fuzzy brain. “This one did. I was bitten there by a giant bug around seven o’clock.”

Cranston smoothed his mustache. “Really? What kind of bug?”

“Don’t know. Never seen anything like it.”

“Well, be that as it may, we’ll open it up, clean out the infection, and you’ll be on your way in no time.”

Hank hoped so.

Bared to the waist, Hank lay on his belly while the nurse swabbed his shoulder with some sort of antiseptic.

“You may feel a brief sting as I break the skin, but once we relieve the pressure from all that pus inside, it’ll be like money from home.”

Hank looked up and saw the scalpel in Cranston’s hand. He turned away.

“Do it.”

Cranston was half right: Hank felt the sting, but no relief.

He heard Cranston mutter, “Well, this is one for Ripley’s.”

Hank didn’t like the sound of that.

“What’s wrong?”

“Most odd. There’s no pus in this, only serous fluid.”

“What’s serous fluid?”

“A clear amber fluid—just like you’d see seeping from a burn blister. Most odd, most odd.” Cranston cleared his throat. “I believe we’ll keep you overnight.”

“But I can’t—”

“You must. You’re too weak to be sent home. And I want to look into this insect. What did it look like?”

“Send someone to my place and you’ll find its back half.”

“I believe I’ll do just that.”

Two days cooped up in a hospital room hadn’t made Hank any better. He had to get out to seal the deal with the Mandarin. But how? He was able to stand and walk—shuffle was more like it—but he still felt so weak. And the pounds were dropping off him like leaves from a tree.

The boil or whatever it was had gone from a lump to a big open sore that wept fluid all day.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking out at the fogged-in city when Cranston trundled in.

“Well, we’ve identified that millipede.”

Here was the first good news since he’d been bitten.

“What is it?”

“The entomologists over at Berkeley gave it a name as long as your arm. Other than that they weren’t much help. Said it was very, very rare, and that only a few have ever been seen. Couldn’t imagine how it managed to travel from the rain forests of Borneo to your bed.”

“Borneo,” Hank said. Everybody had heard of the Wild Man from Borneo but…“Just where the hell is Borneo?”

“It’s an island in the South China Sea.”

“Did you say South China Sea?”

Cranston nodded. “Yes. Why? Is that important?”

Hank didn’t answer. He couldn’t. It was all clear now.

Good Christ…China…

The Mandarin had sent his reply to Hank’s demand.

“There’s, um, something else you should know.”

Cranston’s tone snapped Hank’s head up. The doctor looked uneasy. His gaze wandered to the window.

“You mean it gets worse?” Cranston’s nod sent a sick, cold spike through Hank’s gut. “Okay. Give it to me.”

Cranston took a breath. “The millipede may or may not have injected you with venom, but that’s not the problem.” His voice trailed off.

Hank didn’t know if he wanted to hear this.

“What is the problem then?”

“You remember when we did a scraping of the wound?”

“How could I forget?”

“Well, we did a microscopic examination and found what, um, appear to be eggs.”

Hank’s gut twisted into a knot.

“Eggs!”

“Yes.”

“Did you get them all?”

“We don’t know. They’re quite tiny. But we’ll go back in and do another scraping, deeper this time. But you should know…”

“Know what?”

Cranston’s gaze remained fixed on the window.

“They’re hatching.”

Next day, one of the green soft heels, a grade-one detective named Brannigan, stopped by to ask about Chinatown. He’d been assigned to look for a missing white girl last seen down there. He was asking about the Mandarin. Hank warned him away, even went so far as to show him the big, weeping ulcer on his shoulder.

Suddenly he was seized by a coughing fit, one that went on and on until he hacked up a big glob of bright red phlegm. The blood shocked him, but the sight of the little things wriggling in the gooey mass completely unnerved him.

“Oh, God!” he cried to Brannigan. “Call the doctor! Get the nurse in here! Hurry!”

The eggs had hatched and they were in his lungs! How had they gotten into his lungs?

Sick horror pushed a sob to his throat. He tried to hold it back until Brannigan was out the door. He didn’t think he made it.

Hank stared at the stranger in the bathroom mirror.

“It’s not unprecedented,” Cranston had said. “Larva of the ascaris round worm, for instance, get into the circulation and migrate through the lung. But we’ve no experience with this species.”

He saw sunken cheeks; glassy, feverish eyes; sallow, sweaty skin as pale as the sink, and knew he was looking at a dead man.

Why hadn’t he just played it straight—or at least only a little bent—and taken a payoff here and there from the bigger gambling parlors? Why had he tried to go for the big score?

He was coughing up baby millipedes every day. That thing must have laid thousands, maybe tens of thousands of eggs in his shoulder. Her babies were sitting in his lungs, sucking off his blood as it passed through, eating him alive from the inside.

And nobody could do a damn thing about it.

He started to cry. He’d been doing that a lot lately. He couldn’t help it. He felt so damn helpless.

The phone started to ring. Probably Hanrahan. The chief had been down to see him once and had never returned. Hank didn’t blame him. Probably couldn’t stand looking at the near-empty shell he’d become.

Hank shuffled to the bedside and picked up the receiver.

“Yeah.”

“Ah, Detective Sorenson,” said a voice he immediately recognized. “So glad you are still with us.”

A curse leaped to his lips but he bit it back. He didn’t need any more bugs in his bed.

“No thanks to you.”

“Ah, so. A most regrettable turn of events, but also most inevitable, given such circumstances.”

“Did you call to gloat?”

“Ah, no. I call to offer you your wish.”

Hank froze as a tremor of hope ran through his ravaged body. He was almost afraid to ask.

“You can cure me?”

“Come again to Jade Moon at three o’clock this day and your wish shall be granted.”

The line went dead.

The cab stopped in front of the Jade Moon. Hank needed just about every ounce of strength to haul himself out of the rear seat.

The nurses had wailed, Dr. Cranston had blustered, but they couldn’t keep him if he wanted to go. When they saw how serious he was, the nurses dug up a cane to help him walk.

He leaned on that cane now and looked around. The sidewalk in front of the restaurant was packed with chinks, and every one of them staring at him. Not just staring—pointing and whispering too.

Couldn’t blame them. He must be quite a sight in his wrinkled, oversize tux. Used to fit like tailor-made, but now it hung on him like a coat on a scarecrow. But he’d had no choice. This had been the only clothing in his hospital room closet.

He stepped up on the curb and stood swaying. For a few seconds he feared he might fall. The cane saved him.

He heard the singsong babble increase and noticed that the crowd was growing, with more chinks pouring in from all directions, so many that they blocked the street. All staring, pointing, whispering.

Obviously Jiang had put out the word to come see the bad joss that befell anyone who went against the Mandarin.

Well, Hank thought as he began his shuffle toward the restaurant door, enjoy the show, you yellow bastards.

The crowd parted for him and watched as he struggled to open the door. No one stepped up to help. Someone inside pushed it open and pointed to the rear of the restaurant.

Hank saw Jiang sitting at the same table where they’d first met. Only this time Jiang’s back was to the wall. He didn’t kowtow, didn’t even rise when Hank reached the table.

“Sit, Detective Sorenson,” he said, indicating the other chair.

He looked exactly the same as last time: same black pajamas, same skullcap, same braid, same expressionless face.

Hank, on the other hand…

“I’ll stand.”

“Ah so, you not looking well. I must tell you that if you fall this one not help you up.”

Hank knew if he went down he’d never be able to get up on his own. What then? Would all the chinks outside be paraded past him for another look?

He dropped into the chair. That was when he noticed something like an ebony cigar box sitting before Jiang.

“What’s that? Another bug?”

Jiang pushed it toward Hank.

“Ah no, very much opposite. This fight your infestation.”

Hank closed his eyes and bit back a sob. A cure…was he really offering a cure? But he knew there had to be a catch.

“What do I have to do for it?”

“Must take three time a day.”

Hank couldn’t believe it.

“That’s it? No strings?”

Jiang shook his head. “No, as you say, strings.” He opened the box to reveal dozens of cigarette-size red paper cylinders. “Merely break one open three time a day and breathe fine powder within.”

As much as Hank wanted to believe, his mind still balked at the possibility that this could be on the level.

“That’s it? Three times a day and I’ll be cured?”

“I not promise cure. I say it fight infestation.”

“What’s the difference? And what is this stuff?”

“Eggs of tiny parasite.”

“A parasite!” Hank pushed the box away. “Not on your life!”

“This is true. Not on my life—on your life.”

“I don’t get it.”

“There is order to universe, Detective Sorenson: Everything must feed. Something must die so that other may live. And it is so with these powdery parasite eggs. Humans do not interest them. They grow only in larvae that infest your lung. They devour host from inside and leave own eggs in carcass.”

“Take a parasite to kill a parasite? That’s crazy.”

“Not crazy. It is poetry.”

“How do I know it won’t just make me sicker?”

Jiang smiled, the first time he’d changed his expression. “Sicker? How much more sick can Detective Sorenson be?”

“I don’t get it. You half kill me, then you offer to cure me. What’s the deal? Your Mandarin wants a pet cop, is that it?”

“I know of no Mandarin. And once again, I not promise cure, only chance of cure.”

Hank’s hopes tripped but didn’t fall.

“You mean it might not work?”

“It matter of balance, Detective. Have larvae gone too far for parasite to kill all in time? Or does Detective Sorenson still have strength enough left to survive? That is where fun come in.”

“Fun? You call this fun?”

“Fun not for you or for this one. Fun for everyone else because my master decide grant wish you made.”

“Wish? What wish?”

“To be part of game—your very words. Remember?”

Hank remembered, but…

“I’m not following you.”

“All of Chinatown taking bet on you.”

“On me?”

“Yes. Even money on whether live or die. And among those who believe you soon join ancestors, a lottery on when.” Another smile. “You have your wish, Detective Sorenson. You now very much part of game. Ah so, you are game.”

Hank wanted to scream, wanted to bolt from his chair and wipe the smirk off Jiang’s rotten yellow face. But that was only a dream. The best he could do was sob and let the tears stream down his cheeks as he reached into the box for one of the paper cylinders.

DEMONSONG

INTRODUCTION

Demonsong is a story I wrote about the first meeting between Glaeken and Rasalom, back in the dim recesses of the First Age.

Written in the 1970s, and in a style geared more toward fantasy than the hardboiled prose of the Repairman Jack novels, Demonsong starts my “Secret History of the World”.

DEMONSONG

"Ho, outlander!" cried the burlier of the two men-at-arms stationed before the city's newsboard. His breath steamed in the chill post-dawn haze. "You look stout of arm, poor of cloak, and lame of brain—this notice from the prince should interest you!"

"He'd have to be an outlander to be interested," his companion muttered through a gap-toothed leer. "No one from around here's going to take the prince up on it.”

The first scowled. "The prince ought to go himself! Then maybe we'd get a real man on the throne. Musicians and pretty-boys!" He spat. 'The palace is no longer a fit place for a warrior. Wasn't like that like that during his father’s reign.”

The other nodded and the pair walked off without a backward glance.

The outlander hesitated, then approached the elaborately handwritten notice. He ran long fingers through his dusty red hair as he stared it. The language was fairly new to him and, although he spoke it passably, reading was a different matter. The gist of the notice was an offer of 10.000 gold grignas to the man who would undertake a certain mission for Prince lolon. Inquiries should be made at the palace.

The outlander fingered his coin pouch; a few measly coppers rattled within. He didn't know the weight of a grigna, but if it was gold and there were 10,000 of them...money would not be a problem for quite some time. He shrugged and turned toward the palace.

*

The streets of Kashela, the commercial center of Prince Iolon's realm, were alive at first light. Not so the palace. It was well-nigh midbefore Glaeken was allowed entrance. The huge antechamber was empty save for an elderly blue-robed official sitting behind a tiny desk, quill in hand, a scroll and inkwell before him.

"State your business," he said in a bored tone, keeping his eyes on the parchment.

"I've come to find out how to earn those 10,000 grignas the prince is offering.”

The old man's head snapped up at Glaeken's unfamiliar accent. He: saw a tall, wiry, red-headed man—that hair alone instantly labeled him a foreigner—with high coloring and startlingly blue eyes. He wore leather breeches, a shirt of indeterminate color girded by a broad belt that held a dirk and longsword; he carried a dusty red cloak over his left shoulder.

"Oh. A northerner, eh? Or is it a westerner?"

"Does it matter?"

"No...no, I suppose not. Name?"

"Glaeken,"

The quill dipped into the well, then scratched out strange black letters on the scroll. "Glaeken of what?"

"How many Glaekens do you have in this city?"

"None. It's not even in our tongue."

"Then Glaeken alone will do."

The air of finality to the statement caused the official to regard the outlander with more careful scrutiny. He saw a young man not yet out of his third decade who behaved with an assurance beyond his years.

A youth with oiled locks and dressed in a clinging white robe entered the antechamber then. He gave Glaeken a frankly appraising stare as he sauntered past on his way to the inner chambers.

"Captain of the palace guard, I presume," Glaeken said blandly after the epicene figure had passed from sight.

"Your humor, outlander, could cost you your head should any of the guard hear such a remark."

"What does the prince want done?" he said, ignoring the caveat.

"He wants someone to journey into the eastern farmlands and kill a wizard."

"He has an army, does he not?"

The official suddenly became very interested in the scroll. "The captains have refused to send their men."

Glaeken mulled this. He sensed an air of brooding discontent in palace, an undercurrent of frustration and hostility perilously close to the surface.

"No one has tried to bring in this wizard then? Come, old man! The bounty surely didn't begin at 10,000 gold pieces."

"A few squads were sent when the problem first became apparent, but they accomplished nothing."

"Tell me where these men are quartered. I'd like to speak to them."

"You can't." The official's eyes remained averted. "They never came back."

Glaeken made no immediate reply. He fingered his coin pouch, then tapped the heel of his right hand against the butt of his longsword.

Finally: "Get a map and show me where I can find this wizard."

*

Glaeken dallied in one of those nameless little inns that dot the back streets on any commercially active town. His sat by the window. The shutters were open to let out the sour stench of last night's spilled ale, and the late morning sunlight glinted off the hammered tin goblet cheap wine that rested on the table before him. The harlot in the corner eyed him languidly...this foreigner might prove interesting. A little early in the day for her talents, but perhaps if he stayed around a little longer. . . .

A commotion arose on the street and Glaeken peered out the window to find its source. A squat, burly, misshapen hillock of a man with a square protruding jaw was trudging by, a large, oddly shaped leather case clutched with both arms against his chest. Behind him and around him ran the local gang of street youths, pushing, shoving and calling. The wooden heels of their crude boots clacked as they scampered about; all wore a makeshift uniform of dark green shirts and rough brown pants.

"Ho, Ugly One!" cried a youth who seemed to be the leader, a lean, black-haired adolescent with a fuzzy attempt at a beard shading his cheeks. "What’ve y’got in that case? Give us a look! It truly must be something to behold if you're clutching it so tightly. Give us a look!"

The man ignored the group, but this only incited them to greater audacity. They began pummeling him and trying to trip him, yet the man made no attempt to protect himself. He merely clutched the case closer and tighter. Glaeken wondered at this as he watched the scene. This "Ugly One’s" heavy frame and thickly muscled arms certainly appeared strong enough to handle the situation. Yet the well-being of the leather case seemed his only concern.

The leader gave a signal and he and his followers leaped upon the man. The fellow kept his footing for a while and even managed to shake a few of the attackers off his back, but their numbers soon drove him to the ground. Glaeken noted with a smile of admiration that the man twisted as he fell so that he landed on his back with the case unharmed. Only a matter of a few heartbeats, however, before the case was tom from his grasp.

With the loss of his precious possession, the little man became a veritable demon, cursing, gnashing his teeth, and struggling with such ferocity that it took the full strength of eight of the rowdies to hold him down.

"Be still, Ugly One!" the leader commanded as he stood near Glaeken's window and fumbled with the clasps on the case. "We only want to see what you've got here."

As the last clasp gave way, the case fell open and from it the leader pulled a double-barreled harmohorn. The shouts and scuffling ceased abruptly as all in sight, rowdy and bystander alike, were captured by the magnificence of the instrument. The intricate hand-carved wood of the harmohorn glistened in the sun under countless coats of flawlessly applied lacquer. A reed instrument, rare and priceless; in the proper hands it was capable of producing the most subtle and devious harmonies known to man. The art of its making had long been lost, and the musician fortunate enough to possess a harmohorn was welcomed -- nay, sought -- by all the royal courts of the world.

The squat little man redoubled his efforts against those restraining him.

"Damage that horn and I'll have your eyes!" he screamed.

"Don't threaten me, Ugly One!" the leader warned.

He raised the instrument aloft at if to smash it on the stones at his feet. In doing so he brought the horn within Glaeken's reach. To this point the outlander had been neutral, refusing to help a man who would not help himself. But now he knew the reason for the man's reluctance to fight, and the sight of the harmohorn in the hands of street swine disturbed him.

The horn abruptly switched hands.

The leader spun in surprise and glared at Glaeken.

"You!" he yelled, leaning in the window. "Return that before I come in and get it!"

"You want to come it?" Glaeken said with a tight smile. "Then by all means waste no time!"

He grabbed the youth by his shirt and pulled him half way through the window.

"Let go of me, red-haired dog!" he screeched.

"Certainly." And Glaeken readily replied, but not without enough of a shove to ensure that the youth would land sprawled in the dust.

Scrambling to his feet, the leader turned to his pack. "After him!"

They forgot the man they were holding and charged the inn door. But Glaeken was already there, waiting and ready.

He smiled as he met their attack and laughed as it moved out to the street where he darted among them, striking and kicking and wreaking general havoc upon their ranks. But these youths were hardly novices at street brawls, and when they realized that their opponent, too, was well experienced in the dubious art, they regrouped and began to stalk him.

"Circle him!" said the leader and his followers responded with dispatch. Before the menacing ring could close, however, the pack found itself harassed from an unexpected quarter.

"Ugly One" was upon them. Having regained his feet and sized up the situation, the little man charged into the pack with the roar of an angry bull. He was enraged to the point of madness and a smiling Glaeken stepped back to watch as the street youths were hurled and scattered about like jackstraws. A complete rout seemed inevitable. It was then that Glaeken glanced at the leader and saw him pull a dirk from within his shirt and lunge.

The blade never found its target. Glaeken moved and yanked the pack leader off his feet by his long hair; he pulled the knife from his grasp and extended his grimy neck over his knee. All fighting stopped as everyone watched the tableau of Glaeken and the pack leader.

"You should be slain outright," Glaeken said, toying with the dirk over the terrified youth's vulnerable throat. "And no one would miss you or mourn you.”

"No!” he cried as he saw the cold light in Glaeken's eyes. "I no meant harm!"

Glaeken used the point to scratch an angry, ragged red line ear to ear across the leader's throat.

"A good street brawl is one thing, my young friend, but if I see you show your steel to the back of an unarmed man again, I’ll finish the job this scratch has begun."

So saying, he lifted the youth by his hair and shoved him toward his companions. The green-shirted pack and its frightened leader wasted no time then in fleeing the scene.

"Ugly One" turned to Glaeken and extended his hand. "I thank you, outlander. I am called Cragjaw, although I assure you I was not given that name by my parents."

"No thanks called for," Glaeken said, clasping the hand. "A street brawl at midday is a good spirit-lifter." He did offer his own name in return.

"I'm prefer quieter ways to amuse myself," Cragjaw muttered as he stooped to pick up the empty leather case.

The barmaster was sheathing a dirk of his own as they reentered. The contested musical instrument lay on the bar before him.

"I guarded the harmohorn well while you were out on the street!” he shouted to Cragjaw.

"And what would you have done with it if he hadn't been able return to claim it?" Glaeken asked with a knowing grin.

The barmaster shrugged and eyed the horn as Cragjaw returned it to its case.

"I suppose I would have had to sell it to someone . . . I have no talent for such an instrument."

Glaeken threw a coin on the bar. "That's for the wine," he said turned toward the door.

Cragjaw laid a hand on his arm. "At least let me buy you cup before you go."

"Thanks, no. I'm riding the East Road and already I've tarried long."

"The East Road? Why, I must travel that way, too. Would you mind a companion for a ways?"

"The roads are free," said Glaeken.

*

Glaeken's mount, a stallion called Stoffral, took him eastward from Kashela at an easy walk. Cragjaw ambled beside him on a chestnut mare.

"You're a Northerner, aren't you?" the shorter man observed.

"In a way, yes."

"You never told me your name."

"It is Glaeken."

Glaeken . . .” Cragjaw paused before continuing. "Stories circulate among the wine cups in the back rooms of the court of Prince Iolon—in whose service I am presently employed as a musician—and in the taverns about a man named Glaeken. He's said to live in the Western Isles and is supposedly young and flame-haired like yourself."

"Interesting," Glaeken remarked. "And what are these tales?"

"Well, he is called Glaeken-the-Laugher by some and it is said that he once led the dreaded Nightriders who pillage vast areas of the Western Isles."

Glaeken nodded for his companion to continue.

"I know only what I've heard, but 'tis said that each of these raiders rides a monstrous bat with a body the size of a horse and wings like ketch sails that sweep the night. The tales tell of an evil king named Marag who was the favorite target of the Nightriders and who sent many champions against them with the quest to bring back the head of the Nightrider lord. But shortly after each set out, a monster bat would fly over Marag's hold and drop the latest champion's body into the courtyard.

"Finally, a man named Glaeken, who had refused to be the king's champion for many years, was called into Marag's court. And there in a steel cage suspended from the ceiling sat the damsel in whose company this Glaeken had been often seen. Now, they say that Glaeken had no serious future plans for the young lady but felt somewhat responsible for her present predicament. So he traveled to the pinnacle fortress of the Nightriders where he challenged and beat their lord in a contest of swords."

"And did he bring the head to Marag?" Glaeken asked.

"That and more, for it seems that by tradition the Nightriders must claim as leader the man who fairly defeats the reigning lord. This Glaeken returned with his new followers and taught Marag a grisly lesson." Cragjaw glanced at his companion. "Could you be that Glaeken?"

"A good tale, my friend, but how could I and this bat-rider be one and the same? How could I be pillaging the Western Isles at night and ride the East Road in Prince Iolon's domain with you today? Quite impossible."

"Not so," said Cragjaw with a sly grin. "For it is also said that after a year or two with the Nightriders, the man named Glaeken grew restless and dissatisfied. He left them to their own devices and no one knows where he travels now." The squat little man made a point of clearing his throat. "Where travel you now, Glaeken?"

"To Elder Cavern in the eastern farmlands."

"Elder Cavern! Why, that's in the very center of the plague area. Nothing out there but dying farms and..." Cragjaw's voice faded as he seemed to remember something. "Oh, I see. You must have answered the Prince's notice."

Glaeken nodded. "It seems that the mystery of the region's woes has been cleared up. They've discovered that a sorcerer named Rasalom—a giant of a man, I'm told—entered the cavern nearly two years ago. Not too long thereafter the crops, the cattle, and the farmers in the area began to sicken. Rasalom has been neither seen nor heard from since, and the Prince's advisors seem certain that he's still in the cavern."

"So the infamous Rasalom is behind it all," Cragjaw muttered. "We've long thought it to be a plague of some sort, released from the cavern after eons of sleep."

"The prince's advisors were rather vague about the plague," Glaeken said. "Do you know what it's like?"

"Stories vary, but most agree that the victims complain of a throbbing in the head and ears and slowly begin to lose their strength, becoming very lethargic. Soon they cannot get out of bed and eventually they waste away and die. But what puzzled the court physicians was the curious fact that all victims seem to improve and recover when moved out of the area. No one could give a reason for this...but sorcery explains it well: Rasalom has laid a curse of some sort on the region."

"So it would seem," Glaeken agreed.

"But what purpose could he have? Why would he want to lay waste the eastern farmlands—for not only do people sicken and die out there, but cattle and crops as well."

Glaeken shrugged. "Why is not my concern. I admit that I'm somewhat curious, but my task is merely to bring back Rasalom himself, or some proof of his demise, such as his Ring of Chaos, whatever that may be."

"'Tis rumored to be the most potent focus of power for black sorcery this side of the Netherworld. You will have to slay Rasalom to gain it, and that will not be easy." He shuddered. "Not only does that wizard have the black arts at his command, but he is said to stand half again as tall as a tall man, and be three times as broad in the shoulders. No wonder Iolon has to send an outlander! No local man would set foot in Elder Cavern! I hope the prince is paying you well."

"I seldom take on a gainless task." Glaeken replied.

"If that's true, then why did you aid me against those street thugs?"

Glaeken smiled. "I was quite willing to let them have their fun with you until I saw the harmohorn. I have a weakness for music and consequently a respect for musicians."

They came to a crossroads when and Cragjaw turned his horse to the north.

"We part here, Glaeken," he said. "I go to the prince's summer quarters to prepare entertainment for the arrival of his entourage tomorrow. I would bid you ride south and have no further thought of Elder Cavern, but I know you'll not heed me. So instead I bid you luck and hope to see you at the summer palace soon with either Rasalom or his ring. One word of warning though: travel quickly. Few who venture into that land nowadays are ever seen again."

Glaeken waved and headed east. He did not quicken his pace.

*

The land was arid and vegetation generally scarce in Iolon's domain, but as Glaeken penetrated into the eastern farmlands he became aware of an almost total lack of greenery. Bark-shedding trees lifted their dry, stunted, leafless branches skyward in silent supplication for surcrease of—what? And the further east he moved, the darker became the sky; gray clouds slid by, twisting, churning, writhing, and rolling as if suffering from an agony of their own as they passed over the region.

Long-rotted cattle carcasses dotted the fields on both sides of the road, the hides dried and matted and close-fitting in death, perfectly outlining the skeleton within. Glaeken saw no evidence that scavengers had been at the carrion, and then realized that he had not seen a single trace of beast or fowl since he’d entered the region. Even vultures shunned this place.

The motionless air became thick and heavy as he pushed on, his lungs labored at their task. As evening consolidated the gray of the sky to black, Glaeken was glad to dismount. He built a fire not too far off the road between a dead tree and a large stone. He gave Stoffral free rein to find what nourishment he could in the lifeless, desiccated grasses nearby, but the horse seemed to have lost all appetite. Glaeken, too, felt no hunger, unusual after half a day's ride, but managed to force down some dried beef and stale wine

He was strangely tired and this gave him some concern. He had never been one to believe in sorcerers and evil magic, considering them little more than tales designed to frighten children. The only magic he’d ever seen had been the work of charlatans. Yet for a man of his age and fitness to feel so lethargic after a mere six hours on horseback was decidedly unnatural. Maybe there was something to this curse after all.

He moved away from the heat of the fire and sat with his back against the rock. The oppressive silence made him uneasy. Even the night bugs were quiet. He glanced about...no pairs of feral eyes reflected the firelight from the darkness around his little camp. That, too, was unusual. Slowly, his eyes grew heavy. Against his better judgment he allowed himself to doze.

...the sound grows in his brain by imperceptible degrees, a ghastly, keening, wailing cacophony of madness that assaults his sanity with murderous intensity...and as the volume increases there appear wild, distorted visages of evil, countless blank-eyed demons howling with mindless joy, screaming louder and louder until he is sure he must go mad...

Glaeken found himself awake and on his feet, sweat coursing along his skin in runnels. The fire had burned down to a fitful glow and all was quiet. He shook his head to clear it of the dream and glanced around for Stoffral. Gone!

Fully alert to danger now, Glaeken began shouting the horse's name. Stoffral was too loyal a beast to desert him. His third shout was answered by a faint whinny from behind the rock. Glaeken cautiously peered into the darkness and saw the dim form of his mount on the ground. He ran to its side and made a careful check. The horse had suffered no harm and Glaeken concluded that Stoffral must be a victim of the same lethargy afflicting his master.

He slapped the horse's flanks in an effort to rouse the beast back to its feet but to no avail. Stoffral's strength seemed completely drained. Glaeken remembered the cattle carcasses along the road and swore that his steed would not suffer a similar fate. He stalked to the fire and lifted a branch that had been only partially consumed. Fanning it in the air until he tip glowed cherry with heat, he applied the brand to Stoffral's right hindquarter. Amid the whiff of singed hair and the hiss of searing flesh, the horse screamed in pain and rose on wobbly legs.

Glaeken could not help but cast a fearful glance over his shoulder as he steadied his mount; horses were rare and highly valued creatures in the land where he had been raised, and any man caught doing harm to one was likely to be attacked by an angry mob. But pain or not, scar or not, Stoffral was on his feet now and somewhat revived. That was all that mattered at the moment. And the horse seemed to know instinctively that the act had been done without malice.

Replacing the saddle on Stoffral's back, he packed it with everything but the jerked beef, the waterskin, and the half-dozen torches he had fashioned before leaving Kashela. Then he shouted and slapped the horse's flanks and chased him back down the road. Hopefully, Stoffral would await his master beyond the zone of danger.

Glaeken waited a moment, then shouldered his pack and began walking in the opposite direction. He’d have preferred to wait until morning...travel would be easier in the light. But Glaeken's doubts about the supposed curse on the eastern farmlands had been thoroughly shaken. Perhaps something truly evil was afoot in the region. For all he knew, morning might prove too late if he waited for it. So he traveled in darkness.

*

Dawn lightened the perpetual overcast as Glaeken stood before the high arched entrance to Elder Cavern. He felt as if his eyes had been tom out and replaced with heated coals. His head buzzed and hummed; his sword had become a drag anchor. The very air weighed upon him like a stone. He stood swaying, questioning the wisdom of entering the opening before him. His strength had steadily declined during the night and he was now so weakened that he seriously entertained thoughts of abandoning his mission.

Everything seemed so hopeless. With barely strength enough to stand, he’d be insane to challenge a giant in stature and sorcery such as Rasalom. Yet he forced himself to stagger toward the cavern maw.

Part of his fogged brain screamed to turn back, but he kept pushing forward. He could not turn back, for he would never make it to the crossroads; he’d end up like the rotting cattle he’d had passed yesterday.

Why not simply lay down and die then?

Because he could not pass up the slim chance that he might find a way to outwit Rasalom. And of course the golden reward was a lure, as was his need to learn what lay behind the curse that weighed upon this region like a plague. And beneath it all, driving him like a whip, was that peculiar aspect of his nature that insisted he see a task through to its finish.

As he was engulfed by the darkness within, Glaeken paused, removed the tinderbox from his sack and ignited one of the torches. The flame flickered light off the walls and made marching armies of the stalactite and stalagmite shadows as he moved. His shuffling feet kicked up smelly clouds of dust that irritated his nose. He knew the odor well—bat dung, and none of it fresh. Even the bats were gone.

The tunnel sloped at a steep angle and the roof bore down on him until he had to walk in a slight crouch. The walls glistened with moisture as he plunged deeper and deeper into the earth, and his torch would hiss as it brushed against them. The odd, persistent humming in his brain grew louder and more distracting as he moved. He could only hope that the tunnel would lead him directly to Rasalom.

The passage broadened into a wider, higher chamber and Glaeken cursed as the torchlight revealed the problem he had hoped not to meet: three other tunnels opened into this same chamber. As he slumped against the wall in near complete exhaustion, his torch sagged and dipped into a brackish puddle. In sudden total darkness he fumbled for the tinderbox to light a fresh torch, then froze. Down the tunnel to the right trickled the faintest hint of illumination.

Glaeken forgot about torch and tinderbox and stumbled along the passage toward the beckoning tendrils of light. Rounding a corner he found himself in a dim, long-shadowed room. The walls were smooth and bare except for a few oil lamps flickering in sconces. A huge, throne-like chair rested in a dark corner, otherwise the room was empty.

Wary, Glaeken started to draw his broadsword as he moved further into the room, but the weight of it seemed so enormous to his weakened muscles that he let it slide back into its scabbard. He rested his hand instead on the handle of his dirk.

A massive door appeared to be cut into the wall to his right. Eyes darting constantly about the room, Glaeken approached it. He saw no latch, no ring, no handle, but the arcuate scratches on the floor before it were proof that the door did in some way swing open. Yet try as he might, he could not see how.

A voice rasped behind him: "There's a hidden latch."

The nape of his neck tingling with fear and surprise, Glaeken wheeled and peered closely at the massive chair in the corner. The seat lay immersed in Stygian shadow. He moved closer and faintly made out a human outline. Grabbing an oil lamp from the wall, he held it high.

As the shadows receded Glaeken saw that he faced a lank-haired skeleton of a man dressed in a robe once richly embroidered but now tattered and torn, foul and filthy.

"You must be strong-willed to have come this far," said the seated figure in a voice like rats' feet scurrying over dried corn husks.

"Who are you?" Glaeken demanded.

"I am called Rasalom."

"I was told Rasalom is a giant of a man, not a mere bag of bones."

"I am he, nevertheless,” Rasalom replied with a grin that was horrible to behold. "You no doubt started on your journey with visions of a terrible struggle against a huge, sword-wielding wizard. You foresaw a mighty battle with flashes of steel and shouts of fury. Yet look at us now: you can barely stand and I have not the strength to cast the most elementary of weirds." He barked a harsh laugh. "What a comedy we play!"

But Glaeken could see no humor in the situation. He spoke with desperate determination.

"I've come in the name of Prince Iolon to put an end to this curse you've laid on the land."

"I know all about Iolon and his reward," Rasalom snarled. "He wants you to bring back Rasalom or his ring." He fumbled within his robe and withdrew a large ring of intricately worked gold. It was set with a small, spherical black stone, so black that it seemed to absorb all light, appeared to be a rent in the very fabric of existence, a tiny portal to the nothingness beyond. The ring dangled from a golden chain.

"You wish the Ring of Chaos?” he said. "Here...take it. It no longer fits me and I have no further need of it."

Glaeken stiffened visibly at the offer.

Rasalom smiled again. "No trick, I assure you. For why should I want to keep a mere Ring of Chaos when soon I shall be an integral part of Chaos itself?" The warlock's eyes began to glow as he spoke. "I, Rasalom, have called forth the twelve hundred idiot demons of the Amphitheater! It took two years to complete the task. Each of the twelve hundred had to be summoned by a separate spell, and each spell took its toll. I was once as you were told—a huge, robust man. Look at me now! But I care not. Eternity is mine!"

Glaeken's expression mirrored his doubts about Rasalom's sanity.

"I don’t blame you for thinking me mad. But beyond that stone door you tried so futilely to move lies the Amphitheater of Chaos, and therein are assembled the twelve hundred idiot demons...the Choir of Chaos. They exist only to sing. There is no curse on the land...only their singing. For they sing to Chaos itself and the vibration of their song strikes discord in the life processes of all living things."

"But you—"

"I am protected, for I am performing The Task. And what a task it is! The Lords of Chaos are wise. They know that to extend their domain they must occasionally accept new blood into their ranks. But the newcomer must prove beyond all doubt that he is worthy. So The Task was set, an ordeal that only a practitioner of the greatest skill and stamina could hope to accomplish. For each of the twelve hundred demons of the choir sucks a little bit of life from the one who calls it forth. I have raised them all and yet I still live! I am wasted but I have succeeded!”

"If this is success,” Glaeken said, "what would be failure?”

"Ah, but you see, within the Amphitheater the embryo of my new form gestates, slowly incorporating my being into its own as it matures. The time for parturition draws nigh. Soon I shall be eternal and all this world my domain!"

Glaeken remained unconvinced. "Your sorcery has wasted your mind as well as your body, Rasalom. Lift your curse and give me the ring and I shall leave you to your delusions. Refuse and my blade will end everything for you."

"You doubt my word?" the wizard rasped. "I tell you there is no curse! The Choir of Chaos sings and its song is slow death to all within reach of it! You are dying as we speak, my foolish interloper. And you cannot threaten me with death, for that would only accelerate the embryo's progress. I welcome death at this moment—it will bring my rebirth that much closer!"

Glaeken shook his head in dismay. How do you deal with a madman?

"Go!" Rasalom cried. "See for yourself! Pull the handle on the lamp by the door. The passage leads to the Amphitheater. View the Choir of Chaos. See my masterwork, and die!"

Wordlessly, wearily, Glaeken shuffled to the door. If Rasalom were mad, this would prove it. If sane, then Glaeken's life—nay, his whole world—was in grave danger.

He pulled down on the lamp handle. It moved easily. Behind the wall he heard the clank of weights as they were released. Slowly, the door swung open to reveal a narrow passage lit with oil lamps similar to those in the room. The throbbing hum was louder here. Glaeken moved into the passage and saw another stone door at its end. This one was equipped with a ring latch. He grasped the ring and pulled on it, doubting very much that he had strength left to budge it. But the hinges were perfectly balanced and the stone slab swung toward him.

He repeated this procedure with the three identical subsequent doors and each time the hum increased in volume until at the final door it had risen to a muted scream. This door was doubly thick and vibrated with the intensity of the sound behind it. But it swung as easily as the others when Glaeken pulled on the ring.

The sound was a physical thing, washing over him with a volume and intensity that drove him to his knees. He crouched on the edge of a precipice and before him lay the Amphitheater of Chaos, an inverted cone, mistily illuminated by light that filtered up from the unguessed depths below. Carved into the rounded walls that sloped upward to the pointed roof were twelve hundred niches, and in each of those niches huddled one of the twelve hundred idiot demons.

Blank-eyed and mindless they were, shaped in every deformity imaginable and unimaginable. Faces suffused with an insane, malignant glee, they howled and caterwauled in tones that ranged from far below to far above those audible to the human ear. No two tones harmonized, all was discord and conflict. Glaeken now knew the origin of his dream the night before...the Choir of Chaos was assembled and at work.

His gaze shifted from the howling demons to the ebon sphere that floated in the center of the Amphitheater. It appeared to be a thin-membraned ball of inky fluid, suspended above and before him by no visible means. The eyes of each of the twelve hundred were fixed steadily upon it.

Glaeken noticed a slight swirling movement within the sphere and recoiled at a fleeting glimpse of a dark, nameless shape and two glowing malevolent eyes.

The embryo of Rasalom's new form floated there in its inky amnion, suspended on a placenta of sound from the Choir of Chaos. Rasalom was not mad—he had been telling the truth.

Suddenly Glaeken gave in to a sudden urge to sing. He had no idea where it came from. Perhaps it was a feeble effort to counteract the effect of the sound that pressed down on him with such ferocity...perhaps the glimpse of those eyes in the sac had pushed him to the brink of madness and the song offered a tenuous link to sanity. He didn’t know, he simply began singing.

He lifted his voice in the hymn of praise to the goddess Eblee, a sweet simple song known the world over. And his effort did not go unnoticed. The demons of the Choir pulled their gaze away from the amniotic sac and glared at him with unrestrained fury. Perhaps the merest trace of coherent melody within the Amphitheater interfered with the gestative process, for Glaeken noticed a slight ripple coursing over the membranous surface of the sac.

In response, the twelve hundred increased their volume and Glaeken was knocked flat. Vision and awareness blurred as every fiber of his being screamed in anguish. Still he sang, clinging to the melody as a last thread to sanity; but he was fading, losing his grip on consciousness. His hoarse tones grew fainter as the Choir of Chaos attacked him with unwavering vocal fury.

And then Glaeken heard another sound, as out of place as the sun in a starry sky: the dulcet tones of a harmohorn had joined him in song. Blinking his eyes into focus, he turned his head and there behind him stood Cragjaw. Eyes closed, bathed in sweat, the squat little man was leaning against the wall and blowing a perfect modal harmony to Glaeken's song. Glaeken found new strength then and redoubled his vocal efforts.

Something began to happen in the Amphitheater. The flawless acoustics permeated the new sound throughout the huge chamber. If a touch of coherence had proved slightly disruptive before, the harmony of man-made instrument and human voice began to have a shattering effect. The twelve hundred demons became agitated, thrashing in their niches, their voices faltering. And this in turn had its effect on the embryo. The tortured membrane stretched and bulged from the rolling convulsions of the thing within. The glowing eyes pressed against the sac wall, glaring in unearthly rage.

Then came a weakening, a thinning, a tiny puncture, a rent—the membrane ruptured in an explosion of inky fluid as its contents burst free into the air. The sac and its partially formed occupant fell swiftly and silently into the mists below.

A howling scream of agony rose from the Choir of Chaos. The idiot demons ceased their song and flew into fits of rage, slamming themselves against the walls of their niches and finally hurtling over the edges and down. One by one, then in groups, and finally in a hellish rain, they followed the embryo back to the hell of their origin. And then...

Silence.

Glaeken had almost given up hope of ever experiencing it again. He remained prone and reveled in the lack of sound as strength and sanity surged back into his body.

"Ho, Cragjaw,” he said finally, rising to his feet. "What brought you to this concert?"

Cragjaw sighed exhaustedly as he slipped the harmohorn back into its case. "I owed you a service so I came after you. Seems a good thing I did."

Together they stumbled back down the passage toward the antechamber.

"We are more than even, my friend," Glaeken said. "I did but aid you in a street brawl—and enjoyed it, too. You risked your life just by entering this region."

They arrived then in the antechamber and found Rasalom stretched out on the floor halfway between the throne chair and the doorway. Dead.

Glaeken reached into the withered sorcerer's robe, pulled out the Ring of Chaos, and snapped the chain.

"That cannot be Rasalom!” Cragjaw exclaimed. "And where did he come from? I didn't see him when I passed through!”

"It's Rasalom, all right. The curse is broken but I suppose Iolon will want to have the ring before he gives me the reward."

Cragjaw started to speak as they headed for the surface, hesitated, then started again.

"Ah, Glaeken, I fear I bring bad news. When I reached the summer palace I learned that Iolon had been overthrown by his army. There will be no reward, I'm afraid."

Glaeken took this news in silence and continued walking. Receiving no reply, Cragjaw continued.

"I too am out of work. The generals have no liking for the harmohorn. Their tastes in music are a bit coarse for my skills, running more to naked girls with tambourines and bells. Knowing they would not honor Iolon's promise of a reward, I traveled to warn you that you would be imperiling yourself for naught. I found your horse on the way—he is well—and thought you might be in some I danger, so I rode my own horse nearly into the ground and ran the rest of the way on foot in an effort to catch you before you entered the cavern. I was too late. But I heard this awful caterwauling within and followed the sound. You know the rest.”

Glaeken nodded appreciatively. "But what made you bring the harmohorn?"

"You don't think I'd leave it unguarded, do you?" Cragjaw replied indignantly. "It never leaves my side!"

"I suppose you sleep with it, too?”

"Of course!"

Glaeken smiled and tucked the Ring of Chaos into his belt. "Ah, well, the quest has been rewarding in one way if not another. I may not come away a rich man but at least I've found a friend among you strange easterners."

"Strange easterners, are we?" Cragjaw said with a gleam in his eye as they reached the mouth of the cavern. "Then you must be from the Western Isles after all!"

With the late morning sun warm on his face, Glaeken offered only a good-natured laugh in reply.

HIGHER CENTERS

HIGHER CENTERS

He didn’t know how long he had been sitting there, looking out through the dirty window without seeing anything, when a movement caught his eye. A small dog, a mongrel with a limp, rounded a corner and loped down the near-deserted street. Something about the dog made him lean forward in his chair and stare intently. And while his eyes were riveted on the animal, his mind reviewed the events of the past few weeks in a effort to make a connection between the dog and the catastrophe that threatened Morgan City and the rest of the planet.

Decker Eiselt gnawed at a stubborn cuticle as he gazed from the flitter window. He was short, very dark and had an intelligent, fine-featured face. He was presently engaged in marveling at Morgan City which lay spread out below him. This was hardly the first time he had seen it from the air but the perfect harmony of its layout never failed to stir him. This was a city as cities should be—a planned city, a city that knew where it was going, a city with a purpose.

Discounting a few large islands, Kamedon had only one continent and Morgan City occupied its center, a fitting capital for a world that had become one of the centers of Restructurist ideology and the pride of the Restructurist movement.

Yes, Morgan City was beautiful as cities go, but Decker Eiselt preferred the coast. The university was there and the years spent near the sea in study and research had instilled a narcoticlike dependency in his system…without the continual dull roar of the surf and a certain, subtle tang in the air, he could not feel quite at ease, could never relax and feel at home.

And then there were the fishermen. During his stay in Morgan City he would miss rising early with the sun glaring on the water and watching the fishermen head out the harbor as he and Sally ate breakfast. Most of the men on those slow, ponderous boats were salaried by the government fisheries but a few diehards still insisted on free-lancing and trying to earn more by catching more. Eiselt detested their stubbornness but their spirit struck a resonance somewhere within him and he was forced to admit a grudging admiration for them—until they got out of hand, of course.

He idly wondered if there could possibly be any connection between the disorder at the local fishery the other day and his being called to Morgan City, but promptly dismissed the thought. He was a research physician and had nothing to do with fisheries. And besides, the incident had been minor by any standard, just some pushing and shoving at the pay window. Some of the local fishermen—the free lancers especially—had become angry when the pay authorizations were delayed. Nothing to get excited about, really; this was the first time such a delay had ever occurred and would no doubt be the last. The Department of Sea Industries was far too efficient to allow such an oversight to happen a second time.

They were coming in for a landing, now. The roof of the Department of Medicine and Research’s administration building grew large beneath them as Eiselt’s darting brown eyes strained to recognize the figure waiting below. It was Dr. Caelen, no doubt. Eiselt hadn’t liked being called away from his work for some mysterious reason that would not be explained until he arrived in Morgan City, but an unmistakable note of urgency had filtered through the message.

And so Decker Eiselt chewed a cuticle as he did whenever he was puzzled. What was the urgent need for a research physician? And why the mystery? He smiled grimly. No use in getting worked up about it; he’d know soon enough. He didn’t have much choice in the matter, anyway: when Dr. Alton Caelen summons you to the capital, you go to the capital. Immediately.

* * *

The flitter touched down with a jolt and Eiselt, the only passenger, hopped out as soon as the engines were cut. A lean, graying man in his fifties stepped forward to meet him.

“Decker!” he said, shaking his hand. “Good to see you!”

Eiselt couldn’t reply. Was it…

Yes, it was Dr. Caelen and he looked terrible! Bright eyes gleamed from sockets deep-sunk in a lined and haggard face.

“Dr. Caelen!” he stammered. “I…”

“I know,” the older man said quickly. “You’re about to say I look like death warmed over and you’re right. But we’ll talk about it downstairs.”

Caelen led him to the elevator and kept up an incessant flow of trivia on the way down, punctuating each phrase with quick, nervous gestures.

“How’s the wife? Very pregnant and very happy, I suppose. Lovely girl, Sally. Dr. Bain’s taking care of her, I suppose. Good, good. How about that little disturbance out your way? Unfortunate, very unfortunate. But things may get worse before they get better. Yes, they may well get worse.”

Stimulants? Eiselt asked himself. Dr. Caelen was definitely hyper. He had never seen the man so worked up. After reaching. his office, however, he visibly sagged and Eiselt could no longer contain himself.

“My God, Doctor! What’s happened to you?”

“I’m not sleeping very well,” he replied simply and calmly.

Under normal circumstances, Eiselt would have waited for an invitation before sitting down but these weren’t normal circumstances. He grabbed the nearest chair and, without taking his eyes off Caelen, slowly sank into it.

“There must be more to it than that. A sedative will cure insomnia.”

Caelen followed Eiselt’s lead and fell into the chair behind his desk before answering. “There’s not much more to tell, really,” he said, putting his hands over his temples and resting his elbows on the desk top. “I just can’t seem to get enough air at night. When I doze off, I wake up a few minutes later, gasping frantically. And it’s getting worse.”

Eiselt repressed an audible sigh. Pulmonary diseases had been his field of research for the past ten years and he felt as if he were on firm ground again. His muscles relaxed somewhat and he settled more comfortably into the chair.

“Was the onset of symptoms slow, or abrupt?”

“Slow. So slow that I didn’t become concerned until recently. But I can trace it pretty clearly in retrospect. The symptoms started showing up during my daily exercises—”

“You mean you have respiratory troubles during periods of exertion, too?”

“Yes…sorry if I gave you the impression that I’m only bothered when I’m trying to sleep. The problem isn’t that simple. You see, about nine months ago I started noticing little irregularities in my breathing rhythm as I exercised. I didn’t pay too much attention to it at the time but it’s got to the point where short, simple exercises, that I formerly performed with ease, leave me gasping for air. Two or three months ago I started having sleeping problems. Nothing much at first: restlessness, insomnia, inability to sleep for more than an hour at a time. Things have progressed to the present stage where I can hardly sleep at all. And, unless I concentrate fully on my breathing, I can’t exert myself in the slightest.”

“Are you having any difficulty right now, just sitting and talking?”

“Only a little, but I find myself out of breath at the oddest times.”

Eiselt mused a moment. “The syndrome, as you’ve related it, doesn’t ring a bell. I’d like to make some tests, if I may.”

“I figured you would,” Caelen said and managed a smile. “The lab downstairs will be at your disposal.”

“Good. But one question: Why me? There are plenty of others in Morgan City who could handle this, many of them right in this building. Of course I’m honored that you thought of me but I am, after all, a research physician.”

“I wanted you here for a number of reasons,” Caelen stated. “Central among them was the fact that there isn’t much you don’t know about respiratory pathology. The others I’ll explain to you after you’ve made your tests.”

Eiselt nodded. “Okay, but one other question, if you don’t mind: What psychological symptoms? If you’re losing REM sleep…”

“I’m as irritable as hell, if that’s what you mean. It’s only with the greatest exercise of will that I keep myself from biting off the head of anyone I meet, including you. So stop quizzing me and get on with your tests!”

“Well, then,” Eiselt said, rising and smiling, “let’s go.”

He didn’t know what was plaguing Caelen but was confident he could come up with an answer in a short while. No doubt it was a variation on another familiar syndrome.

* * *

Later in the day he wasn’t so sure. All his tests for pathology had come up negative. Strange, a man with Caelen’s symptoms should certainly show some pathology. Feeling not a little embarrassed, Eiselt took the grav chute to the upper levels. Dr. Caelen had taught at the university before the Department of Medicine and Research decided to move him into Administration. He now headed that department and Eiselt, one of his former students, had wanted to look good for the old man.

Dr. Caelen awaited him in his office. “Well, Decker, what have you found?”

“Frankly, I’m a little at a loss,” he admitted. “Your lungs are in great shape. You shouldn’t have the symptoms you do.”

He paused, but Caelen waited for him to go on.

Obviously crestfallen, he concluded: “I’m afraid I’ll need some more data before I can even guess which way to go.”

“Don’t feel too badly about it,” Caelen told him. “Nobody else knows what’s going on around here, either—and we’ve had the best working on it. I knew you’d want to make those tests yourself and draw your own conclusions so I let you.”

“Thanks. That makes me feel a little better. But now I’d like to know those ‘other reasons’ for sending for me.”

Caelen nodded. “Okay. Tell me: have you noticed anything unusual about our personnel?”

“To tell the truth, the building seems almost deserted.”

“True, that’s part of the problem. But what about those you have seen?”

“They all look pretty beat,” he replied after a pause, “almost like…Doctor, is there an epidemic of this syndrome?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Caelen said.

“Why haven’t I heard anything about it?”

Caelen sighed. “Because we’ve been doing our best to keep the lid on it until we find out just what it is we’re dealing with.”

“Does it seem to be spreading?”

“Most suburban hospitals are packed with cases, but they’re not as bad off as the city proper. It seems as if the entire population of the capital has come down with this…this syndrome. And we’ve also had reports of isolated cases from coast to coast. Figure that one out!”

Eiselt’s teeth found a cuticle and went to work on it. “I have an instinctive feeling that this isn’t the work of any pathogenic organism, known or unknown. Yet, an epidemic usually means contagion…” His voice drifted off into thought.

“Speaking of contagion,” Caelen said, “I must apologize for exposing you to whatever it is that’s plaguing us but we needed someone who was uninfected to work on it. The rest of us are so exhausted that we can’t think straight about any subject other than sleep. We don’t trust our own judgment. I hope I haven’t endangered you, but you must understand that we’re getting desperate. None of the departments can get anything done because no one can concentrate anymore. That’s why the Department of Sea Industries made that error with the pay authorizations. And there have been a number of other, similar cases. The Department of Public Information has been keeping it quiet but little things have a way of piling up. We may have a very frightened planet on our hands if we don’t come up with something soon. I tried to handle it myself but my stamina has been completely sapped.”

“Could it possibly be a Federation plot?”

Caelen repressed a smile. Decker Eiselt hadn’t changed much. He had been an adamant Restructurist during his college years and had evidently remained so.

“Ridiculous, Decker! The very reason we want to ‘restructure’ the Federation is because it limits itself exclusively to interplanetary affairs. A plot against Kamedon would be strictly out of character.”

“But you have to admit that the Federation would hardly be dismayed if the people lost faith in the government and the planet ground to a halt.”

“You’ve got a point there, but you must realize that the Restructurist movement will go on, with or without Kamedon. And you can’t go around looking for a Federation plot every time something goes wrong.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Eiselt reluctantly agreed.

“Of course I’m right! So let’s not worry about the Federation or Restructurism. Let’s worry about Morgan City. I don’t want to have to call in the IMC.”

Eiselt blanched. “The Interstellar Medical Corps is pro-Federation! Asking them for help is like going to the Federation itself!”

“Well, then,” Caelen said pointedly, “I hope you’ve got some sort of a plan on how to tackle this.”

“I’ve got the start of a plan. Those isolated cases might provide us with a clue. I’d like to have every one of them flown to the capital as soon as possible.”

“Good idea,” Caelen agreed, swallowing another stimulant.

* * *

After two weeks of testing and interviewing patients from the outlying districts, Eiselt was able to hand Dr. Caelen a piece of paper with a date scrawled on it.

“Remember that day?” he said.

Caelen hesitated. “No, can’t say I do.” Daily he and all the other victims had grown more haggard and exhausted. Remembering was an effort. “Almost a year ago…wait! Wasn’t this the day of the accident in Dr. Sebitow’s lab?”

“Correct. And how does this strike you: every case I’ve interviewed was in Morgan City when the accident occurred!”

Caelen slumped in his seat. “Sebitow’s ray,” he muttered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. No one really knew except Sebitow—and he’s dead.”

Eiselt’s tone showed his exasperation. “But the department gave him the money! You must know what he was working on!”

“What do you know about administration, Decker?” the older man flared. “How do you handle a man who is one of the greatest medical minds in the galaxy but who has no concept of politics, who has no loyalty to anything but his work? To Nathan Sebitow the Federation and the Restructurist movement were just words! The only way to keep a man like that working for you is to give him full rein. A number of other planets had offered him unlimited funds and unlimited freedom so we had to match them. He said he was onto something big and wanted the money immediately, so we gave it to him.”

“But don’t you have any idea what he was doing?”

Caelen paused. “All we know is that he was working on high-penetration radiation with neuronal effects. When he worked out a few bugs he was going to give us a full report. Decker, you don’t think the Respiratory Center could have been affected, do you?”

“Not a chance,” Eiselt replied with a slow shake of his head. Your Respiratory Center is intact and functional. Were any of Sebitow’s records recovered?”

“None.”

“But wasn’t he still alive when they found him? I remember a report about Sebitow being taken to a hospital…did he say anything?”

“He said a few words,” Caelen replied, “but they didn’t make too much sense.”

“Remember what they were? It might give us a lead.”

“Not really. Something about an over-reaction, I think.”

“Please try to remember!” Eiselt urged.

Caelen shrugged. “We had a recorder going when he came around. If you think it’s important, go down to Hearn’s office and he’ll play it for you.”

* * *

Dr. Hearn, too, was gaunt and haggard and really didn’t want to be bothered with retrieving a recording of Dr. Sebitow’s last words. His last stimulant was wearing off.

“I’ll tell you what he said, Dr. Eiselt: ‘Over-reaction…danger…tell…ens…’ That was all.”

“Yes, but I’d like to hear it myself. I know what you’re going through but I’m trying to find a key to this mess. Please get it.”

Wearily, Hearn went to a file, pulled out a cartridge and fitted it into a viewer. For seemingly interminable minutes Eiselt watched the injured Dr. Sebitow toss his bandaged head and mumble incoherently. Suddenly, the man opened his eyes and shouted, “Over-reaction!…Danger! Tell…ens…” and then relapsed into mumbles. Hearn switched it off.

“What did he mean by ‘ens’?” Eiselt asked.

Hearn shrugged. “That puzzled us for a while until we remembered that his chief assistant’s name was Endicott. He must have wanted someone to tell Endicott something but never finished the sentence.”

“Endicott? Where is Endicott?”

“Dead, too.”

Eiselt rose wordlessly and started for the door.

“We’ve got to get to the bottom of this soon, Doctor,” he heard Hearn say behind him. Stimulant supplies are diminishing. The Department of Production is so understaffed that it hasn’t been able to issue the latest production quota and so factories and mills all over the continent have had to shut down. We’ve had food riots in some areas because the Department of Distribution has fouled up its scheduling. There’s even talk of a march on Morgan City to demand more competence and efficiency in the handling of public affairs!”

“I’m doing the best I can!” Eiselt gritted.

“I know you are, and you’re doing it almost single-handedly. It’s just that I dread the thought of having to call in the IMC. But I fear it must come to that if we don’t get a breakthrough soon.”

“Never! If we can’t lick this thing. They certainly can’t do any better”’ he declared, approaching Hearn’s desk.

“Come now, Doctor,” Hearn replied. “I know you’re a dedicated Restructurist, as are we all, but let’s be realistic. The IMC has the brains, talents and resources of a thousand worlds at its disposal. You can’t hope to compare our facilities with theirs.”

Eiselt slammed his fist on the desk top. “We’ll solve this and we’ll do it without the help of the IMC!”

“I hope you’re right,” Hearn said softly as he watched Eiselt storm from the office. “And I hope it’s soon.”

* * *

Eiselt managed to cool his temper by the time he made his daily call to Sally. As her face came into focus on the viewscreen, he noticed that she looked distraught.

“Something wrong, honey?” he asked.

“Oh, Decker!” she cried. “They’ve gone!”

“Who?”

“Almost everyone! Students, faculty, administrators, fishermen, shopkeepers, everyone! They chartered groundcars and flitters and started out for Morgan City this morning!”

Eiselt remembered the march Hearn had mentioned. “What about Doctor Bain?”

“Oh, he’s still here. His wife wants me to stay with them until you get back. Maybe I’d better take her up on it.”

The exodus from town had made her somewhat anxious and Eiselt wished he could be with her.

“Good idea,” he said. Bain would look after her. After all, she was his patient and in her eighth month and if her husband couldn’t be there, someone should keep an eye on her. “Get over there as soon as possible and tell them I’ll be eternally grateful!”

She ran a hand nervously through her brown hair. “Okay. Any luck so far?”

“No. Every time I think I’m onto something, I wind up in a dead end.”

The frustration was evident in her husband’s voice and Sally figured that the best thing she could do for him was allow him to get back to his work.

 “I’d better get packed now,” she told him. “Call me tomorrow.”

“I will,” he promised and broke the connection.

Depression was unusual for Decker Eiselt. In the past his nervous energy had always carried him through the troughs as well as over the peaks. But he felt drained now. He took the elevator down to street level and dropped into a chair by the window. That was when he spotted the dog.

It was the dog’s gait that held his attention; the uneven, limping stride reminded him of another dog…years ago…at the university.

Suddenly he was on his feet and racing for the elevator. He shot to the upper levels and burst into Caelen’s office just as the man was about to take another stimulant capsule.

“Don’t take that! I’ve got one more test to make and I want you to try and sleep while I’m doing it.”

Caelen hesitated. “I’m afraid, Decker. I’m afraid I may not wake up one of these times.”

“I’ll be right there,” he assured him. “I want to monitor your cortex while you sleep.”

“Are you on to something, Decker?”

Eiselt pulled him to his feet. “I’ll explain as I wire you up. Let’s just say that I hope I’m wrong.”

* * *

Supine on a table, a very groggy Dr. Caelen tried valiantly to focus his eyes on the oscilloscope screen and concentrate on what his younger colleague was saying.

“See that?” Eiselt remarked, pointing to a series of spikes. “There’s an unusually high amount of cortical activity synchronized with respiration. Put that together with the symptoms of this epidemic, the nature of Sebitow’s research and his last words and the result is pretty frightening. You see, I fear Sebitow’s last words were a warning.”

“A warning against what?”

“Telencephalization!”

There was no sign of recognition in Caelen’s eyes.

“It’s a neurophysiologist’s term,” Eiselt explained. “If a lame dog out on the street hadn’t reminded me of it, the concept never would have occurred to me.”

“Forgive me, Decker, but I’m not following you.”

Eiselt paused. “Maybe this will help you remember: the most common and effective means of illustrating telencephalization is to take an experimental animal and sever the spinal cord at mid-thorax, or at the neck. If that happened to a man, he’d lose the use of his legs in the first instance and also the use of his arms in the latter. But an animal with a severed spinal cord—a dog or possum, for instance—can still walk! His gait is often irregular but the point is he can still get around while a man is rendered helpless. Why? Because man has telencephalized his walking ability! As part of his evolution, the higher centers of man’s nervous system have taken over many motor functions formerly performed by the lower, local centers.

“I have a theory that Sebitow might have developed a way to cause telencephalization, possibly for use as a rehabilitation technique…to let higher centers take over where damaged local centers are no longer effective. But I fear the city got a blast of the radiation he was using to induce this takeover and the symptoms we’ve seen led me to the conclusion that somehow the respiratory center has been telencephalized. The encephalogram seems to confirm this.”

“But you said nothing was wrong with the respiratory center,” Caelen rasped in a weak whisper.

“There’s no pathology, but it seems that the voluntary areas of the forebrain are in command and are overriding the local peripheral sensors. Thus the diffuse respiratory malaise and broken breathing rhythm when you exercised. The voluntary areas of the cortex were starting to take over. They are nowhere near as efficient nor a sensitive as the local centers such as the pressoreceptors in the lungs and the chemoreceptors in the aorta and carotid arteries which work directly through the respiratory center without going near the cortex. But because of telencephalization, the respiratory center is no longer responsive to the local centers. And there lies the problem.

“It boils down to this: You and all the other victims are breathing on the border of consciousness! This means you stop breathing when unconscious! Without oxygen the acidity of your blood goes up and the local chemoreceptors start screaming. But the respiratory center no longer responds and so impulses are finally relayed to the cortex; the cortex is roused and you wake up gasping for air. That’s the theory. I want to monitor the voluntary areas to confirm or deny it; if activity there falls off as respiration falls off, then we’ll know I’m right.”

“What’ll we do if you’re right?” Caelen asked.

Rather than tell him that he didn’t have the faintest idea, Eiselt pulled a blanket over him. “Try to sleep.” The exhausted administrator closed his eyes. Eiselt watched him a minute, then went over to the drug cabinet and filled a syringe with a stimulant. Just in case.

* * *

As he sat and watched the oscilloscope, a dull roar filtered up from the street. Going to the window, he saw a shouting, gesticulating crowd marching below. They were frightened, and they were angry, and they wanted to know what was wrong. Kamedon had been running so smoothly…now, chaos. Some areas were receiving no food while others received more than they could use; some factories were shut down while others received double quotas; and no one could be sure when he would next be paid. What was happening? The famous efficiency of Kamedon was breaking down and the people wanted to know why.

Someone broke a window. Somebody else followed suit. Fascinated, Eiselt watched the march turn into a mob scene in a matter of minutes.

He glanced over at Dr. Caelen and realized with a start that the man had stopped breathing. He cursed as he noted the reduced cortical activity on the ‘scope. Telencephalization of the respiratory center—no doubt about it now.

He put a hand on Caelen’s shoulder and shook him. No response. Looking closer, he noticed a blue tinge to the man’s lips. With frantic haste he found a vein and injected the stimulant, then hooked up a respirator.

Slowly, as normal breathing returned, Dr. Caelen’s eyelids opened to reveal two dull orbs. Cortical activity had increased on the oscilloscope.

Decker Eiselt’s shoulders slumped with relief—and defeat. He was beaten. Telencephalization was an evolutionary process—although in this case the evolution was suicidal—and he had no way of combating it, no way of returning command to the local centers. The only hope for Dr. Caelen—and Kamedon—was the IMC. And Eiselt knew he would have to be the one to call them in.

They would be gracious rescuers, of course, and would do their work skillfully and competently. The IMC would find a solution, rectify the situation and then leave, no doubt refusing to accept payment, explaining that they were only too glad to have such an opportunity to expand the perimeters of neurophysiology.

But it would soon be known throughout the settled galaxy that Kamedon, the pride of the Restructurist movement, had found it necessary to call in the IMC. And pro-Federation propagandists were sure to waste no time in drawing an ironic comparison between Restructurist philosophy and the syndrome which had afflicted Morgan City.

He could see it now: “Centralists suffering from over-centralization!”

To put it mildly, the near future was going to be a most difficult period.

Outside, the roar of the mob redoubled.

THE MAN WITH THE ANTEATER

THE MAN WITH THE ANTEATER

No discussion of galactic business, of course, would be complete without mention of Interstellar Business Advisers. Armed with the tried-and-true maxims of a free-market economy and a number of new and daring precepts for the conduct of business on an interstellar scale, IBA played an important part in shaping the course of trade in the galaxy.

The company was founded by one Joseph Finch, a man whose figure has taken on an almost mythical air in the annals of galactic trade. The most farfetched stories concern the period before the founding of IBA, when Finch was still a resident of Earth—

Excerpt from Galactic Business: A History

by Emmerz Fent

On a steamy summer morning, Joe and Andy the anteater stepped out into their backyard and surveyed their domain. Thirty-eight, slight of frame and a bit on the homely side, Joe Finch didn’t exactly cut a heroic figure. But he was looked up to as a hero by many nonetheless. And there were, of course, many who thought of him as a stupid, eccentric, thick-headed, bull-headed reactionary. But they seemed to be in the minority.

You see, in a world that functions with the smoothness of a well-oiled machine, the man who insists on deciding when to shift his own gears becomes a hero of sorts. A man with few friends, who had yet to meet his wife, whose sister and brother-in-law, unable to cope with Earth any longer, were living as splinter colonists on a planet called Dasein II somewhere out in nowhere,

Finch was a loner. And in a highly collectivized, planned and patented society, loners, if they can avoid being swallowed whole and digested, become heroes.

Finch was mentally running through his plan to manipulate Arthur Gordon, Chief Administrator of Earth. Gordon was either a social idealist or a power-monger—the two not always distinguishable—and Finch knew from certain sources that Gordon was planning to manipulate him. The thing to do was to make Gordon show his hand before he was completely ready, and the strike going on at the Finch House plant right now could be the perfect lever.

“Stay here, Andy,” he told his pet. “And if you get hungry, help yourself.” Andy scanned the dry, virtually grassless yard and trotted off in the direction of a promising mound with his huge, furry tail held straight out behind him and his agile tongue seemingly licking his snout in anticipation.

“Don’t overdo it or you’ll have to go back on synthe-meat and formic acid,” Finch warned. Andy glanced over his shoulder and stuck out his tongue.

Finch went out front, started up an old transporter with the words Finch House printed on the sides and back, and drove off toward Pete Farnham’s machine shop.

* * *

As the last of the new equipment was being loaded, Farnham turned to Finch. “You sure you want to go through with this, Joe?”

“Look, Pete,” Finch said, wiping his forehead on his sleeve, “you designed this stuff so I’d be able to increase my output by about another half without increasing my overhead or labor costs.”

Farnham looked annoyed. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the union…it’s on strike, remember? They’re very unhappy about losing their overtime.”

“If the union had its way,” Finch growled, “I’d still be using Gutenberg presses.”

“But it’s against the law to cross a picket line! Why don’t you just wait it out as usual or maybe bribe the union president? All hell’s going to break loose if you go through with this.”

Finch locked the back of the transporter with a solid click. “That might be just what I’m after. Besides, this is as good a time as any to challenge a rotten law. Gordon’s been pushing things a bit too…” His voice trailed off as he saw Farnham climbing into the cab. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“With you, of course,” Farnham replied and hefted a length of pipe. “I spent a lot of time designing that equipment and the only way it’ll ever get to prove itself is if you get to use it. Now let’s get moving.”

…the pickets/a truck in their midst/hey! /stop ’em! /get them! /Hold ’em/ don’t let ’em through! stop ’em!! Stomp ‘em!/but chain and bricks and barricades and bodies give way/a face looms/flail at it. /Someone fires a shot/miss! /The police arrive/made it!/The pickets are being held outside and the police will deal with you later…

Joe Finch watched the roiling crowds from atop the Earth Building. “You just can’t figure people, Andy,” he told the pet he had insisted on bringing with him. “They clamor for a law to be passed and then celebrate a man who breaks it.”

“I believe you’re oversimplifying the situation, Joe,” said a voice behind him.

Finch turned to see Arthur Gordon: big, graying, about sixty, the man on whose “invitation” he had come to the Earth Building. It was their first meeting and the Chief Administrator of Earth got things off on the wrong foot by calling him “Joe;” Finch believed first names were for personal friends only.

“Oh, how’s that, Arthur?” he replied, noting the CA’s wince.

“Well, I mean…it seems you’ve become a symbol to them—”

(My, what a phony smile you have, Arthur Gordon.)

“…a symbol of Individuality—”

(I’ll bet he uses a capital “I” when he spells that word.)

“And Individuality is something each of them feels he has lost.”

(Whose fault is that?)

“I imagine that some of them, deep in their hearts, actually hate you for maintaining a quality they’ve lost.”

(I can think of a few union roughnecks who won’t have to go that deep.)

“As a matter of fact—”

“Get to the point!” Finch finally interrupted. “Why did you ‘invite’ me here rather than have me arrested for breaking the picket law?”

Gordon’s fixed smile was replaced by one of a more genuine nature. “Okay, Mr. Finch, I will be more to the point, although what I’ve been saying isn’t far from it. Let’s go into my office.”

It was not until Finch was seated across the desk from him in the Chief Administrator’s spacious main office that Gordon began to speak.

“Mr. Finch, the reason I did not have you arrested is very simple: you are the only man on this planet who can be described as a hero.”

“I think you’ve got the wrong definition of a hero, Mr. CA. I’m not a hero. I’ve never done a heroic thing in my life. I may stand out in a crowd, but otherwise I think you’re overestimating me.”

Gordon frowned. “I don’t think I overestimate you at all. The public is hungry for an idol and you, unwilling as you may be, are the prime candidate. In fact your unwillingness to cooperate with the idol-seekers only increases your popularity. To them you’re the last of a rare species. Just look at you! You wander around with an antbear at your heels, you’re making a pile of money in an industry that should have been extinct shortly after the development of telestories, you had a shyster lawyer wheedle a private home for you so you could raise ants for that ridiculous pet of yours and now you’ve taken to busting picket lines!”

“Nobody keeps me out of my own business,” Finch stated flatly and finally.

“I wonder about that,” Gordon mused. “This is hardly the first strike at your plant…You’ve bargained with the union before, why did you choose to defy it this time? Planning to challenge the Picket Law?”

“Would it do me any good to try?” Finch replied in a noncommittal tone.

“Maybe. I never liked the law. Didn’t like it when it was passed and I like it even less at the moment.”

Finch cracked his knuckles. “The Picket Law is a natural consequence of legalizing the picket line. You see, a picket line makes it possible to kidney-punch anyone trying to enter the building currently under siege and sooner or later you don’t cross a picket line if you know what’s good for you. Then, with typical political logic, crossing a picket line was declared illegal ‘in order to prevent violence during strikes.’”

Gordon snorted. “I’ve heard all this before, Mr. Finch. And I didn’t ask you here to reprimand your extralegal activities nor to discuss the Picket Law with you. Instead of having you arrested, I’d rather make a deal.”

“I had a feeling you’d find some use for me.”

The CA ignored the remark. “Look, Finch, here’s the situation: we’ve become an incredibly complex society here on Earth; the average man feels like a cog, feels a loss of worth. Oh, I know it sounds very trite but unfortunately it’s very true. We’ve been warned about this for centuries but it’s something that’s almost impossible to prevent, even when you can see it coming.

“You, however, have somehow overcome it all. You’ve bucked convention, legal restrictions…even technology! You’ve become a symbol of the Individuality people instinctively feel they’ve lost and want desperately to regain. And I’ve found a way to give it to them!”

Finch smirked. “How? Pills?”

Gordon was not in a light mood. “No, the plan’s a little more complicated than that. It’s a daring plan and will frighten people at first; they’ll want the end but they’ll balk at the means. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless someone they admire not only endorses it but actively pro- motes it.”

Finch shook his head as if to clear it. “Wait a minute. Let’s just go back a bit. You’re building up to the means and I don’t even know what the end really is supposed to be.”

Gordon strode to a bookshelf and pulled out a huge volume.

“Ever hear of Gregor Black?” he asked as he laid the book on the desk.

“Some sort of technosociologist, wasn’t he?” Finch replied. “But I believe his disciples are calling him ‘Noah’ Black now.”

“Right. His theory was that both the individual and society are best served when the individual is doing the job for which he is best suited: the old ‘right man for the right job’ maxim. He figured that not only would you achieve maximum productivity but you’d also allow the individual the personal satisfaction and sense of fulfillment that comes from doing what he can do best.”

“Where is he now?” Finch asked.

Gordon had opened the volume and was flipping through the pages. “Oh, somewhere in the Ninth Quadrant, I believe.”

Finch snapped his fingers. “That’s right! His group was outlawed so they decided to apply for a splinter colony.”

Ninety years ago they took up the government’s offer to any large enough group that wanted to settle an Earthclass planet and got free, one-way transportation to the prospective utopia of their choice. Since they were registered as a splinter colony, the planet was then declared off limits to all government traffic and Black and company could do whatever they wanted with it.

“I’d love to know who dreamed up the splinter colony idea,” Finch said with a smile and a shake of the head. “It’s probably one of the few deals in history in which everybody gets what he wants: the government not only colonizes world after world, but it gets rid of all the local dissidents to boot. And the dissidents get their own world on which to live the way they wish.”

Gordon was not listening, however. Pointing to the book on his desk, be said, “Here’s the reason Black’s group was outlawed: the Assessor.”

“I remember the name,” Finch remarked. “Gregor Black’s miracle machine.”

“Don’t be too light with the Assessor…nor with old Gregor. He designed quite a machine. With the Assessor screening a population you wouldn’t have, say, a potential physicist or chemist doing menial labor because his talents and abilities were never discovered and never developed. Nor would you have incompetents in important positions because of ‘connections.’ It’s too bad the Assessor jumbled the minds of a few of his followers during testing—that’s why its use was outlawed.”

“Jumbled, hell!” Finch snorted. “It turned a few of his faithful followers into vegetables!”

“Well, you’ve got to remember that ‘electrohypnosis’—which was the term for mind-probing in those days—was still in the experimental stages. Its use was integral to the Assessor but its control had not yet been perfected. Thus, the tragic accidents.”

Finch yawned. “Just as well. Never would have worked anyway.”

Gordon smiled and leaned over his desk. “Oh, but it has!”

“You mean you’ve heard from Black’s splinter colony? I wouldn’t put too much faith in…

“No, no,” the CA. interrupted, “it has worked right here on Earth!”

“Where?”

“The Rigrod Peninsula.”

“So that’s what all the secrecy’s been about.”

Gordon was enthused now: “We started a colony out there twenty-six years ago using a thousand deserted children, each about a year old. Each was ‘assessed’ once a year for the first twenty years and education was modified and directed for each in accordance with the Assessor’s findings; we were thus able to give them twenty years of education in roughly fifteen. Six years ago they were all given the option of either going into their assigned fields or returning to the mainland.”

He paused dramatically. “All stayed.”

Finch affected a surprised expression. He had a few contacts in the government and knew all about the Rigrod experiment.

“And the advances in technology, the arts, the life sciences, business and hundreds of other fields in these past six years have been incredible!”

“I can see how it would work,” Finch said, “but why tell me about it?”

“Because it’s going to take a massive selling job to get the public to accept it and my advisers think that endorsements by popular personalities would be the best technique. You, Joe Finch, are going to help convince the public that the Assessor is the greatest thing ever to come along.”

“Oh, really? Not without a little more than a spiel from you, I’m afraid.”

Gordon sobered. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I want to see Rigrod and see exactly what it’s like. If this Assessor can do all you say it can, then I’ll back you on it. But I want to see for myself.”

“I’m afraid not,” the CA frowned. “We’ve allowed free access of outside information into Rigrod but all outsiders have been barred. We can make no exceptions.”

“Better make one this time.”

“Need I remind you, Mr. Finch, that your situation in regard to the law at the moment is quite precarious?”

“I endorse nothing sight unseen,” Finch stated. He was gambling now, gambling that the Finch endorsement was important enough to the CA to make him back down. “And besides, you’ve said nothing about my legal situation after I endorse the Assessor…how will I stand then?”

If you’re going to bluff, don’t do it halfheartedly.

Gordon studied Finch with narrowed eyes and nodded slowly. “All right. All right, dammit! I’ll publicly denounce the Picket Law and have the charges dropped after we go to Rigrod.”

“Well, Andy,” Finch said, scratching his pet’s snout, “looks like we’re going on a trip soon…and at government expense, no less.”

* * *

The Rigrod Peninsula had been turned into a minor city, a tiny nation of a thousand. Order and symmetry ruled its design and new structures of unique conceptualization were on the rise. The inhabitants came out in force to meet Joe Finch. They were only physically isolated here and the figure of the crusty individualist with his ever-present antbear companion was immediately recognized.

He wandered through the crowd of residents commenting on this and that, answering questions and shaking proffered hands. He was impressed. These people were friendly, articulate and every one a specialist in his or her field. But there was a subtle undercurrent here, an undercurrent he had been sure he would find.

After the tour, Gordon and Finch retired to the CA’s Rigrod offices. Finch was skimming through a manuscript he had found on the desk. It was called “Interstellar Business: A Theory,” by Peter J. Paxton.

“This Paxton is good,” he told the beaming Gordon. “His logistical concepts will revolutionize interstellar trade. Does he need a publisher?”

“Sorry, Joe,” Gordon laughed,” but Rigrod is setting up its own publishing house—and it will be a telestories format.” He was needling Finch and enjoying it. Changing the subject, he asked, “Well, now that you’ve seen our little project, what do you think of it?”

Now the touchy part: to stall for time. “I don’t know. There’s something about this setup that bother me.”

“What could bother you? It’s the perfect society! Utopia!”

“The whole idea of utopia makes me more than a little nervous,” Finch replied. “Can you give me a week or two to think on it?”

“I’ll give you a week, Finch. That should give you plenty of time to assimilate what you’ve seen here today. But remember, those charges still stand.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. But don’t you think the endorsement would hold more weight if it wasn’t so obvious that we had made a deal?”

“You have a point,” the CA admitted and paused, thinking. “Why don’t we try this: I’ll get the charges dropped if you give me a tentative affirmation.”

“Okay, Mr. Gordon. It’s a deal.”

And the Chief Administrator of Earth made good his promise the very next day.

* * *

When Gordon and two other men burst into the Finch backyard, they found that he was not alone. Andy was there and so was a young, fair-haired man in his mid-twenties. Gordon instantly recognized him.

“Paxton! It figures I’d find you here! Go inside. I’ve something to discuss with Mr. Finch!”

The young man was cowed by the wrathful CA. He looked to Finch and Finch nodded toward the door.

“Do as he says. He brought a couple of his bully-boys along so we’d better humor him.”

When Paxton had disappeared into the house, Finch turned to Gordon. “Now what the hell is all this about?”

“You’re under arrest, Finch!” Gordon roared.

“What for?” Andy raised his head and wondered who was making all this noise on such a pleasant afternoon.

“You know very well what for…for destroying a government project!”

“You mean the Rigrod experiment?”

“Yes! The Rigrod experiment! The whole structure of the Assessor-built society started to break down soon after your visit. You did something out there. I’m going to find out what it was. I don’t care how popular you are, you’re going to tell me.”

“I’ll tell you what I did,” said Finch. “I visited the place. That’s all. You were with me all the time.”

“You pulled something—” Gordon began.

“Damn right I did,” Finch interrupted with a snort. “I destroyed that project willfully and with malice aforethought. And I did you a favor by doing it. It was bound to happen sooner or later! You thought you were creating the perfect society by basing it on human individuality, by making the best use of individual abilities. You took care of individuality…fine! But you forgot all about individualism!

“It never occurred to you that many people wouldn’t be happy doing ‘what they can do best.’ As a matter of fact, many people don’t give a damn about what they can do best. They’re more interested in doing what they like to do, what they want to do. There might be a musician playing at the music center tonight who could be a brilliant physicist if he wanted to be, but he likes music instead. In an Assessor-built society, however, he’d be working with mathematical formulae instead of chord progressions. He’d sit around envying musicians for just so long and then he’d either rebel or go mad. When are people like you going to learn that utopia is a fool’s game?”

Gordon was in a cold rage. The project, which was to be a monument to his name, was being torn to shreds by this man in front of him. He spoke through clenched teeth: “But why didn’t they rebel before you showed up? The project was working perfectly until then.”

“You’ve had no trouble on the peninsula until now,” Finch explained, “because you’ve been working with a biased sample. Those kids have been told all their lives that they are pioneers, that they’ll be the ones to prove that man can have utopia. And so all the square pegs in the round holes—the equivalents of our hypothetical musician-physicist—keep mum on the hope that their discontent will pass…they don’t want to destroy ‘man’s chance at utopia’ by a hasty decision. And in keeping mum they never find out that there are others like themselves.

“Then Joe Finch comes along.

“And I’m not a hero, Gordon. I’m a crackpot, an eccentric, a nut. I’ve known about Rigrod for over a decade now and spent that time building up a reputation as a rugged individualist. Many times I felt foolish but the press and the vid played right into my hands. I’ve been a walking publicity stunt for the last ten years. That’s why my pet is an antbear instead of a dog—although I wouldn’t trade Andy for anything now. I’ve been hoping for a chance to get to Rigrod and you gave it to me. And that was all I needed.

“Allowing someone with a reputation as a crackpot individualist to wander through the Rigrod Peninsula is like introducing a seed crystal to a supersaturated solution: all the underlying threads of doubt and discontent start to crystallize. But don’t blame me! Blame yourself and your inane theories and ambitions! You were a fool to be taken in by Black’s theory, you were a fool to bring me to the project and you were a fool to think that I’d have anything at all to do with such a plan!”

Gordon finally exploded. “Arrest him!” he told the two guards who had been standing idly by.

The guards, of course, did not know anything about antbears. The antbear has been long used in the areas to which it is indigenous as a watchdog. Its forelimbs have monstrous claws which it uses for digging into termite hills but it can rear up on its hind legs and use these claws for defense. And the antbear has an uncanny ability to roar like a lion.

The two guards were quickly made aware of these facts. Andy startled them with a roar as they made their first move toward Finch. A few swipes with his claws and the guards were down and gashed and bleeding.

Andy stood beside Finch and huffed warily as his master scratched his snout. Finch turned to the livid Chief Administrator.

“Now get out of here and take your friends with you.”

“All right, Finch. You’ve won for now. But let me warn you that your life here on Earth from now on will be hell! And don’t get any ideas about getting off-planet…you’re staying right here!”

* * *

But Joe Finch had been far ahead of the CA. He had already sold his house, a printing firm had bought his machinery and all the properties of Finch House had been picked up by a telestories outfit. A handsome bribe had reserved two seats and one animal passage out from Earth on a moment’s notice, and Joe Finch, Peter J. Paxton and Andy were well into primary warp toward Ragna before Arthur Gordon had any idea they had left Earth.

With Finch’s money and organizational experience and Paxton’s business theories, Interstellar Business Advisers was born and grew with the expanding Federation. And Joe, at long last able to put aside his role of super-individualist, found a woman who loved him—and anteaters, too—and it wasn’t too long before Joe junior came along. But that’s another story.

PARD

PARD

Some partnerships are brought about my chance, some by force, some by mutual consent. Some partnerships need to be broken up, for the good of the partners. But then there are certain kinds of partners that cannot be separated.

The orbital survey had indicated this clearing as the probable site of the crash, but long-range observation had turned up no signs of wreckage. Steven Dalt was doing no better at close range. Something had landed here with tremendous impact not too long ago: there was a deep furrow, a few of the trees were charred, and the grass had not yet been able to fully cover the earth-scar. So far, so good. But where was the wreckage? He had made a careful search of the trees around the clearing and there was nothing of interest there. It was obvious now that there would be no quick, easy solution to the problem as he had originally hoped, so he started the half-kilometer trek back to his concealed shuttlecraft.

Topping a leafy rise, he heard a shout off to his left and turned to see a small party of mounted colonists, Tependians by their garb. The oddity of the sight struck him. They were well inside the Duchy of Bendelema and that shouldn't be: Bendelema and Tependia had been at war for generations. Dalt shrugged and started walking again. He'd been away for years, and it was very possible that something could have happened in that time to soften relations between the two duchies. Change was the rule on a splinter world.

One of the colonists pointed an unwieldy apparatus at Dalt and something went thip past his head. Dalt went into a crouch and ran to his right. There had been at least one change since his departure: someone had reinvented the crossbow.

The hooves of the Tependian mounts thudded in pursuit as he raced down the slope into a dank, twilit grotto, and Dalt redoubled his speed as he realized how simple it would be for his pursuers to surround and trap him in this sunken area. He had to gain the high ground on the other side before he was encircled. Halfway up the far slope, he was halted by the sound of hooves ahead of him. They had succeeded in cutting him off.

Dalt turned and made his way carefully down the slope. If he could just keep out of sight, they might think he had escaped the ring they had thrown around the grotto. Then, when it got dark

A bolt smashed against a stone by his foot. "There he is!" someone cried and Dalt was on the run again.

He began to weigh the situation in his mind. If he kept on running, they were bound to keep on shooting at him and one of them just might put a bolt through him. If he stopped running, he might have a chance. They might let him off with his life. Then he remembered that he was dressed in serfs clothing and serfs who ran from anyone in uniform were usually put to the sword. Dalt kept running.

Another bolt flashed by, this one ripping some bark off a nearby tree. They were closing in—they were obviously experienced at this sort of work—and it wouldn't be long before Dalt was trapped at the lowest point of the grotto with nowhere else to go.

Then he saw the cave mouth, a wide, low arch of darkness just above him on the slope. It was about a meter and a half high at its central point. With a shower of crossbow bolts raining around him, Dalt quickly ducked inside.

It wasn't much of a cave. In the dark and dampness Dalt soon found that it rapidly narrowed to a tunnel too slender for his shoulders to pass. There was nothing else for him to do but stay as far back as possible and hope for the best . . . which wasn't much no matter how he looked at it. If his pursuers didn't feel like coming in to drag him out, they could just sit back and fill the cave with bolts. Sooner or later one would have to strike him. Dalt peered out the opening to see which it would be.

But his five pursuers were doing nothing. They sat astride their mounts and stared dumbly at the cave mouth. One of the party unstrung his crossbow and began to strap it to his back. Dalt had no time to wonder at their behavior for in that instant he realized that he had made a fatal error. He was in a cave on Kwashi and there was hardly a cave on Kwashi that didn't have its own colony of alarets.

He jumped into a crouch and sprinted for the outside. He'd gladly take his chances against crossbows rather than alarets any day. But a warm furry oval fell from the cave ceiling and landed on his head as he began to move. As his ears roared and his vision turned orange and green and yellow, Dalt screamed in agony and fell to the cave floor.

Hearing that scream, the five Tependian scouts shook their heads and turned and rode away.

* * *

It was dark when he awoke and he was cold and alone ... and alive.

That last part surprised him when he remembered his situation and he lost no time in crawling out of the cave and into the clean air under the open stars. Hestitantly, he reached up and peeled off the shrunken, desiccated remains of one dead alaret from his scalp. He marveled at the thing in his hand. Nowhere in the history of Kwashi, neither in the records of its long-extinct native race nor in the memory of anyone in its degenerated splinter colony, had there ever been mention of someone surviving the attack of an alaret.

The original splinter colonists had found artifacts of an ancient native race soon after their arrival. The culture had reached pre-industrial levels before it was unaccountably wiped out; a natural cataclysm of some sort was given the blame. But among the artifacts were found some samples of symbolic writing, and one of these samples—evidently aimed at the children of the race—strongly warned against the entering of any cave. Creatures described as the killing-things-on-the-ceilings-of-caves would attack anything that entered. The writing warned: "Of every thousand struck down, nine hundred and ninety-nine will die."

William Alaiet, a settler with some zoological training, had heard the translation and decided to find out just what it was all about. He went into the first cave he could find and emerged seconds later, screaming and clawing at the furry little thing on his head. He became the first of many fatalities attributed to the killing-things-on-the-ceilings-of-caves which were named "alarets" in his honor.

Dalt threw the alaret husk aside, got his bearings and headed for his hidden shuttlecraft. He anticipated little trouble this time. No scouting party, if any were abroad at this hour, would be likely to spot him, and Kwashi had few large carnivores.

The ship was as he had left it. He lifted slowly to fifty thousand meters and then cut in the orbital thrust. That was when he first heard the voice.

(Hello, Steve.)

If it hadn't been for the G-forces against him at that moment, Dalt would have leaped out of his chair in surprise.

(This pressure is quite uncomfortable, isn't it?) the voice said and Dalt realized that it was coming from inside his head. The thrust automatically cut off as orbit was reached and his stomach gave its familiar free-fall lurch.

(Ah! This is much better.)

"What's going on?" Dalt cried aloud as he glanced frantically about. "Is this someone's idea of a joke?"

(No joke, Steve. I'm what's left of the alaret that landed on your head back in that cave. You're quite lucky, you know. Mutual death is the result—most of the time, at least—whenever a creature of high-level intelligence is a target for pairing.)

I'm going crazy! Dalt thought.

(No, you're not, at least not yet. But it is a possibility if you don't sit back and relax and accept what's happened to you.)

Dalt leaned back and rested his eyes on the growing metal sphere that was the Star Ways Corporation mother ship on the forward viewer. The glowing signal on the console indicated that the bigger ship had him in traction and was reeling him in.

"O.K., then. Just what has happened to me?" He felt a little ridiculous speaking out loud in an empty cabin.

(Well, to put it in a nutshell: you've got yourself a roommate, Steve. From now on, you and I will be sharing your body.)

"In other words, I've been invaded!"

(That's a loaded term, Steve, and not quite accurate. I'm not really taking anything from you except some of your privacy and that shouldn't really matter since the two of us will be so intimately associated.)

"And just what gives you the right to invade my mind?" Dalt asked quickly, then added: "And my privacy?"

(Nothing gives me the right to do so, but there are extenuating circumstances. You see, a few hours ago I was a furry, lichen-eating cave slug with no intelligence to speak of—)

"For a slug you have a pretty good command of the language!" Dalt interrupted.

(No better and no worse than yours, for I derive whatever intelligence I have from you. You see, we alarets, as you call us, invade the nervous system of any creature of sufficient size that comes near enough. It's an instinct with us. If the creature is a dog, then we wind up with the intelligence of a dog—that particular dog. If it's a human and if he survives as you have done, the invading alaret finds himself possessing a very high degree of intelligence.)

"You said 'invade' just then."

(Just an innocent slip, I assure you. I have no intention of taking over. That would be quite immoral.)

Dalt laughed grimly. "What would an ex-slug know about morality?"

(With the aid of your faculties I can reason now, can I not? And if I can reason, why can't I arrive at a moral code? This is your body and I am here only because of blind instinct. I have the ability to take control—not without a struggle, of course—but it would be immoral to attempt to do so. I couldn't vacate your mind if I wanted to, so you're stuck with me, Steve. Might as well make the best of it.)

"We'll see how 'stuck' I am when I get back to the ship," Dalt muttered. "But I'd like to know how you got into my brain."

(I'm not exactly sure of that myself I know the path I followed to penetrate your skull—if you had the anatomical vocabulary I could describe it to you, but my vocabulary is your vocabulary and yours is very limited in that area)

"What do you expect? I was educated in cultural studies, not medicine!"

(It's not important anyway. I remember almost nothing of my existence before entering your skull, for it wasn't until then that I first became truly aware.)

Dalt glanced at the console and straightened up in his seat. "Well, whatever you are, go away for now. I'm ready to dock and I don't want to be distracted."

(Gladly. You have a most fascinating organism and I have much exploring to do before I become fully acquainted with it. So long for now, Steve. It's nice knowing you.)

A thought drifted through Dalt's head. If I'm going nuts, at least I'm not doing it half-heartedly!

Bane was there to meet him at the dock. "No luck, Steve?"

Dalt shook his head and was about to add a comment when he noticed Barre staring at him with a strange expression.

"What's the matter?"

"You won't believe me if I tell you," Barre replied. He took Dalt's arm and led him into a nearby men's room and stood him in front of a mirror.

Dalt saw what he expected to see: a tall, muscular man in the garb of a Kwashi serf. Tanned face, short, glossy black hair . . . Dalt suddenly flexed his neck to get a better look at the top of his head. Tufts of hair were missing in a roughly oval patchon his scalp. He ran his hand over it and a light rain of black hair showered past his eyes. With successive strokes, the oval patch became completely denuded and a shiny expanse of scalp reflected the ceiling lights into the minor.

"Well, I'll be damned! A bald spot!"

(Don't worry, Steve,) said the voice in his head, (the roots aren't dead. The hair will grow back.)

"It damn well better!" Dalt said aloud.

"It damn well better what?" Barre asked puzzledly.

"Nothing," Dalt replied. "Something dropped onto my head in a cave down there and it looks like it's given me a bald spot." He realized then that he would have to be very careful about talking to his invader, otherwise, even if he really wasn't crazy, he'd soon have everyone on the ship believing he was.

"Maybe you'd better see the doc," Barre suggested.

"I intend to, believe me. But first I've got to report to Clarkson. I'm sure he's waiting."

"You can bet on it." Barre had been a research head on the brain project and was well acquainted with Dirval Clarkson's notorious impatience.

The pair walked briskly toward Clarkson's office. The rotation of the huge spherical ship gave the effect of 1-G; movement for all the personnel aboard would have been a major task without the artificial gravity.

"Hi, Jean," Dalt said with a smile as he and Bane entered the anteroom of Clarkson's office. Jean was Clarkson's secretary and she and Dalt had entertained each other on the trip out . . . the more interesting games had been played during the sleep-time hours.

She returned his smile. "Glad you're back in one piece." Dalt realized that from her seated position she couldn't see the bald spot. Just as well for the moment. He'd explain it to her later.

Jean spoke into the intercom. "Mr. Dalt is here."

"Well, send him in!" squawked a voice. "Send him in!"

Dalt grinned and pushed through the door to Clarkson's office with Bane trailing behind. A huge, graying man leaped from behind a desk and stalked forward at a precarious angle.

"Dalt! Where the hell have you been? You were supposed to go down, take a look and then come back up. You could have done the procedure three times in the period you took. And what happened to your head?" Clarkson's speech was in its usual rapid-fire form.

"Well, this—"

"Never mind that now! What's the story? I can tell right now that you didn't find anything because Barre is with you. If you'd found the brain he'd be off in some corner now nursing it like a misplaced infant! Well, tell me! How does it look?"

Dalt hesitated, not quite sure as to whether the barrage had come to an end. "It doesn't look good," he said finally.

"And why not?"

"Because I couldn't find a trace of the ship itself. Oh, there's evidence of some sort of craft having been there a while back, but it must have gotten off-planet again because there's not a trace of wreckage to be found."

Clarkson looked puzzled. "Not even a trace?"

"Nothing."

The project director pondered this a moment, then shrugged. "We'll have to figure that one out later. But right now you should know that we picked up another signal from the brain's life-support system while you were off on your joyride—"

"It wasn't a joyride," Dalt declared. A few moments with Clarkson always managed to rub his nerves raw. "I ran into a pack of unfriendly locals and had to hide in a cave."

"Be that as it may," Clarkson said, returning to his desk chair, "we're now certain that the brain, or what's left of it, is on Kwashi."

"Yes, but where on Kwashi? It's not exactly an asteroid, you know."

"We've almost pinpointed its location," Barre broke in excitedly. "Very close to the site you inspected."

"It's in Bendelema, I hope," Dalt said.

"Why?" Clarkson asked.

"Because when I was on cultural survey down there I posed as a soldier of fortune—a mercenary of sorts—and Duke Kile of Bendelema was a former employer. I'm known and liked in Bendelema. I'm not at all popular in Tependia because they're the ones I fought against. I repeat: It's in Bendelema, I hope."

Clarkson nodded. "It's in Bendelema, all right."

"Good!" Dalt exhaled with relief. "That makes everything much simpler. I've got an identity in Bendelema: Racso the Mercenary. At least that's a starting place."

"And you'll start tomorrow," Clarkson said. "We've wasted too much time as it is. If we don't get that prototype back and start coming up with some pretty good reasons for the malfunction, Star Ways might just cancel the project. There's a lot riding on you, Dalt. Remember that."

Dalt turned toward the door. "Who'll let me forget?" he remarked with a grim smile. "I'll check in with you before I leave."

"Good enough," Clarkson said with a curt nod, then turned to Barre. "Hold on a minute, Bane. I want to go over a few things with you." Dalt gladly closed the door on the pair.

"It's almost lunch time," said a feminine voice behind him. "How about it?"

In a single motion, Dalt spun, leaned over Jean's desk and gave her a peck on the lips. "Sorry, can't. It may be noon to all of you on ship-time, but it's some hellish hour of the morning to me. I've got to drop in on the doc, then I've just got to get some sleep."

But Jean wasn't listening. Instead, she was staring fixedly at the bald spot on Dalt's head. "Steve!" she cried. "What happened?"

Dalt straightened up abruptly. "Nothing much. Something landed on it while I was below and the hair fell out. It'll grow back, don't worry."

"I'm not worried about that," she said, standing up and trying to get another look. But Dalt kept his head high. "Did it hurt?"

"Not at all. Look, I hate to run off like this, but I've got to get some sleep. I'm going back down tomorrow."

Her face fell. "So soon?"

"I'm afraid so. Why don't we make it for dinner tonight. I'll drop by your room and we'll go from there. The cafeteria isn't exactly a restaurant but if we get there late, we can probably have a table all to ourselves."

"And after that?" she asked coyly.

"I'll be damned if we're going to spend my last night on ship for who-knows-how-long in the vid theater!"

Jean smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that."

* * *

(What odd physiological rumblings that female stirs in you!) the voice said as Dalt walked down the corridor to the medical offices. He momentarily broke stride at the sound of it. He'd almost forgotten that he had company.

"That's none of your business!" he muttered through tight lips.

(I'm afraid much of what you do is my business. I'm not directly connected with you emotionally, but physically . . . what you feel, I feel; what you see, I see; what you taste—)

"O.K .! O.K.!"

(You're holding up rather well, actually. Better than I would have expected.)

"Probably my cultural survey training. They taught me how to keep my reactions under control when faced with an unusual situation."

(Glad to hear it. We may well have a long relationship ahead of us if you don't go the way of most high-order intelligences and suicidally reject me. We can look on your body as a small business and the two of us as partners.)

"Partners!" Dalt said, somewhat louder than he wished. Luckily, the halls were deserted. "This is my body!"

(If it will make you happier, I'll revise my analogy: you're the founder of the company and I've just bought my way in. How's that sound, Partner?)

"Lousy!"

(Get used to it,) the voice singsonged.

"Why bother? You won't be in there long. The doc'll see to that!"

(He won't find a thing, Steve.)

"We'll see."

The door to the medical complex swished open when Dalt touched the operating plate and. he passed into a tiny waiting room.

"What can we do for you, Mr. Dalt?" the nurse/receptionist said. Dalt was a well-known figure about the ship by now.

He inclined his head toward the woman and pointed to the bald spot. "I want to see the doc about this. I'm going below tomorrow and I want to get this cleared up before I do. So if the doc's got a moment, I'd like to see him."

The nurse smiled. "Right away." At the moment, Dalt was a very important man. He was the only one aboard ship legally allowed on Kwashi. If he thought he needed a doctor, he'd have one.

A man in the traditional white medical coat poked his head through one of the three doors leading from the waiting room in answer to the nurse's buzz.

"What is it, Lorraine?" he asked. "Mr. Dalt would like to see you, Doctor."

He glanced at Dalt. "Of course. Come in, Mr. Dalt. I'm Dr. Graves." The doctor showed him into a small, book and microfilm-lined office. "Have a seat, will you? I'll be with you in a minute."

Graves exited by another door and Dalt was alone . . . almost.

(He has quite an extensive library here, doesn't he?) said the voice. Dalt glanced at the shelves and noticed printed texts that must have been holdovers from the doctor's student days to microfilm spools of the latest clinical developments. (You would do me a great service by asking the doctor if you could borrow some of his more basic texts.)

"What for? I thought you knew all about me."

(I know quite a bit now, it's true, but I'm still learning and I'll need a vocabulary to explain things to you now and then.)

"Forget it. You're not going to be around that long."

Dr. Graves entered then. "Now. What seems to be the problem, Mr. Dalt?"

Dalt explained the incident in the cave. "Legend has it—and colonial experience seems to confirm it—that `of every thousand struck down, nine hundred and ninety-nine will die.' I was floored by an alaret but I'm still kicking and I'd like to know why."

(I believe I've already explained that by luck of a random constitutional factor, your nervous system didn't reject me.)

Shut up! Dalt mentally snarled.

The doctor shrugged. "I don't see the problem. You're alive and all you've got to show for your encounter is a bald spot, and even that will disappear—it's bristly already. I can't tell you why you're alive because I don't know how these alarets kill their victims. As far as I know, no one's done any research on them. So why don't you just forget about it and stay out of caves."

"It's not that simple, Doc." Dalt spoke carefully. He'd have to phrase things just right; if he came right out and told the truth, he'd sound like a flaming schiz. "I have this feeling that something seeped into my scalp, maybe even into my head. I feel this thickness there." Dalt noticed the slightest narrowing of the doctor's gaze. "I'm not crazy," he said hurriedly. "You've got to admit that the alaret did something up there—the bald spot proves it. Couldn't you make a few tests or something? Just to ease my mind."

The doctor nodded. He was satisfied that Dalt's fears had sufficient basis in reality and the section-eight gleam left his eyes. He led Dalt into the adjoining room and placed a cubical helmet-like apparatus over his head. A click, a buzz and the helmet was removed. Dr. Graves pulled out two small transparencies and shoved them into a viewer. The screen came to life with two views of the inside of Dalt's skull: a lateral and an anterior-posterior.

"Nothing to worry about," he said after a moment of study. "I 'scoped you for your own peace of mind. Take a look."

Dalt looked, even though he didn't know what he was looking for.

(I told you so,) said the voice. (I'm thoroughly integrated with your nervous system.)

"Well, thanks for your trouble, Doc. I guess I've really got nothing to worry about," Dalt lied.

"Nothing at all. Just consider yourself lucky to be alive if those alarets are as deadly as you say." (Ask him for the books!) the voice said.

I'm going to sleep as soon as I leave here. You won't get a chance to read them, Dalt thought.

(You let me worry about that. Just get the books for me.)

Why should I do you any favors? Dalt asked.

(Because I'll see to it that you have one difficult time of getting to sleep. I'll keep repeating "Get the books, get the books, get the books" until you finally do it.)

I believe you would!

(You can count on it.)

"Doc," Dalt said, "would you mind lending me a few of your books?"

"Like what?"

"Oh, anatomy and physiology to start."

Dr. Graves walked into the other room and took two large, frayed volumes from the shelves. "What do you want 'em for?"

"Nothing much," Dalt said, taking the books and tucking them under his arm. "Just want to look up a few things."

"Well, just don't forget where you got them. And don't let that incident with the alaret become an obsession with you," the doc said meaningfully.

Dalt smiled. "I've already banished it from my mind."

(That's a laugh!)

* * *

Dalt wasted no time in reaching his quarters after leaving the medical offices. He was on the bed before the door could slide back into the closed position. Putting the medical books on the night table, he buried his face in the pillow and immediately dropped off to sleep.

He awoke five hours later feeling completely refreshed except for his eyes. They felt hot, burning.

(You may return those books any time you wish,) the voice said.

"Lost interest already?" Dalt yawned, stretching as he lay on the bed.

(In a way, yes. I read them while you were asleep.)

"How the hell did you do that?"

(Quite simple, really. While your mind was sleeping, I used your eyes and your hands to read. I digested the information and stored it away in your brain. By the way, there's an awful lot of wasted space in the human brain. You're not living up to anywhere near your potential, Steve. Neither is any other member of your race, I gather.)

"What right have you got to pull something like that with my body?" Dalt said angrily. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

(Our body, you mean.)

Dalt ignored that. "No wonder my eyes are burning! I've been reading when I could have been—should have been—sleeping!"

(Don't get excited. You got your sleep and I built up my vocabulary. You're fully rested so what's your complaint? By the way, I can now tell you how I entered your head. I seeped into your pores and then into your scalp capillaries which I followed into your parietal emissary veins. These flow through the parietal foramina in your skull and empty into the superior sagittal sinus. From there it was easy to infiltrate your central nervous system.)

Dalt opened his mouth to say that he really didn't care when he realized that he understood exactly what the voice was saying. He had a clear picture of the described path floating through his mind.

"How come I know what you're talking about? I seem to understand but I don't remember ever hearing those terms before . . . and then again, I do. It's weird."

(It must seem rather odd,) the voice concurred. (What has happened is that I've made my new knowledge available to you. The result is you experience the fruits of the learning process without having gone through it. You know facts without remembering having learned them.)

"Well," Dalt said, rising to his feet, "at least you're not a complete parasite."

(I resent that! We're partners … a symbiosis!)

"I suppose you may come in handy now and then," Dalt sighed. (I already have.)

"What's that supposed to mean?"

(I found a small neoplasm in your lung—middle lobe on the right. It might well have become malignant.)

"Then let's get back to the doc before it metastasizes!" Dalt said and idly realized that a few hours ago he would have been worrying about "spread" rather than "metastasis."

(There's no need to worry, Steve. I killed it off)

"How'd you do that?"

(I just worked through your sympathetic nervous system and selectively cut off the blood supply to that particular group of cells.)

"Well, thanks, Partner."

(No thanks necessary, I assure you. I did it for my own good as well as yours—I don't relish the idea of walking around in a cancer-ridden body any more than you do!)

* * *

Dalt removed his serf clothing in silence. The enormity of what had happened in that cave on Kwashi struck him now with full force. He had a built-in medical watchdog who would keep everything running smoothly. He smiled grimly as he donned ship clothes and suspended from his neck the glowing prismatic gem that he had first worn as Racso and had continued to wear after his cultural survey assignment on Kwashi had been terminated. He'd have his health but he'd lost his privacy forever. He wondered if it was worth it.

(One other thing, Steve,) said the voice. (I've accelerated the growth of your hair in the bald spot to maximum.)

Dalt put up a hand and felt a thick fuzz where before there had been only bare scalp. "Hey! You're right! It's really coming in!" He went to the mirror to take a look. "Oh, no!"

(Sorry about that, Steve. I couldn't see it so I wasn't aware there had been a color change. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about that.)

Dalt stared in dismay at the patch of silvery gray in the center of his otherwise inky hair. "I look like a freak!"

(You can always dye it.)

Dalt made a disgusted noise.

(I have a few questions, Steve,) the voice said in a hasty attempt to change the subject.

"What about?"

(About why you're going down to that planet tomorrow.)

"I'm going because I was once a member of the Federation cultural survey team on Kwashi and because the Star Ways Corporation lost an experimental pilot brain down there. They got permission from the Federation to retrieve the brain only on the condition that a cultural survey man do the actual retrieving."

(That's not what I meant. I want to know what's so important about the brain, just how much of a brain it actually is, and so on.)

"There's an easy way to find out," Dalt said, heading for the door. "We'll just go to the ship's library."

The library was near the hub of the ship and completely computer operated. Dalt closed himself away in one of the tiny viewer booths and pushed his I.D. card into the awaiting slot.

The flat, dull tones of the computer's voice came from a hidden speaker.

"What do you wish, Mr. Dalt?" "I might as well go the route: let me see everything on the brain project."

Four micro spools slid down a tiny chute and landed in the receptacle in front of Dalt. "I'm sorry, Mr. Dalt," said the computer, "but this is all your present status allows."

(That should be enough, Steve. Feed them into the viewer.)

The story that unraveled from the spools was one of biological and economic daring. Star Ways was fast achieving what amounted to a monopoly of the interstellar warp unit market and from there was expanding to peristellar drive. But unlike the typical established corporation, Star Ways was pouring money into basic research. One of the prime areas of research was the development of a use for cultured human neural tissue. And James Barre had found a use that held great economic potential.

* * *

The prime expense of interstellar commercial travel, whether freight or passenger, was the crew. Good spacers were a select lot and hard to come by; running a ship took a lot of them. There had been many attempts to replace crews with computers, but these had invariably failed due either to mass/volume problems or overwhelming maintenance costs. Barre's development of an "artificial" brain—by that he meant structured in vitro—seemed to hold an answer, at least for cargo ships.

After much trial and error with life-support systems and control linkages, a working prototype had finally been developed. A few short hops had been tried with a full crew standing by and the results had been more than anyone had hoped for. So the prototype was prepared for a long interstellar journey with five scheduled stops—with cargo holds empty, of course. The run had gone quite well until the ship got into the Kwashi area. A single technician had been sent along to insure that nothing went too far awry and, according to his story, he had been sitting in the ship's library when it suddenly came out of warp with the emergency/abandon ship signals blaring. He wasted no time in getting to a lifeboat and ejecting. The ship made a beeline for Kwashi and disappeared, presumably in a crash. That had been eight months ago.

No more information was available without special clearance.

"Well, that was a waste of time," Dalt said.

"Are you addressing me, Mr. Dalt?" the computer asked.

"No."

(There certainly wasn't much new information there,) the voice agreed.

Dalt pulled his card from the slot, thereby cutting the computer off from this particular viewer booth, before answering. Otherwise it would keep butting in.

"The theories now stand at either malfunction or foul play."

(Why foul play?)

"The spacers' guild, for one," Dalt said, standing. "Competing companies for another. But since it crashed on a restricted splinter world, I favor the malfunction theory." As he stepped from the booth he glanced at the chronometer on the wall: 1900 hours ship-time. Jean would be waiting.

* * *

The cafeteria was nearly deserted when he arrived with Jean and the pair found an isolated table in a far corner.

"I really don't think you should dye your hair at all," Jean was saying as they placed their trays on the table and sat down. "I think that gray patch looks cute in a distinguished sort of way . . . or do I mean distinguished in a cute sort of way?"

Dalt took the ribbing in good-natured silence.

"Steve!" she said suddenly. "How come you're eating with your left hand? I've never seen you do that before."

Dalt looked down. His fork was firmly grasped in his left hand. "That's strange," he said. "I didn't even realize it."

(I integrated a- few circuits, so to speak, while you were asleep,) the voice said. (It seemed rather ridiculous to favor one limb over another. You're now ambidextrous.)

Thanks for telling me, Partner!

(Sorry. I forgot.)

Dalt switched the fork to his right hand and Jean switched the topic of conversation.

"You know, Steve," she said, "you've never told me why you quit the cultural survey group."

Dalt paused before answering. After the fall of Metep VII, last in a long line of self-styled "Emperors of the Outworlds," a new independent spirit gave rise to a loose organization of worlds called simply "the Federation."

"As you know," he said finally, "the Federation started the cultural surveys in order to start bringing splinter worlds—willing ones, that is—back into the fold. But it was found that an appalling number had regressed into barbarism. So the cultural surveys were started to evaluate splinter worlds and decide which could be trusted with modern technology. There was another rule which I didn't fully appreciate back then but have come to believe in since, and that's where the trouble began."

"What rule was that?"

"It's not put down anywhere in so many words, but it runs to the effect that if any splinter world culture has started developing on a path at variance with the rest of humanity, it is to be left alone."

"Sounds like they were making cultural test tubes out of some planets," Jean said.

"Exactly what I thought, but it never bothered me until I surveyed a planet that must, for now, remain nameless. The inhabitants had been developing a psi culture through selective breeding and were actually developing a tangential society. In my report I strongly recommended admission to the Fed; I thought we could learn as much from them as they from us."

"But it was turned down, I bet," Jean concluded.

Dalt nodded. "I had quite a row with my superiors, but they held firm and I stalked out in a rage and quit."

"Maybe they thought you were too easy on the planet"

"They knew better. I had no qualms about proscribing Kwashi, for instance. No, their reason was fear that the psi society was not mature enough to be exposed to galactic civilization, that it would be swallowed up. They wanted to give it another century or two. I thought that was unfair but was powerless to do anything about it."

Jean eyed him with a penetrating gaze. "I notice you've been using the past tense. Change your mind since then?"

"Definitely. I've come to see that there's a very basic, very definite philosophy behind everything the Federation does. It not only wants to preserve human diversity, it wants to see it stretched to the limit. Man was an almost completely homogenized species before he began colonizing the stars; interstellar travel arrived just in time. Old Earth is still a good example of what I mean; long ago the Eastern and Western Alliances fused—something no one ever thought would happen—and Earth is just one big faceless, self-perpetuating bureaucracy. The populace is equally faceless.

"But the man who left for the stars—he's another creature altogether! Once he got away from the press of other people, once he stopped seeing what everybody else saw, hearing what everybody else heard, he began to become an individual again and to strike out in directions of his own choosing. The splinter groups carried this out to an extreme and many failed. But a few survived and the Federation wants to let the successful ones go as far as they can, both for their own sake and for the sake of all mankind. Who knows? Homo superior may one day be born on a splinter world."

They took their time strolling back to Dales quarters. Once inside, Dalt glanced in the mirror and ran his hand through the gray patch in his hair: "It's still there," he muttered in mock disappointment.

He turned back to Jean and she was already more than half undressed. "You weren't gone all that long, Steve," she said in a low voice, "but I missed you—really missed you."

It was mutual.

* * *

She was gone when he awakened the next morning but a little note on the night table wished him good luck.

(You should have prepared me for such a sensory jolt,) said the voice. (I was taken quite by surprise last night.)

"Oh, it's you again," Dalt groaned.

"I pushed you completely out of my mind last night, otherwise I'd have been impotent, no doubt."

(I hooked into your sensory input—very stimulating.)

Dalt experienced helpless annoyance. He would have to get used to his partner's presence at the most intimate moments, but how many people could make love knowing there's a peeping torn at the window with a completely unobstructed view?

(What are we going to do now?)

"Pard,” Dalt drawled, "we're gonna git ready to go below." He went to the closet and pulled from it a worn leather jerkin and a breastplate marked with an empty red circle, the mark of the mercenary. Stiff leather breeches followed, and broadsword and metal helm completed the picture. He then dyed his hair for Racso's sake.

"One more thing," he said and reached up to the far end of the closet shelf. His hand returned clutching an ornate dagger. "This is something new in Racso's armament."

(A dagger?)

"Not just a dagger. It's—"

(Oh, yes. It's also a blaster.)

"How did you know?"

(We're partners, Steve. What you know, I know. I even know why you had it made.)

"I'm listening."

(Because you're afraid you're not as fast as you used to be. You think your muscles may not have quite the tone they used to have when you first posed as Racso. And you're not willing to die looking for an artificial brain.)

"Looks like I'll never have a secret again," Dalt sighed.

(Not from me, at least.)

* * *

Dalt planned the time of his arrival in Bendelema Duchy for predawn. He concealed the shuttlecraft and was on the road toward the keep as the sky began to lighten. As he walked along in silence, a light saddle slung over his shoulder, he marveled at the full ripe fields of grains and greens to either side of him. Agriculture had always been a hit or miss affair on Kwashi and famines were not uncommon, but it looked as if there would be no famine in Bendelema this year. Even the serfs, already hard at work in the fields, looked well fed.

"What do you think, Pard?" Dalt asked.

(Well, Kwashi hasn't got much of a tilt on its axis. They could be on their way to the second bumper crop of the year.)

"With the available farming methods, two consecutive bumper crops are unheard of on Kwashi. I almost starved here once myself."

(I know that, but I have no explanation for these plump serfs.)

The road made a turn around a small wooded area and the Bendelema keep came into view.

"I see their architecture hasn't improved since I left. The keep still looks like a pile of rocks."

(I've been wondering, Steve,) Pard said as they approached the stone structure, (why is it that so many retrograde splinter worlds turn to feudalism?)

"Nobody really knows, but the reason could be that feudalism is in essence the law of the jungle. When these colonies first land, education of the children usually takes a back seat to putting food on the table. That's their first mistake and a tragic one, because once they let technology slide, they're on a downhill spiral. Usually by the third generation you have a pretty low technological level; the stops are out, the equalizers are gone and the toughs take over.

"The philosophy of feudalism is one of muscle: mine is what I can take and hold. It's ordered barbarism. That's why feudal worlds such as Kwashi have to be kept out of the Federation—can you imagine a bunch of these yahoos in command of an interstellar dreadnaught? No one's got the time or the money to reeducate them so they just have to be left alone to work out their own little industrial revolution and so forth. When they're ready, the Fedwill give them the option of joining up."

"Ho, Mercenary!" someone hailed from .the keep gate. "What do you seek in Bendelema?"

"Have I changed that much, Farri?" Dalt answered.

The guard peered at him intensely from the wall, then his face brightened. "Racso! Enter and be welcome! The Duke has need of men of your mettle."

Farri, a swarthy trooper who had gained a few pounds and a few scars since their last meeting, greeted him as he passed through the open gate. "Where's your mount, Racso?" he grinned. "You were never one to walk when you could ride."

"Broke its leg in a ditch more miles back than I care to remember. Had to kill it . . . good steed, too."

"That's a shame. But the Duke'll see that you get a new one."

* * *

Dalt's audience with the Duke was disturbingly brief. The lord of the keep had not been as enthusiastic as expected. Dalt couldn't decide whether to put the man's reticence down to distraction with other matters or suspicion. His son Anthon was a different matter, however. He was truly glad to see Racso.

"Come," he said after mutual greetings were over. "We'll put you in the room next to mine upstairs."

"For a mercenary?"

"For my teacher!" Anthon had filled out since Dalt had seen him last. He had spent many hours with the lad passing on the tricks of the blade he had learned in his own training days. "I've used your training well, Racso!"

"I hope you didn't stop learning when I left," Dalt said.

"Come down to the sparring field and you'll see that I've not been lax in your absence. I'm a match for you now."

* * *

He was more than a match. What he lacked in skill and subtlety he made up for with sheer ferocity. Dalt was several times hard pressed to defend himself, but in the general stroke-and-parry, give-and-take exercises of the practice session he studied Anthon. The lad was still the same as he had remembered him on the surface: bold, confident, the Duke's only legitimate son and heir to Bendelema, yet there was a new undercurrent. Anthon had always been brutish and a trifle cruel, perfect qualities for a future feudal lord, but there was now an added note of desperation. Dalt hadn't noticed it before and could think of no reason for its presence now. Anthon's position was secure—what was driving him?

After the workout, Dalt immersed himself in a huge tub of hot water, a habit that had earned him the reputation of being a little bit odd the last time around, and then retired to his quarters where he promptly fell asleep. The morning's long walk carrying the saddle followed by the vigorous swordplay with Anthon had drained him.

He awoke feeling stiff and sore. (I hope those aching muscles cause you sufficient misery.)

"Why do you say that, Pard?" Dalt asked as he kneaded the muscles in his sword arm.

(Because you weren't ready for a workout like that. The clumsy practicing you did on the ship didn't prepare you for someone like Anthon. It's all right if you want to make yourself sore, but don't forget I feel it, too!)

"Well, just cut off pain sensations. You can do it, can't you?"

(Yes, but that's almost as unpleasant as the aching itself)

"You'll just have to suffer along with me then. And by the way, you're quiet today. What's up?"

(I've been observing, comparing your past impressions of Bendelema keep with what we see now. Either you're a rotten observer or something's going on here . . . something suspicious or something secret or I don't know what.)

"What do you mean by 'rotten observer'?"

(I mean that either your past observations were inaccurate or Bendelema has changed)

"In what way?"

(I'm not quite sure as yet but I should know before long. I'm a far more astute observer than you—)

Dalt threw his hands up with a groan. "Not only do I have a live-in busybody, but an arrogant one to boot!"

There was a knock on the door. "Come in," Dalt said.

The door opened and Anthon entered. He glanced about the room. "You're alone? I thought I heard you talking—"

"A bad habit of mine of late," Dalt explained hastily. "I think out loud."

Anthon shrugged. "The evening meal will soon be served and I've ordered that a place be set for you at my father's table. Come."

As he followed the younger man down a narrow flight of roughhewn steps, Dalt caught the heavy, unmistakable scent of Kwashi wine.

A tall, cadaverous man inclined his head as they passed into the dining hall. "Hello, Strench," Dalt said with a smile. "Still the majordomo, I see."

"As long as His Lordship allows," Strench replied.

The Duke himself entered not far behind them and all present remained standing until His Lordship was seated. Dalt found himself near the head of the table and guessed by the ruffled appearance of a few of the court advisers that they had been pushed a little farther from the seat of power than they liked.

"I must thank His Lordship for the honor of allowing a mercenary to sup at his table," Dalt said after a court official had made the customary toast to Bendelema and the Duke's longevity.

"Nonsense, Racso," the Duke replied. "You served me well against Tependia and you've always taken a wholesome interest in my son. You know you will always find welcome in Bendelema."

Dalt inclined his head.

(Why are you bowing and scraping to this slob?)

Shut up, Pard! It's all part of the act, Dalt told him.

(But don't you realize how many serfs this barbarian oppresses?)

Shut up, self-righteous parasite!

(Symbiote!)

Dalt rose to his feet and lifted his wine cup. "On the subject of your son, I would like to make a toast to the future Duke of Bendelema: Anthon."

With a sudden animal-like cry, Anthon shot to his feet and hurled his cup to the stone floor. Without a word of explanation, he stormed from the room.

The other diners were as puzzled as Dalt. "Perhaps I said the wrong thing . . ."

"I don't know what it could have been," the Duke said, his eyes on the red splotch of spilled wine that seeped across the stones. "But Anthon has been acting rather strange of late."

Dalt sat down and raised his cup to his lips.

(I wouldn't quaff too deeply of that beverage, my sharp-tongued partner.)

And why not? Dalt thought, casually resting his lips on the brim.

(Because I think there's something in your wine that's not in any of the others' and I think we should be careful.)

What makes you suspicious?

(I told you your powers of observation needed sharpening.)

Never mind that! Explain!

(All right. I noticed that your cup was already filled when it was put before you; everyone else's was poured from that brass pitcher.)

That doesn't sound good, Dalt agreed. He started to put the cup down.

(Don't do that! Just wet your lips with a tiny amount and I think I might be able to analyze it by its effect. A small amount shouldn't cause any real harm.)

Dalt did so and waited.

(Well, at least they don't mean you any serious harm,) Pard said finally. (Not yet.)

What is it?

(An alkaloid, probably from some local root.)

What's it supposed to do to me?

(Put you out of the picture for the rest of the night.)

Dalt pondered this. I wonder what for?

(I haven't the faintest. But while they're all still distracted by Anthon's departure, I suggest you pour your wine out on the floor immediately. It will mix with Anthon's and no one will be the wiser. You may then proceed to amaze these yokels with your continuing consciousness.)

I have a better idea, Dalt thought as he poured the wine along the outside of his boot so that it would strike the floor in a smooth silent flow instead of a noisy splash. I'll wait a few minutes and then pass out.

Maybe that way we'll find out what they've got in mind.

(Sounds risky.)

Nevertheless, that's what we'll do.

* * *

Dalt decided to make the most of the time he had left before passing out. "You know," he said, feigning a deep swallow of wine, "I saw a bright light streak across the sky last night. It fell to earth far beyond the horizon. I've heard tales lately of such a light coming to rest in this region; some even say it landed in Bendelema itself. Is this true or merely the mutterings of vassals in their cups?"

The table chatter ceased abruptly. So did all eating and drinking. Every face at the table stared in Dalt's direction.

"Why do you ask this, Racso?" the Duke said. The curtain of suspicion which had seemed to vanish at the beginning of the meal had again been drawn closed between Racso and the Duke.

Dalt decided it was time for his exit. "My only interest, Your Lordship, is in the idle tales I've heard. I . . ." He half rose from his seat and put a hand across his eyes. "I . . ." Carefully, he allowed himself to slide to the floor.

"Carry him upstairs," said the Duke.

"Why don't we put an end to his meddling now, Your Lordship," suggested one of the advisers.

"Because he's a friend of Anthon's and he may well mean us no harm. We will know tomorrow."

With little delicacy and even less regard for his physical well-being, Dalt was carried up to his room and unceremoniously dumped on the bed. The heavy sound of the hardwood door slamming shut was followed by the click of a key in the lock.

Dalt sprang up and checked the door. The key had been taken from the inside and left in the lock after being turned.

(So much for that bright idea,) Pard commented caustically.

"None of your remarks, if you please,"

(What do we do, now that we're confined to quarters for the rest of the night?)

"What else?" Dalt said. He kicked off his boots, removed breastplate, jerkin and breeches and hopped into bed.

The door was unlocked the next morning and Dalt made his way downstairs as unobtrusively as possible. Strench's cell-like quarters were just off the kitchen if memory served . . . yes, there it was. And Strench was nowhere about.

(What do you think you're doing?)

I'm doing my best to make sure we don't get stuck up there in that room again tonight, Dalt informed him. His gaze came to rest on the large board where Strench kept all the duplicate keys for the locks of the keep.

(I begin to understand.)

Slow this morning, aren't you? Dalt took the duplicate key to his room off its hook and replaced it with another similar key from another part of the board. Strench might realize at some time during the day that a key was missing but he'd be looking for the wrong one.

Dalt ran into the majordomo moments later.

"His Lordship wishes to see you, Racso," he said stiffly.

"Where is he?"

"On the North Wall."

(This could be a critical moment.)

"Why do you say that, Pard?" Dalt muttered.

(Remember last night, after you pulled your dramatic collapsing act? The Duke said something about finding out about you today.)

"And you think this could be it?"

(Could be. I'm not sure, of course, but I'm glad you have that dagger in your belt.)

The Duke was alone on the wall and greeted Dalt/Racso as warmly as his aloof manner would permit after the latter apologized for "drinking too much" the night before.

"I'm afraid I have a small confession to make," the Duke said.

"Yes, Your Lordship?"

"I suspected you of treachery when you first arrived." He held up a gloved hand as Dalt opened his mouth to reply. "Don't protest your innocence. I've just heard from a spy in the Tependian court and he says you have not set foot in Tependia since your mysterious disappearance years ago."

Dalt hung his head. "I am grieved, M'lord."

"Can you blame me, Racso? Everyone knows that you hire out to the, highest bidder and Tependia has taken an inordinate interest in what goes on in Bendelema lately, even to the extent of sending raiding parties into our territory to carry off some of my vassals."

"Why would they want to do that?"

The Duke puffed up with pride. "Because Bendelema has become a land of plenty. As you know, the last harvest was plentiful everywhere; and, as usual, the present crop is stunted everywhere . . . except in Bendelema." Dalt didn't know that but he nodded anyway. So only Bendelema was having a second bumper crop—that was interesting.

"I suppose you have learned some new farming methods and Tependia wants to steal them," Dalt suggested.

"That and more," the Duke nodded. "We also have new storage methods and new planting methods. When the next famine comes, we shall overcome Tependia not with swords and firebrands, but with food! The starving Tependians will leave their lord and Bendelema will extend its boundaries!"

Dalt was tempted to say that if the Tependians were snatching up vassals and stealing Bendelema's secrets, there just might not be another famine. But the Duke was dreaming of empire and it is not always wise for a mere mercenary to interrupt a duke's dreams of empire. Dalt remained silent as the Duke stared at the horizon he soon hoped to own. The rest of the day was spent in idle search of rumors and by the dinner hour Dalt was sure of one thing: the ship had crashed or landed in the clearing he had inspected a few days before. More than that was known but the Bendeleman locals were keeping it to themselves—yes, I saw the light come down; no, I saw nothing else.

* * *

Anthon again offered him a seat at the head table and Dalt accepted. When the Duke was toasted, Dalt took only a tiny sip.

What's the verdict, Pard?

(Same as last night.)

I wonder what this is all about? They don't drug me at lunch or breakfast—why only at dinner?

(Tonight we'll try to find out.)

Since there was no outburst from Anthon this time, Dalt was hard put to find a way to get rid of his drugged wine. He finally decided to feign a collapse again and spill his cup in the process, hoping to hide the fact that he had taken only a few drops.

After slumping forward on the table, he listened intently.

"How long is this to go on, Father? How can we drug him every night without arousing his suspicions?" It was Anthon's voice.

"As long as you insist on quartering him here instead of with the other men at arms!" the Duke replied angrily. "We cannot have him wandering about during the nightly services. He's an outsider and must not learn of the godling!"

Anthon's voice was sulky. "Very well . . . I'll have him moved out to the barracks tomorrow."

"I'm sorry, Anthon," the Duke said in a milder tone. "I know he's a friend of yours but the godling must come before a mercenary."

(I have a pretty good idea of the nature of this godling,) Pard said as Dalt/Racso was carried upstairs.

The brain? I was thinking that, too. But how would the brain communicate with these people? The prototype wasn't set up for it.

(Why do you drag in communication? Isn't it enough that it came from heaven?)

No. The brain doesn't look godlike in the least. It would have to communicate with the locals before they'd deify it. Otherwise the crash of the ship would be just another fireside tale for the children.

* * *

In a rerun of the previous night's events, Dalt was dumped on his bed and the door was locked from the outside. He waited a few long minutes until everything was silent beyond the door, then he poked the duplicate key into the lock. The original was pushed out on the other side and landed on the stone floor with a nightmarishly loud clang. But no other sounds followed so Dalt twisted his own key and slinked down the hall to the stairway that overlooked the dining area.

Empty. The plates hadn't even been cleared away.

"Now where'd everybody go?" Dalt muttered.

(Quiet! Hear those voices?)

Dalt moved down the stairs, listening. A muted chanting seemed to fill the chamber. A narrow door stood open to his left and the chanting grew louder as he approached it.

This is it . . . they must have gone through here.

The passage within, hewn from earth and rock, led downward and Dalt followed it. Widely-spaced torches sputtered flickering light against the rough walls and the chanting grew louder as he moved.

Can you make out what they're saying?

(Something about the sacred objects, half of which must be placed in communion with the sun one day and the other half placed in communion with the sun the next day . . . a continuous cycle.)

The chant suddenly ended.

(It appears the litany is over. We had better go back.)

No, we're hiding right here. The brain is no doubt in there and I want to get back to civilization as soon as possible.

Dalt crouched in a shadowed sulcus in the wall and watched as the procession passed, the Duke in the lead carrying some cloth-covered objects held out before him, Anthon sullenly following. The court advisers plucked the torches from the walls as they moved, but Dalt noticed that light still bled from the unexplored end of the passage. He sidled along the wall toward it after the others had passed.

He was totally unprepared for the sight that greeted his eyes as he entered the terminal alcove.

It was surreal. The vaulted subterranean chamber was strewn with the wreckage of the lost cargo ship. Huge pieces of twisted metal lay stacked against the walls, smaller pieces hung suspended from the ceiling. And foremost and center, nearly indistinguishable from the other junk, sat the silvery life-support apparatus of the brain, as high as a man and twice as broad.

And atop that—the brain, a ball of neural tissue floating in a nutrient bath within a crystalline globe.

(You can't hear him, can you?) Pard said.

"Him? Him who?"

(The brain—it pictures itself as a him—did manage to communicate with the locals. You were right about that.)

"What are you talking about?"

(It's telepathic, Steve, and my presence in your brain seems to have blocked your reception. I sensed a few impulses back in the passage but I wasn't sure until it greeted us.)

"What's it saying?"

(The obvious: it wants to know who we are and what we want.) There was a short pause. (Oh, oh! I just told it that we're here to take it back to Star Ways and it let out a telepathic emergency call—a loud one. Don't be surprised if we have company in a few minutes.)

"Great! Now what do we do?" Dalt fingered the dagger in his belt as he pondered the situation. It was already too late to run and he didn't want to have to blast his way out. His eyes rested on the globe.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Pard, but I seem to remember something about the globe being removable."

(Yes, it can be separated from the life-support system for about two hours with no serious harm to the brain.)

"That's just about all we'd need to get it back to the mother ship and hooked up to another unit."

(He's quite afraid, Steve,) Pard said as Dalt began to disconnect the globe. (By the way, I've figured out that little litany we just heard: the sacred objects that are daily put in 'communion with the sun' are solar batteries. Half are charged one day, half the next. That's how he keeps himself going.)

Dalt had just finished stoppering the globe's exchange ports when the Duke and his retinue arrived in a noisy, disorganized clatter.

"Racso!" the Duke cried on sight of him. "So you've betrayed us after all!"

"I'm sorry," Dalt said, "but this belongs to someone else."

Anthon lunged to the front. "Treacherous scum! And 1 called you friend!" As the youth's hand reached for his sword hilt, Dalt raised the globe.

"Stay your hand, Anthon! If any of you try to bar my way, I'll smash this globe and your godling with it!" The Duke blanched and laid a restraining hand on his son's shoulder. "I didn't come here with the idea of stealing something from you but steal it I must. I regret the necessity." Dalt wasn't lying. He felt, justifiably, that he had betrayed a trust and it didn't sit well with him but he kept reminding himself that the brain belonged to Star Ways and he was only returning it to them.

(I hope your threat holds them,) Pard said. (If they consider the possibilities they'll realize that if they jump you, they'll lose their godling; but if they let you go, they lose it anyway.)

At that moment, Anthon voiced this same conclusion but still his father restrained him. "Let him take the godling, my son. It has aided us with its wisdom, the least we can do is guarantee it safe passage."

Dalt grabbed one of the retainers. "You run ahead and ready me a horse—a good one!" He watched him go, then slowly followed the passage back to the dining area. The Duke and his group remained behind in the alcove.

"I wonder what kind of plot they're hatching against me now?" Dalt whispered. "Imagine! All the time I spent here never guessing they were telepaths!"

(They're not, Steve.)

"Then how do they communicate with this thing?" he said, glancing at the globe under his arm.

(The brain is an exceptionally strong sender and receiver, that's the secret. These folk are no more telepathic than anyone else.)

Dalt was relieved to find the horse waiting and the gate open. The larger of Kwashi's two moons was well above the horizon and Dalt took the most direct route to his hidden shuttlecraft.

(Just a minute, Steve,) Pard said as Dalt dismounted near the ship's hiding place. (We seem to have a moral dilemma on our hands.)

"What's that?" Pard had been silent during the entire trip.

(I've been talking to the brain and I think it's become a little more than just a piloting device.)

"Possibly. It crashed, discovered it was telepathic and tried to make the best of the situation. We're returning it. What's the dilemma?"

(It didn't crash. It sounded the alarm to get rid of the technician and brought the ship down on purpose. And it doesn't want to go back.)

"Well, it hasn't got much choice in the matter. It was made by Star Ways and that's where it's going."

(Steve, it's pleading with us!)

"Pleading?"

(Yes. Look, you're still thinking of this thing as a bunch of neurons put together to pilot a ship, but it's developed into something more than that. It's now a being, and a thinking, reasoning, volitional one at that! It's no longer a biomechanism, it's an intelligent creature!)

"So you're a philosopher now, is that it?"

(Tell me, Steve. What's Barre going to do when he gets his hands on it?) Dalt didn't want to answer that. (He's no doubt going to dissect it, isn't he?)

"He might not . . . not after he learns it's intelligent."

(Then let's suppose Barre doesn't dissect him—I mean it . . . no, I mean him. Never mind. If Barre allows it to live, the rest of its life will be spent as an experimental subject. Is that right? Are we justified in delivering it up for that?)

Dalt didn't answer.

(It's not causing any harm. As a matter of fact, it may well help put Kwashi on a quicker road back to civilization. It wants no power. It memorized the ship's library before it crashed and it was extremely happy down there in that alcove doling out information about fertilizer and crop rotation and so forth and having its batteries charged every day.)

"I'm touched," Dalt muttered sarcastically.

(Joke if you will, but I don't take this lightly.)

"Do you have to be so self-righteous?"

(I'll say no more. You can leave the globe here and the brain will be able to telepathically contact the keep and they'll come out and get it.)

"And what do I tell Clarkson?"

(Simply tell him the truth up to the final act and then say that the globe was smashed at the keep when they tried to jump you and you barely escaped with your life.)

"That may kill the brain project, you know. Retrieval of the brain is vital to its continuance."

(That may be so, but it's a risk we'll have to take. If, however, your report states that the brain we were after had developed a consciousness and self- preservation tendencies, a lot of academic interest will surely be generated and research will go on, one way or the other.)

Much to his dismay, Dalt found himself agreeing with Pard, teetering on the brink of gently placing the globe in the grass and walking away, saying to hell with Star Ways.

(It's still pleading with us, Steve. Like a child.)

"All right, dammit!"

Cursing himself for a sucker and a softy, Dalt walked a safe distance from the shuttlecraft and put the globe down.

"But there's a few things we've got to do before we leave here."

(Like what?)

"Like filling in our little friend here on some of the basics of feudal culture, something that I'm sure was not contained in his ship's library."

(He'll learn from experience.)

"That's what I'm afraid of. Without a clear understanding of Kwashi's feudal structure, his aid to Bendelema might well unbalance the whole social structure. An overly prosperous duchy is either overcome by jealous, greedy neighbors, or it uses its prosperity to build an army and pursue a plan of conquest. Either course could prove fatal to the brain and further hinder Kwashi's chances for social and technological rehabilitation."

(So what's your plan?)

"A simple one: you'll take all I know about Kwashi and feudalism and feed it to the brain. And you can stress the necessity of finding a means for wider dissemination of its knowledge, such as telepathically dropping bits of information into the heads of passing merchants, minstrels and vagabonds. If this prosperity can be spread out over a wide area, there'll be less chance of social upheaval. All of Kwashi will benefit in the long run."

Pard complied and began the feeding process. The brain had a voracious appetite for information and the process was soon completed. As Dalt rose to his feet, he heard a rustling in the bushes. Looking up he saw Anthon striding toward him with a bared sword:

"I've decided to return the godling to Bendelema," Dalt stammered lamely.

Anthon stopped. "I don't want the filthy thing! As a matter of fact, I intend to smash it as soon as I finish with you!" There was a look of incredible hatred in his eyes, the look of a young man who has discovered that his friend and admired instructor is a treacherous thief.

"But the godling has seen to it that no one in Bendelema will ever again go hungry!" Dalt said. "Why destroy it?"

"Because it has also seen to it that no one in the court of Bendelema will ever look up to me as Duke!"

"They look up to your father. Why not you in your turn?"

"They look up to my father out of habit!" he snarled. "But it is the godling who is the source of authority in Bendelema! And when my father is gone, I shall be nothing but a puppet."

Dalt now understood Anthon's moodiness: the brain threatened his position.

"So you followed me not in spite of my threat to smash the godling but because of it!"

Anthon nodded and began advancing again. "I also had a score to settle with you, Racso! I couldn't allow you to betray my trust and the trust of my father and go unpunished!" With the last word he aimed a vicious chop at Dalt, who ducked, spun and dodged out of the way. He had not been wearing his sword when he left his room back at the keep and consequently did not have it with him now. But he had the dagger.

Anthon laughed at the sight of the tiny blade. "Think you can stop me with that?"

If you only knew! Dalt thought. He didn't want to use the blaster, however. He understood Anthon's feelings. If there were only some way he could stun him and make his escape.

Anthon attacked ferociously now and Dalt was forced to backpeddle. His foot caught on a stone and as he fell he instinctively threw his free hand out for balance. The ensuing events seemed to occur in slow motion. He felt a jarring, crushing, cutting, agonizing pain in his left wrist and saw Anthon's blade bite through it. The hand flew off as if with a life of its own and a pulsing stream of red shot into the air. Dalt's right hand, too, seemed to take on a life of its own as it reversed the dagger, pointed the butt of the hilt at Anthon and pressed the hidden stud. An energy bolt, blinding in the darkness, struck him in the chest and he went down without a sound.

Dalt grabbed his forearm. "My hand!" he screamed in agony and horror.

(Give me control!) Pard said urgently.

"My hand!" was all Dalt could say.

(GIVE ME CONTROL!)

Dalt was jolted by this, relaxed for a second and suddenly found himself an observer in his own body. His right hand dropped the dagger and cupped itself firmly over the bleeding stump, the thumb and fingers dug into the flesh of his forearm, searching for pressure points on the arteries.

His legs straightened as he rose to his feet and calmly walked toward the concealed shuttlecraft His elbows parted the bushes and jabbed the plate that operates the door to the outer lock."

(I'm glad you didn't lock this up yesterday,) Pard said as the port swung open. There was a first-aid emergency kit inside for situations such as this. The pinky of his right hand was spared from its pressure duty to flip open the lid of the kit and then a container of stat-gel. The right hand suddenly released its grasp and, amidst a spatter of blood, the stump of his left arm was forcefully shoved into the gel and held there.

(That should stop the bleeding.) The gel had an immediate clotting effect on any blood that came into contact with it. The thrombus formed was firm and tough, thereby greatly reducing the threat of embolism.

Rising, Dalt discovered that his body was his own again. He stumbled outside, weak and disoriented.

"You saved my life, Pard," he mumbled finally. "When I looked at that stump with the blood shooting out, I couldn't move."

(I saved our life, Steve.)

He walked over to where Anthon lay with a smoking hole where his chest had been. "I wished to avoid that. It wasn't really fair, you know. He only had a sword . . ." Dalt was not quite himself yet. The events of the last minute had not yet been fully absorbed.

(Fair, hell! What does 'fair" mean when someone's trying to kill you?)

But Dalt didn't seem to hear. He began searching the ground. "My hand! Where's my hand? If we bring it back maybe they can replace it!"

(Not a chance, Steve. Necrosis will be in full swing by the time we get to the mother ship.)

Dalt sat down. The situation was finally sinking in. "Oh, well," he said resignedly. "They're doing wonderful things with prosthetics these days."

(Prosthetics! We'll grow a new one!)

Dalt paused before answering. "A new hand?"

(Of course! You've still got deposits of omnipotential mesenchymal cells here and there in your body. I'll just have them transported to the area and with me guiding the process there'll be no problem to rebuilding the hand. It's really too bad you humans have no conscious control over the physiology of your bodies. With the proper direction, the human body is capable of almost anything.)

"You mean I'll have my hand back? Good as new?"

(Good as new. But at the moment I suggest we get into the ship and depart. The brain has called the Duke and it might be a good thing if we weren't here when he arrived.)

"You know," Dalt said as he entered the shuttlecraft and let the port swing to a close behind him, "with you watching over my body, I could live to a ripe old age."

(All I have to do is keep up with the degenerative changes and you'll live forever.)

Dalt stopped in midstride. "Forever?"

(Of course. The old natives of this planet knew it when they made that warning for their children: "Of every thousand struck down, nine hundred and ninety-nine will die." The obvious conclusion is that the thousandth victim will not die.)

"Ever?"

(Well, there's not much I can do if you catch an energy bolt in the chest like Anthon back there. But otherwise, you won't die of old age—I'll see to that. You won't even get old, for that matter.)

The immensity of what Pard was saying suddenly struck Dalt with full force.

"In other words," he breathed, "I'm immortal."

(I'd prefer a different pronoun: We are immortal.)

"I don't believe it."

(I don't care what you believe. I'm going to keep you alive for a long, long time, Steve, because while you live, I live, and I've grown very fond of living.)

Dalt did not move, did not make a reply.

(Well, what are you waiting for? There's a whole galaxy of worlds out there just waiting to be seen and experienced and I'm getting damn sick of this one!)

Dalt smiled. "What's the hurry?"

There was a pause, then: (You've got a point there, Steve. There's really no hurry at all. We've got all the time in the world. Literally!).

THE SOUND OF BLUNDER

THE SOUND OF BLUNDER

"We're dead! We're freakin' dead!"

Mick Brady, known by the criminal underground of Arkham, Pennsylvania, as "Mick the Mick," threw the remains of his shrimp egg foo yung across the cellar, then held a shaking fist in front of Willie Corrigan's face. Willie recoiled like a dog accustomed to being kicked.

"I'm sorry, Mick!" Willie said through a mouthful of General Tso's chicken.

Mick the Mick cocked his fist and realized that smacking Willie wasn't going to help their situation. He smacked him anyway, a punch to the gut that made the larger man double over and grunt like a pig.

"Jesus, Mick! You hit me in my hernia! You know I got a bulge there!"

Mick the Mick grabbed a shock of Willie's greasy brown hair and jerked back his head so they were staring eye to eye.

"What do you think Nate the Nose is going to do to us when he finds out we lost his shit? We're not going to be eating takeout from Lo's Garden, Willie. We're both going to be eating San Francisco Hot Dogs."

Willie's eyes got wide. Apparently the idea of having his dick cut off, boiled, and fed to him on a bun with a side of fries was several times worse than a whack to the hernia.

"We'll... we'll tell him the truth." He shoved a handful of fried noodles into his mouth and crunched out, "Maybe he'll understand."

"You want to tell the biggest mobster in the state that your Nana used a key of uncut Colombian to make a pound cake?"

"It was an accident," Willie whined. "She thought it was flour. Hey, is that a spider on the wall? Spiders give me the creeps, Mick. Why do they need eight legs? Other bugs only got six."

Mick the Mick realized that hitting Willie again wouldn't help anything. He hit him anyway, a slap across his face that echoed off the concrete floor and walls of Willie's basement.

"Jesus, Mick! You hit me in my bad tooth! You know I got a cavity there! Hey, did you eat all the duck sauce? Is duck sauce made from duck, Mick? It don't taste like duck."

Mick the Mick was considering where he would belt his friend next, even though it wasn't doing either of them any good, when he heard the basement door open.

"You boys playing nice down there?"

"Yes, Nana," Willie called up the stairs. He nudged Mick the Mick and whispered, "Tell Nana yes.'"

Mick the Mick rolled his eyes, but managed to say, "Yes, Nana."

"Would you like some pound cake? It didn't turn out very well for some reason, but Bruno seems to like it."

Bruno was Willie's dog, an elderly beagle with hip dysplasia. He tore down the basement stairs, ran eighteen quick laps around Mick the Mick and Willie, and then barreled, at full speed, face-first into the wall, knocking himself out. Mick the Mick watched as the dog's tiny chest rose and fell with the speed of a weed whacker.

"No thanks, Nana," Mick the Mick said.

"It's on the counter, if you want any. Good night, boys."

"Night, Nana," they answered in unison.

Mick the Mick wondered how the hell they could get out of this mess. Maybe there was some way to separate the coke from the cake, using chemicals and stuff. But they wouldn't be able to do it themselves. That meant telling Nate the Nose, which meant San Francisco Hot Dogs. In his twenty-four years since birth, Mick the Mick had grown very attached to his penis. He'd miss it something awful.

"We could sell the cake," Willie said.

"You think someone is going to pay sixty thousand bucks for a pound cake?"

"I dunno. Maybe. Some people ain't so bright."

Truer words were never spoken, Mick the Mick thought.

"No junkie is going to snort baked goods, Willie. Ain't gonna happen."

"So what should we do? I—hey, did you hear if the Phillies won? Phillies got more legs than a spider. And you know what? They catch flies, too! That's a joke, Mick."

"Shaddup. I need to think."

"Okay. I don't think I like the Phillies anymore. Are they called Phillies because they're all named Phil? I think—hey, we got fortune cookies. Lemme see my fortune."

He cracked open a cookie and pulled out a slip of paper.

"Look, it says, 'You are very wise.' I always think it's funny to add 'in bed' after a fortune. That means mine is, 'You are very wise in bed! Ain't that funny, Mick?"

"A freakin' riot, Willie. Now let me think."

Willie tossed Mick the Mick a cookie. "Open yours, Mick! Open yours!"

"How about instead I open your skull with a ball-peen hammer?"

"Do I got a fortune in my skull, Mick?" Mick the Mick cast his eyes about the basement for some sort of bludgeon, but the basement was unfortunately bludgeon-free. So he decided to open the damn cookie. Anything to shut Willie up. "What's it say, Mick?" " 'You will change the world.' Yeah, right." "No!" Willie shouted. " 'You will change the world in bed'!"  Mick the Mick couldn't think of an appropriate response, so he rabbit-punched Willie. Even though it didn't solve anything.

"Jesus, Mick! You hit my kidney! You know I got a stone there!"

Mick the Mick turned away, rubbing his temples, willing an idea to come.

"That one really hurt, Mick." Mick the Mick shushed him. "I mean it. I'm gonna be pissing red for a week." "Quiet, Willie. Lemme think." "It looks like cherry Kool-Aid. And it burns, Mick. Burns like fire."

Mick the Mick snapped his fingers. Fire, ,   "That's it, Willie. Fire. Your house is insured, right?"

"I guess so. Hey, do you think there's any of yesterday's pizza left? I like pepperoni. That's a fun word to say. 'Pepperoni.' It rhymes with 'lonely.' You think pepperoni gets lonely, Mick?"

To help Willie focus, Mick the Mick kicked him in his bum leg, even though it really didn't help him focus much.

"Jesus, Mick! You know I got the gout!" "Pay attention, Willie. We burn down the house, collect the insurance, and pay off Nate the Nose." Willie rubbed his shin, wincing. "But where's Nana supposed to live, Mick?" "I hear the Miskatonic Nursing Home is a lot nicer, now that they arrested the guy who was making all the old people wear dog collars."

"I can't put Nana in a nursing home, Mick!" "Would you rather be munching on your vein sausage? Nate the Nose makes you eat the whole thing, or else you also get served a side of meatballs."

Willie folded his arms. "I won't do it. And I won't let you do it." "Woof!"

Bruno the beagle sprang to his feet, ran sixteen laps around the men, then tore up the stairs.

"Bruno!" they heard Nana chide. "Get off the counter! You've had enough pound cake!"

Mick the Mick put his face in his hands, very close to tears. The last time he cried was ten years ago, when Nate the Nose ordered him to break his mother's thumbs because she was late with a loan payment. When he tried, Mom had stabbed Mick with a meat thermometer. That hurt, but not as much as a wienerectomy would.

"Maybe we can leave town," Willie said, putting a hand on Mick the Mick's shoulder.

That left Willie's kidney exposed. Mick the Mick took advantage, even though it didn't help their situation.

Willie fell to his knees. Bruno the beagle flew down the stairs, straddled Willie's calf, and began to hump so fast his little doggie hips were a blur.

Mick the Mick began searching the basement for something flammable. As it often happened in life, arson was really the only way out. He found a can of paint thinner on a dusty metal shelf and worked the top with his thumbnail.

"Bruno, no! Mick, no!"

Mick couldn't get it open. He tried his teeth.

"You can't burn my house down, Mick! All my stuff is here! Like my comics! We used to collect comics when we were kids, Mick! Don't you remember?"

Willie reached for a box, dug out a torn copy of Amazing Spider-Man #146, and traced his finger up and down the Scorpion's tail in a way that made Mick the Mick uncomfortable. So he reached out, slapped at Willie's bad tooth. Willie dropped the comic and curled up fetal, and Bruno the beagle abandoned the calf for the loftier possibilities of Willie's head.

Mick managed to pop the top on the can and he began to sprinkle mineral spirits on some cartons labeled "Precious Photos & Memories."

Willie   moaned   something   unintelligible   through closed lips—he was probably afraid to open his mouth until he disengaged Bruno the beagle. "Mmphp-muummph-mooeoemmum!" "We don't have a choice, Willie. The only way out of this is fire. Beautiful, cleansing fire. If there's money left over, we'll bribe the orderlies so Nana doesn't get abused. At least not as much as the others."

"Mick!" Willie cried. It came out "Mibb!" because Bruno the beagle had taken advantage. Willie gagged, shoving the dog away. Bruno the beagle ran around Willie seven times, then flew up the stairs.

"Bruno!" they heard Nana chide. "Naughty dog! Not when we have company over!"

Willie hacked and spit, then sat up. "A heist, Mick. We could do a heist." "No way," Mick the Mick said. "Remember what happened to Jimmy the Spleen? Tried to knock over a WaMu in Pittsburgh. Cops shot his ass off. His whole ass. You want one of them creepy poop bags hanging on your belt?

Freaks me out."

Willie wiped a sleeve across his tongue. "Not a bank,

Mick. The Arkham Museum."

"The museum?"

"They got all kinds of expensive old stuff. And it ain't guarded at night. I bet we could break in there, get away with all sorts of pricey antiques. I think they got like a T. rex skull. That could be worth a million bucks. If I had a million bucks, I'd buy some scuba gear, so I could go deep diving on shipwrecks and try to find some treasure so I could be rich."

"You think Tommy the Fence is going to buy a T. rex skull? How we even gonna get it out of there, Willie? You gonna put it in your pocket?"

"They got other stuff, too, Mick. Maybe gold and gems and stamps."

"I got a stamp for you."

"Jesus, Mick! My toe! You know I got that infected ingrown!"

Mick the Mick was ready to offer seconds, but he stopped midstomp.

"You ever been to the museum, Willie?"

" 'Course not. You?"

"Nah."

But maybe it wasn't a totally suck-awful idea.

"What about the alarms?"

"We can get past those, no problem. Hey, you think I need a haircut? If I look up, I can see my bangs."

Willie did just that. Mick the Mick stared at the cardboard boxes, soaked with paint thinner. He wanted to light them up, watch them burn. But insurance took forever. There were investigations, forms to fill out, waiting periods.

But if they went to the museum and pinched something small and expensive, chances are they could turn it around in a day or two. The faster they could pay off Nate the Nose, the safer Little Mick and the Twins.

"Okay, Willie. We'll give it a try. But if it don't work, we torch Nana's house. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

Mick the Mick extended his hand. Willie reached for it, leaving his hernia bulge unprotected. Now that they had a plan, it served absolutely no purpose to hit Willie again.

He hit him anyway.

"I don't like it in here, Mick," Willie said as they entered the great central hall of the Arkham, Pennsylvania, Museum of Natural History and Baseball Cards.

Mick the Mick gave him a look, which was pretty useless since Willie couldn't see his face and he couldn't see Willie's. The only things they could see were whatever lay at the end of their flashlight beams.

* * *

Getting in had been a walk. Literally. The front doors were unlocked. And no alarm. Really weird. Unless the museum had stopped locking up because nobody ever came here. Mick the Mick had lived in Arkham all his life and never met anyone who'd ever come here except on a class trip. Made a kind of sense then not to bother with locks. Nobody came during the day when the lights were on, so why would anyone want to come when the lights were out? Which made Mick the Mick a little nervous about finding anything valuable.

"It's just a bunch of rooms filled with loads of old crap."

Willie's voice shook. "Old stuff scares me. Especially this old stuff."

"Why?"

" 'Cause it's old and—hey, can we stop at Burger Pile on the way home?"

"Focus, Willie. You gotta focus."

"I like picking off the sesame seeds and making them fight wars."

Mick the Mick took a swing at him and missed in the dark.

Suddenly the lights went on. They were caught. Mick the Mick feared prison almost as much as he feared Nate the Nose. He was small for his size, and unfortunately blessed with perfectly shaped buttocks. The cons would trade him around like cigarettes.

Mick the Mick ducked into a crouch, hands above his head. He saw Willie standing by a big arched doorway with his hand on a light switch.

"There," Willie said, grinning. "That's better."

Mick wanted to punch his hernia again, but he was too far away.

"Put those out!"

Willie stepped away from the wall toward one of the displays. "Hey, look at this."

Mick the Mick realized the damage had been done. Sooner or later someone would come to investigate. Okay, maybe not, but they couldn't risk it. They'd have to move fast.

He looked up and saw a banner proclaiming the name of the exhibit: elder gods and lost races of south:

CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA!

"What's this?" Willie said, leaning over a display case. Suddenly a deep voice boomed: "WELCOME!" Willie cried, "Whoa!" and Mick the Mick jumped— high enough so that if he'd been holding a basketball he could have made his first dunk.

Soon as he recovered, he did a thorough three-sixty, but saw no one else but Willie.

"What you see before you," the voice continued, "is a rare artifact that once belonged to an ancient lost race that dwelled in the Arkham area during prehistoric times. This, like every other ancient artifact in this room, was excavated from a site near the Arkham landfill."

After recovering from another near dunk, plus a tiny bit of pee-pee, Mick noticed a speaker attached to the underside of the case.

Aha. A recording triggered by a motion detector. But the sound was a little garbled, reminding him of the voice of the aliens in an old black-and-white movie he and Willie had watched on TV last week. The voice always began, "People of Earth ..." but he couldn't remember the name of the film.

"We know little about this ancient lost race but, after careful examination by the eminent archeologists and anthropologists here at the Arkham, Pennsylvania, Museum of Natural History and Baseball Cards, they arrived at an irrefutable conclusion."

"Hey," Willie said, grinning. "Sounds like the alien voice from Earth Versus the Flying Saucers''

"The ancient artifact before you once belonged to an ancient shaman."

"What's a shaman, Mick?"

Mick the Mick remembered seeing something about that on TV once. "I think he's a kind of a witch doctor. But forget about—"

"A shaman, for those of you who don't know, is something of a tribal wise man, what the less sophisticated among you might call a 'witch doctor.'" "Witch doctor? Cooool."

Mick the Mick stepped over to see what the voice was talking about. Under the glass he saw a three-foot metal staff with a small globe at each end.

"The eminent archeologists and anthropologists here at the Arkham, Pennsylvania, Museum of Natural History and Baseball Cards have further determined that the object is none other than an ancient shamans scepter of power."

Willie looked a Mick the Mick with wide eyes. "Did you hear that? A scepter of power! Is that like He-Man's Power Sword? He-Man was really strong, but he had hair like a girl. Is the scepter of power like a power sword, Mick?" "No, it's more like a magic wand, but forget—" "The less sophisticated among you might refer to a scepter of power as a 'magic wand,' and in a sense it functioned as such." "A magic wand! Like in the Harry Potter movies? I love those movies, and I've always wanted a magic wand! Plus, I get crazy hot thoughts about Hermione. She's a real fox, Mick. Kinda like Drew Barrymore in E. T. Hey, why does the wand have a deep groove in it?"

Mick the Mick looked again and noticed the deep groove running its length.

"Note, please, the deep groove running the length of the scepter of power. The eminent archeologists and anthropologists here at the Arkham, Pennsylvania, Museum of Natural History and Baseball Cards believe that to be what is knows as a fuller..."

A fuller? Mick thought. Looks like a blood channel. "... which the less sophisticated among you might call a 'blood channel.' The eminent archeologists and anthropologists here at the Arkham, Pennsylvania, Museum of Natural History and Baseball Cards believe this ancient scepter of power might have been used by its shaman owner to perform sacred religious ceremonies—specifically, the crushing of skulls and ritual disemboweling."

Mick the Mick got a chill. He hoped Nate the Nose never got his hands on something like this. "What's disemboweling, Mick?" "When someone cuts out your intestines." "How do you dooky, then? Like squeezing a toothpaste tube?"

"You don't dooky, Willie. You die."

"Cool! Can I have the magic wand, Mick? Can I?"

Mick the Mick didn't answer. He'd noticed something engraved near the end of the far tip. He leaned closer, squinting until it came into focus.

Sears.

What the—?

He stepped back for another look at the scepter of power and—

"A curtain rod . . . it's a freakin' curtain rod!" Willie looked at him like he was crazy. "Curtain rod? Didn't you hear the man? It's, like, a magic wand, and— hey, what's that over there?"

Mick slapped at Willie's kidney as he passed, but missed because he couldn't take his eyes off the Sears scepter of power. Maybe they could steal it, return it to Sears, and get a brand-new one. That wouldn't help much with Nate the Nose, but Mick the Mick did need a new curtain rod. His old one had broken, and his drapes were attached to the wall with forks. That made Thursdays—spaghetti night— particularly messy.

"WELCOME!" boomed the same voice as Willie stopped before another display. "What you see before you is a rate artifact that once belonged to an ancient lost race that dwelled in the Arkham area during prehistoric times. This, like every other ancient artifact in this room, was excavated from a site near the Arkham landfill." "Hey, Mick, y'gotta see this."

After some biblical thinking, Mick the Mick spared the rod and moved along.

"We know little about this ancient lost race but, after careful examination by the eminent archeologists and anthropologists here at the Arkham, Pennsylvania, Museum of Natural History and Baseball Cards, they arrived at an irrefutable conclusion: The artifact before you was used by an ancient shaman of this lost race to perform surrogate sacrifices. (For those of you unfamiliar with the term 'shaman,' please return to the previous display.)"

"I know what a shaman is, 'cause you just told me," Willie said. "But what's a surrogate—?"

"A surrogate sacrifice was an image that was sacrificed instead of a real person. Before you is a statuette of a woman carved by the ancient lost race from a yet-to-be-identified flesh-colored substance. Note the head is missing. This is because the statuette was beheaded instead of the human it represented."

Mick the Mick stepped up to the display and immediately recognized the naked pink figure. He used to swipe his sister Suzy's and make it straddle his rocket and go for a ride. Only Suzy's had a blonde head.

"That's a freakin' Barbie doll!" He grabbed Willie's shoulder and yanked him away.

"Jesus, Mick! You know I got a dislocating shoulder!"

Willie stumbled, knocking Mick the Mick into another display case, which toppled over with a crash.

"WELCOME! What you see before you is a rare tome of lost wisdom that once belonged—"

Screaming, Mick the Mick kicked the speaker until the voice stopped.

"Look, Mick," Willie said, squatting and poking through the broken glass, "it's not a tome, it's a book. It's supposed to contain lost wisdom. Maybe it can tell us how to keep Nate the Nose off our backs." He rose and squinted at the cover. "The Really, Really, Really Old Ones."

"It's a paperback, you moron. How much wisdom you gonna find in there?"

"Yeah, you're right. It says, 'Do not try this at home. Use only under expert supervision or you'll be really, really, really sorry' Better not mess with that."

"Oh yeah?" Mick had had it—really had it. Up. To. Here. He opened to a random page and read. " 'Random dislocation spell.'"

Willie winced. "Not my shoulder!"

" 'Use only under expert supervision.' Yeah, right. Look, it's got a bunch of gobbledygook to read."

"You mean like 'Mekka-lekka hi—'?"

"Shaddap and I'll show you what bullshit this is."

Mick the Mick started reading, pronouncing the gobbledygook as best he could, going slow and easy so he didn't screw up the words like he normally did when he read.

When he finished, he looked at Willie and grinned. "See? No random dislocation."

Willie rolled his shoulder. "Yeah. Feels pretty good. I wonder—"

The smell hit Mick the Mick first, hot and overpowering, reminding him of that time he stuck his head in the toilet because his older brother told him that's where brownies came from. It was followed by the very real sensation of being squeezed. But not squeezed by a person. Squeezed all over by some sort of full-body force, like being pushed through a too-small opening. The air suddenly became squishy and solid and pressed into every crack and pore on Mick the Mick's body, and then it undulated, moving him, pushing him, through the solid marble floor of the Arkham, Pennsylvania, Museum of Natural History and Baseball Cards.

The very fabric of reality, or something like that, seemed to vibrate with a deep resonance, and the timbre rose to become an overpowering, guttural groan. The floor began to dissolve, or maybe he began to dissolve, and then came a horrible yet compelling farting sound and Mick the Mick was suddenly plopped into the middle of a jungle. Willie landed next to him. "I feel like shit," Willie said.

Mick the Mick squinted in the sunlight and looked around. They were surrounded by strange, tropical trees and weird-looking flowers with big fat pink petals that made him feel sort of horny. A dragonfly the size of a bratwurst hovered over their heads, gave them a passing glance, then buzzed over to one of the pink flowers, which snapped open and bit the bug in half.

"Where are we, Mick?"

Mick the Mick scratched his head. "I'm not sure. But I think when I read that book I opened a portal in the space-time continuum and we were squeezed through one of the eleven imploded dimensions into the late Cretaceous period."

"Wow. That sucks."

"No, Willie. It doesn't suck at all."

"Yeah, it does. The season finale of MacGyver: The Next Generation is on tonight. It's a really cool episode where he builds a time machine out of some pocket lint and a broken meat thermometer. Wouldn't it be cool to have a time machine, Mick?"

Mick the Mick slapped Willie on the side of his head.

"Jesus, Mick! You know I got swimmer's ear!"

"Don't you get it, Willie? This book is a time machine. We can go back in time!"

Willie got wide-eyed. "I get it! We can get back to the present a few minutes early so I won't miss MacGyverl"

Mick the Mick considered hitting him again, but his hand was getting sore.

"Think bigger than MacGyver, Willie. We're going to be rich. Rich and famous and powerful. Once I figure out how this book works, we'll be able to go to any point in history."

"You mean like we go back to summer camp in 1975? Then we could steal the candy from those counselors so they couldn't lure us into the woods and touch us in the bad place."

"Even better, Willie. We can bet on sports and always win. Like that movie." "Which one?"

"The one where he went to the past and bet on sports so he could always win."

"The Godfather?"

"No, Willie. The Godfather was the one with the fat guy who slept with horse heads."

"Oh yeah. Hey, Mick, don't you think those big pink flowers look like—"

"Shut your stupid hole, Willie. I gotta think." Mick the Mick racked his brain, but he was never into sports, and he couldn't think of a single team that won anything. Plus, he didn't have any money on him. It would take a long time to parlay the eighty-one cents in his pocket to sixty grand. But there had to be other ways to make money with a time machine. Probably.

He glanced at Willie, who was walking toward one of those pink flowers, leaning in to sniff it. Or perhaps do something else with it, because Willie's tongue was out.

"Willie! Get away from that thing and try to focus! We need to figure out how to make some money." "It smells like fish, Mick."

"Dammit, Willie! Did you take your medicine this morning like you're supposed to?"

"I can't remember. Nana says I need a stronger subscription. But every time I go to the doctor to get one, I forget to ask."

Mick the Mick scratched himself. Another dragonfly—this one shaped like a banana wearing a turtleneck— flew up to one of those pink flowers and was bitten in half, too. Damn, those bugs were stupid. They just didn't learn. He scratched himself again, wondering if the crabs were back. If they were, he'd be really angry. When you paid fifty bucks for a massage at Madame Yoko's, the happy ending should be crab-free.

Willie said, "Maybe we can go back to the time when Nate the Nose was a little boy, and then we could be real nice to him so when he grew up he would remember us and wouldn't make us eat our junk."

Or we could push his stroller into traffic, Mick the Mick thought.

But Nate the Nose had bosses, and they probably had bosses, too, and traveling through time to push a bunch of babies in front of moving cars seemed like a lot of work.

"Money, Willie. We need to make money."

"We could buy old things from the past then sell them on eBay. Hey, wouldn't it be cool to have four hands? I mean, you could touch twice as much stuff."

Mick the Mick thought about those old comics in Willie's basement, and then he grinned wider than a zebra's ass.

"Action Comics' number one, which had the first appearance of Superman!" Mick the Mick said. "I could buy it with the change in my pocket, and we can sell it for a fortune!"

Come to think of it, he could buy eight copies. Didn't they go for a million a piece these days?

"I wish I could fly, Mick. Could we go back into time and learn to fly like Superman?"

"Shh!" Mick the Mick tilted his head to the side, listening to the jungle. "You hear something, Willie?"

"Yeah, Mick. I hear you talkin' to me. Now I hear me talkin'. Now I'm singing a sooooong, a haaaaaaaaappy soooooong."

Mick the Mick gave Willie a smack in the teeth, then locked his eyes on the tree line. In the distance the canopy rustled and parted, like something really big was walking toward them. Something so big, the ground shook with every step.

"You hear that, Mick? Sounds like something really big is coming."

A deafening roar came from the thing in the trees, so horrible Mick the Mick could feel his curlies straighten. "Think it's friendly?" Willie asked. Mick the Mick stared down at his hands, which still held the Really, Really, Really Old Ones book. He flipped it open to a random page, forcing himself to concentrate on the words. But, as often happened in stressful situations, or even situations not all that stressful, the words seemed to twist and mash up and go backward and upside down. Goddamn lesdyxia—shit—dyslexia, "Maybe we should run, Mick." "Yeah, maybe ... wait! No! We can't run!" "Why can't we run, Mick?"

"Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer went back in time and stepped on a butterfly? The point is, evolution is a really fickle bitch. If we screw up something in the past, it can really mess up the future."

"That sucks. You mean we would get back to our real time but instead of being made of skin and bones, we're made entirely out of fruit? Like some kind of juicy fruit people?"

Another growl, even closer. It sounded like a lion's roar—if the lion had cojones the size of Chryslers.

"I mean really bad stuff, Willie. I gotta read another passage and get us out of here."

The trees parted, and a shadow began to force itself into view.

"Hey, Mick, if you were made of fruit, would you take a bite of your own arm if you were really super hungry? I think I would. Wonder what I'd taste like?"

Mick the Mick tried to concentrate on reading the page, but his gaze kept flicking up to the trees. The prehistoric landscape lapsed into deadly silence. Then, like some giant monster coming out of the jungle, a giant monster came out of the jungle.

The head appeared first, the size of a sofa—a really big sofa—with teeth the size of daggers crammed into a mouth large enough to tear a refrigerator in half.

"I think I'd take a few bites out of my leg or something, but I'd be afraid because I don't know if I could stop. Especially if I tasted like strawberries, because I love strawberries, Mick. Why are they called strawberries when they don't taste like straw? Hey, is that a T. rex?"

Now Mick the Mick pee-peed more than just a little. The creature before them was a deep green color, blending seamlessly into the undergrowth. Rather than scales, it was adorned with small, prickly hairs that Mick the Mick realized were thin brown feathers. Its huge nostrils flared and it snorted, causing the book's pages to ripple.

"I think we should run, Mick. I don't wanna be dinosaur poop."

Mick the Mick agreed. The tyrannosaurus stepped into the clearing on massive legs and reared up to its full height, over forty feet tall. Mick the Mick knew he couldn't outrun it. But he didn't have to. He only had to outrun Willie. He felt bad, but he had no other choice. He had to trick his best friend if he wanted to survive.

"The T. Rex has really bad vision, Willie. If you stay very still, it won't be able to ... Willie, come back!"

Willie had broken for the trees, moving so fast he was a blur. Mick the Mick tore after him, swatting dragonflies out of the way as he ran. Underfoot, he trampled on a large brown roach, a three-toed lizard with big dewy eyes and a disproportionately large brain, and a small furry mammal with a face that looked a lot like Sal from Manny's Meats on Twenty-third Street, which gave a disturbingly human cry when its little neck snapped.

Behind them, the T. Rex moved with the speed of a giant two-legged cat shaped like a dinosaur, snapping teeth so close to Mick the Mick that they nipped the eighteen trailing hairs of his comb-over. He chanced a look over his shoulder and saw the mouth of the animal open so wide Mick the Mick could set up a table for four on the creature's tongue and play Texas hold 'em, not that he would, because that would be fucking stupid.

Then, just as the death jaws of death were ready to close and cause terminal death, the T. Rex skidded to a halt and squinted down at the dead little furry thing that used to look a lot like Sal from Manny's Meats, but now looked like Sal with a broken neck. The T. Rex nudged it with its massive snout, as if it was trying to wake proto-Sal up.

"What's it doing, Mick?"

Mick the Mick had no idea. The dinosaur nosed the furry thing back and forth, back and forth. Like playing with a toy. Then it gently picked up proto-Sal and flung it across the jungle, toward Willie. It landed at his friend's feet.

"I think it wants to play, Mick." Willie picked up the limp animal. "Hey, you see this mouse thing? Looks like that butcher from Manny's. But smaller. And with a tail. And it don't got no tattoo that says 'Fillet the World.'"

"Throw it, Willie!"

Willie cocked his arm back, aiming at Mick.

"To the dinosaur, you moron!"

"Oh. Fetch, boy!"

Willie tossed proto-Sal, and the T. Rex snatched it right out of the air, crunching on it like popcorn.

"He can catch, Mick! Let's throw him something else."

Mick the Mick scanned the jungle floor, quickly overturning a large, flat rock. Beneath it was a family of small rodents who resembled the Capporellis up in 5B—so much so that he swore one even said, "Fronzo!" when he broke its little furry spine. Mick the Mick scooped it up, raising his arm to throw. But the lizard was no longer staring at them. Instead, the creature was bent over and sniffing one of the big pink, fishy-smelling flowers.

"Throw it to me, Mick! We'll play monkey in the middle!"

The 'saur stuck out its queen-size-bed tongue for a lick, and the flower chomped down on it. This sent the T. Rex into a screeching, stomping, spitting fit, crushing the flower beneath gigantic talons. Then it sniffed out a similar flower and gave that one a lick.

"Now's our chance to get away, Willie. Willie!" Before Mick the Mick could stop him, Willie yelled, "Catch!" and chucked a fallen tree branch at the dinosaur. It smacked against the T. Rex's head with a painful-sounding thud. The T. Rex locked eyes on them and roared.

"He don't want to play no more, Mick. I don't, neither." They ran. The thunder lizard lunged after them and gained quickly—no surprise, what with it being able to cover a dozen of their steps with only one of its own.

As Mick the Mick whipped through the jungle, overwhelmed with bladder-squeezing panic, he tried to force lucidity and make his very last thought something profound and revelatory. Instead, all he could think of was that Brady Bunch episode in Hawaii when Greg found the cursed tiki idol.

Not a brilliant last thought, but everyone had to admit that was one of the show's best episodes. "Mick! It's not following us anymore!" Mick the Mick chanced an over-the-shoulder look and indeed the T. Rex had once again abandoned pursuit. It simply stood there, staring off into the jungle, as if in deep thought. Then it dropped to the ground like it had been shot, the impact a sound of thunder.

Had some caveman killed the dinosaur? Or perhaps some rich hunter from the future on some kind of prehistoric hunting expedition? Or Nate the Nose, who had come back in time to get his money?

But another look at the Tyrannosaurus dispelled any such notion. The thunder lizard wasn't dead. It was licking itself between its legs. Really going at it, too, like a giant Jurassic dog.

"I wish I could do that," Willie said. "But he'd probably bite me."

After a good thirty seconds, the T. Rex sighed loudly, ballet-ically leapt to its feet, and became distracted by one of those dragonfly things, wandering off after it.

This T. Rex was beginning to remind Mick the Mick of someone he knew. He just couldn't place who. But he was getting a flash of why the damned things were extinct.

Which gave Mick the Mick a great idea. An idea that would save their asses and make them even richer than Action Comics #1.

"Look for an egg, Willie."

"An egg, Mick? You hungry? I'm kinda hungry, too. I like my eggs sunny-side up, because they look like big yellow eyes. Then I make a smiley mouth out of bacon, and I call him Mr. Henry. Don't we need chickens to get eggs, Mick?"

"Dinosaur eggs, Willie. If we bring one back with us, we can grow a dinosaur. Just like that movie."

"Which one?"

"The one where they grew the dinosaurs."

"The Merchant of Venice?"

"Just find an egg, Willie."

"I get it, Mick. We grow a dinosaur, and we can feed it Nate the Nose so he won't kill us—"

"Shaddup and search for a damn nest."

"I'm searching, Mick. Hey! Look!"

"You find one?"

"I found one of those pink flowers that smell like fish and look like—"

Willie screamed. Mick the Mick glanced over and saw his lifelong friend was playing tug of war with one of those toothy prehistoric flowers, using a long red rope.

No. Not a red rope. Those were Willie's intestines.

"Help me, Mick!"

Without thinking, Mick the Mick reached out a hand and grabbed Willie's duodenum. He squeezed, tight as he could, and Willie farted.

"It hurts, Mick! Being disemboweled hurts!"

A bone-shaking roar from behind them. The T. Rex had lost interest in the dragonflies and was sniffing at the newly spilled blood, his sofa-size head only a few meters away and getting closer. Mick the Mick could smell its breath, reeking of rotten meat and bad oral hygiene and dooky.

No, the dooky was all Willie. Pouring out like brown shaving cream. Willie's face contorted in pain.

"I think I need a doctor, Mick. Use your cell phone. Call nine-one-one."

Mick the Mick released his friend's innards and wiped his hand on his shirt just as the T. Rex leaned over them and opened its maw, blotting out the sky. All Mick the Mick could see was teeth and tongue and that dangly thing that hangs in the back of the throat like a big punching bag. He could never remember what those things were called.

"Look, the dinosaur is back," Willie groaned. "Check out the size of his epiglottis, Mick. Like a big punching bag."

The book. It was their only chance. Mick the Mick raised the Really, Really, Really Old Ones and flipped open to the same page that had brought them here. Maybe if he read the passage again, it would take them back to their time. Or if he read a little earlier, maybe they could go back to before Nana made the cake, and prevent this incredibly stupid chain of events.

"I think my kidney just fell out." Willie held something red and squishy in his cupped hands. "It still hurts from when you punched me."

Mick the Mick concentrated. Concentrated as hard as he could, blotting out Willie and the T. Rex and everything in this horrible prehistoric world except the words on the page.

"It looks like a kidney bean. Is that why they call them kidneys, Mick? Because they look like beans? I like beans."

Mick the Mick's hands shook, and his vision swam, and all the vowels on the page looked exactly the same and the consonants looked like pretzel sticks, but he began to read aloud.

"Is this my liver, Mick? And what's this thing? I should put all this stuff back in." Willie dropped to his knees and began scooping up guts and twigs and rocks and shoving everything into the gaping hole in his belly.

The T. Rex lowered its mouth, about to swallow them both at once.

Sweat soaked his face and stung his eyes, and the hair still left on Mick the Mick's comb-over started to curl from the T. Rex's breath as its jaws began to close, but he finished the passage, reading better and faster and harder than a homeschooled foreign kid who won spelling bees. Nothing happened.

The fabric of reality didn't vibrate. The ground didn't dissolve. There was a familiar pbbbbth sound, but it was from Mick stepping on Willie's colon.

Willie flopped sideways and sprawled out onto his back, limbs akimbo, looking like he took a bath in lasagna. Mick the Mick ducked down next to him, narrowly escaping the snap of the dinosaur's bite. The Tyrannosaurus grunted, then opened wide for a second try.

"Mick ..." Willie panted, his breath fading. "Read ... read the part... that sent us here ... but... read it backward."

The T. Rex snatched both of them into its jaws like a giant bulldozer, if bulldozers had jaws and could snatch people. The Really, Really, Really Old Ones book fell from Mick the Mick's grasp, and the dagger teeth punched into his legs and chest with agonizing agony, but for the first and only time in his life his dyslexia paid off, and with his last breath he managed to cry out:

"OTKIN ADARAB UTAALK!"

Another near-turd experience and then they were excreted into a room with a television and a couch and a picture window. But the television screen was embedded—or growing out of?—a toadstool-like thing that was in turn growing out of the floor. The couch looked funny, like who'd sit on that? And the picture window looked out on some kind of nightmare jungle.

And then again, maybe not so weird.

No, Mick the Mick thought. Weird. Very weird.

He looked at Willie.

And screamed.

Or at least tried to. What came out was more like a croak.

Because it wasn't Willie. Not unless Willie had grown four extra eyes—two of them on stalks—and sprouted a fringe of tentacles around where he used to have a neck and shoulders. He now looked like a conical turkey croquette that had been rolled in seasoned bread crumbs before baking and garnished with live worms after.

The thing made noises that sounded like, "Mick, is that you?" but spoken by a turkey croquette with a mouth full of linguine.

Stranger still, it sounded a little like Willie. Mick the Mick raised a tentacle to scratch his—

Whoa! Tentacle?

Well, of course a tentacle. What did he expect?

He looked down and was surprised to see that he was encased in a bread-crumbed, worm-garnished, turkey croquette. No, wait, he was a turkey croquette.

Why did everything seem wrong, and yet simultaneously at the same time seem not wrong, too?

Just then another six-eyed, tentacle-fringed croquette glided into the room. The Willie-sounding croquette said, "Hi, Nana." His words were much clearer now.

Nana? Was this Willie's Nana?

Of course it was, Mick the Mick had known her for years.

"There's an unpleasant man at the door who wants to talk to you. Or else."

"Or else what?"

A new voice said, "Or else you two get to eat cloacal casseroles, and guess who donates the cloacas?"

Mick the Mick unconsciously crossed his tentacles over his cloaca. In his twenty-four years since budding, Mick the Mick had grown very attached to his cloaca. He'd miss it something awful.

A fourth croquette had entered, followed by the two biggest croquettes Mick the Mick had ever seen. Only these weren't turkey croquettes, these were chipped-beef croquettes. This was serious.

The new guy sounded like Nate the Nose, but didn't have a nose. And what was a nose anyway?

"Oh no," Willie moaned. "I don't want to eat Micks cloaca."

"I meant your own, jerk!" the newcomer barked. "But I have a hernia—" "Shaddap!"

Mick the Mick recognized him now: Nate the Noodge, pimp, loan shark, and drug dealer. Not the sort you lent your bike to.

Wait... what was a bike? "What's up, Nate?"

"That brick of product I gave you for delivery. I had this sudden, I dunno, bad feeling about it. A frisson of malaise and apprehension, you might say. I just hadda come by and check on it, knome sayn?" The brick? What brick?

Mick the Mick had a moment of panic—he had no idea what Nate the Noodge was talking about. Oh yeah. The, product. Now he remembered. "Sure, Nate, it's right in here."

He led Nate to the kitchen, where the brick of product lay on the big center table.

Nate the Noodge pointed a tentacle at it. One of his guards lifted it, sniffed it, then wriggled his tentacle fringe that it was okay. Mick the Mick had expected him to nod, but a nod would require a neck, and the guard didn't have a neck. Then Mick the Mick realized he didn't know what a neck was. Or a nod, for that matter.

What was it with these weird thoughts, like memories, going through his head? They were like half-remembered dreams. Nightmares, more likely. Pink flowers, and giant lizards, and stepping on some mice that looked like a lot like the Capporellis up in 5B. Except the Capporellis lived in 5B, and looked like jellyfish. What were mice anyway? He looked at Willie to see if he was just as confused.

Willie was playing with his cloaca.

Nate the Noodge turned to them and said, "A'ight. Looks like my frisson of malaise and apprehension was fer naught. Yer cloacas is safe . . . fer now. But you don't deliver that product like you're apposed to and it's casserole city, knome sayn?"

"We'll deliver it, Nate," Willie said. "Don't you worry. We'll deliver it."

"Y'better," Nate said, then left with his posse.

"Where we supposed to deliver it?" Willie said when they were alone again.

Mick the Mick kicked him in his cloaca.

"The same place we always deliver it."

"Ow!" Willie was saying, rubbing his cloaca. "That hurt. You know I got a—hey, look!" He was pointing to the TV. "The Toad Whisperer is on! My favorite show!"

He settled onto the floor and stared.

Mick the Mick hated to admit it, but he was kind of addicted to the show himself. He settled next to Willie.

Faintly, from the kitchen, he heard Nana say, "Oh dear, I was going to bake a cake, but I'm out of flour. Could one of you boys—oh, wait. Here's some. Never mind."

A warning glimp chugged in Mick the Mick's brain and puckered his cloaca. Something bad was about to happen...

What had Nate the Noodge called it? "A frisson of malaise and apprehension." Sounded like a dessert, but Mick the Mick had gathered it meant a worried feeling, like what he was having right now.

But about what? What could go sour? The product was safe, and they were watching The Toad Whisperer. As soon as that was over, they'd go deliver it, get paid, and head on over to Madame Yoko's for a happy ending endoplasmic reticulum massage. And maybe a cloac job.

The frisson of malaise and apprehension faded. Must have been another nightmare flashback.

Soon the aroma of baking cake filled the house. Right after the show, he'd snag himself a piece.

For some reason he thought of an odd-shaped cookie with a prediction inside. What was it called? A prediction pastry? No, something else, something similar.

Who cared? Predictions never came true. The only thing you could count on was Nana's cake. That was always good.

FEELINGS

INTRODUCTION

"Feelings," the first of the three Night Visions stories, came easily. It's a simple just-deserts-cum-voodoo tale, based on a real-life malpractice scam in Florida.

I set the story in the imaginary Long Island north shore Gold Coast town I'd created in 1985 while writing The Touch. I'd put a lot of work into The Incorporated Village of Monroe then, going so far as to draw a map of the waterfront and the downtown area. I knew it almost like my own hometown. A good place for a yuppie ambulance chaser to live if he had roots on the Island.

For those of you who get off on interstory connections, the very fact that it's set in Monroe ties "Feelings" and the other two stories in the triptych to The Adversary Cycle-, and you'll notice Dr. Walter Johnson mentions his brother, a GP who remained in their hometown, "a foggy little place on the coast..." That other Doc Johnson practices in Greystone Bay. Some readers might recall that Howard's father is the lead character in "The Last One Mo' Once Golden Oldies Revival".

Writing this one was almost as enjoyable as writing "Cuts."

FEELINGS

"Five million dollars, Mr. Weinstein? Five million? Where did you come up with such an outrageous figure?"

Howard Weinstein studied his prey across the table in his office conference room. Until today, Dr. Walter Johnson had been little more than a name on a subpoena and interrogatories. His C.V. put his age at fifty-one but he looked a tired old sixty as he sat next to the natty attorney the insurance company had assigned him. His face was lined, haggard, and pale, his movements slow, his voice soft, weak, his shoulders slumped inside a gray suit that looked too big for him. Maybe the strain of the malpractice suit was getting to him. Good. That might spur him to push his insurance company for an early settlement.

"Five million?” Dr. Johnson repeated.

Howard hesitated. I'm the one who's supposed to be asking the questions, he thought. This is my show. But he had asked his last question and so the deposition was essentially over. He wanted to say, It's my favorite number, but this was a legal proceeding and Lydia's fingers were poised over her steno machine's keyboard, awaiting his reply. So he looked Dr. Walter Johnson straight in his watery blue eyes and said, "That's the compensation my client deserves for the permanent injuries he suffered at your hands due to your gross negligence. He will suffer lifelong impairment—"

"I saved his life!"

"That is hardly clear, Dr. Johnson. It's up to a jury to decide."

"When you sue me within my coverage," Dr. Johnson said, staring at his folded hands where they rested on the table before him, "I can say to myself, 'He's doing business.' But five million dollars? My malpractice coverage doesn't go that high. That will ruin me. That will take everything I own—my house, all the investments I've made over the years, all the money I've put away for my children and future grandchildren—and still leave me millions in debt. You're not just threatening me, you're threatening my family." He looked up at Howard. "Do you have a family, Mr. Weinstein?"

"Is that a threat, Dr. Johnson?" Howard knew the doctor was making no threat, but he reacted instinctively to keep the defendant off balance. He had no children and had divorced his wife three years ago. And anyway, he wouldn't have cared if the doc had been threatening her.

"Oh, no. I was simply wondering if you might have any conception of what this sort of threat does to someone and to his family. My home life is a shambles. I've had constant stomachaches for months, I'm losing weight, my daughters are worried about me, my wife is a wreck. Do you have any idea what kind of misery you cause?"

"I am more concerned with the misery you caused my client, Dr. Johnson."

The doctor looked him square in the eyes. Howard felt as if the older man's gaze were penetrating to the back of his skull.

"I don't think you feel anything for anyone, Mr. Weinstein. You need a real lesson in empathy. Do you even know what empathy is?"

"I have empathy for my clients, Dr. Johnson."

"I sincerely doubt that. I think the only empathy you know is for your bank account."

"Okay, that's it," Howard said, nodding to Lydia at the steno machine as he closed his case folder and rose from his seat. He had let this go on too long already. "The deposition's over. Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Johnson. We'll see you in court."

He ushered out the defendant and his attorney, then stepped over to where Lydia was packing up her gear. "Let me see the end of that tape," he said.

"Howie—!"

Ignoring her mild protest, he opened the tape compartment and pulled out the long strip of steno paper. As he scanned through it, looking for where Dr. Johnson had begun running off at the mouth, Lydia said:

"You're really not going to ruin him, are you? You're really not going to take everything he owns?" She was thin, dark-haired, attractive in a brittle sort of way.

Howard laughed. "Nah! Too much trouble. It's S.O.P.: Ask for an exorbitant amount, then settle for somewhere near the limit of his coverage. Taking all his assets—which I could probably get if we go to court—and going through a long liquidation process would be a big hassle. Best thing to do is get that big check from the insurance company, take my forty percent, then move on to the next pigeon."

"Is that all he is? A pigeon?"

"Waiting to be plucked."

He knew there was something wrong with the metaphor there, but he didn't bother to figure out what. He had found the spot he had been searching for on the tape. He marked it with a pen.

"Stop the transcription here."

"Why?"

"It's where the doc made his closing sob story about threatening his family and—"

"—your empathy for your bank account?" She smiled up at him.

"Yeah. I don't want that part in the deposition."

Her smile took a mischievous twist. "I sort of liked that part."

"Ditch it."

"I can't do that."

"Sure you can, Sis."

Her smile was gone now. "I won't. It's illegal."

In a sudden surge of anger, Howard ripped the offending section from the tape and tore it into tiny pieces. He never would have dared this with any other licensed court stenographer, but Lydia was his sister, and big brothers could take certain liberties with little sisters. Which was the main reason he used her. Her name had been Chambers since her wedding four years ago, so no one was the wiser.

He tossed the remains in the air and they fluttered to the floor in a confetti flurry.

Lydia's lips trembled. "I hate you! You're just like Dad!"

"Don't say that!"

"It's true! You're just a 'Daddy Shoog' with a law degree!"

"Shut up\" Howard quickly closed the door to the outer office. "I told you never to mention him around here!"

He prayed none of the secretaries had heard. One of them might get to thinking and might make the connection. She might find out that Lenny Winter, the fifties d-j known as "Daddy Shoog," was really Leonard Weinstein, Howard's father. And then it wouldn't be long before it was all over Manhattan: Howard Weinstein was the son of that fat balding guy doing the twist and shilling his "One Mo' Once Golden Oldies" albums like Ginsu knives ("But wait! There's more!") on late night TV commercials.

God! He'd never be able to maintain credibility at another deposition, let alone conduct a court case.

He had made every effort to avoid even a faint resemblance to his father: He'd grown a thick, black mustache, he took care of his hair, combing in a style his father had never used when he had a full head of it, and he kept his body trim and hard. No one would ever guess he was the son of Daddy Shoog.

Had to hand it to the old jerk, though. He was really cleaning up on those doo-wop retreads, especially since he was forgoing the inconvenience of paying royalties to the original artists.

"Too bad you inherited Dad's ethics instead of his personality. The only reason I come around is because I'm family. You've got no friends. Your wife dumped you, you've—"

“Your marriage didn't last too long either, Miss Holier Than Thou."

"True, but I'm the one who ended it, not Hal. You got dumped."

"Elise didn't dump me! I dumped her!”

And did a damn fine job of it, too. Left her without a pot to pee in. God, had he been glad to be rid of her! Three endless years of her nagging, "You're never home! I feel like a widow!" Blah-blah-blah. He'd taught her the folly of suing a lawyer for divorce.

"So what have you got, Howie? You've got your big law practice and that's it!"

"And that's plenty!" She pulled this shit on him every time they argued. Really liked to twist the knife. "I'm just thirty-two and already I'm a legend in this town! A fucking legend!”

"And what are you doing after lunch, Mr. Legend? Going down to St. Vincent's to scrape up another client?"

"Hey! My clients are shit-bums. You think I don't know that? I know it. Damn, do I know it! But they've been injured and they've got a legal right to maximum recovery under the law! It's my duty—"

"Save it for the jury or the newspapers, Howie," Lydia said. Her voice sounded tired, disgusted. She picked up her steno gear and headed for the door. "You and Dad—you make me ashamed."

And then she was gone.

Howard left the files on the desk and went into his private office. He ran a hand through his thick dark hair as he gazed out at Manhattan's midtown spires. What was wrong with Lydia? Didn't she understand? The malpractice field was a gold mine. There were million-dollar clients out there who hadn't the vaguest inkling what they were worth. And if he didn't find them, somebody else would.

He'd come a long way. Started out in general practice, then sniffed the possibilities in liability law. Advertising on TV had brought him a horde of new clients, but all of them combined hadn't equaled the take from his first medical malpractice settlement. He had known then that malpractice was the only way to go.

Especially when you had a method.

It was simple, really. All it took was a few well-compensated contacts in the city's hospitals to let him know when a certain type of patient was being discharged. One of Howard's assistants—Howard used to go himself but he was above that now—would arrange to be there when the potential client left the hospital. He'd take him to lunch and subtly make his pitch.

You couldn't be too subtle, though. The prospective client was usually a neurosurgical patient, preferably an indigent sleazo who had shown up in the hospital emergency room with his head bashed in from a mugging or a fight over a bottle or a fix, or who'd fallen down a stairway or stumbled in front of a car during a stupor. Didn't matter what the cause as long as he'd wound up in the ER in bad enough shape for the neurosurgeon on call to be dragged in to put his skull and its contents back in order again.

"But you're not right since the surgery, are you?"

That was the magic question. The answer was almost invariably negative. Of course, the prospect hadn't been "right" before the surgery, either, but that was hard to prove. Nigh on impossible to prove. And even if the potential said he felt pretty good, he usually could find some major complaint when pressed, especially after it was explained to him that a permanent postsurgical deficit could be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of seven figures to him if things went his way.

Yeah, they were druggies and winos and all-purpose sleazos and it was an ordeal to be in conference with one of them for more than just a few minutes, but they were Howard’s ticket to the Good Life. They were the perfect malpractice clients. He loved to stick them in front of a jury. Their shambling gaits, vacant stares, and disordered thought patterns wrung the hearts of even the most objective jurors. And since they were transients with no steady jobs, friends, or acquaintances, the defense could never prove convincingly that they had been just as shambling, vacant, and disordered before the surgery.

In most cases, the malpractice insurer took one look at the client and reached for his checkbook: It was settlement time.

Yeah, life was sweet when you knew the bushes with the best berries.

* * *

Lydia was still fuming when she reached the garage downstairs. She handed in her ticket and found herself waiting next to Dr. Johnson. He nodded to her.

"Can't they find your car?" she said for lack of something better.

He shrugged. "Seems that way. Goes with the rest of the day, I guess." He looked tired, haggard, defeated. He smiled suddenly, obviously forcing it. "How'd I do up there?"

Lydia sensed his desperate need for some hope, some encouragement.

"You did very well, I thought. Especially at the end." She couldn't bring herself to tell him that his final remarks were shredded on the floor of the conference room.

"Do you think I have a snowball's chance in hell of coming out of this with the shirt on my back?"

Lydia couldn't help it. She had to say something to ease this poor man's mind. She put her hand on his arm.

"I see lots of these cases. I'm sure they'll settle within your coverage limits."

He turned to her. "Settle? I'm not going to settle anything!"

His intensity surprised her. "Why not?"

"Because if I agree to settle, it's as much as an admission that I've done something wrong! And I haven't!"

"But you never know what a jury will do, Dr. Johnson."

"So I've been told, over and over and over by the insurance company. 'Settle—settle—settle!' They're scared to death of juries. Better to pay off the bloodsucking lawyer and his client than risk the decision of a jury. Sure! Fine for them! They're only thinking about the bottom line. But I did everything right in this case! I released his subdural hematoma and tied off the leaking artery inside his skull. That man would have died without me! And now he's suing me!"

"I'm sorry," Lydia said. It sounded lame to her but it was all she could say. She felt somehow partly responsible for Dr. Johnson's misery. After all, Howie was her brother.

"Maybe I should have done what a lot of my fellow neurosurgeons do: Refuse to take emergency room calls. That way you don't leave yourself open to the shyster sharks prowling around for a quick fortune. Maybe I should have gone into general practice with my brother back in our hometown. A foggy little place on the coast. . ."

He rubbed a hand across his eyes. "Looks pretty hopeless, doesn't it. If I go to court, I could lose everything I've worked for during my entire career, and jeopardize my family's whole way of life. If I settle, I'm admitting I'm wrong when I know I'm right." His jaw tightened. "It's that damned greedy bastard lawyer."

Although Lydia knew the doctor was right, the words still stung. Howard might be a lot of things, but he was still her brother.

"Things have got to change," Dr. Johnson said. "This kind of abuse is getting way out of hand. There's got to be a change in the laws to control these . .. these Hell's Angels in three-piece suits!"

"Don't hold your breath waiting for tort reform," Lydia said. "Ninety- nine percent of state legislators are lawyers, and they're all members of law firms that do a thriving business on liability claims. You don't really think they're going to take some of the bread and butter off their own tables, do you? Talk about conflict of interest!"

Dr. Johnson's expression became bleaker. "Then there's no hope of relief from the Howard Weinsteins of the world, is there? No way to give him a lesson in empathy, in knowing what kind of pain he causes in other people."

Dr. Johnson's car pulled up then, a maroon Jaguar XJ.

"I don't know how to teach him that lesson," he said. "My brother might, but I certainly don't." He sighed heavily. "I honestly don't know what I'm going to do."

"Keep fighting," Lydia told him as she watched him walk around the car and tip the attendant.

He looked at her over the hood of the Jaguar. There was a distant, resigned look in his eyes that made her afraid for him.

"Easy for you to say," he said, then got in and drove off.

Lydia stood there in the garage and watched him go, knowing in some intangible way that she would never see Dr. Walter Johnson again.

* * *

"He's dead! God, Howie, he's dead!"

Howard looked up at Lydia's pale, strained features as she leaned over his desk. He thought, Oh, no! It's Dad! It'll be in the papers! Everyone will know!

"Who?" he managed to say.

"Dr. Johnson! The guy you deposed last week in the malpractice case! He killed himself!"

Relief flooded through him. "He killed himself? Did he think that would let him off the hook! The jerk! We'll just take his estate to court!"

"Howard! He was depressed over this suit. You drove him over the edge!"

"I did nothing of the sort! What did he do? Shoot himself?"

Lydia's face got whiter. "No. He ... he chopped his hand off. He bled to death."

Howard's mind suddenly went into high gear.

"Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute! This is great! Great! It shows tremendous guilt over his negligence! He cut off the appendage that damaged his patient! No, wait! Wait! The act of suicide, especially in such a bizarre manner, points to a deranged mind. This means I can bring the hospital executive committee into the suit for allowing an obviously impaired physician to remain on the staff of their hospital. Maybe include the hospital's entire department of surgery, too! Oh, this is big! Big! Thank you, Lydia! You've just made my day! My year!”

She stood there with her mouth hanging open, looking stupid. "I don't believe you."

"What? What don't you believe? What?" What the hell was wrong with her, anyway?

"Isn't there a limit, Howard? Isn't there a place where you see a line and say to yourself, 'I can't cross over here. I'll cause too much pain on the other side.' "

He smiled at her. "Of course there is, Sis. And as soon as I find it, I'll let you know."

She didn't smile at the joke. Her face was hard, her eyes icy. "I think Dr. Johnson asked a good question last week. Do you have feelings, Howie? Do you ever feel anything for anybody but yourself?"

"Get off the soapbox, Sis."

"Gladly," she said. "Off the soapbox and out of your slimy presence." She turned toward the door, then back again. "Oh, by the way, I think you should know about Dr. Johnson's hand. You know, the one he cut off? They can't find it."

Howard fluttered his hands in the air. "Oooh! I'm scared! Maybe it will come crawling after me in my sleep tonight!"

She spun and slammed out the door. Howard immediately got on the intercom to his receptionist. "Chrissie? Get hold of Brian Jassie down at the coroner's office."

Missing hand? That sounded awful weird. He wanted the straight dope on it. And Brian Jassie could get it for him.

* * *

Brian had all the details by four p.m.

"This is what we got so far," he told Howard over the phone. "It's a strange one, I tell you."

"Just tell me what happened, Brian."

"Okay. Here's how they think it went down. About ten o'clock last night, at his Fifth Avenue office, this Dr. Johnson ties a tight tourniquet just above his right wrist with neat little pads to put extra pressure over the main arteries, and whacks off his hand. Records show he was a southpaw. There's evidence that he used local anesthesia. Well, he must have, right? I mean, sawing through your own wrist—"

"Brian!"

"Okay, okay. After the hand is off, there seems to be an interval of about half an hour during which we have no idea what he does, maybe some ritual or something, then he sits down, lowers his stump into a bucket, and loosens the tourniquet. Exsanguinates in a couple of minutes. Very neat, very considerate. No mess for anybody to clean up."

A real nut case, Howard thought. "Why do you say he was involved in some ritual?"

"Just a guess. There were candles all around the room and the histology department says the hand was off for around thirty minutes before he died."

"Then you have the hand."

"Uh, no, we don't."

Howard felt a little knot form in his stomach. "You're kidding."

“‘Fraid not. The forensic team looked everywhere in the office and around the building. No hand."

So Lydia hadn't been pulling his chain. The hand really was missing. Well, that would only reinforce his contention that Dr. Johnson was mentally unbalanced and shouldn't have been allowed to practice. Yes, he would definitely bring the hospital executive committee into the suit.

Still, he wondered about that missing hand. He sat there smoothing his mustache and wondering where it could be.

* * *

The package arrived the next day.

Chrissie brought it to his desk unopened. It had come by Federal Express and was marked "Personal and Confidential." Howard had her stand by as he opened it, figuring it would have to be shoved into somebody's file—most of the "Personal And Confidential" mail he received was anything but.

Chrissie began to scream when the hand fell out onto his desk. She kept on screaming all the way down the hall to the reception area. Howard stared at the hand. It lay palm up on his desk blotter, a deathly, bled-out white except at the ragged, beefy red wrist stump. The skin was moist, glistening in the fluorescent glare. He could see the creases that ran along the palm and across the finger joints, could even see fingerprint whorls. A faintly sour smell rose from it.

This had to be a joke, Lydia's way of trying to shake him up. Well, it wasn't going to work. This thing had to be a fake. He'd seen those amazingly lifelike platters of sushi and bowls of sukiyaki in the windows of Japanese restaurants. What was it they called the stuff? Mihon. That was it. This was the same thing: expertly sculpted and colored plastic. A gruesome piece of anatomical mihon.

Howard touched it with his index finger and felt a faint pins-and-nee- dies sensation run up his arm and all over his skin. It lasted about the time between eye blinks and then it was gone. But by then he had realized from the texture of the skin and the give of the flesh underneath that this wasn't mihon. This was the real thing!

He leaped out of his chair and stood there trembling, repeatedly wiping his finger on his suit coat as he shouted to Chrissie to call the police.

* * *

Howard was late getting out of the office that day. The endless questions from the detectives and the forensic people had put him far behind schedule. Then, to top everything off, his last call of the day had been from Brian at the coroner's office. According to Brian, the forensic experts downtown said that the hand had definitely belonged to the late great Dr. Walter Johnson.

So now he was shook up, grossed out, and just plain tired. Irritable, too. He snapped at the Rican garage attendant—Jose or Gomez or whatever the hell his name was—to move his ass and get the car up front pronto.

His red Porsche 914 squealed down the ramp and screeched to a halt in front of him. As he passed the attendant and handed him a fifty-cent tip— half the usual—he could almost feel the man's animosity toward him.

No, wait... it was more than almost. It was as if he were actually experiencing the car jockey's anger and envy. It wormed into his system and for a moment Howard too was angry and envious. But at whom? Himself?

And just as suddenly as it came it was gone. He was once again just tired, irritable, and anxious to get himself out to the Island and home where he could have himself a stiff drink and relax.

Traffic wasn't bad. That was one advantage of leaving late. He cruised the LIE to Glen Cove Road, then headed south. He stopped at the Mac- Donald's drive-thru just this side of the sign that declared the southern limit of "The Incorporated Village of Monroe." He ordered up a Big Mac and fries. As he handed his money to the pimple-faced redheaded girl in the window, a wave of euphoria rolled over him. He felt slightly giddy. He looked up at the girl in her blue uniform and noticed her fixed grin and glazed eyes.

She's stoned! he thought. And damned if I don't feel stoned, too!

He took his bagged order from her and gunned away. The feeling faded almost immediately. But not his puzzlement. First the lot attendant and now the kid at Mickey D's. What was going on here?

He pulled into his spot in the Soundview Condominiums lot and entered his town house. It was a three-storied job with a good view of Monroe Harbor. He'd done some legal work on the land sale and so had been able to get in on a preconstruction purchase. The price: one hundred and sixty-nine large. They were going for twice that now.

Yeah, if you knew the right people and had the wherewithal to take advantage of situations when they presented themselves, your net worth could only go one way: Up.

Howard pulled a Bud from the fridge and opened up the Styrofoam Big Mac container. As he ate, he stared out over the still waters of the Long Island Sound at the lights along the Connecticut shore on the far side. Much as he tried not to, he couldn't help thinking about that severed hand in the mail today. Which led his thoughts around to Dr. Johnson. What was it he had said about empathy last week?

I don't think you feel anything for anyone, Mr. Weinstein. You need a real lesson in empathy.

Something like that. And then a week later he had sat down in his office and cut off his hand, and then had somehow got it into a Federal Express overnight envelope and sent it to Howard. Personal And Confidential. And then he had let himself die.

... a lesson in empathy. . .

Then the hand had arrived and Howard had touched it, felt that tingle, and now he seemed to be able to sense what others were feeling.

. . . empathy. . .

Yeah, right. And any moment now, he'd heard Rod Serling's voice fill the room.

He finished the beer and went for another.

But let's not be too quick to laugh everything off, he told himself as he nibbled on some fries. Law school had taught him how to organize his thoughts and present cogent arguments. So far, there was a good case for his being the victim of some sort of curse. That would have been laughable yesterday, but this morning there had been a real live—no, strike that, make that dead—a dead human hand lying on his desk. A hand that had once belonged to a defendant in a very juicy malpractice case. A man who had said that Howard Weinstein needed a lesson in how other people felt.

And now Howard Weinstein had encountered two instances in which he had experienced another person's feelings.

Or thought he had.

That was the question. Had Dr. Johnson done a number on Howard's head? Had he planted some sort of suggestion in his subconscious and then reinforced it by sending him a severed hand?

Or was this the real thing? A dead man's curse?

Howard decided to take a scientific approach. The only way to prove a hypothesis was to test it in the field. He tossed off the second beer. Time to hit the town.

As he gathered up the MacDonald's debris, he noticed a dull ache all along his right arm. He rubbed it but that didn't help. He wondered how he could have strained it. Maybe it was a result of jerking away after touching that hand this morning. No, he didn't remember any pain then. He shrugged it off, pulled on a sweater, and stepped out into the spring night.

The air was cool and tangy with salt from the Sound. Too beautiful a night to squeeze back into the Porsche, so he decided to walk the few blocks west down to the waterfront nightspots. He had only gone a few steps when he noticed that the ache in his arm was gone.

Canterbury's was the first place he came to along the newly renovated waterfront. He stopped in here occasionally with some of his local clients. Not a bad place for lunch, but after five it turned into a meat market. If AIDS had put a damper on the swinging singles scene, you couldn't tell it here. The space around Canterbury's oval bar was smoky, noisy, and packed with yuppie types.

Howard squeezed up to the bar and suddenly felt his knees get rubbery. He leaned against the mahogany edge and glanced at the fellow rubbing elbows with him to his right. He was downing a straight shot of something and chasing it with a few generous chugs of draft beer. There were four other shot glasses on the bar in front of him, all empty.

Howard lurched away toward the booths at the rear of the room and felt better immediately.

God, it's happening. It's true.

As he moved through the crowd, he was assaulted with a complex mixture of lust, boredom, fatigue, and inebriation. It was a relief to reach the relative sanctuary of the last booth in the rear. The emotions and feelings of the room became background noise, a sensory Muzak.

But they were still there. On the way from the city it had seemed he needed physical contact—from the garage attendant, the girl at Mickey D's—to get the sensory input. Now the feeling seemed to waft through the air.

Howard shut his eyes and rubbed his hands over his temples. This couldn't be happening, couldn't be real. This was the stuff of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits and Tales from the Darkside. This sort of thing did not happen to Howard Weinstein in little old Monroe, Long Island.

But he could not deny his own experience. He had felt drunk before noticing that the guy next to him was doing boilermakers.

Or had he?

Maybe he had unconsciously noticed the guy with the ball and the beer as he stepped up to the bar and his mind had done the rest.

It was all so confusing. How could he know for sure?

"Can I get you something, Mr. Weinstein?"

Howard looked up. A well-stacked blonde stood over him with a tray under her arm and her order pad ready. She was thirtyish with too much make-up and too-blond hair, but on the whole not someone he'd kick out of bed. She was dressed in the standard Canterbury cocktail waitress uniform of short skirt, black stockings, and low cut Elizabethan barmaid blouse, and she was smiling.

"How do you know my name?"

"Why shouldn't I? You're one of the more important men in Monroe, aren't you?"

She was interested in him. Howard couldn't read her thoughts, but he sensed her excited response to his presence. She was probably attracted to money and power, and apparently he represented a modicum of both to her. There was a trace of sexual arousal and an undercurrent of anxiety as well.

Anxiety over what? That he'd give her the cold shoulder? He tried to see if he could affect that.

"Nice to be recognized," he said, "especially by such an attractive woman" ... he craned his neck to see the name tag centered on her cleavage . . . "Molly."

The anxiety all but vanished and the sexual arousal rose two notches.

Bingo!

He ordered a Chivas and soda. He was ready for her when she returned with the drink.

"Looks like you'll be working late tonight, huh?"

He could feel her excitement swell. "Not necessarily. It's still the offseason so it's not really crazy yet. When the tables are kinda slow like tonight I can usually get off early if I ask." "Why don't you ask. I've got no plans for the evening. Maybe we could think of something to do together."

Her sexual arousal zoomed.

"Sounds good to me," she said with a smile and a wink.

Howard leaned back and sipped his scotch as he watched the gentle sway of her retreating butt.

So easy! Like having all the answers to a test before you sat down to take it.

This was a curse?

* * *

What a night!

Howard walked along the waterfront through the morning mist. He was still a little weak-kneed. He'd had loads of women over the years, plenty of one-night stands, even an all-nighter with a couple of pros. But never, never anything like what he had experienced last night.

As soon as they got to Molly's apartment and begun the foreplay, he had found himself tapped into her feelings. He could sense her excitement, her pleasure—he was more than just aware of it, he was actually experiencing it himself. He could tell when he was going too fast or not fast enough. He found he could toy with her, tantalize her, bring her to peaks but keep her from going over the top. Finally he brought her to an Everest and leaped off with her. Her climax fused into his and the results were shattering. She was left gasping but he was utterly speechless.

And that had only been the first time.

Molly had finally fallen asleep telling him he was the greatest lover in the world, really meaning it. Howard had drifted off with her, thinking it wouldn't be bad if that message got around to all the attractive single women in town. Not bad at all.

He had awakened early and Molly had wanted him to stay but he had begged off. He was catching a new emotion from her: She was starting to get lovey-dovey feelings for him—or at least thought she was. And why not? Decent looks, money, power, and a great lover to boot.

What's not to love?

Those feelings tripped off sirens and red lights for Howard. Uh-uh. No love. Just good times and fun and stay loose. Love meant trouble. Women started thinking of marriage then.

He felt her hurt and disappointment as he left, trailing vague promises of getting together again real soon. But he couldn't go home just yet. He was too excited, too exhilarated. This was great! This was fantastic! The possibilities were endless. He walked on, exploring them in his mind.

A siren broke into his thoughts. He looked around and found he was in front of Monroe Community Hospital. An ambulance was racing up the road. As it neared, he felt a growing pressure in his chest. His breath clogged in his throat as the pain became a great lead weight, crushing his sternum. Then, as the ambulance passed and pulled into the approach to the emergency entrance, the pain receded.

Whoever was in that ambulance was having a heart attack. Howard was sure of it. He watched as the ambulance attendants carried someone into the emergency room on a stretcher. Heart attack. No doubt about it. Just one more bit of proof on the side of this so-called curse Dr. Johnson had laid on him. And it would be so easy to confirm. Just go up to the reception desk and ask: Did the ambulance get here with my uncle yet? The man with the chest pain?

He started across the lawn toward the four-story brick structure. As he neared it however, he began to feel nauseous and weak. His head pounded, his abdomen burned, ached, cramped, and just plain hurt. Every joint, every bone in his body hurt. He began to wheeze, his vision blurred. It all got worse with each step closer to the hospital but he forced himself on until he reached the emergency entrance and opened the door.

. . . pain . . . fear. . . pain . . . hope. . . pain . .. grief. . . pain . .. rage. . . pain . . . despair. . . pain . . . joy. . . pain . . . pain . .. pain . . . pain . . .

Like a physical assault from a Mongolian horde, like a massive torrent from a sundered dam, like ground zero at Hiroshima, the mental and physical agony flooded over Howard, sending him reeling and stumbling back across the driveway to the grass where he crumbled to his knees and crawled as fast as he could away from the hospital. Anyone watching him would have assumed he was drunk but he didn't care. He had to get away from that building.

He felt almost himself again by the time he reached the sidewalk. He sat on the curb, weak and nauseous, swearing he would never go near another hospital again.

It seemed there were drawbacks to this little power of his after all. But nothing he couldn't handle, nothing he couldn't overcome. The advantages were too enormous!

He had to talk this out with somebody. Brainstorm it. But with whom? Suddenly, he smiled.

Lydia lived in the garden apartments on the downtown fringe, a short walk from here.

Of course!

* * *

Howard had looked like he was on drugs when Lydia opened the door to her apartment. She had been in the middle of a nice little dream of being married with two kids and no money problems when the pounding on the door had awakened her. Her brother's face had loomed large in the fish-eye peephole so she had opened up and let him in.

That proved to be a mistake. Howie was absolutely manic. While she made coffee he stalked around her tiny kitchen waving his arms and talking a mile a minute. Watching him, she thought he might be on speed; listening to him, she thought he might be on acid.

But Howie didn't do drugs.

Which meant he had gone crazy.

"Do you see what this means, Sis? Do you see! The possibilities are endless! Can you imagine what this will let me do at a deposition? If my questions are getting into a sensitive area, I'll know\ I'll sense the defendant's fear, his anxiety, and I'll keep hitting those sore spots, pushing those secret buttons until he comes across with what I want. And even if he doesn't, I'll know where to look for the dirt. Same's true with cross-examinations in the courtroom. I'll know when I've hit a nerve. And speaking of courtrooms, I thought of something that's even better—even better!" He stopped and pointed a finger at her. "Juries! Jury selection!"

Lydia stirred the boiling water into the instant coffee—decaf, for sure. She didn't want to hype him up even the tiniest bit more. "Right, Howie," she said softly. "That's a good point."

"Can you imagine how I'll be able to stack the jury box? I mean, I'll know how each juror feels about the case because I'll ask them point blank. I'll say, 'Mrs. So-and-so, how do you feel about the medical profession in general?' If I get some sort of warm glow from her, she's out, no matter what she says. But if I get anger or envy or plain old spitefulness, she's in. I can pack a jury with doctor-haters on all my malpractice cases!" He giggled. "The settlements will be astronomical!

"Whatever makes you happy, Howie," Lydia said. "Now why don't you sit down and drink your coffee and take it easy." She had heard about Dr. Johnson's hand winding up on his desk yesterday. The shock must have got to him. "You can lie down on my bed if you want to."

He was staring at her.

"You think I'm nuts, don't you?"

"No, Howie. I just think you're feeling the strain of—"

"Right now I'm feeling what you're feeling. Which is a lot of disbelief, a little anxiety, a little fatigue, and a little compassion. Very little compassion."

"You don't need a crystal ball or a voodoo-hoodoo curse to figure that one out."

"And you've got a low backache, too. Right?"

Lydia felt a chill. Her low back did hurt. Her period was due tomorrow and her back always ached the day before.

"Half the world's got backaches, Howie."

"You've got to believe me, Lydia. There's got to be a way I can—" His eyes lit. "Wait a minute. I've got an idea." He began yanking the kitchen drawers open until he got to the utensils. He pulled out a paring knife and handed it to her.

"What's this for?" she said.

"I want you to poke yourself here and there on your body with the point—"

"Howie, are you nuts?"

"Not hard enough to break the skin; just enough to cause a little pain." He took the pen from the message pad by the phone and pointed to the kitchen door. "I'll be on the other side of the door there and I'll mark the spots and number them on myself with this pen."

"This is crazy!"

"I've got to convince you, Lydia. You're the only one in this world I trust."

Damn him! It had been like this all their lives. He always knew what to say to get her to go along.

"Okay."

He got on the other side of the swinging door. Lydia put her back to it and poked the knife point at the center of her left palm. It hurt, but certainly nothing she couldn't bear.

"That's one," said Howie from the other side of the door.

Lydia turned her hand over and jabbed the back of her hand.

"That's two," Howie said.

Lucky guesses, Lydia told herself uneasily. For variety, she poked the point gently against her cheek.

"Very funny," Howie said, "but I'm not writing on my face."

The words so startled her that the knife slipped from her grasp. As she grabbed for it, the blade sliced into her index finger.

"Hey!" Howie said, pushing through the door. "You weren't supposed to cut yourself!"

"It was an acc—" And then she realized. "My God, you knew!" She sucked her bleeding finger. He knew!

"Of course I knew. As a matter of fact, for an instant in there I actually saw the cut on my finger. Look here. Even drew it for you. See?"

Lydia did see: A half-inch crescent was drawn in ink across the pad of Howie's right index finger, perfectly matching the bloody one on her own.

Suddenly Lydia was weak. She lowered herself into a chair. "My God, Howie, it's really true, isn't it?"

"Sure is." He stood over her, beaming. "And I'm going to milk it dry." He turned and started toward the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to the condo. I need some sleep, and I've got a lot of thinking to do. Don't make any plans for dinner tonight. I'm treating. Lobster and champagne at Memison's."

"Aren't we generous?"

"Make reservations for two."

And then he was gone. Lydia sat there trying to accept the fact that something that simply didn't happen in real life was happening in hers.

* * *

On the way home, Howard kept well away from the hospital. As he walked he realized that the courtroom was small potatoes, just a springboard into politics. United States Senator Howard Weinstein. He liked the sound of that. He'd know who to trust and who to boot. And after he'd built up his power base, maybe he'd go for the White House.

Hey, why the hell not?

He was tempted to stop by his father's place out on Shore Drive and see what he was up to. He hadn't heard from the old man in a couple of weeks. Might be interesting to see how Dad really felt about him. And then again, it might not.

He went straight home.

His right arm started bothering him at the front door. The ache was worse than he remembered from last night. Just to test a theory, he walked back outside again. The pain disappeared by the time he got to the parking lot. It reoccurred when he returned to the condo.

Which meant that someone nearby had a bad case of bursitis or something. So why the hell didn't the jerk do something about it?

Howard was too tired to worry about that now. He downed a couple of shots of scotch to calm his nerves and crawled under the covers. As he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the throb in his arm, he realized that he felt a little sad. Why? Or did the emotion even originate with him? Maybe somebody else nearby was unhappy or depressed about something. Was he getting more sensitive or what? This could get confusing.

He pushed it all away and wrapped himself in dreams of dazzling courtroom prowess and political glory.

* * *

The pain awoke him at four in the afternoon. The aching throb in his right arm was worse than ever. He wondered if it had anything to do with touching the hand. Maybe Dr. Johnson was getting even with him after all.

That was not a pleasant thought.

But then why would the pain stop as soon as he left the condo? He couldn't figure this out.

He phoned Lydia. "How about an early dinner, Sis?"

"How early?"

"As early as possible."

"I made reservations for seven-thirty."

"We'll change them."

"Is something wrong, Howie?" There was a hint of real concern in her voice.

He told her about the pain in his arm. "I've got to get out of here. That's the only time it stops."

"Okay. Meet you there at five-thirty."

That was when the peasants ate, but the pain wouldn't allow Howard to be snooty. He took a quick shower and hurried outside before his hair had dried. Blessed relief from the pain came at the far end of the parking lot.

* * *

"I'll take that one," Howard said, pointing out a big-tailed two-pounder in Memison's live lobster tank.

"Excellent choice, sir," the waiter said, then turned to Lydia. "And you, Miss?"

"I'll have the fish dinner, please."

Howard was surprised. He sensed a skittish reluctance in her. "No lobster? I thought you loved lobster!"

She was staring at the tank. "I do. But standing her and pointing out the one I'm going to eat. . . somehow it's not the same. Makes me feel like some sort of executioner."

Howard couldn't help laughing. "I swear to God you're from Mars, Sis. From Mars!"

When they returned to the table, Howard refilled their tall, slim champagne glasses from the bottle in the bucket. He watched a fly buzz angrily against the window that ran alongside their table. Outside at the marina, the boats rocked gently at their moorings. He savored the peace.

"You're awful quiet, Howie," Lydia said after a moment.

"Am I?"

"Compared to this morning, you're a sphinx."

Howard didn't know what to tell her, how to say it. Maybe the best thing to do was to lay it all out. Maybe she could help him sort it out.

"I think I'm having second thoughts about this special 'empathy' I've developed," he said finally. "Maybe it really is a curse. I seem to be getting increasingly sensitive. I mean, as I walked over here I got rushes of feelings from everyone I passed. There was this little kid crying on the corner. He had lost his mom and I found myself—me—utterly terrified. I couldn't move, I was so scared. Thank God his mother found him just then or I don't know what I'd have done. And when she whacked him on the backside for running off, I felt it. It hurt! The kid was the worst, but I was picking up all sorts of conflicting emotions. It was almost a relief to get in here. Good thing we're so early and it's almost deserted."

"Why'd you have our table moved? To get away from that fat guy?"

Howard nodded. "Yeah. He must have stuffed himself from the buffet.

I thought my stomach was going to burst. I couldn't enjoy my dinner feeling like that. And if he's going to have a gallbladder attack, I don't want to be near him."

The fly's buzzing continued. It was beginning to annoy him.

"Howard," Lydia said, looking at him intently. She only called him Howard when she was mad or really serious about something. "Can this really be happening?"

"Don't you think I've asked myself that a thousand times since last night? But yes, it's real, and it's happening to me."

He signaled their waiter as he passed. "Could you do something about that fly?"

"Of course."

The waiter returned in a moment with a fly swatter. He swung it as Howard was pouring more champagne.

Pain like Howard had never known in his life flashed through his entire body as his ears roared and his vision went stark white. It was gone in an instant, over as soon as it had begun.

"My God, Howard, what's the matter?"

Lydia was staring at him, wide-eyed and ashen-faced. He glanced around. So were the other people in the place. He felt their disapproval, their annoyance. The waiter began sopping up the champagne he had spilled when he had dropped the bottle.

"Wh-what happened?"

"You screamed and spasmed like you were having a seizure! Howard, what's wrong with you?"

"When he swatted that fly," he said, nodding his head in the direction of the retreating waiter, "I... I think I felt it."

Her disbelief stung him. "Oh, Howard—"

"It's true, Sis. It hurt so much for that one tiny second there I thought I was going to die."

"But a fly, Howard? A fly! She stared at him. "What's wrong?"

Suddenly he was very hot. Terribly hot. His skin felt like it was on fire. He looked down at his bare arms and watched the skin turn red, rise up in blisters, burst open. He felt as if he were being boiled alive.

. . . boiled. . .

His lobster! The kitchen was only a few feet away. They'd be cooking it now—dropping it live into a pot of boiling water!

Screaming with the pain, he leaped up from the table and ran for the door.

Outside . . . coolness. He leaned against the outer wall of Memison's, gasping and sweating, oblivious to the stares of the passers-by but too well aware of their curiosity.

"Howard, are you going crazy?" It was Lydia. She had followed him out.

"Didn't you see me? I was burning up in there!" He looked down at his arms. The skin was perfect, unblemished.

"All I saw was my brother acting like a crazy man!"

He felt her concern, her fear for him, and her embarrassment because of him.

"When they started boiling my lobster, they started boiling me\ I could feel myself being boiled alive!"

"Howard, this has got to stop!"

"Damn right it does." He pushed himself off the wall and began walking down the street, back to his condo. "I've got some thinking to do. See you."

* * *

Lydia was having her first cup of coffee when Howard called the next morning.

"Can I come over, Sis?" His voice was hoarse, strained. "I've got to get out of here."

"Sure, Howie. Is it the arm again?"

"Yeah! Feels like it's being crushed!"

Crushed. That rang a bell somewhere in the back of her mind. "Come right over. I'll leave the door unlocked. If I'm not here, make yourself at home. I'll be back soon. I've got an errand to run."

She hung up, pulled on jeans and a blouse, and hurried down to the Monroe Public Library. A crushed arm . . . she remembered something about that, something to do with the Soundview Condos.

It took her awhile, but she finally tracked it down in a microfilm spool of the Monroe Express from two years ago last summer . . .

* * *

Howard looked like hell. He looked distracted. He wasn't paying attention.

"Listen to me, Howard! It happened two years ago! They were pouring the basement slab in your section of condos. As the cement truck was backing up, a construction worker slipped in some mud and the truck's rear wheels rolled right over his arm. Crushed it so bad even Columbia Presbyterian couldn't save it."

He looked at her dully. "So?"

"So don't you see? You're not just tuned in to the feelings and sensations of people and even lobsters and bugs around you. You're picking up the residuals of old pains and hurts."

"Is that why it's so noisy in here?"

"Noisy?"

"Yeah. Emotional noise. This place is crowded, I mean jammed with emotions, some faint, some strong, some up, some down, some really mean ones. So confusing."

Lydia remembered that these garden apartments had been put up shortly after the war—World War II. If Howard could actually feel forty- plus years of emotion—

"I wish they'd go away and let me sleep. I'd give anything for just a moment's peace."

Lydia went to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and found the bottle of Valium her doctor had prescribed for her when she was divorcing Harry. She shook two of the yellow tablets into her palm and gave them to Howard with a cup of water.

"Take these and go lie down on my bed. They'll help you sleep."

He did as he was told and shuffled off to the next room, moving like a zombie. Lydia's heart went out to him. She called a friend and begged her to take the steno job she had lined up for this afternoon, then settled down to watch over her big brother.

He slept fitfully through the day. Around dark she took a shower to ease her tension-knotted muscles. It helped some. Wrapped in her terrycloth robe, she returned to the kitchen and found him standing there looking worse than ever.

"I can't stand it!" he said in a voice that sounded as if it were going to break into a million jagged pieces. "It's making me crazy. It's even in my dreams! All those feelings! I'm going nuts!"

His wild eyes frightened her. "Just calm down, Howie. I'll make you something to eat and then we can—"

"I've gotta get outta here! I can't take it any longer!"

He started for the door. Lydia tried to stop him.

"Howard—"

He pushed her aside. "Got to get out?'

By the time she threw on enough clothing to follow him, he was nowhere to be seen.

The night was alive with fear and joy and lust and pain and pleasure and love, emotionally and physically strobing Howard with heat and light. He needed relief, he needed quiet, he needed peace.

And there, up ahead, he saw it ... a cool and dark place . . . almost empty of emotions, of feeling of any sort.

He headed for it.

She got the call the next morning.

"Are you Lydia Chambers, sister of Howard Weinstein?" said an official sounding voice. Oh, God!

"Yes."

"Would you come down to the Crosby Marina, please, ma'am?"

"Oh, no! He's not—"

"He's okay," the voice said quickly. "Physically, at least."

* * *

Lt. Donaldson drove her out to the buoy in a Marine Police outboard. Howard sat in a rowboat tied to the bobbing red channel marker in the center of Monroe Harbor.

"Seems he stole the boat last night," said the lieutenant, who had curly blond hair and looked to be in his mid-thirties. "But he seems to have gone off the deep end. He won't untie from the buoy and he starts screaming and swinging an oar at anyone who comes near. He asked for you."

He cut the engine and let the outboard drift toward Howard and the rowboat.

"Tell them to leave me alone, Sis!" Howard said when they got to within a couple of dozen feet of him.

He looked wild—unshaven, his clothes smudged and wrinkled, his hair standing up at crazy angles. And in his eyes, a dangerous, cornered look.

He looks insane, she thought.

"Come ashore, Howard," she said, trying to exude friendliness and calm confidence. "Come home now."

"I can't, Sis! You can explain it to them. Make them understand. This is the only place where it's quiet, where I can find peace. Oh, I know the fish are eating and being eaten below, but it's sporadic and it's far away and I can handle that. I just can't be in town anymore!"

Lt. Donaldson whispered out of the side of his mouth. "He's been talking crazy like that since we found him out here this morning."

Lydia wondered what she could tell the lieutenant: That her brother wasn't crazy, that he was suffering from a curse? Start talking like that and they'd be measuring her for a straightjacket, too.

"You can't stay out here, Howard."

"I have to. There's a gull's nest in the buoy and the little birds were hungry this morning and it made me hungry, too. But then the mother came and fed them and now their bellies are full and they're content" ... he began to sob . . . "and so am I and I just want to stay here near them where it's quiet and peaceful."

She heard the lieutenant growl. "All right. That does it!"

He stood up and signaled to shore. Another larger boat roared out from the marina. There were men in white jackets aboard, and they were carrying something that looked like a net.

* * *

"He'll be asleep for a while yet, Mrs. Chambers," said Dr. Gold. "We had to inject him with a pretty stiff dose of Thorazine to quiet him down."

It had been horrifying to watch them throw a net over her own brother and haul him into the bigger boat like a giant fish, but there had been no other way. Howard would have died out on the water if they had left him there.

She had spent most of the morning signing papers and answering countless questions on Howard's medical and emotional history, family history, current stresses and strains. She had told Dr. Gold everything, including Howard's receiving the hand in the mail two days ago. God, was it only two days ago? Everything . . . except the part about feeling the pain and emotion of other people . . . and animals and even insects. She couldn't bring herself to risk trying to explain that to Dr. Gold. He might think she was sharing her brother's psychosis.

"When can he leave?" she asked.

"Not for twenty-eight days at least. That's how long he's committed. Don't worry too much. This appears to be an acute psychosis precipitated by that grisly incident with the severed hand. We'll start his psychotherapy immediately, find an appropriate medication, and do what we can to get him on his psychological feet again as soon as possible. I think he'll do just fine."

Lydia wasn't too sure of that, but all she could do was hope. At least the Monroe Neuropsychiatric Institute was brand new. It had opened only last winter. She had heard about it, but since she never came to this part of town, she hadn't seen it until now. It seemed pleasant enough. And since most of the patients here were probably sedated to some degree, their emotions wouldn't be too strong. Maybe Howard had a chance here.

Dr. Gold walked her to the door.

"In a way it's sort of ironic that your brother should wind up here."

"Why is that?"

"Well, he's one of the limited partners that developed this little hospital. All of the limited partners got a certified historic rehabilitation tax credit for investing, one of the few goodies remaining after tax overhaul."

"Rehabilitation?" A warning bell sounded in a far corner of her mind. "You mean it isn't a new building?"

"Oh, my goodness, no. We've cleaned it up to look spanking new, but in reality it's a hundred and fifty years old."

"A hundred and fifty—"

"Yes. It was abandoned for such a long time. I understand it was being used for dogfights before we took it over. Even used it as a place to train young fighting pit bulls. Trained them with kittens. A sick, sick—" He stared at her. "Are you all right?"

"Dogfights?" Oh, God, what would that do to Howard? Wouldn't the residual from something like that send him right up the wall?

"I'm sorry if I upset you."

"I'm okay," she said, steeling herself to ask the next question. "What was the building originally?"

"Originally? Why I thought everybody knew that, but I guess you're too young to remember. Up until the late 1960s it was the Monroe Slaughterhouse. One of the busiest in the—"

He stopped as the sound came down the hall—a long, hoarse, agonized scream that echoed off the freshly painted walls and tore into Lydia's soul.

Howard was awake.

TENANTS

INTRODUCTION

The idea for "Tenants" had been wandering through the back of my mind for years. A simple little story about an escaped killer who thinks he's found the perfect hideout from the law in a remote house. The old coot who lives there is crazy: He keeps talking about his tenants, but he's alone in the shack. Or is he?

I could have set it anywhere, but I chose Monroe. Not only because I'd set "Feelings" there but because I was squeezing out these stories between sections of Reborn; that novel is also set in Monroe and I saw a possible connection. I'd envisioned Reborn as the first part of a long roman-fleuve that would unite my three previous novels, The Keep, The Tomb, and The Touch, into a six-book cycle. But why were all these strange things happening in Monroe? Why had the Dat-tay-vao been drawn to Monroe in The Touch? Was it all random, or was there a reason? I realized Reborn contained that reason. So if the old guy in "Tenants" has some strange boarders, maybe they too wound up in Monroe for a reason. The locale had no direct effect on the novelette itself, but it gave me a little extra kick to know I was connecting it to the cycle.

Gus and his tenants surface again briefly in Nightworld.

TENANTS

The mail truck was coming.

Gilroy Connors, shoes full of water and shirt still wet from the morning's heavy dew, crouched in the tall grass and punk-topped reeds. He ached all over; his thighs particularly were cramped from holding his present position. But he didn't dare move for fear of giving his presence away.

So he stayed hunkered down across the road from the battered old shack that looked deserted but wasn't—there had been lights on in the place last night. With its single pitched roof and rotting cedar shake siding, it looked more like an overgrown outhouse than a home. A peeling propane tank squatted on the north side; a crumbling brick chimney supported a canted TV antenna. Beyond the shack, glittering in the morning sunlight lay the northeast end of Monroe Harbor and the Long Island Sound.

The place gave new meaning to the word isolated. As if a few lifetimes ago someone had brought a couple of tandems of fill out to the end of the hard-packed dirt road, dumped them, and built a shack. Except for a rickety old dock with a sodden rowboat tethered to it, there was not another structure in sight in either direction. Only a slender umbilical cord of insulated wire connected it to the rest of the world via a long column of utility poles marching out from town. All around was empty marsh.

Yeah. Isolated as all hell.

It was perfect.

As Gil watched, the shack's front door opened and a grizzled old man stumbled out, a cigarette in his mouth and a fistful of envelopes in his hand. Tall and lanky with an unruly shock of gray hair standing off his head, he scratched his slightly protruding belly as he squinted in the morning sunlight. He wore a torn undershirt that had probably been white once and a pair of faded green work pants held up by suspenders. He looked as run-down as his home, and as much in need of a shave and a bath as Gil felt. With timing so perfect that it could only be the result of daily practice, the old guy reached the mailbox at exactly the same time as the white Jeep-like mail truck.

Must have been watching from the window.

Not an encouraging thought. Had the old guy seen Gil out here? If he had, he gave no sign. Which meant Gil was still safe.

He fingered the handle of the knife inside his shirt.

Lucky for him.

While the old guy and the mailman jawed, Gil studied the shack again. The place was a sign that his recent run of good luck hadn't deserted him yet. He had come out to the marshes to hide until things cooled down in and around Monroe and had been expecting to spend a few real uncomfortable nights out here. The shack would make things a lot easier.

Not much of a place. At most it looked big enough for two rooms and no more. Barely enough space for an ancient couple who didn't move around much—who ate, slept, crapped, watched TV and nothing more. Hopefully, it wasn't a couple. Just the old guy. That would make it simple. A wife, even a real sickly one, could complicate matters.

Gil wanted to know how many were living there before he invited himself in. Not that it would matter much. Either way, he was going in and staying for a while. He just liked to know what he was getting into before he made his move.

One thing was sure: He wasn't going to find any money in there. The old guy had to be next to destitute. But even ten bucks would have made him richer than Gil. He looked at the rusting blue late-sixties Ford Torino with the peeling vinyl roof and hoped it would run. But of course it ran. The old guy had to get into town to cash his Social Security check and buy groceries, didn't he?

Damn well better run.

It had been a long and sloppy trek into these marshes. He intended to drive out.

Finally the mail truck clinked into gear, did a U-turn, and headed back the way it had come. The old guy shoved a couple of envelopes into his back pocket, picked up a rake that had been leaning against the Ford, and began scratching at the dirt on the south side of the house.

Gil decided it was now or never. He straightened up and walked toward the shack. As his feet crunched on the gravel of the yard, the old man wheeled and stared at him with wide, startled eyes.

"Didn't mean to scare you," Gil said in his friendliest voice.

"Well, you sure as hell did, poppin' outta nowhere like that!" the old man said in a deep, gravelly voice. The cigarette between his lips bobbed up and down like a conductor's baton. "We don't exactly get much drop-in company out here. What happen? Boat run outta gas?"

Gil noticed the we with annoyance but played along. A stalled boat was as good an excuse as any for being out here in the middle of nowhere.

"Yeah. Had to paddle it into shore way back over there," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

"Well, I ain't got no phone for you to call anybody—"

No phone! It was all Gil could do to keep from cheering.

"—but I can drive you down to the marina and back so you can get some gas."

"No hurry." He moved closer and leaned against the old Torino's fender. "You live out here all by yourself?"

The old man squinted at him, as if trying to recognize him. "I don't believe we've been introduced, son."

"Oh, right." Gil stuck out his hand. "Rick . . . Rick Summers."

"And I'm George Haskins," he said, giving Gil's hand a firm shake.

"What're you growing there?"

"Carrots. I hear fresh carrots are good for your eyes. Mine are so bad I try to eat as many as I can."

Half blind and no phone. This was sounding better every minute. Now, if he could just find out who the rest of the we was, he'd be golden.

He glanced around. Even though he was out in the middle of nowhere at the end of a dirt road that no one but the mailman and this old fart knew existed, he felt exposed. Naked, even. He wanted to get inside.

"Say, I sure could use a cup of coffee, Mr. Haskins. You think you might spare me some?"

* * *

George hesitated. Making coffee for the stranger would mean bringing him inside. He didn't like that idea at all. He hadn't had anybody into the house since the late sixties when he took in his tenants. And he'd had damn few visitors before that. People didn't like coming this far out, and George was just as glad. Most people pried. They wanted to know what you did way out here all by yourself. Couldn't believe anybody sane would prefer his own company to theirs.

And of course, there was the matter of the tenants.

He studied this young man who had popped out of nowhere. George's eyes weren't getting any better— "Cataracts only get worse, "the doctor had told him—but he could plainly see that the stranger wasn't dressed for boating, what with that blue work shirt and gray denims he was wearing. And those leather shoes! Nobody who knew boats ever wore leather shoes on board. But they were selling boats to anybody with cash these days. This landlubber probably didn't know the first thing about boating. That no doubt was why he was standing here on land instead of chugging about the harbor.

He seemed pleasant enough, though. Good-looking, too, with his muscular build and wavy dark hair. Bet he had an easy time with the girls. Especially easy, since from what George understood of the world today, all the girls were easy.

Maybe he could risk spotting him a cup of coffee before driving him down to the marina. What harm could there be in that? The tenants were late risers and had the good sense to keep quiet if they heard a strange voice overhead.

He smiled. "Coffee? Sure. Come on inside. And call me George. Everybody else does." He dropped his cigarette into the sandy soil and stomped on it, then turned toward the house.

Just a quick cup of coffee and George would send him off. The longer he stayed, the greater the chances of him finding out about the tenants. And George couldn't risk that. He was more than their landlord.

He had sworn to protect them.

* * *

Gil followed close on the old guy's back up the two steps to the door. Inside was dark and stale, reeking of years of cigarette smoke. He wondered when was the last time George had left a window open.

But being indoors was good. Out of sight and inside—even if it stank, it was better than good. It was super. He felt as if a great weight had been lifted from him.

Now to find out who made up the rest of the we.

"Got this place all to yourself, ay?" he said, glancing quickly about. They were standing in a rectangular space that passed for a living room/dining room/kitchen. The furniture consisted of an old card table, a rocker, a tilted easy chair, and a dilapidated couch. Shapeless piles of junk cluttered every corner. An ancient Motorola television set with a huge chassis and a tiny screen stood on the far side of the room diagonally across from the door. The screen was lit and a black chick was reading some news into the camera:

". . . eriously injuring an orderly in a daring escape from the Monroe Neuropsychiatry Institute. He was last reported in Glen Cove-—"

Gil whooped. "Glen Cove! Awright!" That was the wrong direction! He was safe for the moment. "Fanfemic!" he yelled, stomping his foot on the floor.

"Hey! Hold it down!" George said as he filled a greasy, dented aluminum kettle with water and put it on the gas stove.

Gil felt the customary flash of anger at being told what he could or couldn't do, but cooled it. He stepped between George and the TV set as he saw his most recent mug shot appear on the screen. The black chick was saying:

"If you see this man, do not approach him. He might be armed and is considered dangerous."

Gil said, "Sorry. It's just that sometimes I get excited by the news."

"Yeah?" George said, lighting another cigarette. "Don't follow it much myself. But you got to keep quiet. You might disturb the tenants and they—"

"Tenants?" Gil said a lot more loudly than he intended. "You've got tenants?”

The old guy was biting his upper lip with what few teeth he had left and saying nothing.

Gil stepped down the short hall, gripping the handle of the knife inside his shirt as he moved. Two doors: The one on the left was open, revealing a tiny bathroom with a toilet, sink, and mildewy shower stall; the one on the right was closed. He gave it a gentle push. Empty: dirty, wrinkled sheets on a narrow bed, dresser, mirror, clothes thrown all around, but nobody there.

"Where are they?" he said, returning to the larger room.

George laughed—a little too loudly, Gil thought—and said, "No tenants. Just a joke. Creepy-crawlies in the crawl space is all. You know, snapping turtles and frogs and snakes and crickets."

"You keep things like that under your house?" This was turning out to be one weird guy.

"In a manner of speaking, yes. You see, a zillion years ago when I built this place, a big family of crickets took up residence"—he pointed down— "in the crawl space. Drove me crazy at night. So one day I get the bright idea of catching some frogs and throwing them in there to eat the crickets. Worked great. Within two days, there wasn't a chirp to be heard down there."

"Smart."

"Yeah. So I thought. Until the frogs started croaking all night. They were worse than the crickets!"

Gil laughed. "I get it. So you put the snakes down there to catch the frogs!"

"Right. Snakes are quiet. They eat crickets, too. Should've thought of them in the first place. Except I wasn't crazy about living over a nest of snakes."

This was getting to sound like the old lady who swallowed the fly.

Gil said, "And so the next step was to put the turtles down there to eat the snakes."

"Yeah." As George spooned instant coffee into a couple of stained mugs, Gil tried not to think about when they last might have had a good washing. "But I don't think they ate them all, just like I don't think the snakes ate all the frogs, or the frogs ate all the crickets. I still hear an occasional chirp and croak once in a while. Anyway, they've all been down there for years. I ain't for adding anything else to the stew, or even looking down there."

"Don't blame you."

George poured boiling water into the mugs and handed him one.

"So if you hear something moving underfoot, it's just one of my tenants."

"Yeah. Okay. Sure."

This old guy was fruitcake city. As crazy as—

. .. Crazy. That was what that college chick had called him that night when he had tried to pick her up along the road. She was cute. There were a lot of cute girls at Monroe Community College, and he always made it a point to drive by every chance he could. Shed said he was crazy to think she’d take a ride from a stranger at that hour of the night. That had made him mad. All these college broads thought they were better and smarter than everybody else. And she started to scream when he grabbed her, so he hit her to make her stop but she wouldn't stop. She kept on screaming so he kept on hitting her and hitting her and hitting and hitting. . .

"You're spilling your coffee," George said.

Gil looked down. So he was. It was dripping over the edge of his tilted mug and splashing onto the floor. As he slurped some off the top and sat on the creaking couch, he realized how tired he was. No sleep in the past twenty-four hours. Maybe the coffee would boost him.

"So how come you live out here all by yourself?" Gil asked, hoping to get the conversation on a saner topic than snakes and snapping turtles in the crawl space.

"I like being by myself."

"You must. But whatever rent you pay on this place, it's too much."

"Don't pay no rent at all. I own it."

"Yeah, but the land—"

"My land."

Gil almost dropped his coffee mug. " Your land! That's impossible!"

"Nope. All twenty acres been in my family for a zillion and two years."

Gil's brain whirled as he tried to calculate the value of twenty acres of real estate fronting on Monroe Harbor and Long Island Sound.

"You're a fucking millionaire!"

George laughed. "I wish! I'm what you call 'land poor,' son. I've got to pay taxes on all this land if I want to keep it, and the damn bastards down at City Hall keep raising my rates and my assessed value so that I've got to come up with more and more money every year just to stay here. Trying to force me out, that's what they're up to."

"So sell, for Christ sake! There must be developers chomping at the bit to get ahold of this land. You could make 'em pay through the nose for a piece of waterfront and all your money worries would be over!"

George shook his head. "Naw. Once you sell one little piece, it's like a leak in a dam. It softens you, weakens you. Soon you're selling another piece, and then another. Pretty soon, I'll be living on this little postage stamp surrounded by big ugly condos, listening to cars and mopeds racing up and down the road with engines roaring and rock and roll blasting. No thanks. I've lived here in peace, and I want to die here in peace."

"Yeah, but—"

"Besides, lots of animals make their homes on my land. They've been pushed out of everywhere else in Monroe. All the trees have been cut down back there, all the hollows and gullies filled in and paved over. There's no place else for them to go. This is their world, too, you know. I'm their last resort. It's my duty to keep this place wild as long as I can. As long as I live . .. which probably won't be too much longer."

Oh, yes . . . crazy as a loon. Gil wondered if there might be some way he could get the old guy to will him the property and then cork him off. He stuffed the idea away in the To Be Developed file.

"Makes me glad I don't have a phone," George was saying.

Right... no phone and no visitors.

Gil knew this was the perfect hiding place for him. Just a few days was all he needed. But he had to stay here with the old guy's cooperation. He couldn't risk anything forceful—not if George met the mailman at the box every day.

And from a few things the old man had said, he thought he knew just what buttons to push to convince George to let him stay.

* * *

George noted that his guest's coffee was empty. Good. Time to get him moving on. He never had company, didn't like it, and wasn't used to it. Made him itchy. Besides, he wanted this guy on his way before another remark about the tenants slipped out. That had been a close call before.

He stood up.

"Well, guess it's about time to be running you down to the marina for that tank of gas."

The stranger didn't move.

"George," he said in a low voice, "I've got a confession to make."

"Don't want to hear it!" George said. "I ain't no priest! Tell it somewhere else. I just want to help get you where you're going!"

"I'm on the run, George."

Oh, hell, George thought. At least that explained why he was acting so skittish. "You mean there's no boat waiting for gas somewhere?"

"I . . ." His voice faltered. "I lied about the boat."

"Well ain't that just swell. And who, may I ask,"—George wasn't so sure he wanted the answer to this, but he had to ask—"are you on the run from?"

"The Feds."

Double hell. "What for?"

"Income tax evasion."

"No kidding?" George was suddenly interested. "How much you take them for?"

"It's not so much 'how much' as 'how long.' "

"All right: How long?"

"Nine years. I haven't filed a return since I turned eighteen."

"No shit! Is that because you're stupid or because you've got balls?"

"Mr. Haskins," the stranger said, looking at him levelly and speaking with what struck George as bone-deep conviction, "I don't believe any government's got the right to tax what a working man earns with the sweat of his brow."

"Couldn't of said it better myself!" George cried. He thought his heart was going to burst. This boy was talking like he'd have wanted his son to talk, if he'd ever had one. "The sonsabitches'll bleed you dry if you let 'em! Look what they've been doin' to me!"

The young stranger stared at the floor. "I was hoping you'd understand."

"Understand? Of course I understand! I've been fighting the IRS for years but never had the guts to actually resist I My hat's off to you!"

"Can I stay the night?"

That brought George up short. He wanted to help this courageous young man, but what was he going to do about the tenants?

"What's going to happen to you if they catch you? What kind of sentence you facing?"

"Twenty."

George's stomach turned. A young guy like this in the hole for twenty years just for not paying taxes. He felt his blood begin to boil.

"Bastards!"

He'd have to chance it. Tenants or not, he felt obligated to give this guy a place to stay for the night. It would be okay. The tenants could take the day off and just rest up. They'd been working hard lately. He'd just have to watch his mouth so he didn't make another slip about them.

"Well, George? What do you say?"

"I can let you stay one night and one night only," George said. "After that—"

The young fellow leaped forward and shook his head. "Thanks a million, George!"

"Hear me out now. Only tonight. Come tomorrow morning, I'll drive you down to the train station, get you a ticket, and put you on board for New York with all the commuters. Once in the city, you can get lost real easy.

George thought he saw tears in the young man's eyes. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Never mind that. You just hit the sack in my room. You look bushed. Get some rest. No one'll know you're here."

He nodded, then went to the window and gazed out at the land. "Beautiful here," he said.

George realized it would probably look even more beautiful if the window were cleaner, but his eyes weren't good enough to notice much difference.

"If this were mine," the young fellow said passionately, "I'd sure as hell find a way to keep it out of the hands of the developers and the tax men. Maybe make it into a wildlife preserve or bird sanctuary or something. Anything to keep it wild and free."

Shaking his head, he turned and headed for the back room. George watched him in wonder. A wildlife preserve! Why hadn't he thought of that? It would be untaxable and unsubdividable! What a perfect solution!

But it was too late to start the wheels turning on something like that now. It would take years to submit all the proposals and wade through all the red tape to get it approved. And he didn't have years. He didn't need a doctor to tell him that his body was breaking down. He couldn't see right, he couldn't breathe right, and Christ Almighty, he couldn't even pee right. The parts were wearing out and there were no replacements available.

And what would happen when he finally cashed in his chips? What would happen to his land? And the tenants? Where would they go?

Maybe this young fellow was the answer. Maybe George could find a way to leave the land to him. He'd respect it, preserve it, just as George would if he could go on living. Maybe that was the solution.

But that meant he'd have to tell him the real truth about the tenants. He didn't know if the guy was ready for that.

He sat down in the sun on the front steps and lit another cigarette. He had a lot of thinking to do.

* * *

The five o'clock news was on.

George had kept himself busy all day, what with tending to the carrot patch outside and cleaning up a bit inside. Having company made him realize how long it had been since he'd given the place a good sweeping.

But before he'd done any of that, he'd waited until the young fellow had fallen asleep, then he'd lifted the trapdoor under the rug in the corner of the main room and told the tenants to lay low for the day. They'd understood and said they'd be quiet.

Now he was sitting in front of the TV watching Eyewitness News and going through today's mail: Three small checks from the greeting card companies—not much, but it would help pay this quarter's taxes. He looked up at the screen when he heard "the Long Island town of Monroe" mentioned. Some pretty Oriental girl was sitting across from a scholarly looking fellow in a blue suit. She was saying, ". . . explain to our viewers just what it is that makes Gilroy Connors so dangerous, Dr. Kline."

"He's a sociopath."

"And just what is that?"

"Simply put, it is a personality disorder in which the individual has no sense of 'mine' and 'not mine,' no sense of right or wrong in the traditional sense."

"No conscience, so to speak."

"Exactly."

"Are they all murderers like Connors?"

"No. History's most notorious criminals and serial killers are sociopaths, but violence isn't a necessary facet of their makeup. The confidence men who rip off the pensions of widows or steal from a handicapped person are just as sociopathic as the Charles Mansons of the world. The key element in the sociopathic character is his or her complete lack of guilt. They will do whatever is necessary to get what they want and will feel no remorse over anyone they have to harm along the way."

"Gilroy Connors was convicted in the Dorothy Akers murder. Do you think he'll kill again?"

"He has to be considered dangerous. He's a sociopathic personality with a particularly low frustration threshold. But he is also a very glib liar. Since the truth means nothing to him, he can take any side of a question, any moral stance, and speak on it with utter conviction."

A voice—George recognized it as belonging to one of the anchormen— called from off-camera: "Sounds like he'd make a great politician!"

Everyone had a good laugh, and then the Oriental woman said, "But all kidding aside, what should our viewers do if one of them should spot him?"

Dr. Kline's expression was suddenly grim. "Lock the doors and call the police immediately."

The camera closed in on the Oriental girl. "There you have it. We've been speaking to Dr. Edward Kline, a Long Island psychiatrist who examined Gilroy Connors and testified for the state at the Dorothy Akers murder trial.

" In case you've been asleep or out of the country during the last twenty- four hours, all of Long Island is being combed for Gilroy Connors, convicted killer of nineteen-year-old college coed Dorothy Akers. Connors escaped custody last night when, due to an error in paperwork, he was ac- cidently transferred to the Monroe Neuropsychiatric Institute instead of a maximum security facility as ordered by the court. The victim's father, publisher Jeffrey Akers, is offering a fifty thousand dollar reward for information leading to his recapture."

Fifty thousand! George thought. What I could do with that!

"You've heard Dr. Kline," she continued. "If you see this man, call the police immediately"

A blow-up of a mug shot appeared on the screen. George gasped. He knew that man! Even with his rotten vision, he could see that the face on the TV belonged to the man now sleeping in his bed! He turned around to look toward the bedroom and saw his house guest standing behind him, a knife in his hand.

"Don't even think about that reward, old man," Connors said in a chillingly soft voice. "Don't even dream about it."

* * *

"You're hurtin' my hands!" the old fart whined as Gil knotted the cord around his wrists.

"I'm putting you down for the night, old man, and you're staying down!"

He pulled the rope tighter and the old man yelped.

Gil said, "There—that ought to hold you."

George rolled over onto his back and stared up at him. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Haven't figured that out yet."

"You're gonna kill me, aren't you?" There was more concern than fear in his eyes.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on how you behave."

Truthfully, he didn't know what to do. It would be less of a hassle to kill him now and get it over with, but there was the problem of the mailman. If George wasn't waiting curbside at the box tomorrow morning, the USPS might come knocking on the door. So Gil had to figure out a way to pressure George into acting as if everything was nice and normal tomorrow. Maybe he'd have George stand at the door and wave to the mailman. That might work. He'd have to spend some time figuring this out.

"All that stuff you said about dodging the tax man was just lies, wasn't it?"

Gil smiled at the memory. "Yeah. Pretty good, wasn't it? I mean, I made that up right off the top of my head. Sucked you in like smoke, didn't I?"

"Nothing to be proud of."

"Why not?"

"You heard what they called you on the TV: a 'socialpath.' Means you're crazy."

"You watch your mouth, old man!" Gil could feel the rage surging up in him like a giant wave. He hated that word. "I'm not crazy! And I don't ever want to hear that word out of your mouth again!"

"Doesn't matter anyway," George said. "Soon as you're out of here, my tenants will untie me."

Gil laughed. "Now who's crazy!"

"It's true. They'll free me."

"That's enough of that," Gil said. It wasn't funny anymore. He didn't like being called crazy any more than he liked being near crazy people. And this old man was talking crazy now. "No more of that kind of talk out of you!”

"You'll see. I'm their protector. Soon as you're—"

"Stop that!" Gil yanked George off the bed by his shirt front. He was losing it—he could feel it going. "God damn that makes me mad!"

He shoved the old man back against the wall with force enough to rat- de the whole house. George's eyes rolled up as he slumped back onto the

bed. A small red trickle crawled along his scalp and mixed with the gray of his hair at the back of his head.

"Sleep tight, Pops," Gil said.

He left George on the bed and returned to the other room. He turned the antique TV back on. After what seemed like an inordinately long warm-up time, the picture came in, flipped a few times, then held steady. He hoped there wasn't another psychiatrist on talking about him.

He hated psychiatrists. Hated them! Since he'd been picked up for killing that college chick, he'd seen enough of their kind to last a couple of lifetimes. Why'd she have to go and die? It wasn't fair. He hadn't meant to kill her. If only she'd been a little more cooperative. But no—she'd had to go and laugh in his face. He'd just got mad, that was all. He wasn't crazy. He just had a bad temper.

Psychiatrists! What'd they know about him? Labeling him, pigeonholing him, saying he had no conscience and never felt sorry for anything he did. What'd they know? Did they know how he'd cried after Mom had burnt up in that fire in Dad's car? He'd cried for days. Mom wasn't supposed to be anywhere near that car when it caught fire. Only Dad.

He had loads of feelings, and nobody had better tell him any different!

He watched the tube for a while, caught a couple of news broadcasts, but there was only passing mention of his escape and the reward the girl's old man had posted for him. Then came a report that he had been sighted on Staten Island and the search was being concentrated there.

He smiled. They were getting farther and farther away from where he really was.

He shut off the set at eleven-thirty. Time for some more sleep. Before he made himself comfortable on the couch, he checked out the old man's room. He was there, snoring comfortably under the covers. Gil turned away and then spun back again.

How'd he get under the covers?

Two strides took him to the bedside. His foot kicked against something that skittered across the floor. He found what it was: the old guy's shoes. They'd been on his feet when he'd tied him up! He yanked back the covers and stared in open-mouthed shock at the old man.

George's hands and feet were free. The cords were nowhere in sight.

Just then he thought he caught a blur of movement by the doorway. He swung around but there was nothing there. He turned back to George.

"Hey, you old fart!" He shook George's shoulder roughly until his eyes opened. "Wake up!"

George's eyes slowly came into focus. "Wha—?"

"How'd you do it?"

"Go way!"

George rolled onto his other side and Gil saw a patch of white gauze where he had been bleeding earlier. He flipped him onto his back again.

"How'd you untie yourself, goddammit?"

"Didn't. My tenants—"

"You stop talking that shit to me, old man!" Gil said, cocking his right arm.

George flinched away but kept his mouth shut. Maybe he was finally learning.

"You stay right there!"

Gil tore through the drawers and piles of junk in the other room until he found some more cord. During the course of the search he came across a checkbook and some uncashed checks. He returned to the bedroom and began tying up George again.

"Don't know how you did it the first time, but you ain't doing it again!"

He spread-eagled George on the sheet and tied each skinny limb to a separate corner of the bed, looping the cord down and around on the legs of the frame. Each knot was triple-tied.

"There! See if you can get out of that!"

As George opened his mouth to speak, Gil glared at him and the old man shut it with an almost audible snap.

"That's the spirit," Gil said softly.

He pulled the knife out of his shirt and held its six-inch blade up before George. The old man's eyes widened.

"Nice, isn't it? I snatched it from the kitchen of that wimpy Monroe Neuropsychiatric Institute. Would ve preferred getting myself a gun, but none of the guards there were armed. Still, I can do a whole lot of damage with something like this and still not kill you. Understand what I'm saying to you, old man?"

George nodded vigorously.

"Good. Now what we're going to have here tonight is a nice quiet little house. No noise, no talk. Just a good night's sleep for both of us. Then we'll see what tomorrow brings."

* * *

He gave George one last hard look straight in the eye, then turned and headed back to the couch.

Before sacking out for the night, Gil went through George's checkbook. Not a whole lot of money in it. Most of the checks went out to cash or to the township for quarterly taxes. He noticed one good-sized regular monthly deposit that was probably his Social Security check, and lots of smaller sporadic additions.

He looked through the three undeposited checks. They were all made out to George Haskins, each from a different greeting card company. The attached invoices indicated they were in payment for varying numbers of verses.

Verses?

You mean old George back there tied up to the bed was a poet? He wrote greeting card verse?

Gil looked around the room. Where? There was no desk in the shack. Hell, he hadn't seen a piece of paper since he got here! Where did George write this stuff?

He went back to the bedroom. He did his best not to show the relief he felt when he saw that old George was still tied up nice and tight.

"Hey, old man," he said, waving the checks in the air. "How come you never told me you were a poet?"

George glared at him. "Those checks are mine! I need them to pay my taxes!"

"Yeah? Well, right now I need them a lot more than you do. I think tomorrow morning we'll take a little trip down to the bank so you can cash these." He checked the balance in the account. "And I think you just might make a cash withdrawal, too."

"I'll lose my land if I don't pay those taxes on time!"

"Well then, I guess you'll just have to come up with some more romantic 'verses' for these card companies. Like, 'George is a poet/And nobody know it.' See? It's easy!"

Gil laughed as he thought of all the broads who get those flowery, syrupy birthday and anniversary cards and sit mooning over the romantic poems inside, never knowing they were written by this dirty old man in a falling-down shack on Long Island!

"I love it!" he said, heading back to the couch. "I just love it!"

He turned out all the lights, shoved the knife between two of the cushions, and bedded down on the dusty old couch for the night. As he drifted off to sleep, he thought he heard rustling movements from under the floorboards. George's 'tenants,' no doubt. He shuddered at the thought. The sooner he was out of here, the better.

* * *

What time is it?

Gil was rubbing the sleep from his eyes and peering around in the mine- shaft blackness that surrounded him. Something had awakened him. But what? He sat perfectly still and listened.

A few crickets, maybe a frog—the noises seemed to come from outside instead of from the crawl space—but nothing more than that.

Still, his senses were tingling with the feeling that something was wrong. He stood up and stepped over toward the light switch. As he moved, his foot caught on something and he fell forward. On the way down his ribs slammed against something else, something hard, like a chair. He hit the floor with his left shoulder. Groaning, he got to his knees and crawled until his fingers found the wall. He fumbled around for the light switch and flipped it.

When his eyes had adjusted to the glare, he glanced at the clock over the kitchen sink—going on 4:00 a.m. He thought he saw something move by the sink, but when he squinted for a better look, it was just some junk George had left there. Then he turned back toward the couch to see what had tripped him up.

It was the little hassock that had been over by the rocking chair when he had turned the lights out. At least he was pretty sure it had been there. He knew it hadn't been next to the couch where it was now. And the chair he had hit on his way down—that had been over against the wall.

In fact, as he looked around he noticed that not a single piece of furniture in the whole room was where it had been when he had turned out the lights and gone to sleep three or four hours ago. It had all been moved closer to the couch.

Someone was playing games. And Gil only knew of one possible someone.

Retrieving his knife from the couch, he hurried to the bedroom and stopped dead at the door. George was tied hand and foot to the corners of the bed, snoring loudly.

A chill rippled over Gil's skin.

"How the hell. . . ?"

He went back to the main room and checked the door and windows— all were locked from the inside. He looked again at the furniture, clustered around the couch as if the pieces had crept up and watched him as he slept.

Gil didn't believe in ghosts but he was beginning to believe this little shack was haunted.

And he wanted out.

He had seen the keys to the old Torino in one of the drawers. He found them again and hurried outside to the car. He hoped the damn thing started. He wasn't happy about hitting the road so soon, but he preferred taking his chances with the cops out in the open to being cooped up with whatever was haunting that shack.

As he slipped behind the wheel, he noticed a sliver of light shining out from inside the shack's foundation. That was weird. Really weird. Nobody kept a light on in a crawl space. He was about to turn the ignition key but held up. He knew it was going to drive him nuts if he left without seeing what was down there.

Cursing himself for a jerk, he turned on the Ford's headlamps and got out for a closer look.

The light was leaking around a piece of plywood fitted into an opening in the foundation cinder blocks. It was hinged at the bottom and held closed by a short length of one-by-two shoved through the handle at the top. He pulled out the one-by-two and hesitated.

Connors, you are an asshole, he told himself, but he had to see what was in there. If it was snakes and snapping turtles, fine. That would be bad enough. But if it was something worse, he had to know.

Gripping the knife tightly in one hand, he yanked the board toward him with the other and quickly peered in, readying himself to slam it shut in an instant. But what he saw within so shocked him he almost dropped the knife.

There was a furnished apartment inside.

The floor of the crawl space was carpeted. It was worn, industrial grade carpet, but it was carpet. There were chairs, tables, bunk beds, the works. A fully furnished apartment. . . with a ceiling two feet high.

Everything was doll size except the typewriter. That was a portable electric model that looked huge in contrast to everything else.

Maybe George wasn't really crazy after all. One thing was certain: The old fart had been lying to him. There were no snakes and snapping turtles living down here in his crawl space.

But just what the hell was living down here?

Gil headed back inside to ask the only man who really knew.

As he strode through the big room, his foot caught on something and he went down again, landing square on his belly. It took him a moment to catch his breath, then he rolled over and looked to see what had tripped him.

It wasn't the hassock this time. A length of slim cord was stretched between the leg of the couch and an eye-hook that had been screwed into the wall.

He got up and continued on his way—carefully now, scanning the path for more trip ropes. There were none. He made it to the bedroom without falling again—

—and found George sitting on the edge of the bed, massaging his wrists.

Dammit! Every time he turned around it was something else! He could feel the anger and frustration begin to bubble up toward the overflow levels.

"Who the hell untied you?"

"I ain't talking to you."

Gil pointed the knife at him. "You'll talk, old man, or I'll skin you alive!"

"Leave him alone and leave our home!"

It was a little voice, high-pitched without being squeaky, and it came from directly behind him. Gil whirled and saw a fully dressed little man— or something squat, hairy, and bullnecked that came pretty close to looking like a little man—no more than a foot and a half high, standing outside the bedroom door. By the time Gil realized what he was looking at, the creature had started to run.

Gil's first thought was, I'm going crazy! But suddenly he had an explanation for that two-foot high furnished apartment in the crawl space, and for the moving furniture and trip cords.

He bolted after it. Here was what had been tormenting him tonight! He'd get the little sucker and—

He tripped again. A cord that hadn't been there a moment ago was stretched across the narrow hall. Gil went down on one knee and bounded up again. He'd been half ready for that one. They weren't going to—

Something caught him across the chin and his feet went out from under him. He landed flat on his back and felt a sharp, searing pain in his right thigh. He looked down and saw he had jabbed himself in the leg with his own knife during the fall.

Gil leaped to his feet, the pain a distant cry amid the blood rage that hammered through his brain. He roared and slashed at the rope that had damn near taken his head off and charged into the big room. There he saw not one but two of the little bastards. A chant filled the air:

"Leave him alone and leave our home! Leave him alone and leave our home!"

Over and over, from a good deal more than two voices. He couldn't see any others. How many of the little runts were there? No matter. He'd deal with these two first, then hunt down the others and get to the bottom of this.

The pair split, one darting to the left, the other to the right. Gil wasn't going to let them both escape. He took a single step and launched himself through the air at the one fleeing leftward. He landed with a bone-jarring crash on the floor but his outstretched free hand caught the leg of the fleeing creature. It was hairier than he had realized—furry, really—and it struggled in his grasp, screeching and thrashing like a wild animal as he pulled it toward him. He squeezed it harder and it bit his thumb. Hard. He howled with the pain, hauled the thing back, and flung it against the nearest wall.

Its screeching stopped as it landed against the wall with an audible crunch and fell to the floor, but the chant went on:

. . .our home! Leave him alone and leave our home! Leave him ..."

"God damn it!" Gil said, sucking on his bleeding thumb. It hurt like hell.

Then he saw the thing start to move. Mewling in pain, it had begun a slow crawl toward one of the piles of junk in the corner.

"No, you don't!" Gil shouted.

The pain, the rage, that goddamn chant, they all came together in a black cloud of fury that engulfed him. No way he was going to let that little shit get away and set more booby traps for him. Through that cloud, he charged across the room, lifted the thing up with his left hand, and raised the knife in his right. Dimly he heard a voice shouting somewhere behind him but he ignored it.

He rammed the knife through the damned thing, pinning it to the wall.

The chant stopped abruptly, cut off in mid verse. All he could hear was George's wail.

* * *

"Oh, no! Oh, Lord, no!"

George stood in the hall and stared at the tiny figure impaled on the wall, watched it squirm as dark fluid flowed down the peeling wallpaper. Then it went slack. He didn't know the little guy's name—they all looked pretty much the same through his cataracts—but he felt like he'd lost an old friend. His anguish was a knife lodged in his own chest. "You've killed him! Oh, God!"

Gil glared at him, his eyes wild, his breathing ragged. Saliva dripped from a corner of his mouth. He was far over the edge.

"Right, old man. And I'm gonna get the other one and do the same to him!"

George couldn't let that happen. The little guys were his responsibility. He was their protector. He couldn't just stand here like a useless scarecrow.

He launched himself at Gil, his long, nicotine-stained fingernails extended like claws, raking for the younger man's eyes. But Gil pushed him aside easily, knocking him to the floor with a casual swipe of his arm. Pain blazed through George's left hip as he landed, shooting down his leg like a bolt of white hot lightning.

"You're next, you worthless old shit!" Gil screamed. "Soon as I finish with the other little squirt!"

George sobbed as he lay on the floor. If only he were younger, stronger. Even ten years ago he probably could have kicked this punk out on his ass. Now all he could do was lie here on the floor like the worthless old half- blind cripple he was. He pounded the floor helplessly. Might as well be dead!

Suddenly he saw another of the little guys dash across the floor toward the couch, saw the punk spot him and leap after him. "Run!" George screamed. "Run!"

* * *

Gil rammed his shoulder against the back of the couch as he shoved his arm far beneath it, slashing back and forth with the knife, trying to get a piece of the second runt. But the blade cut only air and dust bunnies. As he began to withdraw his arm, he felt something snake over his hand and tighten on his wrist. He tried to yank away but the cord—he was sure it was a cord like the one he had used to truss George—tightened viciously.

A slip knot!

The other end must have been tied to one of the couch legs. He tried to slash at the cord with the knife but he couldn't get the right angle. He reached under with his free left hand to get the knife and realized too late that they must have been waiting for him to do that very thing. He felt another noose tighten over that wrist—

—and still another over his right ankle.

The first cold trickles of fear ran down Gil's spine.

In desperation he tried to tip the couch over to give him some room to maneuver but it wouldn't budge. Just then something bit deeply into his right hand. He tried to shake it off and in doing so he loosened his grip on the knife. It was immediately snatched from his grasp.

At that moment the fourth noose tightened around his left ankle, and he knew he was in deep shit.

They let him lie there for what must have been an hour. He strained at the ropes, trying to break them, trying to untie the knots. All he accomplished was to sink their coils more deeply into his flesh. He wanted to scream out his rage—and his fear—but he wouldn't give them the satisfaction. He heard George moving around somewhere behind him, groaning with pain, heard little voices—How many of the little fuckers were there, anyway?—talking in high-pitched whispers. There seemed to be an argument going on. Finally, it was resolved.

Then came a tugging on the cords as new ones were tied around his wrists and ankles and old ones released. Suddenly he was flipped over onto his back.

He saw George sitting in the rocker holding an ice pack to his left hip. And on the floor there were ten—Jesus, ten of them!—foot-and-a-half tall furry little men standing in a semicircle, staring at him.

One of them stepped forward. He was dressed in doll clothes: a dark blue pullover—it even had an Izod alligator on the left breast—and tan slacks. He had the face of a sixty-year-old man with a barrel chest and furry arms and legs. He pointed at Gil's face and spoke in a high-pitched voice:

"C'ham is dead and it's on your head."

Gil started to laugh. It was like landing in Munchkinland, but then he saw the look in the little man's eyes and knew this was not one of the Lollipop Kids. The laugh died in his throat.

He glanced up at the wall where he'd pinned the first little runt like a bug on a board and saw only a dark stain.

The talking runt gestured two others forward and they approached Gil, dragging his knife. He tried to squirm away from them but the ropes didn't allow for much movement.

"Hey, now, wait a minute! What're you—?"

"The decision's made: You'll make the trade."

Gil was beginning to know terror. "Forget the goddamn rhymes! What's going on here?"

"Hold your nose," the talking runt said to the pair with the knife, "and cut off his clothes. Best be cautious lest he make you nauseous."

Gil winced as the blade began to slice along the seams of his shirt, waiting for the sharp edge to cut him. But it never touched him.

* * *

George watched as the little guys stripped Connors. He had no idea what they were up to and he didn't care. He felt like more of a failure than ever. He'd never done much with his life, but at least since the end of the sixties he had been able to tell himself that he had provided a safe harbor for the last of the world's Little People.

When had it been—sixty-nine, maybe—when all eleven of them had first shown up at his door looking for shelter. They'd said they were waiting for "when time is unfurled and we're called by the world." He hadn't the vaguest notion what that meant but he'd experienced an immediate rapport with them. They were Outsiders, just like he was. And when they offered to pay rent, the deal was sealed.

He smiled. That rhymed. If you listened to them enough, you began to sound like them. Since they spoke in rhyme all the time—there was another one—it was nothing for them to crank out verse for the greeting card companies. Some of the stuff was pretty sappy, but it paid the taxes.

But what next? One of the little guys had been murdered by this psycho who now knew their secret. Soon all the world would know about these Little People. George had doubly failed at his job: He hadn't protected them and hadn't kept their secret. He was just what the punk had called him: a worthless old shit.

He heard Connors groan and looked up. He was nude as a jaybird and the little guys had tied him with new ropes looped through rings fastened high on the walls at each end of the room. They were hauling him off the floor, stringing him across the room like laundry hung out to dry.

George suddenly realized that although he wasn't too pleased with being George Haskins, at this particular moment he preferred it by far to being Gilroy Connors.

* * *

Gil felt as if his arms and legs were going to come out of their sockets as the runts hauled him off the floor and stretched him out in the air. For a moment he feared that might be their plan, but when he got halfway between the floor and the ceiling, they stopped pulling on the ropes.

He couldn't ever remember feeling so damn helpless in all his life.

The lights went out and he heard a lot of shuffling below him but he couldn't see what they were doing. Then came the sound, a new chant, high-pitched and staccato in a language he had never heard before, a language that didn't seem at home on the human tongue.

A soft glow began to rise from below him. He wished he could see what they were doing. All he could do was watch their weird shadows on the ceiling. So far they hadn't caused him too much pain, but he was beginning to feel weak and dizzy. His back got warm while his front grew cold and numb, like there was a cool wind coming from the ceiling and passing right through him, carrying his energy with it. All of his juice seemed to be flowing downward and collecting in his back.

So tired . . . and his back felt so heavy. What were they doing below him?

* * *

They were glowing.

George had watched them carry Cham, their dead member, to a spot directly below Connor's suspended body. They had placed one of George's coffee mugs at C'ham's feet, then they stripped off their clothes and gathered in a circle around him. They had started to chant. After a while, a faint yellow light began to shimmer around their furry little bodies.

George found the ceremony fascinating in a weird sort of way—until the glow brightened and flowed up to illuminate the suspended punk. Then even George's lousy eyes could see the horror of what was happening to Gilroy Connors.

His legs, arms, and belly were a cold dead white, but his back was a deep red-purple color, like a gigantic bruise, and it bulged like the belly of a mother-to-be carrying triplets. George could not imagine how the skin was holding together, it was stretched so tight. Looked like it would rupture any minute. George shielded his face, waiting for the splatter. But when it didn't come, he chanced another peek.

It was raining on the Little People.

The skin hadn't ruptured as George had feared. No, a fine red mist was falling from Connors' body. Red micro-droplets were slipping from the pores in the purpled swelling on his back and falling through the yellow glow, turning it orange. The scene was as beautiful as it was horrifying.

The bloody dew fell for something like half an hour, then the glow faded and one of the little guys boosted another up to the wall switch and the lights came on. George did not have to strain his eyes to know that Gilroy Connors was dead.

As the circle dissolved, he noticed that the dead little guy was gone. Only the mug remained under Connors.

George found his mouth dry when he tried to speak.

"What happened to ... to the one he stabbed?"

"Cham?" said the leader. George knew this one; his name was Kob. "He's over there." He wasn't rhyming now.

Sure enough. There were ten little guys standing over by the couch, one of them looking weak and being supported by the others.

"But I thought—"

"Yes. C'ham was dead, but now he's back because of the Crimson Dew."

"And the other one?"

Kob glanced over his shoulder at Connors. "I understand there's a reward for his capture. You should have it. And there's something else you should have."

The little man stepped under Connors' suspended body and returned with the coffee mug.

"This is for you," he said, holding it up.

George took the mug and saw that it was half-filled with a thin reddish liquid.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Drink it."

George's stomach turned. "But it's . . . from him."

"Of course. From him to you." Kob gave George's calf a gentle slap. "We need you George. You're our shield from the world—" "Some shield!" George said.

"It's true. You've protected us from prying eyes and we need you to go on doing that for some time to come."

"I don't think I've got much time left."

"That's why you should drain that cup."

"What do you mean?"

"Think of it as extending your lease," Kob said.

George looked over at C'ham, who'd surely been dead half an hour ago and now was up and walking about. He looked down into the cup again.

. . . extending your lease.

Well, after what he'd just seen, he guessed anything might be possible.

Tightening his throat against an incipient gag, George raised the cup to his lips and sipped. The fluid was lukewarm and salty—like a bouillon that had been allowed to cool too long. Not good, but not awful, either. He squeezed his eyes shut and chugged the rest. It went down and stayed down, thank the Lord.

"Good!" Kob shouted, and the ten other Little People applauded.

"Now you can help us cut him down and carry him outside."

* * *

"So what're you going to do with all that money, George?" Bill said as he handed George the day's mail.

"I ain't got it yet."

„ George leaned against the roof of the mail truck and dragged on his cigarette. He felt good. His morning backache was pretty much a thing of the past, and he could pee with the best of them—hit a wall from six feet away, he bet. His breathing was better than it had been in thirty years. And best of all, he could stand here and see all the way south along the length of the harbor to downtown Monroe. He didn't like to think about what had been in that mug Kob had handed him, but in the ten days since he had swallowed it down he had come to feel decades younger.

He wished he had some more of it.

"Still can't get over how lucky you were to find him laying in the grass over there," Bill said, glancing across the road. "Especially lucky he wasn't alive from what I heard about him."

"Guess so," George said.

"I understand they still can't explain how he died or why he was all dried up like a mummy."

"Yeah, it's a mystery, all right."

"So when you do get the fifty thou—what are you going to spend it on?

"Make a few improvements on the old place, I guess. Get me some legal help to see if somehow I can get this area declared off-limits to developers. But mostly set up some sort of fund to keep paying the taxes until that comes to pass."

Bill laughed and let up on the mail truck's brake. "Not ready for the old folks' home yet?" he said as he lurched away.

"Not by a long shot!"

I've got responsibilities, he thought. And tenants to keep happy.

He shuddered.

Yes, he certainly wanted to keep those little fellows happy. Gil followed close.

At last. A story without a plural noun for a title.

Remember "Ethics," the story I replaced with "Faces" for Night Visions 61 This is what happened to it. It became "The Tenth Toe."

The metamorphosis began on November 14, 1988, at the annual SFWA Editor-Publisher reception in New York (which I was overseeing for the fifth time) when Pat LoBrutto asked me if I'd be interested in contributing to this anthology he and Joe Lansdale were editing for Dark Harvest. They were calling it Razored Saddles. The story could be sf, horror, fantasy, alternate history, anything my little heart desired ... as long as it had something to do with the West.

In a word, cowpunk.

I said, Seriously, Pat—what's it really about? He said it wasn't a joke. Could I contribute? I said something like, Gee, that sounds really neat, Pat, but I'm awfully busy. Thanks a million for asking, though.

Avoiding any sudden moves, I backed away, thinking somehow both Pat's and Joe's belts were no longer going through all the loops.

Cowpunk. Sheesh.

I forgot all about it, but Pat called me in February while I was working on "A Day in the Life" to prod me for that cowpunk story. Joe Lansdale called in March. Same (cattle) prod. I was going strong on Sibs then but promised to do my best to write them a story.

I was wrung out after finishing Sibs, but I started wondering if maybe some of the plot elements in "Ethics" could be transposed to the West. I've always found Doc Holliday a weird, wild, and enigmatic figure (this is long before Val Kilmer's portrayal in Tombstone). You can't make up a character like that. Why not use him as the protagonist? It would require a complete rewrite but, approached with tongue firmly in cheek, it just might work.

Pat and Joe agreed that it did.

THE TENTH TOE

(or: The Beginning of My End)

By Doc Holiday

(transcribed by F Paul Wilson)

INTRODUCTION

At last. A story without a plural noun for a title.

Remember "Ethics," the story I replaced with "Faces" for Night Visions 61 This is what happened to it. It became "The Tenth Toe."

The metamorphosis began on November 14, 1988, at the annual SFWA Editor-Publisher reception in New York (which I was overseeing for the fifth time) when Pat LoBrutto asked me if I'd be interested in contributing to this anthology he and Joe Lansdale were editing for Dark Harvest. They were calling it Razored Saddles. The story could be sf, horror, fantasy, alternate history, anything my little heart desired ... as long as it had something to do with the West.

In a word, cowpunk.

I said, Seriously, Pat—what's it really about? He said it wasn't a joke. Could I contribute? I said something like, Gee, that sounds really neat, Pat, but I'm awfully busy. Thanks a million for asking, though.

Avoiding any sudden moves, I backed away, thinking somehow both Pat's and Joe's belts were no longer going through all the loops.

Cowpunk. Sheesh.

I forgot all about it, but Pat called me in February while I was working on "A Day in the Life" to prod me for that cowpunk story. Joe Lansdale called in March. Same (cattle) prod. I was going strong on Sibs then but promised to do my best to write them a story.

I was wrung out after finishing Sibs, but I started wondering if maybe some of the plot elements in "Ethics" could be transposed to the West. I've always found Doc Holliday a weird, wild, and enigmatic figure (this is long before Val Kilmer's portrayal in Tombstone). You can't make up a character like that. Why not use him as the protagonist? It would require a complete rewrite but, approached with tongue firmly in cheek, it just might work.

Pat and Joe agreed that it did.

THE TENTH TOE

By Doc Holliday

(transcribed by F. Paul Wilson)

I am thirty-five years old and will not see thirty-six.

I was not always this weak, wheezing, crumbling sack of bones you see before you, a man whose days can be numbered on the fingers of one hand. Nor was I always the hard-drinking gambler and shootist you read of in the penny dreadfuls. I started out a much more genteel man, a professional man, even a bit of a milquetoast.

I attended medical school but did not succeed there, so I became a matriculant at a nearby dental school, from which I managed to graduate. I was then a professional man, and proud of it. But I remained flawed—cursed with a larcenous heart. No amount of schooling, be it of the medical, dental, or (I dare say) divinity sort, can extract that stubborn worm. You are born with it, and you die with it, if not from it.

I am dying from it. It was that young professional man with the larcenous heart who led me to notoriety, and to this premature death from consumption.

Allow me to explain . . .

The first inkling I had of the curse was in the spring of 1878 while I was examining Mrs. Duluth.

Mrs. Duluths husband owned the Dodge City General Store and it was obvious (at least to me) that food was not in short supply on her supper table. She was fat. Truthfully, I have been in outhouses smaller than this woman. Everything about her was fat. Her face was fat and round like a huge honeydew melon. Her lips were thick and fat. Even her nose and ears were fat.

"Will this hurt?" she said as she lay back, overflowing my relatively new reclining dental chair. I hoped she wouldn't break its lift mechanism.

"Not a bit," I told her. "After all, this is 1878, not the Dark Ages. We are now blessed with the modern methods of painless dentistry."

"What do you plan to do?"

"I'm going to administer some sulfuric ether," I heard myself say. "And when you're unconscious, I'm going to rob you."

I saw her eyes widen and she must have seen mine do the same. I hadn't meant to say that. True, I had been thinking it, but I'd had no intention of verbalizing it.

"What. . . what did you say, Dr. Holliday?"

"I said I'm going to rob you. Just a little. I'll go through your purse and take some of your money. Not all of it. Just enough to make this exercise worth my while."

"I really don't think that's very funny, Doctor," she said.

I gulped and steadied myself with an effort. "Neither do I, Mrs. Duluth." And I meant it. What was coming over me? Why was I saying these things? "A joke. A dentist's joke. Sorry."

"I should hope so." She seemed somewhat mollified. "Now, about this tooth—"

"Who cares about that tooth. I'm interested in the third molar there with the big gold filling. I'm going to pop that beauty out and replace it with some garbage metal that looks like gold."

(What was I saying?)

"That is quite enough!" she said, rolling out of the chair. She straightened her enormous gingham dress and headed for the door.

"Mrs. Duluth! Wait! I—"

"Never mind! I'll find myself another dentist! One I can trust. Like that new fellow across the street!"

As she went down the steps, she slapped at my shingle, knocking it off one of its hooks. It swung and twisted at a crazy angle until I stepped out and rehung it.

JOHN HENRY HOLLIDAY, DDS Painless Dentistry

I loved that sign. It was making me rich. I could have made a good living just from the usual drilling, filling, and pulling of my patients' teeth, but that was not enough for my larcenous heart. I had to be rich\ And I was getting rich quickly from the gold I was mining—literally—from my patients' teeth. I'd found an excellent gold-like compound that I substituted for the real thing while they were out cold in the chair. It was nowhere near as good as gold, but no one had caught on yet. I had another couple of years before the replacement fillings started to fall apart.

Of course, my practice wouldn't last a couple of years if I treated all my patients like Mrs. Duluth. Luckily the waiting room had been empty. I closed the door behind her and stood there thinking. I admit I was somewhat shaken. What was wrong with me? I hadn't meant to say any of those things.

A short while later the widow Porter arrived with her daughter, Bonnie, who had a toothache.

Bonnie was sixteen and extremely buxom for her age. Her bosom was apparently growing at such a rate that the bodice of her dress could not keep pace. She was fairly bursting from it. The tortured seams appeared ready to split. From the way she carried herself, proudly erect with her bust thrust out at the world, I assumed that she was well aware of (and reveled in) the male gender's reaction to her proportions.

Bonnie had a cavity in her second lower left molar. As I leaned over her to examine the tooth more closely, she arched her back so that her breasts brushed against my arm. I straightened and looked at her. She stared back and smiled boldly. This was one of the most brazen young females I'd ever met! I was becoming (I hesitate to say it) aroused.

Teenaged girls were never my style. They tend to fall in love, which can be most inconvenient. But for a young thing of Bonnie's proportions, I realized that I might make an exception.

"She'll need a filling," I told her mother.

"Oh, dear!" the widow Porter said. "You mean you'll have to use the drill?"

"The drill?" Bonnie said, the simper suddenly gone out of her. "The drill?”

"Yes." I lifted the instrument from its hook and pumped the pedal to show her how the bit spun.

Her expression was horrified. "You're going to put that in my mouth?"

"Yes. But I'd really—"

I could feel my tongue starting to run off without me, but I refused to let it get away this time. I bit down to hold it in place but it broke free.

"—like to put something else in your mouth, if you know what I mean."

Not again! I seemed utterly helpless against this!

"Really?" Bonnie said, smiling again and thrusting her breasts out even further. "Like what?"

I wanted to shove my fist down my throat. Bonnie's mother, I could see, was thinking along similar lines.

The widow Porter shot to her feet and thrust her face to within an inch of mine.

“What did you say?"

I tried to pacify her.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Porter. Perhaps you misunderstood me. Sometimes I don't make myself clear."

She backed off a little. Good. She was listening—even better. I knew I could smooth this over if my mouth would only let me. Just as her face began to soften, I felt my lips begin to move. I could do nothing but listen.

"What I really meant to say was that I'd like to drill her with a special tool I keep buttoned in my pants. As a matter of fact, I'd like to use it on both of you."

"Scoundrel!" she cried, and swung her heavy purse at me, missing my face by a fraction of an inch. "Bounder!"

She grabbed Bonnie by the hand and yanked her from the room. The girl flashed me a smile and a lascivious wink on the way out.

Sweating and gasping, I slumped against the door. I had lost control of my voice! Every thought that flashed into my brain was going straight out my mouth! What was wrong with me?

I was glad it was a slow day. I went to my office and poured two fingers of bourbon from the bottle I kept in the bottom drawer. I downed it in a single swallow. I looked at my framed degree from dental school hanging on the wall. I had counted on becoming wealthy here in Dodge. Now I was ruining it.

When I heard the front door open, I hesitated going out. It was frightening not to be able to control your words. But I had to defeat this malady. I had to overcome it by sheer force of will. I forced myself into the anteroom.

It was empty. I went into the drilling room and I found a familiar figure sitting in the chair. We played draw poker most nights over at the Forty- Niner Saloon. I wouldn't say we were friends in the truest sense of the word, but I was the closest thing he had to a friend besides his brother.

Wyatt Earp slouched in the chair, helping himself to my nitrous oxide.

Wyatt giggled. "Got a toothache, Doc!"

"Don't overdue that sweet air, Wyatt," I said. "I have to send all the way to Chicago for more."

The smile wavered off and on again. "You'll be going to Chicago and staying there if you try anymore funny business with Miss Bonnie Porter."

I remembered then that Wyatt had been keeping company with the widow Porter lately.

"I never touched her!"

"But you said some lewd and obscene things that I'd jail you for if you weren't a friend. She's a fine example of young Kansas womanhood and should not be exposed to such behavior."

"She's a tease waiting to blossom into a tart," I said.

Wyatt looked at me with a strange expression. He wanted to frown but the nitrous oxide wouldn't let him.

"I won't have you speak that way about the daughter of a woman for whom I harbor deep feelings."

"You harbor deep feelings for the daughter and you don't want anyone to get to Bonnie before you! And as for the widow Porter, your only deep feelings are for her bank account!"

His half-smile finally disappeared. "Hey, now wait a minute, Doc. I really love that woman!"

I laughed. "You must think I'm as stupid as you are!"

(What was I saying? Wyatt had four inches and a good hundred pounds over me! I wanted to vomit!)

"I think you might be a stupid dead man, Doc, if you don't watch what you're saying," he said menacingly as he straightened up from the chair.

I tried to stop myself but couldn't. My mouth ran on.

"Come on, Wyatt. You're fleecing her."

"It's true that I'm allowing her to invest in a couple of the mines that I own, but as a peace officer, I resent your implication that I'm involved in anything illegal."

"You're a disgrace to the badge, Wyatt. People laugh at you—behind your back, of course, because they know if they get on your wrong side they'll wind up in jail on some trumped-up charge, or backshot by your brother Virgil!"

He was stepping toward me, his right hand balled into a fist. I broke out in cold sweat and felt my bladder try to empty. I probably could have stopped him there with a few rational words, or even a quick confession of abject fear. I actually felt the words forming in my mouth as he raised his arm to punch me—

—and that was when the odor hit me.

Standing helpless before him as he loomed over me, I listened in horror as my voice said:

"God! You smell, too! Did it ever occur to you to take a bath before—?”

When I woke up on the floor, Wyatt was gone. I staggered to my feet. My jaw ached and my upper lip was swelling. When the room stopped tilting back and forth, I stumbled into the waiting room.

This was a nightmare! If I kept insulting everyone who came to my office, I'd have to close my practice. What would I do? I was already twenty-six and not good for much else besides gambling and shooting. I wasn't a bad shot. Maybe I could take over Earp's job when he left for Tombstone next year.

An odd-looking figure entered then. A skinny old squaw with a hooked nose and dark, piercing eyes set in a face wrinkled like a raisin. That was all I could see of her. The rest of her was swathed in a dusty serape. There was a small red kerchief around her head.

I knew her. Everybody in town knew her: Squaw Jones. She'd been married to an old white man, Aaron Jones, until he got drunk and trampled by a stagecoach a few years ago. Now she wandered in and out of town, selling charms and potions.

"I see Dr. Holliday has bad times," Squaw Jones said. "What is problem?"

"That's what I'm supposed to say!" I shouted. "I'm the doctor here!"

"Is your words? You say what wish to hide inside?"

I was shocked. "Yes! How did you know?"

"Squaw smell bad medicine when she pass."

"Bad medicine?" "You have curse."

"I am well aware of that!"

"Squaw Jones can help. Know of these things. You victim of curse of Untethered Tongue. Very bad medicine."

"You're serious? You're talking about a curse, like the evil eye or something like that?"

"Much worse."

"I feel bad enough already. Don't try to make me feel stupid, too!"

"You will see, Dr. Holliday," she said, reaching for the door handle. "You will see. And then you will come to Squaw Jones."

"I sincerely doubt it."

"Remember these words. When find man with missing piece, you find enemy."

"I haven't got any enemies!"

"It could be friend."

"I haven't got any of those, either! At least not after this morning!"

"Remember Squaw Jones," she said as she shuffled out the door. "You will need her."

That'll be the day, I thought. I didn't need an Indian. I needed another drink.

* * *

The next few days recapitulated the events of that morning: I insulted and alienated each member of a steadily dwindling flow of patients. But at least no one punched me.

As I sat and looked out the front window of my empty waiting room, I noticed Mrs. Duluth waddling along the boardwalk. She turned into the doorway of the new dentist who had come into town a few months ago. Dr. James Elliot. He had been starving. Now he had Mrs. Duluth. Glumly, I wondered how many other patients I was driving to him.

The waiting room door opened and there was Squaw Jones again.

"Squaw can come in?"

I motioned her forward. Why not? I had plenty of time on my hands.

Squaw Jones looked the same as she had days ago—a stick figure swathed in a dirty serape. Her bright, beady eyes swept the barren waiting room. I thought I detected a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth, but it was hard to be sure amid all her wrinkles.

"Curse of Untethered Tongue continue, yes?"

"Its not a curse," I said. "Just a little problem I have to resolve. I don't believe in curses."

She looked me in the eye. There was no doubt about the smile now.

"You could have sent squaw away," she said. "But you chose to see her."

I knew right then I was dealing with a sly old squaw.

"I'm a man of science," I told her. "A dentist. What do you want from me?

"Squaw wants only to help."

"For a price, I'm sure."

Her shrug was elaborate. "Must clothe this body. Must eat."

"This wouldn't be blackmail, would it?"

"Dr. Holliday!" she said, puffing herself up. "Squaw is like you. Have medicine to sell—like you. Have honor."

"That's not the point. Even granting the existence of such a thing as a curse, I can't imagine anyone who dislikes me enough—before this week, that is—to place a curse on me."

"Unhappy patient, maybe?"

That was all too possible, what with all the gold fillings I'd yanked from people's mouths while they were unconscious in the chair. But someone like that would go to Wyatt first.

"I can't image what complaint a patient of mine could have." (I almost choked on that one.)

"Enemy?"

"None whatsoever."

"Someone want to steal your medicine?"

"You mean a competitor? Well, there is one of those. There seems to be an increasing flow of new dentists from the East."

"Who win from Dr. Holliday bad medicine?"

"Well, Dr. Elliot is benefiting now, but ..." I laughed. "No. It's too absurd!"

"May be him."

"Jim Elliot? Putting a curse on me so I'll say things I don't want to? Ridiculous!"

"Curse of Untethered Tongue say what in heart. Perhaps Dr. Holliday not like his patients."

I said, "Look, I'm very busy right now—"

"Bad medicine always help someone."

I felt the first twinges of uneasiness. This whole idea was absurd! And yet...

I turned and found Squaw Jones grinning at me with crooked yellow teeth. She said, "Find man with missing piece."

"You could use a good dentist," I said.

* * *

Around supper time, I was at my usual table in the Forty-Niner, alone, nursing a whiskey, shuffling a deck of cards. I dared not play for fear that I would tell everyone what was in my hand at any moment. My fingers froze in mid-shuffle when Dr. Elliot walked in.

I watched him for a few moments. As much as my mind rebelled against the concept of such a thing as a curse, I couldn't get the thought out of my head. Could this mild-looking fellow dentist have actually placed a curse on my practice? The more I thought about it here amid the smells and laughter of the cowhands, the stage drivers, the gamblers, and the plain old riffraff, the more laughable it became.

I wandered over to where he stood. He had a round face made wider by bushy sideburns. He looked tired. Why not? He had been drilling the teeth of my former patients all day.

I was about to say hello when I noticed that he was missing a part of his left fifth digit—the terminal phalanx was gone! As I gaped at the shiny pink dome of fresh scar tissue where his first knuckle should have been, I heard Squaw Jones's voice in my head:

. . . Find man with missing piece. . .

I was too shocked for subtlety.

"Your finger! What happened to it?"

He jumped at the sound of my voice and his complexion faded a couple of shades as he looked at me.

"Hello, John. My finger? Why. . . why nothing happened to it. Why do you ask?"

"I never noticed that you had a . . . piece missing before now. When did it happen?"

He smiled, regaining his composure. "Oh, that. An old accident when I was in school back east. An industrial accident, you might say. I caught it in a defective drilling machine."

I couldn't take my eyes from that foreshortened digit. "The scar tissue doesn't look that old."

"An old injury, do you hear?" He was becoming agitated. "Very old. Very, very old!"

The obvious freshness of the scar and Dr. Elliot's overwrought behavior sent a stream of ice water running through my arteries.

. . . When find man with missing piece, you find enemy . . .

"Yes, of course," I said. "Very old. Of course."

He thrust his hand into his pocket.

I fled the saloon and ran to the stable. I saddled my horse and rode out to where Squaw Jones made her camp.

* * *

"So, now Dr. Holliday believe in curse of Untethered Tongue," she said, nodding and smiling with smug satisfaction.

"Not completely," I said. "Let's just say I disbelieve in it less than I did this afternoon."

Her tent was dim, the air inside steamy and layered with reminders of past meals, strangely spiced.

"But I just can't believe," I said, "that one of my colleagues, a fellow dental practitioner, would be so unethical as to use such scurrilous means to build his practice at my expense!"

"You would never do such thing?"

"Never! I am an ethical practitioner!"

"And what is your wish, Dr. Holliday?"

"To have the curse—if that's what it is—lifted."

"By this squaw?"

"Of course. That's why I'm here."

"Want thirteen ounces gold for ending Untethered Tongue."

"Thirteen ounces?"

"This squaw know it very small price for saving Dr. Holliday's honor, but her heart is touched by his misfortune." She cleared her throat. "Please pay in metal, not bills."

I'd hidden away significantly more than that amount of gold from the fillings I'd removed over the years. But thirteen ounces!

"I'd want a guarantee."

"Nothing sure in magic, Dr. Holliday."

I rose from my seat and started for the door. "I'm sorry. I can't allow myself to be made into a fool." I was bluffing. I bluffed well in poker, even back then, and had little doubt I could get her to back down. But she kept quiet, waiting until my hand closed on the doorknob before she spoke. She did not, however, say the words I was hoping for.

"For three more ounces, maybe this squaw can turn bad medicine back on one who start it."

As I said before: A sly old bird. I had taken the bait, now she set the hook. A gamble of sixteen ounces, but suddenly I didn't care. I wanted to get even.

I returned to my chair.

"Can you really do that?"

She nodded. "If Dr. Holliday make sacrifice."

"Sacrifice? Wait a second here. I—"

"Must have no fear."

"I'll have no fear as long as I have my revenge."

She smiled and rubbed her hands together. "This is good."

"What do I have to do?"

"Dr. Holliday must give three things. First thing closely touches maker of Untethered Tongue. You know who he is?"

"Dr. Elliot," I said. "No doubt about it. But just how 'closely' must this thing touch?"

"Very close. Underclothes. Pen."

I considered that for a moment. How on earth was I going to handle that? How was I going to get ahold of a pair of Elliot's underwear. Maybe a sock would do.

No matter. I'd find a way.

"What else do you need?"

"Need small amount of Dr. Holliday's liquid."

"Liquid?" This was getting more clichéd by the minute. "You mean blood?"

She shook her head. She seemed embarrassed. "Fluid that only man can give.

"I don't understand—" I began. And then I did. "What kind of magic is this?"

"Very, very old."

"Really. And what if I were a woman?"

"We wait for your time of month."

“I see." I found it difficult to believe that I was sitting here having a serious conversation about this.

She cleared her throat again. "The sample—you can give soon?"

I squared my shoulders. "Of course. And the third thing?"

"This squaw will tell you when you bring first two."

I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that, but I couldn't turn back now. I had stepped over the edge and had left the safe and sane world behind; I was now adrift in the world of the magical and the irrational. Squaw Jones's world. I had to trust her as a guide.

* * *

Early the next morning I was at the hotel next to my office eating eggs and potatoes. I've never liked eggs and potatoes, but I was there because Elliot was there. I raged silently as I watched him storing up on his nourishment before a busy day of drilling the teeth of my patients.

I was in a black mood. I had been by his rooming house earlier but had found none of his laundry around. I'd been tempted to break into his quarters but was afraid I'd get caught. I couldn't risk that, not with Wyatt still mad at me.

As I watched him, he stirred his coffee and licked the spoon dry before placing it on the tablecloth. A neat man. A fastidious man. I felt like running over and wringing his—

The spoon.

I almost shouted out loud. That's it! The spoon! It had been in his mouth! What contact could be more "close" than being in someone's mouth?

I waited until he finished his meal and departed, then hurried over to his table, just beating the serving girl to it. She gave me a strange look as I darted in front of her and grabbed his spoon off the tray, but I simply continued on my way without a backward glance, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.

The hard part was over. I headed across the street to the back rooms at the Forty-Niner. Miss Lily would be waking up just about now. For a nominal fee, she'd help me obtain the second ingredient. This was the easy part.

"Now what?" I said as I held out the spoon and a small cup of cloudy liquid to Squaw Jones.

She made no move to take them from me. "You have gold?"

"Yes." I pulled a leather pouch from my coat pocket. "Sixteen ounces, as agreed."

I held my breath as she loosened the draw string and looked inside. My larcenous heart had prevailed on me to cheat her of her payment. No gold for Squaw Jones. Instead I'd made nuggets of lead and coated them with the gold colored material I used for my fake gold fillings. They wouldn't stand close inspection.

She looked inside, gauged the weight of the bag in her hand, then nodded.

"Is good." The pouch disappeared inside her serape and then she took the two ingredients from me. "Now this squaw make mix. Dr. Holliday wait outside."

"What about the third ingredient?"

She smiled. "Soon, Dr. Holliday. Must be patient."

I stepped outside her tent. It was difficult to be patient knowing that Dr. Elliot was busy in his office working on my patients while my office door was locked.

After what seemed like hours, Squaw Jones called me back in. I found her sitting there with a cup of steaming liquid.

"Now time for third ingredient. The sacrifice."

"What sort of sacrifice?" I didn't like the sound of this one bit.

"Small part of you. Something Dr. Holliday will not miss, but something that will not grow back."

"Wait just a minute!" I said. I'd heard about deals like this where you make a trade for "something you'll never miss" and I didn't want to fall into that trap! "We're not talking about my soul, are we?"

She laughed. "No! Only small piece of flesh. Token for gods. Dr. Elliot gave finger."

"How did you know that?"

"You told this squaw last night."

"Did I? I don't remember."

"You did. Dr. Holliday must make same sacrifice if he wish bad medicine go away."

Something that won't grow back. That left out hair and fingernail clippings. I certainly didn't want to lose a part of a finger—I didn't approve of public deformity.

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea."

She shrugged. "Without sacrifice, Dr. Elliot will not feel curse of Unhindered Hands."

" 'Unhindered Hands?' Just what is that?"

"Like Untethered Tongue. As Dr. Holliday's lips now speak what he wish kept hidden in heart, Dr. Elliot's hands will do things he only wish to do."

The thought of Dr. Elliot's hands acting upon whatever physical desires occurred to him, to be no more able to restrain his hands than I had been able to restrain my tongue delighted me.

Then I thought of something neither I nor anyone else would miss—

"How about my little toe?"

"It is good," she said.

"How do we do this?"

Following her directions, I removed the boot and sock from my left food and held it over the steaming liquid.

"Dip toe."

Feeling like a fool for going through this hocus-pocus, yet hating myself for not having the nerve to call the whole thing off and take my chances with my unruly tongue, I dipped my little toe into the cup.

"Enough," she said after a moment. She withdrew the cup and handed me a dirty cloth. "Dry toe."

I scrutinized my left fifth toe. It looked just like the others, only wet.

"Something's wrong!" I said. "I thought I was supposed to 'sacrifice' this toe! Nothing happened!"

"Patience, Dr. Holliday. Patience."

I was convinced now that I was being hoodwinked. I quickly rubbed my toe dry and rose to my feet.

"This is a farce! I'm glad I didn't give you any real gold!"

Her head snapped around. She stared at me. "Gold not real?"

"No. So you can call off this whole charade."

"Too late. Medicine is made. Curse begins."

"But my toe—"

I looked down at my left foot. There were only four toes. All that remained of my tenth toe was a small pink bulge of fresh scar tissue.

"Where—?"

I opened the cloth and there was my toe. As I watched, it fumed and melted into a pink fluid that was absorbed by the cloth. The odor made me want to gag.

Squaw Jones was pawing through the bag of fake gold nuggets. "Dr. Holliday trick this squaw?"

"Why not? You're probably the one who got me in this fix in the first place. You're playing both sides of the street."

She approached me, menace in her eyes. I kept watch on her hands, making sure both were in sight. They were: clutching the pouch of fake gold. Her face came within inches of mine. She stared at me.

Then she coughed. Once.

"Return to your office, Dr. Holliday. Curse of Untethered Tongue is broken; curse of Unhampered Hands begin. Squaw Jones cannot change that now."

I glanced down at my four-toed foot again and realized I was rapidly become a believer. With boot and sock in hand, I hurried from Squaw Jones's tent.

"But you will pay another way!" she called after me.

* * *

The first patient to show up was Mr. O'Toole. My private name for him was "Mr. O'Stool"—he had a bowel fixation that he blamed on his bad teeth. He spent most office visits describing his movements. He was a bore but he came every two weeks for a new filling.

But I got through the visit with no problem. I'd had an urge to tell him that I thought he was suffering from a fecal impaction that had backed up to his brain but the remark remained within my mind while my mouth offered bland reassurances.

I drilled his latest imaginary cavity and fairly danced out of the examining room.

I've done it! I've broken the curse!

I went to the front window in my waiting room and looked across the street at Dr. Elliot's office. I whispered:

"I've beaten you, Elliot! Beaten you at your own game!"

As I watched, I saw Bonnie Porter come racing out of Dr. Elliot's office, trying to cover her bobbing, exposed breasts with one hand while holding up her ripped skirt with the other. In close pursuit, with a piece of Bonnie's torn bodice clutched in his teeth, was Dr. Elliot. And right behind the two of them was the widow Porter, swinging her handbag. She caught Dr. Elliot full force in the back of the head with a swing and he went down. Then she stood over him and began pounding him with her bag.

I watched until Wyatt ran up. He pulled his pistol and just stood there, his eyes captured by the pink-tipped whiteness of Bonnie's breasts. I knew though that as soon as she covered herself, Wyatt would be on Dr. Elliot like a lynch mob. He wasn't going to take at all kindly to someone going after Bonnie Porter before he'd had firsts.

Poor Dr. Elliot. Couldn't control his hands. Such a shame.

As I turned away I felt a twinge behind my sternum. I began to cough. I'd never coughed like this before in my life. Spasms racked my chest. I pulled out my handkerchief and buried my face in it, trying to muffle the coughs, perhaps suppress them by trapping them inside. Suddenly I felt something tear free in my chest and fill my throat. I gagged it out.

Blood stained my handkerchief.

Hemoptysis—a bloody cough. A sure sign of consumption, or what they were now calling tuberculosis.

But how could I have tuberculosis? I hadn't been visiting anyone in a sanitarium, and the only people in these parts who had any tuberculosis were . . .

. . . Indians.

Squaw Jones had coughed in my face, but only once, and that had been just a few hours ago. I couldn't have developed tuberculosis in that short of time. It was impossible.

I glanced out the window again. Wyatt was leading Dr. Elliot off toward the jail, and being none too gentle about it. In the crowd that had gathered, all heads were turned to watch them go. All except one. Squaw Jones was there, staring directly at me.

I coughed again.

SLASHER

INTRODUCTION

This one's for Joe Lansdale.

Mainly because I borrowed one of the plot elements from his novel Cold in July. If you've never read Cold in July, do so immediately. (That's right—put this book down and go out and buy it.) It's a bloody, funny, sad, scary moral pretzel of a novel that will keep you flipping pages until three in the morning. As soon as I finished reading it, I called Joe to tell him what a great job he'd done. The only thing I wanted to know was where all the exclamation points had gone. I couldn't find a single one in the entire book. Joe said they're not necessary in a properly written scene. I begged to differ.

Thus began the ongoing Wilson-Lansdale Exclamation Point Debate. I admit I've used too many in the past, and as a result of the debate I've cut way back. I've got them under control now. (But Joe ... a character screaming at the top of his lungs in red-faced rage deserves at least one "!", don't you think?)

Next he'll be dumping question marks.

But back to "Slasher." I liked Cold in July so much that when Ed Gorman and Marty Greenberg requested a story for Stalkers II (eventually published as Predators), I borrowed a piece of the Cold in July setup—the idea of a killer being kept in protective custody because he's a witness in an important case—and took off from there. (By the way, the setting is Monroe.)

"Slasher" is a twisted little piece of fiction without the slightest hint of the supernatural. As such it wound up in The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories.

The perfect kind of story to dedicate to Joe R. Lansdale.

SLASHER

I saved the rage.

I let them bury my grief with Jessica. It cocooned her in her coffin, cushioned her, pillowed her head. There it would stay, doing what little it could to protect her from the cold, the damp, the conqueror worm.

But I saved the rage. I nurtured it. I honed its edge until it was fine and tough and sharp. Sharp enough to cut one day through the darkness encrusting my soul.

Martha was on the far side of the grave, supported by her mother and father and two brothers—Jessie's grandparents and uncles. I stood alone on my side. A few friends from the office were there, standing behind me, but they weren't really with me. I was alone, in every sense of the word.

I stared at the top of the tiny coffin that had remained closed during the wake and the funeral mass because of the mutilated state of the little body within. I watched it disappear by tiny increments beneath a growing tangle of color as sobbing mourners each took a turn at tossing a flower on it. Jessica, my Jessica. Only five years old, cut to ribbons by some filthy rotten stinking lousy—

"Bastard!”

The grating voice wrenched my gaze away from the coffin. I knew that voice. Oh, how I knew that voice. I looked up and met Martha's hate-filled eyes. Her face was pale and drawn, her cheeks were black with eyeliner that had flowed with her tears. Her blond hair was masked by her black hat and veil.

"It's your fault! She's dead because of you! You had her only every other weekend and you couldn't even pay attention to her! It should be you in there!"

"Easy, Martha," one of her brothers told her in a low voice. "You'll only upset yourself more."

But I could see it in his eyes, too—in everybody's eyes. They all agreed with her. Even I agreed with her.

"No!" she screamed, shaking off her brother's hand and pointing at me. "You were a lousy husband and a lousier father. And now Jessie's dead because of you! You/"

Then she broke down into uncontrollable sobbing and was led off by her parents and brothers. Embarrassed, the rest of the mourners began to drift away, leaving me alone with my dead Jessie. Alone with my rage. Alone with my guilt.

* * *

I hadn't been the best father in the world. But who could be? Either you don't give them enough love or you overindulge them. You can't seem to win. But I do admit that there were too many times when something else seemed more important than being with Jessie, some deal, some account that needed attention right away, so Jessie would have to wait. I'd make it up to her later—that was the promise. I'd play catch-up next week. But now there wouldn't be any later. No more next weeks for Jessica Santos. No catching up on the hugs and the playing and the I-love-yous.

If only . ..

If only I hadn't left her on the curb to go get her that goddamn ice cream cone.

We'd been watching the Fourth of July fireworks down at the harbor front. Jessie was thrilled and fascinated by the bright flashes blooming and booming in the sky. She'd wanted an ice cream, and being a divorced daddy who didn't get to see her very often, I couldn't say no. So I carried her back to the pushcart vendor near the entrance to Crosby's Marina. She couldn't see the fireworks from the end of the line so I let her stand back by the curb to watch while I queued up. While she kept her eyes on the sky, I kept an eye on her all the time I was on line. I wasn't worried about someone grabbing her—the thought never entered my mind. I just didn't want her wandering into the street for an even better view. The only time I looked away was when I placed the order and paid the guy.

When I turned around, a cone in each hand, Jessie was gone.

No one had seen anything. For two days the police and a horde of volunteers combed all of Monroe and most of northern Nassau county. They found her—what was left of her—on the edge of old man Haskins's marshes.

A manhunt was still on for the killer, but with each passing day, the trail got colder.

* * *

So now I stood by my Jessica's grave in Tall Oaks Cemetery, sweating in my dark suit under the obscenely bright sun as I fought my guilt and nurtured my hate, praying for the day they caught the scum who had slashed my Jessica to ribbons. I renewed the vow I had made before—the guy was never going to get to trial. I would find a way to get to him while he was out on bail, or even in jail, if it came to that, and I would do to him what he'd done to my Jessica. And then I would dare the courts to find a jury that would convict me.

When everyone was gone, I said my final good-bye to Jessie. I'd wanted to erect a huge angelic monument to her, but Tall Oaks didn't allow that sort of thing. A little plaque would have to suffice. It didn't seem right.

As I turned to go, I noticed a man leaning against a tree a hundred feet or so away. He was watching me. As I started down the grassy slope, he began walking, too. Our paths intersected at my car.

"Mr. Santos?" he said.

I turned. He was a big man, six-two at least, mid-forties, maybe two- fifty, with most of it settled around his gut. He wore a white shirt under a rumpled gray suit. His thinning brown hair was slick with sweat. I looked at him but said nothing. If he was another reporter—

"I'm Gerald Caskie, FBI. Can we talk a minute?"

"You found him?" I said, my spirits readying for a leap. I stepped closer and grabbed two fistfuls of his suit jacket. "You've got him?"

He pulled his jacket free of my grasp.

"We can talk in my car. It's cooler."

I followed about fifty yards along the curving asphalt path to where a monotone Ford two-door sedan waited in the shade of one of the cemetery's eponymous trees. The motor was running. He indicated the passenger side. I joined him in the front seat of the Ford. The air conditioner was blasting. It was freezing inside.

"That's better," he said, adjusting one of the vents to blow directly on his face.

"All right," I said, unable to contain my impatience any longer. "We're here. Tell me: Do you have him?"

He looked at me with basset hound brown eyes.

"What I'm about to tell you is off the record, agreed?"

"What are you—?"

"Agreed? You must never reveal what I'm about to tell you. Do I have your word as a man that what I tell you will never go beyond this car?"

"No. I have to know what it's about, first."

He shifted in his seat and put the Ford in gear.

"Forget it. I'll drive you back to your car.

"No. Wait. All right. I promise. But enough with the games, already."

He threw the gear shift back into Park.

"This isn't a game, Mr. Santos. I could lose my job, even be brought up on criminal charges for what I'm going to tell you. And if you do try to spill it, I'll deny we've ever met."

"What is it, goddamn it?"

"We know who killed your daughter."

The words hit me like a sledge to the gut. I felt almost sick with relief.

"Have you got him? Have you arrested him?"

"No. And we won't be. Not for some time to come."

It took a while for the words to sink in, probably because my mind didn't want to accept them. But when it did, I was ready to go for his throat. I reined in my fury, however. I didn't want to get hit with assault and battery on a federal officer. At least not yet.

"You'd better explain that," I said in a voice barely above a whisper.

"The killer is presently a protected witness in an immensely important federal trial. Can't be touched until all the testimony is in and we get our conviction."

"Why the hell not? My daughter's death has nothing to do with your trial!"

"The killer's a psycho—that's obvious. Think how a child-killing charge will taint the testimony. The jury will throw it out. We've got to wait."

"How long?"

"Less than a year if we lose the case. If we get a conviction, we'll have to wait out all the appeals. So we could be looking at five years, maybe more."

Cool as it was in the car, I felt a different kind of cold seep through me.

"Who is he?"

"Forget it. I can't tell you that."

I couldn't help it—I went for his throat.

"Tell me, goddamn it!"

He pushed me off. He was a lot bigger than I—I'm just a bantamweight accountant, one-fifty soaking wet.

"Back off, Santos! No way I'm going to give you a name. You'll have it in all the papers within hours."

I folded. I crumpled. I turned away and pressed my head against the cool of the side window. I thought I was going to cry, but I didn't. I'd left all my tears with Jessie.

"Why did you tell me any of this if you're not going to tell me his name?

"Because I know you're hurting," he said in a soft voice. "I saw what you did to that reporter on TV."

Right. The reporter. Mel Padner. My claim to fame. As I walked out of the morgue after identifying Jessica's tattered body, I was greeted by an array of cameras and reporters. Most of them kept a respectful distance, but not Padner. He stuck a mike in my face and asked me how I felt about my daughter's death. I had the microphone halfway down his throat before they pulled me off him. His own station never ran the footage, but all the others did, including CNN. I was still getting cards and telegrams telling me how I should have shoved it up Padner's other end instead.

"And this is supposed to make me feel better?" I said to Caskie.

"I thought it would. Because otherwise the weeks and months would go on and on with no one finding the killer, and you'd sink deeper and deeper into depression. At least I know I would. I've got a daughter myself, and if anything ever happened to her like . . . well, if anything happened to her, that's the way I'd feel. I just thought I'd try to give you some peace of mind. I thought you'd be able to hang in there better knowing that we already have the killer in a custody of sorts, and that, as one father to another, justice will be done."

I turned and stared at him. It's a comment on our age, I suppose, that decency from a stranger is so shocking.

"Thanks," I said. "Maybe that will make a difference later when I think about it some. Right now all I'm thinking is how I want to take the biggest, sharpest carving knife I can find and chop this guy into hamburger."

He raised his right fist with the thumb stuck in the air.

"I hear you, Mr. Santos."

"Call me Pete."

"I'm Gerry. And if the government didn't need the testimony so desperately, I might be tempted to do it myself."

We shook hands, then I got out of the car and walked around to his side. He rolled the window down.

"Thanks again," I said. "You didn't have to do this."

"Yes, I did."

"Sure you won't tell me his name?"

He smiled. "These are some bad dudes we want to put away with this trial. But don't you worry. Once all the legal proceedings are over, justice will be done." Again, the thumbs-up sign. "We'll see to it that she gets what's coming to her."

And then he drove away, leaving me standing on the path, gaping.

Her?

* * *

It wasn't working.

The day after Jessica's body was found, I went back to my apartment— Martha got the house, so I've been living in a two-bedroom box at the Soundview Condos—and trashed the place. All except Jessica's room. The second bedroom had been reserved exclusively for Jessie. I went in there and with a black magic marker drew the outline of a man on one of her walls. Then I took the biggest carving knife I could find and attacked that figure. I slashed at the wallboard, driving the blade through it again and again until I was exhausted. Only then was I able to get some sleep.

I'd done that every night since Jessica's death, but tonight it wasn't working.

Caskie's last words were driving me crazy.

My little Jessica had been slashed to ribbons by a woman? A woman? I couldn't believe it. It gnawed at my insides like some monstrous parasite. I couldn't work, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. The FBI knew who'd killed my Jessica and they weren't telling. I had to know, too. I needed a name. A face. Somewhere to focus this rage that was coloring my blood and poisoning every cell in my body.

A woman! Caskie must have been mistaken. Jessica had been—I retched every time I thought of it—sodomized. A woman couldn't do that.

I lasted two days—and two nights of heartlessly attacking the male figure outlined on her wall. Then I acted.

First thing in the morning, I took a trip to the nearest FBI office. It was on Queens Boulevard in Rego Park. I knew I'd given agent Caskie my word, but . . . my daughter . .. her killer ... no one could expect me to hold to that promise. No one!

I was in the lobby of the FBI building, searching the directory, when I heard a voice to my left.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

I turned. It was Caskie. I stepped toward him with my hand extended.

"Just the man I was looking—"

"Don't talk to me!" the hissed, staring across the lobby. "Get out of here!"

"No way, Caskie. Your people know who killed my daughter and they're going to tell me, or I'm going to the papers."

"You trying to ruin me?"

"No. I don't want that. But if I have to, I will."

He was silent for a moment, then he made a noise like a cross between a sigh and a growl.

"Shit! Meet me outside. Around the corner in the alley. Ten minutes."

He walked away without waiting for my reply.

* * *

The alley was long and narrow, blocked at the far end by a ten-foot cyclone fence. I waited near its mouth, keeping to the shady side. Midmorning and already it was getting hot. Caskie showed up a few minutes later. He walked by as if he hadn't noticed me, but he spoke out of the corner of his mouth.

"Follow me. I don't want to be seen with you."

I followed. He led me all the way back to the rear of the building. When we rounded a rancid smelling dumpster, he turned, grabbed me by the front of my shirt, and threw me against the wall. I was caught by surprise. The impact knocked the wind out of me.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing here?" he said through clenched teeth.

I was ready to take a shot at his jaw but the fury in his eyes made me hesitate. He looked ready to kill.

"I told you," I said. "I want to know who killed my daughter. And I'm going to find out."

"No way, Santos."

I looked him in the eye.

"What're you going to do? Kill me?"

He seemed to be considering it, and that made me a little nervous. But then his shoulders slumped.

"I'm so fucking stupid!" he said "I should have minded my own business and let you stew for a year or two. But no, I had to try to be Mr. Goodguy."

I felt for him. Actually, I felt like a shit, but I couldn't let that stop me.

"Hey, look," I said. "I appreciate what you tried to do, but it just didn't work the way you thought it would. Instead of easing my mind, it's done just the opposite. It's made me crazy."

Caskie's expression was as bleak as his voice.

"What do you want, Santos?"

“First off, I want to know why you said the killer was a 'she' the other day?"

"When did I say that? I never said that."

"Oh, yes you did. As you drove off. And don't tell me I misunderstood you, because I didn't. You said, 'We'll see to it that she gets what's coming to her! So how could Jessie's killer have been a woman if they're tracing the killer through DNA analysis of the semen they found in . . ." My stomach lurched.

Caskie's smile was grim and sour.

"You think the Bureau can't get a local coroner to change his report for matters of security? Wake up, Santos. That was put in there to make sure no one ever has the slightest doubt that they're looking for a male."

I wanted to kill him. Here I'd spent nearly a week believing Jessica had been raped before she was slashed up. And it had never happened. But I kept calm.

"I want her name."

"No way."

"Then I go to the Times, the Post, and the News] Right now!"

I turned and began walking up the alley. I'd gone about ten feet when he spoke.

"Ciullo. Regina Ciullo."

I turned.

"Who is she?"

"Bruno Papillardi's ex-girlfriend."

That rocked me. Bruno Papillardi—New York City's number one crime boss. His racketeering trial had been in the papers for months.

"Is she that important to the case?"

"The way the judge is tossing out our evidence left and right, it looks like she's going to be the whole case. She may be a psycho, but she's not dumb. She made recordings while she and Bruno were in bed together. Seems that when all the grunting and groaning is done, Bruno tends to brag. There's one particularly juicy night where he talks about how he personally offed a Teamsters' local boss who wouldn't play ball. With Regina Ciullo's testimony, we might be able to nail him for more than racketeering. We might get him for murder-one."

I didn't care about Papillardi. I cared about only one person.

"But Jessica . .. why?"

Caskie shook his head.

"I don't know. I'm not a shrink. But I know your daughter wasn't the first. Regina Ciullo's done at least two others over the past two years. The others were just never found."

"Then how do you—?"

"She told us. She gave us the slip on the Fourth. She returned the following morning around three a.m. We found the knife in the back seat of the car. We made the connection, put the pressure on her, and she told us. We'd always known she was weird but..." He shuddered. "We never realized . . ."

I wanted to run from the alley, but I had to see this through.

"So you can see our dilemma," Caskie went on. "We can't turn her in. At least not yet. Papillardi's people are combing the whole Northeast for her. If she's arrested she won't survive her first night in jail. And if by some miracle she does, her lawyer will immediately enter an insanity plea, which will destroy the value of her testimony against Papillardi."

I swallowed. My throat was gritty

"Where are you keeping her?"

"Are you kidding? I tell you so you can go out there and try to do a Rambo number on her? No way."

"I don't want to kill her.”

“That's not what you said the other day at the cemetery." I smiled. It must have been a hideous grimace because I saw Caskie flinch.

"I was upset then. A little crazy. I couldn't stick a knife in someone. Besides, I already have enough information now to kill her. If I want her dead. I can call Papillardi and tell him she's in Monroe. He'll do the rest. But I don't want that. I just want to know what she looks like. I want to see a picture of her. And I want to know where she lives so I can drive by every once in a while and make sure she's still there. If I can do that, I can survive the wait."

He was studying me. I hoped I'd been convincing. I prayed he'd buy it. But actually, I hadn't left him much choice. "She's staying on Shore Drive in Monroe." I couldn't restrain myself.

"In my hometown?" You brought a child killer to my hometown?" "We didn't know about her then. But believe me, she won't get out of our sight again. She's hurt her last kid." Damn right! I thought. "I want to see her file." "I can't get that—"

"You will," I said, turning. "And by tonight. Or I'll be on the phone. Bring it to my apartment."

I didn't give him my address. I was sure he already had it.

* * *

Back in my apartment, I took the Magic Marker and enhanced the drawing on Jessica's wall with a few details. I added a skirt. And long flowing hair styled in a flip. Then I picked up the knife and went to work with renewed vigor.

* * *

Caskie showed up around ten p.m., smelling like a leaky brewery, a buff folder under his arm. He brushed by me and tossed the folder onto the living room table.

"I'm dead!" he said, pulling off his wilted suit jacket and hurling it across the room. "Two more years till my pension and now I might as well kiss it all good-bye!" "What's the matter?"

"That's what's the matter!" he said, pointing at the folder. "When that turns up missing, the Bureau will trace it to me and put my ass in a sling! Nice guys really do finish fucking last!"

"Just a minute, now," I said, approaching him but staying out of reach. He looked very upset. "Hold it down. If you return it first thing tomorrow morning, who's going to know it was ever missing?"

He stared at me, a blank look on his face.

"I thought you wanted it."

"I want to look at it. That's all. Like I told you: just to know where she lives and what she looks like. If the killer's got a name and a place and a face, I can stay sane until the Papillardi trial is over."

As I was speaking, my body had been gravitating toward the folder. I wasn't aware of my legs moving, but by the time I'd finished, I was standing over it. I reached down and flipped the cover open. An eight-by-ten black-and-white close-up of a woman's face stared back at me.

"That's . . . that's her?"

"Yeah. That's Regina Ciullo."

"She's so ordinary."

Caskie snickered.

"You think someone with Bruno Papillardi's bucks and pull is gonna waste his time with someone 'ordinary'? No way. Good-looking babes are falling all over that guy. But Ciullo's weirdness is one of a kind. She's anything but ordinary. That's what attracted him." His voice turned serious. "You really mean that about not wanting to take the file?"

"Of course."

I picked up the photo and stared at it. Her irises were dark, the lashes long. Her hair was wavy and long, and very black. Despite strategic angling of the camera, he nose appeared somewhat on the large side. Her lips were full and pouty. She looked thirty-five or so.

Caskie peered over my shoulder.

"That picture's a few years old, when she was going under the stage name of Bloody Mary. Doesn't show any of her body which is incredible."

"Stage name?"

"Yeah. She used to be a dancer in a specialty club down in SoHo called The Manacle. She'd do a strip while letting a white rat crawl all over her body, and when she was down to the buff, she'd slice its throat and squeeze its blood down her front as she finished her dance." Caskie's expression was sour. "A real sicko, but she sure as hell got to Papillardi. One show and he was hot for her ass. Say, you got any beer?"

I pointed the way to the kitchen as I continued to stare at the photo.

"In the fridge."

This was the killer of dear Jessica. Regina Ciullo. When she tired of slashing rats she went out and found a child. I felt my pulse quicken, my palms become moist. The photo trembled in my grasp, as if she knew I'd be coming for her.

"Where on Shore Drive is she staying?"

Caskie popped the top of a can of Bud as he returned to the living room.

"The Jensen place."

"Jensen! How'd you get her in there?"

The beer can paused inches from his lips.

"You know them?"

"I just know they're rich."

He took a long gulp.

"They are. And they're hardly ever home—at least in this home— except in the spring. They're on a world cruise now. And since Mr. Jensen is a friend of the present administration, and a personal friend of the Bureau's director, he's allowed us to stash her in his mansion. It's a perfect cover. She's posing as Mr. Jensen's niece." He shook his head slowly. "What a place. That's the way to live, I tell you."

The woman who murdered my daughter was living in luxury out on Shore Drive, guarded by the FBI. I wanted to scream. But I didn't. I closed the file and handed it back to Caskie.

"I'll keep the picture," I said. "The rest is all yours."

He snatched the folder away from me.

"You mean it?"

"Of course. You'll never hear from me again . . . unless, of course, Papillardi is convicted and she isn't indicted. Then you'll hear from me. Believe me, you'll hear from me."

I had put on a performance of Barrymore caliber. And Caskie bought it. He smiled like a death row prisoner who'd just got a last minute reprieve.

"Don't worry about that, Santos. As soon as Papillardi's case is through, we're on her. Don't you worry about that!" He turned at the door and gave me another of his thumps-up gestures. "You can take that to the bank!"

And then he was gone.

For a while I stood there in the living room and stared at the picture of Regina Ciullo. Then I took it into Jessicas room and tacked it over the head of the latest outline on the wall. Then I stabbed the figure so hard, so fast, and so many times that there was a football sized hole in the wall in less than a minute.

* * *

A week later the walls of Jessica's room were so Swiss-cheesed with holes that there was no space left for new outlines.

Time for the real thing.

I'd been driving by the Jensen place regularly, sometimes three times a day. I always kept the photo on the seat beside me, for quick reference in case I saw someone who resembled Regina Ciullo. I was sure I'd know her anywhere, but it's good to be prepared.

The houses on Shore Drive all qualified as mansions—all huge, all waterfront, facing Connecticut across the Long Island Sound. Although there was always a car or two in the driveway behind the electric steel gate—a Bentley or a Jag or a Porsche Carrera—I never saw anybody.

Until Thursday. I was in the midst of cruising past when I saw the front gate begin to slide open. I almost slammed on the brakes, then had the presence of mind to keep moving. But slow.

And who pulls out but the bitch herself, the slasher of my daughter, slayer of the last thing in my life that held any real meaning. She was driving the Mercedes. Speeding. She passed me doing at least fifty, and still accelerating. On a residential street. The bitch didn't care. The top was down. No question about it. It was her. And she was alone.

Had she given her FBI guardians the slip again? Was she on her way to find another innocent, helpless, trusting child to slaughter?

Not if I could help it.

I followed her to the local Gristedes, trailed her as she dawdled along the cosmetics aisle, touching, feeling, sniffing. Probably looking for the means to whore herself up. As ordinary as the photo had been, it had done her a service. In the light of day she was extremely plain. She needed all the help she could get. And her body. Caskie had described it as "incredible." It was anything but that from what I could see. I guess there's no accounting for tastes.

I caught up to her in the housewares aisle. That was where they sold the knives. When I saw a stainless steel carving set displayed on a shelf I got dizzy. Visions of Jessica's mutilated body lying on that cold, steel gurney in the morgue flashed before me. A knife like that had ripped her up. I saw Martha's face, the expressions on her brothers' faces—Your fault! Your fault!

That did it.

I ripped the biggest knife from the set and spun her around.

"Remember Jessica Santos?" I screamed.

Shock on her face. Sure! No one was supposed to know.

I pretended she was one of the outlines on Jessica's wall. A deep thrust to the abdomen, feeling the knife point hesitate against the fabric of her dress, and then rip through cloth and skin, into the tender innards. She screamed but I didn't let that stop me. I tugged the blade free and plunged it in again and again, each time screaming,

"This is for Jessica! This is for Jessica!"

Somebody pulled me free of her and I didn't resist. She'd been slashed like Jessica. The damage was irreparable. I knew my duty was done, knew I'd avenged my daughter.

But as I looked into her dying eyes, so hurt, so shocked, so bewildered, I had the first inkling that I had made a monstrous mistake.

* * *

I slammed my fist on the table.

"Call the FBI! Check it out with them!"

They'd had me in this interrogation room for hours. Against my lawyer's advice—who wanted me to plead insanity—I'd given them a full statement. I wasn't going to hide anything. This was an open and shut case of a man taking justifiable revenge against his daughter's murderer. I wasn't going to be coy about it. I did it and that was that. Now they could do their damnedest to convict me. All I needed was the FBI file to prove that she was the killer.

"We have called the FBI," said Captain Hall, chief of the Monroe police department. He adjusted his belt around his ample gut for the hundredth time since he'd stuck me in here. "And there's no such agent as Caskie assigned anywhere in New York."

"It's a deep cover thing! That woman posing as a Jensen is Regina Ciullo, a federal witness against Bruno Papillardi!"

"Who told you that?" Captain Hall said.

"Agent Caskie."

"The agent who doesn't exist. How convenient. When did you meet him?"

I described my encounters with Caskie, from the cemetery to my apartment.

"So you were never in his office—if he ever had one. Did anyone see you with him?"

I thought about that. The funeral had been over and everyone was gone when I'd met him in the cemetery. We'd stood side by side for less than a minute in the foyer of the FBI building, and then we'd been together in the alley and my apartment. A cold lump was growing in my gut.

"No. No one that I recall. But what about the picture? It's got to have Caskie's fingerprints on it!"

"We've searched your car three times now, Mr. Santos. No picture. Maybe you should plead insane. Maybe this FBI agent is all in your mind."

"I'm not crazy!"

Captain Hall's face got hard as he leaned toward me.

"Well then, maybe you should be. I know you've had a terrible thing happen to your family, but I've known Maria Jensen since she was a girl, back when she was still Maria Wainwright. That was poor Maria you sliced up. And what's more, we think we've found the killer—the real killer—out in Islip a few hours ago."

He had to be wrong! Please God, he had to be! If I did that to the woman—

"No! You got to listen to me!"

A disgusted growl rumbled from Captain Hall's throat.

"Enough of this bullshit. Get him out of here."

"No, wait! Please!"

"Out!"

Two uniformed cops yanked me out of the chair and dragged me into the hall. As they led me upstairs to a holding cell, I spotted Caskie walking in with two other cops.

"Thank God!" I shouted. "Where have you been?"

His face was drawn and haggard. He almost looked as if he had been crying. And he looked different. He looked trimmer and he held himself straighten The rumpled suit was gone, replaced by white duck slacks, a white linen shirt, open at the collar, and a blue blazer with an emblem on the pocket. He looked like a wealthy yachtsman. He stared at me without the slightest hint of recognition.

One of the cops with him whispered in his ear and suddenly Caskie was bounding toward me, face white with rage, arms outstretched, fingers curved like an eagles talons, ready to tear me to pieces. The cops managed to haul him back before he reached me.

"What's the matter with him?" I said to anyone who'd listen as my two cops hushed me up the stairs.

My attorney answered from behind me.

"That's Harold Jensen, the husband of the woman you cut up."

I felt my knees buckle.

"Her husband?"

"Yeah. I heard around the club that she started divorce proceedings against him, but I guess that's moot now. Her death leaves him sole heir to the entire Wainwright fortune."

With my insides tying themselves in a thousand tight little knots, I glanced back at the man I'd known as Caskie. He was being ushered through the door that led to the morgue. But on the threshold he turned and stole a look at me. As our eyes met, he winked and gave me a secret little thumbs-up.

THE BARRENS

INTRODUCTION

John Betancourt wrote to me sometime in 1989 asking if I'd be interested in participating in a "Special F. Paul Wilson Issue" of Weird Tales magazine. Like I could say no? An entire issue of the world's first and greatest horror fiction magazine—where the classics of Lovecraft and Howard and Bloch and Bradbury first saw print—devoted to me? How could I not be interested? I was restarting Reprisal then but promised I'd send the requested twenty thousand words of new fiction just as soon as I got free.

"The Barrens" was intended to be those twenty thousand words. Be- cause Weird Tales was the target market, I designed it to be Lovecraftian, but not without my own little twists. It was August, and I was cruising along on it when I got a letter from Bob Weinberg requesting a story for Lovecraft's Legacy, an anthology he and Marty Greenberg (see how that name keeps popping up?) were editing in honor of H. P. Lovecraft's centennial. I realized that "The Barrens" was perfect.

So now I had a dilemma. Which meant more: the ego stroke of an issue of Weird Tales devoted to me, or being part of a one-shot anthology dedicated to the work of one of the most influential dark fantasy writers of all time?

I chose the latter.

Why? Because HPL is special to me.

Donald A. Wollheim is to blame. He started me on Lovecraft. It was 1959. I was just a kid, a mere thirteen years old when he slipped me my first fix. I was a good kid up till then, reading Ace Doubles and clean, wholesome science fiction stories by the likes of Heinlein, E. E. Smith, Poul Anderson, Fred Pohl, and the rest. But he brought me down with one anthology. He knew what he was doing. He called it The Macabre Reader and slapped this lurid neato cool Ed Emshwiller cover on it. I couldn't resist. I bought it. I read it. And that was it. The beginning of my end.

The Macabre Reader is an excellent collection—Bloch, Wandrei, Smith, Bishop, Howard. Good stories—dark, eerie, intense, the emotions jumping right off the page—like nothing I'd ever read before. But the one that grabbed me by the throat was "The Thing on the Doorstep" by somebody named H. P. Lovecraft. I was dragged into the story by the opening line ("It is true I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to show by this statement that I am not his murderer."), captivated by the setting (". .. witch-cursed, legend-haunted Arkham, whose huddled, sagging gambrel roofs and crumbling Georgian balustrades brood out the centuries beside the darkly muttering Miskatonic."), blown away by the dense prose that tossed off words like eldritch and foetor and Cyclopean and nacreous, that spoke of poets who die screaming in madhouses, that casually mentioned strange, forbidden books and towns like Innsmouth (where even Arkhamites fear to go) as if I should be familiar with them.

But it was the heart of the tale that lingered in my mind long after I'd finished it—the concept of another reality impinging on ours, knowledge of which could drive you stark raving mad; a dimension of perverse logic and bizarre geometry, full of godlike creatures with unpronounceable names, aloof and yet decidedly inimical.

My thirteen-year-old world did not seem quite so safe and sane, my reality seemed a tad less real.

"The Thing on the Doorstep" delivered on the up-close, breath- clogging horror that The Macabre Reader cover had promised, but it also served as my Cthulhu Mythos primer, my introduction to what is known as Cosmic Horror.

After that first fix, I started mainlining Lovecraft. The local pushers— excuse me, book dealers—introduced me to Arkham House books and I nearly died of an overdose. Eventually I went cold turkey and kicked the habit. (Well, not completely. Occasionally I'll reread a favorite story. I can handle it now. Really.) But the Cosmic Horror concept still fascinates me. I used it in The Keep and I've used it here in "The Barrens." I'll no doubt use it again.

So here's my official tribute to H. P. Lovecraft. I purposely avoided rereading any of his fiction before writing "The Barrens." I wasn't out to do a slavish pastiche; I wanted to capture the Lovecraft gestalt as I remembered it. The Jersey Pine Barrens, by the way, are real, a truly Lovecrafitian setting; all the Piney history and lore in the story are true, every locale except Razorback Hill is real. (In fact, I liked Razorback Hill so much I returned there for the backstory of Freak Show.) The style is mine, but the Cosmic Horror is Lovecraft's.

The following year it wound up as a finalist for the World Fantasy Award for best novella. It lost (of course) but John Betancourt did get his chance to publish it through his own Wildside Press in a signed, limited hardcover edition in 1991. More recently it was revived for Arkham House's Cthulhu 2000.

I'm happy with "The Barrens," but it's nothing like "The Thing on the Doorstep." That's the real thing. Read it (or reread it) when you get a chance.

THE BARRENS

1. In Search of a Devil

I shot my answering machine today. Took out the old twelve gauge my father left me, and blew it to pieces. A silly, futile gesture, I know, but it illustrates my present state of mind, I think.

And it felt good. If not for an answering machine, my life would be completely different now. I would have missed Jonathan Creighton's call. I'd be less wise but far, far happier. And I'd still have some semblance of order and meaning in my life.

He left an innocent enough message:

"The office of Kathleen McKelston and Associates! Sounds like big business! How's it going, Mac? This is John Creighton calling. I’m going to be in the area later this week and I'd like to see you. Lunch or dinner— whatever's better. Give me a buzz." And he left a number with a 212 area code.

So simple, so forthright, giving no hint of where it would lead.

You work your way through life day by day, learning how to play the game, carving out your niche, making a place for yourself. You have some good luck, some bad luck, sometimes you make your own luck, and along the way you begin to think that you've figured out some of the answers— not all of them, of course, but enough to make you feel that you've learned something, that you've got a handle on life and just might be able to get a decent ride out of it. You start to think you're in control. Then along comes someone like Jonathan Creighton and he smashes everything. Not just your plans, your hopes, your dreams, but everything, up to and including your sense of what is real and what is not.

I'd heard nothing from or about him since college, and had thought of him only occasionally until that day in early August when he called my office. Intrigued, I returned his call and set a date for lunch.

That was my first mistake. If I'd had the slightest inkling of where that simple lunch with an old college lover would lead, I'd have slammed down the phone and fled to Europe, or the Orient, anywhere where Jonathan Creighton wasn't.

We'd met at a freshmen mixer at Rutgers University back in the sixties. Maybe we each picked up subliminal cues—we called them "vibes" in those days—that told us we shared a rural upbringing. We didn't dress like it, act like it, or feel like it, but we were a couple of Jersey hicks. I came from the Pemberton area, Jon came from another rural zone, but in North Jersey, near a place called Gilead. Despite that link, we were polar opposites in most other ways. I'm still amazed we hit it off. I was career-oriented while Jon was . . . well, he was a flake. He earned the name Crazy Creighton and he lived up to it every day. He never stayed with one thing long enough to allow anyone to pin him down. Always on to the Next New Thing before the crowd had tuned into it, always into the exotic and esoteric. Looking for the Truth, he'd say.

And as so often happens with people who are incompatible in so many ways, we found each other irresistible and fell madly in love.

Sophomore year we found an apartment off campus and moved in together. It was my first affair, and not at all a tranquil one. I read the strange books he'd find and I kept up with his strange hours, but I put my foot down when it came to the Pickman prints. There was something deeply disturbing about those paintings that went beyond their gruesome subject matter. Jon didn't fight me on it. He just smiled sadly in his condescending way, as if disappointed that I had missed the point, and rolled them up and put them away.

The thing that kept us together—at least for the year we were together—was our devotion to personal autonomy. We spent weeks of nights talking about how we had to take complete control of our own lives, and brainstorming how we were going to go about it. It seems so silly now, but that was the sixties, and we really discussed those sorts of things back then.

We lasted sophomore year and then we fell apart. It might have gone on longer if Creighton hadn't got in with the druggies. That was the path toward loss of all autonomy as far as I was concerned, but Creighton said you can't be free until you know what's real. And if drugs might reveal the Truth, he had to try them. Which was hippie bullshit as far as I was concerned. After that, we rarely ran into each other. He wound up living alone off campus in his senior year. Somehow he managed to graduate, with a degree in anthropology, and that was the last I'd heard of him.

But that doesn't mean he hadn't left his mark.

I suppose I'm what you might call a feminist. I don't belong to NOW and I don't march in the streets, but I don't let anyone leave footprints on my back simply because I'm a woman. I believe in myself and I guess I owe some of that to Jonathan Creighton. He always treated me as an equal. He never made an issue of it—it was simply implicit in his attitude that I was intelligent, competent, worthy of respect, able to stand on my own. It helped shape me. And I'll always revere him for that.

Lunch. I chose Rosario's on the Point Pleasant Beach side of the Manasquan Inlet, not so much for its food as for the view. Creighton was late and that didn't terribly surprise me. I didn't mind. I sipped a chablis spritzer and watched the party boats roll in from their half-day runs of bottom fishing. Then a voice with echoes of familiarity broke through my thoughts.

"Well, Mac, I see you haven't changed much."

I turned and was shocked at what I saw. I barely recognized Creighton. He'd always been thin to the point of emaciation. Could the plump, bearded, almost cherubic figure standing before me now be—?

"Jon? Is that you?"

"The one and only," he said and spread his arms.

We embraced briefly, then took our seats in a booth by the window. As he squeezed into the far side of the table, he called the waitress over and pointed to my glass.

"Two Lites for me and another of those for her."

At first glance I'd thought that Creighton's extra poundage made him look healthy for the first time in his life. His hair was still thick and dark brown, but despite his round, rosy cheeks, his eyes were sunken and too bright. He seemed jovial but I sensed a grim undertone. I wondered if he was still into drugs.

"Almost a quarter century since we were together," he said. "Hard to believe it's been that long. The years look as if they've been kind to you."

As far as looks go, I suppose that's true. I don't dye my hair, so there's a little gray tucked in with the red. But I've always had a young face. I don't wear makeup—with my high coloring and freckles, I don't need it.

"And you."

Which wasn't actually true. His open shirt collar was frayed and looked as if this might be the third time he'd worn it since it was last washed. His tweed sport coat was worn at the elbows and a good two sizes too small for him.

We spent the drinks, appetizers, and most of the entrées catching up on each other's lives. I told him about my small accounting firm, my marriage, my recent divorce.

"No children?"

I shook my head. The marriage had gone sour, the divorce had been a nightmare. I wanted off the subject.

"But enough about me," I said. "What have you been up to?"

"Would you believe clinical psychology?"

"No," I said, too shocked to lie. "I wouldn't."

The Jonathan Creighton I'd known had been so eccentric, so out of step, so self-absorbed, I couldn't imagine him as a psychotherapist. Jonathan Creighton helping other people get their lives together—it was almost laughable.

He was the one laughing, however—good-naturedly, too.

"Yeah. It is hard to believe, but I went on to get a Master's, and then a Ph.D. Actually went into practice."

His voice trailed off.

"You're using the past tense," I said.

"Right. It didn't work out. The practice never got off the ground. But the problem was really within myself. I was using a form of reality therapy but it never worked as it should. And finally I realized why: I don't know— really know—what reality is. Nobody does."

This had an all too familiar ring to it. I tried to lighten things up before they got too heavy.

"Didn't someone once say that reality is what trips you up whenever you walk around with your eyes closed?"

Creighton's smile showed a touch of the old condescension that so infuriated some people.

"Yes, I suppose someone would say something like that. Anyway, I decided to go off and see if I could find out what reality really was. Did a lot of traveling. Wound up in a place called Miskatonic University. Ever heard of it?"

"In Massachusetts, isn't it?"

"That's the one. In a small town called Arkham. I hooked up with the anthropology department there—that was my undergraduate major, after all. But now I’ve left academe to write a book."

"A book?"

This was beginning to sound like a pretty disjointed life. But that shouldn't have surprised me.

"What a deal!" he said, his eyes sparkling. "I've got grants from Rutgers, Princeton, the American Folklore Society, the New Jersey Historical Society, and half a dozen others, just to write a book!"

"What's it about?"

"The origins of folktales. I'm going to select a few and trace them back to their roots. That's where you come in." "Oh?"

"I'm going to devote a significant chapter to the Jersey Devil."

"There've been whole books written about the Jersey Devil. Why don't you—“.

"I want real sources for this, Mac. Primary all the way. Nothing secondhand. This is going to be definitive."

"What can I do for you?"

"You're a Piney, aren't you?"

Resentment flashed through me. Even though people nowadays described themselves as "Piney" with a certain amount of pride, and I'd even seen bumper stickers touting "Piney Power," some of us still couldn't help bristling when an outsider said it. When I was a kid it was always used as a pejorative. Like "clam-digger" here on the coast. Fighting words. Officially it referred to the multigenerational natives of the great Pine Barrens that ran south from Route 70 all the way down to the lower end of the state. I've always hated the term. To me it was the equivalent of calling someone a redneck.

Which, to be honest, wasn't so far from the truth. The true Pineys are poor rural folk, often working truck farms and doing menial labor in the berry fields and cranberry bogs—a lot of them do indeed have red necks. Many are uneducated, or at best undereducated. Those who can afford wheels drive the prototypical battered pickup with the gun rack in the rear window. They even speak with an accent that sounds southern. They're Jersey hillbillies. Country bumpkins in the very heart of the industrial Northeast. Anachronisms. Pineys.

"Who told you that?" I said as levelly as I could.

"You did. Back in school." "Did I?"

It shook me to see how far I'd traveled from my roots. As a scared, naive, self-deprecating frosh at Rutgers I probably had indeed referred to myself as a Piney. Now I never mentioned the word, not in reference to myself or anyone else. I was a college-educated woman; I was a respected professional who spoke with a colorless Northeast accent. No one in his right mind would consider me a Piney.

"Well, that was just a gag," I said. "My family roots are back in the Pine Barrens, but I am by no stretch of the imagination a Piney. So I doubt I can help you."

"Oh, but you can! The McKelston name is big in the Barrens. Everybody knows it. You've got plenty of relatives there."

"Really? How do you know?"

Suddenly he looked sheepish.

"Because I've been into the Barrens a few times now. No one will open up to me. I'm an outsider. They don't trust me. Instead of answering my questions, they play games with me. They say they don't know what I'm talking about but they know someone who might, then they send me driving in circles. I was lost out there for two solid days last month. And believe me, I was getting scared. I thought I'd never find my way out."

"You wouldn't be the first. Plenty of people, many of them experienced hunters, have gone into the Barrens and never been seen again. You'd better stay out."

His hand darted across the table and clutched mine.

"You've got to help me, Kathy. My whole future hinges on this."

I was shocked. He'd always called me "Mac." Even in bed back in our college days he'd never called me "Kathy." Gently, I pulled my hand free, saying, "Come on, Jon—"

He leaned back and stared out the window at the circling gulls.

"If I do this right, do something really definitive, it may get me back into Miskatonic where I can finish my doctoral thesis."

I was immediately suspicious.

"I thought you said you 'left' Miskatonic, Jon. Why can't you get back in without it?"

" 'Irregularities,' " he said, still not looking at me. "The old farts in the antiquities department didn't like where my research was leading me."

"This 'reality' business?"

"Yes."

"They told you that?"

Now he looked at me.

"Not in so many words, but I could tell." He leaned forward. His eyes were brighter than ever. "They've got books and manuscripts locked in huge safes there, one-of-a-kind volumes from times most scholars think of as prehistory. I managed to get a pass, a forgery, that got me into the vaults. It's incredible what they have there, Mac. Incredible! I've got to get back there. Will you help me?"

His intensity was startling. And tantalizing.

"What would I have to do?"

"Just accompany me into the Pine Barrens. Just for a few trips. If I can use you as a reference, I know they'll talk to me about the Jersey Devil. After that, I can take it on my own. All I need is some straight answers from these people and I'll have my primary sources. I may be able to track a folk myth to its very roots! I'll give you credit in the book, I'll pay you, anything, Mac, just don't leave me twisting in the wind!"

He was positively frantic by the time he finished speaking.

"Easy, Jon. Easy. Let me think."

Tax season was over and I had a loose schedule for the summer. And even if I was looking ahead to a tight schedule, so what? Frankly, the job wasn't anywhere near as satisfying as it once had been. The challenge of overcoming the business community's prejudice and doubts about a woman accountant, the thrill of building a string of clients, that was all over. Everything was mostly routine now. Plus, I no longer had a husband. No children to usher toward adulthood. I had to admit that my life was pretty empty at that moment. And so was I. Why not take a little time to inspect my roots and help Crazy Creighton put his life on track, if such a thing was possible? In the bargain maybe I could gain a little perspective on my own life.

"All right, Jon," I said. "I'll do it."

Creighton's eyes lit with true pleasure, a glow distinct from the feverish intensity since he'd sat down. He thrust both his hands toward me.

"I could kiss you, Mac! I can't tell you how much this means to me! You have no idea how important this is!"

He was right about that. No idea at all.

2. The Pine Barrens

Two days later we were ready to make our first foray into the woods.

Creighton was wearing a safari jacket when he picked me up in a slightly battered four-wheel-drive Jeep Wrangler.

"This isn't Africa we're headed for," I told him.

"I know. I like pockets. They hold all sorts of things."

I glanced in the rear compartment. He was surprisingly well equipped. I noticed a water cooler, a food chest, backpacks, and what looked like sleeping bags. I hoped he wasn't harboring any romantic ideas. I'd just split from one man and I wasn't looking for another, especially not Jonathan Creighton.

"I promised to help you look around. I didn't say anything about camping out."

He laughed. "I'm with you. Holiday Inn is my idea of roughing it. I was never a Boy Scout, but I do believe in being prepared. I've already been lost once in there."

"And we can do without that happening again. Got a compass?"

He nodded. "And maps. Even have a sextant."

"You actually know how to use one?"

"I learned."

I dimly remember being bothered then by his having a sextant, and not being quite sure why. Before I could say anything else, he tossed me the keys.

"You're the Piney. You drive."

"Still Mr. Macho, I see."

He laughed. I drove.

It's easy to get into the Pine Barrens from northern Ocean County. You just get on Route 70 and head west. About halfway between the Atlantic Ocean and Philadelphia, say, near a place known as Ongs Hat, you turn left. And wave bye-bye to the twentieth century, and civilization as you know it.

How do I describe the Pine Barrens to someone who's never been there? First of all, it's big. You have to fly over it in a small plane to appreciate just how big. The Barrens runs through seven counties, takes up one-fourth of the state, but since Jersey's not a big state, that doesn't tell the story. How does 2,000 square miles sound? Or a million acres? Almost the size of Yosemite National Park. Does that give you an idea of its vastness?

How do I describe what a wilderness this is? Maps will give you a clue. Look at a road map of New Jersey. If you don't happen to have one handy, imagine an oblong platter of spaghetti; now imagine what it looks like after someone's devoured most of the spaghetti out of the middle of the lower half, leaving only a few strands crossing the exposed plate. Same thing with a population density map—a big gaping hole in the southern half where the Pine Barrens sits. New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the U. S., averaging a thousand bodies per square mile. But the New York City suburbs in north Jersey teem with forty thousand per square mile. After you account for the crowds along the coast and in the cities and towns along the western interstate corridor, there aren't too many people left over when you get to the Pine Barrens. I've heard of an area of over a hundred thousand acres—that's in the neighborhood of 160 square miles—in the south-central Barrens with twenty-one known inhabitants. Twenty-one. One human being per eight square miles in an area that lies on the route through Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D. C.

Even when you take a turn off one of the state or federal roads that cut through the Barrens, you feel the isolation almost immediately. The forty- foot scrub pines close in behind you and quietly but oh so effectively cut you off from the rest of the world. I'll bet there are people who've lived to ripe old ages in the Barrens who have never seen a paved road. Conversely, there are no complete topographical maps of the Barrens because there are vast areas that no human eyes have ever seen.

Are you getting the picture?

"Where do we start?" Creighton asked as we crawled past the retirement villages along Route 70. This had been an empty stretch of road when I was a kid. Now it was Wrinkle City.

"We start at the capital."

"Trenton? I don't want to go to Trenton."

"Not the state capital. The capital of the pines. Used to be called Sha- mong Station. Now it's known as Chatsworth."

He pulled out his map and squinted through the index.

"Oh, right. I see it. Right smack in the middle of the Barrens. How big is it?"

"A veritable Piney megalopolis, my friend. Three hundred souls."

Creighton smiled, and for a second or two he seemed almost . . . innocent.

"Think we can get there before rush hour?"

3. Jasper Muiliner

I stuck to the main roads, taking 70 to 72 to 563, and we were there in no time.

"You'll see something here you won't see anyplace else in the Barrens," I said as I drove down Chatsworth's main street.

"Electricity?" Creighton said.

He didn't look up from the clutter of maps on his lap. He'd been following our progress on paper, mile by mile.

"No. Lawns. Years ago a number of families decided they wanted grass in their front yards. There's no topsoil to speak of out here; the ground's mostly sand. So they trucked in loads of topsoil and seeded themselves some lawns. Now they've got to cut them."

I drove past the general store and its three gas pumps out on the sidewalk.

"Esso, "Creighton said, staring at the sign over the pumps. "That says it all, doesn't it."

"That it do."

We continued on until we came to a sandy lot occupied by a single trailer. No lawn here.

"Who's this?" Creighton said, folding up his maps as I hopped out of the Wrangler.

"An old friend of the family."

This was Jasper Mulliner's place. He was some sort of an uncle—on my mother's side, I think. But distant blood relationships are nothing special in the Barrens. An awful lot of people are related in one way or another. Some said he was a descendant of the notorious bandit of the pines, Joseph Muiliner. Jasper had never confirmed that, but he'd never denied it, either.

I knocked on the door, wondering who would answer. I wasn't even sure Jasper was still alive. But when the door opened, I immediately recognized the grizzled old head that poked through the opening.

"You're not sellin' anything, are you?" he said.

"Nothing, Mr. Mulliner," I said. "I'm Kathleen McKelston. I don't know if you remember me, but—"

His eyes lit as his face broke into a toothless grin.

"Danny's girl? The one who got the college scholarship? Sure I remember you! Come on in!"

Jasper was wearing khaki shorts, a sleeveless orange T-shirt, and duck boots—no socks. His white hair was neatly combed and he was freshly shaved. He'd been a salt hay farmer in his younger days and his hands were still callused from it. He'd moved on to overseeing a cranberry bog in his later years. His skin was a weathered brown and looked tougher than saddle leather. The inside of the trailer reminded me more of a low-ceilinged freight car than a home, but it was clean. The presence of the television set told me he had electricity but I saw no phone nor any sign of running water.

I introduced him to Creighton and we settled onto a three-legged stool and a pair of ladderback chairs as I spent the better part of half an hour telling him about my life since leaving the Barrens and answering questions about my mother and how she was doing since my father died. Then he went into a soliloquy about what a great man my father was. I let him run on, pretending to be listening, but turning my mind to other things. Not because I disagreed with him, but because it had been barely a year since Dad had dropped dead and I was still hurting.

Dad had not been your typical Piney. Although he loved the Barrens as much as anyone else who grew up here, he'd known there was a bigger though not necessarily better life beyond them. That bigger world didn't interest him in the least, but just because he was content with where he was didn't mean that I'd be. He wanted to allow his only child a choice. He knew I'd need a decent education if that choice was to be meaningful. And to provide that education for me, he did what few Pineys like to do: He took a steady job.

That's not to say that Pineys are afraid of hard work. Far from it. They'll break their backs at any job they're doing. It's simply that they don't like to be tied down to the same job day after day, month after month. Most of them have grown up flowing with the cycle of the Barrens. Spring is for gathering sphagnum moss to sell to the florists and nurseries. In June and July they work the blueberry and huckleberry fields. In the fall they move into the bogs for the cranberry harvest. And in the cold of winter they cut cordwood, or cut holly and mistletoe, or go "pineballing"—collecting pine cones to sell. None of this is easy work. But it's not the same work. And that's what matters.

The Piney attitude toward jobs is the most laid back you'll ever encounter. That's because they're in such close harmony with their surroundings. They know that with all the pure water all around them and flowing beneath their feet, they'll never go thirsty. With all the wild vegetation around them, they'll never lack for fruit and vegetables. And whenever the meat supply gets low, they pick up a rifle and head into the brush for squirrel, rabbit, or venison, whatever the season.

When I neared fourteen, my father bit the bullet and moved us close to Pemberton where he took a job with a well-drilling crew. It was steady work, with benefits, and I got to go to Pemberton High. He pushed me to take my schoolwork seriously, and I did. My high grades coupled with my gender and low socioeconomic status earned me a full ride—room, board, and tuition—at Rutgers. As soon as that was settled, he was ready to move back into the Barrens. But my mother had become used to the conveniences and amenities of town living. She wanted to stay in Pemberton. So they stayed.

I still can't help but wonder whether Dad might have lived longer if he'd moved back into the woods. I've never mentioned that to my mother, of course.

When Jasper paused, I jumped in: "My friend Jon's doing a book and he's devoting a chapter to the Jersey Devil."

"Is that so?" Jasper said. "And you brought him to me, did you?"

"Well, Dad always told me there weren't many folks in the Pines you didn't know, and not much that went on that you didn't know about."

The old man beamed and did what many Pineys do: He repeated a phrase three times.

"Did he now? Did he now? Did he really now? Ain't that somethin'! I do believe that calls for a little jack."

As Jasper turned and reached into his cupboard, Creighton threw me a questioning look.

"Applejack," I told him.

He smiled. "Ah. Jersey lightning."

Jasper turned back with three glasses and a brown quart jug. With a practiced hand he poured two fingers' worth into each and handed them to us. The tumblers were smudged and maybe a little crusty, but I wasn't worried about germs. There's never been a germ that could stand up to straight jack from Jasper Mulliner's still. I remember siphoning some off from my father's jug and sneaking off into the brush at night to meet a couple of my girlfriends from high school, and we'd sit around and sing and get plastered.

I could tell by the way the vapor singed my nasal membranes that this was from a potent batch. I neglected to tell Creighton to go slow. As I took a respectful sip, he tossed his off. I watched him wince as he swallowed, saw his face grow red and his eyes begin to water.

"Whoa!" he said hoarsely. "You could etch glass with that stuff!" He caught Jasper looking at him sideways and held out his glass. "But delicious! Could I have just a drop more?"

"Help yourself," Jasper said, pouring him another couple of fingers. "Plenty more where this came from. But down it slow. This here's sippin' whiskey. You go puttin' too much of it down like that and you'll get apple palsy. Slow and leisurely does it when you're drinking Gus Sooy's best."

"This isn't yours?" I said.

"Naw! I stopped that long time ago. Too much trouble and gettin' too civilized 'round here. Besides, Gus's jack is as good as mine ever was. Maybe better."

He set the jug on the floor between us.

"About that Jersey Devil," I said, prompting him before he got off on another tangent.

"Right. The ol' Devil. He used to be known as the Leeds' Devil. I'm sure you've heard various versions of the story, but I'll tell you the real one. That ol' devil's been around a spell, better'n two and a half centuries. All started back around 1730 or so. That was when Mrs. Leeds of Estellville found herself in the family way for the thirteenth time. Now she was so fed up and angry about this that she cried out, 'I hope this time it's the Devil!' Well now, Someone must've been listenin' that night, because she got her wish. When that thirteenth baby was born, it was an ugly-faced thing, born with teeth like no one'd ever seen before, and it had a curly, sharp- pointed tail, and leathery wings like a bat. It bit its mother and flew out through the window. It grew up out in the pine wilds, stealing and eating chickens and small piglets at first, then graduating to cows, children, even growed men. All they ever found of its victims was their bones, and they was chipped and nicked by powerful sharp teeth. Some say it's dead now, some say it'll never die. Every so often someone says he shot and killed it, but most folks think it can't be killed. It gets blamed for every missing chicken and every pig or cow that wanders off, and so after a while you think it's just an ol' Piney folktale. But it's out there. It's out there. It's surely out there."

"Have you ever seen it?" Creighton asked. He was sipping his jack with respect this time around.

"Saw its shadow. It was up on Apple Pie Hill, up at the top, in the days before they put up the firetower. Before you was born, Kathleen. I'd been out doing some summer hunting, tracking a big ol' stag. You know what a climb Apple Pie is, dontcha?"

I nodded. "Sure do."

It didn't look like much of a hill. No cliffs or precipices, just a slow incline that seemed to go on forever. You didn't have to do much more than walk to get to the top, but you were bushed when you finally reached it.

"Anyways, I was about three-quarters the way up when it got too dark to do any more tracking. Well, I was tired and it was a warm summer night so's I just settled down on the pine needles and decided I'd spend the night. I had some jerky and some pone and my jug." He pointed to the floor. "Just like that one. You two be sure to help yourselves, hear me?"

"I'm fine," I said.

I saw Creighton reach for the jug. He could always handle a lot. I was already feeling my two sips. It was getting warmer in here by the minute.

"Anyways," Jasper went on, "I was sitting there chewing and sipping when I saw some pine lights."

Creighton started in mid-pour and spilled some applejack over his hand. He was suddenly very alert, almost tense.

"Pine lights?" he said. "You saw pine lights? Where were they?"

"So you've heard of the pine lights, have you?"

"I sure have. I've been doing my homework. Where did you see them? Were they moving?"

"They were streaming across the crest of Apple Pie Hill, just skirting the tops of the trees."

Creighton put his tumbler down and began fumbling with his map.

"Apple Pie Hill... I remember seeing that somewhere. Here it is." He jabbed his finger down on the map as if he were driving a spike into the hill. "Okay. So you were on Apple Pie Hill when you saw the pine lights. How many were there?"

"A whole town's worth of them, maybe a hunnert, more than I've ever seen before or since."

"How fast were they going?"

"Different speeds. Different sizes. Some gliding peacefully, some zipping along, moving past the slower ones. Looked like the turnpike on a summer weekend."

Creighton leaned forward, his eyes brighter than ever.

"Tell me about it."

Something about Creighton's intensity disturbed me. All of a sudden he'd become an avid listener. He'd been listening politely to Jasper's retelling of the Jersey Devil story, but he'd seemed more interested in the applejack than in the tale. He hadn't bothered to check the location of Apple Pie Hill when Jasper had said he'd seen the Jersey Devil there, but he'd been in a rush to find it at the first mention of the pine lights.

The pine lights. I'd heard of them but I'd never seen one. People tended to catch sight of them on summer nights, mostly toward the end of the season. Some said it was ball lightning or some form of St. Elmo's fire, some called it swamp gas, and some said it was the souls of dead Pineys coming back for periodic visits. Why was Creighton so interested?

"Well," Jasper said, "I spotted one or two moving along the crest of the hill and didn't think too much of it. I spot a couple just about every summer. Then I saw a few more. And then a few more. I got a little excited and decided to get up to the top of Apple Pie and see what was going on. I was breathing hard by the time I got there. I stopped and looked up and there they was, flowing along the treetops forty feet above me, pale yellow, some Ping-Pong size and some big as beach balls, all moving in the same direction."

"What direction?" Creighton said. If he leaned forward any farther, he was going to fall off his stool. "Which way were they going?"

"I'm getting to that, son," Jasper said. "Just hold your horses. So as I was saying, I was standing there watching them flow against the clear night sky, and I was feeling this strange tightness in my chest, like I was witnessing something I shouldn't. But I couldn't tear my eyes away. And then they thinned out and was gone. They'd all passed. So I did something crazy. I climbed a tree to see where they was going. Something in my gut told me not to, but I was filled with this wonder, almost like holy rapture. So I climbed as far as I could, until the tree started to bend with my weight and

the branches got too thin to hold me. And I watched them go. They was strung out in a long trail, dipping down when the land dipped down, and moving up when the land rose, moving just above the tops of the pines, like they was being pulled along strings." He looked at Creighton. "And they was heading southwest."

"You're sure of that?"

Jasper looked insulted. "Course I'm sure of that. Bear Swamp Hill was behind my left shoulder, and everybody knows Bear Swamp is east of Apple Pie. Those lights was on their way southwest."

"And this was the summer?"

"Nigh on to Labor Day, if I 'member correct."

"And you were on the crest of Apple Pie Hill?"

"The tippy top."

"Great!" He began folding his map.

"I thought you wanted to hear about the Jersey Devil."

"I do, I do."

"Then how come you're asking me all these questions about the lights and not asking me about my meeting with the Devil?"

I hid a smile. Jasper was as sharp as ever.

Creighton looked confused for a moment. An expression darted across his face. It was only there for a second, but I caught it. Furtiveness. Then he leaned forward and spoke to Jasper in a confidential tone.

"Don't tell anybody this, but I think they're connected. The pine lights and the Jersey Devil. Connected."

Jasper leaned back. "You know, you might have something there. Cause it was while I was up that tree that I spotted the ol' Devil himself. Or at least his shadow. I was watching the lights flow out of sight when I heard this noise in the brush. It had a slithery sound to it. I looked down and there was this dark shape moving below. And you know what? It was heading in the same direction as the lights. What do you think of that?"

Creighton's voice oozed sincerity.

"I think that's damn interesting, Jasper."

I thought they both were shoveling it, but I couldn't decide who was carrying the bigger load.

"But don't you go getting too interested in those pine lights, son. Gus Sooy says they're bad medicine."

"The guy who made this jack?" I said, holding up my empty tumbler.

"The very same. Gus says there's lots of pine light activity in his neighborhood every summer. Told me I was a fool for climbing that tree. Says he wouldn't get near one of those lights for all the tea in China."

I noticed that Creighton was tense again.

"Where's this Gus Sooy's neighborhood?" he said. "Does he live in Chatsworth?"

Jasper burst out laughing.

"Gus live in Chatsworth? That's a good 'un! Gus Sooy's an old Hessian who lives way out in the wildest part of the pines. Never catch him near a city like this!"

City? I didn't challenge him on that.

"Where do we find him then?" Creighton said, his expression like a kid who's been told there's a cache of M&M's hidden somewhere nearby.

"Not easy," Jasper said. "Gus done a good job of getting himself well away from everybody. He's well away. Yes, he's well away. But if you go down to Apple Pie Hill and head along the road there that runs along its south flank, and you follow that about two mile and turn south onto the sand road by Applegate's cranberry bog, then follow that for about ten- twelve mile till you come to the fork where you bear left, then go right again at the cripple beyond it, then it's a good ten mile down that road till you get to the big red cedar—"

Creighton was scribbling furiously.

"I'm not sure I know what a red cedar looks like," I said.

"You'll know it," Jasper said. "Its kind don't grow naturally around here. Gus planted it there a good many year ago so people could find their way to him. The right people," he said, eyeing Creighton. "People who want to buy his wares, if you get my meaning."

I nodded. I got his meaning: Gus made his living off his still.

"Anyways, you turn right at the red cedar and go to the end of the road. Then you've got to get out and walk about a third of the way up the hill. That's where you'll find Gus Sooy."

I tried to drive the route across a mental map in my head. I couldn't get there. My map was blank where he was sending us. But I was amazed at how far I did get. As a Piney, even a girl, you've got to develop a good sense of where you are, got to have a store of maps in your head that you can picture by reflex, otherwise you'll spend most of your time being lost. Even with a good library of mental maps, you'll still get lost occasionally. I could still travel my old maps. The skill must be like the proverbial bicycle— once you've learned, you never forget.

I had a sense that Gus Sooy's place was somewhere far down in Burlington County, near Atlantic County. But county lines don't mean much in the Pinelands.

"That's really in the middle of nowhere!" I said.

"That it is, Kathy, that it is. That it surely is. It's on the slope of Razor- back Hill."

Creighton shuffled through his maps again.

"Razorback . . . Razorback . . . there's no Razorback Hill here."

"That's because it ain't much of a hill. But it's there all right. Just 'cause it ain't on your diddly map don't mean it ain't there. Lots of things ain't on that map."

Creighton rose to his feet.

"Maybe we can run out there now and buy some of this applejack from him. What do you say, Mac?"

"We've got time."

I had a feeling he truly did want to buy some of Sooy's jack, but I was sure some questions about the pine lights would come up during the transaction.

"Better bring your own jugs if you're goin," Jasper said. "Gus don't carry no spares. You can buy some from the Buzbys at the general store."

"Will do," I said.

I thanked him and promised I'd say hello to my mom for him, then I joined Creighton out at the Wrangler. He had one of his maps unfolded on the hood and was drawing a line southwest from Apple Pie Hill through the emptiest part of the Barrens.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"I don't know just yet. We'll see if it comes to mean anything."

It would. Sooner than either of us realized.

4. The Hessian

I bought a gallon-sized brown jug at the Chatsworth general store; Creighton bought two.

"I want this Sooy fellow to be real glad to see me!"

I drove us down 563, then off to Apple Pie Hill. We got south of it and began following Jasper's directions. Creighton read while I drove.

"What the hell's a cripple?" he said.

“That's a spong with no cedars."

"Ah! That clears up everything!"

"A spong is a low wet spot; if it's got cedars growing around it, it's a cripple. What could be clearer?"

"I'm not sure, but I know I'll think of something. By the way, why's this Sooy fellow called a Hessian? Mulliner doesn't really think he's—?"

"Of course not. Sooy's an old German name around the Pine Barrens. Comes from the Hessians who deserted the British Army and fled into the woods after the battle of Trenton."

"The Revolution."

"Sure. This sand road we're riding on now was here three hundred-odd years ago as a wagon trail. It probably hasn't changed any since. Might even have been used by the smugglers who used to unload freight in the marshes and move it overland through the Pines to avoid port taxes in New York and Philly. A lot of them settled in here. So did a good number of Tories and Loyalists who were chased from their land after the Revolution. Some of them probably arrived dressed in tar and feathers and little else. The Lenape Indians settled in here, too, so did Quakers who were kicked out of their churches for taking up arms during the Revolution."

Creighton laughed. "Sounds like Australia! Didn't anyone besides outcasts settle here?"

"Sure. Bog iron was a major industry. This was the center of the colonial iron production. Most of the cannonballs fired against the British in the Revolution and the War of 1812 were forged right here in the Pine Barrens."

"Where'd everybody go?"

"A place called Pittsburgh. There was more iron there and it was cheaper to produce. The furnaces here tried to shift over to glass production but they were running out of wood to keep them going. Each furnace consumed something like a thousand acres of pine a year. With the charcoal industry, the lumber industry, even the cedar shake industry all adding to the daily toll on the tree population, the Barrens couldn't keep up with the demand. The whole economy collapsed after the Civil War. Which probably saved the area from becoming a desert."

I noticed the underbrush between the ruts getting higher, slapping against the front bumper as we passed, a sure sign that not many people came this way. Then I spotted the red cedar. Jasper had been right—it didn't look like it belonged here. We turned right and drove until we came to a cul-de-sac at the base of a hill. Three rusting cars hugged the bushes along the perimeter.

"This must be the place," I said.

"This is not a place. This is nowhere."

We grabbed our jugs and walked up the path. About a third of the way up the slope we broke into a clearing with a slant-roofed shack in the far left corner. It looked maybe twenty feet on a side, and was covered with tarpaper that was peeling away in spots, exposing the plywood beneath. Somewhere behind the shack a dog had begun to bark.

Creighton said, "Finally!" and started forward.

I laid a hand on his arm.

"Call out first," I told him. "Otherwise we may be ducking buckshot."

He thought I was joking at first, then saw that I meant it.

"You're serious?"

"We're dressed like city folk. We could be revenuers. He'll shoot first and ask questions later."

"Hello in the house!" Creighton cried. "Jasper Mulliner sent us! Can we come up?"

A wizened figure appeared on the front step, a twelve gauge cradled in his arms.

"How'd he send you?"

"By way of the red cedar, Mr. Sooy!" I replied.

"C'mon up then!"

Where Jasper had been neat, Gus Sooy was slovenly. His white hair looked like a deranged bird had tried to nest in it; for a shirt he wore the stained top from a set of long johns and had canvas pants secured around his waist with coarse rope. His lower face was obscured by a huge white beard, stained around the mouth. An Appalachian Santa Claus, going to seed in the off-season.

We followed him into the single room of his home. The floor was covered with a mismatched assortment of throw rugs and carpet remnants. A bed sat in the far left corner, a kerosene stove was immediately to our right. Set about the room were a number of Aladdin lamps with the tall flues. Dominating the scene was a heavy-legged kitchen table with an enamel top.

We introduced ourselves and Gus said he'd met my father years ago.

“So what brings you two kids out here to see Gus Sooy?"

I had to smile, not just at the way he managed to ignore the jugs we were carrying, but at being referred to as a "kid." A long time since anyone had called me that. I wouldn't let anyone call me a "girl" these days, but somehow I didn't mind "kid."

"Today we tasted some of the best applejack in the world," Creighton said with convincing sincerity, "and Jasper told us you were the source." He slammed his two jugs on the table. "Fill 'em up!"

I placed my own jug next to Creighton's.

"I gotta warn you," Gus said. "It's five dollars a quart."

"Five dollars!" Creighton said.

"Yeah," Gus added quickly, "but seein' as you're buying so much at once—"

"Don't get me wrong, Mr. Sooy. I wasn't saying the price is too high. I was just shocked that you'd be selling such high-grade sipping whiskey for such a low price."

"You were?" The old man beamed with delight. "It is awful good, isn't it?"

"That it is, sir. That it is. That it surely is."

I almost burst out laughing. I don't know how Creighton managed to keep a straight face.

Gus held up a finger. "You kids stay right here. I'll dip into my stock and be back in a jiffy."

We both broke down into helpless laughter as soon as he was gone.

"You're laying it on awful thick," I said when I caught my breath.

"I know, but he's lapping up every bit."

Gus returned in a few minutes with two gallon jugs of his own.

"Hadn't we ought to test this first before you begin filling our jugs?" Creighton said.

"Not a bad idea. No, sir, not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all."

Creighton produced some paper cups from one of the pockets in his safari jacket and placed them on the table. Gus poured. We all sipped.

"This is even smoother than what Jasper served us. How do you do it, Mr. Sooy?"

"That's a secret," he said with a wink as he brought out a funnel and began decanting from his jugs into ours.

I brought up Jon's book and Gus launched into a slightly different version of the Jersey Devil story, saying it was born in Leeds, which is at the opposite end of the Pine Barrens from Estellville. Otherwise the tales were almost identical.

"Jasper says he saw the Devil once," Creighton said as Gus topped off the last of our jugs.

"If he says he did, then he did. That'll be sixty dollar."

Creighton gave him three twenties.

"And now I'd like to buy you a drink, Mr. Sooy."

"Call me Gus. And I don't mind if I do."

Creighton was overly generous, I thought, with the way he filled the three paper cups. I didn't want any more, but I felt I had to keep up appearances. I sipped while the men quaffed.

"Jasper told us about the time he saw the Jersey Devil. He mentioned seeing pine lights at the same time."

I sensed rather than saw Gus stiffen.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. He said you see pine lights around here all the time. Is that true?

"You interested in pine lights or the Jersey Devil, boy?"

"Both. I'm interested in all the folktales of the Pines."

"Well, don't get too interested in the pine lights."

"Why not?"

"Just don't."

I watched Creighton tip his jug and refill Gus's cup.

"A toast!" Creighton said, lifting his cup. "To the Pine Barrens!"

"I'll drink to that!" Gus said, and drained his cup.

Creighton followed suit, causing his eyes to fill with tears. I sipped while he poured another round.

"To the Jersey Devil!" Creighton cried, hoisting his cup again.

And again they both tossed off their drinks. And then another round.

"To the pine lights!"

Gus wouldn't drink to that one. I was glad. I don't think either of them would have remained standing if he had.

"Have you seen any pine lights lately, Gus," Creighton said.

"You don't give up, do you, boy," the old man said.

"It's an affliction."

"So it is. All right. Sure. I see 'em all the time. Saw some last night.”

“Really? Where?"

"None of your business."

"Why not?"

"Because you'll probably try to do something stupid like catch one, and then I'll be responsible for what happened to you and this young lady here. Not on my conscience, no thank you."

"I wouldn't dream of trying to catch one of those things!" Creighton said.

"Well, if you did you wouldn't be the first. Peggy Clevenger was the first." Gus lifted his head and looked at me. "You heard of Peggy Clevenger, ain't you, Miss McKelston?"

I nodded. "Sure. The Witch of the Pines. In the old days people used to put salt over their doors to keep her away."

Creighton began scribbling.

"No kidding? This is great! What about her and the pine lights?"

" Peggy was a Hessian, like me. Lived over in Pasadena. Not the California Pasadena, the Pines Pasadena. A few miles east of Mount Misery. The town's gone now, like it never been. But she lived thereabouts by herself in a small cabin, and people said she had all sorts of strange powers, like she could change her shape and become a rabbit or a snake. I don't know about that stuff, but I heard from someone who should know that she was powerful interested in the pine lights. She told this fella one day that she had caught one of the pine lights, put a spell on it, and brought it down."

Creighton had stopped writing. He was staring at Gus.

"How could she . . . ?"

"Don't know," Gus said, draining his cup and shaking his head. "But that very night her cabin burned to the ground. They found her blackened and burned body among the ashes the next morning. So I tell you, kids, it ain't a good idea to get too interested in the pine lights."

"I don't want to capture one," Creighton said. "I don't even want to see one. I just want to know where other people have seen them. How can that be dangerous?"

Gus thought about that. And while he was thinking, Creighton poured him another cupful.

"Don't s'pose it would do any harm to show you where they was," he said after a long slow sip.

"Then it's settled. Let's go.”

We gathered up the jugs and headed out into the late afternoon sunshine. The fresh air was like a tonic. It perked me up but didn't dissipate the effects of all the jack I'd consumed.

When we reached the Wrangler, Creighton pulled out his sextant and compass.

"Before we go, there's something I've got to do."

Gus and I watched in silence as he took his sightings and scribbled in his notebook. Then he spread his map out on the hood again.

"What's up?" I said.

"I'm putting Razorback Hill on the map," he said.

He jotted his readings on the map and drew a circle. Before he folded everything up, I glanced over his shoulder and noticed that the line he had drawn from Apple Pie Hill ran right by the circle that was Razorback Hill.

"You through dawdlin?" Gus said.

"Sure am. You want to ride in front?"

"No thanks," Gus said, heading for the rusty DeSoto. "I'll drive myself and you kids follow."

I said, "Won't it be easier if we all go together?"

"Hell no! You kids have been drinkin'!"

When we stopped laughing, we pulled ourselves into the Wrangler and followed the old Hessian back up his private sand road.

5. The Firing Place

"I used to make charcoal here when I was young," Gus said.

We were standing in a small clearing surrounded by young pines. Before us was a shallow sandy depression, choked with weeds.

"This used to be my firing place. It was deeper then. I made some fine charcoal here before the big companies started selling their bags of 'brickettes.' “He fairly spat the word. "Ain't no way any one of those smelly little things was ever part of a tree, I'll tell you that."

"Is this where you saw the lights, Gus?" Creighton said. "Were they moving?"

Gus said, "You got a one-track mind, don't you, boy?" He glanced around. "Yeah, this is where I saw them. Saw them here last night and I saw them here fifty years ago, and I seen them near about every summer in between. Lots of memories here. I remember how while I was letting my charcoal burn I'd use the time to hunt up box turtles."

"And sell them as snail hunters?" I said.

I'd heard of box turtle hunting—another Pinelands mini-industry—but I'd never met anyone who'd actually done it.

"Sure. Folks in Philadelphia buy all I could find. They liked to let them loose in their cellars to keep the snails and slugs under control."

"The lights, Gus," Creighton said. "Which way were they going?"

"They was goin' the same way they always went when I seen them here. That way."

He was pointing southeast.

"Are you sure?"

"Sure as shit, boy." Gus's tone was getting testy, but he quickly turned to me. " 'Scuse me, miss," then back to Creighton. "I was standing back there right where my car is when about a half dozen of them swooped in low right overhead—not a hunting swoop, but a floaty sort of swoop—and traveled away over that pitch pine there with the split top."

"Good!" said Creighton, eyeing the sky.

A thick sheet of cloud was pulling up from the west, encroaching on the sinking sun. Out came the sextant and compass. Creighton took his readings, wrote his numbers, then took a bearing on the tree Gus had pointed out. A slow, satisfied smile crept over his face as he drew the latest line on his map. He folded it up before I had a chance to see where that line went. I didn't have to see. His next question told me.

"Say, Gus," he said offhandedly. "What's on the far side of Razorback Hill?"

Gus turned on Creighton like an angry bear.

"Nothing! There's nothing there! So don't you even think about going over there!"

Creighton's smile was amused. "I was only asking. No harm in a little question, is there?"

"There is. There is. Yes, there surely is! Especially when those questions is the wrong ones. And you've been asking a whole lot of wrong questions, boy. Questions that's gonna get you in a whole mess of bad trouble if you don't get smart and learn that certain things is best left alone. You hear me?

He sounded like a character from one of those old Frankenstein movies.

"I hear you," Creighton said, "and I appreciate your concern. But can you tell me the best way to get to the other side of that hill?”

Gus threw up his hands with an angry growl.

"That's it! I'm havin' no more to do with the two of you! I've already told you too much as it is." He turned to me, his eyes blazing. "And you, Miss McKelston, you get yourself away from this boy. He's headed straight to hell!"

With that he turned and headed for his car. He jumped in, slammed the door, and roared away with a spray of sand.

"I don't think he likes me," Creighton said.

"He seemed genuinely frightened," I told him.

Creighton shrugged and began packing away his sextant.

"Maybe he really believes in the Jersey Devil," he said. "Maybe he thinks it lives on the other side of Razorback Hill."

"I don't know about that. I got the impression he thinks the Jersey Devil is something to tell tall tales about while sitting around the stove and sipping jack. But those pine lights . . . he's scared of them."

"Just swamp gas, I'm sure," Creighton said.

Suddenly I was furious. Maybe it was all the jack I'd consumed, or maybe it was his attitude, but I think at that particular moment it was mostly his line of bull.

"Cut it, Jon!" I said. "If you really believe they're swamp gas, why are you tracking them on your map? You got me to guide you out here, so let's have it straight. What's going on?"

"I don't know what's going on, Mac. If I did, I wouldn't be here. Isn't that obvious? These pine lights mean something. Whether or not they're connected to the Jersey Devil, I don't know. Maybe they have a hallucinatory effect on people—after they pass overhead, people think they see things. I'm trying to establish a pattern."

"And after you've established this pattern, what do you think you'll find?"

"Maybe Truth," he said. "Reality. Who knows? Maybe the meaning— or meaninglessness—of life."

He looked at me with eyes so intense, so full of longing that my anger evaporated.

"Jon . .. ?"

His expression abruptly shifted back to neutral and he laughed.

"Don't worry, Mac. It's only me, Crazy Creighton, putting you on again. Let's have another snort of Gus Sooy's best and head for civilization. Okay?"

"I've had enough for the day. The week!"

"You don't mind if I partake, do you?"

"Help yourself."

I didn't know how he could hold so much.

While Creighton uncorked his jug, I strolled about the firing place to clear my fuzzy head. The sky was fully overcast now and the temperature was dropping to a more comfortable level.

He had everything packed away by the time I completed the circle.

"Want me to drive?" he said, tossing his paper cup onto the sand.

Normally I would have picked it up—there was something sacrilegious about leaving a Dixie cup among the pines—but I was afraid to bend over that far, afraid I'd keep on going head-first into the sand and become litter myself.

"I'm okay," I said. "You'll get us lost."

We had traveled no more than a hundred feet or so when I realized that I didn't know this road. But I kept driving. I hadn't been paying close attention while following Gus here, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't be long before I'd come to a fork or a cripple or a bog that I recognized, and then we'd be home free.

It didn't quite work out that way. I drove for maybe five miles or so, winding this way and that with the roads, making my best guess when we came to a fork—and we came to plenty of those—and generally trying to keep us heading in the same general direction. I thought I was doing a pretty good job until we drove through an area of young pines that looked familiar. I stopped the Wrangler.

"Jon," I said. "Isn't this—?"

"Damn right it is!" he said, pointing to the sand beside the road. "We're back at Gus's firing place! There's my Dixie cup!"

I turned the Jeep around and headed back the way I came.

"What are you doing?" Creighton said.

"Making sure I don't make the same mistake twice!" I told him.

I didn't know how I could have driven in a circle. I usually had an excellent sense of direction. I blamed it on too much Jersey lightning and on the thickly overcast sky. Without the sun as a marker, I'd been unable to keep us on course. But that would change here and now. I'd get us out of here this time around.

Wrong.

After a good forty-five minutes of driving, I was so embarrassed when I recognized the firing place again that I actually accelerated as we passed through, hoping Creighton wouldn't recognize the spot in the thickening dusk. But I wasn't quick enough.

"Hold it!" he cried. "Hold it just a damn minute! There's my cup again! We're right back where we started!"

"Jon," I said, "I don't understand it. Something's wrong."

"You're stewed, that's what's wrong!"

"I'm not!"

I truly believed I wasn't. I'd been feeling the effects of the jack before, true, but my head was clear now. I was sure I'd been heading due east, or at least pretty close to it. How I'd come full circle again was beyond me.

Creighton jumped out of his seat and came around the front of the Wrangler.

"Over you go, Mac. It's my turn."

I started to protest, then thought better of it. I'd blown it twice already. Maybe my sense of direction had fallen prey to the "apple palsy," as it was known. I lifted myself over the stick shift and dropped into the passenger seat.

"Be my guest."

Creighton drove like a maniac, seemingly choosing forks at random.

"Do you know where you're going?" I said.

"Yeah, Mac," he said. "I'm going whichever way you didn't\ I think."

As darkness closed in and he turned on the headlights, I noticed that the trees were thinning out and the underbrush was closing in, rising to eight feet or better on either side of us. Creighton pulled off to the side at a widening of the road.

"You should stay on the road," I told him.

"I'm lost," he said. "We've got to think."

"Fine. But it's not as if somebody's going to be coming along and want to get by."

He laughed. "That's a fact!" He got out and looked up at the sky. "Damn! If it weren't for the clouds we could figure out where we are. Or least know where north is."

I looked around. We were surrounded by bushes. It was the Pine Barrens' equivalent of an English hedge maze. There wasn't a tree in sight. A tree can be almost as good as a compass—its moss faces north and its longest branches face south. Bushes are worse than useless for that, and the high ones only add to your confusion.

And we were confused.

"I thought Pineys never get lost," Creighton said.

"Everybody gets lost sooner or later out here."

"Well, what do Pineys do when they get lost?"

"They don't exhaust themselves or waste their gas by running around in circles. They hunker down and wait for morning."

"To hell with that!" Creighton said.

He threw the Wrangler into first and gunned it toward the road. But the vehicle didn't reach the road. It lurched forward and rocked back. He tried again and I heard the wheels spinning.

"Sugar!" I said.

Creighton looked at me and grinned.

"Stronger language is allowed and even encouraged in this sort of situation."

"I was referring to the sand."

"Don't worry. I've got four-wheel drive."

"Right. And all four wheels are spinning. We're in a patch of what's known as 'sugar sand.' "

He got out and pushed and rocked while I worked the gears and throttle, but I knew it was no use. We weren't going to get out of this superfine sand until we found some wood and piled it under the tires to give them some traction.

And we weren't going to be able to hunt up that kind of wood until morning.

I told Creighton that we'd only waste what gas we had left and that our best bet was to call it a night and pull out the sleeping bags. He seemed reluctant at first, worrying about deer ticks and catching Lyme disease, but he finally agreed.

He had no choice.

6. The Pine Lights

"I owe you one, Jon," I said.

"How was I to know we'd get lost?" he said defensively. "I don't like this any more than you!"

"No. You don't understand. I meant that in the good sense. I'm glad you talked me into coming with you."

I'd found us a small clearing not too far from the Jeep. It surrounded the gnarled trunk of an old lone pine that towered above the dominant brush.

We'd eaten the last of the sandwiches and now we sat on our respective bedrolls facing each other across the Coleman lamp sitting between us on the sand. Creighton was back to sipping his applejack. I would have killed, or at least maimed, for a cup of coffee.

I watched his face in the lamplight. His expression was puzzled.

"You must still be feeling the effects of that Jersey lightning you had this afternoon," he said.

"No. I'm perfectly sober. I've been sitting here realizing that I'm glad to be back. I've had a feeling for years that something's been missing from my life. Never had an inkling as to what it was until now. But this is it. I'm . . ." My throat constricted around the word. "I'm home."

It wasn't the jack talking, it was my heart. I'd learned something today. I'd learned that I loved the Pine Barrens. And I loved its people. So rich in history, so steeped in its own lore, somehow surviving untainted in the heart of twentieth-century urban madness. I'd turned my back on it. Why? Too proud? Too good for it now? Maybe I'd thought I'd pulled myself up by my bootstraps and gone on to bigger and better things. I could see that I hadn't. I'd taken the girl out of the Pinelands but I hadn't taken the Pinelands out of the girl.

I promised myself to come back here again. Often. I was going to look up my many relatives, renew old ties. I wasn't ready to move back here, and perhaps I never would, but I'd never turn my back on the Pinelands again.

Creighton raised his cup to me.

"I envy anyone who's found the missing piece. I'm still looking for mine."

"You'll find it," I said, crawling into my bedroll. "You've just got to keep your eyes open. Sometimes it's right under your nose."

"Go to sleep, Mac. You're starting to sound like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz."

I smiled at that. For a moment there he was very much like the Jonathan Creighton I'd fallen in love with. As I closed my eyes, I saw him pull out a pair of binoculars and begin scanning the cloud-choked sky. I knew what he was looking for, and I was fairly confident he'd never find them.

It must have been a while later when I awoke, because the sky had cleared and the stars were out when Creighton's shouts yanked me to a sitting position.

“They're coming! Look at them, Mac! My God, they're coming!"

Creighton was standing on the far side of the lamp, pointing off to my left. I followed the line of his arm and saw nothing.

"What are you talking about?"

"Stand up, damn it! They're coming! There must be a dozen of them!"

I struggled to my feet and froze.

The starlit underbrush stretched away in a gentle rise for maybe a mile or two in the direction he was pointing, broken only occasionally by the angular shadows of the few scattered trees. And coming our way over that broad expanse, skimming along at treetop level, was an oblong cluster of faintly glowing lights. Lights. That's what they were. Not glowing spheres. Not UFOs or any of that nonsense. They had no discernible substance. They were just light. Globules of light.

I felt my hackles rise at the sight of them. Perhaps because I'd never seen light behave that way before—it didn't seem right or natural for light to concentrate itself in a ball. Or perhaps it was the way they moved, gliding through the night with such purpose, cutting through the dark, weaving from tree to tree, floating by the topmost branches, and then forging a path toward the next. Almost as if the trees were signposts. Or perhaps it was the silence. The awful silence. The Pine Barrens are quiet as far as civilized sounds are concerned, but there's always the noise of the living things, the hoots and cries and rustlings of the animals, the incessant insect susurration. That was all gone now. There wasn't even a breeze to rustle the bushes. Silence. More than a mere absence of noise. A holding of breath.

"Do you see them, Mac? Tell me I'm not hallucinating! Do you see them?"

"I see them, Jon."

My voice sounded funny. I realized my mouth was dry. And not just from sleep.

Creighton turned around in a quick circle, his arms spread.

"I don't have a camera! I need a picture of this!"

"You didn't bring a camera?" I said. "My God, you brought everything else!"

"I know, but I never dreamed—"

Suddenly he was running for the tree at the center of our clearing.

"Jon! You're not really—?"

"They're coming this way! If I can get close to them—!"

I was suddenly afraid for him. Something about those lights was warning me away. Why wasn't it warning Creighton? Or was he simply not listening?

I followed him at a reluctant lope.

"Don't be an idiot, Jon! You don't know what they are!"

"Exactly! It's about time somebody found out!"

He started climbing. It was a big old pitch pine with no branches to speak of for the first dozen feet or so of its trunk, but its bark was knobby and rough enough for Creighton's rubber-soled boots to find purchase. He slipped off twice, but he was determined. Finally he made it to the lowest branch, and from there on it looked easy.

I can't explain the crawling sensation in my gut as I watched Jonathan Creighton climbing toward a rendezvous with the approaching pine lights. He was three-quarters of the way to the top when the trunk began to shake and sway with his weight. Then a branch broke under his foot and he almost fell. When I saw that he'd regained safe footing, I sighed with relief. The branches above him were too frail to hold him. He couldn't go any higher. He'd be safe from the lights.

And the lights were here, a good dozen of them, from baseball to basketball size, gliding across our clearing in an irregular cylindrical cluster perhaps ten feet across and twenty feet long, heading straight for Creighton's tree.

And the closer they got, the faster my insides crawled. They may have been made up of light but it was not a clean light, not the golden healthy light of day. This was a wan, sickly, anemic glow, tainted with the vaguest hint of green. But thankfully it was a glow out of Creighton's reach as the lights brushed the tree's topmost needles.

I watched their glow limn Creighton's upturned face as his body strained upward, and I wondered at his recklessness, at this obsession with finding "reality." Was he flailing and floundering about in his search, or was he actually on the trail of something? And were the pine lights part of it?

As the first light passed directly above him, not five feet beyond his outstretched hand, I heard him cry out.

"They're humming, Mac! High-pitched! Can you hear it? It's almost musical! And the air up here tingles, almost as if it's charged! This is fantastic!"

I didn't hear any music or feel any tingling. All I could hear was my heart thudding in my chest, all I could feel was the cold sweat that had broken out all over my body.

Creighton spoke again—he was practically shouting now, but in a language that was not English and not like any other language I'd ever heard. He made clicks and wheezes, and the few noises that sounded like words did not seem to fit comfortably on the human tongue.

"Jon, what are you doing up there?" I cried.

He ignored me and kept up the alien gibberish, but the lights, in turn, ignored him and sailed by above him as if he didn't exist.

The cluster was almost past now, yet still I couldn't shake the dread, the dark feeling that something awful was going to happen.

And then it did.

The last light in the cluster was basketball-sized. It seemed as if it was going to trail away above Creighton just like the others, but as it approached the tree, it slowed and began to drop toward Creighton's perch.

I was panicked now.

"Jon, look out! It's coming right for you!"

"I see it!"

As the other lights flowed off toward the next treetop, this last one hung back and circled Creighton's tree at a height level with his waist.

"Get down from there!" I called.

"Are you kidding? This is more than I'd ever hoped for!"

The light suddenly stopped moving and hovered a foot or so in front of Creighton's chest.

"It's cold," he said in a more subdued tone. "Cold light."

He reached his hand toward it and I wanted to shout for him not to but my throat was locked. The tip of his index finger touched the outer edge of the glow.

"Really cold."

I saw his finger sink into the light to perhaps the depth of the fingernail, and then suddenly the light moved. It more than moved, it leaped onto Creighton's hand, engulfing it.

That's when Creighton began to scream. His words were barely intelligible but I picked out the words "cold" and "burning" again and again. I ran to the base of the tree, expecting him to lose his balance, hoping I could do something to break his fall. I saw the ball of light stretch out and slide up the length of his arm, engulfing it.

Then it disappeared.

For an instant I thought it might be over. But when Creighton clutched his chest and cried out in greater agony, I realized to my horror that the light wasn't gone—it was inside him!

And then I saw the back of his shirt begin to glow. I watched the light ooze out of him and re-form itself into a globe. Then it rose and glided off to follow the other lights into the night, leaving Creighton alone in the tree, sobbing and retching.

I called up to him. "Jon! Are you all right? Do you need help?"

When he didn't answer, I grabbed hold of the tree trunk. But before I could attempt to climb, he stopped me.

"Stay there, Mac." His voice was weak, shaky. "I'm coming down."

It took him twice as long to climb down as it had to go up. His movements were slow, unsteady, and three times he had to stop to rest. Finally, he reached the lowest branch, hung from it by one hand, and made the final drop. I grabbed him immediately to keep him from collapsing into a heap, and helped him back toward the lamp and the bedrolls.

"My God, Jon! Your arm!"

In the light from the lamp his flesh seemed to be smoking. The skin on his left hand and forearm was red, almost scalded-looking. Tiny blisters were already starting to form.

"It looks worse than it feels."

"We've got to get you to a doctor."

He dropped to his knees on his bedroll and hugged his injured arm against his chest with his good one.

"I'm all right. It only hurts a little now."

"It's going to get infected. Come on. I'll see if I can get us to civilization."

"Forget it," he said, and I sensed some of the strength returning to his voice. "Even if we get the Jeep free, we're still lost. We couldn't find our way out of here when it was daylight. What makes you think we'll do any better in the dark?"

He was right. But I felt I had to do something.

"Where's your first aid kit?"

"I don't have one."

I blew up then.

"Jesus Christ, Jon! You're crazy, you know that? You could have fallen out of that tree and been killed! And if you don't wind up with gangrene in that arm it'll be a miracle! What on God's earth made you do something so stupid?"

He grinned. "I knew it! You still love me!’

I was not amused.

"This is serious, Jon. You risked your life up there! For what?"

"I have to know, Mac."

" 'Know?' What do you have to 'know'? Will you stop giving me this bullshit?"

"I can't. I can't stop because it's true. I have to know what's real and what's not."

"Spare me—"

"I mean it. You're sure you know what's real and so you're content and complacent with that. You can't imagine what it's like not to know. To sense there's a veil across everything, a barrier that keeps you from seeing what's really there. You don't know what it's like to spend your life searching for the edge of that veil so you can lift it and peek—just peek—at what's behind it. I know it's out there, and I can't reach it. You don't know what that's like, Mac. It makes you crazy."

"Well, that's one thing we can agree on."

He laughed—it sounded strained—and reached for his jug of applejack with his good hand.

"Haven't you had enough of that tonight?"

I hated myself for sounding like an old biddy, but what I had just seen had shaken me to the core. I was still trembling.

"No, Mac. The problem is I haven't had enough. Not nearly enough."

Feeling helpless and angry, I sat down on my own bedroll and watched him take a long pull from the jug.

"What happened up there, Jon?"

"I don't know. But I don't ever want it to happen again."

"And what were you saying? It almost sounded as if you were calling to them."

He looked up sharply and stared at me.

"Did you hear what I said?"

"Not exactly. It didn't even sound like speech."

"That's because it wasn't," he said, and I was sure I detected relief in his voice. "I was trying to attract their attention."

"Well, you sure did that."

Across the top of the Coleman lamp, I thought I saw him smile.

"Yeah. I did, didn't I?"

In the night around us, I noticed that the insects were becoming vocal again.

7. The Shunned Place

I'd planned to stay awake the rest of the night, but somewhere along the way I must have faded into sleep. The next thing I knew there was sunlight in my eyes. I leaped up, disoriented for a moment, then remembered where I was.

But where was Creighton? His bedroll lay stretched out on the sand, his compass, sextant, and maps upon it, but he was nowhere in sight. I called his name a couple of times. He called back from somewhere off to my left. I followed the sound of his voice through the brush and emerged on the edge of a small pond rimmed with white cedars.

Creighton was kneeling at the edge, cupping some water in his right hand.

"How'd you find this?" I said.

"Simple." He pointed out toward a group of drakes and mallards floating on the still surface. "I followed the quacking."

"You're becoming a regular Mark Trail. How's the water?"

"Polluted." He pointed to a brownish blue slick on the surface of the pond, then held up a palmful of clear, brownish water. "Look at that color. Looks like tea."

"That's not polluted," I told him. "That's the start of some bog iron floating over there. And this is cedar water. It gets brown from the iron deposits and from the cedars but it's as pure as it comes."

I scooped up a double handful and took a long swallow.

"Almost sweet," I said. "Sea captains used to come into these parts to fill their water casks with cedar water before long voyages. They said it stayed fresher longer."

"Then I guess it's okay to bathe this in it," he said, twisting and showing me his left arm.

I gasped. I couldn't help it. I'd half convinced myself that last night's incident with the pine light had been a nightmare. But the reddened, crusted, blistered skin on Creighton's arm said otherwise.

"We've got to get you to a doctor," I said.

"It's all right, Mac. Doesn't really hurt. Just feels hot."

He sank it past his elbow into the cool cedar water.

"Now that feels good!"

I looked around. The sun shone from a cloudless sky. We'd have no trouble finding our way out of here this morning. I stared out over the pond. Water. The sandy floor of the Pine Barrens was like a giant sponge that absorbed a high percentage of the rain that fell on it. It was the largest untapped aquifer in the Northeast. No rivers flowed into the Pinelands, only out. The water here was glacial in its purity. I'd read somewhere that the Barrens held an amount of water equivalent to a lake with a surface area of a thousand square miles and an average depth of seventy-five feet.

This little piece of wetness here was less than fifty yards across. I watched the ducks. They were quacking peacefully, tooling around, dipping their heads. Then one of them made a different sound, more like a squawk. It flapped its wings once and was gone. It happened in the blink of an eye. One second a floating duck, next second some floating bubbles.

"Did you see that?" Creighton said.

"Yeah, I did."

"What happened to that duck?" I could see the excitement starting to glow in his eyes. "What's it mean?"

"It means a snapping turtle. A big one. Fifty pounds or better, I'm sure."

Creighton pulled his arm from the pond.

"I do believe I've soaked this enough for now."

He dipped a towel in the water and wrapped it around his scorched arm.

We walked back to the bedrolls, packed up our gear, and made our way through the brush to the Wrangler.

The Jeep was occupied.

There were people inside, and people sitting on the hood and standing on the bumpers as well. A good half-dozen in all.

Only they weren't like any people I'd ever seen.

They were dressed like typical Pineys, but dirty, raggedy. The four men in jeans or canvas pants, collared shirts of various fabrics and colors or plain white T-shirts; the two women wore cotton jumpers. But they were all deformed. Their heads were odd shapes and sizes, some way too small, others large and lopsided with bulbous protrusions. The eyes on a couple weren't lined up on the level. Everyone seemed to have one arm or leg longer than the other. Their teeth, at least in the ones who still had any, seemed to have come in at random angles.

When they spotted us, they began jabbering and pointing our way. They left the Wrangler and surrounded us. It was an intimidating group.

"Is that your car?" a young man with a lopsided head said to me.

"No." I pointed to Creighton. "It's his."

"Is that your car?" he said to Creighton.

I guessed he didn't believe me.

"It's a Jeep," Creighton said.

"Jeep! Jeep!" He laughed and kept repeating the word. The others around him took it up and chorused along.

I looked at Creighton and shrugged. We'd apparently come upon an enclave of the type of folks who'd helped turn "Piney" into a term of derision shortly before World War I. That was when Elizabeth Kite published a report titled "The Pineys" which was sensationalized by the press and led to the view that the Pinelands was a bed of alcoholism, illiteracy, degeneracy, incest, and resultant "feeble-mindedness."

Unfair and untrue. But not entirely false. There has always been illiteracy and alcoholism deep in the Pinelands. Schooling here tended to be rudimentary if at all. And as for drinking? The first "drive-thru" service originated before the Revolution in the Piney jug taverns, allowing customers to ride up to a window, get their jugs topped off with applejack, pay, and move on without ever dismounting. But after the economy of the Pine Barrens faltered, and most of the workers moved on to greener pastures, much of the social structure collapsed. Those who stayed on grew a little lax as to the whys, hows, and to-whoms of marriage. The results were inevitable.

All that had supposedly changed in modern times, except in the most isolated area of the Pines. We had stumbled upon one of those areas. Except that the deformities here were extraordinary. I'd seen a few of the in-breds in my youth. There'd been something subtly odd about them, but nothing that terribly startling. These folk would stop you in your tracks.

"Let's head for the Jeep while they're yucking it up," I said out of the corner of my mouth.

"No. Wait. This is fascinating. Besides, we need their help."

He spoke to the group as a whole and asked their aid in freeing the Jeep.

Somebody said, "Sugar sand," and this was repeated all around. But they willingly set their shoulders against the Wrangler and we were on hard ground again in minutes.

"Where do you live?" Creighton said to anyone who was listening.

Someone said, "Town," and as one they all pointed east, toward the sun. It was also the direction the lights had been headed last night.

“Will you show me?"

They nodded and jabbered and tugged on our sleeves, anxious to show us.

"Really, Jon," I said. "We should get you to—"

"My arm can wait. This won't take long."

We followed the group in a generally uphill direction along a circuitous footpath unnavigable by any vehicle other than a motorcycle. The trees thickened and soon we were in shade. And then those trees opened up and we were in their "town."

A haze of blue woodsmoke hung over a ramshackle collection of shanties made of scrap lumber and sheet metal. Garbage everywhere, and everyone coming out to look at the strangers. I'd never seen such squalor.

The fellow with the lopsided head who'd asked about the Jeep before pulled Creighton toward one of the shacks.

"Hey, mister, you know about machines. How come this don't work?"

He had an old TV set inside his one-room hut. He turned the knobs back and forth.

"Don't work. No pictures."

"You need electricity," Creighton told him.

"Got it. Got it. Got it."

He led us around to the back to show us the length of wire he had strung from a tree to the roof of the shack.

Creighton turned to me with stricken eyes.

"This is awful. No one should have to live like this. Can we do anything for them?"

His compassion surprised me. I'd never thought there was room for anyone else's concerns in his self-absorbed life. But then, Jonathan Creighton had always been a motherlode of surprises.

"Not much. They all look pretty content to me. Seem to have their own little community. If you bring them to the government's attention they'll be split up and most of them will probably be placed in institutions or group homes. I guess the best you can do is give them whatever you can think of to make the living easier here."

Creighton nodded, still staring around him.

"Speaking of 'here,' " he said, unshouldering his knapsack, "let's find out where we are."

The misshapen locals stared in frank awe and admiration as he took his readings. Someone asked him, "What is that thing?" a hundred times. At least. Another asked "What happened to your arm?" an equal number of times. Creighton was heroically patient with everyone. He knelt on the ground to transfer his readings to the map, then looked up at me.

"Know where we are?"

"The other side of Razorback Hill, I'd say."

"You got it."

He stood up and gathered the locals around him.

"I'm looking for a special place around here," he said.

Most of them nodded eagerly. Someone said, "We know every place there is around here, I reckon."

"Good. I'm looking for a place where nothing grows. Do you know a place like that?"

It was as if all of these people had a common plug and Creighton had just pulled it. The lights went out, the shades came down, the "Open" signs flipped to "Closed." They began to turn away.

"What'd I say?" he said, turning his anxious, bewildered eyes on me. "What'd I sayV'

"You're starting to sound like Ray Charles," I told him. "Obviously they want nothing to do with this 'place where nothing grows' you're talking about. What's this all about, Jon?"

He ignored my question and laid his good hand on the shoulder of one of the small-headed men.

"Won't you take me there if you know where it is?"

"We know where it is," the fellow said in a squeaky voice. "But we never go there so we can't take you there. How can we take you there if we never go there?"

"You never go there? Why not?"

The others had stopped and were listening to the exchange. The small- headed fellow looked around at his neighbors and gave them a look that asked how stupid could anyone be? Then he turned back to Creighton.

"We don't go there 'cause nobody goes there."

"What's your name?" Creighton said.

"Fred."

"Fred, my name is Jon, and I'll give you . . ." He patted his pockets, then tore the watch off his wrist. "I'll give you this beautiful watch that you don't have to wind—see how the numbers change with every second?—if you'll take me to a place where you do go and point out the place where nothing grows. How's that sound?”

Fred took the watch and held it up close to his right eye, then smiled.

"Come on! I'll show you!"

Creighton took off after Fred, and I took off after Creighton.

Again we were led along a circuitous path, this one even narrower than before, becoming less well defined as we went along. I noticed the trees becoming fewer in number and more stunted and gnarled, and the underbrush thinning out, the leaves fewer and curled on their edges. We followed Fred until he halted as abruptly as if he had run into an invisible wall. I saw why: the footpath we'd been following stopped here. He pointed ahead through what was left of the trees and underbrush.

"The bald spot's over yonder atop that there rise."

He turned and hurried back along the path.

Bald spot?

Creighton looked at me, then shrugged.

"Got your machete handy, Mac?"

"No, Bwana."

"Too bad. I guess we'll just have to bull our way through."

He rewrapped his burned arm and pushed ahead. It wasn't such rough going. The underbrush thinned out quickly and so we had an easier time of it than I'd anticipated. Soon we broke into a small field lined with scrappy weeds and occupied by the scattered, painfully gnarled trunks of dead trees. And in the center of the field was a patch of bare sand.

... a place where nothing grows.. .

Creighton hurried ahead. I held back, restrained by a sense of foreboding. The same something deep within me that had feared the pine lights feared this place as well. Something was wrong here, as if Nature had been careless, had made a mistake in this place and had never quite been able to rectify it.

As if. . .

What was I thinking? It was an empty field. No eerie lights buzzing through the sky. No birds, either, for that matter. So what? The sun was up, a breeze was blowing—or at least it had been a moment ago.

Overruling my instincts, I followed Creighton. I touched the tortured trunk of one of the dead trees as I passed. It was hard and cold, like stone. A petrified tree. In the Pinelands.

I hurried ahead and caught up to Creighton at the edge of the "bald spot." He was staring at it as if in a trance. The spot was a rough oval, maybe thirty feet across. Nothing grew in that oval. Nothing.

"Look at that pristine sand," he said in a whisper. "Birds don't fly over it, insects and animals don't walk on it. Only the wind touches and shapes it. That's the way sand looked at the beginning of time."

It had always been my impression that sand wasn't yet sand at the beginning of time, but I didn't argue with him. He was on a roll. I remembered from college: You don't stop Crazy Creighton when he's on a roll.

I saw what he meant, though. The sand was rippled like water, like sand must look in areas of the Sahara far off the trade routes. I saw animal tracks leading up to it and then turning aside. Creighton was right: nothing trod this soil.

Except Creighton.

Without warning he stepped across the invisible line and walked to the center of the bald spot. He spread his arms, looked up at the sky, and whirled in dizzying circles. His eyes were aglow, his expression rapturous. He looked stoned out of his mind.

"This is it! I've found it! This is the place!"

"What place, Jon?"

I stood at the edge of the spot, unwilling to cross over, talking in the flat tone you might use to coax a druggie back from a bad trip, or a jumper down from a ledge.

"Where it all comes together and all comes apart! Where the Truth is revealed!"

"What the hell are you talking about, Jon?"

I was tired and uneasy and I wanted to go home. I'd had enough, and I guessed my voice showed it. The rapture faded. Abruptly, he was sober.

"Nothing, Mac. Nothing. Just let me take a few readings and we're out of here."

"That's the best news I've heard this morning."

He shot me a quick glance. I didn't know if it conveyed annoyance or disappointment. And I didn't care.

8. Spreading Infection

I got us back to a paved road without too much difficulty. We spoke little on the way home. He dropped me off at my house and promised to see a doctor before the day was out.

"What's next for you?" I said as I closed the passenger door and looked at him through the open window.

I hoped he wouldn't ask me to guide him back into the Pines again. I was sure he hadn't been straight with me about his research. I didn't know what he was after, but I knew it wasn't the Jersey Devil. A part of me said it was better not to know, that this man was a juggernaut on a date with disaster.

"I'm not sure. I may go back and see those people, the ones on the far side of Razorback Hill. Maybe bring them some clothing, some food." Against my will, I was touched.

"That would be nice. Just don't bring them toaster cakes or microwave dinners."

He laughed. "I won't."

"Where are you staying?"

He hesitated, looking uncertain.

"A place called the Laurelton Circle Motor Inn."

"I know it."

A tiny place. Sporting the name of a traffic circle that no longer existed. "I'm staying in room five if you need to get hold of me but. . . can you do me a favor? If anybody comes looking for me, don't tell them where I am. Don't tell them you've even seen me." "Are you in some sort of trouble?" "A misunderstanding, that's all." "You wouldn't want to elaborate on that, would you?" His expression was bleak. "The less you know, Mac, the better." "Like everything else these past two days, right?" He shrugged. "Sorry."

"Me, too. Look. Stop by before you head back to Razorback. I may have a few old things I can donate to those folks."

He waved with his burned hand, and then he was off.

Creighton stopped by a few days later on his way back to Razorback Hill. His left arm was heavily bandaged in gauze. "You were right," he said. "It got infected."

I gave him some old sweaters and shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans that no longer fit the way they should.

A few days later I bumped into him in the housewares aisle at Pathmark. He'd picked up some canned goods and was buying a couple of can openers for the Razorback folks. His left arm was bandaged as before, but I was concerned to see that there was gauze on his right hand now.

"The infection spread a little, but the doctor says it's okay. He's got me on this new antibiotic. Sure to kill it off."

Looking more closely now in the supermarket's fluorescent glare, I saw that he was pale and sweaty. He seemed to have lost weight.

"Who's your doctor?"

"Guy up in Neptune. A specialist."

"In pine light burns?"

His laugh was a bit too loud, a tad too long.

"No! Infections."

I wondered. But Jon Creighton was a big boy now. I couldn't be his mother.

I picked out some canned goods myself, checked out behind Creighton, and gave the bagful to him.

"Give them my best," I told him.

He smiled wanly and hurried off.

At the very tail end of August I was driving down Brick Boulevard when I spotted his Wrangler idling at the Burger King drive-thru window. I pulled into the lot and walked over.

"Jon!" I said through the window and saw him jump.

"Oh, Mac. Don't ever do that!"

He looked relieved, but he didn't look terribly glad to see me. His face seemed thinner, but maybe that was because of the beard he had started to grow. A fugitive's beard.

"Sorry," I said. "I was wondering if you wanted to get together for some real lunch."

"Oh. Well. Thanks, but I've got a lot of errands to run. Maybe some other time."

Despite the heat, he was wearing corduroy pants and a long-sleeved flannel shirt. I noticed that both his hands were still wrapped in gauze. An alarm went off inside me.

"Isn't that infection cleared up yet?"

"It's coming along slowly, but it's coming."

I glanced down at his feet and noticed that his ankles looked thick. His sneakers were unlaced, their tongues lolling out as the sides stretched to accommodate his swollen feet.

"What happened to your feet?"

"A little edema. Side effect of the medicine. Look, Mac, I've got to run." He threw the Wrangler into gear. "I'll call you soon."

It was a couple of weeks after Labor Day and I'd been thinking about Creighton a lot. I was worried about him, and was realizing that I still harbored deeper feelings for him than I cared to admit.

Then the state trooper showed up at my office. He was big and intimidating behind his dark glasses; his haircut came within a millimeter of complete baldness. He held out a grainy photo of Jon Creighton.

"Do you know this man?" he said in a deep voice.

My mouth was dry as I wondered if he was going to ask me if I was involved in whatever Creighton had done; or worse: if I'd care to come down and identify the body.

"Sure. We went to college together."

"Have you seen him in the past month."

I didn't hesitate. I did the stand-up thing.

"Nope. Not since graduation."

"We have reason to believe he's in the area. If you see him, contact the state police or your local police immediately."

"What's he done, officer?"

He turned and started toward the door without deigning to answer. That brand of arrogance never failed to set something off in me.

"I asked you a question, officer. I expect the courtesy of a reply."

He turned and looked at me, then shrugged. Some of the Dirty Harry facade slipped away with the shrug.

"Why not?" he said. "He's wanted for grand theft."

Oh, great.

"What did he steal?"

"A book."

"A book?”

"Yeah. Would you believe it? We've got rapes and murders and armed robberies, but this book is given a priority. I don't care how valuable it is or how much some university in Massachusetts wants it, it's only a book. But the Massachusetts people are really hot to get it back. Their governor got to our governor and ... well, you know how it goes. We found his car abandoned out near Lakehurst a while back, so we know he's been through here."

"You think he's on foot?"

"Maybe. Or maybe he rented or stole another car. We're running it down now."

"If he shows up, I'll let you know."

"Do that. I get the impression that if he gives the book back in one piece, all will be forgiven."

"I'll tell him that if I get the chance."

As soon as he was gone, I got on the phone to Creighton's motel. His voice was thick when he said hello.

"Jon! The state cops were just here looking for you!"

He mumbled a few words I didn't understand. Something was wrong. I hung up and headed for my car.

There are only about twenty rooms in that particular motel. I spotted the Wrangler backed into a space at the far end of the tiny parking lot. Number five was on a corner of the first floor. A Do Not Disturb sign hung from the knob. I knocked on the door twice and got no answer. I tried the knob. It turned.

It was dark inside except for the daylight I'd let in. And that light revealed a disaster area. The room looked like the inside of a dumpster behind a block of fast-food stores. Smelled like one, too. There were pizza boxes, hamburger wrappers, submarine sleeves, Chinese food cartons, a sampling from every place in the area that delivered. And it was hot. Either the air conditioner had quit or it hadn't been turned on.

"Jon?" I flipped on the light. "Jon, are you here?"

He was in a chair in a corner on the far side of the bed, huddled under a pile of blankets. Papers and maps were piled on the night table beside him. His face, where visible above his matted beard, was pale and drawn. He looked as if he'd lost thirty pounds. I slammed the door closed and stood there, stunned.

"My God, Jon, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm fine." His hoarse, thick voice said otherwise. "What are you doing here, Mac?"

"I came to tell you that the state police are cruising around with photos of you, but I can see that's the least of your problems! You're really sick!" I reached for the phone. "I'm calling an ambulance."

"No! Mac, please don't!”

The terror and soul-wrenching anguish in his voice stopped me. I stared at him but still kept a grip on the receiver.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm begging you not to!"

"But you're sick, you could be dying, you're out of your head!"

"No. That's one thing I'm not. Trust me when I say that no hospital in the world can help me—because I'm not dying. And if you ever loved me, if you ever had any regard for who I am and what I want from my life, then you'll put down that phone and walk out that door."

I stood there in the hot, humid squalor of that tiny room, receiver in hand, smelling the garbage, detecting the hint of another odor, a subtle sour foulness that underlay the others, and felt myself being torn apart by the choice that faced me.

"Please, Mac," he said. "You're the only person in the world who'll understand. Don't hand me over to strangers." He sobbed once. "I can't fight you. I can only beg you. Please. Put down the phone and leave."

It was the sob that did it. I slammed the receiver onto its cradle.

"Damn you!"

"Two days, Mac. In two days I'll be better. You wait and see."

"You're damn right I'll see—I'm staying here with you!"

"No! You can't! You have no right to intrude! This is my life! You've got to let me take it where I must! Now leave, Mac. Please."

He was right, of course. This was what we'd been all about when we'd been together. I had to back off. And it was killing me.

"All right," I said around the lump in my throat. "You win. See you in two days."

Without waiting for a reply. I opened the door and stepped out into the bright September sunlight.

"Thanks, Mac," he said. "I love you."

I didn't want to hear that. I took one last look back as I pulled the door closed. He was still swaddled from his neck to the floor in the blankets, but in the last instant before the door shut him from view, I thought I saw something white and pointed, about the circumference of a garden hose, snake out on the carpet from under the blankets and then quickly pull back under cover.

A rush of nausea slammed me against the outer wall of the motel as the door clicked closed. I leaned there, sick and dizzy, trying to catch my breath.

A trick of the light. That was what I told myself as the vertigo faded. I'd been squinting in the brightness and the light had played a trick.

Of course, I didn't have to settle for merely telling myself. I could simply open the door and check it out. I actually reached for the knob, but couldn't bring myself to turn it.

Two days. Creighton had said two days. I'd find out then.

But I didn't last two days. I was unable to concentrate the following morning and wound up canceling all my appointments. I spent the entire day pacing my office or my living room; and when I wasn't pacing, I was on the phone. I called the American Folklore Society and the New Jersey Historical Society. Not only had they not given Creighton the grants he'd told me about, they'd never heard of him.

By nightfall I'd taken all I could. I began calling Creighton's room. I got no answer. I tried a few more times, but when he still hadn't picked up by eleven o'clock, I headed for the motel.

I was almost relieved to see the Wrangler gone from the parking lot. Room five was still unlocked and still a garbage dump, which meant he was still renting it—or hadn't been gone too long.

What was he up to?

I began to search the room. I found the book under the bed. It was huge, heavy, wrapped in plastic with a scrawled note taped to the front:

Please return to Miskatonic U. archives

I slipped it out of the plastic. It was leather-bound and handwritten in Latin. I could barely decipher the title—something like Lihen Damnatus. But inside the front cover were Creighton's maps and a sheaf of notes in his back-slanted scrawl. The notes were in disarray and probably would have been disjointed even if arranged in proper order. But certain words and phrases kept recurring: nexus point and equinox and the lumens and the veil.

It took me a while but eventually I got the drift of the jottings. Apparently a section of the book Creighton had stolen concerned "nexus points" around the globe where twice a year at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes "the veil" that obscures reality becomes detached for a short while, allowing an intrepid soul to peek under the hem and see the true nature of the world around us, the world we are not "allowed" to see. These "nexus points" are few and widely scattered. Of the four known, there's one near each pole, one in Tibet, and one near the east coast of North America.

I sighed. Crazy Creighton had really started living up to his name. It was sad. This was so unlike him. He'd been the ultimate cynic, and now he was risking his health and his freedom pursuing this mystical garbage.

And what was even sadder was how he had lied to me. Obviously he hadn't been searching for tales of the Jersey Devil—he'd been searching for one of these "nexus points." And he was probably convinced he'd found one behind Razorback Hill. I pitied him. But I read on.

According to the notes, these "nexus points" can be located by following "the lumens" to a place shunned equally by man, beast, and vegetation.

Suddenly I was uneasy. "The lumens." Could that refer to the pine lights? And the "bald spot" that Fred had showed us—that was certainly a place shunned by man, beast, and vegetation.

I found a whole sheet filled with notes about the Razorback folk. The last paragraph was especially upsetting:

The folks behind Razorback Hill aren't deformed from inbreeding, although I'm sure that's contributed its share. I believe they're misshapen as a result of living near the nexus point for generations. The semi-annual lifting of the veil must have caused genetic damage over the years.

I pulled out Creighton's maps and unfolded them on the bed. I followed the lines he had drawn from Apple Pie Hill, from Gus's firing place, and from our campsite. All three lines represented paths of pine lights, and all three intersected at a spot near the circle he had drawn and labeled as Razorback Hill. And right near the intersection of the pine light paths, almost on top of it, he had drawn another circle, a tiny one, penciled in the latitude and longitude, and labeled it Nexus!

I was worried now. Even my own skepticism was beginning to waver. Everything was fitting too neatly. I looked at my watch. Eleven thirty-two. The date read "21." September 21. When was the equinox? I grabbed the phone and called an old clam digger who'd been a client since I'd opened my office. He knew the answer right off:

"The autumnal equinox. That's September twenty-second. 'Bout a half hour from now."

I dropped the phone and ran for my car. I knew exactly where to find Jon Creighton.

9. The Hem of the Veil

I raced down the Parkway to the Bass River exit and tried to find my way back to Gus Sooy's place. What had been a difficult trip in the day proved to be several orders of magnitude more difficult in the dark. But I managed to find Gus's red cedar. It was my plan to convince him to show me a short way to the far side of Razorback Hill, figuring the fact that Creighton was already there might make him more tractable. But when I rushed up to Gus Sooy's clearing, I discovered that he wasn't alone.

The Razorback folk were there. All of them, from the looks of the crowd.

I found Gus standing on his front step, a jug dangling from his hand. He was obviously shocked to see me, and was anything but hospitable.

"What do you want?"

Before I could answer, the Razorback folks recognized me and a small horde of them crowded around.

"Why are they all here?" I asked Gus.

"Just visiting," he said casually, but did not look me in the eye.

"It wouldn't have anything to do with what's happening at the bald spot on the other side of Razorback Hill, would it?"

"Damn you! You've been snoopin' around, haven't you? You and your friend. They told me he was coming around, askin' all sorts of questions. Where's he now? Hidin' in the bushes?"

"He's over there," I said, pointing to the top of Razorback Hill. "And if my guess is correct, he's standing right in the middle of the bald spot."

Gus dropped his jug. It shattered on the boards of his front step.

"Do you know what'll happen to him?"

"No," I said. "Do you?" I looked around at the Razorback folk. "Do they?"

"I don't think anyone knows, leastmost them. But they're scared. They come here twice a year, when that bald spot starts acting up."

"Have you ever seen what happens there?"

"Once. Never want to see it again."

"Why haven't you ever told anyone?"

"What? And bring all sorts of pointyheads here to look and gawk and build and ruin the place. We'd all rather put up with the bald spot craziness twice a year than pointyhead craziness every day all year long."

I didn't have time to get into Creighton's theory that the bald spot was genetically damaging the Razorback folks. I had to find Creighton.

"How do I get there? What's the fastest way?"

"You can't—"

“They got here!" I pointed to the Razorback folks.

"All right!" he said with open hostility. "Suit yourself. There's a trail behind my cabin here. Follow it over the left flank of the hill."

"And then?"

"And then you won't need any directions. You'll know where to go."

His words had an ominous ring, but I couldn't press him. I was being propelled by a sense of enormous urgency. Time was running out. Quickly. I already had my flashlight, so I hurried to the rear of his shanty and followed the trail.

Gus was right. As I crossed the flank of the hill I saw flashes through the trees ahead, like lightning, as if a very tiny and very violent electrical storm had been brought to ground and anchored there. I increased my pace, running when the terrain would allow. The wind picked up as I neared the storm area, growing from a fitful breeze to a full-scale gale by the time I broke through the brush and stumbled into the clearing that surrounded the bald spot.

Chaos. That's the only way I can describe it. A nightmare of cascading lights and roaring wind. The pine lights—or lumens—were there, hundreds of them, all sizes, unaffected by the rushing vortex of air as they swirled about in wild arcs, each flaring brilliantly as it looped through the space above the bald spot. And the bald spot itself—it glowed with a faint purplish light that reached thirty or forty feet into the air before fading into the night.

The stolen book, Creighton's notes—they weren't mystical madness. Something cataclysmic was happening here, something that defied all the laws of nature—if indeed those laws had any real meaning. Whether this was one of the nexus points he had described, a fleeting rent in the reality that surrounded us, only Creighton could say for sure right now.

For I could see someone in the bald spot. I couldn't make out his features from where I was, but I knew it was Jonathan Creighton.

I dashed forward until I reached the edge but slowed to a halt in the sand before actually crossing into the glow. Creighton was there, on his knees, his hands and feet buried in the sand. He was staring about him, his expression an uneasy mix of fear and wonder. I shouted his name but he didn't hear me above the roar of the wind. Twice he looked directly at me but despite my frantic shouting and waving, did not see me.

I saw no other choice. I had to step onto the bald spot . . . the nexus point. It wasn't easy. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to run in the other direction, but I couldn't leave him there like that. He looked helpless, trapped like an insect on flypaper. I had to help him.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and stepped across—

—and began to stumble forward. Up and down seemed to have a slightly different orientation here. I opened my eyes and dropped to my knees, nearly landing on Creighton. I looked around and froze.

The Pine Barrens were gone. Night was gone. It seemed to be predawn or dusk here, but the wind still howled about us and the pine lights flashed around us, appearing and disappearing above as though passing through invisible walls. We were someplace ... else: on a huge misty plain that seemed to stretch on forever, interrupted only by clumps of vegetation and huge fog banks, one of which was nearby on my left and seemed to go on and up forever. Off in the immeasurable distance, mountains the size of the moon reached up and disappeared into the haze of the purple sky. The horizon—or what I imagined to be the horizon—didn't curve as it should. This place seemed so much bigger than the world—our world—that waited just a few feet away.

"My God, Jon, where are we!"

He started and turned his head. His hands and feet remained buried in the sand. His eyes went wide with shock at the sight of me.

"No! You shouldn't be here!"

His voice was thicker and more distorted than yesterday. Oddly enough, his pale skin looked almost healthy in the mauve light.

"Neither should you!"

I heard something then. Above the shriek of the wind came another sound. A rumble like an avalanche. It came from somewhere within the fog bank to our left. There was something massive, something immense moving about in there, and the fog seemed to be drifting this way.

"We've got to get out of here, Jon!"

"No! I'm staying!"

"No way! Come on!"

He was wracked with infection and obviously deranged. I didn't care what he said, I wasn't going to let him risk his life in this place. I'd pull him out of here and let him think about it for six months. Then if he still wanted to try this, it would be his choice. But he wasn't competent now.

I looped my arms around his chest and tried to pull him to his feet.

"Mac, please! Don't!"

His hands remained fixed in the sand. He must have been holding onto something. I grabbed his right elbow and yanked. He screamed as his hand pulled free of the sand. Then I screamed, too, and let him go and threw myself back on the sand away from him.

Because his hand wasn't a hand anymore.

It was big and white and had these long, ropey, tapered, root-like projections, something like an eye on a potato when it sprouts after being left under the sink too long, only these things were moving, twisting and writhing like a handful of albino snakes.

"Go, Mac!" he said in that distorted voice, and I could tell from his face and eyes that he hadn't wanted me to see him like this. "You don't belong here!"

"And you do?"

"Now I do!"

I couldn't bring myself to touch his hand, so I reached forward and grabbed some of his shirt. I pulled.

"We can find doctors! They can fix you! You can—"

"NO!"

It was a shout and it was something else. Something long and white and hard as flexed muscle, much like the things protruding from his shirt sleeve, darted out of his mouth and slammed against my chest, bruising my breasts as it thrust me away. Then it whipped back into his mouth.

I snapped then. I scrambled to my feet and blindly lurched away in the direction I'd come. Suddenly I was back in the Pine Barrens, in the cool night with the lights swirling madly above my head. I stumbled for the bushes, away from the nexus point, away from Jonathan Creighton.

At the edge of the clearing, I forced myself to stop and look back. I saw Creighton. His awful transformed hand was raised. I knew he couldn't see me, but it was almost as if he was waving good-bye. Then he lowered his hand and worked the tendrils back into the sand.

The last thing I remember of that night is vomiting.

10. Aftermath

I awoke among the Razorback folk who'd found me the next morning and watched over me until I was conscious and lucid again. They offered me food but I couldn't eat. I walked back up to the clearing, to the bald spot.

It looked exactly as it had when Creighton and I had first seen it in August. No lights, no wind, no purple glow. Just bare sand.

And no Jonathan Creighton.

I could have convinced myself that last night had never happened if not for the swollen, tender, violet bruise on my chest. Would that I had. But as much as my mind shrank from it, I could not deny the truth. I'd seen the other side of the veil and my life would never be the same.

I looked around and knew that everything I saw was a sham, an elaborate illusion. Why? Why was the veil there? To protect us from harm? Or to shield us from madness? The truth had brought me no peace. Who could find comfort in the knowledge that huge, immeasurable forces beyond our comprehension were out there, moving about us, beyond the reach of our senses?

I wanted to run . . . but where?

I ran home. I've been home for months now. Housebound. Moving beyond my door only for groceries. My accounting clients have all left me. I'm living on my savings, learning Latin, translating Jon's stolen book. Was what I saw the true reality of our existence, or another dimension, or what? I don't know. Creighton was right: Knowing that you don't know is maddening. It consumes you.

So I'm waiting for spring. Waiting for the vernal equinox. Maybe I'll leave the house before then and hunt up some pine lights—or lumens, as the book calls them. Maybe I'll touch one, maybe I won't. Maybe when the equinox comes, I'll return to Razorback Hill, to the bald spot. Maybe I'll look for Jon. He may be there, he may not. I may cross into the bald spot, I may not. And if I do, I may not come back. Or I may.

I don't know what I'll do. I don't know anything anymore. I've come to the point now where I'm sure of only one thing: Nothing is sure anymore.

At least on this side of the veil.

DEFINITVE THERAPY

INTRODUCTION

So here it was September and already I'd done three stories this year with Marty Greenberg involved. Then he called, looking for a fourth.

Martin H. Greenberg could be considered the novelist's Satan. Not that he's an evil man. Far from it. He's a good-natured soul with boundless energy, a sharp mind, and an endless font of ideas for collections of stories. And that's the problem.

Picture this: There you are, toiling away on a novel, wrapped up in the characters and the plot, riding the flow, building the momentum. Suddenly the phone rings. It's Marty. He's got a contract from Avon for an anthology about haunted woodstoves—going to be the definitive haunted woodstove anthology—paying a dime a word, with a deadline in four months. Can you come up with something? You say, Sorry, I'm up to my lower lip in overdue contracts and unfulfilled promises and no way can I squeeze out another five thousand words of fiction before the end of the year. Marty displays his characteristic equanimity and accepts this without the slightest squawk. You make small talk about the kids, the biz, and sundry other matters, then hang up and go back to your novel.

But over the course of the next few days and weeks Marty's proposal nibbles and gnaws at you. Haunted woodstoves . .. hmmmm. You remember how Grandma's used to look like it had two glowing eyes. What if ... ?

Before you know it, you've got a story bouncing off the inner walls of your skull, and if you don't write it out now and send it to Marty you'll never sell it anywhere else because Marty's anthology will be definitive, without question, the very last word on haunted woodstoves. So you break off from your novel and write Marty's goddamn story.

Yes. .. the novelist's Satan.

But I had no one but myself to blame this time. Marty had edited The Further Adventures of Batman the year before, and at one time or another I'd taken him to task for not asking me to contribute. He said he'd assumed I never read comic books. Never read them? Hell, I've written them. So when he got a contract for The Further Adventures of the foker, I was on his list of writers to call.

It wasn't a good time for me to write a short story. I was knee-deep in Reprisal, rewriting and restructuring everything I'd done the preceding winter. I needed to focus myself completely to get this right. But the Joker . . . one of my all-time favorite villains ... I couldn't resist. I put Reprisal aside.

But I wanted to do my Joker. I disliked Jack Nicholson's portrayal in 1989 almost as much as Cesar Romero's back in the sixties. Sure, the bizarre murders, the bad jokes, and psychopathic clowning were all there in abundance, but no sense of anything truly evil beating beneath the surface. I decided to take the Joker out of his element, drain off some of his control, make him a prisoner/patient in the notorious Arkham Asylum. Here we would see a subtler, less flamboyant Joker, but more deeply and darkly evil . . . coldly maleficent. Batman would not appear. I'd offer no prose equivalent of comic-book splash-page action. My Joker would chill instead of thrill. My story would be a tabletop psychomachy.

Read on and decide which Joker you'd rather deal with. Mine, or Nicholson's?

DEFINITIVE THERAPY

ARKHAM ASYLUM

**Medical History**

NAME: "The Joker"

DATE OF BIRTH: Unknown MR# 20073

ATTENDING PHYSICIAN: Dr. R. Hills & staff

CHIEF COMPLAINT: Committed to life internment by court order. Returned to this facility after the most recent of his periodic escapes.

HISTORY OF CHIEF COMPLAINT: A career criminal with a long, well-publicized, well-documented history of antisocial and sociopathic behavior in the guise of a self-created public persona known as "The Joker." Convicted of multiple murders. Multiple escapes and readmissions to this facility. See old charts.

PAST HISTORY: Little available besides what is in the public record. The patient relates a history of juvenile delinquency, which meets the criteria for Severe Conduct Disorder, undifferentiated type (312.90).

ALLERGIES: None known.

MEDICATIONS: On no meds.

PREVIOUS HOSPITALIZATIONS: Many to this facility. See previous charts.

FAMILY HISTORY: Unknown. Patient uncooperative as historian.

SOCIAL HISTORY: No external stigmata of alcoholism or drug abuse.

SYSTEMIC REVIEW: According to what little history can be gleaned from the patient, he has been in generally good health for most of his life. He has a past history of facial trauma combined with toxic chemical exposure resulting in permanent disfigurement of the facies, the integument, and its appendages. No history of hearing loss or visual impairment. No thyroid disease or diabetes. No asthma, emphysema, or chronic lung disease. No heart disease or hypertension. No history of ulcer or colitis. No GU infections or past disease. No seizures or strokes. His psychiatric history has been exhaustively explored and documented at this facility. His facial/chemical trauma was once posited as the source of his psychopathy, but the patient relates a long history (undocumented) of criminal antisocial behavior since his early teens, long predating the trauma.

DICTATED BY: Harold Lewis, M.D.

SIGNATURE:

**Physical Exam**

NAME: "The Joker" (legal name unknown)

MR# 20073

ATTENDING PHYSICIAN: Dr. R. Hills & staff

VITAL SIGNS: BP: 122/78 P: 82 R: 10 T: 98.6

PHYSICAL FINDINGS: A thin, facially disfigured Caucasian male, apparently in his midthirties, alert, well-oriented, in no distress. The head is normocephalic with slight evidence of proptosis. Neuromuscular paresis and cicatricial disfigurement of the facial tissues have resulted in a permanent rictus. Ears, nose, and throat are negative. The neck is supple, the thyroid is negative to palpation. The chest shows a moderate pectus excavatum. The heart is normal in size and rhythm with no murmurs. The lungs are clear to auscultation and percussion. The abdomen is soft, no masses, no organomegaly, no tenderness. Normal uncircumcised male genitalia. The lymph nodes are negative. The limbs are intact and freely movable. The deep tendon reflexes are + 2 bilaterally, the pupils are equally reactive to light and accommodation. The skin is markedly pale. Its appendages—the hair and nails—are green. This does not appear to be factitial since there is no sign of natural color under the cuticles or at the roots.

PROVISIONAL DIAGNOSIS:

Antisocial Personality Disorder (301.70)

Probable Delusion Disorder, grandiose type (297.10)

Rule out Bipolar Disorder, manic, mood congruent with psychotic features (296.44)

Rule out Intermittent Explosive Disorder (312.34)

DICTATED BY: Harold Lewis, M.D.

SIGNATURE:

Session One

He was painfully thin, and taller than I'd expected.

I remained standing as the guards led the gaunt, manacled figure into the interview cell.

The Joker's appearance is positively shocking at close range. I'd seen his face before. Who hasn't? But to find myself standing across a small table from the man, to have his eyes scan me from a distance of only three feet as if I were some kind of insect, was a jolt. The smile . . . that was what did it. We've all seen that soulless, mirthless grin countless times, shining at us in black and white from the front page of the Gotham Gazette or in never- quite-true color from the TV screen during the evening news, but nothing in the media prepares you for the original. The smile ... the corners of the mouth are drawn up and back, fully halfway into the cheeks. And the teeth—so big and white. Bigger than Morton Downey Jr.'s. But they're not as white as his skin. So pale. Not so much in the bleached, albino sense; more like a white stain. I could not help feeling that with a little cold cream on a cloth I could wipe it off. But I knew that had been tried many times. The seaweed green of his hair and fingernails were the garnish on this bizarre human concoction.

During my five years of psychiatric residency in New York's Downstate Medical Center, and in various maximum security facilities about the country, I have encountered mental illness in its most violent manifestations. But I could not remember actually feeling madness as I did in my first seconds in the room with the Joker. Nothing in the media prepared me for the power of the man. In fact, the never-ending stream of stories about him in the press only serves to trivialize him. We've become used to the Joker; we've become almost comfortable with him. We all know that he is a career criminal and a multiple murderer, to boot, yet his face is so familiar that he has become part of the background noise of Gotham. His latest outrage does not stir us to as much anger as it would had it been perpetrated by a stranger. Better the devil you know . . .

My task was to get to know this devil.

With two armed guards watching closely, I thrust my hand across the table.

"I'm Dr. Lewis, Mr. Joker. I'll be—"

"Call me 'Joker,' " he said in a surprisingly soft voice as he stared at me, ignoring my hand. The contrast between his grave tone and his grinning face was disconcerting.

"But that's not your real name. I'd prefer to address you by that."

"That name is gone. Call me the Joker if you wish to have any meaningful communication with me."

I was reluctant to do that. The patient's Joker persona appeared to be the axis upon which his criminal career turned. I did not want to reinforce that persona. Yet I had to communicate with him. I had little choice but to acquiesce.

"Very well, Mr. Joker. I—"

"Just.. . 'Joker.' "

I thrust out my hand again.

"Joker, I'm Dr. Lewis. I'll be handling your therapy."

He ignored my hand and appeared suddenly agitated.

"When did you arrive? I've never seen you before. Where is Dr. Hills? Why isn't he treating me?"

"Dr. Hills sent me. I'm new to the staff since your last. . . escape."

I could read fury in his eyes, but the grin never wavered.

"I want the head man. I always get the head man. I deserve it! I'm not just another petty crook, you know. I'm the Joker. I'm the king of crime in this burg and I want Dr. Hills!"

Grandiosity and entitlement. I considered adding Narcissistic Personality Disorder (301.81) to my list of diagnoses.

I shrugged and tried to be disarming.

"Sorry, Joker. He sent me in his place. Looks like we're stuck with each other."

Suddenly he relaxed.

"Okay."

Emotional liability.

For the third time, I stuck out my hand. This time, to the accompaniment of small clinks from the chains on his manacles, he took it. As we shook, I heard a buzz and felt a sting in my palm. I cried out in surprise and snatched my hand away. The Joker began to laugh.

That laugh. His speaking voice had been so soft, almost soothing. But the laugh—a broken, high-pitched keen that makes the small hairs rise.

The guards leaped forward and thrust him into the chair. He laughed maniacally as they ripped something from one of his fingers. The older of the two guards handed it to me, then they searched him for anything else he might be carrying.

I stared at the object in my hand. A joy buzzer. A simple, corny, old- time practical joke.

"He's clean, Doc," the older guard said as they finished their search.

I stared at the buzzer.

"He was supposed to be 'clean' when you brought him in here."

They said nothing but took up new positions, closer now, flanking him on each side.

I held up the buzzer.

"How did you get this?"

"I had it sent in."

"You can't just have things 'sent in.' Inpatients are severely restricted as to possessions."

"You mean other inpatients," he said. "I'm the Joker. What I want, I get. Security here is a joke." His eyes lit. "Get it? A joke!"

The guards looked uncomfortable as he laughed. And they deserved to. He should never have arrived at this interview carrying something like that. What if the prong had been poisoned?

He seemed to read my mind.

"All in good, clean, harmless fun, Dr. Lewis. I'm as harmless as a pussycat."

I gave him a level stare.

"I believe Colin Whittier might take exception to that... if he could."

The Joker snorted and waved a hand in dismissal.

"Whittier! A fraud! A charlatan posing as an artist. He left his mark on the art world—like acne. I put a finishing touch to his work—a match. Get it?"

He began to laugh.

"You murdered him!"

"No loss. He deserved to die. A destroyer of true art. The world is far better off without him.

Complete lack of remorse or guilt.

I remembered his latest atrocity so well. I'd joined the staff shortly after the Joker's last escape and it wasn't too long thereafter that he raided an art gallery that was showing the work of an immensely talented young artist named Colin Whittier. The Joker pulled all of Whittier's work from the

walls and burned the canvases in the center of the gallery floor. Then he replaced them with a collection of dark abstracts, each signed, The Joker.

The next morning, Whittier flew into a justifiable rage. He yanked all the Jokers paintings and ripped them to shreds. An eye for an eye. And that should have been that. But it wasn't. Whittier was found in the gallery two days later, dead. Murdered. But not by any means so simple as a bullet or a knife. No, his mouth and nose had been poured full of thick green paint, asphyxiating him. And then he was nailed to the gallery wall within a large, ornate gilt frame. On the wall next to the corpse was written:

Colin Whittier

RIP

An artist who really threw himself into his work

The casual brutality of the crime still blew an icy wind through my soul whenever I thought of it. And the perpetrator was sitting not three feet away from me. Grinning.

Grinning. . .

I'd quietly admired Whittier's work for years. His paintings spoke to me. I’d even bid on one or two of his early works a few years ago when they were still within reach, but lost out to deeper pockets. Now they were permanently out of reach. Well, at least there were posters. But when I thought of all the paintings he would never do, I felt a rage seep through to my very soul—

Stop!

This was no good. I was becoming emotional. I couldn't allow that. I had to help this man, and I couldn't do it if I remained angry. I terminated the first session then and there.

Session Two

"He's clean this time, Doc," said the older guard as he sat the Joker in front of me.

"You're sure of that?" I said.

"Yeah. Pretty much."

I did not offer to shake hands with the patient.

"Good morning, Joker," I said, cheerily addressing him by the name he preferred.

The Joker stared at me, his eyes twinkling as I took my place on the far side of the table.

"I've decided to accept you as my physician for this stay, Dr. Lewis."

"Be still, my heart."

"I was getting tired of Dr. Hills, anyway. Such an egotist—an I-sore. Always letting off esteem. Get it?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"But seriously, folks, if I am to cooperate in therapy, we must have privacy." He glanced at the two guards who flanked him. "I can't have a couple of screws eavesdropping on the intimate details of my life."

He had a point, of course. But I wasn't about to take any chances. I had the guards manacle his wrists and ankles to the arms and legs of his chair, then had them wait outside the closed door.

"Your credentials are impressive," the Joker said when we were alone.

Concern began to nibble at the back of my neck.

"You know nothing of my credentials."

"Au contraire, Dr. Lewis. I have a complete dossier on you."

He then proceeded to recite my curriculum vitae, ticking off one by one the schools I'd attended, the awards I'd received, my class rank in medical school, my appointment as chief resident on Downstate's psychiatric service, even my starting salary here at Arkham.

"That's an insult," he said, shaking his head in disdain at the last item. "You're worth far more than that."

I knew my jaw was hanging open and slack.

"Where did you—?"

My expression must have been hilarious, for the Joker burst out laughing.

"I told you—I'm the Joker, the Clown Prince of Crime! Nothing goes on in this city without my knowledge."

Persistent grandiose delusions. But how did he . .. ?"

I shook off my shock and forced myself to focus on the matter at hand. Namely, interviewing my patient. He was uncooperative, giving nonsense answers to my questions about his childhood, and purposely bizarre responses to the Rorschach blots I showed him.

I tried probing his past history again.

"Ever been in love, Joker?"

"Always. I'm girl crazy—girls won't go out with me, and it makes me crazy! Get it?"

I pressed on: "Ever been married?"

"Dr. Jekyll, I believe you're getting under my hide."

"Answer the question, please."

"Married? Me? No. I prefer to stay single and unaltared. Get it?" For the second time, amid wild laughter, I terminated the session early.

Conference

Later that day I had a clinical conference with Dr. Hills, the chief of psychiatry at Arkham. We discussed my two disturbing encounters with the Joker.

"Be extremely wary, Hal," Dr. Hills told me. "He's a diabolical creature.

I'd never heard Dr. Hills talk like this. It was so unclinical, so . .. unscientific.

"I know he's an incorrigible, but—"

"He's worse than that. He's a master manipulator. He makes it extremely difficult, almost impossible, to stay in command of your therapy session. He turns everything around on you. If you're not careful, he'll reverse the therapy process. Instead of you treating him, he will be influencing you, making you question yourself, your values, everything you believe in...." Dr. Hill's voice trailed off and a far away look seeped into his eyes. "Everything."

I didn't know about that. What I did know was that he would not be manipulating me—although he had managed to unsettle me. That would not happen again.

"What I would like to know," I said, "is how he manages to have such easy access to outside sources from which he should be completely cut off."

"I know, I know. We don't know how he does it. But don't let that distract you. Stay on course. This is your trial by fire for Arkham Asylum. If you can weather the Joker, you can handle anything." "You make him sound like the devil himself." Dr. Hills looked away. "Sometimes I wonder . . ."

Session Five

I tried to hide my agitation as the session began, tried to pretend that nothing untoward had happened. The Joker, for his part, was less cooperative than usual. Despite the fact that we were alone, he said not a word. Just sat there staring at me. Grinning.

Finally, I turned off the tape recorder, ready to terminate the session.

Then he spoke.

"Don't you like your new car?"

I bit down on the insides of my cheeks to keep from shouting out my anger. I couldn't let him see how shaken I was, how he'd gotten to me.

It had happened that morning. I'd been running late and so it was especially frustrating when I couldn't find my car in the Gotham Gardens parking lot. At first I'd thought I'd simply forgotten where I'd parked it, for there was a Mercedes in the spot I usually used. Soon it became clear that my car was gone. But who would steal that old junker?

Agitated now, I walked over to my usual spot and checked out the Mercedes. It was new. A brand-new 560 SEL. Royal blue. My favorite color. I thought about how I was going to own one of those someday and I wondered which tenant in a low-rent apartment complex like Gotham Gardens could afford such a beast.

Then I saw the keys in the door lock.

I peered through the driver's window. There was an envelope on the front seat. With my name on it. I yanked open the car door and tore open the envelope. Inside was the registration card—in my name—and a sheet of purple stationery.

For the exclusive use of Dr. Harold Lewis.

A playing card was attached. A joker.

"Well?" the Joker said now from the other side of the table. "Aren't you even going to say thank you?"

No. I wasn't going to say thank you.

"How'd it drive?"

I'd been running late already and had no choice but to drive the Mercedes to work. How'd it drive? Like piloting a cloud. But I'd been too angry, too unsettled by this arrogant intrusion into my life to enjoy it.

I steadied myself. Finally, I felt able to speak calmly.

"Where is my old car?"

"Gone. Dead. Kaput. Junked. Pounded into a neat little cube of twisted steel and sent back to the melting pot from which it came."

"Listen, pal," I said, "if you think such a blatant attempt at bribery will get you special treatment from me, or turn me into some sort of clandestine ally, you're sadly mistaken. I'm not for sale."

Not ever. I thought. Especially not to the murderer of Colin Whittier.

"Of course you're not. Do you really think I'd be so clumsy as to try to bribe you with a car? A car?” Good gracious me, no. It's just that I simply couldn't bear to know that my personal physician was driving around in public in that 1982 Toyota. A Celica, no less! I've got a reputation to uphold. How do you think it looks to my organization when they see their leader's doctor driving a Jap junker? It was an intolerable situation that required an immediate remedy."

"I won't stand for it!"

"I'm afraid you have no choice, Dr. Lewis. The deed is done. Your old car is no more. You might as well use the new one. Why not enjoy it? Your conscience is clear, you ethics are unsullied. I ask nothing in return, only that you drive it. My image, you see."

"Guards," I called. I wasn't about to listen to any more of this.

"Dina will love it, too."

Dina? What did he know about Dina?

Weak and numb, I watched the guards unlock his restraints and lead him out.

Session Eight

The session was going particularly well. The Joker was opening up about his troubled, turbulent childhood. I still had no insight as yet into the mechanisms of his behavior, but we were just getting started in therapy. The important thing was that I felt that we were beginning to make progress toward a viable physician-patient relationship. Then he started with the crummy one-liners again.

"You know, Dr. Lewis, I was the kind of student who made my teachers stay after school. Get it? I was an honor student—I was saying either 'Yes, your Honor,' or 'No, your Honor.' Get it? When I was a kid I was so tough, I got thrown out of every reform school in the country."

"Can we try to be serious? Just for a moment?"

"Don't worry, Doc. I know you're trying. In fact, you're very trying. Get it?"

That did it. I made a final note prior to ending the session. But when I looked up, I saw that his hands were free. He was holding out a deck of playing cards.

"Pick a card," he said. "Any card."

Terror jolted through me. I shouted for the guards. By the time they reached us, the Joker's hands were back in the manacles. The deck of cards remained between us on the table.

"Never mind," I told the guards. After all, he hadn't tried to harm me. Maybe this was an opportunity to gain his confidence, which might put us on the quickest road to meaningful therapy. "False alarm."

As they returned to their posts outside the door, the Joker looked at me curiously. I picked up the deck and shuffled through it. All jokers.

"How do you get these things smuggled in?"

"I've told you: I'm the—"

" 'Clown Prince of Crime.' I know. A regular modern-day Mabuse."

"Ah. The doctor is a movie buff. Yes, I suppose I could be compared to Dr. Mabuse on a superficial level, but I am his superior in every way. Dr. Mabuse was a piker compared to the Joker."

More grandiosity. It was wearying.

"But you're real," I said. "Mabuse was fiction. He didn't have to worry about running up against Batman."

I knew immediately that I'd struck a nerve. Something changed in the Joker's eyes and demeanor. The airy, bon-vivant pose vanished. I felt a chill worm across my shoulders as cold hatred flashed from his eyes and hung like rank smog in the air between us. And then as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. Blown away by a gust of laughter.

"Batman! Talk about crazies! They put me in here while they let him run around loose in his cape and tights."

"They could have put you in the electric chair for murdering Colin Whittier," I said softly. I'd almost said should instead of could. I'd have to be careful.

"But they can't!" he said with another laugh. "Because I've been classified as insane! I'm not responsible. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, it's so good to be mad in America. I can do unto others, but they can't do unto me!"

As he giggled on, I said, "Don't you feel any remorse for the hurt you've caused people? For the artistic riches you've robbed from society by killing Colin Whittier?"

"Society? What has society ever done for me?"

"Well, you might have a point there, but you've caused untold harm in your lifetime—the deaths, the grief, the pain. Don't you feel any impulse to make reparation?"

"Not the slightest. I put the Joker first. If I don't, who will? I. Me. Moi. Society, the public good, the little man, they can take my leavings. And I'd prefer you not mention Batman in my presence again."

Remembering how quickly he'd gotten in and out of his manacles a moment ago, I nodded.

"And by the way," he said, "how does the lovely Dina like the new car?"

I was suddenly boiling on the inside, but I remained cool without.

"Just as you do not wish Batman mentioned, I do not wish anyone from my personal life mentioned."

"She's very attractive."

"I hope you're not thinking of threatening her."

"Threaten?" He laughed. "That sort of thing is for pistoleros and dime- a-dozen desperadoes. Fratellezza swine. I like you, Dr. Lewis. I have no interest in threatening anyone dear to you. Besides, why should I? What can you do for me?"

"You might think I can help you escape."

Another laugh. "I can escape any time I wish."

"Really? Then, why are you still imprisoned here?"

"Because for the time being it amuses me," he said without missing a beat. "Just as I can smuggle in anything I wish, I can leave anytime I wish. And when I decide that it's time to take my leave, I shall escape with élan, dear doctor. Without your help. No crude, petty jailbreak for the Joker. The Joker will not sneak out, nor will he crawl or tunnel out. He'll either fly or walk—at the time of his own choosing."

"We'll see."

"Yes. We will. And when are you going to ask that woman to marry you?

"None of your business!"

"Ah! Business! I wish we were in business! Building and loan—I wish you'd get out of the building and leave me alone. Get it?"

"Good day, Joker," I said, rising.

"Good day, Dr. Lewis."

Session Ten

I could barely contain my rage. As soon as the guards left, I exploded.

"This time you've gone too far, Joker!"

"Whatever are you talking about, Dr. Lewis?"

"The ring, damn you! The goddamn ring!"

"You mean that little bauble I sent Dina? Think nothing of it."

"It wasn't 'just a bauble,' and you know it!"

When I'd answered my doorbell the night before, I'd been shocked to find Dina standing there with tears in her eyes. She threw her arms around me and told me how beautiful it was, and what a romantic way to propose. And then she showed me the ring—a huge solitaire, flawless, at least three carats. It was perfect, she said, the engagement ring she'd always dreamed of, and to think I'd sent it to her nestled in a bouquet of roses with the note: Dina—Make my life complete. Marry me. Hal.

I'd been planning to ask her to marry me as soon as I got on my feet financially, but I'd had nothing to do with this. I knew immediately who was behind it, though. I should have told her right then. But when I saw the look in her eyes, the joy in her face, I couldn't. How could I take that ring off her finger and say it wasn't from me? I wrapped my arms around her and said nothing.

"I won't have you interfering in my life!"

"Who's interfering?" he said through that grin. "I like you. I don't want to see you settle for second best. In a few years you'll be able to afford all these things on your own. But for now, it gives me pleasure to help you out. What's so wrong with that?"

"You're trying to compromise my judgment! And it won't work!"

"Of course it won't. We both know you've got too much integrity for that. By the way, there's an engagement gift waiting for you in your apartment."

That did it. I stormed out of the examining room.

But deep within my gut was a strange new feeling, a growing awareness that it was my duty to render this . . . this Joker incapable of corrupting or harming anyone again.

Conference

"A prefrontal lobotomy?" Dr. Hills said. "You must be joking!"

The irony of his choice of words was lost in the shocked silence around me. I'd gone directly from my session with the Joker to the psychiatric conference where I'd blurted out my recommendation. The rest of the psychiatric staff—Drs. Hills, Miller, and Bolland—were there, and I believe I stunned them all.

The solution had occurred to me as I'd entered the room. A prefrontal lobotomy—surgical invasion of the frontal lobe of the brain. It had been used briefly with great success in the 1930s. Violent, agitated patients had become pussycats—gentle, placid, physically and emotionally in low gear. But the procedure had fallen out of favor because it was deemed too extreme. And because it was irreversible.

"Yes, I'm aware that it's a radical suggestion," I said, "but you've got to admit that this particular case warrants a radical solution. Demands it, I should think. Lobotomy is definitive therapy in the case of a patient as incorrigibly violent as the Joker."

Dr. Hills said, "We'll come under heavy fire from the patients' rights groups merely for suggesting it. The ACLU, all the—"

"What about the rights of the people he will harm in the future when he escapes again?" I replied. "And we all know he will escape again. Let's be honest, gentlemen: modern psychiatry has failed society in the case of the Joker. I know. I've gone through his past records. The man seems to escape at will. Then he goes on a rampage of murder and robbery, is caught, is returned to us, only to escape again for another rampage. No matter how we chain him, drug him, psychoanalyze him, he escapes. And he never pays a price for the harm he does! Between rampages, he's given a clean, comfortable cell, three meals a day, and free medical care. For life!"

"But a lobotomy—?" Dr. Hills said.

"We've failed to contain him, we've failed to change him with therapy or control him with drugs, and the courts won't send him to the chair. As physicians charged with treating the so-called criminally insane, I think we have a duty to consider the definitive therapy for his sort of behavior disorder."

There was a long silence. Finally, Dr. Hills said, "I'll take it up with the State Board of Medical Examiners."

I left the conference room in a state of wild exhilaration. I might have been the new man on the staff but I was making my presence felt in no uncertain terms. And beyond that, I knew that my recommendation for lobotomy would prove to the Joker once and for all that Harold Lewis, M.D., was not for sale.

Session Nine-A

Numb, speechless, I stared across the table at the Joker. That smile ... if only he’d stop smiling.

"Well?" he said. "Do you like your engagement gift?"

"Where—?" My mouth was dry. "Where did you get it?"

I'd come home last night to find an original Colin Whittier hanging on my wall. An original! An abstract of swirling blues and greens that made me think of the depths of the ocean . .. the eternal cycle of birth, life, and death . . . cold, ghastly, unutterably beautiful.

The cost of a Whittier had gone through the roof since his death at the Joker's hands. Each was worth millions now. I'd never be able to afford a Whittier. Never. And the Joker had given me one.

I owned a Whittier original... a Whittier . ..

The monetary value meant nothing to me, for selling it was out of the question. I'd sell my soul to the devil before I'd part with it.

"I have a bunch of the things," the Joker said. "From his show at the Gotham Gallery."

"But the papers said you burned them!"

"Don't be silly. They're far too valuable for that, although for the life of me I can't imagine why. The man showed not the slightest trace of talent. I burned some old canvases of my own that I was unhappy with."

"Then . .. you still have all those Whittiers?"

"Yes. Stacked up in one of my warehouses. I forget which one, actually I had one of my men dig that piece out for you."

A stack of them ... I felt weak.

"Well? Do you like it? You haven't told me."

"I—I can't accept stolen goods," I said, forcing the words past my lips.

"Too bad. I was going to give the rest of them to you as a wedding present." The Joker shrugged. "Very well. I'll have my men remove it and—"

"No!" I said—almost a shout. "I mean, not yet. Let me live with it awhile."

The Joker's smile seemed to broaden. "As you wish, Dr. Lewis."

Conference

Whittiers ... a stack of Whittiers . . . sitting in a warehouse . . . collecting dust. . . rats nibbling at the canvases . . . clawing at the paint. . .

The image roamed my mind at will as I sat at the conference table and waited for Dr. Hills to arrive. Finally, he burst in.

"They approved it!" he cried. "The State Board of Medical Examiners approved a prefrontal lobotomy on the Joker! Any other patient and they would have said no, but the Joker—yes! Within weeks Arkham Asylum is going to be in all the medical journals!"

As excited chatter swept the table, I felt my blood run cold. The paintings. The Whittiers. A lobotomized Joker would be so passive and tractable that he'd tell the police the whereabouts of all his stashes of loot. The Whittiers ... my Whittiers . . . they'd be returned to the gallery ... to be sold for millions apiece.

"When is the surgery scheduled?"

"Tomorrow morning. Dr. Robinson is flying in from Toronto tonight."

"Maybe we should give electroshock a try," I said.

"ECT has failed already. What's the matter, Hal? The lobotomy was your idea. Having a change of heart?"

I hesitated. How could I protest the implementation of my own suggestion?

But that had been before I'd known about the Whittiers.

"Maybe. I think ECT deserves another chance. It could be we're rushing this too much."

"We have to move quickly. It was the Board's opinion that delay will only allow opposition to organize and cause legal obstruction. They feel that if we present the world with a lobotomized Joker as a fait accompli, there will be far less protest. And we will have discharged our duty to the public. As you so eloquently stated, Hal, we need definitive therapy in the Joker's case. And that's just what we're providing."

What could I say? I decided to risk everything.

"I'd like to go on record right now as being opposed to the surgery. At least at this time. I think we should explore other options first. And I'd like to call for a vote."

They all stared at me in shock. I didn't care. I had to stop the surgery— at least until I got my hands on the Whittiers. They were all I could think of. Even if I could only delay the surgery, it would give me time to convince Dina to move up our marriage so that the Joker could make good on his promised wedding gift. After that, I'd push again for the lobotomy.

But when the vote came, mine was the only hand raised in opposition.

Session Nine-B

That night I arranged another session with the Joker. I didn't even bother going through the motions of turning on the tape recorder.

"Did you really mean what you said about giving me the other Whit- tiers as a wedding gift?"

"Of course," the Joker said. "Have you set a date yet?"

I clasped my hands together to keep them from trembling. I'd always been a terrible liar.

"Yes. Tomorrow. We've decided we can't wait any longer. We're getting married before a justice of the peace in the morning."

"Really? Congratulations! I'm very happy for you."

"Thank you. So ... I was wondering . . . could you tell me where you've stored those stolen Whittiers? I'll pick them up tonight, if you don't mind."

"No. Of course not. Do you know where Wrightson Street is?"

I could barely contain my excitement.

"No. But I'll find it."

"Here," the Joker said, casually freeing his hands from the restraints and picking up a pencil. "I'll draw you a map."

As he began to draw, I leaned forward. Suddenly his other hand flashed forward. I felt a sting in my neck. As I jerked back I saw the dripping syringe in his hand. I opened my mouth to shout for the guards but the words wouldn't come. A roar like a subway charging into a station filled my ears as everything faded to black.

A voice, faraway, calling me through the blackness. I move toward it and come into the light.

A bizarre, twisted face, half Joker, half normal, floating before me.

"Time to wake up, Dr. Lewis," it says in the Joker's voice. "Time to rise and shine."

I try to speak. My lips feel strange as they move, and the only sounds I can make are garbled, unintelligible.

I try to move, but my hands are cuffed to the chair. I can only sit and watch.

And as I watch, the Joker stares into a mirror and fits pieces of flesh- colored latex over his chin and left cheek. I see him only in profile, but as each piece is affixed, he looks less and less like the Joker, and more and more like someone else. Someone I know.

"You gave me some very bad moments there, Dr. Lewis," he says. "For a full twenty-four hours you had me believing I'd misjudged you, underestimated you. Self-doubt is most unpleasant, even in a minuscule dose. I don't know how other people put up with a lifetime full of it."

I try again to speak but the result is still gibberish.

"Don't bother," he says. "One of the effects of that injection is a disorganization of the speech centers of the brain. But let me get back to the story of my brief episode of inner turmoil. You see, all through these past few weeks I've been thinking that I had you, really had you. For instance, you kept the Mercedes. I mean, if you'd really wanted to show me up, you could have sold it, bought another old Toyota junker, and given the balance to charity. That would have put me in my place. Same with the engagement ring. Oh, I know I put you in a tough spot then, but if you really had the courage of your convictions, you'd have told the lovely Dina the truth. But you didn't. You were willing to let the very first step of your marriage be a false one. Oh, I was sure I had you."

He pauses as he begins brushing makeup over his latex mask, then continues:

"Then you go storming into the staff conference and drop your bombshell. I was shocked, believe me. A prefrontal lobotomy, Dr. Lewis? How audacious! It would have worked, I'm sure. I was almost proud of you when I heard. None of the other incompetents here had the brains to think of it, or the guts to suggest it. But you charged right in and told it like it was. I like that. Reminds me of me."

I try to speak again, with the same results.

"What's that?" he says. "You're not like me? Oh, but you are. A while back you took me to task for being indifferent to the consequences of my actions, their tragic effects upon the individuals directly involved and upon society at large. And I told you, quite honestly, that I didn't care. You were so self-righteous. And then what did you go and do? When you discovered that I had something you wanted, you tried to turn the staff away from your 'definitive therapy.' Up to that moment, I'd planned simply to disappear and, as usual, leave you all wondering how. But now I see that you weren't concerned with what was best for society; you weren't concerned with the responsibilities of your position here. You were concerned only with what Dr. Harold Lewis wanted. And you weren't even honest with yourself about it."

He lifts the mirror and holds it before his made-up face as he turns toward me. Hidden behind the mirror, he says, "See? Didn't I say you were just like me?"

And in the mirror I see the pale, distorted features of the Joker grinning back at me.

Horror rips through me. I try to scream but it's useless.

"That injection contained a nonlethal variation on my tried-and-true Joker venom," he says, staying behind the mirror. "So, besides scrambling your speech areas, it has also pulled your lips into a handsome smile. I've completed the picture by bleaching your skin and dying your hair and fingernails green."

Then he lowers the mirror.

I gasp as I see my own face on the Joker's body.

"How do I look?" he says.

I struggle frantically with the manacles, trying to pull free, trying to break the arms of the chair so I can get my hands around his throat.

"Guards!" he calls in my voice. The two uniformed men rush in and the Joker says, "The patient has become violent. I think it best to carry him back to his cell as is, chair and all. I'll order a sedative that will hold him until his surgery tomorrow morning."

The lobotomy! Please, God! Not the lobotomy!

As they drag me from the room, I hear his soft voice behind me.

"And I'll be sure to give Dina your best tonight."

TOPSY

INTRODUCTION

Gary Raisor called in October about the anthology he was editing for Dark Harvest. He'd titled it Obsessions, and that was what it was about: obsessions. This was his third call this year. Could I contribute?

At that time my major obsession was still Reprisal. I'd worked out most of the kinks in the novel, and the writing was picking up momentum. I didn't want to lose that. I had no time for a story about an obsession. But Gary's such an engaging guy I told him I'd give it a shot if I found the time.

I went back to Reprisal but frequendy found myself distracted by thoughts of food. You see, Mary and I had started a strict low-fat diet that summer in an effort to drop ten pounds each. The diet was working, but I was hungry. Always. There were times when all I could think about was food. Eating was gradually becoming ... an obsession.

I started "Topsy" before the World Fantasy Convention in Seattle and finished it when I returned to Jersey The story is written entirely in first- person vernacular. That can wear you out if it goes on too long. But "Topsy" is only three thousand words, just the right length. It was recently reprinted in 100 Hair-Raising Little Horror Stories.

(Hint: The key to clarity here is to read the words phonetically and listen to what you're reading.)

TOPSY

I'm inna middle a chewing on dis giant lasagna noodle when Nurse De- lores appears.

"Morning, Topsy!" she says as she marches inta da room in her white uniform.

Dey call me Topsy.

Don't ax why dey call me dat. My name's Bruno. But evybody here calls me Topsy.

"Oh, no," she says. "You've been eating your sheets again!"

I look down an see she's right. My sheets is all chewed up. I guess dat weren't no giant lasagna noodle after all.

God I'm hungry

"Ready for breakfast?" she says all bright an cheery.

Course I'm ready for breakfast—I'm dyin for breakfast—but I don't say nuttin. Cause what dey call breakfast here ain't. Ain't lunch or dinner neither. Just liquid. Not even a shake. I amember when I useta eat diet shakes. Useta drink ten a dem fa breakfast. An anotha fa coffee break. Dey're junk. I neva lost weight on dem. Not once.

But no shakes roun here. Just dis clear glop. And here she comes wit a whole glass of it.

"Here, Topsy. Open your mouth and drink this," she says, all Mary Sunshine perkiness.

If my hands weren't strapped to da side of da bed I'd grab her an make her drink it herself an see how much she likes dat shit.

She tilts da glass toward my lips but I turn away.

"Come on, Topsy," she says. "I know you don't like it, but it's this or nothing."

"No!"

"Come on, Topsy. Do it for Delores. Don't be mad at me. The protein hydrosylate isn't my idea. It's doctor’s orders. And it's working. You're down to twelve hundred and thirty pounds now."

Still I don't open.

"Come on, baby. It's this or go hungry. Open up."

Sometimes she calls me baby, but dat don't make it taste better, believe me.

I open an pretend it's a milk shake. A big double chocolate praline shake laced wit wet walnuts.

Don't help. I gag an wanna barf it all ova da place but manage to choke it down. Gotta. It's all I'll get til lunch. An dat'll only be a salad.

God I'm so hungry.

Dey don't unnerstan aroun here. Don't seemta realize dat I gotta eat. Dey say dey're helpin me by stickin needles in my arms an feedin me teeny bits of veggies an barely a mouthful of whole-grain sumpin-or-otha an dis liquid protein shit, but dey ain't helpin. Ain't helpin me one bit.

Guy's gotta eat.

Useta be so good when my brotha Sal an his wife Marie was takin care a me. I was happy den. Dat's cause dey unnerstood. Dey knew I hadda eat. Boy could dey cook. No limit, man. Anyting I wanted, it was dere on da bed tray soon as I said.

Dey unnerstood me, know'm sayin?

Breakfast was da best. On regula days Marie'd whip me up a coupla dozen eggs over easy wit a coupla poundsa bacon an lotsa dose spicy Jimmy Dean sausage patties. Love dat Jimmy Dean sausage. Den she'd make me a gigantic stack a ten-inch pancakes swimmin in butta an Vermont maple syrup. An on special days, like Satadays an Sundays, she'd go all out an add in a whole platterful a eggs Benedict. Love eggs Benedict. All dat Hol- landaise sauce over dose poached eggs on English muffins an Canadian bacon. Heaven, man. Absolute heaven.

Midmornings dere'd be Entenmann's sugar crumb cake or cheese babka or my favorite, All Butter French Crumb cake. Or sometimes lox an bagels wit cream cheese an herring in cream sauce.

Neva could tell what lunch was gonna be. Sometimes a coupla family- size buckets of da Colonel's Extra Crispy fried chicken, but most times Sal'd bring me in tree or four sausage an pepperoni pizzas or half a dozen subs from Vinnie's. Da subs were da best, man. Pepper an egg, veal parme- sian, Italian delight, an da Kitchen Sink sub wit evyting on it.

Loved lunch, man.

Midafternoons I'd do it kinda light. Jus some coffee an a coupla packages a Oreos. Or maybe some Little Debbie Satellite bars. When it was hot, Sal'd get me a gallon a Welsh Farms peanut butter swirl ice cream. He'd mix it up wit a can of Hershey's chocolate syrup an I'd be in heaven, man.

Dinner'd start aroun five cause I couldn't wait no longer. Marie'd cut me up a nice cold antipasta while Sal'd broil up a coupla dozen garlic clams oreganata. Den da pasta—a coupla poundsa Marie's super linguine wit white clam sauce, da noodles swimmin in butter an garlic, an da diced clams piled all over da top. Next da fish, usually a coupla tree- or four- pound lobsters or half a dozen pounds a shrimp done up scampi style. After dat, a meat, maybe steak or veal or a nice Krakus ham. For dessert, maybe anotha gallon a da peanut butter swirl or a nice cherry cheesecake, or a coupla peach pies a la mode wit some cannoli onna side.

My bedtime snack was always candy. Sal'd let me have all da Snickers bars I wanted. He'd buy dem by da case an leave a whole box right by my bed so's I could grab one anytime I got hungry. An let me tell you, I got hungry a lot durin da night. But I neva woke Sal or Marie. I knew dey needed deir sleep. I was a good guy. I hung on an starved till breakfast.

Sal an Marie knew how to take care of me. Dey knew what I needed. Dat I hadda eat. Dey understood about eatin, know'm sayin?

Evyting was great till dat day when dey was both out at once. Dey hardly ever left me alone. I mean, sure dey went out togetha once inna while, but neva for long. Dis time dey was gone a long time. A coupla hours, maybe, an I was starvin. Not jus hungry, man. I mean starvinl

An I couldn't get outta bed.

Wasn't always dis big. I mean, like I was always big accordin to Ma. Born big an jus kept gettin bigger, she always said. But now I'm huge, man. Take up a whole damn king-size bed. Can't get outta bed on my own. Always needed help from Sal or Marie. Good ting Marie's real strong—good

Sicilian stock—or she'd've been no help. But all I needed was for one of dem ta give me a little boost an someone to lean on while I shuffled to da batroom. Dey took off da doorframe but still I can barely turn aroun in dere. Lucky I only go twice a day. An it don't matter if I'm doin number one or number two, man, I gotta sit. First of all, I can't stand dat long. An second, well, I mean, I ain't seen my dick in at least ten years, so da only way I can be sure I ain't peein onna floor is to sit. An even den I sometimes miss da bowl. And when I take a dump . . .

Let's not talk about dat.

Anyways, Sal an Marie was gone fa hours an I was starvin so I tried to get outta bed on my own. Took forever, but I managed to sit up by myself. Made me feel good. Hadn't done dat on my own in years. Den by holdin onta da bedpost I somehow got myself to my feet. I started shufflin cross da bedroom, takin little teeny steps so's I wouldn't lose my balance. God, I din't want to tink what would happena me if I toppled over an wound up onna floor. I mean, man, dey'd hafta bring in a crane or sumpin ta get me up again.

An just as I was tinkin about it, it started happenin. I started swayin. Little sways at first, den bigger ones. I tell ya I was scared to det. I aimed myself for da doorway, figrin I could hold onta da jamb, but started tee- terin as I stumbled an I slammed inna da doorway wit a awful crack. I saw da wallboard crack an heard da studs inside groan an creak, but da wall held an I was still on my feet. I hadn't fallen!

But I was stuck. Usually I went troo dat door sideways. Now I was jammed inta it at a angle an no matter how I tried I couldn't move out or in. I was scared. I started gettin pains in my chest an my heart started racin like crazy. I hadn't been on my feet for dat long a time in more years dan I could amemba. Couldn't breathe. I yelled fa help. Screamed my freakin lungs out, but not fa long. My chest was gettin all congested, like I was fillin up wit water or sometin. I couldn't scream no more. Evyting got fuzzy, den evyting got black.

Next ting I knew I was in dis place.

It's a hospital room. Actually it's not a room, it's what dey call a suite. Two rooms. I'm in da big room, but dere's a smaller one straight ahead a me dat's like a little kitchen wit a fridge an a microwave an stuff. An dere's a batroom off to my right but in all da time I'm here I ain't been in it yet. Dey told me what hospital I'm in but I forgot. Who cares, anyway? Da important ting is dey're starvin me!

"Time for your bed bath," Delores says as she comes in carryin a basin of soapy water. She stops an stares at me. "Good Lord, Topsy! You're eating your pillow!"

I look. Oh, yeah. I guess I am. I tought it was a big marshmallow.

I spit feathers.

"Never mind," she says wit a sigh. "Let's get to the ablutions."

Most guys would get off bein washed down by a blonde dish like De- lores, but I gotta admit I'm too hungry ta tink about anyting but food.

"Gimme a treat, Delores."

"Shush!" she says, glancin around my room. "What if one of the doctors heard you?"

"Don't care. Need a treat."

"After your bath."

"No. Now. Gotta have sometin."

"Oh, all right."

As she reaches into her uniform pocket I can feel da juices pour into my mout. She pulls out one of dose little low-sugar caramels she sneaks in for me an unwraps it.

"Stop it, Topsy," she says. "You're droolin all over yourself. Open up."

I open an she pops it into my mout, jerkin her fingers back real quick cause I accidently bit her once.

I taste da caramel. Da sweetness runs all over da inside of my mout.

Oh GodohGodoh GodohGodoh GodohGodoh Godoh God!

I near start ta cry.

"Come on, Topsy," Delores says, pattin my arm. She's a good nurse. She feels for me. I can tell. "You'll be all right."

"Need food!"

"You need to lose weight, that's what you need. You almost died of congestive heart failure back in your house. It's lose weight or die, Topsy."

I figure I'd ratha die cause starvin like dis is worse dan det.

"Where's Sal? Where's Marie?"

"Do we have to go through that again?" Delores says as she starts rubbin a soapy washcloth on my belly. I look down at my bare skin. Looks like acres a ice cream.

"Troo what again?"

"I know you don't want to accept it, Topsy, but your brother and his wife have been indicted for attempted murder and they're out on bail awaiting trial. They are forbidden by the court to come anywhere near you. They were trying to kill you, Topsy."

"No. Dey treated me good! Dey fed me!"

"They were feeding you to death, that's what they were doing. A nifty little scheme, I've got to admit. You kept signing checks so they could buy you food, big checks that allowed them to live high while they kept pumping you full of the worst kind of food you can imagine."

"Good food," I told her. "Da best!"

"The worstl High fat, high calorie. Your blood sugar and cholesterol and triglycerides were through the roof! And when they got you to fifteen hundred pounds, they left you for a day. They knew you'd try to get out of bed, and they figured you'd fall and die on the floor. Well, it almost worked. Lucky for you that you got stuck in the doorway and someone heard you yell. Even then you almost didn't make it. By the time they broke through the wall of the house and hoisted you out, you were so far gone into heart failure you almost died in the back of the truck on the way to the hospital. It almost worked, Topsy. The rats almost got your money."

"Ain't got no money."

"Oh, really? Folks with no money can't afford a private hospital suite like this. What do you call that twelve million dollars you won?"

Oh, yeah. Dat. I won dat inna state lotto a few years ago. I forget tings sometimes. I amemba Sal an Marie bein real happy for me. Dat's when dey moved in an started takin care of me. Dey treated me real good. Dey un- nerstood dat I gotta eat.

I always hadda eat. Evyting I amemba bout bein a kid is food. Ma cooked for me alia time, an when she ran outta food I'd go over my fren's houses and deir moms'd fix me stuff. I lost my first job as a kid makin deliveries for Angelo's Grocery because I useta eat half da stuff along da way. And whateva job I had, I always spent da money on food.

Food was evyting ta me. I amemba how I useta give people directions back in da days when I could still get aroun. It'd be "Go down to da Dunkin Donuts an turn left, den go bout tree blocks an turn right at da Dairy Queen an it's bout half a mile downa street, a block past Paisan's Pizza." All my landmarks hadda do wit food.

But afta I won da lotto an we moved out to Long Island, I got so fat dat my whole world became my bedroom, an time got measured by meals an TV shows.

Da TV's on now. I useta love to watch TV. All da game shows an talk shows inna mornin, an da soaps inna aftanoon. Loved dem all. Now I hate 'em. Not da shows—da commercials. Food! All dey seemta be sellin is freakin food\ Like torture, man! I go crazy wit da little remote control but evytime I switch I see dis food bein shoved at me in livin color! I'm bout t'go crazy, know'm sayin? I mean, if it ain't McDonald's it's Burger King or Wendy's or Red Lobster wit dose shrimp just oozin butta onna enda da fork. Or da Pillsbury Doughboy's got some new cinnamon ting he's pushin, or dere's microwave chocolate cake or Reese's Pieces or Eat Beef It's Real Food or Domino's Pizza or Peter Pan Peanut Butter or Holly Farms Chicken or Downyflake Waffles or Dorito Nacho Chips an on an on.

Know'm sayin?

Tell ya it ain't fair, man. Guy could go crazy\

"Okay, Topsy," Delores is sayin. "It's time to do your back. Now I know you can't turn over, but I want you to help me. I'm going to unstrap your right hand so I can do some of your back."

Dey been keepin my hands strapped downta da bed frame. Dat's cause da diet's been makin me kinda goofy. I got bandages on da middle finger and pointer a my right hand cause I tried to eat dem.

Kid you not, man. I been goin a little squirrelly here. I mean, da otha night I really tought dose fingers was hot dogs. S'true. Jus like I tought my sheet was a big lasagna noodle an my pillow was a giant marshmallow, I coulda sworn dat night my two fingers was hot dogs. It was dark. I started chewin on dem an screamin at da same time. Da docs said I was halluci- natin. Closed me up wit ten stitches. Now dey keep my hands tied down so's I don't do it again.

Dey shouldn't worry. I won't. It hurt too much.

"Gimme a candy first," I tell her.

"No," Delores says. "After, Topsy. After."

"Okay," I say. But I don't really mean it.

When she unstraps my right wrist, I roll left, like I'm lettin her wash da part of my back she can reach. But while I'm twisted dat way, I work on da left strap an get it undone. Now I'm ready.

"Okay, Topsy," she says. "Roll back now."

I roll. An keep on rollin. As I rock to da right, I grab Delores.

"Candy!" I shout. "Gimme! Now!"

Delores squeals an twists away. She's strong but I got a good grip on her. She pulls away but I stretch after her. Her feet slip an she goes down but I lean over da edge of da bed, keepin my grip, never lettin go, reachin wit my free hand for da pocket wit da caramels.

But suddenly I feel myself slippin. I mean da bed's tiltin, da whole freakin hospital bed's tippin ova wit me on it. An I'm headin right down on toppa Delores. I try to stop myself but I can't. Da bed's tilted too far. I'm outta control. I'm fallin. Delores screams as I land on her.

It ain't a long scream. More like a quick little yelp, like your pooch makes when you accidently step on its foot. Den she cuts off.

But she don't stop movin. She's strugglin an kickin an clawin unda me, tryna get out, tryna breathe. An I'm tryna get offa her, really an truly I am, but it's so hard. Finally I edge myself back an to da side. It's slow work, but finally I get offa her face.

Too late. Poor Delores has stopped strugglin by den. An when I manage to get a look at her face, it's kinda blue. Real blue, in fact. I mean, like she's sorta dead.

I like start ta cry. I can't help it. I loved Delores an now she's gone. I specially loved her caramels.

Which reminds me of her goody pocket. So while I'm cryin, I reach for her pocket. I push my hand inside but I can't find no caramels. Not a one.

No way, man! I know dere's candy in dere!

I push deeper inta da pocket but it's empty, man! Freakin empty\

I'm kinda upset now. I pull on da pocket. I mean, I know dere's candy in dere. Da pocket rips an still no caramels. I rip deepa, layer afta layer till I reach . . .

.. . skin.

Smooth white skin. It's a leg. Turkey leg. Big white meat turkey leg. Never heard of such a ting, but here it is right in fronta me. Waitin for me. An I can't resist. I take a bite—

Gaa! Ain't cooked. Raw and bloody. God, I'm freakin hungry but I can't eat raw turkey!

I look up an around. Da utility room is only a dozen or so feet away. If I can make it to da microwave . . .

ROCKABILLY

INTRODUCTION

Marty Greenberg again. The fifth time this year. But again, I asked for it. It was November 16 at another of SFWA's annual editor-publisher receptions. I was sitting with some of the mystery guys whod dropped by—Bob Randisi, Michael Seidman among them—when Heather Woods of Tor mentioned a Dick Tracy anthology in the works, deadline end of December so they could time its release with the Warren Beatty film next year.

I straightened in my chair. Dick Tracy? Who's editing it? She told me Max Allan Collins and Marty Greenberg. I was rolling on Reprisal, I was diddling with a story for Jeff Gelb's Shock Rock, and only six weeks left before the Tracy deadline. None of that mattered. I had to be in it.

In all the long history of dramatic comic strips, two titles stand head and shoulders above the rest. Little Orphan Annie is tops. Whether or not you agree with Harold Gray's politics is irrelevant. The LOA strips from the thirties are a folksy chronicle of the Great Depression, challenging Dickens in their portrait of the poles of human venality and nobility. With limited wordage crammed cheek by jowl with drawings into the confined space of four little boxes, with only the stark blacks and whites of newsprint at his disposal, Harold Gray somehow managed on a daily basis to produce mini- masterpieces of dramatic expressionism.

Dick Tracy is the second standout. Although Chester Gould also used light and shadow to excellent advantage, his characters lacked the depth of Gray's. But with the rogues' gallery of grotesque villains he flung against his hero through the years, who noticed? Flattop, the Brow, Flyface, Coffee- head, Shakey, the Mole, Pruneface . . . everybody has a personal favorite. Mine has always been Mumbles.

I had to do a Mumbles story.

I didn't know personally the coeditor, Max Allan Collins, though I did know his work—his mystery novels and his scripting of the current Dick Tracy strip. So I called Marty and said I wanted in. He said, No problem, but hurry, and he gave me Collins's phone number.

A1 (that what he's called) and I discussed Mumbles. He had drowned in the strip in the midfifties, but A1 had brought him back later on. He told me Mumbles would be in the film, played by Dustin Hoffman, no less. No one else was doing a Mumbles story so I was welcome to him.

But hurry.

I hurried. I put Reprisal aside once more (amazing the book ever got finished) and dove into Chester Gould's characters. My story takes place in October 1956. It's a bit tongue in cheek, but I slipped in a tiny lesson in sociology for those in the under-thirty crowd who take it for granted that rock has always played up and down the radio dial, who remain unaware of the racial storms that raged around the music in the early days.

I was there. I may have been only ten in '56 but I'd already experienced my rock and roll epiphany (see Soft & Others) and remember buying a copy of "Hound Dog'V'Don't Be Cruel"—on a ten-inch 78, no less. (Wish I still had it.) I remember rock and roll being called "race music" in polite circles and "nigger music" on the street. But all that was a sidebar to the story. Uppermost in my mind was remaining true to Gould's sense of the grandiose and the outre.

A1 was delighted to get a story with a classic Chester Gould death trap.

ROCKABILLY

Detectives Helmsly and DeSalvo had formed a two-man Committee to End the Noise.

"That racket's gotta go, Tracy," DeSalvo was saying.

"Yeah," said Helmsly.

Tracy couldn't look at these two without thinking of Abbott and Costello—Helmsly as the former, pudgy DeSalvo the latter. In fact they once did the "Who's On First" routine at a PBA talent show. But they were good cops, even if they were a little rough around the edges.

"You know we like the kid as much as anybody," DeSalvo said, "but either he takes his jungle-bunny music somewhere else or one of us goes in there and accidentally sits on his pipsqueak phonograph."

Tracy put down the newspaper. The news from Hungary was pretty depressing—martial law and mass arrests since the Soviets marched in—and the presidential campaign at home was boring, with Ike and Nixon looking like shoo-ins.

He stared at DeSalvo. He didn't like the jungle-bunny reference but he let it slide. A lot of people were getting pretty worked up about this new rock and roll music the kids were playing, calling it jigaboo jive and nigger music. He'd even heard some preachers and teachers on the radio calling it the devil's music. Tracy didn't know about that. All he knew was that it wasn't his kind of music.

The trouble started when Junior brought his little, fat-spindled phonograph into the locker area off the squad room and started playing these funny-looking pancake-size records with big holes in the middle—"forty- fives," he called them. There were times when the music coming out of that tiny little speaker made Tracy want to try a forty-five of his own on that thing—something .45 caliber.

Obviously Tracy wasn't the only one bothered by it. DeSalvo was still carrying on.

"Bad enough we have to listen to it half the day workin' on the Wonder Records case, but we'd like a break when we come back to the squad room."

"Okay," Tracy said. "Send him out here. I'll talk to him."

"Thanks, Tracy," said Helmsly. "Peace and quiet again, huh?"

"Peace on earth," Tracy said.

Tracy thought about Junior as he waited for him to appear. He was a little concerned about some of the changes he was seeing in the boy. The most obvious was his hair. Junior was starting to look like some of the JDs they were picking up on car thefts and in gang rumbles on the north side. What was next—a studded black leather jacket and engineer boots? Tracy would have to draw the line there.

Not that Junior wasn't a good kid—he was the best. But Tracy couldn't help feeling uneasy when he saw him looking like a young hood.

And listening to hood music.

Ye gods, that rock and roll stuff was enough to drive any sane man up the wall! Junior played it endlessly at home. You couldn't pass his bedroom on the second floor without hearing twangy guitars, thumping drums, and wailing voices. Tess seemed to tolerate it better, even claimed to like some of it. But it set Tracy's teeth on edge. Especially that Little Richard fellow.

"Hi, Tracy," Junior said as he opened the door to Tracy's office. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, Junior. Sit down a minute."

Tracy was at once fascinated and repelled by Junior's hair. What formerly had been a wild red shock was now a carefully combed masterpiece of. . . what? The kid had let it grow and now it was Brylcreemed to within an inch of its life. Parted high up on each side, combed toward the center and a little forward so that some carrot-colored curls hung over the forehead; the sides were slicked back above the ears to meet at the rear of his head in what was being called a D.A.—and it didn't stand for District Attorney.

Tracy didn't like any of it.

"This music you've been playing. Do you like it?"

Junior's freckled face lit with enthusiasm. "You bet! All the kids like it."

"Surely not all of them."

Junior's smile broadened. "You know that Elvis Presley song you hate— 'Hound Dog'?"

Tracy winced. "How can I forget? You play it a hundred times a day."

"Well, it's the number one song in the country right now."

"There goes the country. Can you tell me why?"

"It's cool. It's a gas."

Tracy laughed. "Ah! That explains it. And that's why you listen to it all day long?"

"And all night too. At least till I fall asleep."

A thought struck Tracy.

"Would you consider yourself an authority on rock and roll, Junior?"

The kid shrugged. "Sure. An expert even."

"Good. I want you to look at something."

Tracy called to DeSalvo to bring him the evidence in the Wonder Records case. DeSalvo came in lugging the box.

"Hey, Junior," he said as he placed the box on Tracy's desk. "This is the kind of stuff you listen to. Maybe you can have them when the case is done."

Junior's eyes lit as he peered into the box. He glanced at Tracy. "Can I look?"

"Sure," Tracy said. "Handle them as much as you want."

Junior fished out a stack of 45s and shuffled through them like cards. Tracy noticed the kid's enthusiasm fading.

"Aw, these are all copies."

If the statement startled Tracy, it shocked DeSalvo.

"How do you know?" the detective said.

"Just look at the labels. 'Long Tall Sally' by Mark Butler, 'Blueberry Hill' and 'Ain't That a Shame' by Kevin Coyle, 'Maybellene' by Buster Squillace, 'I Hear You Knockin'' by Eleanor Robinson, 'Eddie, My Love' by Diane Gormley, 'Sh-Boom' by the Flat-tops? These aren't the real records. I have the real records, the ones that were done first—and best— and they're sung by Little Richard, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Smiley Lewis, the Teen Queens, and the Chords."

Suddenly Tracy saw what Junior meant.

"Oh, I get it. You're saying these are copies because they're sung by different artists than the originals."

"Right. They're put out for radio stations who want to play the top hits but don't want to play the originals."

DeSalvo ran a hand through his thinning hair.

"Why on earth would they want to do that?"

"Because all the originals were sung by Negroes," Junior said, looking DeSalvo straight in the eye. "Some folks call it jungle-bunny jive and so the big stations won't play it unless it's rerecorded note for note by white guys."

Tracy could see that Junior's sense of fair play was deeply offended, and he had to admit the kid had a point.

"That's not the kind of copying we're concerned with here," Tracy said before DeSalvo could reply. "The president of Wonder Records, Mr. William B. Cover, came to us with a complaint that someone is pressing perfect copies of his records and then selling them to all the stores in the city."

"If they're perfect copies," Junior said, "how did he find out?"

"Sales reports," DeSalvo said. "He read where a store reported sales far above what he'd shipped to them. He checked further and found out it was going on all over town."

"Serves him right," Junior said under his breath.

"No talk like that, understand?" Tracy said. "Whether you approve of what Wonder Records is doing or not, it's perfectly legal. Bootlegging copies of his product is not."

Junior looked down. "Sorry. You're right."

"We know it's an inside job," DeSalvo said. "Mr. Cover is positive someone's 'borrowing' his masters and pressing the copies."

"Borrowing?" Junior said.

"Yes," Tracy said. "None of the masters is missing, but Cover says someone must be pulling them one set at a time, pressing off the copies in a secret plant, then returning them. He says that's the only way the crooks could make such perfect copies."

DeSalvo snapped his fingers. "Say! What if we put Junior inside and—"

Helmsly burst in before Tracy could tell DeSalvo to forget it. "Just got a call from the Wonder Records. They found William B. Cover dead in his office."

Tracy was on his feet. "Foul play?" "Strangled."

"Find Sam," Tracy said. "Tell him to meet me down at the Wonder offices."

* * *

As Tracy pulled into the parking lot at Wonder Records, he marveled again at the design that had made it one of the city's landmark buildings. The upper two-thirds of its north wall had been designed to look like the top of a phonograph. The huge black disc representing a record was the most arresting feature. A giant tone arm rested beside it; once every five minutes it would swing over and land on the disc. The disc itself didn't spin, but the bright orange Wonder Records label at its center did, giving the illusion that the whole gargantuan record was turning on its spindle.

Inside, Sam Catchem was waiting for him on the top floor. Cover's office took up most of the level. There was a small lobby outside the elevator vestibule where a receptionist's desk guarded the passage to a set of oak double doors. These opened on a suite of richly appointed rooms. In the rearmost office a team from Forensics was dusting everything in sight while a pair of morgue attendants waited for the signal to load the sheeted body onto their stretcher and take it down to the meat wagon.

Tracy went down on one knee beside the body and pulled back the sheet. He'd met William B. Cover only once before, at headquarters. A bluff, hearty man of about fifty with thick brown hair and apple-red cheeks.

"Strangulation didn't do much for his complexion," Catchem said in his usual laconic tone, talking around the lighted cigarette that dangled from the corner of his mouth.

Tracy had to agree. The big red cheeks were now a dusky blue mottled with tiny purple hemorrhages in the skin. "What have we got, Sam?"

"One dead rock and roll record mogul, done in with the cord from his telephone." "How long?"

"Still got some warmth left in him. I'd say about two hours. How about you?

Tracy pressed the back of his fingers against Cover's throat. Not completely cold yet. He glanced at his watch.

"I'll go with that—which puts time of death right in the middle of lunch hour. Witnesses?"

"None."

"No secretary by the door?"

"Yeah, but there's a private elevator at the back end of the suite. According to his secretary—who found the body, by the way—he often brought his new talent in and out via that route. Seems he liked to keep them secret till he went public with them."

"She never heard anything?"

"I don't know. She was still pretty hysterical when I got here. She's down on the next floor. Maybe she's pulled herself together now."

Tracy threw the white sheet back over the corpse and nodded to the morgue attendants to take it away.

"Let's see what she can tell us."

The receptionist was Carolyn Typo, a pert brunette, young, barely out of secretarial school. She was shivering like someone with total body frostbite. After a few soothing remarks and reassurances, Tracy got to the point.

"I understand, Carolyn, that you saw no one enter Mr. Cover's office."

"That's right," she said, nodding and sobbing. "They must've come up the private elevator."

"Do you remember hearing anything strange, any sounds of a struggle?"

"No struggle, but they were talking pretty loud in there. In fact they were arguing."

"Did you hear any of the words?"

"Mr. Cover said something like, 'You'll never work in this town again, or in any other for that matter!' "

"Did you hear the other voice?"

"Yes, but I didn't understand what he was saying. Neither did Mr. Cover, I guess, 'cause he kept saying, 'What he say?' I guess the other man was foreign or something. Every time the other man spoke, Mr. Cover would ask over and over again: 'What he say?' "

In the far recesses of Tracy's mind, a bell of recognition chimed faintly. He shook it off.

"Would you recognize that voice again?"

"Oh, yes."

"Good. There might come a time when we'll need you for that. But right now, I want you to go down to police headquarters and make a complete statement."

After the receptionist had been led away, Tracy turned to Catchem. "Who's the number two man around here, Sam?"

Catchem checked his list.

"Hyram Figh. His office is on—"

"Did someone say my name?" said a short, slim, dapper man standing nearby. He appeared to be in his midtwenties.

"I'm Detective Tracy, this is Detective Catchem, Mr. Figh."

"Just call me Hy. Everyone does."

"Okay, Hy. Do you have any knowledge of any associate of Mr. Cover's who doesn't speak English?"

"No. Not a one."

"How about some new act he might have been auditioning?" Catchem said.

"Well, I do know he was pretty excited about a new rockabilly quartet he was secretly rehearsing in one of our recording studios."

"What on earth is 'rockabilly'?" Sam said.

"Hmmm." Hy scratched his chin. "I guess you could best describe it as a hillbilly white kid singing rhythm and blues to a rock and roll beat."

"Oh. Thanks. That clears it up perfectly."

"Any time. Anyway, W.B.—we called him W.B.—was grooming this quartet to cut the first all-original recording in the history of Wonder Records. He'd always said the key to a hit rockabilly record was to make the lyrics unintelligible. He told me he'd found a singer no one would ever understand. Said the kids would go crazy wondering what he was saying. They'd play the song over and over on jukeboxes all over the country, trying to figure out the lyrics. He was very excited."

Again that bell rang in Tracy's brain, louder now. He glanced at Catchem, who shook his head.

"I know what you're thinking, but it ain't possible."

Tracy turned back to Mr. Figh.

"Thanks, Hy. You've been a big help. Please don't leave town for the next few days. We may have some other questions for you."

"Anything I can do to help. Anything. Just call."

As the young executive headed for his office down the hall, Tracy turned to Catchem.

"Who does that sound like to you, Sam?"

"Mumbles," Catchem said, lighting another cigarette. "Who else? But Mumbles is dead, remember? He drowned over a year ago and almost took you with him."

"I know, I know. But it fits so perfectly. A guy no one can understand: That was Mumbles. Sings with a quartet: That was Mumbles. Crooked enough to have been 'borrowing' the Wonder Records masters and making illegal copies of Wonder hits—"

"I know," Catchem said. "Mumbles. But he drowned, he was buried, and neither of us believe in ghosts."

"And violent enough to kill when cornered," Tracy said. "That would fit Mumbles too." Tracy pushed back his yellow fedora and scratched his head. "Yeah. A crazy thought."

"No argument there," Catchem said. "But until Mumbles shows up, what say we get back up to the murder scene and see if we can find anything to point us toward a living suspect."

* * *

Tracy couldn't sleep. The William B. Cover murder wouldn't permit it. Finally he gave up trying. He left Tess slumbering peacefully in their bed and wandered down the hall to Junior's room. He put his ear against the door and listened. A radio was playing low. He knocked and stuck his head in the darkened room.

"Got any rockabilly records?"

The light came on and Junior sat up in bed.

"Sure. Want to hear some?"

"Just a couple of samplings. And real low. We don't want to wake the sleeping, let alone the dead."

Junior hopped out of bed and pulled out his record box. He showed Tracy the labels with the titles and artists and played snatches of the songs.

They all sounded pretty much the same to Tracy. Junior ran through "Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins, "Tongue Tied Jill" by Charlie Feathers, "Ooby Dooby" by Roy Orbison, "Be-Bop-a-Lula" by Gene Vincent ...

"Enough," Tracy said. "That's all I can take. But thanks for the lesson, Junior."

He tousled the kid's hair affectionately, the way he used to, but came away with a hand coated with grease. Wiping his palm on his pajama pants leg, he returned to his own bedroom.

And still he couldn't sleep.

Mumbles . . . was it even remotely possible that he was still alive?

Tracy thought back to July of last year when he and Mumbles had been caught in that salt marsh at high tide. Tracy had survived but Mumbles had drowned because he wouldn't—or couldn't—let go of the loot he had dug up. Tracy racked his brain now trying to remember if he or Sam or anyone for that matter had officially identified the body. They'd found it strapped to the barrel of jewels, they'd shaken their heads and said that Mumbles's greed had finally killed him, then they'd sent the body off to the coroner— tagged as Mumbles.

Tracy dragged himself back to the present. This was fruitless. All it did was distract him from zeroing on a real suspect in the Cover murder.

And yet. . . rockabilly, with all its hiccupping vocals and nonsense lyrics, was almost custom made for Mumbles, wasn't it? If he were alive, he could very well have been rehearsing in the Wonder Records recording studios—

Tracy bolted upright in bed.

Rehearsing! Wouldn't they be recording those rehearsals? At least parts of them? After all, the quartet in question was slated to be a recording sensation. Wouldn't W.B. have wanted to hear what they sounded like on vinyl?

Tracy was out of bed again, this time reaching for his clothes. Those tapes might break this case.

* * *

The all-night security guard at the main entrance let Tracy in and directed him to the recording studios on the tenth floor.

"On the way in I noticed that the big record player isn't working," Tracy said.

"We turned it off in mourning for Mr. Cover. The big Wonder record won't play again until after his funeral."

"I'm sure he'd have appreciated that."

Tracy headed directly to the recording studios. All the tapes and masters in W.B. Cover's office vault had been accounted for this afternoon, so Tracy figured that the mystery quartet's rehearsal tape, if it existed, might still be in the studio.

But which studio? There were eight of them on the floor.

He realized he should have brought Sam along to help go through the hundreds, perhaps thousands of tapes that were stored here. But better to

let Sam sleep so he'd be fresh for the morning. Tracy hadn't been getting any sleep anyway.

Where to start? He decided to begin at the end. As he walked down the hall toward Studio H he heard a noise. He stopped and heard it again. A clatter .. . very faint. Coming from Studio C.

Tracy pulled his snub-nosed .357 and edged the door open.

The studio was a shambles. Empty tape canisters were everywhere; the entire studio was festooned with tangled garlands of recording tape. As Tracy watched, a ten-inch reel, trailing a shiny brown ribbon behind it, sailed across the room and clattered against the wall.

To his left, out of sight, he heard someone shouting.

"Fina fug inape!"

A chill crawled over Tracy's skin. He knew that voice. But it couldn't be. Without thinking, he shoved the door open and stepped inside.

There were four men in the room. Three of them—one wearing a gray fedora, one with a knitted cap, and one bald and bareheaded—were tearing through the studio's tape library. But it was the fourth, standing in the center of the studio floor, who seized Tracy's attention. Short, medium- framed, close-cropped blond hair, heavy-lidded eyes, dark eyebrows, and a small, thin-lipped mouth.

"Mumbles!"

The man's eyes widened. "Syoo!"

Tracy shook off the shock of seeing Mumbles alive and covered the room with his pistol. He realized he'd made a rookie-level error: no backup. But he had the drop on them so maybe he could pull this off.

"Hands up and into the middle there—all of you!"

They hesitated, looking to Mumbles for direction.

"Doozee sz," Mumbles said.

"What he say?" whispered the one with the knitted cap.

"What'sa matter? You deaf?" the bald one replied. "He said 'Do what he says,' So let's do it."

They joined Mumbles in the center.

"Now—everybody face down on the floor."

When he had all of them down he could use the wrist radio to call for backup. This would be a good collar, even if it wasn't by the book.

Three of them went face down on the rug. Only their leader refused to comply.

"You too, Mumbles," Tracy said.

Mumbles stepped to his left behind a microphone on a chrome stand. He stayed on his feet.

"Newt beoo, Tree."

"What he say?" said the knitted cap.

Baldhead said, "He said, 'I knew it'd be you, Tracy.' "

Tracy said, "How did you survive that tide? That's what I want to know, Mumbles. And who did we bury if it wasn't you?"

"Yoofih grout, eppr."

"What he say?"

"Shuddup," said the fedora.

"Down, Mumbles," Tracy said.

Mumbles' stare was coolly defiant.

"Nway, eppr."

Tracy approached Mumbles warily, keeping the three on the floor in full view.

"I'm warning you, Mumbles. Don't try anything foolish. You're now the prime suspect in the W.B. Cover murder. And if that isn't enough, you'll be tried for Cinn's murder and as an accomplice in the George Ozone murder. Now get down on that floor!’

Mumbles sidestepped, keeping the mike stand between Tracy and himself.

"Kz maz, eppr."

Tracy reached out to knock the mike stand out of the way. The instant he touched it, he knew he'd been suckered. He heard the buzz, felt the electric current shoot up his arm, saw Mumbles' sneering face dissolve in a cascade of blinding white, yellow, blue, and orange explosions.

Then everything went black.

* * *

Tracy awoke slowly, to the chilly caress of a city-flavored October breeze, to the sound of faraway voices, and to the throb of a thundering headache. He opened his eyes and immediately snapped them shut against the sudden, overpowering rush of vertigo.

He took a deep breath. For a moment there, he'd almost thought—

Tracy opened his eyes again. To his left the sun was rising. The dark, sleeping city was spread out above him . . .

No—below him. He was upside down—trussed up and being lowered by his ankles on a long rope from the roof of the Wonder building. He could feel the grooves of the giant record logo jouncing against his back as he was lowered along the north wall.

Voices filtered down from above. He picked out Mumbles's voice immediately.

"Hole air."

"What he say?"

"He said to hold it there. C'mon. We'll tie it to this vent stack here."

"Hey, that's pretty swell, Mumbles. You got him right over the dent where the needle hits. When the arm comes over it'll nail him good!"

"Lemring amurwep innacor!"

"What he say?"

"He said, 'Let them bring that murder weapon into court!' "

There was laughter from above.

"Swaj blow," said Mumbles and the voices faded out.

Tracy's hands were tied behind his back. He probed the depth of the pit in the surface of the giant record where the tone arm's "needle" impacted twelve times an hour. A deep pit. He glanced over at the metal spike that served as the needle. It wasn't sharp, but it had to come down with considerable force to wear a pocket like this. Force enough to punch a hole in Tracy's gut.

But the laugh was on Mumbles. The giant phonograph had been shut off.

Just then Tracy felt a hum through the back of his head. The giant record vibrated as the label at its center began to turn. To Tracy's right, the tone arm shuddered to life.

Mumbles had turned on the power!

As the arm began to lift, Tracy began to swing his body left and right. Soon he had a bit of a pendulum motion established. The arc was small, but he hoped it would be enough to give him a fighting chance to be out of harm's way when the tone arm came down.

It was swinging toward him now, looming over him. He augmented his pendulum motion with a quarter roll to the right just as the needle slammed down onto the record.

Missed me!

Now he had a couple of minutes to work at the ropes around his wrists. The left was not looped quite as tightly as the right. He made an all-out bid to pull it loose, clenching his teeth against the pain as the upper layer of the skin over his wrist tore away. He groaned and broke out in a cold sweat as something popped inside his wrist, but suddenly his left hand was free. Seconds later the right was also free.

Using mostly his right hand, Tracy pulled himself up inside the tone arm. He twisted himself around to an upright position and wedged his body into the metal struts of the supporting framework. His legs and ankles were still trussed up like a roast but he left the ropes where they were for now. He had to close his eyes and let this sick feeling pass. Good to be right side up again, but his left wrist was swollen and puffy and throbbing like an elephant's migraine. At least he still had his wrist radio. He flicked the transmitter switch.

"Headquarters, this is Tracy. I'm at the Wonder Records building. I need immediate backup. Repeat: Immediate backup requested. Do you copy?

But when he switched to receive, he heard only static. He tried again with similar results. Maybe he'd damaged the radio getting out of the ropes. Maybe just the receiver was out of commission. He hoped that was all.

Because things were a bit dicey up here.

Voices . . . from far below. Angry shouts. Tracy peeked down at the gesticulating forms in the parking lot below. He realized with a grin that they couldn't see him from down there. Couldn't even see the rope. They probably thought he'd escaped.

Well, in a few minutes they'll be right!

He went to work on the rope around his legs, doing the best he could without putting too much stress on his left wrist.

Just then the tone arm began to rise. He heard the motor groan with the strain of lifting his extra weight. The arm was just starting back toward its rest position when something snapped in its base. The motor screeched and died as the arm jolted partially free of its supports and tilted at an angle.

Tracy hung on by his fingertips, then got his feet braced against the framework again. Renewed shouts rose from below as he realized his hiding place was now exposed in the growing dawn light.

He saw two figures, one blond, one bald-headed, dart for the rear of the building. It looked like Mumbles and one of his gang were coming back up to finish the job—probably by way of W.B. Cover's private elevator.

Tracy redoubled his efforts on the ropes but they resisted him. If only he could use both hands!

Moments later he heard a clank above him. Mumbles was there, grinning maniacally as he leaned over the edge of the roof and hammered at the tone arm's remaining supports with a tire iron.

Tracy felt the structure twist and sag further. Any second now it would go, taking him down with it. And still the knots on his legs resisted him. If he could just free his legs he could climb up the arm and at least give himself a fighting chance.

And then Tracy heard a wonderful sound: sirens.

So, apparently, did Mumbles's companion.

"The cops, Mumbles. Let's get outta here!"

"Ntlee fls!"

"Are you crazy, Mumbles?" Baldhead said. "What're you doin'?"

Tracy glanced up and saw Mumbles swing his leg over the edge of the roof and begin kicking at the tone arm's base.

"Dmthns tuck!" Mumbles said.

The sirens were getting louder but every kick sent increasingly violent shudders through the arm. Its base was edging free of the support. A few more good kicks ...

Tracy yanked on the rope that ran from his ankles up to the roof. Still tied. Suddenly he was glad he hadn't been able to conquer those knots.

Far below, Tracy saw the two other members of Mumbles's crew running for their car. He looked back up toward the roof to see Mumbles hanging from the edge of the roof by his arms, ramming both feet against the base of the tone arm.

Suddenly it twisted loose, but in twisting it caught Mumbles's foot. Mumbles lost his grip on the parapet. Baldhead made a grab for his arm but it was too late. Tracy dove free of the arm as it began to fall. The metal screeched but Mumbles's scream was louder as man and tone arm plummeted to earth.

Tracy was hanging upside down again, the blood rushing to his head. He saw the tone arm crash through the hood of the getaway car as it pulled away, saw Mumbles bounce off the car roof and land in a broken heap atop the trunk.

"That crazy bastard!" said Baldhead from above. "All because of you."

Tracy angled his neck to see the man's angry face glaring down at him. A knife snapped open in his hand.

"No reason why you shouldn't join him, cop."

As Baldhead began to saw at the rope, Tracy stuffed his right hand into the pocket the needle had made and clutched one of the record grooves with his bum left, hoping he might be able to hold on but knowing deep in his gut that there was no way in hell he could.

Suddenly there was a shot. Tracy looked up and saw part of Baldhead's scalp explode in a spray of red. Then the body slumped over the parapet. Warm blood began to drip on Tracy.

Sam Catchem's face appeared over the edge of the roof.

"You all right, Tracy?"

"Just fine, Sam. Enjoying the view."

Catchem lit a cigarette. "Yeah. Me too. You know, I was listening to a preacher on one of the news shows last night. He was warning the kids that hanging around these rock and roll joints would bring them nothing but trouble. Looking at you makes me think he may have a point."

"Pull me up, Sam. Now."

"Yes, boss."

As he was being dragged upward across the grooved surface of the giant Wonder record, Tracy stared down at Mumbles's inert form and . . .

No—not inert. His arms and legs were moving—not much, but moving all the same. He was alive. Tracy shook his head in silent wonder. Mumbles's luck never seemed to run all the way out.

Well, at least now they had a good chance of finding out who was really buried in Mumbles's grave: They could ask Mumbles himself. Either way, though, Tracy would have to get an exhumation order. But that could wait.

At least until this afternoon.

BOB DYLAN,

TROY JOHNSON,

AND THE SPEED QUEEN

INTRODUCTION

With the Dick Tracy piece sold, I went back to Reprisal and the short story I'd been tinkering with in November. I'd contributed "Menage a Trois" to Jeff Gelb's Hot Blood a few years before (where Jeff Fazio spotted it and bought it for an episode of Showtime's The Hunger.) In the summer of 1989 Jeff Gelb had written asking me if I could come up with a short story for an anthology combining horror and rock. I'd already done two rock- related stories—"The Years the Music Died" and "The Last ONE MO' ONCE GOLDEN OLDIES REVIVAL" (see Soft & Others)—and didn't know if I had a third in me.

But it got me thinking about my days as a drummer in a garage band during the mid-sixties. The Pebbles were the hottest party band along the upper Barnegat Bay section of the Jersey Shore when the lead guitarist, Mike Murphy, and I walked away, found new players, and devoted the summer of '67 to seeing how far we could take this music thing. We cut a demo of two original songs; the demo got us a manager who booked us into Greenwich Village spots like the Cafe Wha? and midtown gigs at Steve Paul's Scene West, but we went nowhere.

Remembering those times, though, it occurred to me how far we could have gone if only I'd known then what I know now.

And that was how the story started.

So "Bob Dylan, Troy Jonson, and the Speed Queen" takes you back to the West Village in 1964, when Dylan is digging The Beatles and a rough beast called folk rock is slouching toward the City of Angels to be born. The Eighth Wonder was real—Murph and I used to go there to hear a friend who was in the house band—and I've tried to reconstruct it as accurately as my fogged memory will allow. But on rereading it I find I wasn't careful enough about the songs Troy rips off from the future. Imagine how something like "Life During Wartime" with its references to headphones, computers, disco, and CBGB's would have sounded to an audience in 1964.

BOB DYLAN,

TROY JOHNSON,

AND THE SPEED QUEEN

Dylan walks in and I almost choke.

I've known all along it had to happen. I mean, it was inevitable. But still, finding yourself in the same room with a legend will tend to dry up your saliva no matter how well prepared you think you are.

My band's been doing weeknights at the Eighth Wonder for two months now, a Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday gig, and I've made sure there's an electrified Dylan song in every set every night we play. Reactions have been mixed. At worst, hostile; at best, grudging acceptance. Electric music is a touchy thing here in Greenwich Village in 1964. All these folkies who think they're so hip and radical and grass-roots wise, they'll march in Selma, but they'll boo and walk out on a song by a black man named Chuck Berry. Yet if you play the same chord progression and damn near the same melody and say it's by Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters or Sonny Boy Williamson, they'll stay. So, although my band's electric, I've been showing my bona fides by limiting the sets to blues and an occasional protest song.

Slowly but surely, we've been building an audience of locals. That's what I want, figuring that the more people hear us, the sooner word will get around to Dylan that somebody's doing rocked-up versions of his songs. It has to. Greenwich Village is a tight, gossipy little community, and except maybe for the gays, the folkies are just about the tightest and most gossipy of the Village's various subcultures. I figured when he heard about us, he'd have to come and listen for himself. I've been luring him. It's all part of the plan.

And tonight he's taken the bait.

So here I am in the middle of Them's version of Joe Williams's "Baby, Please Don't Go" and my voice goes hoarse and I fumble the riff when I see him, but I manage to get through the song without making a fool out of myself.

When I finish, I look up and panic for an instant because I can't find him. I search the dimness. The Eighth Wonder is your typical West Village dive, little more than a long, rectangular room with the band platform at one end, the bar right rear, and cocktail tables spread across the open floor. Then I catch his profile silhouetted against the bar lights. He's standing there talking to some gal with long, straight, dark hair who's even skinnier than he is—which isn't much of a description, because in 1964 it seems all the women in Greenwich Village are skinny with long, straight hair.

The band's ready to begin the next number on the set list, our Yardbirds- style "I'm a Man," but I turn and tell them we're doing "All I Really Want to Do." They nod and shrug. As long as they get paid, they don't give a damn what they play. They're not in on the plan.

I strap on the Rickenbacker twelve-string and start picking out Jim McGuinn's opening. I've got this choice figured to be a pretty safe one since my wire tells me that the Byrds aren't even a group yet.

Dylan's taken a table at the rear with the skinny brunette. He's slouched down. He's got no idea this is his song. Then we start to sing and I see him straighten up in his chair. When we hit the chorus with the three-part harmony, I see him put down his drink. It's not a big move. He's trying to be cool. But I'm watching for it and I catch it.

Contact.

Research told me that he liked the Byrds' version when he first heard it, so I know he's got to like our version because ours is a carbon copy of the Byrds'. And naturally, he hasn't heard theirs yet because they haven't recorded it. I'd love to play their version of "Mr. Tambourine Man," but he hasn't written it yet.

There's some decent applause from the crowd when we finish the number and I run right into a Byrds version of "The Times They Are A-changin'." I remind myself not to use anything later than Another Side of Bob Dylan. We finish the set strong in full harmony on "Chimes of Freedom," and I look straight at Dylan's dim form and give him a smile and a nod. I don't see him smile or nod back, but he does join in the applause.

Got him.

We play our break number and then I head for the back of the room. But by the time I get there, his table's empty. I look around but Dylan's gone.

"Shit!" I say to myself. Missed him. I wanted a chance to talk to him.

I step over to the bar for a beer, and the girl who was sitting with Dylan sidles over. She's wearing jeans and three shirts. Hardly anybody in the Village wears a coat unless it's the dead of winter. If it's cool out, you put on another shirt over the one you're already wearing. And if it's even cooler, you throw an oversize work shirt over those.

"He sorta kinda liked your stuff," she says. "Who?"

"Bob. He was impressed."

"Really?" I stay cool as the proverbial cucumber on the outside, but inside I want to grab her shoulders and shout, "Yeah? Yeah? What did he say?" Instead I ask, "What makes you think so?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's because as he was listening to you guys, he turned to me and said, 'I am impressed.' "

I laugh to keep from cheering. "Yeah. I guess that'd be a pretty good indication."

I like her. And now that she's close up, I recognize her. She's Sally something. I'm not sure anybody knows her last name. People around the Village just call her the Speed Queen. And by that, they don't mean she does laundry.

Sally is thin and twitchy, and she's got the sniffles. She's got big, dark eyes, too, and they're staring at me.

"I was pretty impressed with your stuff, too," she says, smiling at me. "I mean, I don't dig rock and roll at all, man, what with all the bop-shoo- boppin' and the shoo-be-dooin'. I mean, that stuff's nowhere, man. But I kinda like the Beatles. I mean, a bunch of us sat around and watched them when they were on Ed Sullivan and, you know, they were kinda cool. I mean, they just stood there and sang. No corny little dance steps or anything like that. If they'd done anything like that, we would've turned them right off. But no. Oh, they bounced a little to the beat, maybe, but mostly they just played and sang. Almost like folkies. Looked like they were having fun. We all kinda dug that."

I hold back from telling her that she and her folkie friends were watching the death of the folk music craze.

"I dig 'em, too," I say, dropping into the folkster patois of the period. "And I predict they're gonna be the biggest thing ever to hit the music business. Ten times bigger than Elvis and Sinatra and the Kingston Trio put together, man."

She laughs. "Sure! And I'm going to marry Bobby Dylan!"

I could tell her he's actually going to marry Sara Lowndes next year, but that would be stupid. And she wouldn't believe me, anyway.

"I like to think of what I play as 'folk rock,' " I tell her.

She nods and considers this. "Folk rock. . . that's cool. But I don't know if it'll fly around here."

"It'll fly," I tell her. "It'll fly high. I guarantee it."

She's looking at me, smiling and nodding, almost giggling.

"You're okay," she says. "Why don't we get together after your last set?"

"Meet you right here," I say.

* * *

It's Wednesday morning, three a.m., when we wind up back at my apartment on Perry Street.

"Nice pad," Sally says. "Two bedrooms. Wow."

"The second bedroom's my music room. That's where I work out all the band's material."

"Great! Can I use your bathroom?"

I show her where it is and she takes her big shoulder bag in with her. I listen for a moment and hear the clink of glass on porcelain and have a pretty good idea of what she's up to.

"You shooting up in there?" I say.

She pulls open the door. She's sitting on the edge of the tub. There's a syringe in her hand and some rubber tubing tied around her arm.

"I'm tryin' to."

"What is it?"

"Meth."

Of course. They don't call her the Speed Queen for nothing.

"Want some?"

I shake my head. "Nah. Not my brand."

She smiles. "You're pretty cool, Troy. Some guys get grossed out by needles."

"Not me."

I don't tell her that we don't even have needles when I come from. Of course, I knew there'd be lots of shooting up in the business I was getting into, so before coming here I programmed all its myriad permutations into my wire.

"Well, then maybe you can help me. I seem to be running out of veins here. And this is good stuff. Super-potent. Two grams per cc."

I hide my revulsion and take it from her. Such a primitive-looking thing. Even though AIDS hasn't reared its ugly head yet, I find the needle point especially terrifying. I look at the barrel of the glass syringe.

"You've got half a cc there. A gram? You're popping a whole gram of speed?"

"The more I use, the more I need. Check for a vein, will you?"

I rub my fingertip over the inner surface of her arm until I feel a linear swelling below the skin. My wire tells me that's the place.

I say, "I think there's one here but I can't see it."

"Feeling's better than seeing any day," she says with a smile. "Do it."

I push the needle through the skin. She doesn't even flinch.

"Pull back on the plunger a little," she says.

I do, and see a tiny red plume swirl into the chamber.

"Oh, you're beautiful!" she says. "Hit it!"

I push the plunger home. As soon as the chamber is empty, the Speed Queen yanks off her tourniquet and sighs.

"Oh, man! Oh, baby!"

She grabs me and pulls me to the floor.

* * *

I lie in bed utterly exhausted while Sally runs around the apartment stark naked, picking up the clutter, chattering on at Mach two. She is painfully thin, Dachau thin. It almost hurts to look at her. I close my eyes.

For the first time since my arrival, I feel relaxed. I feel at peace. I don't have to worry about VD because I've had the routine immunizations against syphilis and the clap and even hepatitis B and C and AIDS. About the worst I can get is a case of crabs. I can just lie here and feel good.

It wasn't easy getting here, and it's been even harder staying. I thought

I'd prepared myself for everything, but I never figured I'd be lonely I didn't count on the loneliness. That's been the toughest to handle.

The music got me into this. I've been a fan of the old music ever since I can remember—ever since my ears started to work, probably. And I've got a good ear. Perfect pitch. You sit me down in front of a new piece of music, and guaranteed I'll be able to play it back to you note for note in less than half an hour—usually less than ten minutes for most things. I can sing, too, imitating most voices pretty closely.

Trouble is, I don't have a creative cell in my body. I can play anything that's already been played, but I can't make up anything of my own to play. That's the tragedy of my life. I should be a major musical talent of my time, but I'm an also-ran, a nothing.

To tell you the truth, I don't care to be a major musical talent of my time. And that's not sour grapes. I loathe what passes for music in my time. Push-button music—that's what I call it. Nobody actually gets their hands on the instruments and wrings the notes from them. Nobody gets together and cooks. It's all so cool, so dispassionate. Leaves me cold.

So I came back here. I have a couple of relatives in the temporal sequencing lab. I gained their confidence, learned the ropes, and displaced myself to the 1960s.

Not an easy decision, I can assure you. Not only have I left behind everyone and everything I know, but I'm risking death. That's the penalty for altering the past. But I was so miserable that I figured it was worth the risk. Better to die trying to carve out a niche for myself here than to do a slow rot where I was.

Of course, there was a good chance I'd do a slow rot in the 1960s as well. I'm no fool. I had no illusions that dropping back a hundred years or so would make me any more creative than I already wasn't. I'd be an also- ran in the sixties, too.

Unless I prepared myself.

Which I did. I did my homework on the period. I studied the way they dressed, the way they spoke. I got myself wired with a wetchip encoding all the biographies and discographies of anyone who was anybody in music and the arts at this time. All I have to do is think of the name and suddenly I know all about him or her.

Too bad they can't do that with music. I had to bring the music with me. I wasn't stupid, though. I didn't bring a dot player with me. No technological anachronisms—that's a sure way to cause ripples in the time stream and tip your hand to the observation teams. Do that and a reclamation squad'll be knocking on your door. Not me. I spent a whole year hunting up these ancient vinyl discs—"LPs" they call them here. Paid antique prices for them, but it was worth it. Bought myself some antique money to spend here, too.

So here I am.

And I'm on my way. It's been hard, it's been slow, but I've got only one chance at this so I've got to do it right. I picked the other band members carefully and trained them to play what I want. They need work, so they go along with me, especially since they all think I'm a genius for writing such diverse songs as "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Summer in the City," "Taxman," "Bad Moon Rising," "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" and so many others. People are starting to talk about me. And now Dylan has heard me. I'm hoping he'll bring John Hammond with him sometime soon. That way I've got a shot at a Columbia contract. And then Dylan will send the demo of "Mr. Tambourine Man" to me instead of Jim McGuinn.

After that, I won't need anyone. I'll be able to anticipate every trend in rock and I'll be at the forefront of all the ones that matter.

So far, everything's going according to plan. I've even got a naked woman running around my apartment. I'm finally beginning to feel at home.

"Where'd you get these?"

It's Sally's voice. I open my eyes and see her standing over me. I smile, then freeze.

She's holding up copies of the first two Byrds albums.

"Give me those!"

"Hey, really. Where'd—"

I leap out of bed. The expression on my face must be fierce because she jumps back. I snatch them from her.

"Don't ever touch my records!"

"Hey, sorreeeee! I just thought I'd spin something, okay? I wasn't going to steal your fucking records, man!"

I force myself to cool down. Quickly. It's my fault. I should have locked the music room. But I've been so wrapped up in getting the band going that I haven't had any company, so I've been careless about keeping my not-yet-recorded "antiques" locked away.

I laugh. "Sorry, Sally. It's just that these are rarities. I get touchy about them."

Holding the records behind me, I pull her close and give her a kiss. She kisses me back, then pulls away and tries to get another look at the records.

"I'll say they are," she says. "I never heard of these Byrds. I mean, like you'd think they were a jazz group, you know, like copping Charlie Parker or something, but the title on that blue album there is Turn, Turn, Turn, which I've like heard Pete Seeger sing. Are they new? I mean, they've gotta be new, but the album cover looks so old. And didn't I see 'Columbia' on the spine?"

"No," I say when I can finally get a word in. "They're imports."

"A new English group?"

"No. They're Swedish. And they're pretty bad."

"But that other album looked like it had a couple of Bobby's tunes on it.

"No chance," I say, feeling my gut coil inside me. "You need to come down."

I quickly put the albums back in the other room and lock the door.

"You're a real weird cat, Troy," she says to me.

"Why? Because I take care of my records?"

"They're only records. They're not gold." She laughs. "And besides that, you wear underwear. You must be the only guy in the Village who wears underwear."

I pull Sally back to the bed. We do it again and finally she falls asleep in my arms. But I can't sleep. I'm too shaken even to close my eyes.

I like her. I really like her. But that was too close. I've got to be real care- fid about who I bring back to the apartment. I can't let anything screw up the plan, especially my own carelessness. My life is at stake.

No ripples, that's the key. I've got to sink into the timeline without making any ripples. Bob Dylan will go electric on his next album, just like he did before, but it will be my influence that nudged him to try it. "Mr. Tambourine Man" will be a big hit next summer, just as it's destined to be, but if things go according to plan, my band's name will be on the label instead of the Byrds. No ripples. Everything will remain much the same except that over the next few years, Troy Jonson will insinuate himself into the music scene and become a major force there. He will make millions, he will be considered a genius, the toast of both the public and his fellow artists.

Riding that thought, I drift off to sleep.

* * *

Dylan shows up at the Eighth Wonder the very next night in the middle of my note-perfect imitation of Duane Allman on "Statesboro Blues," perfect even down to the Coricidin bottle on my slide finger. There's already a good crowd in, the biggest crowd since we started playing. Word must be getting around that we're something worth listening to. Dylan has about half a dozen scruffy types along with him. I recognize Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso in the entourage. Which gives me an idea.

"This one's for the poets in the audience," I say into the mike; then we jump into Paul Simon's "Richard Corey," only I use Van Morrison's phrasing, you know, with the snicker after the bullet-through-his-head line. I spend the rest of the set being political, interspersing Dylan numbers with "originals" such as "American Tune," "Won't Get Fooled Again," "Life During Wartime," and so on.

I can tell they're impressed. More than impressed. Their jaws are hanging open.

I figure now's the time to play cool. At the break, instead of heading for the bar, I slip backstage to the doorless, cinder-block-walled cubicle euphemistically known as the dressing room.

Eventually someone knocks on the doorjamb. It's a bearded guy I recognize as one of Dylan's entourage tonight.

"Great set, man," he says. "Where'd you get some of those songs?"

"Stole them," I say, hardly glancing at him.

He laughs. "No, seriously, man. They were great. I really like that 'Southern Man' number. I mean, like I've been makin' the marches and that says it all, man. You write them?"

I nod. "Most of them. Not the Dylan numbers."

He laughs again. From the glitter in his eyes and his extraordinarily receptive sense of humor, I gather that he's been smoking a little weed at that rear table.

"Right! And speaking of Dylan, Bobby wants to talk to you."

I decide to act a little paranoid.

"He's not pissed, is he? I mean, I know they're his songs and all, but I thought I'd try to do them a little different, you know. I don't want him takin' me to court or—"

"Hey, it's cool," he says. "Bobby digs the way you're doing his stuff. He just wants to buy you a drink and talk to you about it, that's all."

I resist the urge to pump my fist in the air.

"Okay," I say. "I can handle that."

"Sure, man. And he wants to talk to you about some rare records he hears you've got."

Suddenly I'm ice cold.

"Records?"

"Yeah, says he heard about some foreign platters you've got with some of his songs on 'em."

I force a laugh and say, "Oh, he must've been talking to Sally! You know how Sally gets. The Speed Queen was really flying when she was going through my records. That wasn't music she saw, that was a record from Ireland of Dylan Thomas reading his stuff. I think ol' Sally's brains are getting scrambled."

He nods. "Yeah, it was Sally, all right. She says you treat them things like gold, man. They must be some kinda valuable. But the thing that got to Dylan was, she mentioned a song with 'tambourine' in the title, and he says he's been doodling with something like that."

"No kidding?" My voice sounds like a croak.

"Yeah. So he really wants to talk to you."

I'm sure he does. But what am I going to say?

And then I remember that I left Sally back at my apartment. She was going to hang out there for a while, then come over for the late sets.

I'm ready to panic. Even though I know I locked the music room before I left, I've got this urge to run back to my place.

"Hey, I really want to talk to him, too. But I got some business to attend to here. My manager's stopping by in a minute and it's the only chance we'll have to talk before he heads for the West Coast, so tell Mr. Dylan I'll be over right after the next set. Tell him to make the next set—it'll be worth the wait."

The guy shrugs. "Okay. I'll tell him, but I don't know how happy he's gonna be."

"Sorry, man. I've got no choice."

As soon as he's gone, I dash out the back door and run for Perry Street. I've got to get Sally out of the apartment and never let her back in. Maybe I can even make it back to the Eighth Wonder in time to have that drink with Dylan. I can easily convince him that the so-called Dylan song on my foreign record is a product of amphetamine craziness—everybody in the Village knows how out of control Sally is with the stuff.

As I ram the key into my apartment door, I hear something I don't want to hear, something I can't be hearing. But when I open up . . .

"Mr. Tambourine Man" is playing on the hi-fi.

I charge into the second bedroom, the music room. The door is open and Sally is dancing around the floor. She's startled to see me and goes into her little girl speedster act.

"Hiya, Troy, I found the key and I couldn't resist because I like really wanted to hear these weird records of yours and I love 'em, I really do, but I've never heard of these Byrds cats although one of them's named Crosby and he looks kinda like a singer I caught at a club last year only his hair was shorter then, and I never heard this 'Tambourine' song before, but it's definitely Dylan, although he's never sung it that I know of so I'll have to ask him about it. And I noticed something even weirder, I mean really weird, because I spotted some of these copyright dates on the records—you know, that little circle with the littler letter c inside them?—and like, man, some of them are in the future, man, isn't that wild? I mean, like there's circle-C 1965 on this one and a circle-C 1970 on that one over there, and it's like someone had a time machine and I went into the future and brought 'em back or something. I mean, is this wild or what?"

Fury like I've never known blasts through me. It steals my voice. I want to throttle her. If she were in reach I'd do it, but lucky for her she's bouncing around the room. I stay put. I clench my fists at my sides and let my mind race over my options.

How do I get out of this? Sally had one look at a couple of my albums last night and then spent all day blabbing to the whole goddamn Village about them and how rare and unique they are. And after tonight I know exactly what she'll be talking about tomorrow: Dylan songs that haven't been written yet, groups that don't exist yet, and, worst of all, albums with copyright dates in the future!

Ripples ... I was worried about ripples in the time stream giving me away. Sally's mouth is going to cause waves. Tsunamis!

The whole scenario plays out inside my head: Talk spreads, Dylan gets more curious, Columbia Records gets worried about possible bootlegs, lawyers get involved, an article appears in the Voice, and then the inevitable—reclamation squad knocks on my door in the middle of the night, I'm tran- qued, brought back to my own time, and then it's bye-bye musical career. Bye-bye Troy Jonson. Sally's got to go.

The cold-bloodedness of the thought shocks me. But it's Sally or me. That's what it comes down to. Sally or me. What else can I do? I choose me. "Are you mad?" she says.

I shake my head. "A little annoyed, maybe, but I guess it's okay." I smile. "It's hard to say no to you."

She jumps into my arms and gives me a hug. My hands slide up to her throat, encircle it, then slip away. Can't do it.

"Hey, like what are you doing back, man? Aren't you playing?" "I got. .. distracted."

"Well, Troy, honey, if you're flat, you've come to the right place. I know how to fix that."

In that instant, I know how I'll do it. No blood, no pain, no mess. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I could use a little boost." Her eyes light. "Groovy! I had my gear all set up in the bathroom but I couldn't find a vein. Let's go."

"But I want you to have some, too. It's no fun being up alone." "Hey, I'm flyin' already. I popped a bunch of black beauties before you came."

"Yeah, but you're coming down. I can tell."

"You think so?" Her brow wrinkles with concern, then she smiles. "Okay. A little more'll be cool—especially if it's a direct hit." "Never too much of a good thing, right?" "Right. You'll shoot me up like last night?" Just the words I want to hear. "You bet."

While Sally's adjusting her tourniquet and humming along with "Mr. Tambourine Man," I take her biggest syringe and fill it all the way with the methedrine solution. I find the vein first try. She's too whacked-out to notice the size of the syringe until I've got most of it into her. She tries to pull her arm away. "Hey, that's ten fucking cc's!" I'm cool. I'm more than cool. I'm stone-cold dead inside. "Yeah, but it wasn't full. I only put one cc in it." I pull her off the toilet seat. "Come on. Let's go."

"How about you, Troy? I thought you wanted—"

"Later. I'll do it at the club. I've got to get back."

As I pack up her paraphernalia, carefully wiping my prints off the syringe and bottles, she sags against the bathroom door.

"I don't feel so good, Troy. How much did you give me?"

"Not much. Come on, let's go."

Something's going to happen—twenty thousand milligrams of methamphetamine in a single dose has to have a catastrophic effect—and whatever it is, I don't want it happening in my apartment.

I hurry her out to the street. I'm glad my place is on the first floor; I'd hate to see her try a few flights of steps right now. We go half a block and she clutches her chest.

"Shit, that hurts! Troy, I think I'm having a heart attack!"

As she starts retching and shuddering, I pull her into an alley. A cat bolts from the shadows; the alley reeks of garbage. Sally shudders and sinks to her knees.

"Get me to a hospital, Troy," she says in a weak, raspy voice. "I think I overdid it this time."

I sink down beside her and fight the urge to carry her the few blocks to St. Vincent's emergency room. Instead, I hold her in my arms. She's trembling.

"I can't breathe!"

The shudders become more violent. She convulses, almost throwing me off her; then she lies still, barely breathing. Another convulsion, more violent than the last, choking sounds tearing from her throat. She's still again, but this time she's not breathing. A final shudder, and Sally the Speed Queen comes to a final, screeching halt.

As I crouch there beside her, still holding her, I begin to sob. This isn't the way I planned it, not at all the way it was supposed to be. It was all going to be peace and love and harmony, all Woodstock and no Altamont. Music, laughs, money. This isn't in the plan.

I lurch to my feet and vomit into the garbage can. I start walking. I don't look back at her. I can't. I stumble into the street and head for the Eighth Wonder, crying all the way.

* * *

The owner, the guys in the band, they all hassle me for delaying the next set. I look out into the audience and see Dylan's gone, but I don't care. Just as well. The next three sets are a mess, the worst of my life. The rest of the night is a blur. As soon as I'm done, I'm out of there, running.

I find Perry Street full of cops and flashing red lights. I don't have to ask why. The self-loathing wells up in me until I want to be sick again. I promise myself to get those records into a safety-deposit box first thing tomorrow so that something like this can never happen again.

I don't look at anybody as I pass the alley, afraid they'll see the guilt screaming in my eyes, but I'm surprised to find my landlord, Charlie, standing on the front steps to the apartment house.

"Hey, Jonson!" he says. "Where da hell ya been? Da cops is lookin' all ova for ya!"

I freeze on the bottom step.

"I've been working—all night."

"Sheesh, whatta night. First dat broad overdoses an' dies right downa street, and now dis! Anyway, da cops is in your place. Better go talk to ‘em.

As much as I want to run, I don't. I can get out of this. Somebody probably saw us together, that's all. I can get out of this.

"I don't know anything about an overdose," I say. It's a form of practice. I figure I'm going to have to say it a lot of times before the cops leave.

"Not dat!" Charlie says. "About your apartment. You was broken into a few hours ago. I t'ought I heard glass break so's I come downstairs to check. Dey got in trough your back window, but I scared 'em off afore dey got much." He grins and slaps me on the shoulder. "You owe me one, kid. How many landlords is security guards, too?"

I'm starting to relax. I force a smile as I walk up the steps past him.

"You're the best, Charlie."

"Don't I know it. Dey did manage to make off wit your hi-fi an' your records but, hey, you can replace dose wit'out too much trouble."

I turn toward Charlie. I feel the whole world, all the weight of time itself crashing down on me. I can't help it. It comes unbidden, without warning. Charlie's eyes nearly bulge out of his head as I scream a laugh in his face.

PELTS

INTRODUCTION

I closed out 1989 with the only politically correct story I've ever written. I realized "Pelts" was based on a trendy idea but I wrote it anyway. It springs from the same values that fueled the very incorrect "Buckets".

"Where do you get your ideas?" It's a question we're all asked. I can tell you the instant this story began. It was the day I opened a copy of Rolling Stone and saw an ad placed by one of the animal rights groups. It featured an animal (a fox, I think) caught in a leg-restraint trap. In a series of photos it showed a man approach the animal and crush its throat with his heel. The casual brutality of the act sickened and appalled me. I had to say something. And since I speak through my fiction, I began to write.

The working title was "Traps II" and I finished it at the tail end of December. I knew of a dozen anthologies that would take it, but I wanted something special for this story. Then I remembered a letter from Bill Munster (yes, that's his real name) seeking a story for his Footsteps Press chapbook series. I figured that would be a perfect showcase for "Pelts."

Bill did a beautiful job with the chapbook, aided by a wonderfully subtle cover illustration from Jill Bauman. All royalties "Pelts" earns—from the Footsteps edition, the reprint in Steve Jones and Ramsey Campbell's Best New Horror 2, Belgium's Phenix, and other anthologies, a pro rata share from this collection, and any future reprints—go to Friends of Animals. You might consider sending them a check yourself. They're not crazies—they're good people.

PELTS

"I'm scared, Pa."

"Shush!" Pa said, tossing the word over his shoulder as he walked ahead.

Gary shivered in the frozen predawn dimness and scanned the surrounding pines and brush for the thousandth time. He was heading for his twentieth year and knew he shouldn't be getting the willies like this but he couldn't help it. He didn't like this place.

"What if we get caught?"

"Only way we'll get caught is if you keep yappin', boy," Pa said. "We're almost there. Wouldna brought you along 'cept I can't do all the carryin' myself! Now hesh up!"

Their feet crunched through the half-inch shroud of frozen snow that layered the sandy ground. Gary pressed his lips tightly together, kept an extra-tight grip on the Louisville Slugger, and followed Pa through the brush. But he didn't like this one bit. Not that he didn't favor hunting and trapping. He liked them fine. Loved them, in fact. But he and Pa were on Zeb Foster's land today. And everybody knew that was bad news.

Old Foster owned thousands of acres in the Jersey Pine Barrens and didn't allow nobody to hunt them. Had "Posted" signs all around the perimeter.

Always been that way with the Fosters. Pa said old Foster's grandpa had started the no-trespassing foolishness and that the family was likely to hold to the damn stupid tradition till Judgment Day. Pa didn't think he should be fenced out of any part of the Barrens. Gary could go along with that most anywheres except old Foster's property.

There were stories . . . tales of the Jersey Devil roaming the woods here, of people poaching Foster's land and never being seen again. Those who disappeared weren't fools from Newark or Trenton who regularly got lost in the Pines and wandered in circles till they died. These were experienced trackers and hunters, Pineys just like Pa . . . and Gary.

Never seen again.

"Pa, what if we don't come out of here?" He hated the whiny sound in his voice and tried to change it. "What if somethin' gets us?"

"Ain't nothin' gonna get us! Didn't I come in here yesterday and set the traps? And didn't I come out okay?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Yeah, but nothin'\ The Fosters done a good job of spreadin' stories for generations to scare folk off. But they don't scare me. I know bullshit when I hear it."

"Is it much farther?"

"No. Right yonder over the next rise. A whole area crawlin' with coon tracks."

Gary noticed they were passing through a thick line of calf-high vegetation, dead now; looked as if it's been dark and ferny before winterkill had turned it brittle. It ran off straight as a hunting arrow into the scrub pines on either side of them.

"Looky this, Pa. Look how straight this stuff runs. Almost like it was planted."

Pa snorted. "That wasn't planted. That's spleenwort—ebony spleen- wort. Only place it grows around here is where somebody's used lime to set footings for a foundation. Soil's too acid for it otherwise. Find it growin' over all the vanished towns."

Gary knew there were lots of vanished towns in the Barrens, but this must have been one hell of a foundation. It was close to six feet wide and ran as far as he could see in either direction.

"What you think used to stand here, Pa?"

"Who knows, who cares? People was buildin' in the Barrens afore the

Revolutionary War. And I hear tell there was crumblin' ruins already here when the Indians arrived. There's some real old stuff around these parts but we ain't about to dig it up. We're here for coon. Now hesh up till we get to the traps!"

* * *

Gary couldn't believe their luck. Every damn leghold trap had a coon in it! Big fat ones with thick, silky coats the likes of which he'd never seen. A few were already dead, but most of them were still alive, lying on their sides, their black eyes wide with fear and pain; panting, bloody, exhausted from trying to pull loose from the teeth of the traps, still tugging weakly at the chains that linked the trap to its stake.

He and Pa took care of the tuckered-out ones first by crushing their throats. Gary flipped them onto their backs and watched their striped tails come up protectively over their bellies. I ain't after your belly, Mr. Coon. He put his heel right over the windpipe, and kicked down hard. If he was in the right spot he heard a satisfying crunch as the cartilage collapsed. The coons wheezed and thrashed and flopped around awhile in the traps trying to draw some air past the crushed spot but soon enough they choked to death. Gary had had some trouble doing the throat crush when he started at it years ago, but he was used to it by now. It was just the way it was done. All the trappers did it.

But you couldn't try that on the ones that still had some pepper in them. They wouldn't hold still enough for you to place your heel. That was where the Gary and his Slugger came in. He swung at one as it snapped at him.

"The head! The head, dammit!" Pa yelled.

"Awright, awright!"

"Don't mess the pelts!"

Some of those coons were tough suckers. Took at least half a dozen whacks each with the Slugger to kill them dead. They'd twist and squeal and squirm around and it wasn't easy to pound a direct hit on the head every single time. But they weren't going nowhere, not with one of their legs caught in a steel trap.

By the time he and Pa reached the last trap, Gary's bat was drippy red up to the taped grip, and his bag was so heavy he could barely lift it. Pa's was just about full too.

"Damn!" Pa said, standing over the last trap. "Empty!" Then he knelt for a closer look. "No, wait! Lookit that! It's been sprung! The paw's still in it! Musta chewed it off!"

Gary heard a rustle in the brush to his right and caught a glimpse of a gray-and-black-striped tail slithering away.

"There it is!"

"Get it!"

Gary dropped the sack and went after the last coon. No sweat. It was missing one of its rear paws and left a trail of blood behind on the snow wherever it went. He came upon it within twenty feet. A fat one, waddling and gimping along as fast as its three legs would carry it. He swung but the coon partially dodged the blow and squalled as the bat glanced off its skull. The next shot got it solid but it rolled away. Gary kept after it through the brush, hitting it again and again, until his arms got tired. He counted nearly thirty strokes before he got in a good one. The big coon rolled over and looked at him with glazed eyes, blood running from its ears. He saw the nipples on its belly—a female. As he lifted the Slugger again, it raised its two front paws over its face—an almost human gesture that made him hesitate for a second. Then he clocked her with a winner. He bashed her head ten more times for good measure to make sure she wouldn't be going anywhere. The snow around her was splattered with red by the time he was done.

As he lifted her by her tail to take her back, he got a look at the mangled stump of her hind leg. Chewed off. God, you really had to want to get free to do something like that.

He carried her back to Pa, passing all the other splotches of crimson along the way. Looked like some bloody-footed giant had stomped through here.

"Whooeee!" Pa said when he saw the last one. "That's a beauty! They're all beauties! Gary, m'boy, we're gonna have money to burn when we sell these!"

Gary glanced at the sun as he tossed the last one into the sack. It was rising brightly into a clear sky.

"Maybe we shouldn't spend it until we get off Foster's land."

"You're right," Pa said, looking uneasy for the first time. "I'll come back tomorrow and rebait the traps." He slapped Gary on the back. "We found ourselfs a gold mine, son!"

Gary groaned under the weight of the sack, but he leaned forward and struck off toward the sun. He wanted to be gone from here. Quick like.

"I'll lead the way, Pa."

* * *

"Look at these!" Pa said, holding up two pelts by their tails. "Thick as can be and not a scar or a bald spot anywhere to be seen! Primes, every single one of them!"

He swayed as he stood by the skinning table. He'd been nipping at the applejack bottle steadily during the daylong job of cutting, stripping, and washing the pelts, and now he was pretty near blitzed. Gary had taken the knife from Pa early on, doing all the cutting himself and leaving the stripping for the old man. You didn't have to be sober for stripping. Once the cuts were made—that was the hard part—a strong man could rip the pelt off like husking an ear of corn.

"Yeah," Gary said. "They're beauts all right. Full winter coats."

The dead of winter was, naturally, the best time to trap any fur animal. That was when the coats were the thickest. And these were thick. Gary couldn't remember seeing anything like these pelts. The light gray fur seemed to glow a pale metallic blue when the light hit it right. Touching it gave him a funny warm feeling inside. Made him want to find a woman and ride her straight on till morning.

The amazing thing was that they were all identical. No one was going to have to dye these babies to make a coat. They all matched perfectly, like these coons had been one big family.

These were going to make one hell of a beautiful full-length coat.

"Jake's gonna love these!" Pa said. "And he's gonna pay pretty for 'em, too!"

"Did you get hold of him?" Gary asked, thinking of the shotgun he wanted to buy.

"Yep. Be round first thing in the morning."

"Great, Pa. Whyn't you hit the sack and I'll clean up round here."

"You sure?"

“Sure.”

"You're all right, son," Pa said. He clapped him on the shoulder and staggered for the door.

Gary shivered in the cold blast of wind that dashed past Pa on his way out of the barn. He got up and threw another log into the pot-bellied stove squatting in the corner, then surveyed the scene.

There really wasn't all that much left to be done. The furs had all been washed and all but a few were tacked up on the drying boards. The guts had been tossed out, and the meat had been put in the cold shed to feed to the dogs during the next few weeks. So all he had to—

Gary's eyes darted to the bench. Had something moved there? He watched a second but all was still. Yet he could have sworn one of the un- stretched pelts piled there had moved. He rubbed his eyes and grinned.

Long day.

He went to the bench and spread out the remaining half dozen before stretching them. Most times they'd nail their catches to the barn door, but these were too valuable for that. He ran his hands over them. God, these were special. Never had he seen coon fur this thick and soft. That warm, peaceful, horny feeling slipped over him again. On a lark, he draped it over his arm. What a coat this was gonna—

The pelt moved, rippled. In a single swift smooth motion its edges curled and wrapped snugly around his forearm. A gush of horror dribbled away before he could react, drowned in a flood of peace and tranquility.

Nothing unusual here. Everything was all right... all right.

He watched placidly as the three remaining unstretched furs rippled and began to move toward him. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with the way they crawled over his hands and wrists and wrapped themselves around his arms. Perfectly natural. He smiled. Looked like he had caveman arms.

It was time to go back to the house. He got up and started walking. On the way out the door, he picked up the Louisville Slugger.

* * *

Pa was snoring.

Gary poked him with the bat and called to him. His own voice seemed to come from far away.

"Pa! Wake up, Pa!"

Finally Pa stirred and opened his bloodshot eyes. "What is it, boy? What the hell you want?"

Gary lifted the bat over his head. Pa screamed and raised his hands to protect himself, much like that last coon this morning. Gary swung the bat with everything he had and got Pa on the wrist and over the right ear as he tried to roll away. Pa grunted and stiffened, but Gary didn't wait to see what happened. He swung again. And again. And again, counting. His arms weren't tired at all. The pelts snuggling around them seemed to give him strength. Long before the fortieth swing, Pa's head and brains were little more than a huge smear of currant jelly across the pillows.

Then he turned and headed for the back door.

Back in the barn, he stood by the stretching boards and looked down at the gore-smeared bat, clutched tightly now in both of his fists. A small part of him screamed a warning but the rest of him knew that everything was all right. Everything was fine. Everything was—

He suddenly rotated his wrists and forearms and smashed the bat against his face. He staggered back and would have screamed if his throat had only let him. His nose and forehead were in agony! But everything was all right—

No! Everything was not all right! This was—

He hit himself again with the bat and felt his right cheek cave in. And again, and again. The next few blows smeared his nose and took out his eyes. He was blind now, but the damn bat wouldn't stop!

He fell backward onto the floor but still he kept battering his own head. He heard his skull splinter. But still he couldn't stop that damn bat!

And the pain! He should have been knocked cold by the first whack but he was still conscious. He felt everything.

He prayed he died before the bat hit him forty times.

II

No one answered his knocking at the house—house, shmouse, it was a hovel—so Jake Feldman headed for the barn. The cold early morning air chilled the inexorably widening bald spot that commanded the top of his scalp; he wrapped his unbuttoned overcoat around his ample girth and quickened his pace as much as he dared over the icy, rutted driveway.

Old man Jameson had said he'd come by some outstanding pelts. Pelts of such quality that Jake would be willing to pay ten times the going price to have them. Out of the goodness of Jameson's heart and because of their long-standing business relationship, he was going to give Jake first crack at them. Right.

But the old Piney gonif’s genuine enthusiasm had intrigued Jake. Jameson was no bullshitter. Maybe he really had something unique. And maybe not.

This better be worth it, he thought as he pulled open the barn door. He didn't have time to traipse down to the Jersey Pine Barrens on a wild goose chase.

The familiar odor of dried blood hit him as he opened the barn door. Not unexpected. Buy fresh pelts at the source for a while and you soon got used to the smell. What was unexpected was how cold it was in the barn. The lights were on but the wood stove was cold. Pelts would freeze if they stayed in this temperature too long.

Then he saw them—all lined up, all neatly nailed out on the stretching boards. The fur shimmered, reflecting glints of opalescence from the incandescent bulbs above and the cold fire of the morning light pouring through the open door behind him. They were exquisite. Magnificent!

Jake Feldman knew fur. He'd spent almost forty of his fifty-five years in the business, starting as a cutter and working his way up till he found the chutzpah to start his own factory. In all those years he had never seen anything like these pelts.

My God, Jameson, where did you get them and are there any more where these came from ?

Jake approached the stretching boards and touched the pelts. He had to. Something about them urged his fingers forward. So soft, so shimmery, so incredibly beautiful. Jake had seen, touched, and on occasion even cut the very finest Siberian sable pelts from Russia. But they were nothing compared to these. These were beyond quality. These were beautiful in a way that was almost scary, almost.. . supernatural.

Then he saw the boots. Big, gore-encrusted rubber boots sticking out from under one of the stretching boards. Nothing unusual about that except for their position. They lay on the dirt floor with their toes pointing toward the ceiling at different angles, like the hands of a clock reading five after ten. Boots simply didn't lie like that . . . unless there were feet in them.

Jake bent and saw denim-sheathed legs running up from the boots. He smiled. One of the Jamesons—either old Jeb or young Gary. Jake bet on the elder. A fairly safe bet seeing as how old Jeb loved his Jersey lightning.

"Hey, old man," he said as he squeezed between two of the stretching boards to get behind. "What're you doing back there? You'll catch your death of—"

The rest of the sentence clogged in Jake's throat as he looked down at the corpse. All he could see at first was the red. The entire torso was drenched in clotted blood—the chest, the arms, the shoulders the—dear Lord, the head! There was almost nothing left of the head! The face and the whole upper half of the skull had been smashed to a red, oozing pulp from which the remnant of an eye and some crazily angled teeth protruded. Only a patch of smooth, clean-shaven cheek identified the corpse as Gary, not Jeb.

But who could have done this? And why? More frightening than the sight of the corpse was Jake's sudden grasp of the ungovernable fury behind all the repeated blows it must have taken to cave in Gary's head like that. With what—that baseball bat? And after pounding him so mercilessly, had the killer wrapped Gary's dead fingers around the murder weapon? What sick—?

Jeb! Where was old Jeb? Surely he'd had nothing to do with this!

Calling the old man's name, Jake ran back up to the house. His cries went unanswered. The back door was open. He stood on the stoop, calling out again. Only silence greeted him. The shack had an empty feeling to it. That was the only reason Jake stepped inside.

It didn't take him long to find the bedroom. And what was left of Jeb.

A moment later Jake stood panting and retching in the stretch between the house and the barn.

Dead! Both dead!

More than dead—battered, crushed, smeared\ . . . but those pelts. Even with the horrors of what he'd just seen raging through his mind, he couldn't stop thinking about those pelts.

Exquisite!

Jake ran to his car, backed it up to the barn door, popped the trunk. It took him a while but eventually he got all the pelts off the stretching boards and into his trunk. He found a couple of loose ones on the floor near Gary's body and he grabbed those too.

And then he roared away down the twin ruts that passed for a road in these parts. He felt bad about leaving the two corpses like that, but there was nothing he could do to help the Jamesons. He'd call the State Police from the Parkway. Anonymously.

But he had the pelts. That was the important thing.

And he knew exactly what he was going to do with them.

* * *

After getting the pelts safely back to his factory in New York's garment district, Jake immediately went about turning them into a coat. He ran into only one minor snag and that was at the beginning: The Asians among his cutters refused to work with them. A couple of them took one look at the pelts and made a wide-eyed, screaming dash from the factory.

That shook him up for a little while, but he recovered quickly enough. Once he got things organized, he personally supervised every step: the cleaning and softening, the removal of the guard hairs, the letting-out process in which he actually took a knife in hand and crosscut a few pelts himself, just as he'd done when he started in the business; he oversaw the sewing of the let-out strips and the placement of the thousands of nails used in tacking out the fur according to the pattern.

With the final stitching of the silk lining nearing completion, Jake allowed himself to relax. Even unfinished, the coat—That Coat, as he'd come to call it—was stunning, unutterably beautiful. In less than an hour he was going to be the owner of the world's most extraordinary raccoon coat. Extraordinary not simply because of its unique sheen and texture, but because you couldn't tell it was raccoon. Even the cutters and tackers in his factory had been fooled; they'd agreed that the length of the hair and size of the pelts were similar to raccoon, but none of them had ever seen raccoon like this, or any fur like this.

Jake wished to hell he knew where Jameson had trapped them. He'd be willing to pay almost anything for a regular supply of those pelts. What he could sell those coats for!

But he had only one coat now, and he wasn't going to sell it. No way. This baby was going to be an exhibition piece. It was going to put Fell Furs on the map. He'd bring it to the next international show and blow the crowd away. The whole industry would be buzzing about That Coat. And Fell Furs would be known as the company with That Coat.

And God knew the company needed a boost. Business was down all over the industry. Jake couldn't remember furs ever being discounted as deeply as they were now. The animal lovers were having a definite impact. Well, hell, he was an animal lover too. Didn't he have a black lab at home?

But animal love stopped at the bottom line, bubby.

If he played it right, That Coat would turn things around for Fell Furs. But he needed the right model to strut it.

And he knew just who to call.

He sat in his office and dialed Shanna's home number. Even though shed just moved, he didn't have to look it up. He knew it by heart already. He should have. He'd dialed it enough times.

Shanna ... a middle-level model he'd seen at a fur show two years ago. The shoulder-length black hair with the long bangs, the white skin and knockout cheekbones, onyx eyes that promised everything. And her body—Shanna had a figure that set her far apart from the other beanpoles in the field. Jake hadn't been able to get her out of his mind since. He wanted her but it seemed like a lost cause. He always felt like some sort of warty frog next to her, and that was just how she treated him. He'd approached her countless times and each of those times he'd been rebuffed. He didn't want to own her, he just wanted to be near her, to touch her once in a while. And who knew? Maybe he'd grow on her.

At least not he had a chance. That Coat would open the door. This time would be different. He could feel it.

Her voice, soft and inviting, came on the line after the third ring.

"Yes?"

"Shanna, it's me. Jake Feldman."

"Oh." The drop in temperature within that single syllable spoke volumes. "What do you want, Jake?"

"I have a business proposition for you, Shanna."

Her voice grew even cooler. "I've heard your propositions before. I'm not the least—"

"This is straight down the line business," he said quickly. "I've got a coat for you. I want you to wear it at the international show next week."

"I don't know." She seemed the tiniest bit hesitant now. "It's been a while since I've done a fur show."

"You'll want to do them again when you see this coat. Believe me."

Maybe some of his enthusiasm for the coat was coming over the phone. Jake sensed a barely detectable thaw in her voice.

"Well. . . call the agency."

"I will. But I want you to see this coat first. You've got to see it."

"Really, Jake—"

"You've got to see it. I'll bring it right down."

He hung up before she could tell him no and hurried out to the workroom. As soon as the last knot was tied in the last stitch he boxed That Coat and headed for the door.

"What kind of coat you buy, Mister?" someone said as soon as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Oh, shit. Animal lovers. A bunch of them holding signs, milling around outside his showroom.

Somebody shoved a placard in his face:

The only one who can wear a fur

coat gracefully and beautifully

is the animal to whom it belongs.

"How many harmless animals were trapped and beaten to death to make it?" said a guy with a beard. "How many electrocuted up the ass?"

"Fuck off!" Jake said. "You're wearing leather shoes, aren't you?"

The guy smiled, "Actually, I'm wearing sneakers, but even if they were leather it wouldn't be for pure vanity. Cows are in the human food chain. Beavers, minks, and baby seals are not."

"So what?"

"It's one thing for animals to die to provide food—that's the law of nature. It's something entirely different to kill animals so you can steal their beauty by draping yourself with their skins. Animals shouldn't suffer and die to feed human vanity."

A chant began.

"Vanity! Vanity! Vanity..."

Jake flipped them all the bird and grabbed a cab downtown.

* * *

Such a beautiful girl living in a place like this, Jake thought as he entered the lobby of the converted TriBeCa warehouse where Shanna had just bought a condo. Probably paid a small fortune for it too. Just because it was considered a chic area of town.

At the "Elevator" sign he found himself facing a steel panel studded with rivets. Not sure of what to do, he tried a pull on the lever under the sign. With a clank the steel panel split horizontally, dividing into a pair of huge metal doors that opened vertically, the top one sliding upward, the bottom sinking. An old freight elevator. Inside he figured out how to get the contraption to work and rode the noisy open car up to the third level.

Stepping out on the third floor he found a door marked 3B straight ahead of him. That was Shanna's. He knocked, heard footsteps approaching.

"Who's there?" said a muffled voice from the other side. Shanna's voice.

"It's me, Jake. I brought the coat."

"I told you to call the agency."

Even through the door he could sense her annoyance. This wasn't going well. He spotted the glass lens in the door and that gave him an idea.

"Look through your peephole, Shanna."

He pulled That Coat from the box. The fur seemed to ripple against his hands as he lifted it. A few unused letting-out strips fell from the sleeve, landing in the box. They looked like furry caterpillars; a couple of them even seemed to move on their own. Strange. They shouldn't have been in the coat. He shrugged it off. It didn't matter. That Coat was all that mattered. And getting past Shanna's door.

"Just take a gander at this coat. Try one peek at this beauty and then tell me you don't want to take a closer look."

He heard the peephole cover move on the other side. Ten seconds later, the door opened. Shanna stood there staring. He caught his breath at the sight of her. Even without makeup, wearing an old terry cloth robe, she was beautiful. But her wide eyes were oblivious to him. They were fixed on That Coat. She seemed to be in a trance.

"Jake, it's . .. it's beautiful. Can I. . . ?"

As she reached for it, Jake dropped the fur back into its box and slid by her into the apartment.

"Try it on in here. The light's better."

She followed him into the huge, open, loftlike space that made up the great room of her condo. Too open for Jake's tastes. Ceilings too high, not enough walls. And still not finished yet. The paperhangers were halfway through a bizarre mural on one wall; their ladders and tools were stacked by the door.

He turned and held That Coat open for her.

"Here, Shanna. I had it made in your size."

She turned and slipped her arms into the sleeves. As Jake settled it over her shoulders he noticed a few of those leftover fur strips clinging to the coat. He plucked them off and bunched them into his palm to discard later. Then he stepped back to look at her. The fur had been breathtaking before, but Shanna enhanced its beauty. And vice versa. The two of them seemed made for each other. The effect brought tears to Jake's eyes.

She glided over to a mirrored wall and did slow turns, again and again. Rapture glowed in her face. Finally she turned to him, eyes bright.

"You don't have to call the agency," she said. "I'll call. I want to show this coat."

Jake suddenly realized that he was in a much better bargaining position than he had ever imagined. Shanna no longer had the upper hand. He did. He decided to raise the stakes.

"Of course you do," he said offhandedly. "And there's a good chance you'll be the model we finally settle on."

Her face showed concern for the first time since she'd laid eyes on the coat.

" A good chance'?" What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, there are other models who're very interested. We have to give them a chance to audition."

She wrapped the fur more tightly around her.

"I don't want anyone else wearing this coat!"

"Well. . ."

Slowly Shanna pulled open the coat, untied the terry cloth robe beneath it, and pulled that open too. She wore nothing under the robe. Jake barely noticed her smile.

"Believe me," she said in that honey voice, "this is the only audition you'll need."

Jake's mouth was suddenly too dry to speak. He could not take his eyes off her breasts. He reached for the buttons on his own coat and found the fur strips in his right hand. As he went to throw them away, he felt them move, wiggling like furry worms. When he looked, they had wrapped themselves around his fingers.

Tranquillity seeped through him like fine red wine. It didn't seem odd that the strips should move. Perfectly natural. Funny even.

Look. I've got fur rings.

He pulled at his coat and shirts until he was bare from the waist up. Then he realized he needed to be alone for a minute.

"Where's your bathroom?"

"That door behind you."

He needed something sharp. Why?

"Do you have a knife? A sharp one?" The words seemed to form on their own.

Her expression was quizzical, "I think so. The paperhangers were using razor blades—"

"That'll be fine." He went to the workbench and found the utility knife, then headed for the bathroom. "I'll only be a minute. Wait for me in the bedroom."

What am I doing?

In the bathroom he stood before the mirror with the utility knife gripped in the fur-wrapped fingers of his right hand. A sudden wave of cold shuddered through him. He felt half-frozen, trapped, afraid. Then he saw old Jameson's whiskered face, huge in the mirror, saw his monstrous foot ram toward him. Jake gagged with the crushing pain in his throat, he was suffocating, God, he couldn't breathe—!

And then just as suddenly he was fine again. Everything was all right. He pushed the upper corner of the utility blade through the skin at the top of his breastbone, just deep enough the pierce its full thickness through to the fatty layer beneath. Then he drew the blade straight down the length of his sternum. When he reached the top of his abdomen he angled the cut to the right, following the line of the bottom rib across his flank. He heard the tendons and ligaments in his shoulder joint creak and pop in protest as his hand extended the cut all the way around his waist to his back, but he felt no pain, not from the shoulder, not even from the gash that had begun to bleed so freely. Something within him was screaming in horror but it was far away. Everything was all right here. Everything was fine.

When he had extended the first cut all the way back to his spine he switched the blade to his left hand and made a similar cut from the front toward the left, meeting the first cut at the rear near the base of his spine. Then he made a circular cut around each shoulder—over the top and through the armpit. Then another all the way around his neck. When that was done, he gripped the edges on each side of the incision he had made over the breastbone and yanked. Amid sprays of red, the skin began to pull free of the underlying tissue.

Everything was all right... all right. . .

Jake kept tugging.

III

Where the hell is he?

Wrapped in the coat, Shanna stood before her bedroom mirror and waited for Jake.

She wasn't looking forward to this. No way. The thought of that flabby white body flopping around on top of her made her a little ill, but she was going through with it. Nothing was going to keep her from wearing this fur.

She snuggled the coat closer about her but it kept falling away, almost as if it didn't want to touch her. Silly thought.

She did a slow turn before the mirror.

Looking good, Shanna!

This was it. This was one of those moments you hear about when your whole future hinges on a single decision. Shanna knew what that decision had to be. Her career was stalled short of the top. She was making good money but she wanted more—she wanted her face recognized everywhere. And this coat was going to get her that recognition. A couple of international shows and she'd be known the world over as the girl in the fabulous fur. From then on she could write her own ticket.

In spite of her queasy stomach, Shanna allowed herself a sour smile. This wouldn't be the first time she'd spread to get something she wanted. Jake Feldman had been leching after her for years; if letting him get his jollies on her a couple of times assured her of exclusive rights to model his coat, tonight might be the last time she ever had to spread for anyone like Jake Feldman.

What was he doing in the bathroom—papering it? She wished he'd get out of there and get this over with. Then she could—

She heard the bathroom door open, heard his footsteps in the great room. He was shuffling.

"In here, Jake!" she called.

Quickly she pulled free of the coat long enough to shed the robe, then slipped back into it and stretched out on the bed. She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on one elbow but the fur kept falling away from her. Well, that was okay too. She left it open, arranging the coat so that her best stuff was displayed to the max. She knew all the provocative poses. She'd done her share of nudie sessions to pay her bills between those early fashion assignments.

Outside the door the shuffling steps were drawing closer. What was he doing—walking around with his pants around his ankles?

"Hurry up, honey! I'm waiting for you!'

Let's get this show on the road, you fat slob!

Suddenly she was cold, her leg hurt, she saw a boyish-faced giant looming over her with a raised club, saw it come crashing down on her head. As she began to scream she suddenly found herself back in her condo, sprawled on her bed with the fur.

Jake was shuffling through the door.

Shanna's mind dimly registered that he was holding something, but her attention was immediately captured by the red. Jake was all red—dripping red—his pants, the skin of his arm, his bare—

Oh God it was blood! He was covered with blood! And his chest and upper abdomen—they were the bloodiest. Christ! The skin was gone! Gone! Like someone had ripped the hide off his upper torso.

"I. . ." His voice was hoarse. A croak. His eyes were wide and glazed as he shuffled toward her. "I made this vest for you."

And then Shanna looked at what he held out to her, what drooped from his bloody fingers—fingers that seemed to be covered with fur.

It was indeed a vest. A white, blood-streaked, sleeveless vest. Between the streaks of blood she could see the wiry chest hairs straggling across the front. . . whorling around the nipples.

Shanna screamed and rolled off the bed, hugging the coat around her. She wished she could have pulled it over her head to hide the sight of him.

"It's for you," he said, continuing his shuffled toward her. "You can wear it under the coat. . ."

Whimpering in fear and revulsion, Shanna ran around the bed and dashed for the door. She ran across the great room and out into the hall. The elevator! She had to get away from that man, that thing who'd cut his skin into a—

The shuffling. He was coming!

She pressed the down button, pounded on it. Behind the steel door she heard the winches whir to life. The elevator was on its way. She turned and gagged as she saw Jake come though her apartment door and approach her, leaving a trail of red behind him, holding the bloody skin out as if expecting her to slip her arms through the openings.

A clank behind her. She turned, pulled the lever that opened the heavy steel doors, and leaped inside. An upward push on the inner lever brought the outer doors down with a deafening clang, shutting out the sight of Jake and his hideous offering.

Clutching the coat around her bare body Shanna sank to her knees and began to sob.

God, what was happening here? Why had Jake cut his skin off like that? How had he done it?

"Shanna, please," said the croaking voice from the other side of the doors. "I made it for you."

And then the doors started to open! Before her eyes a horizontal slit was opening between the outer doors, and two bloody arms with fur-wrapped fingers were thrusting the loathsome vest toward her through the gap.

Shanna's scream echoed up and down the open elevator shaft as she hit the Down button. The car lurched and started to sink.

Thank you, God!

But the third floor doors continued to open. As she passed the second floor and continued her descent, Shanna's eyes were irresistibly drawn upward. Through the open ceiling of the car she watched the ever-widening gap, watched as the two protruding arms and the vest were joined by Jake's head and upper torso.

"Shanna! It's for you!"

The car stopped with a jolt. First floor. Shanna yanked up the safety grate and pulled the lever. Five seconds . . . five seconds and she'd be running for the street, for the cops. As the outer doors slowly parted, that voice echoed again through the elevator shaft.

"Shanna!"

She chanced one last look upward.

The third-floor doors had retracted to the floor and ceiling lines. Most of Jake's torso seemed to be hanging over the edge.

"It's for—"

He leaned too far.

Oh, shit, he's falling!

"—yooooouuuuu!"

Shanna's high-pitched scream of "Noooo!" blended with Jake's voice in a fearful harmony that ended with his head striking the upper edge of the elevator car's rear wall. As the rest of his body whipped around in a wild, blood-splattering, pinwheeling sprawl, his shoed foot slammed against Shanna's head, knocking her back against the door lever. Half-dazed, she watched the steel doors reverse their opening motion.

"No!"

And Jake . .. Jake was still moving, crawling toward her an inch at a time on twisted arms, broken legs, his shattered head raised, trying to speak, still clutching the vest in one hand, still offering it to her.

The coat seemed to ripple around her, moving on its own. She had to get out of here!

The doors! Shanna lunged for the opening, reaching toward the light from the deserted front foyer. She could make it through if—

She slipped on the blood, went down on one knee, still reaching as the steel doors slammed down on her wrist. Shanna heard her bones crunch as pain beyond anything she had ever known ran up her arm. She would have screamed but the agony had stolen her voice. She tried to pull free but she was caught, tried to reach the lever but it was a good foot beyond her grasp.

Something touched her foot. Jake—it was what was left of Jake holding his vest out to her with one hand, caressing her bare foot with one of the fur strips wrapped around the fingers of his other hand. She kicked at him, slid herself away from him. She couldn't let him get near her. He'd want to put that vest on her, want to try to do other things to her. And she was bare-ass naked under this coat. She had to get free, get free of these doors, anything to get free!

She began chewing at the flesh of her trapped wrist, tearing at it, unmindful of the greater pain, of the running blood. It seemed the natural thing to do, the only thing to do.

Free!

She had to get to get free!

IV

Juanita wasn't having much luck tonight. She'd just pushed her shopping cart with all her worldly belongings the length of a narrow alley looking for a safe place to huddle for the night, an alcove or deep doorway, someplace out of sight and out of the wind. A good alley, real potential, but it was already occupied by someone very drunk and very nasty. She'd moved on.

Cold. Really felt the cold these days. Didn't know how old she was but knew that her bones creaked and her back hurt and she couldn't stand the cold like she used to. If she could find a place to hide her cart, maybe she could sneak into the subway for the night. Always warmer down there. But when she came up top again all her things might be gone.

Didn't want to be carted off to no shelter, neither. Even a safe one. Didn't like being closed in, and once they got you into those places they never let you go till morning. Liked to come and go as she pleased. Besides, she got confused indoors and her mind wouldn't work straight. She was an outdoors person. That was where she did her clearest thinking, where she intended to stay.

As she turned a corner she spotted all the flashing red and blue lights outside a building she remembered as a warehouse but was now a bunch of apartments. Like a child, she was drawn to the bright, pretty lights to see what was going on.

Took her a while to find out. Juanita allowed herself few illusions. She knew not many people want to explain things to someone who looks like a walking rag pile, but she persisted and eventually managed to pick up half a dozen variations on what had happened inside. All agreed on one thing: a gruesome double murder in the building's elevator involving a naked woman and a half-naked man. After that the stories got crazy. Some said the man had been flayed alive and the woman was wearing his skin, others said the man had cut off the woman's hand, still others said she'd chewed her own hand off.

Enough. Shuddering, Juanita turned and pushed her cart away. She'd gone only a few yards when she spotted movement as she was passing a shadowed doorway. Not human movement; too low to the ground. Looked like an animal but it was too big for a rat, even a New York City rat. Light from a passing EMS wagon glinted off the thing, and Juanita was struck by the thickness of its fur, by the way the light danced and flickered over its surface.

Then she realized it was a coat—a fur coat. Even in the dark she could see that it wasn't some junky fun fur. This was the real thing, a true, blue, top-of-the-line, utterly fabulous fur coat. She grabbed it and held it up. Mira! Even in the dark she could see how lovely it was, how the fur glistened.

She slipped into it. The coat seemed to ripple away from her for a second, then it snuggled against her. Instantly she was warm. So warm. Almost as if the fur was generating its own heat, like an electric blanket. Seemed to draw the cold right out of her bones. Must've been ages since she last felt so toasty. But she forced herself to pull free of it and hold it up again.

Sadly, Juanita shook her head. No good. Too nice. Wear this thing around and someone'd think she was rich and roll her but good. Maybe she could pawn it. But it was probably hot and that would get her busted. Couldn't take being locked up ever again. A shame, though. Such a nice warm coat and she couldn't wear it.

And then she had an idea. She found an alley like the one she'd left before and dropped the coat onto the pavement, fur side down. Then she knelt beside it and began to rub it into the filth. From top to bottom she covered the fur with any grime she could find. Practically cleaned the end of the alley with that coat. Then she held it up again.

Better. Much better. No one would recognize it and hardly anybody would bother trying to take it from her the way it looked now. But what did she care how she looked in it? As long as it served its purpose, that was all she asked. She slipped into it again and once more the warmth enveloped her.

She smiled and felt the wind whistle through the gaps between her teeth.

This is living! she thought. Nothing like a fur to keep you warm. And after all, for those of us who do our living in the outdoors, ain't that what fur is for?

MIDNIGHT MASS

(the novella)

INTRODUCTION

"Midnight Mass" was first published as a separate book by Axolotl Press/ Pulphouse in an edition of fewer than nine hundred copies in 1990.

It was filmed in 2003, with my screenplay and co-written with Tony Mandile, who also directed. Both authors had small parts in the production, which is generally regarded as dreadful, by me, as well, as by all.

I wrote a much-expanded novelization of the screenplay and it was published in 2004 by Tor.

MIDNIGHT MASS

(the novella)

I

It had been almost a full minute since he'd slammed the brass knocker against the heavy oak door. That should have been proof enough. After all, wasn't the knocker in the shape of a cross? But no, they had to squint through their peephole and peer through the sidelights that framed the door.

Rabbi Zev Wolpin sighed and resigned himself to the scrutiny. He couldn't blame people for being cautious, but this seemed a bit overly so. The sun was in the west and shining full on his back; he was all but silhouetted in it. What more did they want?

I should maybe take off my clothes and dance naked?

He gave a mental shrug and savored the damp sea air. At least it was cool here. He'd bicycled from Lakewood, which was only ten miles inland from this same ocean but at least twenty degrees warmer. The bulk of the huge Tudor retreat house stood between him and the Atlantic, but the ocean's briny scent and rhythmic rumble were everywhere.

Spring Lake. An Irish Catholic seaside resort since before the turn of the century. He looked around at its carefully restored Victorian houses, the huge mansions arrayed here along the beach front, the smaller homes set in neat rows running straight back from the ocean. Many of them were still occupied. Not like Lakewood. Lakewood was an empty shell.

Not such a bad place for a retreat, he thought. He wondered how many houses like this the Catholic Church owned.

A series of clicks and clacks drew his attention back to the door as numerous bolts were pulled in rapid succession. The door swung inward revealing a nervous-looking young man in a long black cassock. As he looked at Zev his mouth twisted and he rubbed the back of his wrist across it to hide a smile.

"And what should be so funny?" Zev asked.

"I'm sorry. It's just—"

"I know," Zev said, waving off any explanation as he glanced down at the wooden cross slung on a cord around his neck. "I know."

A bearded Jew in a baggy black serge suit wearing a yarmulke and a cross. Hilarious, no?

So, nu? This was what the times demanded, this was what it had come to if he wanted to survive. And Zev did want to survive. Someone had to live to carry on the traditions of the Talmud and the Torah, even if there were hardly any Jews left alive in the world.

* * *

Zev stood on the sunny porch, waiting. The priest watched him in silence.

Finally Zev said, "Well, may a wandering Jew come in?"

"I won't stop you," the priest said, "but surely you don't expect me to invite you."

Ah, yes. Another precaution. The vampire couldn't cross the threshold of a home unless he was invited in, so don't invite. A good habit to cultivate, he supposed.

He stepped inside and the priest immediately closed the door behind him, relatching all the locks one by one. When he turned around Zev held out his hand.

"Rabbi Zev Wolpin, Father. I thank you for allowing me in."

"Brother Christopher, sir," he said, smiling and shaking Zev's hand. His suspicions seemed to have been completely allayed. "I'm not a priest yet. We can't offer you much here, but—"

"Oh, I won't be staying long. I just came to talk to Father Joseph Cahill."

Brother Christopher frowned. "Father Cahill isn't here at the moment."

"When will he be back?"

"I—I'm not sure. You see—"

"Father Cahill is on another bender," said a stentorian voice behind Zev.

He turned to see an elderly priest facing him from the far end of the foyer. White-haired, heavy set, wearing a black cassock. "I'm Rabbi Wolpin."

"Father Adams," the priest said, stepping forward and extending his hand.

As they shook Zev said, "Did you say he was on 'another' bender? I never knew Father Cahill to be much of a drinker."

"Apparently there was a lot we never knew about Father Cahill," the priest said stiffly.

"If you're referring to that nastiness last year," Zev said, feeling the old anger rise in him, "I for one never believed it for a minute. I'm surprised anyone gave it the slightest credence."

"The veracity of the accusation was irrelevant in the final analysis. The damage to Father Cahill's reputation was a fait accompli. Father Palmeri was forced to request his removal for the good of St. Anthony's parish."

Zev was sure that sort of attitude had something to do with Father Joe being on "another bender."

"Where can I find Father Cahill?"

"He's in town somewhere, I suppose, making a spectacle of himself. If there's any way you can talk some sense into him, please do. Not only is he killing himself with drink but he's become quite an embarrassment to the priesthood and to the Church."

Which bothers you more? Zev wanted to ask but held his tongue. "I'll try."

He waited for Brother Christopher to undo all the locks, then stepped toward the sunlight.

"Try Morton's down on Seventy-one," the younger man whispered as Zev passed.

* * *

Zev rode his bicycle south on 71. It was almost strange to see people on the streets. Not many, but more than he'd ever see in Lakewood again. Yet he knew that as the vampires consolidated their grip on the world and infiltrated the Catholic communities, there'd be fewer and fewer day people here as well.

He thought he remembered passing a place named Morton's on his way to Spring Lake. And then up ahead he saw it, by the railroad track crossing, a white stucco one-story box of a building with "Morton's Liquors" painted in big black letters along the side.

Father Adams' words echoed back to him:. .. on another bender...

Zev pushed his bicycle to the front door and tried the knob. Locked up tight. A look inside showed a litter of trash and empty shelves. The windows were barred; the back door was steel and locked as securely as the front. So where was Father Joe?

Then he spotted the basement window at ground level by the overflowing trash dumpster. It wasn't latched. Zev went down on his knees and pushed it open.

Cool, damp, musty air wafted against his face as he peered into the Stygian blackness. It occurred to him that he might be asking for trouble by sticking his head inside, but he had to give it a try. If Father Cahill wasn't here, Zev would begin the return trek to Lakewood and write this whole trip off as wasted effort.

"Father Joe?" he called. "Father Cahill?"

"That you again, Chris?" said a slightly slurred voice. "Go home, will you? I'll be all right. I'll be back later."

"It's me, Joe. Zev. From Lakewood."

He heard shoes scraping on the floor and then a familiar face appeared in the shaft of light from the window.

"Well I'll be damned. It is you! Thought you were Brother Chris come to drag me back to the retreat house. Gets scared I'm gonna get stuck out after dark. So how ya doin', Reb? Glad to see you're still alive. Come on in!"

Zev saw that Father Cahill's eyes were glassy and he swayed ever so slightly, like a skyscraper in the wind. He wore faded jeans and a black Bruce Springsteen Tunnel of Love Tour sweatshirt.

Zev's heart twisted at the sight of his friend in such condition. Such a mensch like Father Joe shouldn't be acting like a shikker. Maybe it was a mistake coming here. Zev didn't like seeing him like this.

"I don't have that much time, Joe. I came to tell you—"

"Get your bearded ass down here and have a drink or I'll come up and drag you down."

"All right," Zev said. "I'll come in but I won't have a drink."

He hid his bike behind the dumpster, then squeezed through the window. Father Joe helped him to the floor. They embraced, slapping each other on the back. Father Joe was a taller man, a giant from Zev's perspective. At six-four he was ten inches taller; at thirty-five he was a quarter- century younger; he had a muscular frame, thick brown hair, and—on better days—clear blue eyes.

"You're grayer, Zev, and you've lost weight."

"Kosher food is not so easily come by these days."

"All kinds of food is getting scarce." He touched the cross slung from Zev's neck and smiled. "Nice touch.”

Zev fingered the fringe protruding from under his shirt. Old habits didn't die easily.

"Actually, I've grown rather fond of it."

"So what can I pour you?" the priest said, waving an arm at the crates of liquor stacked around him. "My own private reserve. Name your poison."

"I don't want a drink."

"Come on, Reb. I've got some nice hundred- proof Stoly here. You've got to have at least one drink—"

"Why? Because you think maybe you shouldn't drink alone?"

Father Joe smiled. "Touché."

"All right," Zev said. "Bissel. I'll have one drink on the condition that you don't have one. Because I wish to talk to you."

The priest considered that a moment, then reached for the vodka bottle.

"Deal."

He poured a generous amount into a paper cup and handed it over. Zev took a sip. He was not a drinker and when he did imbibe he preferred his vodka ice cold from a freezer. But this was tasty. Father Cahill sat back on a crate of Jack Daniel's and folded his arms.

"Nu?" the priest said with a Jackie Mason shrug.

Zev had to laugh. "Joe, I still say that somewhere in your family tree is Jewish blood."

For a moment he felt light, almost happy. When was the last time he had laughed? Probably more than a year now, probably at their table near the back of Horovitz's deli, shortly before the St. Anthony's nastiness began, well before the vampires came.

* * *

Zev thought of the day they'd met. He'd been standing at the counter at Horovitz's waiting for Yussel to wrap up the stuffed derma he had ordered when this young giant walked in. He towered over the other rabbis in the place, looked as Irish as Paddy's pig, and wore a Roman collar. He said he'd heard this was the only place on the whole Jersey Shore where you could get a decent corned beef sandwich. He ordered one and cheerfully warned that it better be good. Yussel asked him what could he know about good corned beef and the priest replied that he grew up in Bensonhurst. Well, about the half the people in Horovitz's on that day—and on any other day for that matter— grew up in Bensonhurst and before you knew it they were all asking him if he knew such-and-such a store and so-and-so's deli.

Zev then informed the priest—with all due respect to Yussel Horovitz behind the counter— that the best corned beef sandwich in the world was to be had at Shmuel Rosenberg's Jerusalem Deli in Bensonhurst. Father Cahill said he'd been there and agreed one hundred per cent.

Yussel served him his sandwich then. As he took a huge bite out of the corned beef on rye, the normal tummel of a deli at lunchtime died away until Horovitz's was as quiet as a shoul on Sunday morning. Everyone watched him chew, watched him swallow. Then they waited. Suddenly his face broke into this big Irish grin.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to change my vote," he said. "Horovitz's of Lakewood makes the best corned beef sandwich in the world."

Amid cheers and warm laughter, Zev led Father Cahill to the rear table that would become theirs and sat with this canny and charming gentile who had so easily won over a roomful of strangers and provided such a mechaieh for Yussel. He learned that the young priest was the new assistant to Father Palmeri, the pastor at St. Anthony's Catholic church at the northern end of Lakewood. Father Palmeri had been there for years but Zev had never so much as seen his face. He asked Father Cahill— who wanted to be called Joe—about life in Brooklyn these days and they talked for an hour.

* * *

During the following months they would run into each other so often at Horovitz's that they decided to meet regularly for lunch, on Mondays and Thursdays. They did so for years, discussing religion—Oy, the religious discussions!—politics, economics, philosophy, life in general. During those lunchtimes they solved most of the world's problems. Zev was sure they'd have solved them all if the scandal at St. Anthony's hadn't resulted in Father Joe's removal from the parish.

But that was in another time, another world. The world before the vampires took over.

Zev shook his head as he considered the current state of Father Joe in the dusty basement of Morton's Liquors.

"It's about the vampires, Joe," he said, taking another sip of the Stoly. "They've taken over St. Anthony's."

Father Joe snorted and shrugged.

"They're in the majority now, Zev, remember? They've taken over everything. Why should St. Anthony's be different from any other parish in the world?"

"I didn't mean the parish. I meant the church."

The priest's eyes widened slighdy. "The church? They've taken over the building itself?"

"Every night," Zev said. "Every night they are there."

"That's a holy place. How do they manage that?"

"They've desecrated the altar, destroyed all the crosses. St. Anthony's is no longer a holy place."

"Too bad," Father Joe said, looking down and shaking his head sadly. "It was a fine old church." He looked up again, at Zev. "How do you know about what's going on at St. Anthony's? It's not exactly in your neighborhood."

"A neighborhood I don't exactly have any more."

Father Joe reached over and gripped his shoulder with a huge hand.

"I'm sorry, Zev. I heard how your people got hit pretty hard over there. Sitting ducks, huh? I'm really sorry."

Sitting ducks. An appropriate description. Oh, they'd been smart, those bloodsuckers. They knew their easiest targets. Whenever they swooped into an area they singled out Jews as their first victims, and among Jews they picked the Orthodox first of the first. Smart. Where else would they be less likely to run up against a cross? It worked for them in Brooklyn, and so when they came south into New Jersey, spreading like a plague, they headed straight for the town with one of the largest collections of yeshivas in North America.

But after the Bensonhurst holocaust the people in the Lakewood communities did not take quite so long to figure out what was happening. The Reformed and Conservative synagogues started handing out crosses at Shabbes—too late for many but it saved a few. Did the Orthodox congregations follow suit? No. They hid in their homes and shules and yeshivas and read and prayed.

And were liquidated.

A cross, a crucifix—they held power over the vampires, drove them away. His fellow rabbis did not want to accept that simple fact because they could not face its devastating ramifications. To hold up a cross was to negate two thousand years of Jewish history, it was to say that the Messiah had come and they had missed him.

Did it say that? Zev didn't know. Argue about it later. Right now, people were dying. But the rabbis had to argue it now. And as they argued, their people were slaughtered like cattle.

How Zev railed at them, how he pleaded with them! Blind, stubborn fools! If a fire was consuming your house, would you refuse to throw water on it just because you'd always been taught not to believe in water? Zev had arrived at the rabbinical council wearing a cross and had been thrown out—literally sent hurtling through the front door. But at least he had managed to save a few of his own people. Too few.

He remembered his fellow Orthodox rabbis, though. All the ones who had refused to face the reality of the vampires' fear of crosses, who had forbidden their students and their congregations to wear crosses, who had watched those same students and congregations die en masse only to rise again and come for them. And soon those very same rabbis were roaming their own community, hunting the survivors, preying on other yeshivas, other congregations, until the entire community was liquidated and incorporated into the brotherhood of the vampire. The great fear had come to pass: they'd been assimilated.

The rabbis could have saved themselves, could have saved their people, but they would not bend to the reality of what was happening around them. Which, when Zev thought about it, was not at all out of character. Hadn't they spent generations learning to turn away from the rest of the world?

Those early days of anarchic slaughter were over. Now that the vampires held the ruling hand, the blood-letting had become more organized. But the damage to Zev's people had been done—and it was irreparable. Hitler would have been proud. His Nazi "final solution" was an afternoon picnic compared to the work of the vampires. They did in months what Hitler's Reich could not do in all the years of the Second World War.

There's only a few of us now. So few and so scattered. A final Diaspora.

For a moment Zev was almost overwhelmed by grief, but he pushed it down, locked it back into that place where he kept his sorrows, and thought of how fortunate it was for his wife Chana that she died of natural causes before the horror began. Her soul had been too gentle to weather what had happened to their community.

"Not as sorry as I, Joe," Zev said, dragging himself back to the present. "But since my neighbourhood is gone, and since I have hardly any friends left, I use the daylight hours to wander. So call me the Wandering Jew. And in my wanderings I meet some of your old parishioners."

The priest's face hardened. His voice became acid.

"Do you, now? And how fares the remnant of my devoted flock?"

"They've lost all hope, Joe. They wish you were back."

He laughed. "Sure they do! Just like they rallied behind me when my name and honor were being dragged through the muck last year. Yeah, they want me back. I'll bet!"

"Such anger, Joe. It doesn't become you."

"Bullshit. That was the old Joe Cahill, the naive turkey who believed all his faithful parishioners would back him up. But now Palmeri tells the bishop the heat is getting too much for him, the bishop removes me, and the people I dedicated my life to all stand by in silence as I'm railroaded out of my parish."

"It's hard for the common folk to buck a bishop."

"Maybe. But I can't forget how they stood quietly by while I was stripped of my position, my dignity, my integrity, of everything I wanted to be . . ."

Zev thought Joe's voice was going to break. He was about to reach out to him when the priest coughed and squared his shoulders. "Meanwhile, I'm a pariah over here in the retreat house. A goddam leper. Some of them actually believe—" He broke off in a growl. "Ah, what's the use? It's over and done. Most of the parish is dead anyway, I suppose. And if I'd stayed there I'd probably be dead too. So maybe it worked out for the best. And who gives a shit anyway."

He reached for the bottle of Glenlivet next to him.

"No-no!" Zev said. "You promised!"

Father Joe drew his hand back and crossed his arms across his chest.

"Talk on, oh, bearded one. I'm listening."

Father Joe had certainly changed for the worse. Morose, bitter, apathetic, self-pitying. Zev was beginning to wonder how he could have called this man a friend.

"They've taken over your church, desecrated it. Each night they further defile it with butchery and blasphemy. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"It's Palmeri's parish. I've been benched. Let him take care of it."

"Father Palmeri is their leader."

"He should be. He's their pastor."

"No. He leads the vampires in the obscenities they perform in the church."

Father Joe stiffened and the glassiness cleared from his eyes.

"Palmeri? He's one of them?"

Zev nodded. "More than that. He's the local leader. He orchestrates their rituals."

Zev saw rage flare in the priest's eyes, saw his hands ball into fists, and for a moment he thought the old Father Joe was going to burst through.

Come on, Joe. Show me that old fire.

But then he slumped back onto the crate.

"Is that all you came to tell me?"

Zev hid his disappointment and nodded. "Yes."

"Good." He grabbed the scotch bottle. "Because I need a drink."

Zev wanted to leave, yet he had to stay, had to probe a little bit deeper and see how much of his old friend was left, and how much had been replaced by this new, bitter, alien Joe Cahill. Maybe there was still hope. So they talked on.

Suddenly he noticed it was dark.

"Gevalt!" Zev said. "I didn't notice the time!"

Father Joe seemed surprised too. He ran to the window and peered out.

"Damn! Sun's gone down!" He turned to Zev. "Lakewood's out of the question for you, Reb. Even the retreat house is too far to risk now. Looks like we're stuck here for the night."

"We'll be safe?"

He shrugged. "Why not? As far as I can tell I'm the only one who's been in here for months, and only in the daytime. Be pretty odd if one of those human leeches should decide to wander in here tonight."

"I hope so."

"Don't worry. We're okay if we don't attract attention. I've got a flashlight if we need it, but we're better off sitting here in the dark and shooting the breeze till sunrise." Father Joe smiled and picked up a huge silver cross, at least a foot in length, from atop one of the crates. "Besides, we're armed. And frankly, I can think of worse places to spend the night."

He stepped over to the case of Glenlivet and opened a fresh bottle. His capacity for alcohol was enormous.

Zev could think of worse places too. In fact he had spent a number of nights in much worse places since the holocaust. He decided to put the time to good use.

"So, Joe. Maybe I should tell you some more about what's happening in Lakewood."

* * *

After a few hours their talk died of fatigue. Father Joe gave Zev the flashlight to hold and stretched out across a couple of crates to sleep. Zev tried to get comfortable enough to doze but found sleep impossible. So he listened to his friend snore in the darkness of the cellar.

Poor Joe. Such anger in the man. But more than that—hurt. He felt betrayed, wronged. And with good reason. But with everything falling apart as it was, the wrong done to him would never be righted. He should forget about it already and go on with his life, but apparently he couldn't. Such a shame. He needed something to pull him out of his funk. Zev had thought news of what had happened to his old parish might rouse him, but it seemed only to make him want to drink more. Father Joe Cahill, he feared, was a hopeless case.

Zev closed his eyes and tried to rest. It was hard to get comfortable with the cross dangling in front of him so he took it off but laid it within easy reach. He was drifting toward a doze when he heard a noise outside. By the dumpster. Metal on metal.

My bicycle!

He slipped to the floor and tiptoed over to where Father Joe slept. He shook his shoulder and whispered.

"Someone's found my bicycle!"

The priest snorted but remained sleeping. A louder clatter outside made Zev turn, and as he moved his elbow struck a bottle. He grabbed for it in the darkness but missed. The sound of smashing glass echoed through the basement like a cannon shot. As the odor of scotch whiskey replaced the musty ambiance, Zev listened for further sounds from outside. None came.

Maybe it had been an animal. He remembered how raccoons used to raid his garbage at home . . . when he'd had a home . . . when he'd had garbage . ..

Zev stepped to the window and looked out. Probably an animal. He pulled the window open a few inches and felt cool night air wash across his face. He pulled the flashlight from his coat pocket and aimed it through the opening.

Zev almost dropped the light as the beam illuminated a pale, snarling demonic face, baring its fangs and hissing. He fell back as the thing's head and shoulders lunged through the window, its back curved fingers clawing at him, missing. Then it launched itself the rest of the way through, hurtling toward Zev.

He tried to dodge but he was too slow. The impact knocked the flashlight from his grasp and it went rolling across the floor. Zev cried out as he went down under the snarling thing. Its ferocity was overpowering, irresistible. It straddled him and lashed at him, batting his fending arms aside, its clawed fingers tearing at his collar to free his throat, stretching his neck to expose the vulnerable flesh, its foul breath gagging him as it bent its fangs toward him. Zev screamed out his helplessness.

II

Father Joe awoke to the cries of a terrified voice.

He shook his head to clear it and instantly regretted the move. His head weighed at least two hundred pounds, and his mouth was stuffed with foul-tasting cotton. Why did he keep doing this to himself? Not only did it leave him feeling lousy, it gave him bad dreams. Like now.

Another terrified shout, only a few feet away.

He looked toward the sound. In the faint light from the flashlight rolling across the floor he saw Zev on his back, fighting for his life against—

Damn! This was no dream! One of those bloodsuckers had got in here!

He leaped over to where the creature was lowering its fangs toward Zev's throat. He grabbed it by the back of the neck and lifted it clear of the floor. It was surprisingly heavy but that didn't slow him. Joe could feel the anger rising in him, surging into his muscles.

"Rotten piece of filth!"

He swung the vampire by its neck and let it fly against the cinderblock wall. It impacted with what should have been bone-crushing force, but it bounced off, rolled on the floor, and regained its feet in one motion, ready to attack again. Strong as he was, Joe knew he was no match for a vampire's power. He turned, grabbed his big silver crucifix, and charged the creature.

"Hungry? Eat this!"

As the creature bared its fangs and hissed at him, Joe shoved the long lower end of the cross into its open mouth. Blue-white light flickered along the silver length of the crucifix, reflecting in the creature's startled, agonized eyes as its flesh sizzled and crackled. The vampire let out a strangled cry and tried to turn away but Joe wasn't through with it yet. He was literally seeing red as rage poured out of a hidden well and swirled through him. He rammed the cross deeper down the thing's gullet. Light flashed deep in its throat, illuminating the pale tissues from within. It tried to grab the cross and pull it out but the flesh of its fingers burned and smoked wherever they came in contact with the cross.

Finally Joe stepped back and let the thing squirm and scrabble up the wall and out the window into the night. Then he turned to Zev. If anything had happened—

"Hey, Reb!" he said, kneeling beside the older man. "You all right?"

"Yes," Zev said, struggling to his feet. "Thanks to you."

Joe slumped onto a crate, momentarily weak as his rage dissipated. This is not what I'm about, he thought. But it had felt so damn good to let it loose on that vampire. Too good. And that worried him.

I'm falling apart. . . like everything else in the world.

"That was too close," he said to Zev, giving the older man's shoulder a fond squeeze.

"Too close for that vampire for sure," Zev said, replacing his yarmulke. "And would you please remind me, Father Joe, that in the future if ever I should maybe get my blood sucked and become a vampire that I should stay far away from you."

Joe laughed for the first time in too long. It felt good.

They climbed out at first light. Joe stretched his cramped muscles in the fresh air while Zev checked on his hidden bicycle.

"Oy," Zev said as he pulled it from behind the dumpster. The front wheel had been bent so far out of shape that half the spokes were broken. "Look what he did. Looks like I'll be walking back to Lakewood."

But Joe was less interested in the bike than in the whereabouts of their visitor from last night. He knew it couldn't have got far. And it hadn't. They found the vampire—or rather what was left of it—on the far side of the dumpster: a rotting, twisted corpse, blackened to a crisp and steaming in the morning sunlight. The silver crucifix still protruded from between its teeth.

Joe approached and gingerly yanked his cross free of the foul remains.

"Looks like you've sucked your last pint of blood," he said and immediately felt foolish.

Who was he putting on the macho act for? Zev certainly wasn't going to buy it. Too out of character. But then, what was his character these days? He used to be a parish priest. Now he was a nothing. A less than nothing.

He straightened up and turned to Zev.

"Come on back to the retreat house, Reb. I'll buy you breakfast."

But as Joe turned and began walking away, Zev stayed and stared down at the corpse.

"They say they don't wander far from where they spent their lives," Zev said. "Which means it's unlikely this fellow was Jewish if he lived around here. Probably Catholic. Irish Catholic, I'd imagine.”

Joe stopped and turned. He stared at his long shadow. The hazy rising sun at his back cast a huge hulking shape before him, with a dark cross in one shadow hand and a smudge of amber light where it poured through the unopened bottle of Scotch in the other.

"What are you getting at?" he said.

"The Kaddish would probably not be so appropriate so I'm just wondering if maybe someone should give him the last rites or whatever it is you people do when one of you dies."

"He wasn't one of us," Joe said, feeling the bitterness rise in him. "He wasn't even human."

"Ah, but he used to be before he was killed and became one of them. So maybe now he could use a little help."

Joe didn't like the way this was going. He sensed he was being maneuvered.

"He doesn't deserve it," he said and knew in that instant he'd been trapped.

"I thought even the worst sinner deserved it," Zev said.

Joe knew when he was beaten. Zev was right. He shoved the cross and bottle into Zev's hands— a bit roughly, perhaps—then went and knelt by the twisted cadaver. He administered a form of the final sacrament. When he was through he returned to Zev and snatched back his belongings.

"You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din," he said as he passed.

"You act as if they're responsible for what they do after they become vampires," Zev said as he hurried along beside him, panting as he matched Joe's pace.

"Aren't they?"

"No."

"You're sure of that?"

"Well, not exactly. But they certainly aren't human anymore, so maybe we shouldn't hold them accountable on human terms."

Zev's reasoning tone flashed Joe back to the conversations they used to have in Horovitz's deli.

"But Zev, we know there's some of the old personality left. I mean, they stay in their home towns, usually in the basements of their old houses. They go after people they knew when they were alive. They're not just dumb predators, Zev. They've got the old consciousness they had when they were alive. Why can't they rise above it? Why can't they ... resist?"

"I don't know. To tell the truth, the question has never occurred to me. A fascinating concept: an undead refusing to feed. Leave it to Father Joe to come up with something like that. We should discuss this on the trip back to Lakewood."

Joe had to smile. So that was what this was all about.

"I'm not going back to Lakewood."

"Fine. Then we'll discuss it now. Maybe the urge to feed is too strong to overcome."

"Maybe. And maybe they just don't try hard enough."

"This is a hard line you're taking, my friend."

"I'm a hardline kind of guy."

"Well, you've become one."

Joe gave him a sharp look. "You don't know what I've become."

Zev shrugged. "Maybe true, maybe not. But do you truly think you'd be able to resist?"

"Damn straight."

Joe didn't know whether he was serious or not. Maybe he was just mentally preparing himself for the day when he might actually find himself in that situation.

"Interesting," Zev said as they climbed the front steps of the retreat house. "Well, I'd better be going. I've a long walk ahead of me. A long, lonely walk all the way back to Lakewood. A long, lonely, possibly dangerous walk back for a poor old man who—"

"All right, Zev! All right!” Joe said, biting back a laugh. "I get the point. You want me to go back to Lakewood. Why?"

"I just want the company," Zev said with pure innocence.

"No, really. What's going on in that Talmudic mind of yours? What are you cooking?"

"Nothing, Father Joe. Nothing at all."

Joe stared at him. Damn it all if his interest wasn't piqued. What was Zev up to? And what the hell? Why not go? He had nothing better to do.

"All right, Zev. You win. I'll come back to Lake- wood with you. But just for today. Just to keep you company. And I'm not going anywhere near St. Anthony's, okay? Understood?"

"Understood, Joe. Perfectly understood."

"Good. Now wipe that smile off your face and we'll get something to eat."

III

Under the climbing sun they walked south along the deserted beach, barefooting through the wet sand at the edge of the surf. Zev had never done this. He liked the feel of the sand between his toes, the coolness of the water as it sloshed over his ankles.

"Know what day it is?" Father Joe said. He had his sneakers slung over his shoulder. "Believe it or not, it's the Fourth of July."

"Oh, yes. Your Independence Day. We never made much of secular holidays. Too many religious ones to observe. Why should I not believe it's this date?"

Father Joe shook his head in dismay. "This is Manasquan Beach. You know what this place used to look like on the Fourth before the vampires took over? Wall-to-wall bodies."

"Really? I guess maybe sun-bathing is not the fad it used to be."

"Ah, Zev! Still the master of the understatement. I'll say one thing, though: the beach is cleaner than I've ever seen it. No beer cans or hypodermics." He pointed ahead. "But what's that up there?"

As they approached the spot, Zev saw a pair of naked bodies stretched out on the sand, one male, one female, both young and short-haired. Their skin was bronzed and glistened in the sun. The man lifted his head and stared at them. A blue crucifix was tattooed in the center of his forehead. He reached into the knapsack beside him and withdrew a huge, gleaming, nickel-plated revolver.

"Just keep walking," he said.

"Will do," Father Joe said. "Just passing through."

As they passed the couple, Zev noticed a similar tattoo on the girl's forehead. He noticed the rest of her too. He felt an almost-forgotten stirring deep inside him.

"A very popular tattoo," he said.

"Clever idea. That's one cross you can't drop or lose. Probably won't help you in the dark, but if there's a light on it might give you an edge."

They turned west and made their way inland, finding Route 70 and following it into Ocean County via the Brielle Bridge.

"I remember nightmare traffic jams right here every summer," Father Joe said as they trod the bridge's empty span. "Never thought I'd miss traffic jams."

They cut over to Route 88 and followed it all the way into Lakewood. Along the way they found a few people out and about in Bricktown and picking berries in Ocean County Park, but in the heart of Lakewood ...

"A real ghost town," the priest said as they walked Forest Avenue's deserted length.

"Ghosts," Zev said, nodding sadly. It had been a long walk and he was tired. "Yes. Full of ghosts."

In his mind's eye he saw the shades of his fallen brother rabbis and all the yeshiva students, beards, black suits, black hats, crisscrossing back and forth at a determined pace on weekdays, strolling with their wives on Shabbes, their children trailing behind like ducklings.

Gone. All gone. Victims of the vampires. Vampires themselves now, most of them. It made him sick at heart to think of those good, gentle men, women, and children curled up in their basements now to avoid the light of day, venturing out in the dark to feed on others, spreading the disease. ..

He fingered the cross slung from his neck. If only they had listened!

"I know a place near St. Anthony's where we can hide," he told the priest.

"You've traveled enough today, Reb. And I told you, I don't care about St. Anthony's."

"Stay the night, Joe," Zev said, gripping the young priest's arm. He'd coaxed him this far; he couldn't let him get away now. "See what Father Palmeri's done."

"If he's one of them he's not a priest anymore. Don't call him Father."

"They still call him Father."

"Who?"

"The vampires."

Zev watched Father Joe's jaw muscles bunch.

Joe said, "Maybe I'll just take a quick trip over to St. Anthony's myself—"

"No. It's different here. The area is thick with them—maybe twenty times as many as in Spring Lake. They'll get you if your timing isn't just right. I'll take you."

"You need rest, pal."

Father Joe's expression showed genuine concern. Zev was detecting increasingly softer emotions in the man since their reunion last night. A good sign perhaps?

"And rest I'll get when we get to where I'm taking you."

IV

Father Joe Cahill watched the moon rise over his old church and wondered at the wisdom of coming back. The casual decision made this morning in the full light of day seemed reckless and foolhardy now at the approach of midnight.

But there was no turning back. He'd followed Zev to the second floor of this two-story office building across the street from St. Anthony's, and here they'd waited for dark. Must have been a law- office once. The place had been vandalized, the windows broken, the furniture trashed, but there was an old Temple University Law School degree on the wall, and the couch was still in one piece. So while Zev caught some Z's, Joe sat and sipped a little of his scotch and did some heavy thinking.

Mostly he thought about his drinking. He'd done too much of that lately, he knew; so much so that he was afraid to stop cold. So he was taking just a touch now, barely enough to take the edge off. He'd finish the rest later, after he came back from that church over there.

He'd stared at St. Anthony's since they'd arrived. It too had been extensively vandalized. Once it had been a beautiful little stone church, a miniature cathedral, really; very Gothic with all its pointed arches, steep roofs, crocketed spires, and multi-foil stained glass windows. Now the windows were smashed, the crosses which had topped the steeple and each gable were gone, and anything resembling a cross in its granite exterior had been defaced beyond recognition.

As he'd known it would, the sight of St. Anthony's brought back memories of Gloria Sullivan, the young, pretty church volunteer whose husband worked for United Chemical International in New York, commuting in every day and trekking off overseas a little too often. Joe and Gloria had seen a lot of each other around the church offices and had become good friends. But Gloria had somehow got the idea that what they had went beyond friendship, so she showed up at the rectory one night when Joe was there alone. He tried to explain that as attractive as she was, she was not for him. He had taken certain vows and meant to stick by them. He did his best to let her down easy but she'd been hurt. And angry.

That might have been that, but then her six- year-old son Kevin had come home from altar boy practice with a story about a priest making him pull down his pants and touching him. Kevin was never clear on who the priest had been, but Gloria Sullivan was. Obviously it had been Father Cahill—any man who could turn down the heartfelt offer of her love and her body had to be either a queer or worse. And a child molester was worse.

She took it to the police and to the papers.

Joe groaned softly at the memory of how swiftly his life had become hell. But he had been determined to weather the storm, sure that the real culprit eventually would be revealed. He had no proof—still didn't—but if one of the priests at St. Anthony's was a pederast, he knew it wasn't him. That left Father Alberto Palmeri, St. Anthony's fifty-five-year-old pastor. Before Joe could get to the truth, however, Father Palmeri requested that Father Cahill be removed from the parish, and the bishop complied. Joe had left under a cloud that had followed him to the retreat house in the next county and hovered over him till this day. The only place he'd found even brief respite from the impotent anger and bitterness that roiled under his skin and soured his gut every minute of every day was in the bottle—and that was sure as hell a dead end.

So why had he agreed to come back here? To torture himself? Or to get a look at Palmeri and see how low he had sunk?

Maybe that was it. Maybe seeing Palmeri wallowing in his true element would give him the impetus to put the whole St. Anthony's incident behind him and rejoin what was left of the human race—which needed him now more than ever.

And maybe it wouldn't.

Getting back on track was a nice thought, but over the past few months Joe had found it increasingly difficult to give much of a damn about anyone or anything.

Except maybe Zev. He'd stuck by Joe through the worst of it, defending him to anyone who would listen. But an endorsement from an Orthodox rabbi had meant diddly in St Anthony's. And yesterday Zev had biked all the way to Spring Lake to see him. Old Zev was all right.

And he'd been right about the number of vampires here too. Lakewood was crawling with the things. Fascinated and repelled, Joe had watched the streets fill with them shortly after sundown.

But what had disturbed him more were the creatures who'd come out before sundown.

The humans. Live ones.

The collaborators.

If there was anything lower, anything that deserved true death more than the vampires themselves, it was the still-living humans who worked for them.

Someone touched his shoulder and he jumped. It was Zev. He was holding something out to him. Joe took it and held it up in the moonlight: a tiny crescent moon dangling from a chain on a ring.

"What's this?"

"An earring. The local Vichy wear them."

"Vichy? Like the Vichy French?"

"Yes. Very good. I'm glad to see that you're not as culturally illiterate as the rest of your generation. Vichy humans—that's what I call the collaborators. These earrings identify them to the local nest of vampires. They are spared."

"Where'd you get them?"

Zev's face was hidden in the shadows. "Their previous owners ... lost them. Put it on."

"My ear's not pierced."

A gnarled hand moved into the moonlight. Joe saw a tong needle clasped between the thumb and index finger.

"That I can fix," Zev said. “Maybe you shouldn't see this," Zev whispered as they crouched in the deep shadows on St. Anthony's western flank. Joe squinted at him in the darkness, puzzled.

"You lay a guilt trip on me to get me here, now you're having second thoughts?"

"It is horrible like I can't tell you."

Joe thought about that. There was enough horror in the world outside St. Anthony's. What purpose did it serve to see what was going on inside?

Because it used to be my church.

Even though he'd only been an associate pastor, never fully in charge, and even though he'd been unceremoniously yanked from the post, St. Anthony's had been his first parish. He was here. He might as well know what they were doing inside.

"Show me."

Zev led him to a pile of rubble under a smashed stained glass window. He pointed up to where faint light flickered from inside.

"Look in there."

"You're not coming?"

"Once was enough, thank you."

Joe climbed as carefully, as quietly as he could, all the while becoming increasingly aware of a growing stench like putrid, rotting meat. It was coming from inside, wafting through the broken window. Steeling himself, he straightened up and peered over the sill.

For a moment he was disoriented, like someone peering out the window of a city apartment and seeing the rolling hills of a Kansas farm. This could not be the interior of St. Anthony's.

In the flickering light of hundreds of sacramental candles he saw that the walls were bare, stripped of all their ornaments, of the plaques for the stations of the cross; the dark wood along the wall was scarred and gouged wherever there had been anything remotely resembling a cross. The floor too was mostly bare, the pews ripped from their neat rows and hacked to pieces, their splintered remains piled high at the rear under the choir balcony.

And the giant crucifix that had dominated the space behind the altar—only a portion of it remained. The cross-pieces on each side had been sawed off and so now an armless, life-size Christ hung upside down against the rear wall of the sanctuary.

Joe took in all that in a flash, then his attention was drawn to the unholy congregation that peopled St. Anthony's this night. The collaborators— the Vichy humans, as Zev called them—made up the periphery of the group. They looked like normal, everyday people but each was wearing a crescent moon earring.

But the others, the group gathered in the sanctuary—Joe felt his hackles rise at the sight of them. They surrounded the altar in a tight knot. Their pale, bestial faces, bereft of the slightest trace of human warmth, compassion, or decency, were turned upward. His gorge rose when he saw the object of their rapt attention.

A naked teenage boy—his hands tied behind his back, was suspended over the altar by his ankles. He was sobbing and choking, his eyes wide and vacant with shock, his mind all but gone. The skin had been flayed from his forehead—apparently the Vichy had found an expedient solution to the cross tattoo—and blood ran in a slow stream down his abdomen and chest from his freshly truncated genitals. And beside him, standing atop the altar, a bloody-mouthed creature dressed in a long cassock. Joe recognized the thin shoulders, the graying hair trailing from the balding crown, but was shocked at the crimson vulpine grin he flashed to the things clustered below him.

"Now," said the creature in a lightly accented voice Joe had heard hundreds of times from St. Anthony's pulpit.

Father Alberto Palmeri.

And from the group a hand reached up with a straight razor and drew it across the boy's throat. As the blood flowed down over his face, those below squeezed and struggled forward like hatch- ling vultures to catch the falling drops and scarlet trickles in their open mouths.

Joe fell away from the window and vomited. He felt Zev grab his arm and lead him away. He was vaguely aware of crossing the street and heading toward the ruined legal office.

* * *

"Why in God's name did you want me to see that?"

Zev looked across the office toward the source of the words. He could see a vague outline where Father Joe sat on the floor, his back against the wall, the open bottle of scotch in his hand. The priest had taken one drink since their return, no more.

"I thought you should know what they were doing to your church."

"So you've said. But what's the reason behind that one?"

Zev shrugged in the darkness. "I'd heard you weren't doing well, that even before everything else began falling apart, you had already fallen apart. So when I felt it safe to get away, I came to see you. Just as I expected, I found a man who was angry at everything and letting it eat up his guderim. I thought maybe it would be good to give that man something very specific to be angry at."

"You bastard!" Father Joe whispered. "Who gave you the right?"

"Friendship gave me the right, Joe. I should hear that you are rotting away and do nothing? I have no congregation of my own anymore so I turned my attention on you. Always I was a somewhat meddlesome rabbi."

"Still are. Out to save my soul, ay?"

"We rabbis don't save souls. Guide them maybe, hopefully give them direction. But only you can save your soul, Joe."

Silence hung in the air for a while. Suddenly the crescent-moon earring Zev had given Father Joe landed in the puddle of moonlight on the floor between them.

"Why do they do it?" the priest said. "The Vichy—why do they collaborate?"

"The first were quite unwilling, believe me. They cooperated because their wives and children were held hostage by the vampires. But before too long the dregs of humanity began to slither out from under their rocks and offer their services in exchange for the immortality of vampirism."

"Why bother working for them? Why not just bare your throat to the nearest bloodsucker?"

"That's what I thought at first," Zev said. "But as I witnessed the Lakewood holocaust I detected the vampires' pattern. They can choose who joins their ranks, so after they've fully infiltrated a population, they change their tactics. You see, they don't want too many of their kind concentrated in one area. It's like too many carnivores in one forest—when the herds of prey are wiped out, the predators starve. So they start to employ a different style of killing. For only when the vampire draws the life's blood from the throat with its fangs does the victim become one of them. Anyone drained as in the manner of that boy in the church tonight dies a true death. He's as dead now as someone run over by a truck. He will not rise tomorrow night."

"I get it," Father Joe said. "The Vichy trade their daylight services and dirty work to the vampires now for immortality later on."

"Correct."

There was no humor in the soft laugh that echoed across the room from Father Joe.

"Swell. I never cease to be amazed at our fellow human beings. Their capacity for good is exceeded only by their ability to debase themselves."

"Hopelessness does strange things, Joe. The vampires know that. So they rob us of hope. That's how they beat us. They transform our friends and neighbors and leaders into their own, leaving us feeling alone, completely cut off. Some of us can't take the despair and kill ourselves."

"Hopelessness," Joe said. "A potent weapon."

After a long silence, Zev said, "So what are you going to do now, Father Joe?"

Another bitter laugh from across the room.

"I suppose this is the place where I declare that I've found new purpose in life and will now go forth into the world as a fearless vampire killer."

"Such a thing would be nice."

"Well screw that. I'm only going as far as across the street."

"To St. Anthony's?"

Zev saw Father Joe take a swig from the Scotch bottle and then screw the cap on tight.

"Yeah. To see if there's anything I can do over there."

"Father Palmeri and his nest might not like that."

"I told you, don't call him Father. And screw him. Nobody can do what he's done and get away with it. I'm taking my church back."

In the dark, behind his beard, Zev smiled.

V

Joe stayed up the rest of the night and let Zev sleep. The old guy needed his rest. Sleep would have been impossible for Joe anyway. He was too wired. He sat up and watched St. Anthony's.

They left before first light, dark shapes drifting out the front doors and down the stone steps like parishioners leaving a predawn service. Joe felt his back teeth grind as he scanned the group for Palmeri, but he couldn't make him out in the dimness. By the time the sun began to peek over the rooftops and through the trees to the east, the street outside was deserted.

He woke Zev and together they approached the church. The heavy oak and iron front doors, each forming half of a pointed arch, were closed. He pulled them open and fastened the hooks to keep them open. Then he walked through the vestibule and into the nave.

Even though he was ready for it, the stench backed him up a few steps. When his stomach settled, he forced himself ahead, treading a path between the two piles of shattered and splintered pews. Zev walked beside him, a handkerchief pressed over his mouth.

Last night he had thought the place a shambles. He saw now that it was worse. The light of day poked into all the corners, revealing everything that had been hidden by the warm glow of the candles. Half a dozen rotting corpses hung from the ceiling—he hadn't noticed them last night—and others were sprawled on the floor against the walls. Some of the bodies were in pieces. Behind the chancel rail a headless female torso was draped over the front of the pulpit. To the left stood the statue of Mary. Someone had fitted her with foam rubber breasts and a huge dildo. And at the rear of the sanctuary was the armless Christ hanging head down on the upright of his cross.

"My church," he whispered as he moved along the path that had once been the center aisle, the aisle brides used to walk down with their fathers. "Look what they've done to my church!"

Joe approached the huge block of the altar. Once it had been backed against the far wall of the sanctuary, but he'd had it moved to the front so that he could celebrate Mass facing his parishioners. Solid Carrara marble, but you'd never know it now. So caked with dried blood, semen, and feces it could have been made of Styrofoam.

His revulsion was fading, melting away in the growing heat of his rage, drawing the nausea with it. He had intended to clean up the place but there was so much to be done, too much for two men. It was hopeless.

"Faddajoe?"

He spun at the sound of the strange voice. A thin figure stood uncertainly in the open doorway. A man of about fifty edged forward timidly.

"Faddajoe, izat you?"

Joe recognized him now. Carl Edwards. A twitchy little man who used to help pass the collection basket at 10:30 Mass on Sundays. A trans-plantee from Jersey City—hardly anyone around here was originally from around here. His face was sunken, his eyes feverish as he stared at Joe.

"Yes, Carl. It's me."

"Oh, thank God!" He ran forward and dropped to his knees before Joe. He began to sob. "You come back! Thank God, you come back!"

Joe pulled him to his feet.

"Come on now, Carl. Get a grip."

"You come back to save us, ain'tcha? God sent ya here to punish him, din't He?"

"Punish whom?"

"Fadda Palmeri! He's one a dem! He's da woist a alia dem! He—"

"I know," Joe said. "I know."

"Oh, it's so good to have ya back, Fadda Joe! We ain't knowed what to do since da suckers took ova. We been prayin fa someone like youse an now ya here. It's a freakin' miracle!"

Joe wanted to ask Carl where he and all these people who seemed to think they needed him now had been when he was being railroaded out of the parish. But that was ancient history.

"Not a miracle, Carl," Joe said, glancing at Zev. "Rabbi Wolpin brought me back." As Carl and Zev shook hands, Joe said, "And I'm just passing through."

"Passing t'rough? No. Dat can't be! Ya gotta stay!"

Joe saw the light of hope fading in the little man's eyes. Something twisted within him, tugging him.

"What can I do here, Carl? I'm just one man."

"I'll help! I'll do whatever ya want! Jes tell me!"

"Will you help me clean up?"

Carl looked around and seemed to see the cadavers for the first time. He cringed and turned a few shades paler.

"Yeah ... sure. Anyting."

Joe looked at Zev. "Well? What do you think?"

Zev shrugged. "I should tell you what to do? My parish it's not."

"Not mine either."

Zev jutted his beard at Carl. "I think maybe he'd tell you differently."

Joe did a slow turn. The vaulted nave was utterly silent except for the buzzing of the flies around the cadavers.

A massive clean-up job. But if they worked all day they could make a decent dent in it. And then—

And then what?

Joe didn't know. He was playing this by ear. He'd wait and see what the night brought.

"Can you get us some food, Carl? I'd sell my soul for a cup of coffee."

Carl gave him a strange look.

"Just a figure of speech, Carl. We'll need some food if we're going to keep working."

The man's eyes lit again.

"Dat means ya staying?"

"For a while."

"I'll getcha some food," he said excitedly as he ran for the door. "An' coffee. I know someone who's still got coffee. She'll part wit' some of it for Faddajoe." He stopped at the door and turned.

"Ay, an' Fadda, I neva believed any a dem tings dat was said aboutcha. Neva."

Joe tried but he couldn't hold it back.

"It would have meant a lot to have heard that from you last year, Carl."

The man lowered his eyes. "Yeah. I guess it woulda. But I'll make it up to va, Fadda. I will. You can take dat to da bank."

Then he was out the door and gone. Joe turned to Zev and saw the old man rolling up his sleeves.

"Nu?" Zev said. "The bodies. Before we do anything else, I think maybe we should move the bodies."

VI

By early afternoon, Zev was exhausted. The heat and the heavy work had taken their toll. He had to stop and rest. He sat on the chancel rail and looked around. Nearly eight hours' work and they'd barely scratched the surface. But the place did look and smell better.

Removing the flyblown corpses and scattered body parts had been the worst of it. A foul, gut- roiling task that had taken most of the morning. They'd carried the corpses out to the small graveyard behind the church and left them there. Those people deserved a decent burial but there was no time for it today.

Once the corpses were gone, Father Joe had torn the defilements from the statue of Mary and then they'd turned their attention to the huge crucifix. It took a while but they finally found Christ's plaster arms in the pile of ruined pews. They were still nailed to the sawn-off cross-piece of the crucifix. While Zev and Father Joe worked at jury- rigging a series of braces to reattach the arms, Carl found a mop and bucket and began the long, slow process-of washing the fouled floor of the nave.

Now the crucifix was intact again—the life- size plaster Jesus had his arms reattached and was once again nailed to his refurbished cross. Father Joe and Carl had restored him to his former position of dominance. The poor man was upright again, hanging over the center of the sanctuary in all his tortured splendor.

A grisly sight.

Zev could never understand the Catholic attachment to these gruesome statues. But if the vampires loathed them, then Zev was for them all the way.

His stomach rumbled with hunger. At least they'd had a good breakfast. Carl had returned from his food run this morning with bread, cheese, and two thermoses of hot coffee. He wished now they'd saved some. Maybe there was a crust of bread left in the sack. He headed back to the vestibule to check and found an aluminum pot and a paper bag sitting by the door. The pot was full of beef stew and the sack contained three cans of Pepsi.

He poked his head out the doors but no one was in sight on the street outside. It had been that way all day—he'd spy a figure or two peeking in the front doors; they'd hover there for a moment as if to confirm that what they had heard was true, then they'd scurry away. He looked at the meal that had been left. A group of the locals must have donated from their hoard of canned stew and precious soft drinks to fix this. Zev was touched.

He called Father Joe and Carl.

“Tastes like Dinty Moore," Father Joe said around a mouthful of the stew.

"It is," Carl said. "I recognize da little potatoes. Da ladies of the parish must really be excited about youse comin' back to break inta deir canned goods like dis."

They were feasting in the sacristy, the small room off the sanctuary where the priests had kept their vestments—a clerical Green Room, so to speak. Zev found the stew palatable but much too salty. He wasn't about to complain, though.

"I don't believe I've ever had anything like this before."

"I'd be real surprised if you had," said Father Joe. "I doubt very much that something that calls itself Dinty Moore is kosher."

Zev smiled but inside he was suddenly filled with a great sadness. Kosher... how meaningless now seemed all the observances which he had allowed to rule and circumscribe his life. Such a fierce proponent of strict dietary laws he'd been in the days before the Lakewood holocaust. But those days were gone, just as the Lakewood community was gone. And Zev was a changed man. If he hadn't changed, if he were still observing, he couldn't sit here and sup with these two men. He'd have to be elsewhere, eating special classes of specially prepared foods off separate sets of dishes. But really, wasn't division what holding to the dietary laws in modern times was all about? They served a purpose beyond mere observance of tradition. They placed another wall between observant Jews and outsiders, keeping them separate even from other Jews who didn't observe.

Zev forced himself to take a big bite of the stew. Time to break down all the walls between people . . . while there was still enough time and people left alive to make it matter.

"You okay, Zev?" Father Joe asked.

Zev nodded silently, afraid to speak for fear of sobbing. Despite all its anachronisms, he missed his life in the good old days of last year. Gone. It was all gone. The rich traditions, the culture, the friends, the prayers. He felt adrift—in time and in space. Nowhere was home.

"You sure?" The young priest seemed genuinely concerned.

"Yes, I'm okay. As okay as you could expect me to feel after spending the better part of the day repairing a crucifix and eating non-kosher food. And let me tell you, that's not so okay."

He put his bowl aside and straightened from his chair.

"Come on, already. Let's get back to work. There's much yet to do."

VII

"Sun's almost down," Carl said.

Joe straightened from scrubbing the altar and stared west through one of the smashed windows. The sun was out of sight behind the houses there.

"You can go now, Carl," he said to the little man. "Thanks for your help."

"Where vouse gonna go, Fadda?"

"I'll be staying right here."

Carl's prominent Adam's apple bobbed convulsively as he swallowed.

"Yeah? Well den, I'm staying too. I tol' ya I'd make it up to ya, din't I? An’ besides, I don't tink the suckas'll like da new, improved St. Ant'ny's too much when dey come back tonight, d'you? I don't even tink dey'11 get t'rough da doors."

Joe smiled at the man and looked around. Luckily it was July when the days were long. They'd had time to make a difference here. The floors were clean, the crucifix was restored and back in its proper position, as were most of the Stations of the Cross plaques. Zev had found them under the pews and had taken the ones not shattered beyond recognition and rehung them on the walls. Lots of new crosses littered those walls. Carl had found a hammer and nails and had made dozens of them from the remains of the pews.

"No, I don't think they'll like the new decor one bit. But there's something you can get us if you can, Carl. Guns. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, anything that shoots."

Carl nodded slowly. "I know a few guys who can help in dat department."

"And some wine. A little red wine if anybody's saved some."

"You got it."

He hurried off.

"You're planning Custer's last stand, maybe?" Zev said from where he was tacking the last of Carl's crude crosses to the east wall.

"More like the Alamo."

"Same result," Zev said with one of his shrugs.

Joe turned back to scrubbing the altar. He'd been at it for over an hour now. He was drenched with sweat and knew he smelled like a bear, but he couldn't stop until it was clean.

An hour later he was forced to give up. No use. It wouldn't come clean. The vampires must have done something to the blood and foulness to make the mixture seep into the surface of the marble like it had.

He sat on the floor with his back against the altar and rested. He didn't like resting because it gave him time to think. And when he started to think he realized that the odds were pretty high against his seeing tomorrow morning.

At least he'd die well fed. Their secret supplier had left them a dinner of fresh fried chicken by the front doors. Even the memory of it made his mouth water. Apparently someone was really glad he was back.

To tell the truth, though, as miserable as he'd been, he wasn't ready to die. Not tonight, not any night. He wasn't looking for an Alamo or a Little Big Horn. All he wanted to do was hold off the vampires till dawn. Keep them out of St. Anthony's for one night. That was all. That would be a statement—his statement. If he found an opportunity to ram a stake through Palmeri's rotten heart, so much the better, but he wasn't counting on that. One night. Just to let them know they couldn't have their way everywhere with everybody whenever they felt like it. He had surprise on his side tonight, so maybe it would work. One night. Then he'd be on his way.

"What the fuck have you done?"

Joe looked up at the shout.'A burly, long-haired man in jeans and a flannel shirt stood in the vestibule staring at the partially restored nave. As he approached, Joe noticed his crescent moon earring.

A Vichy.

Joe balled his fists but didn't move.

"Hey, I'm talking to you, mister. Are you responsible for this?"

When all he got from Joe was a cold stare, he turned to Zev.

"Hey, you! Jew! What the hell do you think you're doing?" He started toward Zev. "You get those fucking crosses off—"

"Touch him and I'll break you in half," Joe said in a low voice.

The Vichy skidded to a halt and stared at him.

"Hey, asshole! Are you crazy? Do you know what Father Palmeri will do to you when he arrives?"

"Father Palmeri? Why do you still call him that?"

"It's what he wants to be called. And he's going to call you dog meat when he gets here!"

Joe pulled himself to his feet and looked down at the Vichy. The man took two steps back. Suddenly he didn't seem so sure of himself.

"Tell him I'll be waiting. Tell him Father Cahill is back."

"You're a priest? You don't look like one."

"Shut up and listen. Tell him Father Joe Cahill is back—and he's pissed. Tell him that. Now get out of here while you still can."

The man turned and hurried out into the growing darkness. Joe turned to Zev and found him grinning through his beard. '"Father Joe Cahill is back—and he's pissed.' I like that."

"We'll make it into a bumper sticker. Meanwhile let's close those doors. The criminal element is starting to wander in. I'll see if we can find some more candles. It's getting dark in here."

VIII

He wore the night like a tuxedo.

Dressed in a fresh cassock, Father Alberto Palmeri turned off County Line Road and strolled toward St. Anthony's. The night was lovely, especially when you owned it. And he owned the night in this area of Lakewood now. He loved the night. He felt at one with it, attuned to its harmonies and its discords. The darkness made him feel so alive. Strange to have to lose your life before you could really feel alive. But this was it. He'd found his niche, his métier.

Such a shame it had taken him so long. All those years trying to deny his appetites, trying to be a member of the other side, cursing himself when he allowed his appetites to win, as he had with increasing frequency toward the end of his mortal life. He should have given in to them completely long ago.

It had taken undeath to free him.

And to think he had been afraid of undeath, had cowered in fear each night in the cellar of the church, surrounded by crosses. Fortunately he had not been as safe as he'd thought and one of the beings he now called brother was able to slip in on him in the dark while he dozed. He saw now that he had lost nothing but his blood by that encounter.

And in trade he'd gained a world.

For now it was his world, at least this little corner of it, one in which he was completely free to indulge himself in any way he wished. Except for the blood. He had no choice about the blood. That was a new appetite, stronger than all the rest, one that would not be denied. But he did not mind the new appetite in the least. He'd found interesting ways to sate it.

Up ahead he spotted dear, defiled St. Anthony's. He wondered what his servants had prepared for him tonight. They were quite imaginative. They 'd yet to bore him.

But as he drew nearer the church, Palmeri slowed. His skin prickled. The building had changed. Something was very wrong there, wrong inside. Something amiss with the light that beamed from the windows. This wasn't the old familiar candlelight, this was something else, something more. Something that made his insides tremble.

Figures raced up the street toward him. Live ones. His night vision picked out the earrings and familiar faces of some of his servants. As they neared he sensed the warmth of the blood coursing just beneath their skins. The hunger rose in him and he fought the urge to rip into one of their throats. He couldn't allow himself that pleasure. He had to keep the servants dangling, keep them working for him and the nest. They needed the services of the indentured living to remove whatever obstacles the cattle might put in their way.

"Father! Father!" they cried.

He loved it when they called him Father, loved being one of the undead and dressing like one of the enemy.

"Yes, my children. What sort of victim do you have for us tonight?"

"No victim, father—trouble!"

The edges of Palmeri's vision darkened with rage as he heard of the young priest and the Jew who had dared to try to turn St. Anthony's into a holy place again. When he heard the name of the priest, he nearly exploded.

"Cahill? Joseph Cahill is back in my church?"

"He was cleaning the altar!" one of the servants said.

Palmeri strode toward the church with the servants trailing behind. He knew that neither Cahill nor the Pope himself could clean that altar. Palmeri had desecrated it himself; he had learned how to do that when he became nest leader. But what else had the young pup dared to do?

Whatever it was, it would be undone. Now!

Palmeri strode up the steps and pulled the right door open—and screamed in agony.

The light! The light. The LIGHT! White agony lanced through Palmeri's eyes and seared his brain like two hot pokers. He retched and threw his arms across his face as he staggered back into the cool, comforting darkness.

It took a few minutes for the pain to drain off, for the nausea to pass, for vision to return.

He'd never understand it. He'd spent his entire life in the presence of crosses and crucifixes, surrounded by them. And yet as soon as he'd become undead, he was unable to bear the sight of one. As a matter of fact, since he'd become undead, he'd never even seen one. A cross was no longer an object. It was a light, a light so excruciatingly bright, so blazingly white that it was sheer agony to look at it. As a child in Naples he'd been told by his mother not to look at the sun, but when there'd been talk of an eclipse, he'd stared directly into its eye. The pain of looking at a cross was a hundred, no, a thousand times worse than that. And the bigger the cross or crucifix, the worse the pain.

He'd experienced monumental pain upon looking into St. Anthony's tonight. That could only mean that Joseph, that young bastard, had refurbished the giant crucifix. It was the only possible explanation.

He swung on his servants.

"Get in there! Get that crucifix down!"

"They've got guns!"

"Then get help. But get it down!”

"We'll get guns too! We can—"

"No! I want him! I want that priest alive! I want him for myself! Anyone who kills him will suffer a very painful, very long and lingering true death! Is that clear?"

It was clear. They scurried away without answering.

Palmeri went to gather the other members of the nest.

IX

Dressed in a cassock and a surplice, Joe came out of the sacristy and approached the altar. He noticed Zev keeping watch at one of the windows. He didn't tell him how ridiculous he looked carrying the shotgun Carl had brought back. He held it so gingerly, like it was full of nitroglycerine and would explode if he jiggled it.

Zev turned, and smiled when he saw him.

"Now you look like the old Father Joe we all used to know."

Joe gave him a little bow and proceeded toward the altar.

All right: He had everything he needed. He had the Missal they'd found in among the pew debris earlier today. He had the wine; Carl had brought back about four ounces of sour red abalone. He'd found a smudged surplice and a dusty cassock on the floor of one of the closets in the sacristy, and he wore them now. No hosts, though. A crust of bread left over from breakfast would have to do. No chalice, either. If he'd known he was going to be saying Mass he'd have come prepared. As a last resort he'd used the can opener in the rectory to remove the top from one of the Pepsi cans from lunch. Quite a stretch from the gold chalice he'd used since his ordination, but probably more in line with what Jesus had used at that first Mass— the Last Supper.

He was uncomfortable with the idea of weapons in St. Anthony's but he saw no alternative. He and Zev knew nothing about guns, and Carl knew little more; they’d probably do more damage to themselves than to the Vichy if they tried to use them. But maybe the sight of them would make the Vichy hesitate, slow them down. All he needed was a little time here, enough to get to the consecration.

This is going to be the most unusual Mass in history, he thought.

But he was going to get through it if it killed him. And that was a real possibility. This might well be his last Mass. But he wasn't afraid. He was too excited to be afraid. He'd had a slug of the Scotch—just enough to ward off the DTs—but it had done nothing to quell the buzz of the adrenalin humming along every nerve in his body.

He spread everything out on the white tablecloth he'd taken from the rectory and used to cover the filthy altar. He looked at Carl.

"Ready?"

Carl nodded and stuck the .38 caliber pistol he'd been examining in his belt.

"Been a while, Fadda. We did it in Latin when I was a kid but I tink I can swing it."

"Just do your best and don't worry about any mistakes."

Some Mass. A defiled altar, a crust for a host, a Pepsi can for a chalice, a fifty-year-old, pistol- packing altar boy, and a congregation consisting of a lone, shotgun-carrying Orthodox Jew.

Joe looked heavenward. You do understand, don't you, Lord, that this was arranged on short notice?

Time to begin.

* * *

He read the Gospel but dispensed with the homily. He tried to remember the Mass as it used to be said, to fit in better with Carl's outdated responses. As he was starting the Offertory the front doors flew open and a group of men entered—ten of them, all with crescent moons dangling from their ears. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Zev move away from the window toward the altar, pointing his shotgun at them.

As soon as they entered the nave and got past the broken pews, the Vichy fanned out toward the sides. They began pulling down the Stations of the Cross, ripping Carl's makeshift crosses from the walls and tearing them apart. Carl looked up at Joe from where he knelt, his eyes questioning, his hand reaching for the pistol in his belt.

Joe shook his head and kept up with the Offertory.

When all the little crosses were down, the Vichy swarmed behind the altar. Joe chanced a quick glance over his shoulder and saw them begin their attack on the newly repaired crucifix.

"Zev!" Carl said in a low voice, cocking his head toward the Vichy. "Stop 'em!"

Zev worked the pump on the shotgun. The sound echoed through the church. Joe heard the activity behind him come to a sudden halt. He braced himself for the shot...

But it never came.

He looked at Zev. The old man met his gaze and sadly shook his head. He couldn't do it. To the accompaniment of the sound of renewed activity and derisive laughter behind him, Joe gave Zev a tiny nod of reassurance and understanding, then hurried the Mass toward the Consecration.

As he held the crust of bread aloft, he started at the sound of the life-sized crucifix crashing to the floor, cringed as he heard the freshly buttressed arms and crosspiece being torn away again.

As he held the wine aloft in the Pepsi can, the swaggering, grinning Vichy surrounded the altar and brazenly tore the cross from around his neck. Zev and Carl put up a struggle to keep theirs but were overpowered.

And then Joe's skin began to crawl as a new group entered the nave. There had to be at least forty of them, all of them vampires.

And Palmeri was leading them.

X

Palmeri hid his hesitancy as he approached the altar. The crucifix and its intolerable whiteness were gone, yet something was not right. Something repellent here, something that urged him to flee. What?

Perhaps it was just the residual effect of the crucifix and all the crosses they had used to line the walls. That had to be it. The unsettling aftertaste would fade as the night wore on. Oh, yes. His night- brothers and sisters from the nest would see to that.

He focused his attention on the man behind the altar and laughed when he realized what he held in his hands.

"Pepsi, Joseph? You're trying to consecrate Pepsi?" He turned to his nest siblings. "Do you see this, my brothers and sisters? Is this the man we are to fear? And look who he has with him! An old Jew and a parish hanger-on!"

He heard their hissing laughter as they fanned out around him, sweeping toward the altar in a wide phalanx. The Jew and Carl—he recognized Carl and wondered how he'd avoided capture for so long—retreated to the other side of the altar where they flanked Joseph. And Joseph... Joseph's handsome Irish face so pale and drawn, his mouth drawn into such a tight, grim line. He looked scared to death. And well he should be.

Palmeri put down his rage at Joseph's audacity. He was glad he had returned. He'd always hated the young priest for his easy manner with people, for the way the parishioners had flocked to him with their problems despite the fact that he had nowhere near the experience of their older and wiser pastor. But that was over now. That world was gone, replaced by a nightworld—Palmeri's world. And no one would be flocking to Father Joe for anything when Palmeri was through with him. "Father Joe"—how he'd hated it when the parishioners had started calling him that. Well, their Father Joe would provide superior entertainment tonight. This was going to be fun.

"Joseph, Joseph, Joseph," he said as he stopped and smiled at the young priest across the altar. "This futile gesture is so typical of your arrogance."

But Joseph only stared back at him, his expression a mixture of defiance and repugnance. And that only fueled Palmeri's rage.

"Do I repel you, Joseph? Does my new form offend your precious shanty-Irish sensibilities? Does my undeath disgust you?"

"You managed to do all that while you were still alive, Alberto."

Palmeri allowed himself to smile. Joseph probably thought he was putting on a brave front, but the tremor in his voice betrayed his fear.

"Always good with the quick retort, weren't you, Joseph. Always thinking you were better than me, always putting yourself above me."

"Not much of a climb where a child molester is concerned."

Palmeri's anger mounted.

"So superior. So self-righteous. What about your appetites, Joseph? The secret ones? What are they? Do you always hold them in check? Are you so far above the rest of us that you never give in to an improper impulse? I'll bet you think that even if we made you one of us you could resist the blood hunger."

He saw by the startled look in Joseph's face that he had struck a nerve. He stepped closer, almost touching the altar.

"You do, don't you? You really think you could resist it! Well, we shall see about that, Joseph. By- dawn you'll be drained—we'll each take a turn at you—and when the sun rises you'll have to hide from its light. When the night comes you'll be one of us. And then all the rules will be off. The night will be yours. You'll be able to do anything and everything you've ever wanted. But the blood hunger will be on you too. You won't be sipping your god's blood, as you've done so often, but human blood. You'll thirst for hot, human blood, Joseph. And you'll have to sate that thirst. There'll be no choice. And I want to be there when you do, Joseph. I want to be there to laugh in your face as you suck up the crimson nectar, and keep on laughing every night as the red hunger lures you into infinity."

And it would happen. Palmeri knew it as sure as he felt his own thirst. He hungered for the moment when he could rub dear Joseph's face in the muck of his own despair.

"I was about to finish saying Mass," Joseph said coolly. "Do you mind if I finish?"

Palmeri couldn't help laughing this time.

"Did you really think this charade would work? Did you really think you could celebrate Mass on this?"

He reached out and snatched the tablecloth from the altar, sending the Missal and the piece of bread to the floor and exposing the fouled surface of the marble.

"Did you really think you could affect the Tran- substantiation here? Do you really believe any of that garbage? That the bread and wine actually take on the substance of"—he tried to say the name but it wouldn't form—"the Son's body and blood?"

One of the nest brothers, Frederick, stepped forward and leaned over the altar, smiling.

"Transubstantiation?" he said in his most unctuous voice, pulling the Pepsi can from Joseph's hands. "Does that mean that this is the blood of the Son?"

A whisper of warning slithered through Palmeri's mind. Something about the can, something about the way he found it difficult to bring its outline into focus ...

"Brother Frederick, maybe you should—"

Frederick's grin broadened. "I've always wanted to sup on the blood of a deity."

The nest members hissed their laughter as Frederick raised the can and drank.

Palmeri was jolted by the explosion of intolerable brightness that burst from Frederick's mouth. The inside of his skull glowed beneath his scalp and shafts of pure white light shot from his ears, nose, eyes—every orifice in his head. The glow spread as it flowed down through his throat and chest and into his abdominal cavity, silhouetting his ribs before melting through his skin. Frederick was liquefying where he stood, his flesh steaming, softening, running like glowing molten lava.

No! This couldn't be happening! Not now when he had Joseph in his grasp!

Then the can fell from Frederick's dissolving fingers and landed on the altar top. Its contents splashed across the fouled surface, releasing another detonation of brilliance, this one more devastating than the first. The glare spread rapidly, extending over the upper surface and running down the sides, moving like a living thing, engulfing the entire altar, making it glow like a corpuscle of fire torn from the heart of the sun itself.

And with the light came blast-furnace heat that drove Palmeri back, back, back until he had to turn and follow the rest of his nest in a mad, headlong rush from St. Anthony's into the cool, welcoming safety of the outer darkness.

XI

As the vampires fled into the night, their Vichy toadies behind them, Zev stared in horrid fascination at the puddle of putrescence that was all that remained of the vampire Palmeri had called Frederick. He glanced at Carl and caught the look of dazed wonderment on his face. Zev touched the top of the altar—clean, shiny, every whorl of the marble surface clearly visible.

There was fearsome power here. Incalculable power. But instead of elating him, the realization only depressed him. How long had this been going on? Did it happen at every Mass? Why had he spent his entire life ignorant of this?

He turned to Father Joe.

"What happened?"

"I—I don't know."

"A miracle!" Carl said, running his palm over the altar top.

"A miracle and a meltdown," Father Joe said. He picked up the empty Pepsi can and looked into it. "You know, you go through the seminary, through your ordination, through countless Masses believing in the Transubstantiation. But after all these years ... to actually know ..."

Zev saw him rub his finger along the inside of the can and taste it. He grimaced.

"What's wrong?" Zev asked.

"Still tastes like sour abalone... with a hint of Pepsi."

"Doesn't matter what it tastes like. As far as Palmeri and his friends are concerned, it's the real thing."

"No," said the priest with a small smile. "That's Coke."

And then they started laughing. It wasn't that funny, but Zev found himself roaring along with other two. It was more a release of tension than anything else. His sides hurt. He had to lean against the altar to support himself.

It took the return of the Vichy to cure the laughter. They charged in carrying a heavy fire blanket. This time Father Joe did not stand by passively as they invaded his church. He stepped around the altar and met them head on.

He was great and terrible as he confronted them. His giant stature and raised fists cowed them for a few heartbeats. But then they must have remembered that they outnumbered him twelve to one and charged him. He swung a massive fist and caught the lead Vichy square on the jaw. The blow lifted him off his feet and he landed against another. Both went down.

Zev dropped to one knee and reached for the shotgun. He would use it this time, he would shoot these vermin, he swore it!

But then someone landed on his back and drove him to the floor. As he tried to get up he saw Father Joe, surrounded, swinging his fists, laying the Vichy out every time he connected. But there were too many. As the priest went down under the press of them, a heavy boot thudded against the side of Zev's head. He sank into darkness.

XII

... a throbbing in his head, stinging pain in his cheek, and a voice, sibilant yet harsh ...

"... now, Joseph. Come on. Wake up. I don't want you to miss this!"

Palmeri's sallow features swam into view, hovering over him, grinning like a skull. Joe tried to move but found his wrists and arms tied. His right hand throbbed, felt twice its normal size; he must have broken it on a Vichy jaw. He lifted his head and saw that he was tied spread-eagle on the altar, and that the altar had been covered with the fire blanket.

"Melodramatic, I admit," Palmeri said, "but fitting, don't you think? I mean, you and I used to sacrifice our god symbolically here every weekday and multiple times on Sundays, so why shouldn't this serve as your sacrificial altar?"

Joe shut his eyes against a wave of nausea. This couldn't be happening.

"Thought you'd won, didn't you?" When Joe wouldn't answer him, Palmeri went on. "And even if you'd chased me out of here for good, what would you have accomplished? The world is ours now, Joseph. Feeders and cattle—that is the hierarchy. We are the feeders. And tonight you'll join us. But he won't.

He stepped aside and made a flourish toward the balcony. Joe searched the dim, candlelit space of the nave, not sure what he was supposed to see.

Then he picked out Zev's form and he groaned. The old man's feet were lashed to the balcony rail; he hung upside down, his reddened face and frightened eyes turned his way. Joe fell back and strained at the ropes but they wouldn't budge.

"Let him go!"

"What? And let all that good rich Jewish blood go to waste? Why, these people are the Chosen of God! They're a delicacy!"

"Bastard!"

If he could just get his hands on Palmeri, just for a minute.

"Tut-tut, Joseph. Not in the house of the Lord. The Jew should have been smart and run away like Carl."

Carl got away? Good. The poor guy would probably hate himself, call himself a coward the rest of his life, but he'd done what he could. Better to live on than get strung up like Zev.

We're even, Carl.

"But don't worry about your rabbi. None of us will lay a fang on him. He hasn't earned the right to join us. We'll use the razor to bleed him. And when he's dead, he'll be dead for keeps. But not you, Joseph. Oh no, not you." His smile broadened. "You're mine."

Joe wanted to spit in Palmeri's face—not so much as an act of defiance as to hide the waves of terror surging through him—but there was no saliva to be had in his parched mouth. The thought of being undead made him weak. To spend eternity like... he looked at the rapt faces of Palmeri's fellow vampires as they clustered under Zev's suspended form . .. like them?

He wouldn’t be like them! He wouldn't allow it!

But what if there was no choice? What if becoming undead toppled a lifetime's worth of moral constraints, cut all the tethers on his human hungers, negated all his mortal concepts of how a life should be lived? Honor, justice, integrity, truth, decency, fairness, love—what if they became meaningless words instead of the footings for his life?

A thought struck him.

"A deal, Alberto," he said.

"You're hardly in a bargaining position, Joseph."

"I'm not? Answer me this: Do the undead ever kill each other? I mean, has one of them ever driven a stake through another's heart?"

"No. Of course not."

"Are you sure? You'd better be sure before you go through with your plans tonight. Because if I'm forced to become one of you, I'll be crossing over with just one thought in mind: to find you. And when I do I won't stake your heart, I'll stake your arms and legs to the pilings of the Point Pleasant boardwalk where you can watch the sun rise and feel it slowly crisp your skin to charcoal."

Palmeri's smile wavered. "Impossible. You'll be different. You'll want to thank me. You'll wonder why you ever resisted."

"You'd better be sure of that, Alberto ... for your sake. Because I'll have all eternity to track you down. And I'll find you, Alberto. I swear it on my own grave. Think on that."

"Do you think an empty threat is going to cow me?"

"We'll find out how empty it is, won't we? But here's the deal: Let Zev go and I'll let you be."

"You care that much for an old Jew?"

"He's something you never knew in life, and never will know: He's a friend." And he gave me back my soul.

Palmeri leaned closer. His foul, nauseous breath wafted against Joe's face.

"A friend? How can you be friends with a dead man?" With that he straightened and turned toward the balcony. "Do him! Now!”

As Joe shouted out frantic pleas and protests, one of the vampires climbed up the rubble toward Zev. Zev did not struggle. Joe saw him close his eyes, waiting. As the vampire reached out with the straight razor, Joe bit back a sob of grief and rage and helplessness. He was about to squeeze his own eyes shut when he saw a flame arc through the air from one of the windows. It struck the floor with a crash of glass and a woomp! of exploding flame.

Joe had only heard of such things, but he immediately realized that he had just seen his first Molotov cocktail in action. The splattering gasoline caught the clothes of a nearby vampire who began running in circles, screaming as it beat at its flaming clothes. But its cries were drowned by the roar of other voices, a hundred or more. Joe looked around and saw people—men, women, teenagers—climbing in the windows, charging through the front doors. The women held crosses on high while the men wielded long wooden pikes— broom, rake, and shovel handles whittled to sharp points. Joe recognized most of the faces from the Sunday Masses he had held here for years.

St. Anthony's parishioners were back to reclaim their church.

"Yes!" he shouted, not sure of whether to laugh or cry. But when he saw the rage in Palmeri's face, he laughed. "Too bad, Alberto!"

Palmeri made a lunge at his throat but cringed away as a woman with an upheld crucifix and a man with a pike charged the altar—Carl and a woman Joe recognized as Mary O'Hare.

"Told ya I wun't letcha down, din't I, Fadda?" Carl said, grinning and pulling out a red Swiss Army knife. He began sawing at the rope around Joe's right wrist. "Din't I?"

"That you did, Carl. I don't think I've ever been so glad to see anyone in my entire life. But how—?"

"I told 'em. I run t'rough da parish, goin' house ta house. I told 'em dat Fadda Joe was in trouble an' dat we let him down before but we shoun't let him down again. He come back fa us, now we gotta go back fa him. Simple as dat. And den dey started runnin' house ta house, an afore ya knowed it, we had ourselfs a little army. We come ta kick ass, Fadda, if you'll excuse da expression."

"Kick all the ass you can, Carl."

Joe glanced at Mary O'Hare's terror-glazed eyes as she swiveled around, looking this way and that; he saw how the crucifix trembled in her hand. She wasn't going to kick too much ass in her state, but she was here, dear God, she was here for him and for St. Anthony's despite the terror that so obviously filled her. His heart swelled with love for these people and pride in their courage.

As soon as his arms were free, Joe sat up and took the knife from Carl. As he sawed at his leg ropes, he looked around the church.

The oldest and youngest members of the parishioner army were stationed at the windows and doors where they held crosses aloft, cutting off the vampires' escape, while all across the nave—chaos. Screams, cries, and an occasional shot echoed through St. Anthony's. The vampires were outnumbered three to one and seemed blinded and confused by all the crosses around them. Despite their superhuman strength, it appeared that some were indeed getting their asses kicked. A number were already writhing on the floor, impaled on pikes. As Joe watched, he saw a pair of the women, crucifixes held before them, backing a vampire into a corner. As it cowered there with its arms across its face, one of the men charged in with a sharpened rake handle held like a lance and ran it through.

But a number of parishioners lay in inert, bloody heaps on the floor, proof that the vampires and the Vichy were claiming their share of victims too.

Joe freed his feet and hopped off the altar. He looked around for Palmeri—he wanted Palmeri— but the vampire priest had lost himself in the melee. Joe glanced up at the balcony and saw that Zev was still hanging there, struggling to free himself. He started across the nave to help him.

XIII

Zev hated that he should be hung up here like a salami in a deli window. He tried again to pull his upper body up far enough to reach his leg ropes but he couldn't get close. He had never been one for exercise; doing a sit-up flat on the floor would have been difficult, so what made him think he could do the equivalent maneuver hanging upside down by his feet? He dropped back, exhausted, and felt the blood rush to his head again. His vision swam, his ears pounded, he felt like the skin of his face was going to burst open. Much more of this and he'd have a stroke or worse maybe.

He watched the upside-down battle below and was glad to see the vampires getting the worst of it. These people—seeing Carl among them, Zev assumed they were part of St. Anthony's parish— were ferocious, almost savage in their attacks on the vampires. Months' worth of pent-up rage and fear was being released upon their tormentors in a single burst. It was almost frightening.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his foot. Someone was untying his knots. Thank you, Lord. Soon he would be on his feet again. As the cords came loose he decided he should at least attempt to participate in his own rescue.

Once more, Zev thought. Once more I'll try.

With a grunt he levered himself up, straining, stretching to grasp something, anything. A hand came out of the darkness and he reached for it. But Zev's relief turned to horror when he felt the cold clamminess of the thing that clutched him, that pulled him up and over the balcony rail with inhuman strength. His bowels threatened to evacuate when Palmeri's grinning face loomed not six inches from his own.

"It's not over yet, Jew," he said softly, his foul breath clogging Zev's nose and throat. "Not by a long shot!"

He felt Palmeri's free hand ram into his belly and grip his belt at the buckle, then the other hand grab a handful of his shirt at the neck. Before he could struggle or cry out, he was lifted free of the floor and hoisted over the balcony rail.

And the demon's voice was in his ear.

"Joseph called you a friend, Jew. Let's see if he really meant it."

XIV

Joe was halfway across the floor of the nave when he heard Palmeri's voice echo above the madness.

"Stop them, Joseph! Stop them now or I drop your friend!"

Joe looked up and froze. Palmeri stood at the balcony rail, leaning over it, his eyes averted from the nave and all its newly arrived crosses. At the end of his outstretched arms was Zev, suspended in mid-air over the splintered remains of the pews, over a particularly large and ragged spire of wood that pointed directly at the middle of Zev's back.

Zev's frightened eyes were flashing between Joe and the giant spike below.

Around him Joe heard the sounds of the melee drop a notch, then drop another as all eyes were drawn to the tableau on the balcony.

"A human can die impaled on a wooden stake just as well as a vampire!" Palmeri cried. "And just as quickly if it goes through his heart. But it can take hours of agony if it rips through his gut."

St. Anthony's grew silent as the fighting stopped and each faction backed away to a different side of the church, leaving Joe alone in the middle.

"What do you want, Alberto?"

"First I want all those crosses put away so that I can see!"

Joe looked to his right where his parishioners stood.

"Put them away," he told them. When a murmur of dissent arose, he added, "Don't put them down, just out of sight. Please."

Slowly, one by one at first, then in groups, the crosses and crucifixes were placed behind backs or tucked out of sight within coats.

To his left, the vampires hissed their relief and the Vichy cheered. The sound was like hot needles being forced under Joe's fingernails. Above, Palmeri turned his face to Joe and smiled.

"That's better."

"What do you want?" Joe asked, knowing with a sick crawling in his gut exactly what the answer would be.

"A trade," Palmeri said.

"Me for him, I suppose?" Joe said.

Palmeri's smile broadened. "Of course."

"No, Joe!" Zev cried.

Palmeri shook the old man roughly. Joe heard him say, "Quiet, Jew, or I'll snap your spine!" Then he looked down at Joe again. "The other thing is to tell your rabble to let my people go." He laughed and shook Zev again. "Hear that, Jew? A Biblical reference—Old Testament, no less!"

"All right," Joe said without hesitation.

The parishioners on his right gasped as one and cries of "No!" and "You can't!" filled St. Anthony's. A particularly loud voice nearby shouted, "He's only a lousy kike!"

Joe wheeled on the man and recognized Gene Harrington, a carpenter. He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder at the vampires and their servants.

"You sound like you'd be more at home with them, Gene."

Harrington backed up a step and looked at his feet.

"Sorry, Father," he said in a voice that hovered on the verge of a sob. "But we just got you back!"

"I'll be all right," Joe said softly.

And he meant it. Deep inside he had a feeling that he would come through this, that if he could trade himself for Zev and face Palmeri one-on-one, he could come out the victor, or at least battle him to a draw. Now that he was no longer tied up like some sacrificial lamb, now that he was free, with full use of his arms and legs again, he could not imagine dying at the hands of the likes of Palmeri.

Besides, one of the parishioners had given him a tiny crucifix. He had it closed in the palm of his hand.

But he had to get Zev out of danger first. That above all else. He looked up at Palmeri.

"All right, Alberto. I'm on my way up."

"Wait!" Palmeri said. "Someone search him."

Joe gritted his teeth as one of the Vichy, a blubbery, unwashed slob, came forward and searched his pockets. Joe thought he might get away with the crucifix but at the last moment he was made to open his hands. The Vichy grinned in Joe's face as he snatched the tiny cross from his palm and shoved it into his pocket.

"He's clean now!" the slob said and gave Joe a shove toward the vestibule.

Joe hesitated. He was walking into the snake pit unarmed now. A glance at his parishioners told him he couldn't very well turn back now.

He continued on his way, clenching and unclenching his tense, sweaty fists as he walked. He still had a chance of coming out of this alive. He was too angry to die. He prayed that when he got within reach of the ex-priest the smoldering rage at how he had framed him when he'd been pastor, at what he'd done to St. Anthony's since then would explode and give him the strength to tear Palmeri to pieces.

"No!" Zev shouted from above. "Forget about me! You've started something here and you've got to see it through!"

Joe ignored his friend.

"Coming, Alberto."

Father Joe's coming, Alberto. And he's pissed. Royally pissed.

XV

Zev craned his neck around, watching Father Joe disappear beneath the balcony.

"Joe! Comeback!"

Palmeri shook him again.

"Give it up, old Jew. Joseph never listened to anyone and he's not listening to you. He still believes in faith and virtue and honesty, in the power of goodness and truth over what he perceives as evil. He'll come up here ready to sacrifice himself for you, yet sure in his heart that he's going to win in the end. But he's wrong."

"No!" Zev said.

But in his heart he knew that Palmeri was right. How could Joe stand up against a creature with Palmeri's strength, who could hold Zev in the air like this for so long? Didn't his arms ever tire?

"Yes!" Palmeri hissed. "He's going to lose and we're going to win. We'll win for the same reason we'll always win. We don't let anything as silly and transient as sentiment stand in our way. If we'd been winning below and situations were reversed—if Joseph were holding one of my nest brothers over that wooden spike below—do you think I'd pause for a moment? For a second? Never! That's why this whole exercise by Joseph and these people is futile."

Futile. .. Zev thought. Like much of his life, it seemed. Like all of his future. Joe would die tonight and Zev would live on, a cross-wearing Jew, with the traditions of his past sacked and in flames, and nothing in his future but a vast, empty, limitless plain to wander alone.

There was a sound on the balcony stairs and Palmeri turned his head.

"Ah Joseph," he said.

Zev couldn't see the priest but he shouted anyway.

"Go back Joe! Don't let him trick you!"

"Speaking of tricks," Palmeri said, leaning further over the balcony rail as an extra warning to Joe, "I hope you're not going to try anything foolish."

"No," said Joe's tired voice from somewhere behind Palmeri. "No tricks. Pull him in and let him go."

Zev could not let this happen. And suddenly he knew what he had to do. He twisted his body and grabbed the front of Palmeri's cassock while bringing his legs up and bracing his feet against one of the uprights of the brass balcony rail. As Palmeri turned his startled face toward him, Zev put all his strength into his legs for one convulsive backward push against the railing, pulling Palmeri with him. The vampire priest was overbalanced. Even his enormous strength could not help him once his feet came free of the floor. Zev saw his undead eyes widen with terror as his lower body slipped over the railing. As they fell free, Zev wrapped his arms around Palmeri and clutched his cold and surprisingly thin body tight against him.

"What goes through this old Jew goes through you!" he shouted into the vampire's ear.

For an instant he saw Joe's horrified face appear over the balcony's receding edge, heard Joe's faraway shout of "No!" mingle with Palmeri's nearer scream of the same word, then there was a spine-cracking jar and a tearing, wrenching pain beyond all comprehension in his chest. In an eye- blink he felt the sharp spire of wood rip through him and into Palmeri.

And then he felt no more.

As roaring blackness closed in he wondered if he'd done it, if this last desperate, foolish act had succeeded. He didn't want to die without finding out. He wanted to know—

But then he knew no more.

XVI

Joe shouted incoherently as he hung over the rail and watched Zev's fall, gagged as he saw the bloody point of the pew remnant burst through the back of Palmeri's cassock directly below him. He saw Palmeri squirm and flop around like a speared fish, then go limp atop Zev's already inert form.

As cheers mixed with cries of horror and the sounds of renewed battle rose from the nave, Joe turned away from the balcony rail and dropped to his knees.

"Zev!" he cried aloud! "Good God, Zev!"

Forcing himself to his feet, he stumbled down the back stairs, through the vestibule, and into the nave. The vampires and the Vichy were on the run, as cowed and demoralized by their leader's death as the parishioners were buoyed by it. Slowly, steadily, they were falling before the relentless onslaught. But Joe paid them scant attention. He fought his way to where Zev lay impaled beneath Palmeri's already rotting corpse. He looked for a sign of life in his old friend's glazing eyes, a hint of a pulse in his throat under his beard, but there was nothing.

"Oh, Zev, you shouldn't have. You shouldn't have."

Suddenly he was surrounded by a cheering throng of St. Anthony's parishioners.

"We did it, Faddajoe!" Carl cried, his face and hands splattered with blood. "We killed 'em all! We got our church back!"

"Thanks to this man here," Joe said, pointing to Zev.

"No!" someone shouted. "Thanks toyoul"

Amid the cheers, Joe shook his head and said nothing. Let them celebrate. They deserved it. They'd reclaimed a small piece of the planet as their own, a toe-hold and nothing more. A small victory of minimal significance in the war, but a victory nonetheless. They had their church back, at least for tonight. And they intended to keep it.

Good. But there would be one change. If they wanted their Father Joe to stick around they were going to have to agree to rename the church.

St. Zev's.

Joe liked the sound of that.

SOURCE MATERIAL

The following original sources were used in creating this eBook:

Analog, April 1971

Analog, July 1971

Analog, December, 1972

Aftershock & Others

Do-Gooder “One-Sheet”

(my personal copy, #163)

Soft & Others

Terror Tales 2

The Barrens and Others

The Vampire Archives

The World Fantasy Convention

(1990 Program Book)

999:The last Book of Supernatural Horror and Suspense

STORIES NOT INCLUDED

The following short stories were not included in my eBook because the printed materials that I have them in are found in my 1st Editions/1st Prints and are much too valuable to open to scan:

“He Shall Be John”

“The Death of Balajuro”

“Kids”

“Wires”

“Nyro Fiddles”

“ICU”

“Pranksters”

The following short stories/novellas/novelettes were not included in my eBook, for space considerations, as they are word-for-word excerpts from previously published novels:

“An Evening in the Park”

“The Lord’s Work”

“Sunday in New York”

“Feral”

The following novellas were not included in my eBook, simply for space considerations:

“The Tery” (novella)

“Dydeetown Girl”