Partridge Norman

The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

For Mom and Max …

with a whole lotta love

SEEING PAST THE CORNERS

RED RIGHT HAND

COYOTES

DO NOT HASTEN TO BID ME ADIEU

THE MAN WITH THE BARBED WIRE FISTS

THE PACK

BLOOD MONEY

LAST KISS

BLACKBIRDS

WRONG TURN

SPYDER

MINUTES

WHERE THE WOODBINE TWINETH

THE HOLLOW MAN

RETURN OF THE SHROUD

TOMBSTONE MOON

THE MOJAVE TWO-STEP

CARNE MUERTA

BUCKET OF BLOOD

UNDEAD ORIGAMI

HARVEST

THE BARS ON SATAN’S JAILHOUSE

SEEING PAST THE CORNERS

(An Introduction of Sorts)

Get a writer talking about himself and he’ll eventually come around to the question of genesis. How did he become a writer? When did he know that storytelling was the path for him, and why? As a reader I love those kind of questions. Give me a short story collection with biographical notes or story introductions, and chances are that I’ll read that stuff before I ever get near the fiction. I can’t help myself There’s just something inside me that needs to know… and right now.

So it’s only fair that I give you my answer to the genesis question up front. Not so much the how, when, or why I became a writer, because I’m still not exactly sure about the answers to those questions.

I can tell you the where, though.

I became a writer at the drive-in movies.

Let me tell you about it.

If you were born in the late fifties, like I was, drive-in movies were a big part of your growing-up experience. I visited my first drive-in before I could talk, figure around 1959 or so. Yeah. I couldn’t talk, but I could cry. And my brother, who was around ten at the time, wasn’t exactly the kind of kid who sat still easily. Between the two of us, our parents would have had their hands full at a walk-in theater.

But we were fine at the drive-in. In the comfort of our Chevy Bel-Aire, baby Norm could cry his head off and my parents wouldn’t have to suffer adult recriminations. And if my brother needed to turn his inner wildcat loose, there was always the playground — a gravel lot just below the screen complete with slides and monkey bars and carousel and a dozen other kids whacked out on snack-bar popcorn and sugary drinks (this was pre-diet drinks… also pre-Ritalin).

My parents both worked — Dad was a truck driver and Mom was a railroad clerk. They were usually on a budget. That was another reason we went to the drive-in. My dad had a connection that could get us in for free.

Said connection’s name was Jack Kennedy (really). I don’t remember Jack, outside the place he occupies in family stories. But from what I’ve heard, he was just the kind of neighbor you were apt to find on a fifties TV sitcom — a hale and hearty Irishman who worked several different part-time jobs to support a large family.

When the TV boom hit, Jack installed antennas on most rooftops in the neighborhood. He was also an electrician. Anyway, the part-time job that relates our story is Jack’s gig as the projectionist at our local drive-in theater. That’s how he ended up with a steady supply of free passes, some of which he gave to my dad. And that was great with my mom. She loved movies. Dad was a different story. He was on the impatient side, like my brother. Getting him to sit still through a double-feature was next to impossible. Sooner or later he’d decide he needed to take a stroll, or head to the snack bar for a cup of coffee, or have a cigarette.

Of course, Jack Kennedy counted on my dad getting itchy feet. I imagine Kennedy was bored out of his skull in that projection booth. He must have seen each movie at least a dozen times. And he probably heard the advertisements that played during intermission in his nightmares, because the same ads played at our drive-in week after week, year after year. To this day, everyone in my family can recite the Winchester Mystery House ad, which featured ghostly voices egging on Sarah Winchester to add more rooms to the legendary crazy-quilt mansion she built to appease the spirits of those killed by her husband’s rifles: “Keep building! Keep building!” the ghostly voices cried at the beginning of the ad, and somewhere in the middle a grizzled old-timer said, “Hey, Slim, gimmee one of them Winchester repeatin’ rifles,” and then came the final tag line: “The Winchester Mystery House… open every day, in San Jose!”

There I go. I’ve ended up about two steps removed from the thing I set out to talk about. But that’s the way this introduction is playing out, which is another way of saying that I’m bound to take more than a few detours on this particular road and I certainly won’t hold it against you, dear reader, if right about now you decide to flip ahead to the first story and get to the meat of the meal. If you continue on here, it’s going to be a mixed assortment of snack bar food — popcorn and corndogs and the occasional world-famous Flavo Shrimp Roll thrown in just because I feel like it.

Okay. That said, I feel a little better. You’ve been given fair warning. Beware digressions, detours, and heartburn, all ye who enter here

Back to Jack Kennedy. Obviously, he gave my dad free drive-in passes as much for his own benefit as ours. He knew my old man would end up in the projection booth as soon as he got restless. Together, they’d knock back a couple of beers and shoot the bull. Some nights they’d even fire up a little barbecue that Jack kept by the projection booth, toss on a couple of steaks, and proceed to ignore the movie to the best of their ability.

Sometimes Jack would miss a reel change and the car horns would start blaring. Sometimes the barbecue would get a little out of hand, as it did during a revival screening of Ben-Hur, when my dad and his buddy nearly set the projection booth on fire. The smoke kind of added something to the movie, though. For years, I thought that some wily Roman slave had torched the Coliseum during the big chariot race, put up a smoke screen that allowed Chuck Heston to cream Stephen Boyd.

Conflagrations aside, we all had a good time at the drive-in. Big brother climbing the monkey bars. Dad hanging out with Jack Kennedy. And me and Mom watching the movies.

We saw all kinds of stuff Big-budget epics. Westerns. Musicals. Comedies. And horror movies. I enjoyed most everything, but it was the horror movies that really took hold. That wasn’t much of a surprise, really. I’d always been the kind of kid who loved ghost stories more than anything. Some of my earliest memories are of summertime parties in the backyard where the neighborhood dads would spin spooky stories. The stories my dad told were some of the best. Tales of bloody footprints in abandoned houses, and Pennsylvania’s mysterious, glowing Green Man who stalked the countryside on moonless nights, and a dozen other weird and wonderful stories that filled my head and never quite managed to leave me… or my imagination.

Anyway, I spent a good part of my youth reading, watching (and eventually writing) about monsters. I learned about the unholy trinity (Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman) the way most kids my age learned about baseball players. Me, I didn’t care about baseball one little bit. No way I could tell you anyone’s batting average. But if you wanted to know a dozen different ways to kill a vampire, I was the kid you’d want to consult.

It made me feel more than a little freakish. Back in the sixties and early seventies, horror was definitely not cool. Not in the town where I grew up. Sports were cool. Cars were cool. Rock ‘n’ roll was cool. But monsters… uh-uh. Forget it. Monsters were okay for a couple of hours on the late, late show or at the movies, but any interest beyond that was seen as slightly weird. And if you were a kid like me, who dreaded being labeled “slightly weird” in the worst way, you learned to keep your mouth shut about monsters.

Of course, years later when I started going to horror writers’ conventions, I found out that there were a whole lot of kids just like me. We bought Famous Monsters of Filmland even though our parents had forbidden it, we filled our bookcases with Aurora monster models, we collected Castle Films silent 8mm versions of classic monster movies and magazines like Creepy and Eerie. And most of us were very careful to keep all of that stuff under wraps, especially around our parents. I mean, you could only take your mom and dad exchanging those “at first I thought he was going through a phase but now I’m getting worried” looks so many times.

But some of us were lucky. We found other kids who liked the same stuff we did. Kids who read Bradbury and Bloch and that weird guy Lovecraft, kids who marked the TV Guide weekly and set their alarm clocks to catch monster movies on the late, late show (this was pre-VCR, of course).

Me, I was one of the lucky ones. My best friends—Ron Ezell and Darryl Castro—were pretty indulgent of my fascination for all things horror. Ron, especially, went along with it, but he kind of marched to a different drummer anyway. He was the only kid I knew who actually talked his parents into letting him stay up until midnight on school nights so he could watch the Alfred Hitchcock Presents reruns the rest of us had to miss. The way Ron would relate some of those stories as we walked to school the next morning was better than the episodes themselves, and I always envied the fact that he never really gave a damn what other kids thought of his enthusiasm for horror movies and comic books.

Anyway, a lot of good stuff went into our creative boilers, and something was bound to come out. We made a few 8mm monster movies (including “Dracula vs. the Wolfman,” which featured a chubby vampire and a gray-haired lycanthrope [because the only wig we could get for our monster was octogenarian-gray]), and we drew our own comics, and we wrote a lot of short stories.

At least I did. My stories usually turned out to be pretty dull imitations of stories I’d read or watched. But I had fun writing them, and by trial and error (and by reading and watching) I began to learn the conventions of horror stories—how to grab a reader’s attention right away, how to foreshadow the coming of the monster, and how to set up a twist ending with clues planted early on. I’m not saying I was exactly accomplished at any of the above. My idea of a great opening was: “At midnight, the ghost hunters arrived at the Mansion of Blood. There were twelve men and five women. By sunrise the next morning, all but one would be dead!” But I was trying my best, and I paid attention to the things I read and watched, and I tried to make those things work in my own stories, and by doing that I couldn’t help but start to learn. The end result was kind of like osmosis, I think, and I began to develop an almost organic understanding of how horror stories worked.

When I sat down to write “those spooky stories” (as my mom called them), it was my goal to scare the living daylights out of whoever might read them. Not that I succeeded much. That wasn’t likely when you were writing epic stuff like “Castle of the Honda Monsters,” in which an elite squad of U. S. Marines traveled to Japan to battle a pack of Honda motorcycle-riding goblins who were terrorizing the countryside. Of course, the Marines won in the end—and here comes my big O. Henry twist—because our heroes were riding a superior American product: Harley-Davidsons! Finishing that story, I remember being incredibly proud of my brilliant twist ending. Leathernecks on hogs! Wotta concept! Now… well, all I’ll say now is that “Castle of the Honda Monsters” was the best motorcycle-riding goblin story I could possibly write… at the time.

Anyway, my buddies Ron and Darryl only went along so far with my enthusiasm for all things horror. They certainly weren’t as single-minded as I was, but pretty soon I met another kid who was on my wavelength. His name was Chris, and he’d seen every horror movie that I had and more. But that was no real surprise, because it turned out that Chris’ dad was the new manager of the drive-in… and (to get this introduction back on track at long last) Chris’ family actually lived there!

The set-up was like this—besides the big screen and the snack bar, there was a little house at one corner of the drive-in lot. The owners had built it for the manager and his family, and it was probably their sneaky way of turning a 40 hour a week job into a 24/7 job.

The house itself wasn’t anything fancy—in fact, saying it was “modest” would probably be an overstatement. But to my ten-year-old eye, my buddy Chris’ new home was just about the coolest thing I could possibly imagine. In the living room, there was a big sliding glass door that faced the drive-in screen, and mounted on a nearby wall was a speaker—the same kind customers hooked in their car windows so they could hear the movies. That meant Chris could lounge on his living room couch and watch anything that was playing at the drive-in. No muss, no fuss, no begging parents or an older brother to take him to the show. Talk about having it made!

Needless to say, Chris and I became the best of friends. I’d hang out at his house some nights and catch a movie (the first time I saw Planet of the Apes I was sitting on his couch), but most of the time I visited him during the day.

That was just as cool. There was something magical about being around the drive-in when no one else was there. It was weird, having the whole place to ourselves, and it kind of reminded me of those post-apocalyptic movies I loved — stuff like The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price. On hot afternoons during summer vacation we’d hole up in the snack bar, pretending to fight off the vampire hordes that had sucked poor Vinnie dry. When we got tired of that, we’d read press books and promotional flyers for upcoming movies none of our friends knew about yet. I’ll tell you, we felt like bigtime cigar-puffin’ Hollywood insiders, doing that.

I noticed things at the drive-in during the day that I’d never noticed at night. Namely how big—and how empty—the screen looked when the projector wasn’t filling it up with a movie. It sure didn’t look like the sparkling white screens at the walk-in movie theaters I frequented. No, the drive-in screen was made up of dozens of garage-door-sized panels, and while some of them were clean and white, most of them were dappled with strange gray drive-in barnacles, as if the long-ago projected image of Moby Dick had left something behind.

And that’s not a bad image—the empty screen as some leviathan waiting for its moment, some Moby Dick trapped long after the projector was turned off and the film returned to the distributor. I could almost picture Gregory Peck pinned up there, doing the old come-hither with his dead Ahab arm. Step right up, kid, were waiting for you. There’s lots of room up here. But don’t forget to bring your stories.

See, even then, I knew that I wanted to be a writer. I realized that was what I was built to do. Of course, I didn’t know just what I’d write. Maybe novels, maybe short stories or comic books or movies… and yes, I certainly had moments when I imagined my very own movies being projected on the drive-in screen. But that was a very big dream, and while I couldn’t really understand what it would take to make that dream a reality, I couldn’t quite help but be reminded of it every time I looked up at that empty screen. My future seemed to stretch out before me up there, a bigga bigga hunka daunting emptiness that only I could fill up, and every one of those barnacled panels seemed to hold a very special kind of challenge for me.

Ahab’s flapping arm, Gregory Peck’s voice: Bring it on, kid… and put it up here.

Somehow, I was determined to do just that. But I had no idea how to begin, and the very idea of trying scared me more than a little.

But there were other things around the drive-in that scared me, too.

There was the hunchback.

I can’t remember what the hunchback did at the drive-in. It runs in my mind that he might have managed the snack bar, or maybe he delivered the new movies when the program changed. Whatever he did, he was around the place a lot. Chris and I always knew when he was coming, too. The hunchback drove a muscle car, glass-packed muffler and all that, and you always heard his car a good five minutes before you ever saw him.

The hunchback couldn’t have been much more than twenty. Apart from the hump, he looked like any other member of the Woodstock generation. He had acne, stringy Neil Young hair that he was always brushing away from his black horn-rimmed glasses, and more than a few paisley-patterned shirts that must have been specially tailored to accommodate his twisted back.

I’m ashamed to say that the hunchback scared me at first. But once I got past the idea that he looked a little different, I realized that he was pretty much the same as the guys my older brother hung around with. For one thing, he loved to talk about his car. I can’t remember what kind of car it was — to tell you the truth, I know as much about cars as I do about baseball — but I do remember that the engine in the hunchback’s street machine really gleamed. I’d never seen anything like it, and I’d been around my share of gearheads (at the tender age of six I had a hot-rodding babysitter who liked to borrow my red crayons to touch up the stripes on his tires, but his car’s engine always looked like it was lightly basted in Pennzoil).

Every now and then the hunchback would stop and talk with Chris and me. Once he even gave me a bunch of old movie posters, including one for The Crimson Cult because he knew I liked Boris Karloff. But Chris always worried that we were getting in the guy’s hair. Maybe he was afraid that the hunchback would find out about our raids on the snack bar, where we’d sometimes wash buckets of day-old popcorn down with forbidden Cokes from the concession dispenser. Whatever his reason, Chris thought it was best that we steered clear of the hunchback most of the time. If we were anywhere close to the snack bar when he showed up, we’d jump on our bikes and head off to “shoot the humps.”

That was another favorite drive-in activity. We’d pedal as fast as we could and tear over the mounded rows that allowed drive-in patrons to park at an incline so they could get a good view of the screen. We’d launch ourselves from the crest of those mounds — getting airborne, coming down hard, pedaling again to take the next row and praying we wouldn’t wipe out… because that meant taking a gravel bath.

One day the hunchback came roaring up in his muscle car while we were shooting the humps. He leaned against the hood and watched us for awhile. We did our best to show off, pedaling like crazy to build up a good head up steam, pulling up on our butterfly handlebars as we launched ourselves, hitting the breaks and kicking up gravel with our fat “slick” back tires when we landed… and then topping it all off with the grand finale — letting our bikes slip out from under us while we held onto the handlebars as we came to a stop.

That last bit really notched on our own personal coolness meter, but the hunchback wasn’t impressed. “Looks like a lot of fun,” he said after watching us for awhile. “But how’d you boys like to try a real thrill ride?”

When you’re ten years old and you don’t want to look like a hopeless chicken, there was only one way to answer that question. We shouted out “sure thing” and the hunchback told us what he had in mind. By then there was no way we could back down even if we wanted to, and pretty soon we found ourselves lying on the hood of the hunchback’s car, painted flames beneath our chests warmed by a presently idle engine that had just recently been tearing up the highway on a hot summer day. The hunchback gave us one last chance, asking us if we were absolutely positively 100% sure we wanted to try his thrill ride, but there was no way we could chicken out now.

“Okay,” he said. “You boys better grab onto those windshield wipers, though. I’d hate to see one of you take a tumble and end up with a bad case of road rash.”

The hunchback climbed behind the wheel while I wondered what he was talking about. Road rash?  I’d never heard the expression. He keyed the ignition, and the glass-pack muffler growled. I felt the big, spotless chrome and steel engine vibrating beneath me, and Chris and I exchanged what the hell are we doing? glances, and the hunchback floored it and the car’s rear wheels kicked up a spray of gravel and we were on our way.

There were maybe ten rows of parking humps between the snack bar and the screen. The hunchback hit the gas as he crested every one of them, trying to get airborne like Steve McQueen in Bullitt. Of course, the humps were too close together to pick up much speed in between, but even a little speed turned out to be more than enough.

See, it wasn’t the going up that was dangerous… it was the coming down. Every time the hunchback’s car landed, the front shocks screamed and Chris and I yelped, holding onto those windshield wipers for dear life.

I should have closed my eyes, but I didn’t. I looked to my right and saw a sea of gravel waiting to chew me up and spit me out. I looked to my left and saw Chris beside me, trapped somewhere between a laugh and a scream. I looked straight ahead and saw the bug-splattered windshield, remembering the joke my dad told every time an insect ended it all in a kamikaze smear: “Well, he won’t have the guts to do that again.”

I stared at the bugs, suddenly feeling that we shared a certain kinship. The hunchback eyed me from behind the steering wheel. He was laughing his head off, his stringy hair slashing his hornrimmed glasses as he bounced in the driver’s seat. His twisted spine prevented him from seeing more than a couple inches above the wheel under the best of circumstances, and I suddenly wondered if he could see over me at all when he wasn’t bouncing.

Finally we crested the last hump. Okay, I thought. It’s almost over now. This crazy maniac will stop his car, and we’ll get off, and then we can all have a good laugh and lie about how much fun this was —

But the hunchback didn’t stop his car. He kept going, following an access road that ran along the playground fence and looped around to the back of the lot.

The hunchback hit the gas and headed in that direction.

I stared through the windshield.

I saw the look in his eyes.

I knew exactly what he was going to do.

Jesus Christ! I thought. This crazy asshole’s going around again!

And he did just that, starting from the rear of the lot, hopping row after row as he headed for that big white Moby Dick screen. I held on for dear life, like a drowning Ishmael grabbing fistfuls of Queequeg’s coffin, the sharp back edges of the windshield wiper digging into my hands. But even if I managed to hold on, that didn’t mean the wiper itself would hold — after all, I knew kids who broke those off for fun, like automotive toothpicks.

I wasn’t going to so much as look at that gravel now. I was too scared of what it could do to me. Road rash. Now I knew exactly what that meant. I didn’t want a terminal case. I closed my eyes, but that only tuned in my senses to The Hunchback’s Wild Ride soundtrack — gravel rattling in the car’s wheel wells like machine-gun fire, the shock absorbers screaming, and the radio blaring sixties rock. I don’t know what the song was, but it should have been the Surfaris’ “Wipe Out.”

We shot another hump. My chin hit the hood. My eyes flashed open. The hunchback was still laughing, still having a great old time behind that bug-splattered windshield. Either he didn’t have a clue as to the level of our terror (I couldn’t believe he might actually think we were enjoying this), or something else was going on in his head —

And that, dear reader, is when the budding writer in my brain kicked in. Suddenly I saw the hunchback’s wild ride as a story… like something that Robert Bloch would invent for one of his collections. And Bloch’s stories almost always had a twist. That scared me — remember, I’d begun to understand how horror stories worked — and suddenly I was absolutely certain that I knew what the twist in this story was going to be.

After all, the driver was a hunchback. I’d known that all along — but you always had to know that all along for the twist to work. But it was the thing I didn’t know that really scared me — I had no idea how the hunchback had ended up being a hunchback. It wasn’t like I’d read the special origin issue of Teenage Hunchback comics. I knew nothing about the guy.

Of course, I knew none of the cold hard clinical facts about scoliosis of the spine, either. But right then, I didn’t need to. Such mundane knowledge wouldn’t have satisfied my imagination. Because by then that most dangerous of animals had put the whole puzzle together for me, and I imagined that the hunchback had once been a kid just like me, a kid with a nice straight back who’d taken a dare to hold onto a windshield wiper while he rode a bucking hunk of Detroit steel around a parking lot …

Suddenly I was certain that what was happening was locked up solid in the same kind of logic that I’d found in so many stories. Only this story wasn’t trapped between the covers of a book, and it wasn’t bordered by the four corners of the drive-in screen. No. It was happening down here on the ground, in the middle of a gravel lot speared with in-a-car speakers.

And it was happening to me.

As the muscle car charged toward the snack bar, I was quite certain that there was nothing I could do to defy the inevitable. After all, how could anyone escape the big twist? I’d never known any character in a story to manage that trick, and I didn’t figure I was going to do it now.

All I could do was smile grimly as life turned the page for me.

All I could do was watch as my imagination ran a grisly coming attractions trailer of a kid tumbling across a gravel lot at thirty miles per hour.

All I could do was listen as that Ahab voice whispered in my ear: “Understand now, kid? That’s why they called this story ‘Road Rash’!”

Well, here we are, arrived at the big cliffhanger moment. Only problem is, I can’t give you any kind of satisfying payoff.

Because it turned out the story of the hunchback’s wild ride wasn’t called “Road Rash” after all. There was no big twist ending to this particular episode of my existence, and certainly no twist to my spine. Which is another way of saying that nothing bad happened. The hunchback simply stopped his car when he got to the snack bar, and both Chris and I breathed not-so-silent sighs of relief.

The hunchback unlocked the snack bar. We helped ourselves to buckets of day-old popcorn—the hunchback even treated us to the concession-dispenser Cokes that were usually denied us—and then we sat around and talked about what a blast we’d just had. It took awhile for things to sink in, but soon enough I realized that everything was actually okay.

This wasn’t an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents or The Twilight Zone. I was safe. I wasn’t going to open my eyes and find myself back on the hood of the hunchback’s street machine. And I wasn’t going to end up with my eyes bugging out of my head, either, the way that poor bastard in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” always did when he realized he hadn’t escaped the hangman’s noose after all. There were no twist endings here. No lightbulb-over-the-head moments of realization or just-desserts shocks brewing up to bite our young hero in the ass.

This wasn’t a story, after all.

This was just plain old everyday life.

And if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that plain old everyday life wasn’t the kind of stuff you’d put up on a movie screen. It wasn’t the kind of stuff you’d put in a short story, either. Real life just didn’t work that way. It wasn’t as slick. It couldn’t be. It was just the kind of stuff that happened, and you got through it as best you could even though it was sure enough more than a little weird, and then you got back to thinking about the stuff that you really needed to think about if you wanted to grow up to be a writer of spooky stories — the vampires, the werewolves, the Frankenstein’s monsters.

That’s what I thought back then, anyway. Now I know better.

As the sixties wound down, my family didn’t make as many trips to the drive-in. Jack Kennedy had moved away, and my dad wasn’t much on the “new” stuff that Hollywood was turning out—to tell the truth, the coming of movies like Easy Rider drew a line in the sand that the old man refused to cross. Besides that, my brother was now a college student, I was into double-digits age-wise, and the drive-in just wasn’t the “let’s pack up the kids for a night out” kind of destination it once had been.

Going out to dinner became the family activity of choice. Believe it or not, my brother and I had both learned to behave ourselves in public. On our own, that was something different. We each had our share of misadventures. But my brother was nine years older than me, and we didn’t exactly move in the same social circles. That didn’t mean that Larry wouldn’t take pity on me now and then. Sometimes he’d let his kid brother tag along with him… and sometimes that meant catching a movie at the drive-in.

My brother owned a ’67 Mustang. I’d usually sit up front when we visited the drive-in (with a buddy of mine, if my brother was feeling really generous), and Larry would sit in back with Marian (his girlfriend, and later his wife). We saw American biker movies and action movies, but we also developed an international palate—spaghetti westerns, Japanese monster movies, Hammer horror movies from England.

We saw lots of the latter. The Brits had revived the old Universal Studios monster franchises, but with a sexual technicolor twist. Picture Dracula and his buxom vampires. My brother would always say about the latter, “Now, don’t tell Mom or Dad about this part.” As far as our parents were concerned, Dracula meant Bela Lugosi. Dracula didn’t mean a bunch of chicks in lowcut gowns with British accents, dripping fangs, and startling cleavage.

My buddies and I kept our mouths shut. We knew when we had it good. (And here, gentle reader, I will spare you the usual authorial meditations on preteen boys and the relationship between sex and death that you usually find in introductions of this kind.)

Anyway, not every movie featured accents, fangs, and cleavage. Hammer hadn’t exactly cornered the horror market. But most of the American stuff was pretty low buck, and most of it was pretty awful. Sometimes it was two-or three-times awful, depending on whether we were catching a double-bill or an all-night-triple (lots of bad horror movies were released three-at-a-time in those days, as if quantity made up for the lack of quality). But hey, my friends and I never complained too much. At the very least we were out of the house, and chances were good that we’d be eating popcorn and drinking Cokes if we had any left-over allowance $$$$ to burn that week, so no night at the drive-in was a total loss.

One night my brother took Marian, me, and my friend Darryl to a horror double-bill. The first movie was a dud — in truth I can’t even remember what it was — but it was enough of a yawner to convince us that we were in for one of those at least we get popcorn and Coke kind of nights.

The second movie was something else indeed. It was called Night of the Living Dead, and I’d never seen a movie quite like it in my life. Watching NOTLD now, my writer’s eye can pick it apart and see how it works and why it still works after all these years. But then… well, I think part of the reason that it hit me — and everyone else in Larry’s Mustang — so hard was sheer surprise. We had no idea what to expect going in. No preconceived notions. We’d read no reviews, seen no previews. All we knew about the movie was the title, which we’d seen spelled out on the marquee with the same plastic letters that had spelled out the titles of a thousand other movies over the years.

In short, we had nothing to prepare us, and I can’t imagine that there was any way possible to sit through a impromptu viewing of NOTLD without batting an eye. This wasn’t the recycled terror we found in Hammer movies. After all, you killed the Hammer Dracula the same way you killed the Universal Dracula — ram a stake through that sucker’s heart and you were good to go. But the old familiar fix-its weren’t going to fly this time out. No way. Director George Romero’s movie featured something new—armies of flesh-eating zombies that could only be destroyed by serious head trauma. Mix that with some late sixties we’re knee-deep in Vietnam and the world is going to hell in a handbasket attitude and a hyper-realistic style rarely used in horror movies, toss in a black “everyman” hero (Duane Jones), and you had yourself a real mindslammer. My brother, who usually amused himself by grabbing me from behind whenever a cinematic “boo” moment arrived, was actually the first one to jump the night we saw NOTLD. During one of the film’s few quiet moments, a zombie unexpectedly reaches through a window and paws at Duane Jones, and the shock jolted Larry so hard that he actually jumped up and hit his head on the car roof.

Things got worse for old Duane as the movie progressed. You bet they did. Boarded up in an old Pennsylvanian farmhouse with a bunch of people who refused to listen to sense, he had no real chance of escape, and neither did I. I was sucked straight into his world, fending off an army of zombies who wanted Duane and his pals for dinner.

Yeah. I was trapped… until I began to consider what waited in the moonlit shadows outside the corners of the drive-in screen. See, the drive-in in my hometown had not one… not two… but three cemeteries as neighbors. Realizing that, a nasty little idea began to nibble at the corners of my imagination. I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if the dead folks in those cemeteries clawed their way out of their graves and came shuffling across the road to pay us a little visit.

I stared through the Mustang’s side window. A fence topped with barbed-wire bordered the drive-in, but I didn’t think it (or the retractable tire spikes at the exit) would slow down a determined army of the living dead. Across the road, the cemetery waited. This one was the oldest of the three, and it had the whole gothic atmosphere thing going—mausoleums with stained glass windows, marble funereal monuments, and granite statuary. My eyes studied silhouettes in the moonlight. A lot of cold black stone out there. None of it moved at all. Only the trees moved, branches swaying in the late night breeze.

Well, that made sense, I told myself. Even if the dead were to return to life, the folks in the old cemetery had been dead a long time. I figured most of their coffins didn’t hold much more than a pile of bones… or maybe a couple fistfuls of dust. Even if the occupants of those coffins managed the Lazarus trick, there wouldn’t be enough left of them to get up and actually do anything.

So I wasn’t too worried about the dead in the old cemetery. No. But the new cemeteries—which included the one behind us—were something else indeed.

They didn’t look nearly as scary as the old gothic cemetery. There were no imposing granite monuments or statuary. The new cemeteries had plain little bronze placards planted in the grass. Really, they weren’t very frightening at all.

But when you’re talking living dead, I knew that what counted was under the ground, not above it… the same way I knew that there were lots of fresh graves in the cemetery behind us, and each one of them held a recently deceased corpse.

I always avoided fresh graves when walking home through the cemetery. They creeped me right out, almost as much as seeing the gravediggers at work. I’d seen that a few times while hanging around with my buddy Chris. We’d be riding our bikes around the drive-in lot, and we’d happen to look across the road and see a couple of guys working with a backhoe, digging holes for people who’d been sucking wind just a couple days before.

Up on the screen, the zombies got the crazy blonde girl. I sat there watching Duane Jones fight off the living dead, and I thought about that cemetery behind me, and I wondered what I’d do if the “fresh ones” in the new cemetery started coming out of the ground.

I didn’t like thinking about that. I’d known more than a few people who were buried in that cemetery. My own grandfather was buried up there. So was the alcoholic barber who’d nearly sliced off my ear. And there were other people. Neighbors I’d liked and disliked, old ladies whose windows I’d soaped on Halloween —

Imaginatively speaking, I knew that I was treading dangerous ground. I knew I should concentrate on the movie. Sure, it was scary, but it wasn’t as frightening as the things my imagination churned up. Those things couldn’t be contained between four corners on a drive-in screen. They had dimension, and strength, and a reality all their own —

I imagined what I’d do if the zombies came stumbling across the road. I was just a kid. I couldn’t drive (just like the crazy blonde girl in the movie)… but for some reason I was the one sitting behind the steering wheel, so I’d have to get out of the front seat and switch places with my brother. Who knew how long that would take. It didn’t seem like the zombies in the movie were very fast, but there were a lot of them, the same way there were a lot of people buried in the cemetery. And once they got hold of you—

I could almost see them coming.

The dead neighbors who didn’t like me…

That crazy barber, a rusty razor in his hand…

The husks of withered old ladies who’d dropped Halloween candy in my trick-or-treat bag, leering like Graham Ingels characters in some old E. C. comic…

“You soaped our windows, Norman! And now you’ll die!”

For years after that night, I had NOTLD dreams in which I’d wake up, open my bedroom drapes, and see the streets teaming with zombies. Sometimes I’d try to barricade myself in the house, boarding up the windows and the doors. Sometimes I’d escape on my bicycle, pedaling as fast as I could, and I’d head for a friend’s house… preferably one whose parents owned lots of guns.

But no matter what I did, I was never safe when those dreams ended.

They weren’t the kind of dreams that ended that way.

My buddy Chris moved away before I started sixth grade. By the time I entered junior high school, my brother had transferred to a college in Oregon. I looked around and figured out that I’d lost both my “in’s” at the drive-in. I still wanted to see a lot of the movies that played there, but they weren’t the kind of movies my parents were likely to take me to see. And, needless to say, I was a long way from having a driver’s license.

But necessity is the mother of invention and all that. The drive-in was only about a mile from my house. So was that new cemetery I’d worried about while watching NOTLD. Along with some of the other kids in my neighborhood, I began to put two and two together. Pretty soon we hatched a plan — we could sneak over to the cemetery at night, hunt up a spot where we could see the drive-in screen, and catch at least one movie before the eleven o’clock curfew most of our parents imposed.

It seemed like we could pull it off. It was summertime. The weather was California perfect. At night, our parents were happy to turn us loose so they could relax in peace after a hot day. Usually we’d play street football, tear around on our bikes and skateboards, or head over to someone’s house and watch television reruns if we got bored. We weren’t exactly missed if we didn’t show up for two or three hours.

I remember a lot of things about those summer nights. I remember the scent of anise, a hot licorice smell that drifted from plants we called “skunk cabbage.” I remember the buzz of mosquitoes and street lights, and the one-speaker backbeat of A. M. radio rock on KFRC and KYA out of San Francisco. I remember arguing about the real identity of the Zodiac Killer (who’d begun his murderous spree in my hometown), and whether Paul McCartney was really dead or not, and how many gunmen were on that grassy knoll in Dallas. And I remember our walks to the cemetery.

We’d start at the edge of our housing tract, where the street dead-ended. There was a marsh on the other side of the bent guardrail that marked the boundary of our neighborhood, and we had to be careful there… one slip and you’d end up with a swamped tennis shoe that would squeak all night. But if we were careful, and if there was a good moon, we could make it across the marsh easily. Usually we didn’t even need a flashlight.

At the other side of the marsh, we’d work our way through stands of cattails to the music of croaking bullfrogs, and when we left the cattails behind we’d find ourselves at the edge of the cemetery. There wasn’t even a fence around the place. No kind of boundary at all. Just a wall of cattails, and then a well-manicured lawn.

The cemetery sloped up a hill. A paved road wound through the place, but we never followed that. We’d cross the grass, picking our way around the grave markers—my own grandfather’s, the alcoholic barber’s, the neighbors we’d liked and disliked—and we’d climb to a little ridge that overlooked the road… and the drive-in screen.

There was a little shade tree with a canopy of low branches at the top of the hill. That’s where we’d get comfortable, lying flat on the cool grass where no one was likely to notice us. After the first movie started, one of us would sneak across the road and slip into the drive-in (there were a few holes in the fence, and I knew where they were courtesy of my friend Chris). Usually the last few parking rows were empty unless the place was really packed, and we’d turn up as many speakers as we could. This way we could hear the movie as well as see it, even from our vantage point across the road.

Sitting on that hill as one summer blended into the next, I was introduced to Count Yorga, the abominable Dr. Phibes, and Blacula. They left their marks on me, but they didn’t really scare me. Not the way the caretaker did.

All the kids in my neighborhood had heard stories about him. They said that the caretaker worked for the cemetery as kind of a night-watchman—he kept an eye out for vandals, or kids who might park in the cemetery to neck, or kids (like us) who might sneak up on the hill to watch drive-in movies for free. We’d all heard that he had a horribly scarred face, and that his face was the reason he worked nights at the cemetery—he was far too ugly to work a job where people might get a look at him in the daylight.

I’d heard that he was stone-cold crazy, too. That he did horrible things to the kids he caught. Chris’ older brother had told us stories about the caretaker dragging trespassers into the mortuary, where he’d lock them up in a pitch-black viewing room with only a corpse for company. And if part of the evening’s business was a cremation, I’d heard that the caretaker would force trespassers to watch his coworkers feed the dear departed to the crematorium oven’s flames.

Of course, I didn’t believe any of those stories. Not really. Though I didn’t know anything about “urban legends” at the time, I knew that the stories about the caretaker probably weren’t true. They couldn’t be, because they always involved “a friend of a friend,” and they never ended with the caretaker getting fired or arrested for the crazy things he did. But there was something about those stories that sent a chill up my spine, even so. They made me want to believe that they were true, even though I knew I shouldn’t. They were the kind of stories the human race had been telling since the first cavemen gathered around a fire, not much different from the stories my dad told about bloody footprints or the Green Man, or the stories my friends told about phantom hitchhikers or that ghostly haunter-of-bathroom-mirrors, Mary Worth.

So I didn’t really believe the stories about the caretaker, but that didn’t stop me from being afraid of him. I spent a good portion of my time at the cemetery looking over my shoulder, or listening for a quiet footfall on the well-manicured lawn.

But no one ever got close to us at the cemetery. Every once in awhile we’d hear a sound, or we’d see someone on the far side of the grounds walking around with a flashlight. And every now and then our eyes would follow the little road that wound through the grave-markers and we’d notice the mortuary door standing open in the middle of the night. Maybe someone would be standing there smoking a cigarette, and we’d glance at each other and we wouldn’t have to say a word, because we all knew that the only smart thing to do was run.

At moments like that, whatever was on the screen was instantly forgotten. Count Yorga, or Blacula, or Dr. Phibes… it didn’t matter. We’d run from the caretaker, hoping that we wouldn’t be locked up in a pitch-black room with a corpse for company, praying that we’d never find out what a dead body smelled like when it hit the crematorium flames. And when we reached the marsh, when we charged through the cattails and made it to the dead-end street beyond and the safety of its streetlight glow, we’d look back into the darkness and find that no one had followed us at all.

I’m sure there was no one to follow us.

I’m sure there never was a caretaker.

But that didn’t stop us from talking about him. When we were sure that we were safe, we’d sit there at the end of the street and tell all the caretaker stories one more time. It didn’t matter how many times I heard them. They always made me shiver.

I loved hearing those stories. I loved telling them, too.

And now I’ve told them to you.

I never really wrote about any of these things, until now.

I did write about the drive-in and the cemetery across the street. Much of the action in my first novel, Slippin’ into Darkness, took place there. But there weren’t any buxom vampires in that book. No George Romero zombies. No Frankenstein or Dracula, no Dr. Phibes or Count Yorga or Blacula. There weren’t any monsters at all.

Of course, there weren’t any hunchbacks with muscle cars, either. No dads nearly lighting the projection booth on fire with their friends. No kids eating buckets of day-old popcorn or drinking forbidden concession-dispenser Cokes. There was a cemetery caretaker, but he was a harmless old guy. He didn’t have a hideously scarred face, and he didn’t lock up anyone in a mortuary viewing room or crematorium.

None of those things happened in my first novel.

None of those characters appeared.

But in a way, they were all there. Every one of them. Because they were inside me. If they hadn’t been, I never would have written that book… or anything else.

I could go on, dear reader, but I think that’s where I’ll leave you. I feel myself straining to make a point, to make connections that aren’t really there. But this isn’t a game of connect the dots, and if there’s one thing I know it’s that real life rarely has the clarity of fiction. I learned that while riding a bucking muscle car when I was only ten years old.

I still visit the cemetery now and then. My dad’s buried there, close to that tree my friends and I used to sit under when we sneaked out to watch drive-in movies. The old man’s gone and I miss him more than I can every say, but I still remember his stories about bloody footprints and the Green Man, and I still tell them, the same way I tell my own stories.

The drive-in remains, too. It’s still right there, across the road from the cemetery. It’s been closed for many years, but no one has tom it down. These days the screen is in horrible shape. Several of the garage-door-sized panels are missing and it’s more gray than white—like the picked-over carcass of Moby Dick.

I still get a funny feeling looking up at that screen. Sometimes I can still see Gregory Peck pinned up there, beckoning with his dead Ahab arm… and I’m reminded of things I set out to do a long time ago, and things I’ve done, and things I still want to accomplish.

But I’m reminded of other things, too.

Things I saw outside the screen’s four corners.

Some of those things I saw clearly. Some of them I’m still trying to recognize.

I like to think that those are the things I write about.

I hope you’ll find some of them in these stories.

Norman Partridge

Lafayette, California

March 1, 2001

RED RIGHT HAND

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red.

—    Shakespeare

Macbeth, II.2

Claire held the gun in her left hand, the blood in her right.

“You ready?” Arson wanted to know.

She just sat there. Arson was always like that. Impatient. He never stopped moving. Like now his fingers tap-tap-tapping against the steering wheel of the Ford Roadster he’d stolen up in Bakersfield, gun-oil gleaming on fingernails that danced in the afternoon sunlight.

Arson’s fingers were scarred. He wasn’t worried about any blood. As far as he was concerned, any blood spilled today would belong to someone else.

And that seemed more than a likely possibility. They’d stopped to talk about the job one last time before they pulled it. There was a little town up ahead called Fiddler, and in that town was a bank that Arson had cased a couple days ago. He said it would be easy pickings, because the town didn’t have any law worth worrying about.

But Claire wasn’t worried about the law.

She was worried about something else.

Something that was worth worrying about. Something red, and wet, and hot. Something she couldn’t seem to stop, no matter how many times she snaked the needle through her flesh, no matter how tight she drew the stitches —

“Claire?” Arson said. “You ready, hon?”

The idling Ford purred like a kitten. A cricket sang among the withered cornstalks. But Claire didn’t say a word.

In the backseat, Arson’s brother and sister-in-law picked up the slack.

“I don’t think she’s ready at all,” Hank said.

“Yeah,” Pearl chimed in. “If you ask me, we oughta left her behind. She ain’t up to snuff.”

‘You two shut up,” Arson said, and he didn’t have to tell them twice.

Arson’s right hand closed over Claire’s left. She thought about that. The gun in her left hand, and Arson’s strong scarred fingers wrapped around both. It felt so good, so safe.

“That’s better.” Arson gave Claire’s gun hand a gentle squeeze. “I promise you, hon — it’ll be a piece of cake.”

Claire’s eyes found his. “It’ll be okay?”

‘Yeah.”

“You’ll be with me?”

“Every step of the way.”

“Always?”

Arson’s gaze was sharp, unflinching.

“Until they put one of us in the ground,” he said.

Claire’s breath caught in her throat. She clenched her right hand, fingers closing around the gash. Every muscle, every tendon, every bone ached.

If only the her skin would scab over, and scar, everything would be okay —

The stitches popped one by one, threads slipping through the tiny holes the needle had made. A thin trickle of blood snaked between her fingers. It was quiet in the car, so quiet that she was sure she’d hear the first red drop as it rolled off her knuckles and pattered against the leather upholstery.

She prayed that Arson wouldn’t notice the blood.

He didn’t. He gave her other hand a pat as he let it go. “That’s my girl,” he said, and his voice was warm as summer sunshine.

And then Claire heard that first drop of blood fall, pattering the leather upholstery like a tear raining down on the cold face of a corpse.

She shivered. She couldn’t help it. Another drop of blood welled up in her palm and traveled the trench of her lifeline. Another drop of blood rolled across her knuckles. Another drop, and then another.

Claire almost started crying.

Instead, she bolted from the car.

Into the cornfield.

Thunderheads bumped around up in the mountains, threatening rain. Officer Tate Winters sure enough wished the clouds would blow his way. Without them there was only the unbearably muggy heat, sandwiched between the parched summer earth and the unblinking sun above.

Tate sat on his motorbike. As far as he was concerned, it was too hot to be sitting on a motorbike. Too hot to be wearing a highway patrolman’s uniform, too. Too hot to be doing anything that didn’t involve a tall glass of cold lemonade.

Besides that, Tate should have been off an hour ago. But the couple had flagged him down, and then the boy started talking, and now Tate was stuck.

Stuck under the California sun, in a uniform, on a hot and muggy afternoon.

The couple, they weren’t quite so hot. That was because they were damn near naked. The boy didn’t have any pants. And the girl wasn’t wearing nothing but a little bit of a slip. It was black and it was silk. Hell, the girls Tate knew wouldn’t wear anything like that, not even under their clothes where other folks couldn’t see it.

The boy wasn’t at all embarrassed, though. His name was John Wallace Johnson. Pants or no pants, he was obviously the type of young man who felt that accompanying a girl in a black slip reflected well on his manhood.

Which, truth be told, wasn’t much to reflect on at all.

But reflection seemed to be John Wallace Johnson’s game. Meaning the kid was a talker, even on a hot afternoon devoid of lemonade. The kid talked in a voice that pinched like a fat man’s shoe. Without prompting, he started telling Tate the story for the third time, how he and his girl had been down by Fiddler Creek having a little picnic when these folks came out of nowhere toting guns like they were ready to take on a phalanx of G-men or something, and then the bandits made John Wallace Johnson and his girl strip damn near naked, and pretty soon John Wallace Johnson and his girl were standing there watching his Ford Roadster disappear down Old Howard Road without John Wallace Johnson behind the wheel.

If it was crisp cool February instead of cotton-mouthed July, Tate might have worked up some sarcasm, asked why in the world a bandit gang would want to steal a fellow’s pants along with his car. But it was too damn hot for sarcasm. Tate didn’t have to ask any such questions anyhow. He knew what kind of picnic these two were having down by the creek. He wasn’t that old.

Yeah, he knew, all right. Hell, any idiot would know. What had happened was that the boy had left his pants in the back seat of the car. Him with his damn Clark Gable moustache and his ten dollar mouthful of a name. He’d left his pants in the back seat because that was where the girl pulled them off. And her with that black slip… who the hell knew what had happened to her dress. Could be it was flying from the flagpole in the town square, for all Tate knew.

Why, if this gal wasn’t a flapper then Tate Winters had never seen the like. Still, he kind of liked the way she looked at him. He’d never had a woman look at him quite that way, especially not a woman in a black slip. He didn’t know what the look was, exactly, but he knew it was the kind of look that made a man stand tall on a hot day when he really wanted to crawl under the porch and catch a nap with old Rover.

It was the kind of look that made a man look right back, and the same way, too.

All of a sudden, Tate Winters wasn’t thinking about lemonade at all.

The girl batted her eyelids in some kind of semaphore signal that Tate wished he could read. “Can you help us out, Officer?” she asked, cutting John Wallace Johnson off in midsentence.

“You sure it was Arson and Claire?” Tate asked, because it was the only question worth asking.

“I’m absolutely certain,” John Wallace Johnson said. “I’ve studied their pictures in the paper, and these two were dead ringers. Only the woman wasn’t smoking a cigar.”

“That was just a gag, J. W.,” the little flapper said. She almost sounded mad. “Claire Ives doesn’t really smoke cigars.”

“Hell if she doesn’t. That girl’s a vixen. Acts like she’s a man. Why, if I’d had a chance — ”

“You did, J. W.” The girl winked at Tate. ‘You had your chance, and you ended up losing your car and your pants.”

“Now wait just a minute — ”

“Cigar or no cigar, it makes no difference,” Tate interrupted, kick-starting his bike. “I’ll put out a bulletin on your stolen vehicle as soon as I get to Fiddler.”

“That’s fine,” J. W. Johnson said. “But what about us?”

“What about you?”

“Well, we need transportation back to town. Imogene can’t go about in her underthings. And I’m a young man with prospects. In September, I’ll be attending Stanford University. I certainly can’t go walking into town without my pants.”

“Son,” Tate said, “this is a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, not a limousine.”

“The officer’s right,” Imogene said. “There just ain’t room for you, J. W.”

Before Tate could protest, the little flapper slipped into the saddle behind him. “Thanks for the picnic, J. W.,” she said. “If you get your Ford back, you can call me any old time.”

The girl’s thighs pressed against Tate’s ass. It was a plain fact that there wasn’t much room in the Harley’s saddle, just as plain that Tate Winters was quite suddenly glad of that.

“What am I to do?” J. W. Johnson asked. “I am a long way from anywhere. And I am without my trousers.”

“There ain’t no Woolworth’s out here,” Tate said. “So you might as well start walking.”

“Or look for a clothesline.” Imogene giggled. “You’d look awful cute in some sodbuster’s overalls, J. W.”

Tate Winters didn’t know about that. He only knew that the world was a much more interesting place than it had been twenty minutes before.

He twisted the throttle.

The Harley roared and the flapper squirmed.

Tate geared up and took off.

Running hurt. Especially Claire’s hip, which hadn’t healed right after the crackup. And the way her skin pulled where she’d been shot in the shoulder bothered her, too, the scars tugging like she was wearing a tight sweater that didn’t fit right at all.

Sometimes just moving made her feel like she was coming apart at the seams. But she had to run. For Arson’s sake, if not her own. He couldn’t see her this way, and that was a natural fact.

Because, this time, she was coming apart at the seams, and she knew it.

She clenched her right hand. There was no denying the blood on it. There was no washing it away. It was there, weeping from her palm through busted stitches.

Wash it away and a fresh trickle would only well up along a lifeline that was much too short. Stitch it closed and those stitches would sure enough bust like all the others.

Sure enough… somehow… no matter what she did…

The cut just wouldn’t heal.

The fear tried to rise up in her, but Claire pushed it down. She wouldn’t think about it. She’d think about running. Running with a gun in her hand. Running and breathing and being alive.

Because she was alive.

She was. But it was hard to think of that in a place like this. Everything here was dead. Cornstalks withered and yellow as parchment. Dry roots that tore up from the ground when tall girl rushed by with a loaded gun in her hand.

Harvest time had come and gone, and there wasn’t anything left to reap in the cornfield.

Only Claire. All of a sudden, she stopped running, her heart pounding in her throat. The sky had gone the color of iron, but it still held the heat of the day like a skillet.

She stared at the dark thunderheads boiling down from the mountains, and that was when she saw the birds. They circled in a black ringlet, coming closer and closer, and their cries rode the whispered hush of the wind as the circle spun on black wings, a circle unbroken like the one in that song her mother sang when Claire was just a little girl.

But her mother never sang about a circle of vultures.

Claire couldn’t run anymore. She stared at her hand.

In her palm welled a red oasis.

Above her, the sky came alive with a chorus of thirsty screams.

Clouds churned in the sky and a hot wind whispered low, rustling the dead cornstalks like a deck of cards that had been dealt one time too many.

The three of them sat in the car. Arson was done yelling at Hank and Pearl. They should have known better than to push Claire that way, especially after all the hell she’d been through. The two of them sure didn’t have the stomach for that kind of hell.

Claire did, though. Arson was sure about that. Claire was damn near healed up. Sure she had a few more scars than she’d had before their last run-in with the law, but she wasn’t one bit less pretty for ’em, not to him anyway. Soon enough she’d get her gumption back, too. She always did, and then things would be just the same as before.

“If we’re gonna do this thing,” Hank said, “we’d better get to it.”

“Hank’s right,” Pearl said. “That bank’s gonna close in an hour. We ain’t got no money. And I don’t care how much you holler, Arson Pike, I sure as hell ain’t gonna sleep in this cornfield tonight, not with all these damn vultures around. Why, just look at that sky. If the buzzards ain’t bad enough, just take a look at them clouds. Any fool can see that it’s gonna storm but good and I ain’t gonna get struck by lightnin’ sittin’ out in a cornfield in a stolen Ford Roadster. Christ, these days even folks on relief got decent roofs over their heads while we ain’t got a pot to piss in or a window to — ”

“Shut up, Pearl.” Arson whispered the words, eyeing her in the rearview. Boy, did she give him a look. The floozy bitch made Arson’s blood boil. She was just the kind of trash his brother would bed. Just the kind —

Pearl opened her mouth. Red bee-stung lips on that fat little face of hers. Arson couldn’t hardly believe it. Hell’s bells and buckets of blood, he’d told the little floozy.

She started to mouth off again. “Shut up,” Arson said, but it was like she didn’t even hear him. So he told Hank to shut her up, but it was plain that Hank wasn’t the kind of man who knew how to do that or Pearl wouldn’t be talking in the first place.

Well, fair warning was warning enough.

Arson climbed out of the car and reached through the open window and took hold of Pearl’s peroxide blonde hair and gave it a pull that made her scream. Then he dragged her out the door and kicked her in the ass and she gave out with a startled cry as she went face first into the dirt and then Arson yanked her to her feet and slapped her up but good.

And, boy howdy, did the cure come over her but quick, like Arson Pike was one of those tent show miracle men. It was something to see. First Pearl was gabbing like she actually knew what she was talking about and then she was screaming like some she-goat taking a rutting and when it was all over her nose was bloody and her eyes were red with little girl tears.

Sitting in the backseat, Hank didn’t say a word.

He knew better.

He didn’t want some of the same.

Arson made to slap Pearl again, and she cowered like a whupped dog. “And you think you’re tough.” Arson laughed. “Well, you ain’t tough. Sister, I’m here to tell you that you ain’t half the woman my Claire is. She came through bullets and fire and car wrecks, and she didn’t crawfish half as bad as you do from a little old slap.”

Pearl couldn’t look Arson in the eye, but she nodded, and she did it damn quick.

“That’s better,” Arson said. “Now you get your ass out in that corn and find my Claire. You apologize for the way you been treating her, and you tell her that you ain’t nothin’ but a dimestore floozy who can’t keep her trap shut.”

Again, Pearl nodded. And then she glanced around her, at all that corn, and she puddled up like she was all set to cry again.

Pearl was scared to say anything, but Arson knew that she would. Teary-eyed, she waved her painted fingernails at the cornstalks and asked, “How am I gonna find her in all this?’

It was a damn fool question. Arson didn’t have time for it.

Again, he kicked Pearl in the ass.

She got to moving.

Arson climbed into the car and slammed the door. His fingers went tap-tap-tap on the steering wheel. He stared at his brother in the rearview, and Hank looked away.

“Goddamn city girl,” Arson said.

The vultures circled low in the concrete sky. Claire studied the sharp talons that tore dead flesh, the black eyes that gleamed with hunger.

She knew that vultures only ate the dead.

A fresh gout of blood filled her lifeline and spilled over her fingers. She was bleeding, but she wasn’t dead yet.

Not yet.

The wound wasn’t anything, really. She’d had a lot worse. Bullets had ripped through her shoulder and legs, flames had seared her flesh when the law set fire to one of their hideouts, and her hip had been busted and skinned clean to the bone when their getaway car went off the road.

Oh, how she’d bled. Claire had her share of scars and then some. But she never complained, and she always healed up. Always. Arson said he’d never known a woman like her. He’d never wanted another woman the way he wanted Claire, who could stomach as much pain as a man. She made him proud, the way she didn’t complain, the way she always came back for more.

Claire wore her scars. She didn’t try to hide them. Her scars were like mortar between the bricks in a dam, holding back a river.

Her skin was the bricks, her scars the mortar.

The river was her blood.

She needed scars to live. But this time, she couldn’t seem to scar. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t heal the cut in her hand. She didn’t even know how she got the cut. One morning she woke up and her hand was weeping blood on the pillowcase. First she bandaged it, but it didn’t scab over. No matter what she did it just kept on bleeding, just like the hand of one of those religious nuts you sometimes read about in the papers.

So she’d stitched the wound, stitched right along a lifeline that was deep but short, and blood had seeped between her needlework. She’d stitched it tighter, and still the blood had come. She’d squeezed her hand into a tight fist, her fingers straining to hold back the red river within, and the stitches had only burst, and the blood had surged, filling tributaries in the lines of her palm.

Claire didn’t want to show it, but she was scared. She tried to scar over the fear the same way she tried to scar over the wound, because she didn’t want Arson to sense it. If he caught scent of her fright, he might stop loving her. And if she kept on bleeding, if she bled right out —

Then she’d be cold. Dead. Arson wouldn’t hold her in his arms anymore. He wouldn’t kiss her and tell her how brave she was.

He would leave her. He’d said as much. When she died, he would put her in a hole in the ground. He would cover her over with dirt and leave her forever.

Claire knew one thing — a body could only spill so much blood, and then there wasn’t any more to spill.

The vultures circled lower, their clawed talons brushing dry corn tassels.

Circling… circling… circling…

Circling Claire. Shaking, she held tight to her gun. Something was wrong with the birds. Had to be. Vultures only ate dead things. Any fool knew that —

And Claire was alive.

The birds came after her.

Her heart was pounding.

A wave of ripping beaks, tearing talons.

She was bleeding.

Wings beating a black rhythm in a granite tombstone sky.

But she was alive.

They came after her and didn’t stop.

There were lots of things Tate Winters should have been thinking about as he sped toward Fiddler. The road, the outlaw gang prowling his territory, the local bank that was ripe for the plucking. Lots of things.

But all he could think about was the little flapper who sat behind him with her arms around him tight and her thighs pressed against his.

Her name was Imogene, and there was something about her that just plain lit Tate up. He’d heard it was like that with men and women sometimes, but it had never been that way for him. Until now. Because there was something about Imogene that made him feel like a wild colt, all hot-blooded and —

“Hey!” Imogene yelled in his ear and he damn near dumped the bike. “Pull over!”

Tate braked hard and parked the Harley under an old oak at the side of the road. “Don’t ever yell like that,” he said as he got off. “I nearly lost it.”

She apologized. Tate barely heard her. Damn, but she was pretty. Maybe he should just go ahead and get it over with. There was a James Cagney picture playing at the theater in Visalia. Tate thought that James Cagney was top-drawer. He could ask her out to a picture show, and then —

“Didn’t you see it?” Imogene asked.

For a moment, Tate thought she was talking about the picture show, but then he realized he’d missed something. “See what?”

“Back there.” She pointed down the road a piece. “I saw J. W.’s Ford parked on that side road between those cornfields.”

Tate sighed and thought for a minute. Try as he might, he couldn’t find a way around the thing he knew he had to do.

“Well?” she said finally. “What do we do?”

“You wait here while I have a looksee.”

“Are you kidding?” Imogene grabbed him by the arm. “This is Arson and Claire we’re talking about. You know they go armed, and they got two others with them. I’ll bet those folks have guns, too.”

“I got one of those myself.” Tate patted his holster. “Now, I want you to promise me you’ll stay put. If you hear any shooting…” He paused, thinking it over. “Damn, if you hear any shooting I guess you’d better make yourself scarce.”

“I hear any gunplay, I’ll head for Fiddler on your bike and bring back the cavalry.”

The very idea of a woman on a motorcycle, especially one in a black slip, made Tate laugh. “This ain’t no toy, darlin’.”

Imogene stiffened. “It just so happens that I got a boyfriend who’s got one.”

“Not J. W.?”

“Hell, no. J. W. can barely handle that goddamn Ford.”

‘You like this other fella better?”

“Not much…” She grinned. “Well, maybe a little.”

“I’ll remember that.” Tate couldn’t figure out what else to say. He felt like a fool, asking Imogene about the other fellow. A jealous fool.

Well, he just couldn’t stand there like some lovesick idiot. He had to do something. He started walking. He wanted to look over his shoulder, get one last look at the little flapper because he knew damn well that he might never get another, but he didn’t.

Imogene called after him. ‘You better not get yourself hurt.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m cooking your dinner tonight.”

Tate smiled, but he didn’t look back.

“Steak?” he asked.

“Steak,” she answered.

Pearl shivered. Ahead in the corn, the vultures were going crazy over something.

All that cawing and screeching raised her hackles. God knew what the buzzards was making a meal of. Pearl didn’t want to know. That was the God’s honest truth.

She figured she’d better go the other way. She didn’t have the stomach for that kind of stuff. That was one of the reasons Pearl didn’t like Claire Ives. Claire never flinched when it came to spilling folks’ blood. Even Pearl had to admit that Claire sure had the stomach for bad business and then some. That’s what the newspapers said, and they were right.

Still, it burned Pearl the way the writers played up that little tart, like she was a movie star or something, when they hardly ever mentioned Pearl at all.

If they only knew the truth. Just lately Pearl had noticed a thing or two that made her think that deep down Miss Claire Ives was just as nervous as your old Aunt Bessie. The little tart was sure enough full of piss and vinegar when it came to spilling other folks’ blood, but she had sure gone and lost her nerve when it came to spilling a little of her own.

Like with the cut on her hand. Stitching it up like that, when it was just a little old cut. Squeezing it all the time and busting the stitches. Why, if Miss Claire Ives didn’t leave that hand alone, it was gonna get all infected and blow up like a damn circus clown’s.

Pearl would like to see that. She’d like to see —

Just ahead, someone screamed in the tall corn. A woman. The sound was something awful. Pure misery.

Maybe it was Claire. Maybe she was hurt —

Oh, lord, but the sound of that scream turned Pearl’s stomach. She didn’t want no part of a scream like that.

For a second, she stood frozen, too scared to run away. Then the sound of gunfire cracked at her like a whip, and she took off like greased lightning. Her goddamn corset was too tight and she could hardly breathe but she sucked the sweltering afternoon air as deep as she could and kept on running as fast as her feet would carry —

Claire fired at the birds. Feathers flew and stray bullets whipped through the corn as the gun bucked in her hand.

She pulled the trigger again and again and again.

Until the gun was empty, and the only sound that remained was her scream.

A tumult of screams and gunfire and black wings erupted from the corn.

“Jesus!” Hank said. “It’s the law!”

Arson didn’t say a word. He grabbed the Thompson machine-gun and tossed the Browning Automatic to his brother, and together they started into the corn.

Arson’s heart pounded like a goddamn drum. If some cracker cop had shot up his Claire while he wasn’t watching…

If the bastards had stolen her from him…

If that had happened there was only one thing Arson Pike wanted.

Blood.

Pearl ran for all she was worth. Oh, lordy, but she hurt. A bullet had knocked her down and another had clipped her when she struggled to her knees, but she had known that she had to get up, even when a third bullet nearly blew her left hand clean off.

Two fingers were gone from that hand, along with her wedding ring. Pearl was hit in the side. And there was something wrong with her neck, which was gushing blood like a garden hose. She didn’t even remember getting hit in the neck.

The woman’s scream chased her through the corn. The gunfire stopped for a moment, but the scream didn’t. It was everywhere, all around her, like the corn and the sky and the clouds and the air that seemed as heavy and hot as blood.

God. Pearl knew they’d done desperate things. They’d killed honest folks. She knew the law hated them. But what the bastards must have done to Claire to make her scream like that…

Pearl didn’t want to know what that was. But she knew one thing — she had to keep moving or she’d end up screaming too. She didn’t know which way to go, but she had to go somewheres. She couldn’t slow down for a second. Else the law would get her is sure as sunshine.

Behind her, the gunfire started up again.

The screaming hadn’t ended.

Pearl ran.

Now she was screaming, too.

By the sound of it, all hell had broken loose.

There was no use waiting. Imogene kick-started the motorcycle. It was a heavier brute than the one she’d learned to ride, the one that belonged to that wildcat of a boy she’d met at the county fair. But then again, the cop outweighed that boy by a good bit, so it was only right that he’d ride a bigger machine.

None of the cop’s weight was what you’d call misplaced, though. Imogene sure hoped that he’d stay in one piece.

Fiddler was ten miles away.

Somehow, Imogene knew they’d be the longest ten miles she ever traveled.

She put the bike in gear and didn’t spare the horses.

Tate moved along the edge of the cornfield, heading toward the road where Imogene had spotted the stolen Ford.

The screams and gunfire had set him on edge. Who knew what the hell was going on in the cornfield. It could be almost anything — a police ambush set up by the local sheriff that no one had bothered to tell him about, or a crazy-brave farmer gunning for reward money, or a thieves’ quarrel turned deadly.

Whatever it was, Tate knew he had to be ready for it. His gun was drawn and he was sweating bricks, trying to fix the newspaper photographs of Arson and Claire in his mind’s eye as he hurried along, trying to remember the descriptions of their accomplices and at the same time get a handle on the situation —

And then the scream came right at him, slicing through the cornstalks a second before a woman emerged from the field. Tate whirled to meet her with his finger tight on the trigger, but he saw right off that the woman was both unarmed and injured.

Which was another way of saying that someone had already shot her and done a damn thorough job of it. Still, her wounds didn’t seem to slow her down any. She charged right into Tate, and it was all he could do to keep from going down.

Panic flared in her eyes as soon as she saw his pistol, and she took hold of the barrel with one hand and begged him, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.”

Her blood was on his gun, and on his shirt. Already, it had soaked through to his skin. Tate tried to keep his wits about him. He knew he had to size her up and do it quickly, because whoever had pumped her full of lead had to be close by.

She had platinum blond hair and bee-stung lips. She wasn’t a farmer’s wife. That was for sure. She didn’t belong in a cornfield.

She had to be part of the gang.

The woman coughed and a stream of blood made a mess of the little Cupid’s bow painted on her lips. “I don’t want to scream no more,” she said, her fingers trembling around the barrel of Tate’s gun. “Don’t do nothing to make me scream.”

Before Tate could say a word, the woman let go of the gun and slumped. Instinctively, Tate caught her before she fell.

Another second and she was dead.

Tate looked over her shoulder just in time to see the man with the Browning Automatic.

One look at the corpse cradled in Tate Winters’ arms and the man’s eyes went wild.

Then he started shooting.

Fat droplets of blood rolled down Claire’s face. Four vultures lay at her feet, scarlet caverns burrowed in nests of black feathers courtesy of several .45 slugs.

The birds that only ate dead things were quiet now. Not one of them managed a scream. They had tried to make a meal of Claire Ives. They might have done it if Claire hadn’t had a killer instinct that would shame Jack Dempsey.

She had a gun, too. And a handful of bullets, cupped in her right palm. The bullets were slick with her blood. She could hardly feed them into the clip.

Claire almost laughed. She was covered in blood, her body painted red as a five-alarm fire, and here she’d been worried about a little cut on her hand.

Gunfire raked the cornfield. Claire slammed the clip home and started toward the ruckus. It sounded like Hank’s Browning, and maybe a pistol. Arson always used the Thompson, so the pistol probably belonged to a lawman. But if Arson was out there, Claire expected she’d hear him open up soon enough if the law was around.

Claire hoped she’d hear that sound, and soon.

If she didn’t hear it… If the cops had chopped Arson down before he fired a shot… If they’d shot her man in the back… if they’d done that…

Claire refused to think about it. She moved down a corn row, her pistol ready. It was quiet now. She listened for a familiar voice, or an unfamiliar one… but there was nothing. She tried to remember where the car was, but she was all turned around. The sun was gone from the sky so she couldn’t gauge direction at all. Besides that, blood flowed into her eyes from the cuts the vultures had inflicted on her forehead, nearly blinding her.

Wiping her eyes, she took a chance and stepped into the next row.

She gasped and opened fire on the man she saw there. Her bullets tore through him, but he didn’t so much as flinch.

And then Claire saw why.

The man wasn’t a man at all.

He wore a skeleton’s face.

And he was grinning.

Gunfire rocked the woman’s corpse, and she danced in Tate Winters’ arms as only the dead can dance.

Tate shielded his body with the corpse. Still, he felt the lead pound into him. Once… twice… three times. Hard punches that stole his wind while stray bullets sang in the dead corn.

The moist air ripened with the smell of gunpowder. Tate held the woman with one arm, her skin still warm to the touch, his blood pumping between them. He held her close, the way the man with the Browning must have held her on cool moonlit nights.

But the woman was dead now. She belonged only to Tate, and he wasn’t going to —

“Let her go!” yelled the man with the Browning. “Fight like a man, goddammit! Let my Pearl go!”

Anger and horror flared in the man’s eyes. The barrel of the Browning jerked in Tate’s direction again, but this time Tate’s pistol traveled a determined arc that mirrored it.

Both men opened fire, and the man with the Browning bucked in his boots as Tate’s bullets sank red wells in his chest. The rifle fell silent and tumbled from the man’s grasp and he dropped to his knees just as Tate’s last bullet trenched the top of his skull.

The man didn’t say another word.

Tate released the woman’s corpse and reloaded quickly, staring into the bandit’s clear blue irises. A wave of blood spilled from the trench in the man’s head and washed his face. He blinked, watching as a scarlet puddle spread across Tate’s left shoulder, and then he smiled, wet red breaths whistling through holes in his chest that pumped dark blood like gushers in a Texas oil field.

Tate kicked the Browning into the road and moved on, never taking his eyes off the fallen bandit.

The man took the longest time to topple.

The longest time to die.

Claire emptied her pistol.

Red tears burned her eyes. The skull swam before her in a scarlet sea of blood. She wiped her eyes clear, wiped again at the cuts on her forehead. She blinked, and stared, and the skull stared back, hollow eyes over a leering grin.

Claire lowered her gun. It was only a scarecrow. She realized that now. Just a straw-stuffed suit and a rusty white bucket of a head with a skullface scratched on the dented side.

She’d shot it full of holes, but there was no blood at all. That was the funniest thing. No blood, only straw and cloth and rust. Rust around the slashing hole that formed the laughing leer, and flaking orange teeth that had powdered to nothing when her bullets ripped through the bucket.

But still the scarecrow smiled, despite its wounds.

Claire smiled too. The scarecrow would grin long after she was gone. Under the hot summer sun and the freezing winter moon, the gentle rains of April and the angry sleet of October. The scarecrow would grin through all of it, and it wouldn’t bleed a drop. It would just hang on its cross laughing at the funniest joke of all, laughing until its brittle leer rusted clean away.

Nothing could hurt it.

It couldn’t bleed.

It couldn’t die.

But it couldn’t live, either.

Claire didn’t know if she could live anymore. She didn’t know if she could die, either. But she knew that she could bleed. And as long as she could do that — alive or dead or consigned to some hell in between — why then, that was something, anyway.

Even with all the blood, that was something.

Claire jammed the last of her bullets into the .45 clip. Arson was out there somewhere. All she wanted was to find him.

She’d do it.

Even if it took her last drop of blood.

A scarlet woman hurried through the corn.

Tate glimpsed her between the rows. There and gone, cutting her own path, never pausing. Tate tracked her from the road, sometimes ahead and sometimes behind.

He couldn’t see her face at all, only a mask of red, but he knew he was shadowing Miss Claire Ives, a cold-blooded killer wanted by every lawman from J. Edgar Hoover on down.

Covered in blood, she sure as hell looked the part to Tate. Like some kind of nightmare. But Tate was bleeding, too. God knew he was leaking bad enough to start seeing things. Angels or devils, as the case might be. But somehow he knew that this vision was real, just as he knew that he had to confront it before he could worry about his own wounds.

He was hurt, sure. Tore up in the shoulder, missing most of one ear, blood from some other wound making a sticky mess of his left boot. But the woman was bleeding too, and the blood didn’t seem to slow her down none.

It was crazy, that’s what it was. Crazy for the both of them. Why, if they had any sense they’d both sit down and hope to hell that a certain young lady in a black slip was on her way back from Fiddler with an ambulance.

Hell, two ambulances.

But neither one of them sat down at all. Claire Ives rushed on, and Tate Winters followed.

The Ives woman neared the road where the stolen Ford was parked. Tate glanced ahead, at the spot where the field ended and the two roads met.

That was where he’d make his stand.

At the crossroads.

The gunfire had stopped.

Arson heard movement in the field.

Pale cornstalks parted like a wound.

Claire came to him.

Christ, she was all torn up. But Arson didn’t care. He swept her into his arms. He couldn’t get the words out fast enough.

“It’ll be okay, baby,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

“Always?” she asked, looking at him hard.

“Yeah. Until they put one of us in the — ”

She pressed her fingers to his lips and stopped his words. “No,” she said. “Always.”

Arson nodded, and Claire smiled under all that blood. He helped her into the Ford and climbed behind the wheel. It was still dead quiet — no sound but the wind combing through the corn.

Dead quiet. Yeah. That’s what it was.

Hank’s screams echoed in Arson’s memory. Pearl’s, too. But they were only echoes. Arson knew that his brother and sister-in-law were dead.

He wasn’t, and he was damn glad of it.

And he had his Claire.

That was all that mattered.

That, and getting the hell out of here before the law finished them, too.

Claire reached out and took his right hand. Their fingers knotted around her blood. He raised her hand and kissed it, her fingers still locked in his.

“Always,” he said.

His lips shone like rubies.

Wet with her blood.

The engine roared to life, and the Ford started coming.

Tate stood at the crossroads and raised his pistol. Straight on, the Ford came at him. Faster now. Black as a hearse, it came, its engine geared high, bearing killers who paid their way in blood.

Their own, and the blood of many others.

Tate aimed his gun and waited. He was bleeding bad. The car was thirty feet away, and in a couple of seconds it would be on him.

It wasn’t going to slow down. It wasn’t going to stop.

Neither was he. Blood leaked from his head and shoulder. Blood filled his boot. But he could bleed for at least another thirty seconds or so.

He could stand his ground.

He could pay his way in blood, the same way these two had. Hell, he had already done that.

He’d already paid the price.

And now he’d pull the trigger.

Claire opened fire.

The lawman stood his ground and did the same. His bullets tore through the windshield like angry hornets, and Claire closed her eyes in spite of herself, but it didn’t do any good because windshield shards sliced through her eyelids and stung her eyes. Still, she fired blindly as the car raced forward, fired until her gun was empty, and then another staccato blast exploded from the cop’s pistol and Arson grunted hard.

The Ford bucked and rolled on one side. Arson lurched against her and her door came open as the car kept rolling. The gun flew from her grasp and then she felt it, hot on her face, a spray as warm as summer sunshine and she knew it was her lover’s blood and Arson’s scarred fingers brushed her breast so lightly so tenderly as they tumbled from the car.

Together they hit the hard dirt road.

They rolled in a red tangle.

And when they came to a stop they didn’t move at all.

But the blood did. Arson Pike’s blood washed Claire Ives, filling her wounds, and what she felt was the warmth of it, and the life in it.

The busted windshield had blinded her, but it seemed she could see clearer than ever now.

As her heart beat its last, and Arson’s did the same, everything Claire Ives saw was red.

Tate’s feet were cold.

He opened his eyes. Raindrops splashed his face. The gray sky had opened up, and thunder boomed, and lightning flashed.

Tate saw a vision. At least he thought it was a vision. An angel reaching down for him from above.

And then the angel tugged at Tate’s belt, and the lawman noticed that the angel didn’t have any trousers.

“Steal my pants and I’ll shoot you dead,” Tate said.

“Sweet Jesus!” John Wallace Johnson gasped. “You’re alive!”

“Yeah.” Tate sat up. “Now give me my belt.”

John Wallace Johnson turned sheepish, handing the belt to Tate. “I was going to use it for a tourniquet,” the kid explained. “You’re hit in the leg, you know.”

“How about my goddamn boots? What were you gonna use them for?”

John Wallace didn’t answer. Tate got to his feet and grabbed his boots. He looked up into the sky, and raindrops pelted his face, and he took a step and nearly toppled over.

“You ought to sit down, you know,” John Wallace Johnson said.

“Shut up,” Tate said. He took a couple more steps, and then a couple more, and pretty soon he was where he wanted to be.

The battered Ford lay on its side in the cornfield.

Arson Pike and Claire Ives lay in the road at Tate’s feet.

“They got what they deserved,” John Wallace Johnson said. He snatched a handkerchief from Arson Pike’s pocket and brushed Claire Ives’s bloody cheek with it.

“Souvenir,” he explained.

Tate glared at the young man, but the sound of sirens rose in the distance before he could tell John Wallace Johnson exactly what he thought of his souvenir.

Tate heard those sirens and thought of one thing and one tiling only.

Imogene. Damn. The little flapper had gone and done it. She really could ride a Harley.

A woman like that… well, she just had to be a real sweet slice of something. Tate closed his eyes and thought about it while warm summer rain washed his face.

‘You really ought to sit down,” John Wallace Johnson said. ‘You’re a mess.”

‘Yeah,” Tate said. “But I clean up real good.”

Then he turned his back on the dead bandits, and John Wallace Johnson shrugged and did the same, and together they started for the main road. The sky above held only clouds, and rain poured down on the corpses as they lay all alone in a twisted red tangle, their blood washing away in braided rivulets that left pale trails on dead flesh.

And when they were washed clean, the earth puddled darker than earth should.

COYOTES

I was out past the dump, digging a grave for a coyote, when I spotted the van with the naked Mexican chained to the bumper heading my way.

Nothing unusual about that. The van belonged to the border patrol. It didn’t take a college degree to figure that the Mex had crossed the line and got himself noticed by the wrong folks. And in a town like Amigo, that meant trouble served up plain and hot and plenty of it.

That’s trouble, pure western style.

I mopped sweat from my brow with a dirty bandana and watched the van bumping over the rutted dirt road. The tires kicked up dry rust-colored dust. What didn’t stick to the Mexican clouded the crisp blue horizon, hiding Amigo from view.

There wasn’t much to hide, really. Like my daddy used to say before he up and vanished, “Amigo’s a one-horse town, scratch the horse.”

Most folks like it that way, I guess. Around here we keep to ourselves, and the rest of the world doesn’t bother us much. Amigo isn’t exactly a tourist magnet. Oh, once in awhile we get some magazine writer or amateur historian who wants to know about the time Billy the Kid rode through. And every now and then some university kid shows up and drives around the desert for a week or two hunting after Native American artifacts and such. But historians and archaeologists are pretty harmless, as long as they don’t go poking their noses into places they don’t belong. The sheriff and his deputies — with a little help from the border patrol boys — are pretty good at making sure that doesn’t happen.

Other strangers are a little more persistent. Like the flying saucer nuts who want to dredge up those stories from the fifties. Now, I don’t like to stereotype, but in the case of these so-called UFOlogists, it’s hard not to. In my experience they’re generally male and overweight. They’re as familiar with talk radio as they are unfamiliar with personal hygiene. Around here we don’t cater to them much. Mostly, we just shoo ’em on to Roswell. That town likes tourists.

But back to the van and the Mexican. I leaned on my shovel and watched both come my way. There was no sense trying to look busy. When you’ve got a job like mine, it doesn’t matter if you’re good at it or not. Putting on some eager beaver act isn’t likely to impress anyone, especially not the hardcases who pull down checks from the border patrol.

Animal control, that’s my line. All kinds of animals, all kinds of problems.

Jesus, here I go. Off the point one more time, but we’ll just have to let that naked Mexican keep for another minute or two. I promise I’ll keep it short.

If Rover’s got rabies, I get the call. Rattlers nest under a house, my phone rings. Sure, it’s a long way from a big fuckin’ deal. But that’s not to say the job doesn’t have possibilities. Say we had an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease hereabouts. Then my job would be a mucho grande fuckin’ deal. If I did something like quarantine some cattle, something where a few dollars were involved, the good people of Amigo would show me some respect.

But it never comes to that. Things go on around Amigo the same way they’ve been going on for years. As for my job, I know my place. I like it that way. I deal in roadkill mostly. Like the coyote, or anything else that gets caught between a set of headlights on the highway. I shovel what’s left off the blacktop and bury it out by the dump.

I’ve shoveled up Chihuahuas and Gila monsters. Rattlers and French poodles. One time I even shoveled up a dead alligator… at least that’s what I think it was. It was big and blackish green and scaly. If it was a gator, I sure as hell can’t figure out how it ended up in New Mexico.

Doesn’t matter to me. I figured out a long time ago that there’s no use trying to figure out anything at all. You ask me, the best thing to do is mind your own business and stick to your job.

I try to take my own advice. I answer my telephone when it rings. I drive around a lot. And when I come across something dead, I shovel it up and bury it out past the dump.

Dead is dead. As long as it doesn’t move, I’m not squeamish. And if it does move… well, I carry a gun.

See, I hate to see things suffer. There’s no cause for it, really. That’s what bothered me about the naked Mexican. There’s no need to be cruel. Just watching him made my stomach do a little flip-flop. The way he trotted along on bare, bloody feet behind the van, his shackled wrists clicking together, his arms outstretched, those pitiful screams tearing his sandpaper throat.

Christ, the poor bastard sounded like an animal or something. What’s that they say? Like a lamb going to the slaughter. It was a hell of a sound, especially with noon coming on. Not the kind of memory a man wants rattling around in his head when he’s just started thinking about lunch.

My guess is that the border patrol boys were of the same opinion, but I have my doubts. But whatever their reason, it seemed that they were tired of the naked Mexican, too.

The van picked up speed. The Mexican tripped. For a second he looked like a man diving into a swimming pool.

Only for a second, though.

The rest of it didn’t take long. The road, all sand and grit and gravel, skinned the Mexican raw in the time it took me to swallow around the lump in my throat.

I was quiet. The Mex kept on screaming, though. I could hear him above the smooth purr of the van’s engine. And then the driver cut to the left, tearing through a tangle of mesquite and golden brittlebrush as he picked up speed, and pretty soon the Mexican wasn’t screaming anymore.

The van didn’t head back to the dirt road, though.

It came in my direction.

I glanced down at the hole I’d dug. I did some quick calculations. The hole was big enough for a coyote, but something told me that it was going to have to be a whole lot bigger.

I picked up my shovel and got busy.

Rudy Duran unchained the Mexican’s corpse. Rudy’s dad was born in Mexico, but Rudy was born right here in Amigo. I’d known Rudy since we were kids. To me, he was hardly like a Mexican at all.

Rudy’s partner, Wes Baker, watched me work. At least I think he watched me. Those mirrored sunglasses make it hard to tell sometimes.

“You should have seen it, Roy.” Wes shook his head. “Me and Rudy are sittin’ in Carmelita’s, watchin’ the strippers and havin’ a couple beers — ”

“We’re off duty,” Rudy put in, as if it mattered. “We worked graveyard last night.”

“Yeah,” Wes said. “Anyway, I had barely blowed the foam off my first Bud when this scraggly-ass wetback comes stumblin’ in, nekkid as a jaybird.”

“Lookin’ all around but can’t see a damn thing,” Rudy said. “He’s desert blind.”

“The Mex bumped into Conchita Morales, who was doin’ a lap dance for Ted Miller. ’Chita barely got out of the way.”

“And Ted ended up with a couple hundred pounds of naked Mexican in his lap.”

“Yeah,” Wes said. “And you know how jumpy ol’ Ted is. Christ, he shoved the Mex this way. Then that way. But he couldn’t budge the wetback. And all the while Ted’s holdin’ onto one of those froo-froo drinks of his. Somethin’ all green and frothy with a swizzle stick in it. Ol’ Ted didn’t want to spill a drop. Those drinks cost money.”

“Five bucks a pop.” Rudy shook his head. “Unless it’s happy hour.”

“This sure as hell wasn’t happy hour.”

“Except for the Mex.” Rudy laughed. “Roy, you should have seen him. Hoppin’ around like a fat jumpin’ bean, yellin’ and screamin’ that same shit they all yell.”

“As if the whole damn world’s comin’ to an end.” Wes paused, like he was waiting for the story to settle in. He gave me just enough time to roll the Mex into the grave and cover him with a coyote blanket before asking, “Roy, you know why that Mex stuck to Ted’s lap?”

“No,” I said. “Why?”

“Well, the boy might have been blind, but he could feel. And after gyratin’ on top of Ted’s tent pole for a minute or two, the Mex figured he deserved that twenty Ted had slipped Conchita for the lap dance.”

Wes stared at me. I think. Like I said, with the mirrored shades it’s hard to tell.

I figure he wanted to see if I’d laugh or not. I didn’t laugh, though. I just stared up at the blue sky and thought it over.

“Twenty bucks,” I said finally. “Damn. I’m in the wrong business.”

Rudy nearly split a gut. Wes joined in, hee-hawing like a damn burro. I kept quiet and shoveled dirt into the grave.

“Twenty bucks,” Rudy said when he’d calmed down. “Man. You should have seen the look on ol’ Ted’s face. I wonder if the faggot actually came. I’d give twenty and then some if I could see it all again.”

“Well, the world ain’t gonna end for a long, long time,” Wes said. “I bet you’ll see it again. Sooner or later.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And for free, too.”

By the time I finished working, I was good and dirty.

Wes wasn’t. He was all spit and polish, crisp uniform creases and not one stain on him.

Looking at us, you’d figure that Wes had been the high school quarterback or the star baseball pitcher. Some kind of jock, anyway. But the truth was that Wes wasn’t much on sports at all.

I was. Hell, I was a three letter man in high school. Baseball, football, and track.

I was the one who went to college, too. Not that it did me much good.

I went to college because I figured they’d teach me the things I needed to know. But they hardly taught me anything. All they did was ask questions, and pretty soon I got to thinking that no one at college knew anything. Not for sure, anyway.

Crazy questions. I couldn’t see the point to them then, and I can’t see the point to them now. Like this one professor I had for a philosophy class. He asked us all kinds of nutty questions. You know the kind of stuff I mean. Like: if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?

I mean, who gives a flying fuck?

But I stuck it out. I’m not a quitter. Four years. Then I went out in the real world, and pretty soon I forgot those questions, because there just didn’t seem much use for that stuff in everyday life.

I stayed away from Amigo for about ten years. I went through three jobs. Got married, got divorced. I can’t tell you why a lot of it happened. Sure, I could give you an explanation. I could tell you my side of the story. I could blame my bosses or my wife. I could blame caffeine or stress or the fact that my dad hit the road when I was ten years old.

Think about it. People look you straight in the face and tell you things all the time. Television newscasters, politicians, preachers and pundits. Even your best friends. But you never know if they’re telling the truth.

It’s no different with me. No one has to tell the truth. It’s real easy to lie. That’s one thing I learned all on my own. The truth is elusive. It’s slippery.

And the way people talk about it, like it’s the holy grail. Like they have an INALIENABLE RIGHT TO KNOW THE TRUTH.

Jesus. Some people want to know everything. But it’s probably best to forget the truth altogether. That’s what I think, anyway. Because the truth can be an anchor around your neck. Forget it, and keep moving the best way you know how, and you’ll be a whole lot happier.

But there are some things you never forget, no matter where you go, no matter how long you’ve been there. Like for instance I never quite forgot the things I learned growing up in Amigo. The farther away I got from it — in time, in distance — and the more I saw of the world removed from Amigo, the less I understood why I ever left at all.

Amigo is a simpler place, with simpler rules. Maybe that’s why I came back. I understand how things work here.

In Amigo, everything is black and white.

Except for the wetbacks. They’re brown.

They’re the color of the dirt that I heaped on that coyote’s grave.

Yeah. That’s right. I said “coyote’s grave.”

See, there wasn’t any naked Mexican. Not anymore. In fact there never had been a Mexican, now that he was tucked away under a dead coyote and dirt blanket.

Ask me. Ask Rudy. Ask Wes.

No Mexican at all, amigo.

Rudy chuckled one last time. “So what d’ya say, Wes? We take our buddy Roy to Carmelita’s? The three of us have a couple of beers and see what ’Chita and the other girls are up to?”

Wes stared at the grave. “No, Rudy. We don’t got time for that.”

The news didn’t break my heart. Carmelita’s is all right if you don’t mind your women with bite marks on their asses, but it’s not exactly my kind of place. The border patrol boys like it, though. But guys who drive around with Mexicans chained to their bumpers tend to develop some pretty^7 strange quirks.

“Shit,” Rudy complained. “It ain’t like they’re payin’ us overtime.”

“You’re forgettin’ comp time,” Wes said.

“Fuck that. I got so many hours of that shit, I could retire now if they’d let me take it.”

“You should have thought of that before you killed the wetback.”

“I was tired of listening to him scream. Jesus. I just got mad, is all. I couldn’t help it.”

“Whatever,” Wes said, digging in his heels. “The simple fact is this: we come up short, and we have to do something about it.”

I stopped listening. The conversation didn’t have anything to do with me anymore. I tossed my shovel in the back of my truck and dug my keys out of my pocket.

Wes stepped in front of me. “Where you think you’re goin’, cowboy?”

“C’mon, Wes — ”

“Hold your horses. I got a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Did you see anybody else out here today?”

I nodded. “Some guy drove by, heading toward the buttes. Usual idiot. Looked like a saucer nut, if you ask me.”

“Sure he was a saucer nut?”

“I didn’t get a real good look at him, Wes. He didn’t even stop. But he looked like the type.”

“What was he driving?”

“He had a van.”

“What kind?”

“Dodge. Solid-panel — ”

“Solid-panel, huh?” Wes smiled. “That’s interesting.”

“Coyotes use solid-panel vans,” Rudy said. “Gringos who haul illegals. They pack ’em in like sardines. Haul ’em as far north as Chicago.”

“C’mon,” I said. “This guy was a saucer nut. Believe me, I know the type like the back of my hand.”

“Yeah,” Wes said. “I forgot. You went to college. You’re smarter than idiots like me and Rudy.”

I laughed it off. I had to. Most people who grow up in Amigo never leave, let alone come back. I’d done both. I was pretty sure that Wes didn’t trust me because of it. At least not the way he trusted Rudy, or other guys who’d stuck it out the way he had.

“I don’t think I’m all that smart,” I said. “Elsewise, I wouldn’t be going around with a shovel and a truckful of roadkill.”

“Yeah, well… ” Wes sighed. “Maybe you are smarter than us. Maybe the simple fact is that we need your help.”

“I haven’t had lunch, Wes.”

“Sorry, son. But I need me a bird dog.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not one bit.” Wes straightened. Sunlight glinted off his polished badge, and I was fairly blinded by the golden brilliance of authority.

Wes said, “This kind of work, you can’t just show up in a uniform. Folks tend to get nervous, change their plans all of a sudden.”

“What makes you think he’ll treat me any different?” I asked. “I wear a uniform. I carry a gun.”

Wes stared at my dirty khaki outfit. Gas station attendants looked more intimidating. As for my gun, there was no use showing off the .22 target pistol I kept in the glove compartment of my truck. The truck itself was bad enough — Wes stared at that dented hunk of Detroit steel with a smirk simmering on his face.

“It ain’t exactly the Batmobile,” he said. “And you ain’t the caped crusader, neither.”

I tried one more time. “C’mon, Wes — ”

He shook his head. “You know how it works around here, Roy.”

“Damn,” I said, because Wes was right. I did know.

Wes didn’t have to say anything else. Rudy handed me a walkie-talkie. “We’ll be close. You won’t see us, though.”

I tossed the walkie-talkie into my truck and opened the door. “And if I’m right?” I asked. “If the guy is just a saucer nut?”

Wes scratched his chin. “Got a tip for you, Roy.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t think positive. It’s a waste of time.”

The longer I talked to the guy in the solid-panel van, the easier it was for me to believe that Wes was right.

Not that he wasn’t different enough. For starters, he had a weird accent. The kind that made him sound smarter than he probably was. German, or Austrian — like Schwarzenegger in the movies — but with a hint of something else, too.

And on first glance the guy certainly looked the part. That was for sure. Like the hardware he was packing. He had a pair of expensive binoculars slung around his neck, and a video camera mounted on a tripod stood next to his van along with a couple of gizmos that might have been Geiger counters or electric juicers, for all I knew. Plus he had a pasty complexion and a nervous tic at one corner of his mouth, like he spent too much time indoors engaged in compulsive behavior. Covering all the electrical outlets in his house with aluminum foil to protect himself from alien transmissions. That kind of thing.

But after I’d spent a little time with him I began to think that the tic — just like his story and the video camera and all the rest of it — was some kind of elaborate put-on. Kind of like he’d read about UFOlogists in The Fortean Times and tried to duplicate the look.

See, the look isn’t everything. What the guy didn’t have was the curiosity that always piggy-backs the look. I mean, he didn’t ask me hardly any questions, and that’s not the way it works with saucer hounds. One of those nuts finds out you’ve lived in Amigo practically all your life, you can’t get rid of them with a crowbar.

First they want to know if you’ve ever seen a saucer. And if you’ve never seen a saucer, why then they want to know if you’ve ever seen an alien. And if you’ve never seen one of those, why maybe you’ve seen a black helicopter. Or one of those ubiquitous men in black.

And if you say you’ve never seen any of that stuff except for on television, why then they set about converting you. They want to convince you that you’d better open your eyes and start looking around, because you need to know the TRUTH.

Open your eyes, they say, and the desert will reveal its secrets. Sooner or later you’ll spot the caves and tunnels, the ones that lead to a vast underground complex where aliens dwell.

Martians, to be exact. Creatures exiled from their dead planet, a dying race living out their final days beneath ours.

The government knows all about the Martians, of course. Those black helicopters are government helicopters. Those men in black are government agents. They provide the Martians with things they need in exchange for Martian technology.

Think about it, the saucer nuts say. How’d we get from vacuum tubes to transistors so quickly, and then from transistors to microchips? We had to have some help. It’s easier to back-engineer from alien technology than to engineer from scratch. And if the price of a technological bounty is giving the Martians what they need, why then… what exactly is our future worth?

The Martians have appetites, sure. Appetites that humankind wouldn’t find acceptable if the story became common knowledge. The Martians have appetites, and the men from the government feed those appetites with an endless supply of…

Convicts…

Mental patients…

Ordinary people who KNOW THE TRUTH…

Once a saucer nut gets that deep into the whole little green men conspiracy thing, you can’t get a word in edgewise. All you can do is nod your head and say something like, “Guess I’ll have to start watching my backside a little more carefully.”

But that’s not the way it was with the guy from the solid- panel van. With him, the roles were all mixed up. He was the one watching his backside while I rattled on.

I told him the whole loopy story and when I finally finished up, I was the one who didn’t have anything left to say. But I had to say something. So I said, “All I’m trying to tell you is that it’s dangerous to be out here alone.”

His tone was matter-of-fact with just a hint of condescension. “I’m searching for empirical proof,” he said. “I find that’s the best way to treat any investigation, from the fantastic to the mundane. I must have proof before I can believe anything. And until I believe, I can think of no reason to be frightened.”

“All I’m saying is that you need to be careful.”

He nodded. “I have a cellular phone, and there’s a radio in the van.”

I didn’t know quite why he said that. Maybe it was an offhand comment. Or maybe he was giving me a warning. Telling me that all he had to do was finger a couple buttons or twist a dial, and he wouldn’t be alone anymore.

I eyed him hard, watching for his reaction to the questions I was about to ask. “It’s good to have a phone and a radio,” I said. “But how about a gun? Do you have one of those?”

He smiled. “If it’s Martians I’m dealing with, I don’t see what earthly good a gun would do me.”

It was no answer at all, but he laughed as if he’d told me a joke.

He actually laughed.

I can’t imagine what kind of fool he took me for.

“I guess you know what you’re doing,” I said.

He nodded. “I guess I do.”

I got in my truck and started it up.

“Adios,” I said as I flipped a U-turn.

“Adios,” he replied, dismissing me. And then with a wry smile he added: “Vaya con Dios.”

I drove until I was well out of sight. Then I pulled over and called Wes on the walkie-talkie.

“I think you’re right,” I said. “There’s something wrong with the guy. He looks the part, but when you talk to him he doesn’t give off the right vibes.”

Wes’ voice crackled over the radio. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’ve hit the jackpot.”

I thumbed the transmitter. “What?”

“We got eight of ’em, Roy. Stupid wetbacks. Rudy spotted ’em heading down the arroyo. They didn’t have nowhere to go, really. So even if the guy in the van is a coyote, it doesn’t matter. He can sit out there in the heat ’til his brain boils up in his skull if he wants to, but we already got what we — ”

In the background, I heard a scream.

“I got to get back to work,” Wes said. “We need you to join up with us. Just follow the arroyo and you’ll find us. I think we could use a hand.”

“That’s a little out of my line, Wes.”

“Hell if it is.” Now Wes was yelling above the screams in the background. “You’re in animal control, ain’t you?”

“Yeah, but — ”

“No but’s about it. You get your ass out here.”

The walkie-talkie went dead. The whole thing made me a little nervous. So nervous that I took the .22 target pistol out of the glove compartment and gripped it like some kind of talisman.

Where I stood, it was real quiet.

I remembered that question, the one that used to drive me crazy in college.

If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s no one around to hear it…

I was in the middle of nowhere.

… does it make a sound?

Somewhere out there, someone was screaming.

But it didn’t matter how hard I listened.

I didn’t hear anything at all.

When I caught up with them, Wes and Rudy were already hard at work.

There were eight Mexicans. Three men — one of them old enough to have white hair — three women, one teenage girl, and one kid.

The younger men had been stripped and handcuffed. Wes held a gun on them, even so. The women and the kid and the old man huddled in a little patch of shade cast by the west wall of the arroyo.

The teenage girl was down on her hands and knees. Her faded blouse was torn and her jeans lay in a tired knot off to one side, along with a scuffed up pair of boots with holes in the soles. Rudy was behind her, his uniform pants halfway down, grunting away.

“Howdy, Roy.” Wes smiled. “Welcome to the party.”

My gut rolled. I couldn’t see the point of this. Like I said, there’s no reason to be cruel. But Wes and Rudy had obviously crossed that line a long time ago.

Wes didn’t trust me. That much was obvious. He forgot about the wetbacks and turned his attention to my face, just the way he had earlier, trying to gauge my reaction.

I know he didn’t expect the expression he got.

“Look out!” I yelled.

But the old man was already there. He’d come from behind when Wes turned to face me. He slashed at Wes with a switchblade. Wes whirled just in time to avoid the weapon, firing his pistol at the same time, and the old man tottered back as the bullets pitted his chest and he tripped over Rudy’s legs before Rudy knew what was going on.

Then it was like watching dominoes fall. The old man went down hard on top of Rudy, splashing the border guard with blood. Then Rudy went flat on top of the girl, who in turn collapsed face-first in the dirt.

For a second the three of them looked like some kind of Mexican sandwich smothered in bloody salsa. Then Rudy yelled, “Jesus Christ!” and slithered out from in between. The old man toppled over in the dirt and didn’t move as Rudy stumbled away, pulling up his pants with shaky hands.

The girl just lay there in the dirt. Wes didn’t look at her at all. He didn’t look at Rudy, either. What he did was stare down at the dead Mexican. “He wasn’t any good to us, anyway,” Wes said, the smoking pistol still fisted in his right hand. “He was too old and then some.”

“Drop it, gringo.”

The voice came from behind us, and above. I recognized the weird accent almost immediately. I turned and saw him standing there, the setting sun at his back, some kind of machine pistol in his hand.

The man from the solid-panel van.

Wes started talking, but it didn’t do any good. His voice trembled. All of it sounded like excuses, anyway.

“Shut up.” The guy aimed his weapon at Wes. “Like I said, drop it. I won’t ask you again.”

Wes tossed his gun in the dirt. Too fast for my taste. Even his mirrored sunglasses couldn’t hide his fear. Suddenly he looked fifty pounds lighter, as if someone had let the air out of him.

The stranger caught my eye and smiled. “I told you I had a radio, amigo. It’s a scanner, actually. The best money can buy. I picked up your conversation. Hope you don’t mind my dropping in.”

He was cool, all right. I’ll give him that.

Unfortunately, Rudy wasn’t cool. He stood close to the van, still holding onto his pants, still shaky from dancing the sex and death cha-cha. His eyes were focused on his gun belt, which lay on a rock a few feet away. The gun belt was on the other side of the border patrol van, cut off from the stranger’s view, and I could almost hear the wheels turning in Rudy’s head.

If he could get behind the van before the stranger opened fire, and if he could get his hands on his gun…

Rudy went for it. His pants didn’t.

Rudy belly-flopped in the dirt. The stranger opened up with the machine pistol. Bloody roses bloomed along Rudy’s spine as he pawed the ground. I watched him die in a couple seconds and didn’t move an inch.

I couldn’t. I was too scared.

Most of the Mexicans started running. Wes made a grab for his pistol. The raped girl was still flat on the ground, like she was living a couple minutes behind everyone else. Wes almost had his gun. Mexicans ran past me like I wasn’t there. A burst of gunfire chopped three fingers from Wes’ hand, and he screamed.

I blinked.

The raped girl was up now. She took off like a shot.

I sucked a breath between clenched teeth. I have to admit that I’ve never been so scared in all my life.

The girl ran my way. I clothes-lined her. As I took her down I pulled the target pistol from behind my back and jammed the barrel against her skull.

I knew that my gun hand was shaking. The girl whimpered and I put my other hand over her mouth, but that only made it worse because I could feel her frightened breaths washing my palm.

That’s when I really started to shake. Wes was screaming something awful. My grip tightened on the pistol. My index finger was coiled around the trigger, and I was afraid that I might pull it by accident.

I looked up at the stranger. “It’s up to you,” I said, and I was surprised to find that I didn’t sound nearly as nervous as I felt.

He dumped the machine pistol into the arroyo.

“Get down here,” I said.

Hands raised, the stranger started down. I moved away from the girl, keeping the pistol on him, moving slowly so I could grab his weapon before he made it to the bottom of the arroyo.

Wes was behind me now

So was the girl.

I heard her running, bare feet scrabbling over loose rock.

I didn’t do it to be cruel. You have to understand that.

But she didn’t give me any other choice.

She really didn’t.

The stranger had been a lot of trouble, so I made him strip and chained him to the bumper.

I wasn’t going to kill him. Wes and Rudy had already made that mistake once today. I planned to drive slow. We didn’t have far to go. Maybe three miles, tops.

I kicked some dirt over Wes’ severed fingers as I climbed into the van. Wes was riding shotgun. His uniform shirt was off, only now it wasn’t so crisp and clean because he had it wrapped around his shot-up hand.

I slipped off my belt and gave it to Wes, figuring he could use it as a tourniquet. “You sure you don’t want me to take you to town first?” I asked. “I could leave the Mex here while I dropped you at the doctor. It wouldn’t be any trouble.”

“I ain’t no pussy,” Wes hissed, as if I’d insulted him. “I can hold out and then some.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. I just figured you might want to get to a doctor.”

“No way. I want to see how tough this boy is before I start worrying about me.”

“I can understand that.” I buckled up and keyed the engine. “Wait’ll you hear the guy’s story. That’ll make you feel better.”

Wes groaned as he pulled the belt tight with his teeth. So much for the tough guy act.

“C’mon. You’ll be all right.” I started driving, nice and slow. “Anyway, the guy’s with a human rights group. Seems some Mexican politico got one too many complaints about illegals who cross the border near Amigo never making it to where they’re going. The politician is a man of the people. Claims to be, anyway. So he sent our friend with the machine pistol to check out the story.

“Here’s the real funny part about our pal. The guy’s actually a Mexican citizen. A white Mexican.”

I laughed out loud.

“He told me that his family is German. That’s where the weird accent comes from — it’s German with a splash of salsa. Guy’s grandfather was a brewmeister. Came to Mexico to make beer, along with a whole bunch of other Germans. Our boy is a third-generation German-Mexican, and damn proud of it.” Man, I couldn’t stop laughing. In spite of his pain, Wes laughed too. He couldn’t help himself.

“Jesus,” he said. “A German wetback.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s getting so you can’t trust anyone anymore.”

The white-skinned Mexican was pretty worn out by the time I chained him to a big eyebolt set in a concrete block. He sat down in the dirt and stared at the mouth of the cave.

We steer strangers away from this place. The ones that do stumble onto it have a way of disappearing. Forever.

Wes honked the horn. Now that the Mex was chained up, he was ready to go and then some.

I wasn’t. Not quite yet.

I squatted down next to the Mexican and got as comfortable as I could. “I’ve never seen a Martian myself,” I told him. “At least, I don’t think I have. I shoveled something off the highway one time that might have been a Martian, but I can’t say so for sure. It was big and blackish green and scaly, I can tell you that much. But for all I know it might have been an alligator, though I sure can’t explain what an alligator was doing on a highway in New Mexico.”

The white Mexican didn’t say anything. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he was too tired.

Or maybe he figured it would be smarter to listen.

So I kept on talking. “When the stories first started back in the fifties, no one took them seriously. I mean, a few lights in the sky… who knows what causes stuff like that? Could be some secret government aircraft. Could be an optical illusion. Hell, I guess it could be Martians, too.

“But lights in the sky don’t exactly make you sit up and take notice in a serious way. No. It takes more than that, even around a flyspeck town like Amigo.

“Once folks started disappearing… well, that was a different story.” I sighed. “That’s serious. My dad was one of the first. He went for a walk one night and never came back. Now, maybe he just left town. Maybe he was sick of me and my mom and Amigo. But he wasn’t the only one. Around the same time, a lot of other folks vanished without a trace. One man disappears, you can explain that away. But ten or twenty, and women and children, too…

“So the sheriff started sniffing around out in the desert. He was a real go-getter. He found the caves and the tunnels, even made a trip a couple of miles down one of the tunnels, if you believe the story. Not that he saw anything. He was smart enough to trust his gut instincts, and he turned tail when he got to feeling like he was in over his head.

“Not that he was yellow. He formed a posse — some town roughnecks, a couple ex-lawmen, a few border patrol guys -— and went back to one of the caves. That’s when he found these things.”

I pointed to the concrete block with the eyebolt that held the Mexican’s chain. “There were fifty of ’em scattered around a quarter-mile area. Each one had a chain, and at the end of each chain was a shackle with a key already in it. And chained to the ten slabs nearest the mouth of the cave were corpses, folks everyone recognized who had disappeared from town.

“The men who saw them — or claim they did — say that those corpses looked like they’d been through the meanest part of hell. However they looked, the sheriff got the message, all right. That’s when we started rounding up the wetbacks. And that’s when folks stopped disappearing from town.

“We hear stories. Sure. Every now and then, one of those wetbacks slips out of some hole in the desert and tries to make a run for it. Usually they end up in Amigo. I’ve heard that they talk about man-eating aliens and caves that stink like slaughterhouses and all kinds of crazy shit. Not that I could say so myself — I don’t speak Mexican and I sure as hell wouldn’t talk to anyone like that even if I did.

“What I think is that it’s better not to listen to any of it. You run across a wetback like that, I think it’s better to stuff a rag in his mouth and chain him up out here where he belongs, and turn your back and forget him, and try to get on with your life the best way you know how.

“I’ve never seen a black helicopter. I’ve never seen any men in black. I can’t tell you how we went from vacuum tubes to transistors to microchips so damn fast. I’m not one of those who thinks that salvation comes from knowing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I think that sometimes it’s better not to know.

“I don’t know what lives down in those caves. I don’t want to know. Martians or government agents or Nazis from the earth’s core, it doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that no one from Amigo is going to end up down there.”

Wes honked again. I knew it was time to go. I got up. Really, there was no reason to hang around. The whole thing was out of my hands now that the white Mexican was chained to the concrete block.

He wouldn’t look at me. He wouldn’t say a word. He just stared at the mouth of the cave, and he kept his mouth shut.

That was fine with me.

“Folks from Amigo, we’re safe out here,” I said.

I turned my back on the Mexican.

“We have been for a long time.”

I opened the door to Wes’ van.

“We want to keep it that way.”

That was when I heard him move behind me. The chain played out, but he couldn’t get far.

He took a breath. “Don’t leave me here,” he said. “For the love of God… please… ”

His voice was very small. In a high wind, you’d hardly notice it.

I stood there for a minute, listening to him beg, but I wasn’t going to turn around. If I didn’t do that, it would be just like I was listening to nobody.

If I didn’t turn around, there was no white Mexican behind me.

No white Mexican at all.

DO NOT HASTEN TO BID ME ADIEU

ONE

He was done up all mysterious-like–black bandanna covering half his face, black duster, black boots and hat. Traveling incognito, just like that coachman who picked up Harker at the Borgo Pass.

Yeah. As a red man might figure it, that was many moons ago… at the beginning of the story. Stoker’s story, anyway. But that tale of mannered woe and stiff-upper-lip bravado was as crazy as the lies Texans told about Crockett and his Alamo bunch. Harker didn’t exist. Leastways, the man in black had never met him.

Nobody argued sweet-told lies, though. Nobody in England, anyhow. Especially with Stoker tying things up so neat and proper, and the count gone to dust and dirt and all.

A grin wrinkled the masked man’s face as he remembered the vampire crumbling to nothing finger-snap quick, like the remnants of a cow-flop campfire worried by an unbridled prairie wind. Son of a bitch must have been mucho old. Count Dracula had departed this vale of tears, gone off to suckle the devil’s own tit… though the man in black doubted that Dracula’s scientific turn of mind would allow him to believe in Old Scratch.

You could slice it fine or thick–ultimately, the fate of Count Dracula didn’t make no nevermind. The man in black was one hell of a long way from Whitby, and his dealings with the count seemed about as unreal as Stoker’s scribblings. Leastways, that business was behind him. This was to be his story. And he was just about to slap the ribbons to it.

Slap the ribbons he did, and the horses picked up the pace. The wagon bucked over ruts, creaking like an arthritic dinosaur. Big black box jostling in the back. Tired horses sweating steam up front. West Texas sky a quilt for the night, patched blood red and bruise purple and shot through with blue-pink streaks, same color as the meat that lines a woman’s heart.

And black. Thick black squares in that quilt, too. More coming every second. Awful soon, there’d be nothing but those black squares and a round white moon.

Not yet, though. The man could still see the faint outline of a town on the horizon. There was Morrisville, up ahead, waiting in the red and purple and blue-pink shadows.

He wondered what she’d make of Morrisville. It was about as far from the stone manors of Whitby as one could possibly get. No vine-covered mysteries here. No cool salt breezes whispering from the green sea, blanketing emerald lawns, traveling lush garden paths. Not much of anything green at all. No crumbling Carfax estate, either. And no swirling fog to mask the night–everything right out in the open, just as plain as the nose on your face. A West Texas shit-splat. Cattle business, mostly. A matchstick kind of town. Wooden buildings–wind-dried, sun-bleached–that weren’t much more than tinder dreading the match.

The people who lived there were the same way.

But it wasn’t the town that made this place. He’d told her that. It was that big blanket of a sky, an eternal wave threatening to break over the dead dry husk of the prairie, fading darker with each turn of the wagon wheels–cresting, cresting–ready to smother the earth like a hungry thing.

Not a bigger, blacker night anywhere on the planet. When that nightwave broke, as it did all too rarely–wide and mean and full-up with mad lightning and thunder–it was something to see.

He’d promised her that. He’d promised to show her the heart of a wild Texas night, the way she’d shown him the shadows of Whitby.

Not that he always kept his promises. But this one was a promise to himself as much as it was a promise to her.

He’d hidden from it for a while. Sure. In the wake of all that horror, he’d run. But finally he’d returned to Whitby, and to her. He’d returned to keep his promise.

And now he was coming home.

“Not another place like it anywhere, Miss Lucy. Damn sure not on this side of the pond, anyhow.”

She didn’t fake a blush or get all offended by his language, like so many of the English missies did, and he liked that. She played right with him, like she knew the game. Not just knew it, but thrived on it. “No,” she said. “Nothing here could possibly resemble your Texas, Quincey P. Morris. Because no one here resembles you.”

She took him by the lapels and kissed him like she was so hungry for it, like she couldn’t wait another moment, and then he had her in his arms and they were moving together, off the terrace, away from the house and the party and the dry rattle of polite conversation. He was pulling her and she was pushing him and together they were going back, back into the shadows of Whitby, deep into the garden where fog settled like velvet and the air carried what for him would always be the green scent of England.

And then they were alone. The party sounds were a world away. But those sounds were nothing worth hearing–they were dead sounds compared to the music secret lovers could make. Matched with the rustle of her skirts, and the whisper of his fingers on her tender thighs, and the sweet duet of hungry lips, the sounds locked up in the big stone house were as sad and empty as the cries of the damned souls in Dr. Seward’s loony bin, and he drew her away from them, and she pushed him away from them, and together they entered another world where strange shadows met, cloaking them like fringed buckskin, like gathered satin.

Buckskin and satin. It wasn’t what you’d call a likely match. They’d been dancing around it for months. But now the dancing was over.

“God, I want you,” he said.

She didn’t say anything. There was really nothing more to say.

She gave. She took. And he did the same.

He reined in the horses just short of town. Everything was black but that one circle of white hanging high in the sky.

He stepped down from the driver’s box and stretched. He drew the night air deep into his lungs. The air was dry and dusty, and there wasn’t anything in it that was pleasant.

He was tired. He lay down on top of the big black box in the back of the wagon and thought of her. His fingers traveled wood warped in the leaky cargo hold of a British ship. Splinters fought his callused hands, lost the battle. But he lost the war, because the dissonant rasp of rough fingers on warped wood was nothing like the music the same rough fingers could make when exploring a young woman’s thighs.

He didn’t give up easy, though. He searched for the memory of the green scent of England, and the music he’d made there, and shadows of satin and buckskin. He searched for the perfume of her hair, and her skin. The ready, eager perfume of her sex.

His hands traveled the wood. Scurrying like scorpions. Damn things just wouldn’t give up, and he couldn’t help laughing.

Raindrops beaded on the box. The nightwave was breaking.

No. Not raindrops at all. Only his tears.

The sky was empty. No clouds. No rain.

No lightning.

But there was lightning in his eyes.

TWO

The morning sunlight couldn’t penetrate the filthy jailhouse window. That didn’t bother the man in black. He had grown to appreciate the darkness.

Sheriff Josh Muller scratched his head. “This is the damnedest thing, Quincey. You got to admit that that Stoker fella made it pretty plain in his book.”

Quincey smiled. “You believe the lies that Buntline wrote about Buffalo Bill, too?”

“Shit no, Quince. But, hell, that Stoker is an Englishman. I thought they was different and all–”

“I used to think that. Until I got to know a few of the bastards, that is.”

“Well,” the sheriff said, “that may be… but the way it was, was… we all thought that you had been killed by them Transylvanian gypsies, like you was in the book.”

“I’ve been some places, before and since. But we never got to Transylvania. Not one of us. And I ain’t even feelin’ poorly.”

“But in the book–”

“Just how stupid are you, Josh? You believe in vampires, too? Your bowels get loose thinkin’ about Count Dracula?”

“Hell, no, of course not, but–”

“Shit, Josh, I didn’t mean that like a question you were supposed to answer.”

“Huh?”

Quincey sighed. “Let’s toss this on the fire and watch it sizzle. It’s real simple–I ain’t dead. I’m back. Things are gonna be just like they used to be. We can start with this here window.”

Quincey Morris shot a thumb over his shoulder. The sheriff looked up and saw how dirty the window was. He grabbed a rag from his desk. “I’ll take care of it, Quince.”

“You don’t get it,” the man in black said.

“Huh?”

Again, Quincey sighed. “I ain’t dead. I’m back. Things are gonna be just like they used to be. And this is Morrisville, right?”

The sheriff squinted at the words painted on the window. He wasn’t a particularly fast reader–he’d been four months reading the Stoker book, and that was with his son doing most of the reading out loud. On top of that, he had to read this backwards. He started in, reading right to left: O-W-E-N-S-V-I-L-L…

That was as far as he got. Quincey Morris picked up a chair and sent it flying through the glass, and then the word wasn’t there anymore.

Morris stepped through the opening and started toward his wagon. He stopped in the street, which was like a river of sunlight, turned, and squinted at the sheriff. “Get that window fixed,” he said. “Before I come back.”

“Where are you headed?” The words were out of Josh Muller’s mouth before he could stop himself, and he flinched at the grin Morris gave him in return.

“I’m goin’ home,” was all he said.

There in the shadows, none of it mattered, because it was only the two of them. Two creatures from different worlds, but with hearts that were the same.

He’d come one hell of a long way to find this. Searched the world over. He’d known that he’d find it, once he went looking, same as he’d known that it was something he had to go out and find if he wanted to keep on living. His gut told him, Find it, or put a bullet in your brainpan. But he hadn’t known it would feel like this. It never had before. But this time, with this person… she filled him up like no one else. And he figured it was the same with her.

“I want you.”

“I think you just had me, Mr. Morris.”

Her laughter tickled his neck, warm breath washing a cool patch traced by her tongue, drawn by her lips. Just a bruise, but as sure and real as a brand. He belonged to her. He knew that. But he didn’t know–

The words slipped out before he could think them through. “I want you, forever.”

That about said it, all right.

He felt her shiver, and then her lips found his.

“Forever is a long time,” she said.

They laughed about that, embracing in the shadows.

They actually laughed.

She came running out of the big house as soon as he turned in from the road. Seeing her, he didn’t feel a thing. That made him happy, because in England, in the midst of everything else, he’d thought about her a lot. He’d wondered just what kind of fuel made her belly burn, and why she wasn’t more honest about it, in the way of the count. He wondered why she’d never gone ahead and torn open his jugular, the way a vampire would, because she sure as hell had torn open his heart.

Leonora ran through the blowing dust, her hair a blond tangle, and she was up on the driver’s box sitting next to him before he could slow the horses–her arms around him, her lips on his cheek, her little flute of a voice all happy. “Quince! Oh, Quince! It is you! We thought you were dead!”

He shook his head. His eyes were on the big house. It hadn’t changed. Not in the looks department, anyway. The occupants… now that was a different story.

“Miss me?” he asked, and his tone of voice was not a pleasant thing.

“I’m sorry.” She said it like she’d done something silly, like maybe she’d spilled some salt at the supper table or something. “I’m glad you came back.” She hugged him. “It’ll be different now. We’ve both had a chance to grow up.”

He chuckled at that one, and she got it crossed up. “Oh, Quince, we’ll work it out… you’ll see. We both made mistakes. But it’s not too late to straighten them out.” She leaned over and kissed his neck, her tongue working between her lips.

Quincey flushed with anger and embarrassment. The bitch. And with the box right there, behind them, in plain view. With him dressed head to toe in black. God, Leonora had the perceptive abilities of a blind armadillo.

He shoved her, hard. She tumbled off the driver’s box. Her skirts caught on the seat, tearing as she fell. She landed in the dirt, petticoats bunched up around her waist.

She cussed him real good. But he didn’t hear her at all, because suddenly he could see everything so clearly. The golden wedding band on her finger didn’t mean much. Not to her it didn’t, so it didn’t mean anything to him. But the fist-sized bruises on her legs did.

He’d seen enough. He’d drawn a couple conclusions. Hal Owens hadn’t changed. Looking at those bruises, that was for damn sure. And it was misery that filled up Leonora’s belly–that had to be the answer which had eluded him for so long–and at present it seemed that she was having to make do with her own. Knowing Leonora as he did, he figured that she was probably about ready for a change of menu, and he wanted to make it real clear that he wasn’t going to be the next course.

“You bastard!” she yelled. “You’re finished around here! You can’t just come walkin’ back into town, big as you please! This ain’t Morrisville, anymore, Quincey! It’s Owensville! And Hal’s gonna kill you! I’m his wife, dammit! And when I tell him what you did to me, he’s gonna flat-out kill you!” She scooped up fistfuls of dirt, threw them at him. “You don’t belong here anymore, you bastard!”

She was right about that. He didn’t belong here anymore. This wasn’t his world. His world was contained in a big black box. That was the only place for him anymore. Anywhere else there was only trouble.

Didn’t matter where he went these days, folks were always threatening him.

Threats seemed to be his lot in life.

Take Arthur Holmwood, for instance. He was a big one for threats. The morning after the Westenra’s party, he’d visited Quincey’s lodgings, bringing with him Dr. Seward and a varnished box with brass hinges.

“I demand satisfaction,” he’d said, opening the box and setting it on the table.

Quincey stared down at the pistols. Flintlocks. Real pioneer stuff. “Hell, Art,” he said, snatching his Peacemaker from beneath his breakfast napkin (Texas habits died hard, after all), “let’s you and me get real satisfied, then.”

The doctor went ahead and pissed in the pot. “Look here, Morris. You’re in England now. A man does things in a certain way here. A gentleman, I should say.”

Quincey was sufficiently cowed to table his Peacemaker. “Maybe I am a fish out of water, like you say, Doc.” He examined one of the dueling pistols. “But ain’t these a little old-fashioned, even for England? I thought this kind of thing went out with powdered wigs and such.”

“A concession to you.” Holmwood sneered. “We understand that in your Texas, men duel in the streets quite regularly.”

Quincey grinned. “That’s kind of an exaggeration.”

“The fact remains that you compromised Miss Lucy’s honor.”

“Who says?”

Seward straightened. “I myself observed the way you thrust yourself upon her last night, on the terrace. And I saw Miss Lucy leave the party in your charge.”

“You get a real good look, Doc?” Quincey’s eyes narrowed. “You get a right proper fly-on-a-dung-pile close-up view, or are you just telling tales out of school?”

Holmwood’s hand darted out. Fisted, but he did his business with a pair of kid gloves knotted in his grip. The gloves slapped the Texan’s left cheek and came back for his right, at which time Quincey Morris exploded from his chair and kneed Arthur Holmwood in the balls.

Holmwood was a tall man. He seemed to go down in sections. Doctor Seward trembled as Quincey retrieved his Peacemaker, and he didn’t calm down at all when the Texan holstered the weapon.

Quincey didn’t see any point to stretching things out, not when there was serious fence-mending to do at the Westenra’s house. “I hope you boys will think on this real seriously,” he said as he stepped over Holmwood and made for the door.

There was a Mexican kid pretending to do some work behind the big house. Quincey gave him a nickel and took him around front.

The kid wasn’t happy to see the box. He crossed himself several times. Then he spit on his palms and took one end, delighted to find that the box wasn’t as heavy as it looked.

They set it in the parlor. Quincey had to take a chair and catch his breath. After all that time on the ship, and then more time sitting on his butt slapping reins to a pair of swaybacks, he wasn’t much good. Of course, this wasn’t as tough as when he’d had to haul the box from the Westenra family tomb, all by his lonesome, but it was bad enough. By the time he remembered to thank the kid, the kid had already gone.

Nothing for it, then.

Nothing, but to do it.

The words came back to him, echoing in his head. And it wasn’t the voice of some European doctor, like in Stoker’s book. It was Seward’s voice. “One moment’s courage, and it is done.”

He shook those words away. He was alone here. The parlor hadn’t changed much since the day he’d left to tour the world. The curtains were heavy and dark, and the deep shadows seemed to brush his cheek, one moment buckskin-rough, next moment satin-smooth.

Like the shadows in the Westenra’s garden. The shadows where he’d held Lucy to him. Held her so close.

No. He wouldn’t think of that. Not now. He had work to do. He couldn’t start thinking about how it had been, because then he’d certainly start thinking about how it might be, again…

One moment’s courage, and it is done.

God, how he wanted to laugh, but he kept it inside.

His big bowie knife was in his hand. He didn’t know quite how it had gotten there. He went to work on the lid of the box, first removing brass screws, then removing the hinges.

One moment’s courage .. .

The lid crashed heavily to the floor, but he never heard it. His horror was too great for that. After all this time, the stink of garlic burned his nostrils, scorched his lungs. But that wasn’t the hell of it.

The hell of it was that she had moved.

Oh, she hadn’t moved. He knew that. He could see the stake spearing her poor breast, the breast that he had teased between his own lips. She couldn’t move. Not with the stake there.

But the churning Atlantic had rocked a sailing ship, and that had moved her. And a bucking wagon had jostled over the rutted roads of Texas, and that had moved her. And now her poor head, her poor severed head with all that dark and beautiful hair, was trapped between her own sweet legs, nestled between her own tender thighs, just as his head had been.

Once. A long time ago.

Maybe, once again…

No. He wouldn’t start thinking like that. He stared at her head, knowing he’d have to touch it. There was no sign of decay, no stink of corruption. But he could see the buds of garlic jammed into the open hole of her throat, the ragged gashes and severed muscles, the dangling ropes of flesh.

In his mind’s eye, he saw Seward standing stiff and straight with a scalpel in his bloodstained grip.

And that bastard called himself a doctor.

There were shadows, of course, in their secret place in the Westenra garden. And he held her, as he had before. But now she never stopped shaking.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” she said. “Arthur is behaving like one of Seward’s lunatics. You must be careful.”

“You’re the one has to be careful, Lucy,” he said.

“No.” She laughed. “Mother has disregarded the entire episode. Well, nearly so. She’s convinced that I behaved quite recklessly– and this judging from one kiss on the terrace. I had to assure her that we did nothing more than tour the garden in search of a better view of the moon. I said that was the custom in Texas. I’m not certain that she accepted my story, but… ” She kissed him, very quickly. “I’ve feigned illness for her benefit, and she believes that I am in the grip of a rare and exotic fever. Seward has convinced her of this, I think. Once I’m pronounced fit, I’m certain that she will forgive your imagined indiscretion.”

“Now, Miss Lucy, I don’t think that was my imagination,” he joked.

She laughed, trembling laughter there in his arms. “Seward has consulted a specialist. A European fellow. He’s said to be an expert in fevers of the blood. I’m to see him tomorrow. That ought to put an end to the charade.”

He wanted to say it. More than anything, he wanted to say, Forget tomorrow. Let’s leave here, tonight. But he didn’t say it, because she was trembling so.

“You English,” he said. “You do love your charades.”

Moonlight washed the shadows. He caught the wild look in her eye. A twin to the fearful look a colt gets just before it’s broken.

He kept his silence. He was imagining things. He held her.

It was the last time he would hold her, alive.

THREE

Quincey pushed through the double doors of the saloon and was surprised to find it deserted except for a sleepy-eyed man who was polishing the piano.

“You the piano player?” Quincey asked.

“Sure,” the fellow said.

Quincey brought out the Peacemaker. “Can you play ‘Red River Valley’?”

“S-sure.” The man sat down, rolled up his sleeves.

“Not here,” Quincey said.

“H-huh?”

“I got a big house on the edge of town.”

The man swallowed hard. “You mean Mr. Owens’s place?”

“No. I mean my place.”

“H-huh?”

“Anyway, you go on up there, and you wait for me.”

The man rose from the piano stool, both eyes on the Peacemaker, and started toward the double doors.

“Wait a minute,” Quincey said. “You’re forgetting something.”

“W-what?”

“Well, I don’t have a piano up at the house.”

“Y-you don’t?”

“Nope.”

“Well… Hell, mister, what do you want me to do?”

Quincey cocked the Peacemaker. “I guess you’d better start pushing.”

“You mean… you want me to take the piano with me?”

Quincey nodded. “Now, I’ll be home in a couple hours or so. You put the piano in the parlor, then you help yourself to a glass of whiskey. But don’t linger in the parlor, hear?”

The man nodded. He seemed to catch on pretty quick. Had to be that he was a stranger in these parts.

Quincey moved on. He stopped off at Murphy’s laundry, asked a few questions about garlic, received a few expansive answers detailing the amazing restorative power of Mrs. Murphy’s soap, after which he set a gunnysack on the counter. He set it down real gentle-like, and the rough material settled over something kind of round, and, seeing this, Mr. Murphy excused himself and made a beeline for the saloon.

Next Quincey stopped off at the church with a bottle of whiskey for the preacher. They chatted a bit, and Quincey had a snort before moving on, just to be sociable.

He had just stepped into the home of Mrs. Danvers, the best seamstress in town, when he glanced through the window and spotted Hal Owens coming his way, two men in tow, one of them being the sheriff.

Things were never quite so plain in England. Oh, they were just as dangerous, that was for sure. But, with the exception of lunatics like Arthur Holmwood, the upper crust of Whitby cloaked their confrontational behavior in a veil of politeness.

Three nights running, Quincey stood alone in the garden, just waiting. Finally, he went to Lucy’s mother in the light of day, hat literally in hand. He inquired as to Lucy’s health. Mrs. Westenra said that Lucy was convalescing. Three similar visits, and his testiness began to show through.

So did Mrs. Westenra’s. She blamed Quincey for her daughter’s poor health. He wanted to tell her that the whole thing was melodrama, and for her benefit, too, but he held off.

And that was when the old woman slipped up. Or maybe she didn’t, because her voice was as sharp as his bowie, and it was plain that she intended to do damage with it. “Lucy’s condition is quite serious,” she said. “Her behavior of late, which Dr. Seward has described in no small detail… Well, I mean to tell you that Lucy has shown little consideration for her family or her station, and there is no doubt that she is quite ill. We have placed her in hospital, under the care of Dr. Seward and his associates.”

Mrs. Westenra had torn away the veil. He would not keep silent now. He made it as plain as plain could be. “You want to break her. You want to pocket her, heart and soul.”

She seemed to consider her answer very carefully. Finally, she said, “We only do what we must.”

“Nobody wants you here,” Owens said.

Quincey grinned. Funny that Owens should say that. Those were the same words that had spilled from Seward’s lips when Quincey confronted him at the asylum.

Of course, that had happened an ocean away, and Dr. Seward hadn’t had a gun. But he’d had a needle, and that had done the job for him right proper.

Quincey stared down at Mrs. Danvers’s sewing table. There were needles here, too. Sharp ones, little slivers of metal. But these needles weren’t attached to syringes. They weren’t like Dr. Seward’s needles at all.

Something pressed against Quincey’s stomach. He blinked several times, but he couldn’t decide who was standing in front of him. Owens, or Seward, or…

Someone said, “Get out of town, or I’ll make you wish you was dead.” There was a sharp click. The pressure on Quincey’s belly increased, and a heavy hand dropped onto his shoulder.

The hand of Count Dracula. A European nobleman and scientist. Stoker had split him into two characters–a kindly doctor and a hell-born monster. But Quincey knew that the truth was somewhere in between.

“Start movin’, Quince. Otherwise, I’ll spill your innards all over the floor.”

The count had only held him. He didn’t make idle threats. He didn’t use his teeth. He didn’t spill a single drop of Quincey’s blood. He let Seward do all the work, jabbing Quincey’s arm with the needle, day after day, week after week.

That wasn’t how the count handled Lucy, though. He had a special way with Dr. Seward’s most combative patient, a method that brought real results. He emptied her bit by bit, draining her blood, and with it the strength that so disturbed Lucy’s mother and the independent spirit that so troubled unsuccessful suitors such as Seward and Holmwood. The blind fools had been so happy at first, until they realized that they’d been suckered by another outsider, a Transylvanian bastard with good manners who was much worse than anything that had ever come out of Texas.

They’d come to him, of course. The stranger with the wild gleam in his eyes. Told him the whole awful tale. Cut him out of the strait-jacket with his own bowie, placed the Peacemaker in one hand. A silver crucifix and an iron stake jammed in a cricketing bag filled the other.

“You make your play, Quince,” Owens said. “I’m not goin’ to give you forever.”

“Forever is a long time.”

“You ain’t listenin’ to me, Quince.”

“One moment’s courage, and it is done.”

Count Dracula, waiting for him in the ruins of the chapel at Carfax. His fangs gleaming in the dark . . . fangs that could take everything…

The pistol bucked against Quincey’s belly. The slug ripped straight through him, shattered the window behind. Blood spilled out of him, running down his leg. Lucy’s blood on the count’s lips, spilling from her neck as he took and took and took some more. Quincey could see it from the depths of Seward’s hell, he could see the garden and the shadows and their love flowing in Lucy’s blood. Her strength, her dreams, her spirit…

“This is my town,” Owens said, his hand still heavy on Quincey’s shoulder. “I took it, and I mean to keep it.”

Quincey opened his mouth. A gout of blood bubbled over his lips. He couldn’t find words. Only blood, rushing away, running down his leg, spilling over his lips. It seemed his blood was everywhere, rushing wild, like once-still waters escaping the rubble of a collapsed dam.

He sagged against Owens. The big man laughed.

And then the big man screamed.

Quincey’s teeth were at Owens’s neck. He ripped through flesh, tore muscle and artery. Blood filled his mouth, and the Peacemaker thundered again and again in his hand, and then Owens was nothing but a leaking mess there in his arms, a husk of a man puddling red, washing away to nothing so fast, spurting red rich blood one second, then stagnant-pool dead the next.

Quincey’s gun was empty. He fumbled for his bowie, arming himself against Owens’s compadres.

There was no need.

Mrs. Danvers stood over them, a smoking shotgun in her hands.

Quincey released Owens’s corpse. Watched it drop to the floor.

“Let me get a look at you,” Mrs. Danvers said.

“There ain’t no time for that,” he said.

Dracula chuckled. “I can’t believe it is you they sent. The American cowboy. The romantic.”

Quincey studied the count’s amused grin. Unnatural canines gleamed in the moonlight. In the ruined wasteland of Carfax, Dracula seemed strangely alive.

“Make your play,” Quincey offered.

Icy laughter rode the shadows. “There is no need for such melodrama, Mr. Morris. I only wanted the blood. Nothing else. And I have taken that.”

“That ain’t what Seward says.” Quincey squinted, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. “He claims you’re after Miss Lucy’s soul.”

Again, the laughter. “I am a man of science, Mr. Morris. I accept my condition, and my biological need. Disease, and the transmission of disease, make for interesting study. I am more skeptical concerning the mythology of my kind. Fairy stories bore me. Certainly, powers exist which I cannot explain. But I cannot explain the moon and the stars, yet I know that these things exist because I see them in the night sky. It is the same with my special abilities–they exist, I use them, hence I believe in them. As for the human soul, I cannot see any evidence of such a thing. What I cannot see, I refuse to believe.”

But Quincey could see. He could see Dracula, clearer every second. The narrow outline of his jaw. The eyes burning beneath his heavy brow. The long, thin line of his lips hiding jaws that could gape so wide.

“You don’t want her,” Quincey said. “That’s what you’re saying.”

“I only want a full belly, Mr. Morris. That is the way of it.” He stepped forward, his eyes like coals. “I only take the blood. Your kind is different. You want everything. The flesh, the heart, the… soul, which of course has a certain tangibility fueled by your belief. You take it all. In comparison, I demand very little–”

“We take. But we give, too.”

“That is what your kind would have me believe. I have seen little evidence that this is the truth.” Red eyes swam in the darkness. “Think about it, Mr. Morris. They have sent you here to kill me. They have told you how evil I am. But who are they–these men who brought me to your Miss Lucy? What do they want?” He did not blink; he only advanced. “Think on it, Mr. Morris. Examine the needs of these men, Seward and Holmwood. Look into your own heart. Examine your needs.”

And now Quincey smiled. “Maybe I ain’t as smart as you, Count.” He stepped forward. “Maybe you could take a look for me… let me know just what you see.”

Their eyes met.

The vampire stumbled backward. He had looked into Quincey Morris’s eyes. Seen a pair of empty green wells. Bottomless green pits. Something was alive there, undying, something that had known pain and hurt, and, very briefly, ecstasy.

Very suddenly, the vampire realized that he had never known real hunger at all.

The vampire tried to steady himself, but his voice trembled. “What I can see… I believe.”

Quincey Morris did not blink.

He took the stake from Seward’s bag.

“I want you to know that this ain’t something I take lightly,” he said.

FOUR

He’d drawn a sash around his belly, but it hadn’t done much good. His jeans were stiff with blood, and his left boot seemed to be swimming with the stuff. That was his guess, anyway–there wasn’t much more than a tingle of feeling in his left foot, and he wasn’t going to stoop low and investigate.

Seeing himself in the mirror was bad enough. His face was so white. Almost like the count’s.

Almost like her face, in death.

Mrs. Danvers stepped away from the coffin, tucking a pair of scissors into a carpetbag. “I did the best I could,” she said.

“I’m much obliged, ma’am.” Quincey leaned against the lip of the box, numb fingers brushing the yellow ribbon that circled Lucy’s neck.

“You can’t see them stitches at all,” the whiskey-breathed preacher said, and the seamstress cut him off with a glance.

“You did a fine job, Mrs. Danvers.” Quincey tried to smile. “You can go on home now.”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to stay.”

“That’ll be fine,” Quincey said.

He turned to the preacher, but he didn’t look at him. Instead, he stared through the parlor window. Outside, the sky was going to blood red and bruise purple.

He reached into the box. His fingers were cold, clumsy. Lucy’s delicate hand almost seemed warm by comparison.

Quincey nodded at the preacher. “Let’s get on with it.”

The preacher started in. Quincey had heard the words many times. He’d seen people stand up to them, and he’d seen people totter under their weight, and he’d seen plenty who didn’t care a damn for them at all.

But this time it was him hearing those words. Him answering them. And when the preacher got to the part about taking… do you take this woman … Quincey said, “Right now I just want to give.”

That’s what the count couldn’t understand, him with all the emotion of a tick. Seward and Holmwood, even Lucy’s mother, they weren’t much better. But Quincey understood. Now more than ever. He held tight to Lucy’s hand.

“If you’ve a mind to, you can go ahead and kiss her now,” the preacher said.

Quincey bent low. His lips brushed hers, ever so gently. He caught a faint whiff of Mrs. Murphy’s soap, no trace of garlic at all.

With some effort, he straightened. It seemed some time had passed, because the preacher was gone, and the evening sky was veined with blue-pink streaks.

The piano player just sat there, his eyes closed tight, his hands fisted in his lap. “You can play it now,” Quincey said, and the man got right to it, fingers light and shaky on the keys, voice no more than a whisper:

Come and sit by my side if you love me,

Do not hasten to bid me adieu,

But remember the Red River Valley,

And the cowboy who loved you so true.

Quincey listened to the words, holding Lucy’s hand, watching the night. The sky was going black now, blacker every second. There was no blood left in it at all.

Just like you, you damn fool, he thought.

He pulled his bowie from its sheath. Seward’s words rang in his ears: “One moment’s courage, and it is done.”

But Seward hadn’t been talking to Quincey when he’d said those words. Those words were for Holmwood. And Quincey had heard them, but he’d been about ten steps short of doing something about them. If he hadn’t taken the time to discuss philosophy with Count Dracula, that might have been different. As it was, Holmwood had had plenty of time to use the stake, while Seward had done his business with a scalpel.

For too many moments, Quincey had watched them, too stunned to move. But when he did move, there was no stopping him.

He used the bowie, and he left Whitby that night.

He ran out. He wasn’t proud of that. And all the time he was running, he’d thought, So much blood, all spilled for no good reason. Dracula, with the needs of a tick. Holmwood and Seward, who wanted to be masters or nothing at all.

He ran out. Sure. But he came back. Because he knew that there was more to the blood, more than just the taking.

One moment’s courage…

Quincey stared down at the stake jammed through his beloved’s heart, the cold shaft spearing the blue-pink muscle that had thundered at the touch of his fingers. The bowie shook in his hand. The piano man sang:

There never could be such a longing,

In the heart of a poor cowboy’s breast,

As dwells in this heart you are breaking,

While I wait in my home in the West.

Outside, the sky was black. Every square in the quilt. No moon tonight.

Thunder rumbled, rattling the windows.

Quincey put the bowie to his neck. Lightning flashed, and white spiderwebs of brightness danced on Lucy’s flesh. The shadows receded for the briefest moment, then flooded the parlor once more, and Quincey was lost in them. Lost in shadows he’d brought home from Whitby.

One moment’s courage…

He sliced his neck, praying that there was some red left in him. A thin line of blood welled from the wound, overflowing the spot where Lucy had branded him with eager kisses.

He sagged against the box. Pressed his neck to her lips.

He dropped the bowie. His hand closed around the stake.

One moment’s courage …

He tore the wooden shaft from her heart, and waited.

Minutes passed. He closed his eyes. Buried his face in her dark hair. His hands were scorpions, scurrying everywhere, dancing to the music of her tender thighs.

Her breast did not rise, did not fall. She did not breathe.

She would never breathe again.

But her lips parted. Her fangs gleamed. And she drank.

Together, they welcomed the night.

THE MAN WITH THE BARBED WIRE FISTS

She said we should bring that stuff down to her shack by the creek cause we had to give her that stuff if she was gonna do what Jimmy Tibbs wanted her to do. And we didn’t know then that she was a witch so we brought that stuff down there. Us kids did. That was before the aqua duck when there was still a creek there. And Jimmy made me tote the big spool of barbed wire cause I was stronger than he was and cause I was a nigger and he said that niggers was like Ygor in the picture and did what they was told. He was littler than me but back then I figured he was right bout that Ygor stuff so I didn’t bellyache.

That particular year it was a dusty summer. Hot and dry and miserable dusty. The creek bed was all buzzin with gnats and the rocks that was used to bein underwater was hot like little fryin pans and my socks was all itchy with brambles. And on top of that I was sick of the whole thing cause Jimmy had done had me runnin back and forth along that dry creek-bed with notes for the witch all week long. Anyhow, now everythin was settled and us kids was all finally gonna go and get turned into growed ups. Jimmy was way ahead of me cause all he was carryin was his daddy’s RCA radio and the plug cord draggin tween his legs was like Satan’s tail. Mary Hannah wasn’t too far behind Jimmy. The poke with lipsticks and powders she stoled from her daddy’s five-and-dime was scissored tween her arm and her chest and her cheeks was all shiny with lipstick in thick stripes like she was an Injun chief. And she was real eager to come with us fellas cause she said that since her daddy took sick he had to live upstairs all the time and her mama sometimes did that stuff with the truck drivers who brung goods to the store so she wanted to know how to do that stuff too cause now the truck drivers was startin to look at her sometimes too. And after Mary Hannah come Rusty and all he had was the keys to his daddy’s Ford but Rusty was lazy so he was slow and I knowed he was frettin on account of all the trouble he could get into bout them keys if his Daddy found out that he stoled them. And b’sides, he was sneezin on account of the dust from the itchy brambles us kids was kickin up.

And Jimmy laughed, singin, “Sickly child, sickly child… ”

I was last. The spool of wire was heavy and I was wearin gloves and two coats to keep from gettin scratched and I didn’t like to think what Pap was gonna do when he found out the barbed wire wasn’t in the barn no more like it was supposed to be. But Jimmy said to me, “Little Pete, your daddy is just a stupid nigger so he ain’t even gonna know it’s gone, and even if he does know it he’s gonna know better than to holler that someone stoled it, cause God knows where that kinda yellin gets a nigger round here, Little Pete.”

Little Pete. That’s what they call me cause I’m hunched up like Ygor. But I wish they would call me like they did the little boy in the picture. Peter. That’s what Mama used to call me before she went off to the sportin life. And I wished I was like Peter in the picture too, all brave like nobody’s business and off huntin rhinocerasses and alligators and havin adventures bout the giant who stoled my storybook and that soldierman with the rubber arm who rescued me.

But this wasn’t no adventure like that. Like I said, it was hot. Not cold and rainy and gloomy like in the picture. The witch’s shack was a teeny bit of a place out behind the big house and it was all leanin sideways and ready to fall over like the big house was too and like the houses in the picture. Jimmy said that she wrote him in a note that we had to meet her in that shack cause the big house was too grand for the likes of us little folks and little folks got to meet her in a little place. So we climbed up from the creek bed over the hot fryin pan rocks that was real smooth even though, like I said, there wasn’t no water in the creek. This was before the aqua duck, cause since we got that there is always water there and you can’t walk down that way no more and there ain’t even no stones in the bottom of it accordin to what people say and now there ain’t no grand house or even little house there no more, either, cause I guess them houses finally leaned over too far and just fell down and somebody hauled them away. But back then there was still a creek and two houses and when us kids come up through all that manzanita and then through the rusty barbed-wire fence what was all tangled-busted and needin fixin bad we was practically on the little porch which belonged to the shack. It was pretty rickety with a hole in the roof and I thought bout the picture and the hole in the labboratoree roof where Ygor pushed a boulder through and almost hit Jimmy.

But it wasn’t Jimmy he almost hit it was the doctor in the two-tone coat. Jimmy said the man was Frankenstein’s son, like the picture’s called. I said that Peter was Frankenstein’s son but Jimmy just said I was stupid cause Peter was the grandson. But then when I asked him how come the picture wasn’t called Grandson of Frankenstein he couldn’t even give me a right answer. It’s the same way as when he tried to tell me that Ygor was the same fella as Dracula and that the Frankenstein Monster was really the Mummy.

Anyway, “You bring it all?” was what the witch asked and Jimmy allowed how we had. “Boy, you better not be lyin,” was the next thing she said.

“I ain’t lyin,” was what Jimmy said.

Jimmy lied all the time, though. He always said we should go to the picture together but then he wouldn’t sit with me when we did go even though we went plenty of times cause it was the only picture they showed for weeks and weeks. He told me he was my friend plenty of times and then throwed rocks at me when he seen me walkin by myself while he was with Rusty and the other fellas. I knowed he did it cause I was a nigger and I was always gonna be small like Ygor, anyhow. Even though back then I used to pray it wouldn’t be so, specially when Jimmy and Rusty called me a nigger dwarf circus clown.

And for sure Jimmy lied bout that stuff with Mary Hannah too, even though he said that he really didn’t hate her cause of what happened though after it happened he said she was just like the witch.

“I had to say it,” was what he said bout that back when I was still talkin to him. “I had to make up that story bout us kids runnin into that barbed-wire fence that was covered up with weeds and manzanita. You don’t want folks to know what really happened out there, now do you, Little Pete? You don’t want that man comin after us, or talkin to your pap, do ya?”

“No.”

“Well that’s thinkin straight. Cause you and me know we got to keep that a secret tween us, just like Ygor and the Doctor kept their secret bout the Monster in the picture.”

I didn’t say nothin to that even though I wanted to say that Ygor and the Doctor didn’t keep their secret too good. But I didn’t say it cause I knowed that Jimmy didn’t understand bout that witch and her barbed-wire man and it wouldn’t do no good to argue bout them if he didn’t even understand bout Ygor and the Doctor.

Anyhow, us kids was in the shack with the witch and Rusty was still coughin and snifflin because of the itchy dusty brambles and the witch asked, “He ain’t got TB, does he?” and Jimmy just laughed and said bout the brambles. So she forgot bout that and then she started lookin over our stuff, checkin the tubes in Jimmy’s daddy’s radio and twistin up Mary Hannah’s stoled lipsticks to make sure them lipsticks wasn’t empty Next she got hold of Rusty’s belt and pulled him up close right tween her legs with her red dress all wrinklin up round him. “These keys go to a car now, don’t they, little man?”

Rusty nodded quick and she just laughed and laughed with her rosy lips a big circle and then a big man stepped out of the shadows and he was laughin too. He looked like a nigger but he looked just like the Monster too — I mean to tell you he looked like Frankenstein but Jimmy always said that ain’t right cause the Doctor is the one who’s Frankenstein and the Monster ain’t got a name at’all cause he’s dead and nobody gives a name to things that is dead— and the Monster Man was grinnin at the way the witch had a hold of Rusty’s belt and the way he was squirmin. And then he stepped up to us kids and said over his shoulder “Hey now Viletta this un ain’t even no boy” while he ran a big thumb over Mary Hannah’s war paint.

Jimmy piped up, “She’s as good as a fella. She does everything that us fellas do.”

The Monster Man just laughed some more when he heard that. Real hearty, he laughed. He pulled Mary Hannah toward him by her overalls and then commenced to smearin her war paint into two rosy circles.

“No,” I said, and I grabbed hold of his arm just like Ygor did in the picture and it was a hard arm like a fence post. “She’s my friend and you ain’t gonna make her a circus clown.”

He looked at me sort of puzzled and then he made questionin eyes at the witch and shrugged his big shoulders. She said, “Leave the little gal be. When I was young I used to like to run with the fellas too.” She winked. “And you see how good I turned out.”

He allowed how she had turned out pretty good. She said that as everythin seemed right we might as well get down to brass tacks and me and him should run along and might as well take the radio up to the big house and enjoy it for a spell. And then later we could come back cause she didn’t spect Jimmy or Rusty to last very long and then it would be my turn since I didn’t bring nothin that was so grand as a radio or keys to a car, but I already done that thing that Jimmy and Rusty wanted to do anyway even though they didn’t know bout it so I didn’t mind even though I still didn’t feel growed up like a man. But still I couldn’t figure out why the witch said that bout comin back since she knowed I already done it cause I done it with her.

Anyway, the Monster Man said okay and bent down and the witch kissed him with them rosy lips of hers and even her tongue. Later on Jimmy said that was the worst part of it. Seeing that a white woman was in love with a nigger. I said that maybe the Monster Man wasn’t really a nigger cause his skin just happen to be black like the Monster’s skin just happen to be green (you can tell that from the poster at the picture show). Maybe he was part nigger and part Monster, I said. Like Ygor was part Dracula and the Monster was part the Mummy. But Jimmy just wrinkled his nose at that and said, “jumpin Jesus Christ, Little Pete, that fella wasn’t nothin but a big dumb buck nigger. Next you’ll be tellin me that you seen a coupla bolts stickin out of that dumb coon’s neck.”

But he didn’t have no bolts. And since I knowed that from then on I knowed that Jimmy Tibbs was a pretty stupid fella. I told him so right then, and I told him there wasn’t nothin bad bout bein a nigger cause I knowed after what happened at that witch’s place that Jimmy was deep-down scared of niggers. And that was the last time I wasted my time talkin to Jimmy Tibbs who thought he was a big man right then but sure enough found out he wasn’t as the years went by.

So back we went into the heat. Me and the Monster Man. He was takin long strides and it was hard for me to keep up cause I could hardly see over the radio and I almost tripped in a coupla postholes that was by the front steps. He said “Just watch it now” and I did while I hopped round them holes and them holes was wet at the bottom and the ground down there was black-red like an old sore that ain’t healed over after a long time and them holes was crawlin with worms and all of a sudden I didn’t want to look at them holes no more cause they stunk and they made me think of what that boilin pit must have smelled like in the picture cause it was full of sulphur. So we got up to the porch of the big house and there was a big patch of shade up there so I set down my burden in the middle of it. We both happened to wipe our brow at the same time and that made the Monster Man chuckle. “Hey shortcake,” he said, “how bout some lemonade fore we go back?”

I allowed how I’d like that. So he got us some and I seen that his was a touch darker than mine and I was gonna trouble him bout it but before I could he asked, “What’s wrong with you, anyhow?”

“I can’t say as I know,” I said soundin kinda puzzled and quiet like Pap always does when folks ask him bout me. “I was just born this way.”

“Uh-huh,” he says. “I heard bout stuff like that. Your ma took a bad scare while she was carryin you, I spect.”

I didn’t say nothin cause I didn’t know bout that. Maybe it had somethin to do with the lightnin was what I thought that summer, cause I recollect in the picture where Ygor said the Monster’s mother was the lightnin. And I wanted to know if the big man was the Monster and knowed bout that, so I asked him straight out. “Naw,” he said. “I seen that picture too. That man ain’t really big, like me. He ain’t really a monster. He’s wearin elevator shoes and a jacket stuff full with pillows. That Frankenstein is a scrawny little white man, just like everybody else in that picture. It ain’t nothin but make-believe.”

I was gonna tell him bout the difference tween Frankenstein the Doctor and the Frankenstein Monster but I didn’t want to get him riled. So I just asked him what his name was and he jingled Rusty’s daddy’s keys in front of my face and said, “Today my name is Jesse James, shortcake, but you can call me Jess.”

“Okay, Jess,” I said. And then he asked me what they call me and I said “Peter” cause I like that boy in the picture. His name is Peter and he wears sailor suits and hunts all manner of stuff. And when he gets in a fix someone comes right quick and helps him out of it like the soldierman with the rubber arm helped him and his daddy helped him too.

I took to lookin at them postholes while I drank my lemonade, waitin to see if a worm dared to poke its head out in the sun and what Jess would do to a worm that dared. But that didn’t happen. Nothin happened ceptin Jess drank some more lemonade and patted the top of the RCA. He said, “I sure am sold on radios, yes sir.”

“Me too,” I said. “And this radio is awful grand. I wish my Pap had one like it. I bet Amos and Andy sounds awful grand on a radio like this one.”

Jess wrinkled up his nose. “That’s just a couple of white men on that show, Peter,” he said. “You know, the only kinda white folks you should mix with is the ladies.” And then Jess seen Jimmy come out of the shack all puffed up like a rooster and he patted the radio once more and chuckled in a way that made me know he thought that RCA was awful grand too. “Hey now, Peter, you come and watch how to mix with white folks.”

Jess drank down his lemonade in one big gulp then stepped off the porch and dust puffed up all round his boot just like a bomb goin off in a war picture. My, he was big and his stride was long. Long as the space tween them postholes with the scabby dirt and worms, which was a good bit long. “Hey, boy,” he hollered to Jimmy. ‘You come here.”

Jimmy looked up sharp and when he seen who was talkin to him his ears got awful red. But he come ahead anyway. And when he got close enough Jess squatted down real low til he could look him in the eye. “You like that, over in there?” he asked and Jimmy kinda looked away but he was smilin. Then Jess said, “Well, it sure didn’t take you long.”

Now Jimmy’s whole face got red and Jess said, “Yeah, well, don’t never take a cherry very long. I figure that was bout four… mebbe five minutes, countin unbuttonin and buttonin time. Now, you tell me boy was that worth your daddy’s RCA?” But Jimmy didn’t say nothin so Jess said some more. “Well, I’m sure gonna enjoy that radio.”

Jimmy was lookin at the dirt but he said in a loud voice like they do in the gangster pictures, “It ain’t for you it’s for the lady.”

Jess curled up a fist and smacked Jimmy’s ear real good like Joe Louis does and the blood come like Jimmy been cut, and while Jimmy was swayin all woozy Jess said, “The lady is mine and I’m hers, so it goes to figure that your RCA is mine and hers.” He took hold of Jimmy’s shirt and pulled him close and I seen Jimmy cringin away from Jess’s lemonade breath. “Now, you listen up, boy. And you do like I say unless you want your daddy to find out where you been playin.”

Jimmy listened real good now cause I reckon I should have told you before that his daddy was a soldierman like the soldierman with the rubber arm in the picture ceptin Jimmy’s daddy didn’t have no rubber arm. Anyhow, I never seen anyone talk to Jimmy like Jess did, and I spect no one ever had ceptin his daddy. But Jess didn’t just talk he dragged Jimmy over by the old busted fence that we come up through when we come up from the creek bed over the hot fryin pan rocks. He give Jimmy some wire cutters and told him to cut the rusty wire off them old posts, but Jimmy tried to give them cutters over to me.

“I paid with my radio to do what I wanted to do,” Jimmy said. “I ain’t gonna do no nigger work for you.” But Jimmy looked kinda sick when he said it somehow, and I knowed his stomach was feelin like mine always did when he throwed them rocks at me, and I was gonna say so when Jess said, “What kinda nigger work you think I’m talkin bout, white boy?”

“Buildin a new fence,” Jimmy said. “Look here, I know you got a whole spool of wire in there on account of that’s what Little Pete brought. I thought you aimed to sell it to somebody, but if you think I’m gonna— ”

Rusty come out of the shack just then wipin his nose on his shirttail. I grabbed hold of Jess’s hand feelin like Ygor in the picture when he grabs hold of the Monster and sends him after them fellas who hanged him and busted his neck but didn’t kill him through and all of a sudden I knowed just how wrong Jimmy was bout Ygor. “Him too,” I said, pointin at Rusty. “Him too.”

In a minute Rusty was cryin cause Jess had told him what he imagined would happen if Rusty’s daddy found out bout the missin car keys. So Rusty got real busy quick workin the posts out of the ground. It wasn’t hard work cause them posts was already leanin and wasn’t set in cement like they set posts in these days. But like I said Rusty was a lazy sort and so it was hard for him and it didn’t help when he got to sneezin again.

“Look here.” Jimmy pulled Rusty away from his work and stood up to Jess cept he was so small standin in Jess’s big shadow that he was silly lookin. “We paid you, mister. We ain’t gonna build no fence.”

Jess just laughed that same real hearty laugh, mainly at that “mister” stuff I spect cause it come right out of the blue.

Bout then was when she come out of the shack. The witch did. She was holdin Mary Hannah’s hand and Mary Hannah was as pretty as could be with powder and lipstick and you could see how she wasn’t no little girl no more.

“Now don’t you be scared,” was what the witch whispered to Mary Hannah. “There ain’t one thing to be scared of.”

Jess looked Mary Hannah over with a big grin then he says to Jimmy and Rusty, “Now you remember what I said bout your daddies.” And then he took hold of Mary Hannah’s hand and took her up to the big house.

I sat down in the dust, in the sun, right tween them two postholes, listenin to the radio and lookin at the worms squirmin in the black-red mud and tryin to recollect how things went when I’d brung Jimmy’s notes to the witch.

All of a sudden I smelled sulphur.

Soon enough the witch got Jimmy and Rusty busy with a shovel and them old posts and that old rusty wire. Their hands got cut up somethin awful cause they didn’t have no gloves, and she just shook her head at Rusty when he begged for somethin to drink. She said, “You boys wanted to make men, didn’t you?”

Like the Doctor in the picture. That’s what I got to thinkin. He said he wanted to make a man. But that ain’t what he ended up makin. He ended up makin a monster. A giant that stoled storybooks from nice little fellas like Peter. But Peter thought that giant was nice and Ygor thought he was nice too. And Mary Hannah always said how sad he was and how he never did nothin bad that those other folks didn’t make him do cause he was really just gentle as could be. And I watched Jimmy and Rusty and I thought Jess was pretty nice and I recollect diggin them two holes by the porch after the witch took me inside the shack. And then I took off my gloves and looked at the scabs on my palms and recollect how she told me to hold that last note to Jimmy real careful so I wouldn’t get no blood on it.

Rusty finished makin his barbed-wire man first. The witch pushed him up against it and then pushed him away and she started rubbin on the barbed-wire man with her red dress all wrinklin up round her like before. And then Jimmy finished and she did the same thing to his barbed-wire man and Rusty started cryin then. But I think it was just cause he was scared cause he couldn’t have knowed what was gonna happen to him cause of that man.

And then the radio went quiet and Jess come out of the house with one arm round Mary Hannah and the other round the RCA. He walked right over to Jimmy and handed him the radio, sayin, “I was just spoofin you bout keepin it, boy. We sure wouldn’t want you to get into trouble with your folks.”

The witch laughed at that and then Jess give Rusty the keys to his daddy’s Ford and Rusty stopped bawlin so I knowed for sure he didn’t really understand.

“Skedaddle, now,” the witch said and Rusty and Jimmy did just that real quick, runnin down the creek bed over the hot fryin pan rocks, runnin like they was so happy to be free and didn’t have a care in the world like you can still see them boys runnin today.

Then Mary Hannah come over and took my hand, and she had little scratches on her hand. And the witch went round them postholes and slid her little hand into Jess’s big one. I looked up at him and I was all mixed up cause I didn’t know if he was the soldierman with the rubber arm who come to save me or the Monster or the giant who stoled my storybook or maybe all three, like Ygor was Dracula and the Monster was the Mummy. But I looked at his eyes and I looked at them two big holes like sores in the ground that was dug by me when I made my barbed-wire man and I knowed that I was never gonna grow up to be a man cause Jess had done that for me and I was grateful cause I bet it was somethin I never coulda done by myself anyhow.

And Mary Hannah had a hold of my hand. She said, “C’mon, Little Pete, I’ll take you home.” And she picked up the witch’s shovel and the poke of lipstick and powder and I got the spool of barbed wire. Off we went tween Jimmy and Rusty’s barbed-wire men and that rusted wire was startin to sigh and then we was climbin through what was left of that busted-down fence and it was singin in the hot breeze.

And the witch waved goodbye and said, “Thank you for my man, Little Pete.”

And I looked one last time at Jess who looked mighty happy and big and strong as anybody could ever want to be and it was like lookin into a mirror and seein somethin that was never gonna be.

And I smiled at the witch and said “Thank you” right back.

(For Alan M. Clark)

THE PACK

ONE

The deputy’s name was Vin Miller, and the waitress’s name was Vera Marlowe. Truth be told, Vin didn’t much like Vera, but Vin wasn’t one to let like get in the way of need.

Vera did have her faults, though. She was a little on the plump side, and she kept the jukebox in the diner jumpin’ with Dion and Fabian and Bobby Rydell and even Elvis, now that the hillbilly cat was out of the army and had a new set of tunes to peddle. The deputy was a Marty Robbins/Johnny Horton/Jim Reeves kind of guy, so that teenybopper stuff didn’t sit well with him. But neither did the diner’s menu, a wide array of overcooked meat dishes which were invariably served with either undercooked fries or lumpy mashed potatoes lathered with greasy gravy.

Vin figured that Vera had a real taste for that gravy, judging by the swell of her Playtex girdle. Still, Vera had a pretty nice ass if you stacked it up against the local competition. There were far too many rawboned Okie asses around these parts for the deputy’s taste — flat dust-bowl behinds that had cannonballed into the local gene pool thirty years back without hardly making a splash.

Personally, Vin preferred something he could hold on to, and Vera had plenty of that. Plus, she took real care with her hair and make-up. Why, if Vin squinted just right, the waitress looked kind of like a meatier Carroll Baker, and Vin thought a whole hell of a lot of Carroll Baker. But Vera wouldn’t go out with him even though he’d been piling on the tips since the sheriff had first pinned a star on his chest three months before.

Three months on the graveyard shift in a one stoplight town. For all the headway he’d made, the deputy might as well have arrived yesterday.

Just like Elvis, Vin was a veteran. He’d come to California from Germany, where a stint as an army private had ended in an honorable discharge, just barely, and only because all military defense attorneys weren’t the chuckleheads you’d imagine. But that was in the past, and Vera was part of the future. Vin knew that in a podunk town like this one he had to take it where he could find it. And if he couldn’t even make it with the queen of the local diner, he was going to have one hell of a time getting to the undertaker’s daughter, or the straight-razor tottin’ lady barber, or the banker’s wife. All three were on the deputy’s short list.

So when Vera brought the prisoner’s meal over to the jail herself — instead of sending the Mexican clean-up boy, as was the usual case — Vin had an inkling that things might be taking a turn for the better. And when she moved close to Vin — so close that he could smell that sweet gravy on her breath — he had a sudden premonition that he’d be hearing a whole hell of a lot of Elvis Presley in the very near future.

Vera’s eyes sparkled in a way that the diner’s silverware never dared. “Did you really catch him all by yourself?”

‘‘Yeah,” Vin said. “The sheriff didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.”

The waitress nodded, almost blushing, and for the first time Vin could see her noticing his big arms, his big chest, the way he filled out his uniform.

Vin stood up so Vera could see the way he filled out his slacks, too. “You want to get a good look?” he asked.

Now she did blush, but Vin pretended not to notice. “It’s no problem,” he said innocently, shooting a thumb over his shoulder. “He’s right back there, locked up good and tight. You can look all you want.”

“Could I? I mean, isn’t he dangerous?”

Vin slapped the six-gun strapped to his thigh and attempted to keep his voice television cowboy cool in the manner of Cheyenne Bodie or Paladin. “Honey,” he said, “when it comes to me, the thing locked back there in that cell ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.”

The cellblock was red brick that had faded pumpkin orange over the years. A narrow hallway fronted five iron-barred cells — four of them empty. Along the hallway ceiling, a lone electric line looped from one overhanging, tin-hooded light to the next. The cord was badly frayed, as if it had been chewed, and the dull, waxy circles of illumination that spilled from the fixtures looked as if they had been chewed as well.

The prisoner sat on a cot in the last cell, well out of the light. The deputy and the waitress couldn’t see him, but he could see them. “You got to do something about this bed,” the prisoner said. “Goddamn fleas are eatin’ me alive.”

Vera laughed. Her Bakeresque breasts jiggled in spite of Playtex cross-your-heart engineering, and the dinner plate danced on her little tray. “You hear, that, Vin?” she said. ‘Your wolfman has fleas.”

Vin chuckled and gave Vera a quick squeeze, one hand on her hip but not too low. She felt nice and warm and just soft enough under that Playtex — the girl had some muscle on her and that came as a surprise — and Vin started to think that maybe he could get a “yes” out of the waitress if this little sideshow expedition went just right.

The prisoner chose that moment to step into the light. He was looking down, at Vin’s hand, and then his gaze drifted to the right, to the bulge that strained against Vin’s tight slacks.

The prisoner shook his head as if disgusted. “Must be tough, livin’ in a small town. Slim pickin’s.”

Vin’s hand came off of Vera’s hip like it was a hot skillet, but she didn’t see the connection. She was too busy staring at the skinny boy locked up in the cell, at his black leather jacket and greasy blue jeans and scuffed engineer’s boots and the weird tattooed star on the back of his left hand. “What gives?” she asked. “He ain’t no werewolf. He’s just a kid who’s seen too many Marlon Brando movies.”

The prisoner winked at the deputy. “Oh, she’s a brain surgeon, this one, ain’t she?” He laughed, snapping his fingers in Vera’s direction. “Ain’t gonna be no full moon tonight, sweetcheeks. Unless, of course, you want to bend over and raise that tight skirt of yours. Big white moon like you’ve got, well… it’s bound to make me howl, at the very least.”

Vera gasped. Vin said, ‘You watch your mouth, punk.”

But the kid wouldn’t quit. “I’ll shut up when I’m good and ready, Deputy Fife. This your little Juanita from the diner? That what we have goin’ on here? My my my… what’s Thelma Lou gonna make of this, Deputy Fife?”

Blood raced to Vin’s cheeks. Then the smartass kid sang it just the way Don Knotts did on television… Juanita, Jua-a-a-nita. Next he started to pop his fingers, whistling the theme from The Andy Griffith Show.

Vera laughed, and the kid stopped instantly. “See, your girl thinks I’m funny.” He moved to the bars, wiggled his nose, as if catching Vera’s scent for the first time. “You smell just good enough, baby. Full moon’s comin’ tomorrow night. I’m gonna have quite an appetite, and that big behind of yours might be just enough to fill the bill.”

Vera dropped the dinner tray. The plate broke. Undercooked french fries leapt onto the floor like albinos abandoning a sinking ship.

The kid’s leather-sheathed arm was between the bars in a flash, and he snatched the hamburger just that quick. Tossed the bread and lettuce and various condiments aside. The hunk of gray meat disappeared down his gullet in one swallow.

“See how hungry I am, baby? I’ll even eat dried-out, overcooked cowbutt. But that big behind of yours, it’s gonna take three or four bites, minimum, and I’m gonna have it raw and bloody.” As punctuation, the kid grinned, his lips still slick with hamburger grease. Then he started up whistling Andy Griffith again, real high-pitched.

Vin’s ears hurt. He was all tense, quivering muscles straining the seams of his shirt.

“He scares me, Vin.” Vera latched onto the deputy’s rocklike biceps. “Is he crazy? Or is he… is he really what he says he is?”

Vin barely heard her. He had the key to the cell in one hand, and his gun was in the other, and all he could see was the puckered smirk plastered on the kid’s whistling mouth.

Vin sucked a deep bread. A button popped off his shirt.

“I don’t know if he’s a wolf,” the deputy said finally. “But you watch me bring the dog out of him.”

TWO

When Sheriff Dwight Cole stepped through the jailhouse door at seven-thirty the following morning, Deputies Jerry Rutherford and Ben Hastings looked up from their checker game and said simultaneously, “We didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.”

Sheriff Cole sighed. He hadn’t been getting much sleep lately. Seven-thirty in the a. m., and he hadn’t even had a cup of java or a decent breakfast, because he’d been steering clear of the diner for the last couple weeks.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t smell trouble in the air. “Vin Miller?” he asked.

“Yep,” Hastings said. ‘Your big old meat-on-the-hoof Charles Atlas deputy has about done it this time.”

Rutherford nodded. “I ain’t gonna say I told you so, Dwight… but I told you that you shouldn’t never leave a gorilla in charge of the zoo.”

Rutherford laughed at his own joke. Hastings joined in.

Dwight Cole didn’t.

“That musclebound Barney Fife of yours figured he’d take my pelt,” the prisoner said. “I gotta admit he did a pretty fair job. It’s a good thing that I’m a fast healer.”

Dwight cringed. The kid’s face was one big welt — green and blue and purple and red all at the same time. The kid could hardly breathe through his nose — which was surely busted — and his voice sounded like a gurgling echo that came from a deep well down in his gut.

“I’ll get Doc Rivers to look at you,” Dwight said.

The kid barked a short laugh. “Forget the doc. Better make it a vet, Sheriff. Or have you already forgotten my warning?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Dwight said. “You’re a werewolf. When the full moon rises tonight, you’ll change. And then you’re gonna make mincemeat out of me and my deputies and my jailhouse.”

“Unless you let me out of here right now,” the kid added. “Not very likely.”

“No way I can get you to change your mind?”

“Nope.”

The kid shook his swollen head. “Let me tell you something else about werewolves,” he said. “We ain’t much different from real wolves. We run in packs.”

“Is that so?”

‘Yep. And we can pick up a scent.” He lay a slim finger along the swollen sausage that bisected his face. “Even through a busted nose. And you know what I can smell right now, Sheriff?”

“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”

“Well… it’s one mean aroma. Motorcycles and blood and misery, all mixed up. There’s twelve of ‘em, and right now they’re real close. I’m number thirteen, you see. We’re like little pieces of a puzzle, and we all fit together. They’re already in your town, Sheriff. I can smell ‘em. They want that missing piece, and you’d better give it to ‘em, or else this quiet little Mayberry of yours is gonna be a slaughterhouse when the full moon rises. If you’ve got an Opie and an Aunt Bee at home, you’d better say your prayers — ”

“I’m a confirmed bachelor,” the sheriff interrupted. “Look… I’m sorry about what happened to you. Soon as I find him, that deputy is going to be in the cell right next to yours. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit here and listen while you spin campfire stories. You might scare a moron like Vin Miller, but you won’t scare me.”

“Even so, Sheriff, you take my advice about those prayers. Not that prayin’ ever helped me any… You know what they say, Even a man who is pure at heart, and says his prayers by night… ”

But the sheriff was already moving away from the cell. “I’ll send the doctor,” he said.

The kid answered, “You send the vet.”

The barber had one in the chair and four waiting. Between them, the men had maybe thirty hairs on their heads. None of them really needed to part with the six bits that they were about to blow. But one of the men was sure that he was in love, and two were widowers who were much too bashful to consider such emotions, and the other was haunted by pure, unadulterated lust.

Sheriff Cole had, at one time or another, experienced all these emotions when it came to the barber. Liz Bentley had a way of getting into a man’s thoughts and staying there. She wasn’t young — though she wasn’t exactly old — and she wasn’t pretty — though she certainly was a long way from ugly — but there was just something about being around Liz Bentley that made a man feel like he should suck in his gut, and that was for damn sure.

Dwight took off his hat as he stepped into the barber shop. One of the customers was jabbering on about Vin Miller and the werewolf, telling how the deputy had single-handedly captured the thing at the banker’s house. “I believe that man is just what he claims to be. I hear he ate Missus Rosewell’s Chihuahua, Speedy Gonzalez, right there in her rose garden. Ate the dog raw, alive and breathin’, yippin’ and kickin’. Now what kind of a man would do that?” He shook his head, as if amazed. “Missus Rosewell saw that poor little creature bark its last and she fainted at the horror of it, I hear tell, and old Vin had to give her mouth-to-mouth reinvigoration. Now that’s a job I wouldn’t have minded one bit!”

“Morning, Sheriff,” the barber said, tipping the storyteller to the lawman’s presence.

The customer shut up instantly. “Morning, Liz,” the sheriff said, distressed that his voice quavered just like a schoolboy’s.

“What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

Dwight’s thumbs worked over the brim of his Smokey Bear hat. “He been in?”

Liz’s long, dark hair danced in a half-dozen mirrors as she shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “First day in three months your deputy’s missed his morning shave.” She winked at her attentive audience. “I just don’t know how I’ll make it through the day without that fifty cent tip of his.”

The men chuckled at that, but Dwight cut them short. “Yeah… well… I need to find him. Any ideas?”

Now the barber winked at Dwight. “Let me tell you about your deputy, Sheriff. I mean, let me give you a woman’s view. You know, women can tell a lot about a man, just by the way he dresses.” Dwight’s fingers dug into the brim of his hat. The lady barber’s eyes were hard on him, and so were the eyes of her balding audience, and he suddenly felt naked.

“Take Vin Miller, for instance. He’s a bantam rooster. Just like a lot of soldiers who lift weights, he picked up what I like to call the uniform trick while he was in the service. He buys his clothes one size too small, hoping that the ladies will swoon over his manly physique.”

Dwight swallowed hard, trying not to think about the tight pants he was wearing. Probably just as well he’d skipped the diner’s lumberjack breakfast special the last couple weeks. He could stand to lose a few of the pounds he’d packed on eating under Vera Marlowe’s watchful eye.

Liz clipped leisurely, taking her time with each one of her customer’s nine hairs. “Anyway,” she continued, “a bantam rooster like Vin Miller doesn’t strut his stuff for just one hen. I hear he’s been leaving big tips all over town. And he’s the type that expects those tips are going to add up to something, sooner or later.”

“You’re gonna make me ask, aren’t you?”

“It’s no big secret,” Liz said. “Seems that Vera called in sick over at the diner this morning. And I hear Vin Miller’s been leaving big tips for her, too.”

Dwight put on his Smokey Bear hat. “How come every time I’ve got a question, you’ve got the answer?”

“Us working girls, we get together and compare notes.” Liz lathered her customer’s neck, flicked open a silver-handled straight razor, and went to work. “And you know how women are, Dwight. We just can’t seem to keep our mouths shut. Especially when a bantam rooster like Vin Miller comes to town.”

“Right.” The sheriff whirled and was out the door before the lady barber could nail him with the biggest wink of all.

THREE

Vin Miller awoke with a smile on his face. He had enjoyed one hell of a night with one hell of a woman. Vera Marlowe hadn’t been at all what he’d expected, but she was something, all the same.

Full of surprises, that was Vera. For one thing, she was a take-charge kind of gal, and Vin was surprised to find that her sexual boldness suited him just fine. For another, he hadn’t had to listen to Dion or Fabian or Bobby Rydell or even Elvis while they’d been at it. The only sounds he’d heard were the standard bedspring symphony and the music of Vera’s moans.

All that moaning didn’t come from Vera, though. She kept a parrot in the kitchen, and when Vera started up, so did the damn bird. Not that Vin had the notion that he was Vera’s first or anything, but he figured that bird must have been witness to a whole lotta moanin’ goin’ on to pick up on it like that.

Now, in the light of morning, it was quiet in the house. Vera was still asleep, her lips all pouty, and she looked more like Carroll Baker than ever. Vin rolled over on his side, all ready to give her a wake-up kiss, and his stomach growled.

That was when he remembered the steaks. Big, thick T-bones. Vera had taken them out of the freezer before they’d adjourned to the bedroom, promising that she’d help him work up an appetite for a big steak and eggs breakfast.

Man oh man, was he ready for that. He rolled out of bed, pulled on his jockeys and tight slacks. Something about last night made him chuckle. Vera Marlowe, the take-charge kind of gal. At least her silk scarves hadn’t left any telltale marks on his wrists or ankles. Vin didn’t know if the whole thing felt particularly right… he only knew that it sure as hell felt a long way from wrong.

What the hell. Maybe he’d go with it, just this once.

Maybe he’d cook Vera’s breakfast.

Barefooted, Vin padded into the kitchen.

He almost slipped in the blood.

Beef blood puddled on yellow linoleum. That’s all it was. Vin breathed a sigh of relief. The blood must have overflowed the little plate as the steaks thawed, then dribbled off the counter and puddled on the floor. But then Vin saw that it wasn’t a puddle of blood; it was a scrawl.

Three words: LET HIM GO.

Vin shivered. He glanced at the sideboard. The steaks were gone, but the T-bones were still there. Picked clean. Gnawed.

“Jesus Christ.” Vin turned toward the phone, and that was when he saw the open bird cage, the dusting of green and yellow feathers on the kitchen table.

Vera Marlowe’s parrot had moaned its last.

Beyond the table, the back door stood open. Vin moved toward it, afraid of what he might find outside.

He expected that he might see any number of frightening things… but Sheriff Dwight Cole wasn’t one of them.

They were on the kitchen floor, rolling around in the beef blood, when Vera fired Vin Miller’s revolver over their heads.

“You can stop it, right now!” she said.

Vera’s bedside manner still fresh in his mind, Vin did exactly as ordered. Dwight couldn’t help himself. He sucker-punched Vin Miller behind the ear, and the deputy went down like something big and dead.

Vera tossed Vin’s gun onto the kitchen table. “You okay, Dwight?” she asked.

He nodded. “How about you?”

“Well… I’ve been better.” She looked down at Vin Miller and almost laughed, because the musclebound deputy had split his tight pants in the wrestling match. “It’s a shame,” she said wistfully. “Sometimes the best lookin’ broncos are the easiest to break.”

Dwight left that one alone, and Vera went for a robe. The sheriff took the opportunity to phone the jail. There was, of course, good news and bad news.

Deputy Hastings had won three of four checker games, and the prisoner was quiet as could be. That was the good news. The bad news could be shoehorned into two words… more trouble.

Dwight instructed Hastings to collect Vin Miller and lock him up. He cradled the receiver before the elderly deputy could give him an argument, and started for the door just as Vera returned to the kitchen.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, cinching a black silk robe around her middle.

“To the cemetery,” Dwight said. “A call just came in.”

Vera’s full lips twisted into a formidable frown.

“I’m not kidding, Vera. There’s trouble.”

The big blonde toed the concussed deputy. She pointed at the smeared beef blood on the linoleum floor, and the gnawed steak bones on the counter, and the parrot feathers, which had blown every which way in all the excitement.

“Trouble? What the hell do you call this?”

FOUR

Lily Pine took one look at the sheriff and said, “You look like you’ve gone fifteen rounds with Sonny Liston.”

For the first time Dwight noticed his blood-stained uniform — a casualty of the wrestling match in Vera’s kitchen — and shrugged. “It’s a long story, Lily.”

“I’m sure it’s one of many.” The undertaker’s daughter left no room for a reply before adding, “And I’m equally certain that neither of us has time for it today.”

She started across the cemetery, a thin little thing with pale skin, delicate features, and a bouffant hairdo stiff with Hi-Style hair-spray. Her hair was jet-black, as was her loose turtleneck sweater, her tight toreador pants, her gleaming leather boots… and the barrel of the shotgun locked in her thin-fingered grasp.

“Do you really think we’re gonna need that thing, Lily?”

She stopped short. “The word is that you’ve got a werewolf locked up in your jail, Sheriff.”

“Well… that’s the guy’s story. But, Jesus, Lily, you’re just a tiny little thing. Firing a shotgun would launch you from here to tomorrow. And if you’re worried about werewolves, a scattergun isn’t going to do you any good, anyway. Unless you’ve got silver pellets in those shells, of course.”

The sheriff tried a smile, but Lily Pine cut it short with a grin both knowing and confident. “Okay,” she said, ‘‘now I see what this is about.”

“Huh?”

The undertaker’s daughter thrust the shotgun into the sheriff’s hands, pulled the revolver from his holster, and once again started across the lawn, the handgun cocked and ready.

“Men.” She shook her head. “It’s almost a biological need. They’ve always got to have the biggest gun.”

They stood near the open graves. Five ragged holes in sacred earth. Broken coffins, torn shrouds, shredded clothing. Desecration was too clean a word for it.

And the bones… Dwight was sure that Lily could have identified each one of them. She’d taken her degree in mortuary science, after all. But Dwight didn’t need to know their scientific names, because he could read what they said.

LET HIM GO. There it was, a message spelled out on the green grass, defiling hallowed ground. Letters made of leg bones, and arm bones, spines and fingers and broken ribs still caked with bits of dry flesh…

Lily’s pale lips were a tight line of anger. “Horrible, isn’t it?” She motioned toward the big house where she lived with her father, just fifty yards distant. “Father says that he didn’t hear a thing last night. But to think that they were so close, that they might have broken into the house… I don’t care if they’re not werewolves. Even if they’re only men — ”

“Don’t torture yourself.”

“I can’t help it.” She looked at him, her eyes dark wells of pain. “Guilt is a terrible thing. My mother died while I was away at college. If anything were to happen to my father… well, I just couldn’t deal with it.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I guess I’m not so tough after all.”

“Shhh.” Dwight waved her off. “Listen.”

In the distance, they heard a low rumble.

Engines.

Motorcycles.

“I told you to let me drive,” Lily said. “You drive too fast.”

Dwight tossed her the keys. “Get the jack out of the trunk for me, will you?”

“It’s faster to walk back to the house. We could take the hearse.”

“Damn potholes.” Dwight kicked the patrol car’s flat tire. “Damn ditch.”

Lily said, “I’m driving, of course.”

“Of course.”

The undertaker’s daughter didn’t crack a smile. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can hold the shotgun.”

FIVE

The banker, Milt Rosewell, daubed his forehead with a rumpled handkerchief. “As I said before, Sheriff, they didn’t really do anything… but if you’d seen them.”

Dwight patted the little man on the shoulder. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight, Milt,” he said. “About twenty minutes ago, twelve guys on motorcycles pulled up in front of the bank — ”

“Right.” The banker pointed at the entranceway. “They came right through those doors. Every one of them with a star tattooed on the back of one hand. And they didn’t actually do anything. Well… that’s not quite right. They asked several questions.”

“Like what?” Lily Pine wanted to know.

“Well… they asked if the moon would be full this evening. I didn’t answer, of course, because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. And then they asked if I’d even seen what a two-hundred pound timber wolf could do to a rabbit, and I have to admit that I got a little nervous.”

“So they threatened you?” Dwight asked.

“Well, it was obviously more than a question, but I’m not quite sure if I’d say that it was actually a threat.”

Lily sighed. “What are you trying to do, Sheriff? Catch these crazies on some legal technicality? You can’t handle the one you’ve got locked up. How do you expect to handle twelve more?”

“Look, Lily, I appreciate the help and all, but let me handle this by myself, okay?”

‘You want me to take my shotgun and go home, is that it?”

Dwight sighed. All right. Little Miss I-can-drive-better-than-you-can wanted an answer. Fine. He’d give her an answer.

But before he could, the bank doors swung open, and a redhead wearing a black dress, mourning veil, and sunglasses stepped into the bank. It was Angela Rosewell, the banker’s wife.

“Angela,” the banker said. “Darling… you should be resting.”

“Shut up, Milt. Speedy Gonzalez is dead and he ain’t coming back, so get used to the idea.” Mrs. Rosewell turned to the sheriff. “Are you ready for some good news, Dwight?”

“Sure.”

“I’m dropping the charges,” the banker’s wife said. “So you can let that Chihuahua-eating son of a bitch out of your jail, and maybe we can have a little peace and quiet around here.”

Dwight shook his head. “I can’t do that, Angela. Threats have been made.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Did you ever see Rio Bravo?”

“Yeah,” the banker’s wife said. “Did you ever see The Wild One Meets the Teenage Werewolf”

“There’s no such movie.”

“That’s my point, Dwight.”

Dwight pushed through the banks double doors and started down the deserted street. Things were real quiet. So quiet that if he’d worn spurs, he would have heard them jingle-jangle.

He crossed the street and stopped short in front of Liz Bentley’s barber shop. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was starting to think just as crazy as everybody else in town. Christ, if only he’d managed some sleep in the last forty-eight hours, but those two days had been just as crazy as the weeks — and months — that had come before them.

He sighed. Fine. If he was going to act crazy, he might as well go whole hog. He pushed through the barbershop door. Liz was sitting in the big chair, reading a confessions magazine.

“That silver razor of yours,” Dwight said. “Can I borrow it?”

“Take a load off,” Liz offered, standing up. “I’d consider it my civic duty to do the job for you, Sheriff. I don’t mind telling you that you look pretty shaky. I’m afraid you’d cut your own throat.”

“It’s not that,” Dwight said. “I don’t need a shave. I need some answers, and I need them fast.”

Liz nodded. “I get it. Lon Chaney, Junior kind of stuff, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, sit down for a minute just the same. Let me get this thing good and sharp for you.”

A few minutes later, Dwight hit the streets once again.

No one in sight. Not much to hear, either. No gunning motorcycles. Only the sound of his footsteps.

He passed the diner and crossed the street to the jail. The kid’s motorcycle sat in the side lot, and Dwight grinned at the sight of it.

He flicked open Liz’s straight razor. Polished silver caught the gleam of the sun. The werewolf had stood up to Vin Miller’s fists, but Dwight wondered what the kid would do when he caught sight of a silver razor. Maybe he’d sing a different tune.

Dwight didn’t like Vin Miller, and he liked Vin Miller’s methods even less, but right now he needed some answers.

And right now, he wasn’t going to let like get in the way of need.

Dwight came through the door and saw Deputies Hastings and Rutherford with their hands in the air.

Then he saw the guns.

“Shit,” was all he said.

And the next thing he knew, he was locked up in a cell.

SIX

Vin Miller couldn’t believe it. Here he was, locked up in a jail that was more like a nuthouse.

The whole thing was loony. They’d locked up the sheriff and turned the prisoner loose in broad daylight, and the kid had hauled ass on that big motorcycle of his. Then they’d waited until morning — letting the full moon give way to sunrise — before turning over their weapons to Hastings and Rutherford.

A shotgun, a dainty little chrome-plated automatic, and Vin’s own service revolver.

That was a hell of a note. Big blonde Vera Marlowe packing Vin’s own gun. The undertaker’s daughter with that big old shotgun. The banker’s wife with that chrome-plated automatic. The three of them putting the freeze on every peace officer in town.

For a while they’d all been locked up together — Vin, the sheriff, and the three crazy broads — one in each of the jail’s five cells. Well, Dwight Cole wasn’t really locked up. Rutherford had opened his cell when the women surrendered, but the sheriff wouldn’t come out. He just sat there, looking like a man who’d been pole-axed.

And that’s when the women started in on him. Vera first, saying that she’d just been jealous, mad at the way ol’ Dwight had stopped visiting her, and she didn’t mean visiting her at the diner. She said that she didn’t care about Vin at all, said it right in front of Vin like he was the Invisible Man or something!

Christ Almighty, and Vin the guy who’d been ready to cook breakfast for her!

Then the undertaker’s daughter started in on the sheriff. She said it was a big mistake, them getting involved. She felt terrible about it, especially now that she’d heard Vera’s side of the story, and she said they were just going to have to stop meeting clandestinely. That was what she said. Clandestinely. She couldn’t leave her father alone at night, because if anything ever happened to him she’d feel just awful.

The banker’s wife had no such regrets. Except one, which was that her cell and the sheriff’s were separated by the cell that held Vin. And it was pure hell, hearing that, because Vin had tasted her warm lips when he’d given her mouth-to-mouth. He wanted to remind her of that, of how brave he’d been while capturing the fiend who ate her Chihuahua, but he just didn’t have the heart.

Women! Damn! Vin was plenty happy when the whole wild bunch of them made bail.

Still, the sheriff just sat there in the cell with the open door, that pole-axed look glued to his face, not saying a word. Not that Vin felt sorry for the idiot. Christ, he should have such problems.

It took the lady barber to get the sheriff talking. She showed up and collected her silver razor from him.

“Do you think he was a werewolf?” she asked.

“We’ll never know,” the sheriff said.

“But what do you think?”

“Why think about it? We’ll never know. It’s crazy to think about it.”

“You know,” she said, “you’re the kind of man who always waits too long, trying to figure all the angles. One day you’ll have to make a decision based on faith alone.”

He grinned. “Maybe I’ve already made my decision. Maybe I’m just sitting here waiting to tell someone about it.”

She laughed. “Right. Now tell me the one with the three bears in it.”

“You don’t give me a whole lot of credit, Liz,” the sheriff said. “Maybe — just like our werewolf — there’s a little more to me than meets the eye.” He winked at her. “But then again, maybe not.”

“That’s cute.” She flicked open her silver razor. “But let’s get one thing straight, Dwight Cole — if you come to my bed, you’d better be prepared to stay there.”

That was when Cole got up and left, arm in arm with the lady barber, and damned if Vin Miller didn’t end up thinking that it was just the opening the sheriff had been waiting for all along.

Vin didn’t even want to think about that.

So he just sat there, biding his time, flexing his muscles, hoping that the county public defender was going to be as good as that lawyer who’d gotten him off the hook in the army.

BLOOD MONEY

Her name is Jessie.

She’s about twenty-five. Dark, and thin.

Not delicate. Not that kind of thin.

Hungry thin. She can put it away. Wedged in a corner booth where no one’s likely to see her, she’s working on a lumberjack breakfast special and a side order of hashbrowns. Eggs scrambled dry and sausage and white Wonder Bread toast slathered with every pat of butter the cook put on her plate.

Damn good toast, too. Singed just past golden brown and painted slick purple with blackberry jam from little plastic containers.

Thick Jackson Pollock smears of jam. Jessie really should have gone to art school. Her mother always told her: “You’ve got an eye, dear. Other people don’t even know how to look at the things you see.”

“It’s just that they blink at the wrong times, Mom,” Jessie always answered. “They blink, and they miss the world that’s right there in front of them.”

Jessie stares at the jam. She doesn’t blink. She sees it, every gleaming smear. Darker than wine, dark as arterial blood. A color just short of black, the same color as a tattered human heart.

Just that fast her appetite is gone. She pushes the plate away and catches the attention of the restaurant’s lone waitress, a young woman about her age who is trying to brighten the day of a family whose fishing vacation has drowned in a September downpour.

Age is the only thing the two women have in common. The waitress is a granola eater. Rule of thumb for the California traveler — anywhere that redwoods grow, they grow girls just like this one. Retro-hippies with dull spacy smiles. Tie-dyed and brain-fried Jerry Garcia wetdreams.

Only Jerry has been dead a long time now.

Yeah. Jerry’s dead. But if you take a really good look at the waitress, and if you manage not to blink while you’re doing it, you can tell that he’s still alive, too.

Jessie’s stomach lurches, because Jerry’s not the only one.

The waitress tries really hard to turn on some rainy day sunshine for the vacationing family, but the suburbanites won’t give her so much as a smile. She breaks things off with a resigned shrug and slips Jessie the check on her way to the service window, then hurries off with a couple lumberjack breakfast specials for a pair of truckers on the other side of the restaurant.

At least they look like truckers. The men sit in a booth, their faces lost in shadows cast by worn ball caps, their big hands bathed in dull saffron light from a redwood and glass chandelier. Rain lashes the window on the far side of the booth, but neither man pays any attention to the storm outside. After all, this is Northern California, home of the banana slug. Up here, mildew is a way of life.

Jessie stares past the men, through the window. She doesn’t want to go outside. Putting it in artistic terms, it’s much too Emily Carr for her tastes. Which is to say that its extremely north woods impressionistic — sky the color of a dead man’s flesh, decaying horizon bleeding cold water, redwood forest on the other side of the highway dense, black, forbidding.

But Jessie doesn’t have far to go now, and at least with some breakfast in her belly she isn’t liable to faint on the way. How to get where she’s going is the question. She doesn’t have a car, and the parking lot doesn’t exactly present many possibilities. A couple motor homes, and the soggy tourists that match up to them don’t look like their Christian charity would extend as far as Jessie. Besides the condos-on-wheels, there are several trucks. Mostly chromed-to-the-tits Peterbilts. A couple of the tractors are empty. Those with loads are hauling dead redwood trees.

That’s a crime in itself to some, but not all. If the deadhead waitress is ecologically minded, she’s forgotten about it. Little Ms. Earth Mama is flirting with the truckers for all she’s worth — coy and carefree, like she just burned her Earth First! membership card.

Tips in this joint, they must come few and far between. The little waitress is giving it her best. Jessie can see that. She knows how hard a buck comes for most people these days.

Yeah. Money comes hard for most.

But not for all.

Jessie looks at her check. Lumberjack breakfast special and a side order of hashbrowns and coffee. Six bucks and change.

Jessie has money. Money that came the hard way. She’s got seventy-seven bucks in the left pocket of her black leather jacket. Lapel on the left side, there’s nine hundred jammed into a rip in the seam. Six thousand in big bills stuffed in a tear in the inside lining. Plus seven hundred split between her boots, and that’s a bitch. Her boots are too small to begin with.

One last sip of coffee before she goes. One of the truckers cracks a tree-hugger joke and the waitress laughs like she’s never even heard of Greenpeace. Hell, a couple thousand dead trees here and there, what does it matters The cafe walls are lined with dead redwood. Like anywhere else, up here life is all about money and how to get more of it. Everyone’s got to make a dollar — hard or easy — and everyone knows how it’s done in the Pacific Northwest.

You grow something, you cut it down, you sell it. Redwoods or dope. Take your pick. And that’s just what is happening now. Because the waitress is slipping money to one of the drivers, trading him cash for a Ziplock bag of California’s finest…

The big man slides the greenbacks into the pocket of his flannel shirt. “Darlin’, I’ll bet you had to carry a hell of a lot of bacon and eggs for that cash.”

“I’m in the wrong business.”

“You got that right. What you need is a growth opportunity.”

“What? Forty acres? Sensimilla?”

“Hell no. I’ll grow the dope. You grow the babies.”

Laughter splashes dry redwood walls. The waitress and the truck driver, both of them laughing hard while his hand strokes her flat young belly.

His fingers find a piercing there. That’s no surprise. After all, the waitress is one of Jerry’s kids. Garcia himself would have admired the silver belly button ring that twinkles in the saffron light, and the trucker is of the same mind. His thick finger flips the fragile hoop up and down and the waitress doesn’t do anything but laugh some more.

The man’s head tilts back as he eyes the waitress. Light spills from the redwood chandelier above, misses his face, bathes his neck…

Jessie shivers.

There’s a swastika tattooed over the man’s carotid artery.

Quickly, Jessie slides out of the booth. It’s time to go. No one’s looking at her. Everyone’s looking at the waitress, at the truck driver, at his hand on the young woman’s belly.

Everyone’s looking at that little silver ring.

Jessie wads the six-bucks-and-change check into a ball and stuffs it into the pocket of her leather jacket, the same pocket that holds seventy-six hundred and seventy-seven bucks. Twenties and fifties pinch her toes as she passes by the unattended cash register, jilting it cold.

She slips through the door. She squints against the storm. Almost looks back. Doesn’t. Her face is suddenly cold. As cold as the face of a dead man Jessie used to know, his heart splattered slick purple by shotgun fire, his dead eyes staring up at a man with a swastika tattooed on his neck.

Inside the restaurant, no one is laughing anymore.

The man with the tattoo smiles at the waitress.

He says, “Now about this girl we’re looking for… ”

Raindrops lash Jessie’s brow. The sour taste of coffee is gone from her mouth, but the taste of blackberry jam is heavy on her tongue.

Crossing the parking lot, she digs the unpaid check out of her pocket and drops it in a puddle. It wouldn’t take much to square things. Six bucks and change. Maybe a buck tip.

If the waitress was lucky — really lucky — she might pass those greenbacks to a customer when she made change. But on a day like today, when the rain comes in buckets, business is sure to slow down. That money could sit in the till for hours, until the cafe doors flew open and the storm blew inside, and a man with skin the color of a rainy sky burst into the cafe, and the little waitress took one look at him and screamed.

Because that man’s heart is a gleaming blackberry tangle in his tattered chest…

He’s a dead man who’s still alive…

A man Jessie can see in her mind’s eye…

The highway is a river. Jessie stares at the dark forest on the other side. Wet in there, sure. But not as wet as out here. She’ll crawl into the dark, wait until the man with the tattoo and his buddy hit the road —

A voice from behind.

“Hey.”

Jessie doesn’t want to hear that word so she walks faster, but a hand drops on her shoulder and spins her around. The guy with the swastika tattoo smiles at her. His buddy smiles, too.

“What do you think, Smitty?” Tattoo says.

“I think sixty miles haven’t changed her all that much.”

“Yeah,” Tattoo says. “But maybe we should make us some changes now, though. The kind she won’t forget.”

“You’ve got the wrong woman,” Jessie says, dropping her head so her long hair hides her face. She shrugs the guy off and digs her hands into her coat pockets as she turns.

Tattoo grabs her again. Spins her again, harder this time. “I don’t think you could forget me,” he says. “The name’s Larry Oates. I’m the guy who shotgunned your boyfriend, remember?”

Jessie remembers, all right. Raw hatred boils inside her. She spits in Oates’ face, and he shoves her, and she stumbles back and ends up behind one of the mobile homes.

Even if they were looking, the people in the restaurant couldn’t see her now. But the tourists aren’t the only ones missing out on the action. Oates is missing out, too. He takes hold of Jessie’s leather lapels and pulls her so close that he doesn’t even see the butterfly knife in her hand.

Chinkchink. The knife spits blade and Jessie jams it into Oates’ gut.

“Shit,” Smitty says. “Shit!” But Oates doesn’t say a word. All he does is grunt, staring straight into Jessie’s cool gray eyes, holding tight to her black leather lapels as she drives the blade deep and he grunts again —

Scarred knuckles bang the side of Jessie’s head and her knees turn to jelly. Smitty’s fist pounds another hard shot to the temple as she sags. Oates just stands there, trying to hold Jessie by her black leather lapels, but her legs are gone now and she’s real heavy for such a little chick — she’s just dead weight, Oates thinks, oh is that a laugh, this chick’s dead weight and my guts are washing away in the rain — and wet leather slips through his fingers as Jessie sinks away and he has to let her drop and the last thing he sees is a tight roll of bills squirming from the ripped seam of her left lapel, coaxed free by one of his fingers.

Oates opens his mouth, but pain strangles his words. The money squirms loose and he can’t close his fingers around it and the whole roll slips away and falls along with the girl and —

Smitty’s panicking. Oates knows that’s the wrong thing to do. He tries to focus, looking down, searching for the money —

But all he sees are the chrome grips of the girl’s butterfly knife sticking out of his belly. Then he’s down on his knees face to face with the girl — who’s also on her knees — but her eyes are blank slate and he knows she can’t see him.

Smitty’s fists have seen to that. The chick is out like a light. She falls backward and her head thuds against the pavement. Oates falls forward, on top of her.

The split butt of the butterfly knife jams against the hard ridge of the girl’s ribcage and the hilt of the knife follows the blade into Oates’ belly.

The point of the blade drives through his guts and nips his spinal column on the way through his backside.

The girl’s warm breath washes Oates’ cheek. It tickles — even through the pain it goddamn tickles — and Oates almost has to laugh.

He doesn’t. He manages to restrain himself, because right now laughing would hurt way too fucking much, like losing the goddamn money. Instead, he tries to rise. Blood drips from his lips, splatters the girl’s forehead, washes away in the rain —

The wad of bills rolls along the sloping pavement, carried across the yellow lines that separate empty parking spaces by a rippling stream of rainwater veined with Larry Oates’ blood.

Oates crawls after the money, but his buddy grabs him.

“Don’t try to move, man!” Smitty says.

Pain clamps Oates’ jaws. Smitty doesn’t see the goddamn money… and Oates has to tell him about it… but he can’t even say a word.

So he starts crawling after it himself…

.. .but it’s too late for that.

And that’s just what Jessie’s dead lover tells her as she lays unconscious in a parking lot, raindrops washing her all the way to dreamland.

Joe Shepard’s dead lips part and he says, “It’s too late, Jessie.”

“It’s never too late,” she says. “Unless you believe it is.”

“That’s the way you see it.”

“That’s the way you’d see it too, if you’d bother to look.”

Their eyes meet. Jessie knows that Joe is dead. She watched Oates murder him the night before, saw Joe’s heart chewed by buckshot. Saw the open ruin of his chest, slick and dark as blackberry jam. Saw his dead eyes, cold and green and still full of need, as Larry Oates stood over him with a smoking shotgun in his hands.

So she knows this shouldn’t be happening — this rendezvous with a dead man — but she trusts her eyes because she sees things other people don’t even know how to look for. Especially in her dreams. In dreams she sees those things dead on, and she never, ever blinks.

And right now she sees Joe Shepard, the only man she ever loved, a corpse standing in the barn where they first met Larry Oates. Her lover is free of the grave, and the rain has washed a lot of the mud off of him, but Jessie knows he’s not free at all. Not really.

That’s the way it looks to her. Of course, even someone like Jessie can’t see absolutely everything. She’s human. She misses things now and then. Little things, mostly. Or not-so-little things — like nine hundred bucks pulled from a rip in her lapel by the man who killed her lover.

So the next thing she tells the dead man isn’t exactly a lie. “I’ve still got the money,” she says. “Every cent, just like I told you. I promise I’ll bring it back if you just wait a little longer.”

Joe shakes his head, rain-washed face bathed in dim fluorescent light and a few trickles of unhallowed mud like dark tears on his cheeks. There’s not much light in the barn, but there’s enough to see the important things, like the little bit of a smile on Joe’s face, a smile Jessie has seen a thousand times before. A smile that means he understands things in a way she doesn’t. A smile that means he’s got to lay it out for her one more time.

“That money,” he says. “It was everything to me.”

“I swear, Joe. I’ve got it. I’ll bring it to you. If you just wait — ”

He grabs her by the lapels and pulls her close. Digs his dead fingers into the ripped seam. Comes up short one roll of greenbacks amounting to nine hundred dollars.

“Oates pulled it out when you stabbed him. He dropped the money, and rainwater carried it across the parking lot.” Joe taps his head. “I watched it happen, saw everything inside my skull. It’s funny being dead. You see all sorts of things. You even see some things that haven’t happened yet. Like this — a couple hours from now a little waitress with a pierced belly button is going to step outside for a cigarette break. She’ll spot that nine hundred bucks just before the rain washes it down a drain, and she’ll pick it up, and — ”

“I’ll go back for it,” Jessie says. “One way or another, I’ll make her give it to me.”

“Considering that you’re out cold at the moment, I don’t see how you have much chance of getting that done.”

“Trust me just a little longer, Joe. I can do it.”

Joe shakes his head some more, and the look on his face is stone cold, a look Jessie never saw when he was alive. “I’m tired of trusting other people,” he says, his voice flat. “It’s time I handled this myself.”

“No. Just give me one more chance — ”

“You had your chance. Our deal was that I’d stay put if you brought back every dollar, and now you’ve gone and lost nine hundred bucks. You don’t understand what that money meant to me. I won’t let anyone keep me from it. Not even you.”

There’s a work table near the barn door. Joe walks over to it. The table is littered with beer bottles and ashtrays and weapons. Joe picks up Larry Oates’ shotgun. “Somehow, I’ve got a shot at a second chance,” he says. “That’s what’s important here. I can feel it in my gut. It’s a new feeling, something that wasn’t there when I was alive, and I’ve got to go with it. See, this isn’t some crazy dream, Jess.”

Jessie stares at him. His green eyes are set, unblinking, not smiling at all anymore. Alive, his eyes always smiled. But now his eyes are dead, and different, like part of a mask.

A mask worn by a stranger.

“If you do this thing,” she says, “you won’t be the man I know anymore.”

Joe nods his head. “Maybe I’ll be different. Maybe I already am. I don’t know, Jess — maybe losing your pulse raises your IQ. Maybe I’m smarter than I used to be. Or maybe I’m just seeing some things that you can’t see — the same way I see that waitress picking up my money in a couple of hours. Any way you slice it, I know what feels right in my gut, and I’m going to go out and do it. It’s the only way I know to get back everything I lost.”

“But that waitress doesn’t have anything to do with this. All she’s going to do is pick up some money. Nine hundred bucks — ”

“You’re wrong. It’s more than money now. A lot more. That’s all you need to understand.”

Jessie stares at him. A chill travels her spine, because she barely recognizes the man she loved.

She wants to say more, but Joe holds up a hand. “Here’s my advice, Jess — stop worrying about me, and stop worrying about waitresses you don’t even know. Start worrying about yourself. After all, you’re the one who just knifed a drug dealer. I think he might be a little pissed about that.”

It’s almost funny, that last part.

But Jessie doesn’t laugh. Not this time.

And Joe doesn’t smile.

Not anymore.

“Shit,” Smitty says. “Shit!”

He boots the clutch and his hand chops the gear shift. His knuckles ache like a sonofabitch. Smitty doesn’t like to hit women. They all have hard fucking heads.

He shakes his right hand. It’s sure enough messed up. Probably busted. And Oates. Man! His partner is in the back of Smitty’s Peterbilt tractor, bleeding in the sleeper, gutted like a fish. If Oates dies… if the bossman doesn’t make it… Man, Smitty can’t handle everything on his own. He’s always been the guy who moves the merchandise, doing the job while he runs redwoods down the coast. He’s no businessman. He can’t handle cops and lawyers and all the rest of it, the way Oates can…

Shit!

Smitty glances at the chick. She’s out cold, buckled into the passenger seat. Ankles bound with duct tape. Wrists bound with same. She won’t be getting away.

Not this time. Last time, they weren’t careful enough. Oh, sure, her boyfriend wasn’t any problem. Just some loser looking to make a buck by moving some dope. They hooked him with a good line and a couple beers in a Portland tavern. That was all it took. After a little drive into the country and a couple more beers in Oates’ cozy cabin in the woods they marched the two of them out to the barn to show the boyfriend the merch. Right then and there Oates did him easy, blasting the boyfriend’s ass as soon as the fool told them what kind of green he wanted to lay down.

Moron came north to be a player, didn’t even get into the game. The girl was something else, though. She got away while they were searching the dead guy for his bankroll. Had to be that she had the dough, because all they found on her fool of a boyfriend was a withdrawal slip showing he’d cleaned seventy-six hundred and seventy-seven bucks out of his bank account —

Not much money, really. But they’d killed for it.

And now Oates might fucking-well die for it.

And that makes it important.

That makes it everything.

Oates is huddled up in the sleeper, bleeding on a mattress that stinks of Smitty’s sweat.

Bleeding bad. The towel Smitty gave him is soaked through. He looks for something else, but the bedding is filthy, and the only other thing he spots is a stack of old skin magazines.

Oates grabs a copy of Hustler and presses it to his belly. He closes his eyes and thinks about the money. Seems like it’s right there in front of him. He can see it clear as day —

Right there in front of him. There it is. That little green jellyroll trundling across the parking lot.

It doesn’t look very thick, that jellyroll.

Not very thick at all.

But it’s there in his mind. Rolling… rolling…

Rolling like it’s never gonna stop.

The barn door creaks open.

Shotgun in hand, Joe steps into the storm.

Jessie watches him go. She remembers what he said about having a shot at a second chance, and she thinks she knows what’s driving him. It’s the money, but it’s so much more. Because the money was everything to him, to the both of them. It meant a new start after some really hard times. A future. It was like a dream, a dream they could hold in their hands —

And Joe died for it.

That made the money even more important, maybe more important than anything else in the world.

Maybe the money was so important that it brought Joe back from the dead. Maybe that’s the way it was. Maybe if you died for something, if a shotgun ripped you up because you wanted to hold on to it the same way you hold onto your own heartbeat, maybe something out there in the great beyond might cut you a break and bend the rules a little bit. Yeah. Maybe something up above in heaven or down below in hell might be impressed enough by all that unvarnished need to cheat the reaper for a little while and let you try to get that something back —

Maybe that’s how Joe sees it. Jessie doesn’t want to see it that way, though. Something inside tells her it’s wrong, the same something that tells her Joe isn’t the same man anymore. She recognizes him, sure. But with Jerry Oates’ shotgun in his hands, he’s a very different man than the man she loved.

She can’t imagine a second chance with that man, even if she had one.

The barn door bangs open and closed, driven by a renegade wind. Outside, Joe is nothing more than a shadow, drifting through the rain.

Jessie wants to run away, but she knows it won’t do her any good. After all, she already tried that. Running in the wake of Joe’s murder, scared of the law, scared of anyone who looked like they might have their hand in Larry Oates’ till. Thumbing her way south, traveling three hundred miles with some harmless college kid before sleep stole her from his car, before her dream took her to the grave in a marijuana field where Oates and Smitty were shoveling mud into her dead lover’s face. Listening as Joe said that he couldn’t rest without the money, every dollar of it. Screaming in her head that he’d come back for it if he had to, that six feet of mud wouldn’t keep him in the ground.

She knew he meant it. The only reason he hadn’t done anything up until then was that Jessie had the money. Joe gave it to her as soon as he cleaned out his account, saying he’d feel better with her holding it until the deal was set.

She’d held it, all right. When she woke from the dream in the kid’s car, she still had every dollar tucked in her pocket, and what wasn’t in her pocket was jammed into her ripped lapel, and what wasn’t in either of those places was hidden in her coat lining or her boots.

She made the college kid drop her at the first exit.

Then she reversed course, thumbed her way north again.

But she didn’t make it to Joe’s grave.

And now she is unconscious.

And nine hundred dollars float in a puddle in a restaurant parking lot.

And a dead man named Joe Shepard is walking in the rain with a shotgun in his hands.

And it is so dark in Jessie’s dream. She stands in the barn doorway, calling Joe’s name. She can see him in the distance, but he doesn’t look back. Finally she runs after him, and the rain pounds down on her so hard and cold that she thinks it will freeze her solid, and lightning flashes ahead of Joe, jagged spears that slice the night, cracks widening and growing brighter and brighter until —

The chick’s eyes flash open. Right off, Smitty wants to hit her again. Goddamn if he doesn’t want to do that in the worst way.

But he resists the temptation. He has to keep his eyes on the road. He has to get down to business, the way Oates would.

The windshield wipers beat time as Smitty fishes his cell phone from his pocket. He calls information and gets the number he needs. Nearly runs off the road while he punches it in, and that just makes him madder.

The wipers beat some more. The phone rings for-fucking-ever. Then the doctor finally answers. He’s the kind who’s willing to keep his mouth shut for a price. Smitty tells him to get his ass out to Oates’ barn. The smarmy bastard wants to negotiate right then and there, but Smitty doesn’t let him. He tells the sawbones he’d better get his mercenary butt moving and cuts the bastard off before he can argue.

The chick doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t have to. Her eyes are talking for her. She’s got those suckers clicked onto hi-beams, emotionally speaking.

Cool gray eyes, but they’re burning like coals.

Let ’em burn, Smitty thinks, watching the flapping windshield wipers, the drenching rain. In this kind of motherfucking weather, nothing burns for long

Not where this little girl’s headed.

Nothing much burns in a wet marijuana field. Nothing burns at all under six feet of mud.

Jessie almost opens her mouth.

Almost. But there’s no sense in it. She can’t explain things to a guy like Smitty. Dream visions don’t exist in his realm of possibilities. Neither do walking dead men. And why should they? A bottom-feeder like Smitty can’t see things the way Jessie can. A guy like that is practically born to blink at all the wrong times.

And even if Smitty could see those things, he probably couldn’t understand them. Some things are hard to process, even with a bucketful of downtime. Like a man wanting something badly enough to chase after it when he’s dead, or a woman returning to a lion’s den to keep him from doing it.

But Jessie knows she’ll do just that if she gets the chance. It isn’t over yet. Smitty’s Peterbilt tractor isn’t hitched to a load of logs, and he wants to get Oates to that doctor. In other words, they’re traveling fast. They have another five or ten miles to go before they get to Oates’ farm. The restaurant is a good fifty miles behind them. That means Joe has to travel sixty miles south in the rain before he can do any damage with Oates’ shotgun. That’s going to take some time, even for a dead man who’s as determined as he is cold.

Jessie figures it this way — Joe will probably take her old VW. He has the keys. They were in his pocket when Oates buried him. She remembers that the bug is parked by Oates’ house, where they’d had the beers while Oates put them at ease. The house was a good mile walk from the barn, through the woods she’d watched Joe enter in her dream, and —

And then she remembers something else. The VW is down to fumes. Joe was so eager to make the buy that he didn’t want to stop and gas up the bug. Maybe he can make twenty miles, maybe thirty if he’s lucky, but no way will the bug make sixty. That puts the restaurant at least thirty miles out of range, and gassing up is going to be a problem because Joe doesn’t have a dime.

And dead men don’t carry plastic.

Jessie laughs. She can’t help herself.

Smitty ignores her, downshifting as he nears the turnoff. There’s an old Mustang sitting at the stop sign at the bottom of the road that leads to Oates’ spread. It’s black with a couple of thick red bars painted on the hood, and its turn-signal flashes as the driver waits to turn onto the highway going south.

Smitty spots the car. “Hey,” he says. “That’s my ‘67! Someone stole my goddamn Mustang!”

The stolen car starts across the highway. Instantly, Jessie knows that Joe is the driver. Her hands are bound but that doesn’t stop her. She grabs the steering wheel and the truck veers left as the Mustang cuts in front of it, and the two vehicles miss by the width of a raindrop as Smitty stomps the brakes and whips the wheel and the Peterbilt screams down the highway sideways, hydroplaning like a sonofabitch.

Smitty’s tractor ends up on the shoulder, sliding though mud and gravel until Jessie’s door kisses a redwood. Smitty grinds the gears and turns the rig around while Jessie watches the Mustang’s red taillights disappear in the storm, like coals burning down to ash.

One more second and those taillights will be gone.

One more second and Joe Shepard will be on his way.

One more second until the storm and the dark hold sway.

One more second until —

Smitty just can’t help himself. Not anymore.

“This is all your fault, bitch,” he says.

His fist whips out and clips Jessie’s jaw.

Everything goes black.

“Hey there, Jess. Good to see you again.”

She opens her eyes and she’s in the Mustang, riding shotgun with a dead man.

“That was a close one, wasn’t it? Man, that truck-driving asshole nearly ran me off the road.” Joe winks at her. “Or did you have something to do with that, Jess?”

Jessie doesn’t say a word. Joe watches the storm through the windshield, as if he doesn’t really expect an answer, as if he’s determined to enjoy a Sunday drive through hell no matter what happens.

“Too bad Edward Hopper didn’t do pastoral scenes,” he jokes. “He would have loved this stuff.”

Joe laughs, but it’s like a hollow echo of yesterday. Jessie wants to cry. He’s trying really hard. He always tried really hard. He was a carpenter — still is, she figures, even though he’s dead. But money never came easy for him, and it always seemed to go too fast.

So their life wasn’t what they wanted it to be. A succession of low-rent apartments in low-rent towns, the kind of towns where a girl grows comfortable carrying a butterfly knife in her pocket. But that’s how it is when you work for someone else. They make the money, you do the work. They live someplace nice, and you don’t. Their wife doesn’t take anything but her credit card when she heads off to the grocery store after dark, your wife makes sure to remember her butterfly knife.

So when a friend offered to make Joe a partner in a custom cabinet shop, he jumped at the chance. Only problem was that Joe didn’t have enough green to buy his way into the business. So he decided to cash in his savings, make a run up north into marijuana country like he had in his college days, grab some quick profit on a larger scale than he’d ever tried before. But his old contacts steered him in the wrong direction, and he ended up in a Portland bar looking for a friend of a friend, and a short time after that he ended up on the wrong end of Larry Oates’ shotgun, and now his future doesn’t have anything to do with the life he wanted to make.

Now his future is all about death.

“You’ve got to listen to me, Joe. You can’t do this.”

“It’s the only way. Either I do it or I crawl back into that hole in the ground. It’s that simple.”

“But that waitress. The one who’s going to find the money… she doesn’t have anything to do with any of this.”

Joe’s anger flares. “She poured Oates a cup of coffee, didn’t she? Brought the bastard his breakfast while I was digging my way out of a grave like some goddamn gopher. She flirted with him and bought his dope and put money in his pocket that’ll maybe buy more shotgun shells he can use to put some other poor bastard six-feet under.” Joe snorts laughter. “Hell, Jessie, that little waitress gave Oates everything but a sweet little cherry on top.”

“But that’s no reason to kill her!”

“You’re right.” Joe glances at his wristwatch. “But in just a little while she’ll be picking up nine hundred bucks that can buy another chance at life for me, and that’s all the reason I need.”

“But why does she have to die?”

“That money was taken in blood. Blood is the only way to get it back.”

“And what about me?” Jessie asks. “I’ve got your money, too. When you finish with the waitress, will you come after me with Larry Oates’ shotgun?”

“Jesus Christ, Jessie.” Joe sighs. “When I’m done with the waitress, it’s over. That’s what this thing in my gut tells me. I get that money back and I’m alive again, for keeps.”

Jessie doesn’t say anything.

She swallows hard. Up ahead, the road is dark.

Lightning flashes. A rip in the sky that’s too wide and too bright, like the polished blade of a butterfly knife.

Joe breaks the silence. “Don’t you want me to have another chance, Jess?”

‘Yes. Of course I do.”

“Then you have to let me do this thing.” Joe nods at the shotgun, waiting on the back seat. “And I have to do it this way.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“I’m not. This is wrong. Everything tells me that. Even if we could turn back the hands of time, if everything could really be the same as it was, I couldn’t pay the price you’re asking. Because if we pay that price, things won’t ever be the same as they were. You’re not a killer, Joe. You never were. Not alive, and not in the dreams I had for us. If you become one now, you might get a second chance, but what kind of a chance would it be?”

Joe shakes his head. “Remember what your mother used to say, Jess? About the way you saw things, I mean?”

“She said I had a special kind of eye. She said other people didn’t even know how to look at the things I could see.”

“Your mother was wrong. At least on one count. See, I know exactly how you see the world. I know how you see it when you’re awake. I know how you see it when you’re dreaming. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not the man you used to see in your dreams, but your dreams aren’t the same as they used to be. They’re not even dreams anymore. Think about that, Jess.”

“There’s got to be another way.”

“If you think of one, be sure to tell me about it. Until then, the clock is ticking.”

Up ahead, thunder rumbles. Loud. Getting louder.

When it comes again, Joe’s voice isn’t any more than a whisper. “It’s about time for us to say adios, Jess.”

Jessie opens her mouth. She can’t go now. Not yet… not until she convinces him she’s right.

Joe shifts gears, and the engine roars, and so does the thunder. Before she can so much as whisper, lightning tears Jessie’s world in half.

The next part takes only a second, maybe two. But to Jessie it seems to last forever, like crawling up a rickety set of cellar steps with a couple of broken legs.

Out of the dark, into the light.

That’s what it’s like. Because things start to come together for Jessie. The things Joe said about the way she sees things, about her dreams… and the way they’ve changed since Joe died… and the way Joe has changed, too…

A lightning crack as Smitty slaps her one more time, and Jessie’s eyelids flutter open. She’s on the floor of Oates’ barn. Her boots are by her head. Smitty looms over her, clutching her leather jacket in one hand, a fistful of dollar bills in the other.

He’s raided Jessie’s wearable bank, and he’s not happy. “I know how much money you had,” he says. “Seventy-six hundred and seventy-seven dollars. There’s nine hundred missing, bitch. I swear you’re going to give me every penny.”

Jessie rolls over onto her elbows. Her wrists and ankles aren’t bound anymore, but she can hardly move. Her right eye is swollen shut. Her lips are bruised and puffy, like a couple banana slugs glued to her face, and there’s a sound in her head that she can’t escape.

A sound like thunder.

Smitty pulls her to her feet and shoves her against the truck. For the first time, Jessie realizes they’re not alone. There’s a car parked over by the workbench, the one littered with beer bottles and ashtrays and guns. It’s a Mercedes. Oates is stretched out on the hood, his shirt skinned off, his skin nearly as white as Joe’s. There’s a man bent over him — he’s got to be the doctor that Smitty phoned — and his hands are covered with blood.

Oates screams, his body bucking against the hood of the car. Smitty whirls and yells something. The doctor swears and snatches up a syringe. He drives the spike into Oates’ pale flesh. The killer bucks again and falls back, his head striking the Mercedes hood with a hollow sound like a coffin lid slamming closed.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor says. “I swear to God, Smitty, I did everything I could.”

Blood pumps under Smitty’s skin. He drops the money on the ground and stares straight into Jessie’s eyes. “Seventy-six hundred and seventy-seven bucks,” he says. “Seventy-six hundred and seventy-seven bucks.”

Jessie tries to run, but she can barely walk. Smitty slaps her hard and… Joe slams the door of the Mustang. Heavy rain washes the last of the gravedirt from his face. He studies the parking lot. A couple logging trucks. An old Ford with a camper shell. A waitress dancing in the rain with a roll of soggy twenties and tens locked in her palm… and five hard knuckles pound Jessie’s belly. Smitty punches her once, twice, three times... four shells, five, and one more fed into the shotgun as Joe watches the waitress rush into the restaurant… and Jessie drops to her knees… reaching out, grabbing Joe, pulling him close so that his cold belt buckle burns against her cheek. “Listen to me,” she says. “That money cost us everything, and now it’s going to cost us even more.” Joe grabs her, pulls her to her feet… and Smitty drags her across the barn, to the Mercedes where Larry Oates rests in tortured repose, his face frozen in a grimace of agony, and Smitty grabs Jessie by the hair and shoves her head close to the dead man’s, so close that their lips nearly touch… and Joe’s dead lips are just as close but he says, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but you see how things are now. You see that every time you close your eyes.” And he stares across the parking lot, the shotgun in his hands, and Jessie screams at him but he won’t even look at her. He’s looking at the restaurant, at that waitress on the other side of the glass, and his eyes are cold and green and full of need for all the things that have been taken from him and all the things he knows he can never get back no matter how hard he tries… and Smitty pushes Jessie nose-to-nose with the dead man… and Joe Shepard swallows hard and takes his first step forward.

Larry Oates’ eyelids look like little marble slabs. Jessie stares straight at them. She doesn’t even blink.

She can’t see Joe anymore, and she can’t see her dream. She knows she had one once, but she can’t see it at all. It’s like Joe said — she doesn’t even have a dream anymore.

But even though her dream is gone Joe is still part of it, the same way he’s still a part of her world. Jessie can never forget him, so he’s still alive in that most essential part of her, that thing-that-used-to-be-a-dream-but-isn’t-anymore.

She understands that now. He’s trapped there, and he wants a second chance at a dream that’s dead. He’s trying for it, trying the only way he knows how. Listening to something in his dead gut, cradling it there like a precious spark, allowing it to drive him forward.

Just that fast Jessie realizes what it is Joe’s listening to.

He’s listening to the only thing that survived the death of her dream.

He’s listening to her nightmare.

Jessie’s eyes are wide open. She’s wide awake. She’s not dreaming. But she’s not in Larry Oates’ barn, either, though that’s where her body stands. No. She’s not standing there, face-to-face with Larry Oates’ corpse. Not really. Instead, she’s standing in the only place she can possibly belong anymore — in the deepest, darkest pocket of a living nightmare, with a man who was once the biggest part of her world.

But Jessie and Joe aren’t alone in that nightmare.

In a nightmare, there’s plenty of room.

Jessie sees that, too.

Staring down at Larry Oates’ dead face, Jessie sees that clearly.

Just that fast, Larry Oates’ eyelids flash open.

The dead man gets up.

The doctor runs for it. Smitty grabs him.

“First thing you’ve done right all day,” Oates says.

Smitty swallows hard, and the doc’s shaking like he’s in the throws of the DT’s. “This is impossible,” the little man says, staring at the rope of intestines dangling from Oates’ belly. “It can’t be happening. He’s dead.”

Oates doesn’t pay the bastard any mind. What the doc says doesn’t make any difference to him. Hell, he knows he’s dead.

Or at least he was a minute ago. Now he’s back. He doesn’t know exactly why. Doesn’t much care, either. Hell, it could be he’s some kind of immortal. Or it could be his barn was built on top of some old enchanted Indian burial ground. Could be one of his spacy new-age girlfriends put some kind of mystic spell on him without him even knowing about it. Hell, could be a lot of things.

Maybe Oates could figure it out if he really wanted to. Tug at that rope of intestines sticking out of his belly, pull out his own entrails and read ’em, discover the mysteries of the ages in his coiled guts. But he can’t quite see the percentage in that.

Why he’s come back doesn’t much interest him.

What he can do now that he’s here does.

Oates’ right hand slices the air, palm up and open. Smitty just stares at it, like he expects to see something there.

Jesus, Oates thinks. Like he expects magic. Like he expects something to appear out of nowhere.

“The money, idiot,” Oates says. “Give me the money.”

Smitty’s a couple sandwiches short of a picnic, but he gets the message. He hands the wad to Oates. The dead man starts counting it, and he feels a little better already. There’s something in his gut talking to him, and it ain’t a butterfly knife. No. It’s something down deep, something that tells him everything will be okay if he has this money in his hands —

Only problem is, the money isn’t all there.

Oates remembers now. The restaurant parking lot. The little green jellyroll…

“We’re a little short,” Oates says.

Smitty swallows hard. “Nine hundred bucks. Gotta be that the girl’s got it, but she won’t tell me where it is.”

A quiet voice from the other side of the barn. “You’re never going to know,” Jessie says. “Neither of you.”

Oates blinks at the shadows. The little chick’s over by the workbench. She must have slipped over there while everyone was marveling at his Lazarus act. That wouldn’t be so bad in itself, but she’s holding one of his shotguns. It’s just like the gun he used to cut down her boyfriend, only this hogleg is sawed off.

“You put that down,” Oates says. “I’m already dead. I don’t figure you can kill me twice in one day.”

“Take a step,” she says, “and we’ll find out.”

Oates smiles. He feels pretty good, actually.

“Have it your way,” he says, and then he takes a step forward. Jessie raises the shotgun.

Oates takes another step.

Shivering, Jessie watches the dead man come.

She can see him, all right. She sees Larry Oates all too well. After all, this is her world. She knows that now. She made it, this thing-that-used-to-be-a-dream-but-isn’t-anymore.

Dead men live here because she can’t let go of them.

Joe Shepard walks here because she loves him.

Larry Oates walks here because she hates him.

And money controls everything, because money drove both men to their deaths.

Oates smiles at Jessie, his guts hanging from his belly like coiled snakes. He opens his mouth, and he’s smirking while he does it, and Jessie’s afraid that she’ll see a forked tongue flick over his lips while he brands her with words that will surely burn like hellfire —

Jessie swallows hard. She never imagined that a nightmare could talk, but she knows that it’s possible now, the same way she knows that Oates’ words will change her forever if she hears them.

Oates takes a breath. Fills his dead lungs. He’s ready to tell Jessie something.

But Jessie doesn’t plan on listening.

She opens her own mouth.

She screams Larry Oates’ words away.

Oates starts to laugh, but Jessie can’t hear him. She can’t hear anything. She’s still screaming.

Her finger tightens on the shotgun trigger.

Quite suddenly, she realizes that she knows how to kill a nightmare.

You kill one the same way you kill a dream.

Jessie doesn’t know how many times she fired the shotgun. All she knows is that Larry Oates isn’t moving anymore, and what’s left of his head wouldn’t fill a sock.

Jessie pries the money from Oates’ dead fingers. Smitty doesn’t say a word. Neither does the doctor.

She looks both men in the eye.

She thinks about that little tie-dyed waitress.

She points the shotgun at the doctor.

“Give me your keys,” she says.

He opens his mouth, ready to argue. Then he glances down at what’s left of Larry Oates, and a second later his keys hit the ground at Jessie’s feet.

Jessie pockets them. She finds a roll of duct tape on the workbench and tells the doc to get busy. Before long Smitty is on the ground, half-mummified in silver tape. Then she gets her boots and jacket on, as fast as she can.

“Head for the highway,” she tells the doctor, aiming the shotgun his way. “My advice is this — leave town and don’t look back.”

The doctor knows good advice when he hears it. He grabs his coat and hurries into the storm.

Jessie climbs behind the wheel of the Mercedes and backs out of the barn.

Raindrops pelt the bloodstained hood, washing Larry Oates’ blood over the fenders, into the mud.

Jessie only has one place to go.

She drives fast. She keeps her eyes on the road, but her thoughts travel elsewhere.

To Joe. She can’t see him now. She can’t see what he’s doing… or what he’s done. But she can still see the last vision she had of him in her mind’s eve.

Joe Shepard standing in that restaurant parking lot, swallowing hard, taking his first step forward with Larry Oates’ shotgun gripped between his dead fingers.

She wonders how long it would take Joe to cross that parking lot. It wasn’t what you’d call a long trip. Not really. Not if you measured it in footsteps. But measured another way, it was the longest trip imaginable. Because Joe was walking in a nightmare, not a dream. It was a nightmare that belonged to the woman he loved, and he knew all too well how she felt about the things it demanded of him.

Still, even if he hesitated, it would only take him a minute or two to cross the parking lot. Jessie wonders if that might have been long enough. She tries to remember the things that took place in Larry Oates’ barn. She tries to put everything into perspective.

Oates returned to life about the same time that Jessie regained consciousness. She grabbed the shotgun off the workbench… and then Oates walked across the barn, came at her, ready to tell her something —

That couldn’t have taken very long, could it?

A minute? Maybe two? But maybe that was long enough. Maybe she had fired the shotgun in time. Maybe Joe was still walking across the parking lot when she killed the walking nightmare called Larry Oates —

Maybe killing Oates had changed everything.

Maybe. If killing a nightmare could restore a dream.

Maybe. If second chances — the kind worth having — existed in her world.

Maybe…

Jessie doesn’t know, but she’s about to find out. The restaurant is just ahead. She turns into the parking lot. The rain is really coming down now. She can’t see very far at all.

She pulls to a stop, throws open the door, steps into the downpour.

It won’t take her long to cross the lot.

Not even a minute. Not even that long.

Dull light glows behind the windows, but Jessie can’t see anything inside with rainwater bleeding down the glass. She pulls her coat over her head and hurries toward the door, dodging puddles as best she can. She jumps a big one near a storm-drain grate, sees something half submerged in dark water.

A shotgun.

Jessie stops cold, staring down at the gun.

But you can’t tell if a shotgun’s been fired by staring at it, not even if you’ve got an eye like Jessie’s. There are other ways to find out, though. Jessie is close to the window now. She can see inside the restaurant.

And there’s the waitress, smiling and laughing, showing off her soggy bankroll to a couple of truckers. But that’s not all Jessie sees, not really. Because she looks at the waitress and she sees a woman who’s been handed a second chance and doesn’t even know it.

Jessie knows, though.

Because she’s been handed a second chance, too.

Across the parking lot, a pair of headlights flash at her.

She hurries toward the Mustang.

She hurries toward her dream.

LAST KISS

If you’re like me, there are things you need to tell people, but you can’t get the words out. You want to, but you can’t. The machinery just won’t work, and everything gets all jammed up, churning in your guts long after those people are gone from your life.

You’re stuck with them, and they stay inside you forever.

The things you wanted to say. And, in a way, in memory, the people you wanted to say them to.

All together, stuck inside you forever, and there’s no way to get them out. You can write about them — like I’m doing now — scribble from A to Z and back again, but they’re still with you when you’re done, because writing starts and ends in your guts.

And that’s kind of funny, isn’t it? All that stuff churning inside you, all those people you remember and all those things that you wanted to tell them… it’s funny how it never comes together. I mean, it’s all in there, cataloged and nicely filed, and somehow it seems like you should be able to put it together. After all, you remember the person and you sure as hell remember what you wanted to say. It’s like you should be able to figure out what would have happened had you only said it.

How your life would be different.

How the lives of those other people would be different.

That’s my problem. I keep on trying to figure out what might have been.

Maybe that’s why I still have those dead people stuck inside me.

Maybe that’s why I still have Anelle Carney stuck inside me, too.

We met in high school, of course. Isn’t that where all great American romances start? We shared two classes during our sophomore year, and because my last name is Carter, which is just three letters short of Carney, I sat behind Anelle in both of them.

I was hooked right from the start. She always had a smile for me, Anelle did, and her smile made me feel like someone special. That smile was a toothpaste advertiser’s wet dream — gleaming white teeth surrounded by perfect lips that were somehow just short of inviting. And when Anelle parted those lips and teeth and you heard her voice… Well, it wasn’t the kind of voice you’d expect a teenager to have. It was quiet, but not in a shy way. Kind of sleepy, too — Anelle always talked slowly, like she had all the time in the world, like she thought a lot about the things she said. She didn’t jabber. She considered every word.

That was the same way I talked, back then. Someone told me once that people listen closely to a person who isn’t blabbing all the time. I guess that was part of the reason that I was so quiet.

The other part, the biggest part, was fear.

Anyway, I get nervous and expectant just thinking about the way Anelle made me feel, even now. What was that old Carly Simon song? “Anticipation,” or something like that? Back then, that could have been my theme song. I still remember the funny rush that crept up my spine every time she entered the classroom.

Summer was the worst time, of course. It was hard to keep in touch with her when school was out. No more than three blocks separated our houses, but Anelle’s house stood at the end of a court that was bordered by a dead end street and a cemetery. One way in and one way out — that was her joke. I didn’t know any of Anelle’s neighbors, and I didn’t have any relatives in the boneyard, so it was tough for me to find an excuse to walk by and try to catch a glimpse of her.

I tracked Anelle like I was a bounty hunter. That wasn’t hard, because her dad bought her a brand new Pontiac for her birthday (June 12th, if you care). So I knew her car and I looked for it everywhere, cruising the streets in a bruised Dodge that was my first car. I don’t particularly have any fond memories of that Dodge, apart from the fact that it was the car I drove when I hunted for Anelle.

Anyway, Anelle always used the same gas station, and I hung out there with a buddy, Pete Hatcher, who worked the pumps. Pete didn’t mind my company. He was always fixing up some junker in hopes of making a big resale profit, and I was pretty handy with cars. The guy who owned the station let us use the equipment when the main mechanic wasn’t busy with it, so Pete had a really good deal going in more ways then one.

So the price of seeing Anelle was a little free work. That was okay with me. I didn’t begrudge Pete my labor, because Anelle gassed up that Pontiac pretty often. She never let the gauge fall beneath three-quarters full, like she had some phobia about running out of gas. I’d fill her up myself if Pete was busy. Believe it or not, I even got a rise out of doing that little thing for Anelle. It was nothing compared to the other things I did for her, but it made me feel good in a tingly way I can’t put words to.

That summer I learned a lot about Anelle Carney: where she bought her cheeseburgers (no onions, extra mayo), where she shopped for clothes (jeans and loose blouses, never skirts), which swimming pool she like to hang out at on hot days (she used Coppertone, and I still dream about rubbing it on her). Damn, I remember spending whole afternoons working on a suntan, just because Anelle always had a deep tan and I figured she’d find that attractive.

She liked to go to the library, too. It was easy to figure out when she’d show up there — all I had to do was count three weeks from the day of her last visit, because that’s when her books came due. On due day, I’d hang around reading until she came in. Anelle thought that I was a real bookworm, and I guess I was, though I stuck to Westerns and didn’t sample the glitzy romances that she liked to read.

The best place to catch her was the movie theatre. She had a job there — nights, except for Wednesdays and Thursdays — working behind the candy counter. The deal with her old man was that she had to pay for her own gas and insurance since he’d popped for the new car. One of those lessons in responsibility, I guess.

It was kind of a drag, that job. Anelle didn’t like the people she worked with. The cashier was a bore and the projectionist was always trying to peek down the front of her usherette uniform. So she didn’t like it much, and I didn’t either, though for me her job had its good points.

It was good because I knew exactly where she was most nights, but it was bad because the movie only changed once a week (this was pre-multiplex), so I couldn’t actually see her that often. And on top of that there were bad pictures that summer. Real turkeys. I sat through at least two Robbie Benson movies, endless disaster epics, even some junk about a mule that played football.

I always went on Tuesday night, because the crowd was pretty thin and I knew I’d get a chance to talk to Anelle.

Tuesday night — my big night of the week. Was then. Is now.

It was on a Tuesday night that I kissed Anelle Carney for the first time.

I can’t remember the name of the picture they were showing that night. That’s not so strange, because I only saw about twenty minutes of it. All I remember is that it starred Doug McClure and a pack of rubber dinosaurs.

Anyway, I watched the coming attractions, not wanting to seem too eager about hitting the candy counter. I always liked to wait until the picture got started before I went for popcorn. By then the lobby was clear, leaving Anelle with plenty of time to chat.

It wasn’t long before I lost patience with Doug and his sad rubber pals. I left my seat and headed for the lobby. I remember all that like it was yesterday. Where I sat, what I was wearing. Christ, I even remember checking to see if my fly was zipped before I pushed open the padded doors.

I stepped into the lobby slow and cool, smiling like I knew the movie was a big joke.

No one appreciated my little act.

The lobby was empty.

I walked up to the counter, figuring that Anelle was crouching behind it, stocking paper cups or napkins or something. But she wasn’t there. I turned and glanced at the glassed-in box office, which was a closed booth outside the lobby, thinking that maybe the cashier got sick and Anelle was pulling double duty. But a chunky girl sat there, hunched over the same paperback she’d been reading when I bought my ticket.

I stood there, glancing from the counter to the door of the ladies’ john. No Anelle. Popcorn popped in a big glass case. Hot dogs revolved on little chromed rollers, tanning themselves under orange heat lamps.

No Anelle.

And then I heard her scream.

I dodged around the counter just as an angry roar eclipsed Anelle’s scream. Pure male. Pure rage. There was a narrow doorway between the soda machine and the popcorn popper. Gold letters on the door spelled out MANAGER. I grabbed the knob.

The door was locked.

A muffled voice came from behind the door, pleading. Another voice shouted down the first. “I’ll teach you, you little — ”

I kicked the door. The bottom half flexed, giving everywhere but around the knob and hinges. Something thudded against the other side. The knob moved, and the door opened an inch. I got a glimpse of a green eye, chestnut hair. Then thick fingers tangled in the hair and pulled the face away.

I pushed through the door.

The projectionist stared at me. He had his forearm around Anelle’s neck. Her blue and red usherette blouse was unzipped. Her skin was scratched where he’d ripped off her bra, and the button of her jeans was undone.

I didn’t want to look at those things. I looked into Anelle’s eyes. They were wide open and wilder than eyes should be.

“Close the door, boy,” the projectionist hissed. “I’ve seen the way you look at this little tease. Take a good look now, buddy. There’s enough here for the both of us.”

His right hand kneaded her breast, and I noticed a red crescent where she’d bitten the soft flesh at the base of his thumb. For a second I wondered how much a wound like that would hurt, and then my hands balled into fists.

Anelle’s lips parted. Her teeth parted.

She said my name, and then her perfect teeth sank into the projectionist’s hairy forearm.

He howled and I sprang. The three of us hit the floor together. I could feel Anelle’s breasts pressing against my chest. I could smell her hair and her breath, and her breath did smell like toothpaste.

She rolled away and my fists were flying. The projectionist’s howls became little mewling sounds, then petered out altogether. His face had gone pasty white, and I stopped punching.

Anelle pulled me off him. I realized that I was crying, and I knew that she saw my tears, saw the confusion in my eyes, but I didn’t even care because there was confusion in her eyes, too. Her arms went around me. Again I felt her breasts pressing against my chest.

There was nothing between us but my thin cotton T-shirt.

Anelle Carney kissed me then.

Not a lover’s kiss. Not the kiss I’d dreamed of. But it was Anelle’s kiss. And it was for me.

I closed my eyes. We didn’t do anything but hold each other. When Anelle pulled away, I was ready to tell her everything.

I opened my eyes. Saw a little smear of blood on her chin and wondered if it was hers or the projectionist’s. It rattled me for a second, but it wasn’t going to stop me.

I swallowed. Opened my mouth.

Then the cashier stepped into the room, one finger jammed in her paperback so she wouldn’t lose her place. “I already called the cops.” She gasped, staring down at the projectionist. “Oh, Jesus. I’d better call an ambulance… ”

The district attorney went hard. The projectionist had quite a record, including a rape conviction, so there wasn’t much trouble about it, especially after he lost his head and threatened Anelle right in front of the judge. Anyway, the guy went off to prison. Fairly quickly, fairly quietly.

Anelle and I were minors, so our names were kept out of the papers. The little word that did leak out enhanced my reputation. Some girls saw me as a knight in shining armor. Pete and the other guys I hung out with thought I was a numero uno badass.

Personally, I think the projectionist would have had that heart attack even if I hadn’t touched him. After Anelle bit him the second time, it was pretty obvious that he was going to have to fight the both of us.

I think that scared the shit out of him.

After it was over, I figured things would work out just fine with Anelle. Sure, I hadn’t had a chance to tell her how I felt in the heat of the moment, and I wasn’t seeing much of her now because she’d quit her job at the theatre, but I figured that I’d have plenty of opportunities to set things right once school started.

My folks dragged me off on a two week vacation. Then it was September. The Jerry Lewis telethon came and went. I bought some new jeans and hit the books once again.

Anelle wasn’t in any of my classes. Pretty soon I discovered that she wasn’t in school at all. I didn’t ask anyone what had become of her, because I was afraid of the answer I might get.

I didn’t want to hear that Anelle’s mind had caved in.

I wanted to call her. I sat down and made a big list of things I wanted to ask her, and things she might reply, and things I could say after that. But none of it seemed real. Like I said, writing things down doesn’t work.

So I tried to pick up her trail. I spent a solid week of afternoons working on an old Chevy at the gas station. Anelle didn’t show, and Pete felt so guilty about me single-handedly rebuilding the Chevy’s engine that he actually paid me forty bucks. I spent my evenings at the library, practically sitting on top of the romance paperback rack.

No Anelle.

One night her mother showed up at the library. She was picking out nonfiction, mostly school assignment stuff. I worked up the courage to reintroduce myself — we’d met briefly at the projectionist’s trial. Trying not to seem overly anxious, I asked how Anelle was doing.

“As well as can be expected,” she said. “There’s been a lot of strain, both for Anelle and for the family.”

I asked when Anelle was coming back to school.

“She is in school. She transferred to the Catholic Academy. We thought a girls’ school would be better for Anelle, at least for the time being.”

I could tell that Mrs. Carney didn’t want to say more, so I left it at that.

The next day I cut class and waited for Anelle outside the Catholic Academy.

Funny. It was a Tuesday. Another big one.

The Tuesday I walked Anelle Carney home from school.

She came down the stairs and I started out like I always did, talking about music and movies and books, but that wasn’t what Anelle wanted to talk about.

She opened up to me that day, but looking back on it I think that she would have opened up to any familiar face. She said that she felt like she was the one who’d done something wrong. Her parents, especially her father, had turned into overprotective watchdogs. He’d insisted that she transfer to a girls’ school, and he’d taken her Pontiac away, too.

“Look at me,” she said, pointing at her plaid dress and knee socks. “He’s trying to turn me into a little girl. I’m not a little girl. It’s time for me to start cutting ties, and he’s just tying them tighter.”

In my head, I tried to twist that into some kind of opening, but everything I came up with seemed cliched. We were cutting through the cemetery, and I knew I had to say something soon if I was going to say anything at all.

I slowed my step as we approached her door. My mind slipped into neutral.

“Thanks for walking me home,” she said. “I really needed to talk to someone, and you’re such a good listener.”

I looked up, trying to smile, ready to tell her that she could talk to me any old time, but then I saw the thing rooted on the freshly mown lawn.

A “FOR SALE” sign.

That night I followed the red Pontiac, but this time I was following Anelle’s father.

Even though I’d never met Mr. Carney, I’d always figured that he was a pretty steady guy. He had a good family, a nice house, and a job that allowed him to buy a new car for his daughter on her sixteenth birthday. So it surprised me, how many bars Anelle’s dad hit that night. Not olive and onion bars, either — these were nasty joints out on the highway.

I didn’t know what to make of that. Maybe Mr. Carney had always been a drinker. Or maybe what had happened to Anelle was breaking him up inside.

Either way, the chances of me talking him out of moving seemed ridiculously long. After all, I was a sixteen-year-old kid. I couldn’t just belly up to the bar and buy the old boy a brew, now could I?

So I sat there in the Dodge, and I wrote Mr. Carney a letter. I told him how I felt about his daughter. It was eloquent stuff. I practically asked him for her hand, his blessing. Yep, I got it all down in writing.

It wasn’t hard to get into the Pontiac. Mr. Carney hadn’t locked the door. I figured I’d leave my letter on the dash, where he’d see it real easy.

There was only one problem with that.

Another letter lay on the dashboard.

It was from Mr. Carney’s boss, and it said that his transfer to the east coast was “a rock solid, incontrovertible, done deal.”

All my carefully considered words were nothing compared to that one-paragraph bombshell. I balled up my useless letter and shoved it into the pocket of my new jeans.

An hour later I was safe at home, cleaning brake fluid from under my fingernails.

I guess Anelle could handle her mom pretty well, because things got back to normal after her dad’s funeral. The red Pontiac had been wrapped around a telephone pole along with Mr. Carney, of course, but the insurance money bought Anelle a nice, sensible Volkswagen. The “FOR SALE” sign came down a week after Mr. Carney was laid to rest in the cemetery across the street — another good Tuesday for me — and I remember feeling that destiny was finally on my side.

Not that things were perfect. Even though Anelle had transferred back to public school, she still wasn’t in any of my classes. And I couldn’t hang out at the gas station anymore, because Pete had been fired.

I didn’t feel good about that, because it was my fault. Just two weeks before the crash, Pete had serviced Mr. Carney’s Pontiac. The brake fluid had been changed — Mrs. Carney had a receipt which showed that clearly. Pete was low man on the totem pole, and the owner was tired of him using so much time to work on his junkers, so Pete took the heat.

So I had a tough time keeping up with Anelle. She didn’t show at any of the usual places. Her life was changing fast, and I knew that I had to do something dramatic unless I wanted to be remembered only as part of a bad experience. I remembered what she’d said about “cutting ties,” and I started to get the crazy notion that she’d been talking about me. I thought about her lips and the time that I’d kissed her, and I knew that I’d made too much of it. That kiss had been more like a handshake than a kiss that passes between lovers.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing her. I’d picture her closing her eyes, opening her mouth to mine as I pulled her close… I knew I had to make it happen, and soon.

So I spent more and more time at the library, waiting. It seemed pretty futile, because lately Anelle wasn’t reading romances at her usual clip. I kept thinking about that line in the old Beach Boys tune: See she forgot all about the library like she told her old man now…

One night I got involved in an exciting Western written by a guy named Ray Slater. I wasn’t really expecting Anelle to show up anymore, so I paid more attention to the book than usual, and I finished it just as the librarian started flicking the lights to signal closing time.

I shelved the Western and headed outside, walking on pins and needles because my left foot had gone to sleep while I was reading. As I shuffled through the doorway, I looked up the street and saw a girl walking toward the library. The dull glow of a streetlight shone on her long chestnut hair.

The girl looked a lot like Anelle.

She passed into the shadows that lay between the streetlights, which were set at each corner. Her stride was slow and unhurried, and even in the shadows I could tell that the girl was Anelle. I’d seen that walk of hers in enough dreams to have it memorized.

A car turned the corner and paced her, lagging a few feet behind, its bright lights turning Anelle into a silhouette. I couldn’t tell for sure what make it was — it looked kind of like a Chrysler — only that it had a bad muffler that coughed smoke.

I started down the stairs, my eyes on the car, and I tripped.

My sleepy foot went out from under me. I hit the stairs, hard.

I was up in a second, but the car was gone.

So was Anelle.

All of a sudden I was thinking about the projectionist and the threats he’d screamed at Anelle. I imagined a prison break, a guy dressed in orange con clothes hot-wiring an old Chrysler. Crazy with fear, not feeling the pain of the ankle I’d twisted on the stairs, I half ran, half hopped to my Dodge and peeled rubber, certain that I could catch the other car.

Three blocks later, looking up and down the main drag, I knew I’d lost it. My forehead was damp with sweat. I tried to calm down. I drove straight to Anelle’s house, hoping to put my fears to rest, praying that I’d see her waving to a friend as she opened the front door. But the house was quiet and dark. Even Anelle’s bedroom window was black; her frilly white shades were wide open.

I knew that she wasn’t there, that her room was empty.

I palmed the wheel and came to a stop at the mouth of the court, thinking that I should call the cops.

Something red flashed in the cemetery across the street.

Taillights.

I rolled down the window and smelled heavy exhaust. Burned oil. It was a long shot, but I didn’t have much else. Killing the headlights, I pulled to the curb.

I took a tire iron from under the seat.

I’d guessed correctly. The car was a Chrysler. There were two people in the front seat, chest to chest. They leaned back as one, against the passenger door.

Anelle and Pete Hatcher.

If I would have given it a chance, it might have seemed funny.

All Anelle’s not-so-subtle visits to the gas station, filling a gas tank that was three-quarters full, chatting up Pete the same way I chatted her up at the movies.

All those romance novels that were going unread in the presence of the real thing.

All that free labor I did for good buddy Pete, my unknown rival.

All those kisses he was getting in the front seat of his latest junker.

All those kisses I was missing.

I don’t remember opening the car door, but I remember what I did with the tire iron, and I remember the way Pete whimpered.

And I remember catching up to Anelle on her front lawn after Pete was dead. I grabbed her and held her close on the same spot where the “FOR SALE” sign had stood, thinking about all those things I wanted to tell her and the way I wanted to kiss her and the way I’d seen her kiss Pete.

My fingers locked around her biceps. Panic swam in her green eyes. Her lips trembled.

I said, “There’s something that I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time.”

Those were the last words I ever said.

Anelle’s lips parted.

Her teeth gleamed in the glow of the porch light. Toothpaste advertiser’s wet dreams, every one.

She started to scream then, and I jammed my mouth against hers because I knew this would be my last chance for that special kind of kiss that only lovers share.

I did kiss her, and it was a lover’s kiss.

I held her tight, my mouth to hers, not letting her breathe.

When it was over, I fainted.

They tell me that Anelle passed out at the same time, just a few seconds after she’d swallowed my tongue.

BLACKBIRDS

On an August morning in the summer of 1960, a man dressed in black shattered the kitchen window at the Peterson home.

The house was empty. Major Peterson was at the base, writing a report on the importance of preparedness in the peacetime army. Mrs. Peterson was shopping for groceries. Their daughter Tracy was doing volunteer work at the local hospital.

Billy Peterson was the youngest member of the family. He was ten years old. Like the rest of his family, Billy was not at home when the man in black shattered the kitchen window.

Billy was pedaling his bicycle down Old MacMurray Road.

Billy was pedaling very fast.

Billy’s Daisy BB gun was slung over his shoulder, and he was wearing a small army surplus backpack.

There were only a few things in the backpack.

For one, there was a blackbird’s nest. In the nest were three eggs.

And there were two more things. Two items that, just like the backpack, had once been the official property of the United States Army.

One was a canteen, which Billy had filled with gasoline siphoned from his father’s lawnmower.

The other was a hand grenade.

The man in black had a pet of sorts. A blackbird which perched on his shoulder.

A blackbird with a BB hole in its chest.

But the bird did not seem inordinately bothered by the injury. No doubt it was well-trained. It did not make a single sound. Its head mirrored the movements of its master’s, searching here and there as the man in black explored the empty house.

But in the view of the man in black, the house was not empty.

In his view, he was surrounded by the Peterson family.

In his view, they were all around him.

Mrs. Peterson’s coffee cup stood abandoned on the kitchen counter, bearing a stain of frosted pink lipstick.

But the man in black passed it by.

The scent of Tracy’s girlish perfume drew him to the upstairs bathroom. He touched her uncapped perfume bottle, touched the damp towel Tracy had abandoned on the floor, touched Tracy’s soap, touched the heap of girlish clothes she had tossed in the laundry hamper.

And the man in black left the room.

He followed the track of Major Peterson’s bare feet on plush new carpet until he came to the major’s walk-in closet.

The closet held many uniforms. The man in black ran his fingers over these.

When he was done, he did not leave the closet.

Instead, he bent low and spun the dial on a safe which Major Peterson had bought at Sears.

He spun the dial with a calm sense of surety.

The numbers clicked into place.

The man in black opened the door.

There were many valuable things within the safe.

But the hand grenade was gone.

The mouth of the cave gaped wide.

Billy knew that it was a mouth that could not speak.

Shivering, Billy stared at it. He did not want to look away.

He could not look away. That was what he had done just the other day. He’d been staring at the mouth of the cave, staring into that black mouth that could not utter a single word, when his buddy Gordon Rogers said something stupid.

And, just for a second, Billy looked away.

Just for a second. Just long enough to give Gordon Rogers a poke in the ribs.

And when Billy looked back, a man was standing at the mouth of the cave.

A man dressed all in black.

Billy swallowed hard, remembering.

He wished that Gordon were here.

Maybe, in a way, he was.

No. That wasn’t right. Billy knew that he was all alone now. Gordon was gone—as good as dead, really. And no one stood at the mouth of the cave.

No one stood there dressed all in black.

No one said, “Don’t you know that caves are dangerous?”

No Gordon to answer, “If caves are so dangerous, what’re you doing in one?”

“Guess,” was the single word the man in black whispered, but there was no one to whisper it.

No one but Billy.

He stared at the mouth full of nothing.

“You’re a mining engineer,” he guessed.

But no one shook his head, as the man in black had done. “You’re a spelunker,” Billy said.

And no one laughed.

“If you want me to ask, I’ll ask.” Billy said. “What are you?”

“I am an army.”

“An army?” Billy shook his head. “You’re just one guy!”

“I am an army, all the same.”

“From where, then? You don’t look like a Ruskie.”

“I am not from Russia.”

“Then where are you from?”

The question hung in the air. The mouth of the cave yawned wide, but there was only silence.

The man in black was not here.

So he could not answer, “I am an army… from hell.”

Being an army was an occupation fraught with hazards. Violence was often unavoidable. People lied. And reconnaissance reports were sometimes less than accurate.

For example—there was no hand grenade in Major Peterson’s safe. Which meant that there was no shiny hand-grenade pin to be had.

But the man in black found many other attractive things in the Peterson house. Things that could be of use.

He found Billy’s baseball. The one with pretty red stitches sewn with surgical precision.

He found Tracy’s jump rope. Tracy had abandoned it long ago, of course. But not so long ago as she might have wished.

In addition to these things, the man in black found a towel used by both parents. The towel was the color of skin, and it bore telltale smudges of Mrs. Peterson’s foundation cream, and from it Mr. Peterson’s hair seemed to sprout, for just this morning he had trimmed his moustache before departing for the base, and the bristling hairs had adhered to the towel.

The man in black bunched the towel between his large palms. Then he twisted it, as if wringing it out.

Bunched again. Twisted again.

He worked faster and faster. Strange shapes appeared in the material. Shapes vaguely recognizable, but only for a moment, and then they were gone.

A nose. An eyebrow.

A woman’s cheek daubed with foundation cream.

A man’s graying moustache.

The man in black smiled as he wrapped the baseball in the towel and snared it with the jump rope.

Then he wrung the towel again, quite viciously this time.

Almost sadistically.

Soon the towel began to bleed.

Blood spattered the carpet as the man in black crossed Mr. and Mrs. Peterson’s bedroom.

Soon each and every drop had been wrung from the towel.

The man in black shattered the bedroom window.

No one noticed.

No one was home.

And the neighbors, the man thought with a wry smile, had flown.

Billy was about to unzip his U. S. Army surplus backpack when something moved within.

Billy gasped. The canvas material seemed to pulse before his eyes. He watched it, but he couldn’t move.

Until he heard the sound.

A faint cracking. The same sound Billy heard every morning when his father tapped a spoon against his soft-boiled egg.

Billy knew he had to move quickly. He unzipped the backpack. He snatched at the nest made from Gordon Rogers’ Slinky and Mrs. Rogers’ measuring tape and Mr. Rogers’ toupee.

He spilled three eggs from the nest.

Immediately, he spotted the crack in the biggest egg.

Another peck and it widened. Yet another peck and the crack was a hole.

One more peck and something pink showed through.

Something pink inside a blackbird’s egg.

Something as pink as Mr. Rogers’ bald head.

The hole in the egg was very tiny. Not nearly as large as the mouth of the cave. But the mouth of the cave was silent, and the hole in the egg was not.

“Billy,” a voice whispered from within. “Don’t… please, Billy. For God’s sake don’t…”

It was a tiny voice. Not like Mr. Rogers’ voice at all.

Not really.

Another tiny tap, like father’s spoon at the breakfast table.

A crack rippled across the surface of the second egg.

The smallest egg.

Gordon’s egg.

“Billy…”

Billy jerked the canteen out of the backpack and doused the nest and all three eggs with gasoline.

The box of safety matches was in his pocket.

Soon they were in his hand.

Soon the nest was a funeral pyre.

It crackled and crackled. Blood boiled in the eggshells and sizzled away to nothing. Mrs. Rogers’ measuring tape and Mr. Rogers’ toupee were crisped to fine ash, and soon all that remained of the nest was Gordon’s charred and blackened Slinky, which didn’t move at all.

Everything was quiet again.

The man in black screamed.

Sparks erupted from his shoulders and ignited the blackbird’s feathers and the bird screeched and took wing and crashed to the ground in a flaming, twisted heap while the man watched in agony.

But he did not watch for long. Fiery tongues leapt from his trouser cuffs and licked at his ankles. He ripped off his burning coat and tossed it in the corner. Hurriedly, he worked at the metal buckle of his flaming belt, his fingers blistering at the touch of hot metal.

And then just that quickly the fire was gone, and he scooped his winged companion from the floor and smoothed its black feathers, and he knew that there had been no fire at all.

No. That wasn’t quite accurate. There had been a fire. It had not been here, however. The fire had occurred elsewhere. The man in black and his winged companion were only being informed of it.

Reconnaissance. Sometimes it was unreliable, and sometimes it struck a little close to home.

The man in black picked up his coat, absently plucked lint from the sleeve, and slipped it on. The blackbird regained its perch on his shoulder.

The man sighed. The boy was not stupid. That much was certain.

In point of fact, the boy was very smart. But Billy Peterson was not nearly smart enough to tangle with an army of one.

The simple truth of it was that Billy had appeared at the Rodgers’ household at a most inauspicious moment. He had seen the blackbird lay three eggs in a nest made from a Slinky, a measuring tape, and a man’s toupee.

And he had heard the man in black utter words over that nest.

The same words the man now uttered over a nest made from a bath towel, and a baseball, and a length of jump rope.

A nest like a hundred others, all across town.

Billy stared at the blackened remains of the Rogers’ nest. The eggs were cracked and open, like broken black cups. The things that had grown inside were dead. That was very good.

Billy loaded his BB gun. He did not feel like a murderer. Still, he felt he should take the scorched nest to the cemetery and bury it.

Maybe he should do that with the pink bird, too.

Billy had noticed the bird just this morning. He had watched it take flight from a nest on the Jefferson’s roof, tiny veined wings fluttering.

The pink bird was hard to miss.

And the sounds it made. A series of shrill skreeghs.

Well, Billy had never seen a pink bird. Never heard one, either. Maybe it was a pet. Mr. Jefferson had a daughter who went to school with Billy. A sharp-tongued girl named Joleen who hated Billy. Maybe the bird belonged to her.

The pink bird came straight at Billy. It dive-bombed him, circled high and came at him again.

Usually Billy did not shoot at birds. Old bottles and cans were his favorite targets, maybe a discarded monster model now and then. But when the pink bird came at him a third time, he shot it out of the sky.

Wounded, the bird crashed to the ground. It beat the dirt with one broken wing, unable to right itself.

Billy approached the bird cautiously, because now he recognized the sound of its skreegh. Now he recognized its words.

“Billy… Billy… help me—”

He nearly screamed. The pink bird was some kind of freak. He stared down at it. Angry blue eyes stared up at him. Human eyes.

The pink bird was not a bird at all.

It had no beak. Only a mouth.

“Billy… I need to get to the mine…”

The bird had Joleen’s mouth… and Joleen’s voice.

Though it was not really like Joleen’s voice at all.

“.. .the mine, Billy,” the voice said. “I have to go. I have to fly… follow the trail… follow the others to the black river… find the home of the three-headed dog and…”

Billy was frightened. He wanted to run.

He did.

“Billy, you little—”

He ran faster. He outran the awful tiling’s words.

Billy ran all the way to Gordon’s house. He did not notice the broken pane in the kitchen window. He burst into the house without thinking.

No one seemed to be home.

And then Billy heard a voice coming from upstairs.

The voice of the man in black.

The day before, Gordon had said that the man was only playing a prank to scare them away from the mine.

The man did not sound like he was playing a prank now. Gun in hand, Billy crept upstairs, following the man’s voice. He could not understand everything the man said. At times the man whispered too low for Billy to hear. Other times he used words that Billy didn’t understand.

But Billy understood most of the words he heard. Most importantly, he understood what a soul was.

He’d heard his parents talk about souls taking flight to heaven. He’d never heard them speak of souls taking flight to hell, the way the man in black did. Normally, Billy would have thought that such talk was a bunch of mumbo jumbo. But when Billy looked into Mr. and Mrs. Rogers’ bedroom and saw the nest with the three hideous eggs and the big ugly blackbird perched over them, he was so frightened that he might have believed anything.

The bird saw Billy before the man did.

One quiet clack of its beak and the man in black turned to face the boy.

He smiled at Billy, winked at the bird.

“This boy is troublesome,” the man said. “Kill him.”

The bird’s black wings flapped like torn shadows as it rose from the bed.

Billy pulled the trigger and a BB punched the creature hard in the chest.

The bird dropped to the bed.

The man in black screamed a harsh, “No!”

Before the word was out of the man’s mouth, Billy had grabbed the nest. He charged downstairs and ran all the way home.

He noticed many strange things as he ran. He saw many broken windows in his very quiet neighborhood. He spotted many tangled nests resting on the rooftops.

Each nest was a crazy quilt of everyday items. Clothes and ribbons, telephone cord and clothesline, sharpshooter medals won in battle and bits of dismembered dolls long buried in sandboxes and weatherbeaten cowboy hats worn by boys who rode wooden ponies. But one thing was the same—every nest that Billy saw cradled one blood red egg for every occupant of the house on which it perched.

Billy wondered what would happen when those eggs cracked open. He remembered the things the pink bird had said “…the mine, Billy. I have to go. I have to fly… follow the trail… follow the others to the black river… find the home of the three-headed dog and… ”

The mine… a trail.

A black river and a three-headed dog.

A trail to hell.

And a pink bird. A creature that carried Joleen Jefferson’s soul.

There was no nest on Billy’s house. This was a good sign. Maybe it meant that it wasn’t too late.

Billy got a few tubes of BB’s from his room. Then he opened the safe and stole his father’s hand grenade.

He pedaled to the mine, all the while telling himself that he was crazy. He didn’t want to believe that there could be other things like the pink bird. But when the egg in his backpack started to crack, and when he heard another voice, the voice of Gordon’s dad…

Billy held tight to his BB gun.

He watched the skies. There were no birds at all.

He listened. Not a single chirp, or caw, or skreegh.

Billy managed a deep breath.

By the time he gulped it down, the sky was alive with sound.

The sky was a rich red scream.

Hidden by the surrounding forest, the man in black watched the cave.

The blackbird sat heavily on his shoulder. Sharp talons speared his flesh. The bird’s blood dripped down its thin legs, between its talons, soaking the man’s clothes, mixing with the blood that flowed from the puckered wounds it had torn in the man in black’s flesh.

The man in black did not mind the pain. He was an army. Armies engaged in war. There was pain in any war.

There were also captives. They flew above the man’s head now, following him to the cave. Hundreds of pink things born of the blackbird perched on the man’s shoulder. Hundreds of them flapping overhead, screaming in fright as their blue-veined wings drove them toward a horror they would never escape.

Hundreds of souls bound for hell.

Hundreds of captives bound for a world of pain.

This was a small town. Nothing more than a trial run. The man in black would have liked a larger challenge.

Still, there was the boy to consider.

After all, he had wounded the blackbird.

And he still had his BB gun.

Yes, this was indeed a war.

In a war, there was pain. In a war, there were captives. But there were also casualties.

Billy stood at the mouth of the cave. He fired the gun again and again and again. The pink things plummeted from the blue sky and crashed to the earth. Many of them screamed his name as they fell.

The voices were all at once familiar, yet unfamiliar just the same. Voices that had encouraged Billy and comforted him and taught him many things. His little league coach’s voice, and his piano teacher’s voice, and the voice of the man who sold ice cream from the back of a battered truck on summer afternoons.

Not all of the pink things screamed his name. Many darted past him with only a flutter of leathery wings, while others shrieked miserably as they disappeared into the black pit.

Billy could not shoot all of them. He could only fire the gun so fast.

Tears burned his eyes and his aim was poor.

Still, Billy tried his best. But the mouth of the cave was open, open so very wide. The other day, the silence of the open mouth had bothered him. But now it did not. Now he understood it.

The mouth was not open to speak.

It was open to swallow.

Billy reloaded his gun and continued firing.

Soon he stopped crying.

Soon his BB’s were gone, and the sky was a pink canvas of writhing, naked wings.

Soon the man in black strode through the dark trees that ringed the cave.

Billy watched the man smile. Overhead, the souls of Billy’s friends and enemies and people he had never met and would never meet raced past him like some strange airborne river.

Billy dropped his rifle and raised his father’s hand grenade.

The man in black’s smile did not falter.

“I’ll stop you.” Billy screamed above the deafening pink scream. “I’ll stop them. Don’t you think I won’t.”

“And you’ll do it all by yourself,” the man said, still smiling. Billy nodded.

The man chuckled. “Then you too are an army of one.”

“Sure I am.” Billy bristled at the man in black’s mocking tone. “I am an army of one. Just ask your bird.”

As if on cue, the bloody creature tumbled from the man in black’s shoulder and dropped lightly upon a blanket of small pink corpses.

Tiny bones crunched underfoot as the man crossed the pink blanket. But he never looked down. Not once.

Cool air rushed past Billy, sucked into the cave like a breath. He retreated into the darkness of the cave, a torrent of pink things choking past him overhead, the grenade gripped tightly in Ms hands.

The man in black was silhouetted against a pink sky, sunlight flashing through a thousand furious wings behind him, nothing on his shoulder at all. He said, “The time has come to discuss the terms of your surrender.”

Billy pulled the pin from the grenade. “I’ll see you in hell first.”

“If that is the way of it,” the man said, “then I imagine that you will.”

The mouth of the cave was silent.

The man in black said not a word.

Words were useless in this land of shrieking souls.

The man looked to the trees. Dark, gnarled branches, heavy with tortured pink things.

Each one, waiting for him to move.

Each one, waiting to follow.

The man brushed dust from his dark clothes. Still, he did not rise from the rock on which he sat. The exploding grenade had torn the rock from the collapsing mouth of the cave like some great broken molar.

And now the mouth was closed.

The man in black’s master would feast no more today.

But this knowledge did not trouble the man in black, for he knew well that there were many other caves in this land.

So he sat upon the broken rock, and he listened to the pink things screeching in the trees, and he watched the skies.

Soon enough they came. Four of them, flying from the west.

Three landed in the trees. Their screams sliced an awful counterpoint to the cries of their cursed brethren.

The fourth broke off and flew to the man in black, who raised a beckoning hand.

The creature landed on his shoulder, its small talon’s scrabbling over his flesh for purchase.

The man in black stroked the tiny tiring, for this creature was different from the others. Once, twice, his hand traveled its trembling body. Pink skin smooth under his fingertips… then black down… then stiff black feathers…

The man smiled and closed his eyes.

In his mind’s eye he glimpsed a brave boy framed by the ravenous mouth of a cave. And then the mouth closed, and swallowed, and the brave boy was gone, torn to shreds by granite teeth.

And now there was a blackbird perched on the man in black’s shoulder.

“What are you?” the man asked.

The brave boy answered in a voice that was all at once familiar, yet unfamiliar just the same.

“I am an army.”

(For Bill Schafer)

WRONG TURN

The thing is, they really weigh on you. That’s why digging up the dead is so tough.

And my father was a real backbreaker. I’m speaking figuratively, of course. I mean, I can’t remember the last time I held a shovel in my hands, and I’m not a dirt-under-the-fingernails kind of guy. I’ve never played things that way. I’ve always liked to think that I used my head.

Not that I’ve gotten much of anywhere in thirty-five years. The trust fund my mother set up after she remarried has kept me afloat, but I think my monthly stipend equals the average take an inventive person can snag with welfare and food stamps. I’m certainly not one of those rich sons of privilege who motor around Maui with a windsurfing rig when they’re not busy hitting the slopes in Aspen or Vail.

Dad’s name hasn’t hurt me, though. There are still plenty of people who remember it. It’s funny — people forget directors and writers and producers, but get your face up there on the screen and you’ll be remembered for a long time, even if your claim to fame is portraying a long string of heavies and sad-eyed losers in poverty row quickies. I’ve made more than a few dollars by being the son of a movie star, even if Dad was a star in a lesser constellation.

Then again, most people remember Dad for the things he did when there weren’t any cameras in sight. That’s what puts the old shine in their eyes.

Tom Cassady — my old man. Me — Tom Cassady, Junior. I guess Dad wasn’t the most inventive guy in the world. He actually had a dog named Rover.

But Dad did leave me the name and all the baggage that goes with it. That, and his face. Hard little eyes and pouting lips on a face that is otherwise completely boyish, even when I skip shaving for a day or two. Give Kurt Russell a bad attitude and you’ve got me. I don’t have Dad’s signature broken nose, of course — remember, I use my head. And I doubt that I’ll ever acquire the puffy, dissipated look he had after he got out of prison, the look that made him a primo heavy in his second run at Hollywood, because I don’t drink much.

But like I said, I’ve made some money with Dad’s face. It’s a handsome face, and I take care of what’s under it. I pump iron, keep my tan just a shade this side of narcissistic, get my hair styled every other week and my back waxed at the same interval. You’ve probably seen me on TV. Lathering my manly chest with Irish Spring. Whipping a bottle of Sharpshooter barbecue sauce from a holster while I wear a squint that would have pleased Sergio Leone. Big hands with manicured nails dishing Happy Chow for some generic Rover. You’ve probably seen me, or at least significant portions of my anatomy.

But you didn’t know who I was.

I didn’t know either. That’s why I dug Dad up. I wanted to find out.

I wrote the book. It was my idea. Cassady: a Life on the Edge. After I sold it, the publisher brought in a pro to rewrite it, a guy who’d ghosted books for several bulimic actresses, a gay running back, and a hamster that spent four years in the White House — in a cage, not in the oval office. The ghost spent a week with me, and I didn’t shut up the whole time. I learned more about myself in that week than I’ve learned in thirty-five years of living. Even now, I think of the ghost’s quiet questions, questions that had always been in my head but had never escaped, and my tongue gets dry.

The ghost tried to interview my sister, but Jo wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Anyway, he rewrote the book. Just a few minor adjustments. Punched up the prose. Punched up the title. That’s publishing talk. Changed the title to Killer Cassady.

As it turned out, I didn’t write what was in that book, but it all came out of my mouth. I’ll admit that. And even with everything down in black and white, it came out of my mouth over and over. I toured twenty cities in fourteen days, and my mouth was dry in every one. Then I spent a week under the lights with the syndicated television mud-slingers. And everywhere I ran in those three weeks— lips flapping, sucking air and trying not to sweat as much as I tried to smile — my dead father rode me piggyback.

The book tour climaxed on the day before Father’s Day. That was the publisher’s plan — as if people were really going to chose a book like mine as the ideal gift for dad. I took my last round of questions in a Chicago studio. Sitting there with a guy who wore too much Jovan Musk and a gaggle of housewives who seemed fascinated and repulsed in equal parts.

Mr. Jovan Musk worked up to it, lobbing a volley of soft questions my way. And then he asked me, “Do you think your father exploited the fact that he was a convicted murderer to further his career?”

I didn’t even blink. I took it just the way Dad would have in one of his movies. I answered in a solid, studied whisper, equal portions of sorrow and shame in my voice.

And then Mr. Jovan Musk hit me with the follow-up question, the one that surprised me.

I took that question Dad’s way, too.

The next time I saw him, on television that afternoon as I passed through O’Hare, the talk show host was wearing a couple of Popsicle sticks on his nose. The sticks were held in place by a generous smattering of gummy white tape. He looked kind of like Lon Chaney, Junior as the Mummy.

And then I got off of a plane in Reno and it was all over. Or it should have been. I drove to Lake Tahoe, stopping only for gas and a quick bite. I had to use folding money because my credit card had expired while I was on tour. That’s the great thing about expense accounts. Live on one long enough and you lose track of your own money.

I awoke the next morning in the A-frame cabin I’ve owned for ten years, only to find the red light on my answering machine flashing wildly. I hit the play button and listened to the first three messages. Two local TV shows and a radio call-in show in Sacramento, all wanting me to keep on talking.

I cut the messages short. It was Father’s Day, but somehow I didn’t want anything to do with my father. Three weeks carrying him on my back, a year digging him up while I wrote the book. I didn’t even want to look in the mirror, because I didn’t want to see his eyes staring back at me.

So I climbed out of bed and went downstairs.

And my father was sitting there on my couch, watching me, his hard little eyes peering over a copy of Killer Cassady.

His pouting lips twisted into that signature grin that always spelled trouble in his films. Wounded, hateful, proud — all at the same time.

“At least you spelled my name right,” he said, rising from the couch. He straightened his jacket — very shiny sharkskin, the color of a hammerhead — and loosened his skinny black tie, and the way he moved he might as well have said I’m ready to get down to business.

I hadn’t said a word, but my throat was dry. I didn’t know what to say, but my mouth came open.

And then I realized that his voice was all wrong.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He dropped the book as if he’d suddenly discovered that he was holding a poisonous snake. He grinned. “Sorry to give you a scare. I couldn’t resist it. I’m not I ghost. I’m your brother.” I didn’t say anything, so he kept on. ‘Yeah. It kind of surprises me, too, reading this book. I mean, you’ve done a lot of research. I don’t know how you could have missed me.”

I fished around for something to say. “Dad never mentioned — ”

“Damn right, he didn’t. Christ, would you go around rubbing your kid’s nose in your dirty laundry?” He laughed high and nutty, more like Richard Widmark than Dad. “But maybe the old man told you that kind of stuff. Maybe he bragged about the little actress he knocked up in ’58. Maybe you just forgot to put that in the book. If that’s the deal, it’s a shame, because you make the dirty stuff sing. Like that part where Dad kills your mother’s boyfriend? Smashes the little Frenchman’s head against the kitchen counter until the tiles crack? Man, I felt like I was there.” He cracked his knuckles. “Man, I could almost taste it.”

“I did a lot of research,” I said. “Court transcripts. Crime scene photos. Things people hadn’t taken time to examine.”

“Yeah. Sure. I get that.” He glanced at the book. “But you’re in there, too. I mean, I’m a slow reader. I’m only a hundred pages or so into it. But the old man has already smacked you around a good dozen times. That part where he puts on the gloves and says he’s going to teach you how to box? That was brutal. And Dad did throw a mean left hook. Remember the way he took out that pretty boy in Wrong Turn?” He stopped, looked at me kind of funny. “Amazing how you’ve still got that cute little nose after the beatings the old man dished out.”

“Look,” I said, knowing I had to change direction. “What do you want?”

He didn’t answer. In the bedroom, the phone rang. We listened as the answering machine picked up, heard the tinny voice of a producer leaving an eager message. The producer had been after me for weeks, following my book tour trail. He wanted to remake Dad’s best-remembered movie, Wrong Turn, and he wanted me to star.

When the producer finished, the man who claimed to be my half-brother pointed a thumb in the direction of the phone. “I guess I just want in on the action. I mean, we’re family. We ought to look out for each other. Maybe you don’t want to make that movie. Maybe you could put in a good word for me. You got the book out of Dad. It seems like I should be due for something.”

I stood on the stairs, and my hands became fists, and I couldn’t stop shaking. He was pressing my buttons, just dancing over them lightly, pressing just hard enough. The way people used to press Dad’s buttons in the movies, bip bip bip, time after time until he finally smiled his little smile and exploded.

The way they pressed Dad’s buttons in Wrong Turn.

“I think you’d better go,” I said.

He was smirking, staring at my fists as if they were no more dangerous than feather dusters. He cracked his knuckles again. Thick ridges of scar tissue the color of spoiled meat seemed to swell before my eyes. “You’d better slow down.” He rubbed his nose, which was flatter than Dad’s, mocking me, and for the first time I noticed the net of bone-colored scars under his thinning eyebrows. “See, I’ve followed in the old man’s footsteps, too. Oh, I haven’t been in front of any cameras, unless you count cameras that shoot mug shots. I haven’t made any dog food commercials, like you have. I’ve followed the other path. I’ve bashed heads against kitchen counters. But just like you, I haven’t quite lived up to the old man’s example. You haven’t made a movie; I haven’t cracked any tile.”

I couldn’t help it. His battered nose and scarred knuckles suddenly didn’t matter. I started toward him, wearing Dad’s smile.

And I was surprised by how quickly he moved away and opened the door. “You think about it,” he said. “I don’t need an answer today. You think about family.”

“I don’t need to think about anything.”

“Oh yeah you do.” His gaze found the book. “Because there’s more to this than you and me. There’s our darling sister, too.” He shook his head. “Remember the things Dad used to do to bad girls in the movies? Remember how he’d get them to do the things he wanted? Remember what he did to that two-faced piece in Wrong Turn? And our sister… what you wrote about her… oh, man, she’s one bad girl.”

He had finally pushed the button that stopped me cold. The best I could do was whisper, “You leave Jo out of this.”

“Now Tommy m’lad, you didn’t leave Jo out of this, so why should I?” He stopped in the doorway for a moment, completely confident, not sparing me a backward glance. “Anyway, you think about what I said. You get in touch with that producer. I’ll give you today to get it done, and I’ll call you tomorrow. And then you’d better tell me what I want to hear, or else I’ll be driving down to San Francisco. I don’t like long drives, and I’ll be thinking of our darling sister the whole time.” He laughed. “And thanks for the free roost. This has been a relaxing three weeks.” He started across the pine porch. “Your mail’s on the kitchen table. There’s beer in the fridge.”

I just stood there. Dad pressed down on me. Whispered in my ear. Told me what to do.

But I didn’t do anything.

My brother was gone.

There was another phone in the kitchen. I had to look up Jo’s number in San Francisco. We weren’t on the best of terms. Hell, that was sugar-coating it. We hadn’t talked in five years, not since Jo got into trouble for smacking around her live-in lover. The incident made the papers, and the woman took her revenge in the courts. Lesbian battery case. The bastions of political correctness in S. F. seemed shocked by the very idea — like gay couples were immune to that kind of trouble.

Jo came to me then expecting a sympathetic ear, and all I could do was make smart remarks. “Like father, like daughter.” The girlfriend hit Jo for a good bit of cash, and Jo got off with probation and counseling. The last I’d heard she was involved with one of San Francisco’s gay theatre companies, both acting and directing.

That was pretty much it with us. Until now. I dialed her number and was rewarded with an unfamiliar voice which informed me that Jo and Gabrielle weren’t at home; I could leave a message at the sound of the deafening applause.

Theatre people. Tres cute. But this wasn’t something to do on tape, no matter how anxious I was. Who knew what Jo would do if I came at her out of the blue with a sixty-second warning? She’d most certainly seen Killer Cassady. By now, she’d probably read the chapter where I connected her propensity to violence to the old man. If that were the case, I figured that my sister would be ready to eat me for breakfast.

I told myself that Jo was tough. She was indeed like the old man. She could take care of herself.

I cradled the handset. I wanted to do something, but I didn’t know just what. I looked across the room to the place my brother had stood. Just doing that scared me. I made my way to the door, cautiously, as if I expected him to jump out at me. I closed it, locked it, remembering the steel in his eyes and his scars.

Maybe he wasn’t my brother. Half-brother, I should say. Maybe he was just a nut. But even as the idea took hold, I knew it wasn’t true. He had the look, all right. He had the genes. And I had twenty-four hours to figure out how much he knew, and what he could do with that knowledge.

I opened the fridge. The six-pack he’d left me was waiting. I popped a brew and sat down at the table. The key to the drawer I rented at the post office lay on the unfinished pine, along with a large stack of mail.

The bastard hadn’t been kidding. He had picked up my mail.

And, looking at the envelopes, I could tell that he’d opened it.

Three weeks worth of mail. Not much for someone who lives as quietly as I do. I don’t go in for magazines and catalogs, mainly because my work involves travel. With the drawer, which is fairly large, I can miss a couple of weeks and still not have to notify the P. O. and everyone who works there that I’m out of town and my place is ripe for burglary.

Go ahead, call me paranoid.

Hurriedly, I flipped through the mail. Mostly bills, junk. But there was a letter from the producer which had been forwarded by my agent, and a quick once-over told me that two things were missing from the large package — a contract and a script for the Wrong Turn remake.

That set me to thinking. Maybe my half-brother hadn’t known about the movie. Maybe he had come here with a simple shake-down in mind. I cursed myself for leaving the key to the post office box where someone could find it. My mistake had probably given the idiot ideas.

I sorted through the rest of the mail and found nothing else of interest, but I wasn’t finished. I wanted to be thorough. I dumped the garbage can in the sink and sifted through the trash.

Hamburger wrappers. Beer cans. Crumpled cigarette packages. And, finally, another envelope.

It bore no return address. I sifted through more junk and found a torn chunk of a letter from my credit card company. I remembered my drive from the airport, the clerk at the gas station informing me that my card had expired.

The torn letter promised that “my new card was enclosed.”

But the card wasn’t in the garbage.

I knew where it was — in the wallet of a guy who thought that he was one step ahead of me.

So, my credit card had been stolen.

I breathed a sigh of relief. My half-brother was that stupid. He had fallen victim to the old man’s genes, all right. Punch your way out of problems. Snatch the easy opportunity. Don’t think ahead.

That was the propensity that always got Dad into trouble. He’d snatch the fast answer because he couldn’t think ahead, and then he’d end up sinking deeper into trouble. It happened to him in Wrong Turn. In that movie, he kept the dead guy’s wallet because he was afraid of a murder rap. And then the shrewish hitchhiker entered the picture and tried to force him into assuming the guy’s identity so they could make a fast buck. Dad couldn’t think at all after she came into it. Just like that night in the kitchen when he caught my mother with that French dandy who specialized in playing the smartass kind of guy Dad loathed. He couldn’t think at all, seeing that guy with his wife. He could only react.

That’s what my half-brother was doing. He was reacting, running the Wrong Turn playbook, but he wasn’t thinking.

I was thinking, and fast. I called the credit card company’s 800 number and asked for a rundown of my latest charges. Several local restaurants turned up. Soule Domaine at Crystal Bay. Bobby’s Uptown Cafe at Incline. Better joints than I figured my doppelganger for.

He was staying at the Cal-Neva Lodge on the north shore, the place Sinatra had owned before he made the mistake of inviting Sam Giancana to be his guest. It was a nice place, a tourist place. That didn’t seem to fit my half-brother, either.

He’d had a room at the Lodge for two weeks.

I hung up the phone. I had more questions.

And the answers were just eight miles away.

I stood in the lobby of the Cal-Neva, staring at the stuffed bobcat on the big granite fireplace, wondering if the big cat’s last memory was sticking his nose somewhere that it didn’t belong.

I wandered over to the main desk. An old man was trying to weasel a couple of comp rooms out of the desk clerk. The old man’s young squeeze was busily tapping her toe. The trouble threw me off. I didn’t want to deal with a surly clerk.

“Mr. Cassady?” A young woman stepped behind the desk. “Tom Cassady?”

“Yes,” I smiled, playing it simple.

“I just want to say… ” She blushed. “I think it was great what you did to that ass on television. I’ve been waiting for something like that to happen since the first time I saw him.”

I kept the smile. “I just thought it was the right thing to do.”

She nodded. “Well, it’s great to have you as a guest. If you need anything, my name’s Cheryl. You just ask for me.”

I explained that I was picking up the tab for some relatives who were staying at the hotel. They were registered under my name, and I’d forgotten their room number. One fumbling description of terminal absent-mindedness later, I had a key. Obviously, Cheryl hadn’t run into my brother during the two weeks he had been registered. I began to wonder if he was really staying at the Cal- Neva, or if he had indeed stayed at my cabin, as he had claimed.

I detoured past the bar — a round room paneled with rich wood. Mirrors above reflected the room’s harsh artificial glow and a stained glass dome high in the ceiling filtered the early afternoon sunshine, so that the bar was a strange mixture of hard and soft light. I heard a high-pitched Richard Widmark laugh rise over a chorus of clinking glasses. Saw the blushing cocktail waitress a second before I spotted the man in the hammerhead-colored suit circling her, his hard little eyes trained on her ample breasts, a long-neck beer bottle with a well-peeled label clutched in his right hand.

I turned on my heel and didn’t stop moving until I hit the elevator button.

I was about to slip the key into the lock when the door to Room 602 swung open.

She was wearing a white robe and holding an ice bucket. A smile almost crossed her face, but she spotted my nose before it could take.

“How did you figure it?” she asked.

“It wasn’t hard. The Cal-Neva seems a bit toney for our friend. And the bills he rang up at Soule Domaine and Bobby’s Uptown were pretty extravagant for a guy who seems to subsist on hamburgers and cheap beer when he’s practicing his home invasion skills. It looked to me like he’d had some serious help with the wine list. Just domestic, or did someone named Gabrielle lend her expertise?”

My sister took a step backwards. “You’re still a smartass.” She turned away. “Gabrielle didn’t work out, if you want to know. Just like the smart little Frenchman didn’t work out with mom. I mean, after a while all that quick wit shit just wears one down, y’know?” She shook her head, and a strand of dusky blond hair fell over her eyes, confident eyes that betrayed not one ounce of surprise. “I guess that was one thing you got right about me in your weighty tome. No one ever quite lives up to my expectations. I outgrow people. I outgrow habits. I move on to other things.” She slipped a slim tie from a lampshade, curled it between her fingers as if it were an exotic snake. “I like to push the envelope.”

I followed her into the room and slammed the door. “I think you’ve got some explaining to do.”

Jo laughed. “Me?” She pointed at a copy of Killer Cassady which lay open on the nightstand. “I’ve got some explaining to do?”

I wasn’t going to let her pull me off course. “I want my movie contract. And the script. I want my credit card.” I sucked a deep breath. “I’ve made some money lately. Sure. I’m not ashamed of it. I’ll pick up the credit card tab. We’ll call it square. You and Mr. Wrong Turn won’t have to worry about wasting any time in court.” Jo looked at me, Dad’s lips twisting on her pretty face, Dad’s eyes hard and unamused beneath her carefully plucked brows. “Did you really think you could get away with it, Tommy? Did you really just think I’d let it be?”

“You’d better,” I said.

She laughed at that. Her laughter was just like Dad’s, a hissing bray that branded me the most pathetically stupid thing on two legs. “I’ll tell you how it’s going to be,” Jo said. “Because we had it all set up, Tom and me. That’s his name, too, you know.”

I let it go. Best to let her get everything out of her system.

“I was the one who hooked the producer,” Jo said. “I met the guy at a party in San Francisco — he’s gay, but discreetly so. Anyway, I convinced him to remake Wrong Turn with my half-brother in the lead. I’d play the hitchhiker, because that would really push the envelope. A little taste of incest couldn’t hurt the box office. He thought that was real sweet.”

“And then my book was published.”

She nodded. “Right. And suddenly my little incest angle was very five-minutes-ago?” She ran a rough finger along my nose. “Maybe the producer thinks your nose is cuter than my Tom’s.” She reached for the phone. “But you’re going to change his mind; aren’t you, Tommy?”

I stared at the phone, at my sister. Jo’s pouting lips twisted into that signature grin that always spelled trouble in Dad’s films, the same expression my half-brother had worn when he rose from my living room couch with a copy of Killer Cassady in his hands.

I hated that look, even when I saw it in a mirror.

“Do you know the number, Tommy?” My name hung there in the quiet room, dripping with sarcasm. “Or do you need me to dial it for you?” I didn’t move, and Jo lifted the handset. “And you thought you were so smart. Thought you’d come up here and set what’s left of your family straight, buy them off for the price of a couple dinners.” It was dark in the room, but her eyes were shining laser-bright.

“Hey now… let’s think about this,” she said suddenly, replacing the handset. “Did you ever think of becoming a producer, Tommy? Just how much money did you make from that book, anyway?”

Jo’s eyes burned with confidence. She was trying to cut me down to nothing. My hands were shaking. I smelled my own sweat.

And then my world went black and white. I entered the world of Wrong Turn. I entered Dad’s world. I was in some cheap whore’s apartment, and I was beginning to understand that a complete idiot had outsmarted me once again. Jo’s eyes were slicing me to ribbons while her laughter marked me a sucker.

And then Jo wasn’t laughing anymore. My fingers locked around the phone. The cord bit into her neck, and I tugged on the phone like a fisherman playing a big one on a whispering reel. A tight smile bloomed on my lips as I tried to cut off my father’s hissing laughter. The phone was hard and reassuring in my hands and I couldn’t wait for the cord to do its work because then I was going to smash the whole thing against my sister’s face, my father’s smile.

Her eyes weren’t shining now. They were almost empty, nearly colorless. And she wasn’t laughing anymore. She couldn’t laugh; she couldn’t even scream.

And then the door to Room 602 swung open.

There — live, in living color — stood my father.

Even in that moment I knew the man was my half-bother. The hammerhead-colored suit told me that. But it was startling to see his face twisted just like Dad’s had been during the climax of Wrong Turn, a mask of violent desperation. And I froze up seeing him so close. He wasn’t a man in black & white on a television screen, but a man with a face red from alcohol and hurt and hate and pride, a man with knuckles the color of spoiled meat.

He was the same man who stepped into his kitchen one night and found a charming Frenchman fawning over his wife.

He wasn’t thinking straight, that man.

He wasn’t thinking smart.

And I realized with complete clarity that I hadn’t been smart in coming here.

I had barely dropped the phone when he laid into me. I should have known it would be a left hook. I should have seen it coming, because I’d seen it coming in all those movies. But I didn’t see it and it dropped me.

He wasn’t finished, of course. He took me into the bathroom, where it seemed there was an acre of gleaming tile.

I remember the sound of a human skull used as a hammer.

I remember my sister’s screams as she pulled Mr. Wrong Turn off of me. I remember her yelling something about a goose and a golden egg. And then I remember the hatred in her eyes. “You take this as a warning,” she said. “You stay out of our way. Maybe, if you do that, we’ll stay out of yours.”

The man with my father’s face nodded solemnly, cracking his knuckles and grinning the way a man grins after a satisfying meal. “Well,” he said by way of conclusion, “it looks like Dad finally gave you a beating, after all.”

I passed out for a while. Then I stumbled to the bed and curled up in the bedspread. Somewhere in the middle of the night I made it into the bathtub and cleaned up. I soaked in the steaming water for a long time, eyes closed — the right one swollen shut — and when I opened my eye the bath water was pink with blood.

At the end of Wrong Turn, Tom Cassady is driving. But he’s got no place to go. All his life, Tom Cassady had nowhere to go. His road was one straight line. He killed a man with his fists and did time for it, but that didn’t change him. He lost his wife and family, but that didn’t change him. He got another wife, and he was the same way with her that he was with my mother, but wife number two was afraid to do anything about it. And he went back to work in the movies, where he pretended to lose his grip, pretended to hit people, shoot them, hurt them in a dozen inventive ways.

It wasn’t much of a stretch.

One day Tom Cassady didn’t wake up, and the thing that had burned so hot inside him was dead. But it wasn’t gone, nor was it forgotten. I remembered it. So did Jo. We remembered it every time someone discovered who our father was. We remembered how that simple knowledge could make a person’s eyes shine, the way the desk clerk’s eyes had shined in the lobby of the Cal-Neva when she recognized me.

We all want to do that. Put the shine in someone’s eyes, I mean. Sometimes, what we’ll do for that particular thrill amazes me.

I guess that’s why I wrote the book.

I was five when Dad went to San Quentin. Jo was seven. As far as I know, he never laid a hand on me. Never touched Jo, either. I don’t remember the man, to tell the truth. He never visited us after his release, never even sent a birthday card. Most of the time I spent with him, he was on a television or movie screen and I was eating popcorn.

The book was a lie. That’s what Jo and my half-brother had been able to hold over my head. I didn’t know my father. But the book was something else, too. It was the little piece of Dad that I had carried inside me for thirty-five years. It was the shadow of anger that always churned in my gut when I tried to assure myself that I was a thinker. Every key I pushed on that computer keyboard was a little jab. Every word I spoke on that book tour was a little knife. And when I cold-cocked that talk show host, I was thinking that I was going to make a million eyes shine all at once, all across America.

Because the talk show guy had pushed my button. He’d asked about Dad exploiting his crime in order to boost his career. And then he’d held up a copy of Killer Cassady, and he’d said, “Like father, like son?”

I couldn’t answer, because the thing that had burned so hot in Dad took hold of me then. I could only react, and for a short instant everything felt so very right. It was the way I felt when I wrapped the telephone cord around Jo’s neck. The way Jo felt when she saw our half-brother standing there in the doorway. The way he felt when he tore into me.

I don’t know why I thought I could steer clear of Jo and get away with the whole thing. But I took the chance. I dug Dad up. I brought him back.

But I knew, soaking in the bathtub in Room 602, that it was time to bury him. After thirty-five years, it was time to get off Dad’s road.

I had to make sure that I was off it for good. I got out of the tub. My wallet was on the floor and I picked it up. A few other credit cards were now missing, but they hadn’t touched my cash. I took the money, dropped the wallet on the floor.

I managed to get dressed. My face didn’t look too bad, if you could ignore the shut eye and the gash above it. My lips were puffy and kind of purple, but my nose looked in pretty good shape. Overall, the swelling almost had an odd symmetry. I didn’t feel very hot, but seeing that my brother hadn’t managed to crack any tile with my head made me feel a little better.

I didn’t drain the pink water from the tub. I didn’t wipe the blood off the tile. I didn’t hide the bloodstained bedspread. My wallet lay on the floor, stuffed with I. D. that bore the name my father had given me, and I didn’t pick it up. Maybe somebody would make something of it. Maybe they wouldn’t, but I had a hard time believing that. The California-Nevada state line bisected the Cal- Neva. Maybe it bisected Room 602. If that were the case, the FBI might enter the picture.

It was late. I didn’t want to think about it.

I passed the desk, showing my left profile. My right hand covered my swollen eye while I pretended to take care of an itch on my forehead. It didn’t matter. No one noticed me. I got to my car without attracting any attention.

I pictured my half-brother and my sister driving down Dad’s road, running south toward Hollywood, wearing Dad’s signature grin on their faces.

I knew they were heading for a wrong turn.

I drove north.

SPYDER

The sun is the best bullfighter, and without

the sun the best bullfighter is not there.

He is like a man without a shadow.

-Ernest Hemingway,

Death in the Afternoon

I’ll never forget Layla. Even though nearly thirty years have passed, I still picture her every time I hear a woman laugh. Still. But I see her now the same way I once saw my face up there on the screen, chiseled flat and somehow unreal. Just a dream in the dark, but spooky as hell.

The things we did together. Like the time we drove from Hollywood to the Napa Valley and back, all in one night. Impossible. I mean the Spyder was fast, but it wasn’t that fast. Layla knew how to make it move, though. A couple of drops of her blood in the carb, and that little Porsche sports-car roared like a Sabrejet.

Nothing could slow us down on a night like that. I’d worked all afternoon under a director who’d jabbed at me until I was nothing but a tangle of emotional razor-wire, and Layla had spent the evening doing her spook show, but that didn’t keep us from flying up 101 like a couple of ghosts. Layla even looked like one in her trademark ghoul makeup and the black dress with the plunging neckline, the costume she wore when she did her Rigormortia routine on TV.

It was all kind of cute. Me stealing a look at her cleavage when I had the Spyder cranked on a straightaway, just because I knew she wanted me to look. Layla laughing, catching my telegraphed glance, now and then flashing suntanned breasts knifed by Lugosi’s favorite greasepaint.

Layla loved me, I guess. In her way, she loved me more than anyone else. Maybe it was because I never surrendered to her like the others did. Maybe that’s why she kept coming back for more, each time expecting that she’d finally break me and I’d be all hers. I guess that’s a strange kind of love, but Layla was strange. She had her own way of getting what she needed, even if it meant settling for less than she wanted.

Like the trip to Napa. She said what we needed was something heavy, bloody, nothing less than a good California Zinfandel. None of that sour piss they bottled in the Central Valley would do. We needed the real deal — the product of foggy nights and sunbaked days and oak barrels coopered in the Valley of the Moon.

That sounded good to me — sucker for escape that I am. The day hadn’t been one of my best. I was worried about the picture and the director (who’d been whittling my brains for four straight months), but most of all I was worried about where I was going to be in a couple of years. I’d always wanted to be on top, and once I was on the verge of getting there all I could think about was fading. Just fading, and that isn’t even romantic. Nothing so Hemingwayesque as a bullfighter dying beneath a sun that gleams like a Spanish doubloon.

When I was like that — morbid and scared and way too romantic — I turned to Layla. Back then, in the beginning, she made me feel indestructible, like I’d go on forever.

So we had our little trade-off, Layla and me. It seemed so simple at first. Too bad it changed to something else. Like I said, it was all tied up with our wants and needs — what we wanted from each other, and what we needed to survive; what we were willing to surrender, and what we needed to keep to ourselves. An ace in the hole, some secret part held back for the final hand. It was a very fine line, and we walked it like the edge of a razor blade, and damned if both of us didn’t end up stumbling.

Whoa. I’m getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, like I was saying — red lips laughing in the dark. Night wind of California slashing a dead white face with tangles of long black hair. A Spyder sports-car, a would-be movie star, and a gorgeous corpsette riding shotgun.

A quiet graveyard.

How Layla found just the right grave, I’ll never know. But she did. She eased out of the Spyder, cocked those sexy hips of hers, and stared down tilting rows of marble and granite. Then she pointed, her fingers extended as straight and stiff as marble daggers.

We waited in the darkness, the radio cutting in and out, snatches of Fats Domino and Bill Haley worrying the static that ruled the fog-choked night. Layla stood there in the dark, as quiet as stone, and I found myself remembering the crazy party where we’d met. Layla had been as quiet as stone that night, too, until she whispered that she could help me get a break. Whispering hot in my ear as she tried to maneuver me into a dark closet. That was the moment I’d been waiting for since first hearing about her. I told her no, it wasn’t going to be that way between us. And I kissed her, and I let my hand brush her breast so lightly that she couldn’t help but feel it way down deep, and I walked out on her.

And the phone was ringing in my apartment when I got home.

I’d heard all the stories, you see, and the funny thing is that there was something inside me that let me believe every damn one of them. Layla the vampire. Layla the witch. Layla and graveyards, and dead cats, and midnight rituals.

My story: Layla, as quiet as stone, in a Napa Valley cemetery

Momentarily, we felt the earth shudder.

Heard clumps of clipped grass tearing beneath the shroud of fog.

Saw his silhouette rise before us.

I guess Layla didn’t know everything, though, because she had to ask him the name of the winery where he’d worked.

I wanted to put him in the trunk. He smelled pretty ripe, and I didn’t want his muddy ass messing up the Spyder’s upholstery. Layla pointed out that we didn’t know how to get to the winery. I asked him for directions, but he couldn’t speak well enough to get them out.

So down the two-lane blacktop we went with a dead vintner sitting behind us — his feet jammed in the little space between the bucket seats; his moldy butt on the trunk; his dead hands on our shoulders, holding on for dear life… or whatever.

The winery grounds smelled of oak and stone. The place was even quieter than the graveyard. The dead man knew where a passkey was hidden. He led us across the grounds, through a heavy oak door, and down a stone-lined corridor that cut into the side of a hill. Being a man of discriminating taste, he chose a rare Zin from prohibition days, when the wineries had managed to survive via sacramental contracts.

He uncorked the bottle with precision and a certain grace, as if he wasn’t dead at all. We all had a little taste. Then we got down to business.

Layla stood behind me. With one hand she undid my fly and took me between those marble fingers. Her other hand held the open bottle.

I closed my eyes. Her fingers moved slowly. She was going to enjoy this, play it for all it was worth, because she knew just how much the director had worn me down, and just how badly I needed her help.

This time she had me at the end of my goddamn rope.

Her words tickled over my neck as she whispered the incantation. “The bottle uncorked by the man who corked it. Thirty years in the cellar, thirty years in the ground. The juice of the grape and the seed of the man. The seed of the man and the juice of the grape…” It went on from there. Then her grip tightened, and her sharp little teeth closed on my earlobe.

Skyrockets, if you want a cliche. In this case, it’s no exaggeration.

When I opened my eyes, the bottle was corked once more and wore a new lead capsule. The dead vintner lay on the floor, withered in his moldy suit. Whatever had been left in him was now gone.

But there was wine on his grinning lips, and Layla knelt at his side. The tiniest of smiles crossed her face as she rose. Her white fingers swam toward me in the darkness, and her red lips parted. Her tongue did a coy little dance over her teeth and she laughed.

She’d seen the look of horror on my face. She’d gotten a little bit of what she wanted, and I’d lost a little bit of what I needed.

A piece of me that I could never get back.

I turned away, bloody Zinfandel roiling in my gut, and hurried up the stone corridor, trying to convince myself that Layla hadn’t pulled me out of a grave, that I was still alive and breathing.

You see, she’d touched me once, and once was enough.

It was the only time I ever let her touch me.

I wrapped a big red ribbon around the bottle of wine and gave it to the director. He eased off after that. I don’t know what did the trick: Layla’s enchanted Zin or the insane deadline the studio had imposed. Either way, the sly old puppeteer didn’t have another word to say about me until the first reviews appeared.

Layla wouldn’t go to the premiere, of course. She said it wouldn’t be good for me to be seen in the company of an older woman who earned her living showing monster movies to a TV audience of slobbering teenagers. She selected a starlet who’d caught her eye, even bought a corsage for the girl. I picked her up at Layla’s bungalow in Hollywood.

Big night. Starlet and Spyder and me. Little pistons pounded in my skull, so steadily that I could hardly watch the picture. I had choke fever real bad; I couldn’t even bring myself to take the starlet’s hand for fear she’d reject me and storm out of the place in search of a real celebrity.

The movie plodded along. My face seemed to hang on the screen for minutes at a time, so huge, but like I said, flat and somehow unreal. And then the last scene finally came, all tears and shadows on the big screen. My own voice wailed at me while I made promises to a sick man who was supposed to be my father.

Eyes closed, I tried to picture it as it had happened — the director whispering instructions in my ear, the bright lights, the camera drinking it all in, the old actor lying on a phony deathbed. But I couldn’t hold the images in my head. The pounding pistons crushed them, and I was left with a single vision.

All I could see was the dead vintner lying on the stone floor, a trickle of dark wine staining his withered grin. A dead grin, but a grin unsatisfied.

All I could hear was Layla’s mocking laughter.

I was the toast of the town for a little while. Parties. Meetings. Dinners. Then a new picture came out, and it was someone else’s turn.

For the first time I saw the nasty hook hidden in the game. Every morning I picked up the newspaper and flipped to the movie section. And every morning my sense of security shrank a little more, in direct proportion to the size of the movie ad. First my photo disappeared. Then the director’s name vanished, followed by the names of the supporting actors. Finally, my name went. All that was left was the name of the picture, along with a note that it was IN COLOR and the theatre was AIR-CONDITIONED.

Pretty soon I was the second half of a double-bill.

One morning I ran into Layla at a coffee shop. She looked up from the paper and said, “You’re not here at all.”

“It’s over,” I said.

“No,” she said. “It’s time to start again.”

She was smiling, but her words hit me with the finality of a curse.

The columnist lived in one of those suicidal houses that teeter on the side of a steep hill. Places like that are all sparkling glass and architectural majesty on a sunny day, but they invariably surrender to melancholy and jump to their deaths when gloomy storms blow hard off the Pacific and mud-slide season begins.

Normally, such a breathtaking combination of design and location would have left me with a fullblown case of vertigo, but the fog was in pretty solid on the night of my visit. I was brave enough, and drunk enough, to play with the weirder possibilities of the stage with which the columnist’s overpaid architect had provided me, because I was intent on giving the self-important scribbler the thrill of her life.

And giving Layla a bit of the knife.

The scribbler was actually nervous. It was almost as if she’d never done anything like this before, and I knew that wasn’t the case. I couldn’t figure out why she was jittery, until I got close to the window and glimpsed my reflection.

As per Layla’s instructions, I’d dressed for the part — engineer boots, jeans, tight white T-shirt, red windbreaker. I had to laugh. I really did look like a teenager.

“Normally, there’s a wonderful view of the city lights,” the columnist said.

We weren’t far apart. I let out a sigh, just heavy enough so that my breath tickled her bare shoulder. I didn’t touch her, but I got a little closer and held her gaze. Then, as soon as she opened her mouth to speak, I said, “I guess that works both ways.”

She smiled, but I knew she didn’t have idea one.

I worked up an embarrassed grin. “The view, I mean. We can’t see the city. The city can’t see us.”

She laughed, sipped her drink, and started looking for a place to set the glass. Slowly, I moved behind her. I brushed the back of her hand, took the glass. She didn’t care where it went. I knew that, because I could see her face reflected in the window, and her eyes were like a couple of glowing coals.

“Someone might see us,” she said. “There’s a house below this one, closer than you might think — ”

My hands went to her hips and I pulled her to me.

She did a slow, easy grind against my jeans.

End of discussion.

The fabric of her dress was so damn light, like it wasn’t there at all. I let my hands drift beneath it. My fingers traveled her thighs, her smooth, nyloned flesh. My tongue darted over her neck, and I tore away what I found under her dress.

She planted her hands against the window, pressing so hard that I was sure the glass would shatter. Slashed wrists hanging through a gaping hole, me wiping down everything for fingerprints and sweating — I could picture the whole awful scene.

But it didn’t happen that way. Her eyes were closed now. And she certainly wasn’t worried about the neighbors.

I watched her reflection. I watched the fog.

And there was Layla. Her generous breasts pressed against the other side of the window, and her hands covered the same spots that the columnist’s covered, but Layla’s fingers were longer, slimmer. She held the hem of her black dress between white teeth.

Layla in the fog. Hips moving hungrily, sex glistening.

I couldn’t hold back any longer. With one hand, I pulled the columnist against me and held her still. The fingers of my other hand coiled in her hair.

She screamed.

It wasn’t a scream of pleasure. Her legs gave way, and I heard the awful sound of her rings scrapping glass as she fell forward. With one hand holding her hips and the fingers of my other hand tangled in her hair, I kept her from pitching through the window.

Outside, nothing remained of Layla but a swirl of fog.

The columnist’s reflection was suddenly gaunt and terrified. “Someone saw us,” she said. “Someone’s out there — ”

“No,” I said. “It was just the fog. The wind picked up. It was swirling.”

She dropped to her knees and turned toward me. “No. It was a person… a woman… and she was watching us. God, if she had a camera — ”

She left the rest unsaid.

She left me the perfect opportunity.

“If she had a camera, I’d like a couple of prints,” I said. “That would show people around this town that I’m determined about my work.”

The columnist looked at me for a long time.

I didn’t say any more, just held my little grin, and she got the message.

She decided that it was her turn to make me happy.

We stayed in front of the window. She made me feel so good that I wanted to close my eyes, but I resisted the temptation. Instead, I watched the fog.

And, just for spite, I made damn sure the fog was watching me.

My name appeared in four straight columns, much to the studio’s delight. I guess I don’t need to tell you that I got the part.

It’s the picture that most people remember. I even wore the red windbreaker — the same one that I wore to the scribbler’s house — and most people remember that, too.

There’s a scene in that picture where a guy calls me a chicken. I get all broken up about it, and we go for a little chickie run. Stolen cars and a big cliff by the ocean. The same doe-eyed starlet that I’d taken to the premiere of my first picture sends us on our way, looking like daddy’s most frightening wet-dream in a tight cashmere sweater.

I live. The guy who called me a chicken doesn’t. I get the girl, too.

Kind of like my night with the woman in the glass house.

See, we had our own little game of chicken, Layla and me. That’s what the whole scene with the columnist was really about. Layla was taunting me, just waiting for the woman to crack so she could get inside her. She wanted nothing more than to be inside the scribbler’s head when I went into action. That’s how badly she wanted another piece of me. But I’d learned my lesson at the winery, and I didn’t give her a chance to do anything this time — you might say that I jumped at just the right moment. Layla might as well have sailed over a cliff in an old Ford, just like my rival in the movie.

That was my magic at work. I had to show Layla that I could succeed on my own, without her help. But something kept me from stopping there. I rubbed it in, like she’d done with her spooky laughter at the winery after I’d let her touch me.

So I gave the columnist what I refused Layla, and laughter didn’t go along with it. We kept at it way past the point where pleasure turned to something raw and unstoppable. And the woman — who looked nothing like Layla — became Layla for me. I wanted a piece of her. A real big piece. I pinned her to that wall of cold glass and kept her there until the smell of her perfume was long gone.

That’s when the fog went wild and tore itself apart.

And then the morning brought the sun.

It was hard work, that picture. I got to know the little starlet, and she had about a million questions for me. The only problem was that she didn’t pay too much attention to my answers.

We wrapped on schedule. Before I could blink, the studio tossed me into a picture about the oil business. I didn’t get the lead, but I was going to be working shoulder to shoulder with some of the biggest names in the business. Believe me, I was nervous about it.

Location shooting was starting right away. I only had a couple days to get myself ready and head down to Texas. Things were moving fast and I was flying pretty high, but I wanted to see Layla before I left. This was the second big gig I’d gotten on my own, and I wanted to let her know it. But there was something else. Something in me wanted to keep her interested, too. I didn’t want to lose her. Maybe I felt like we were even now, like we’d come to a new point in our relationship. A place where I might be able to let her touch me without worrying that she’d take something away. A place where I could touch her, and make her smile, and hear her breath catch in her throat, and not stop there… and go on with the rest of it without wanting anything else from her.

A place where we could meet as equals.

I phoned her.

She said, “I’d love to see you.”

For a gag, I bought one of those rubber shrunken heads with wild red eyes that glowed like embers. It was intended as a peace offering, really, something that would make Layla laugh in a way I wouldn’t mind.

I never did give her that head, though.

Layla didn’t want a peace offering.

She wanted some kind of cheap revenge.

I parked the Spyder in front of her little bungalow and trotted up the steps. Just when I was about to bang on the screen door, a little whimper came from inside.

I hung back from the door, my back against a tangle of bougainvillea that climbed a web of trelliswork screening the front porch. Though the layout of the living room was second nature to me, it was pretty dark in there — all the drapes were closed, and I had trouble making things out. Fortunately, a few candles glowed in the far corners of the room, guttering when caught by the feeble breeze of an oscillating fan.

Layla sat on the couch, naked, not moving at all. A yellow summer dress surrounded her feet as if she’d just slipped out of it, a pool of silk on the hardwood floor. A man sat beside her. He was fully dressed, and every now and then his big shoulders heaved.

I recognized his voice. It was the guy who had directed my first picture. He was busy spinning stories of his long friendship with Layla, hinting that he needed some payback from her. “You know how it is,” he told her. “I’m not the fair-haired boy anymore. Back when I started it was genius-this and prodigy-that. You remember. What a future I had. But now it’s nothing but complaints. Can’t he do anything new? What happened to his spark? His daring? All that high-hopes-gone-for-naught crap.”

Layla laughed.

It was almost as if her laughter was a reward for his wit in the face of doom, but I knew better. She was laughing at me. Me, crouching against a nest of sweet bougainvillea like a cheap voyeur. Me, stiff and straight and breathless as a corpse, honeybees buzzing around my head.

The director moved closer to her — nuzzled her neck, ran eager fingers over her breasts — but she only laughed some more, as though a particularly precocious child were tickling her. It was plain that he didn’t have a damn thing that she wanted. Not anymore. The sly old puppeteer had given everything to Layla long ago. Layla was the director of this little scene, and she was determined to give me a glimpse of my future.

She thought she was that smart.

She thought I was that stupid.

Somehow, I couldn’t believe that she thought so little of me.

I was pissed.

I tied the rubber shrunken head to the rear-view mirror of the director’s Mercedes.

I got in the Spyder and drove all the way to Marfa, Texas.

I ate up the sunshine down there in Texas. Couldn’t get enough of it. I tried to do good work on the picture, and I think I succeeded. For the first time in a long time, I was way past worrying.

The pressure was off, and I was on my own.

It was funny to be there in the middle of the whole thing (and a world away from Layla), not giving a damn one way or another while the rest of them scurried around as if their lives depended on their next move. The reigning big stars wearing big star masks, not even daring to be themselves when the lights went off and the camera lenses were covered. The studio boys downing Pepto, having anxiety attacks over the tiniest screw-ups. Only the union laborers seemed sane, showing up day after day, knowing checks would be waiting at the end of the week and in years to come regardless of rain or hail, sleet or snow.

Weird to see the whole situation so clearly, so suddenly.

A bunch of kids hung around the set. I did rope tricks for the little ones and told dirty jokes to the older kids. One little girl asked me for a lock of my hair, and I traded her for a box of color crayons.

The crayons were a lot of fun. I had a copy of Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon with me, and I highlighted it with the enthusiasm of a demented English major. Passages to do with disability, I shaded green. Disfigurement was blue. Yellow was degradation.

Death was red.

There was a whole lot of red in that book.

The red crayon was nothing but a nub by the time I finished reading. With the last bit of it, I wrote nasty letters to the director of my first picture and the woman who lived in a glass house. I told them that they were both dead and weren’t smart enough to be down.

I sent the Hemingway book to Layla’s favorite starlet, air-mail.

Then I spent a glorious day under the Texas sun, covered in black oil and laughing like a hyena.

The best thing about coming back to California was the smell of the ocean. I sucked it in while I drove to the little starlet’s beach cottage. The Spyder’s lights cut through the evening fog. The salty air burned my lips, which were chapped courtesy of the Texas sun.

The starlet was surprised to see me. At least she pretended to be. We sat in her living room, which was pretty spare except for a hi-fi and a bunch of 45’s. There was only one book in the room, and it lay among the records like a machine gun in a water pistol armory.

“I haven’t had a chance to read it yet,” she said, her eyes searching the sharp stands of beach grass that dotted the dunes outside the room’s large picture window.

The grass leaned with the wind, slicing wisps of fog that haunted the beach. I shot a knowing glance at the fog, and the starlet was smart enough to catch it. “She wants a lot, doesn’t she?” I said, and the girl who liked to ask so many questions nodded, her eyes suddenly wary, as if she could actually see Layla pressing her ear to the window.

I settled into a director’s chair stolen from the studio, letting my voice boom so that it echoed in the sparely furnished house. “Well, the trick is not to give her what she wants. That’s how you keep her interested.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

I nodded. That was the truth. It was easy to say, hard to do. The director had never learned that. Neither had the columnist.

“It’s something you have to learn,” I said. “Or maybe it’s an instinct.”

She didn’t look at me. Her eyes scanned the beach.

My eyes scanned her. Lazy, dark curls. Worn jeans clinging to her ass, her thighs. One thumb nervously tugging a frayed belt-loop, the cleft of her back dotted with gooseflesh. And reflected in the window, against the hard gray beauty of the fog, a cotton shirt knotted between her young breasts, the knot rising and falling with some urgency as her breaths came sharp and fast.

I smiled at the thought of how she’d look on the big screen once she made it out of the background, once the camera drank of her and no one else — each perfect little detail magnified, each imperfection snipped away in the editing room. It was easy to see why Layla would do almost anything to get a piece of someone like her, or someone like me. Compared to us, directors and columnists didn’t have much to offer.

“Maybe I can teach you.” I rose from the chair. “Give you something… ”

That got her attention. “A few pointers?”

I grinned. She was really listening now. “No. I’ll give you something that you can use… a little piece of me.”

She came to me then, and we didn’t give the fog a second glance as we settled on the hardwood floor.

But I felt the fog when I hit the road. Running in my bones like cold Pacific tides, stinging deep and clean in the cracked slivers of my chapped grin.

Couldn’t smell it, though. Couldn’t smell the ocean, either.

All I could smell was the Spyder’s guts: oil and gas…

… and a few fresh drops of Layla’s blood.

I see them every now and then on the talk shows. Layla and her starlet, who isn’t so young anymore. They usually want to talk about some TV movie deal they’ve managed to scam, but invariably the host wants to talk about me.

And, after some phony protesting about the sanctity of my memory, that’s what they do. They also show up at my grave every year on the anniversary of my death, along with a bunch of middle-aged folks who tend to favor red windbreakers and white T-shirts. Layla makes a little speech, the starlet sheds a few tears, and then they get down to the business of autographing publicity photos that they posed for nearly thirty years ago.

It must have been tough for Layla, not getting what she wanted out of me. I think it was the first and only time that ever happened to her. Except with the starlet, of course. She must still be working on that, though, because she’s certainly not keeping the alcoholic babbler around out of love. No. After all these years I’m convinced that Layla’s still trying to get at the little piece of me that I shared with that sad, confused woman.

Blood out of the proverbial turnip.

After I totaled the Spyder, the whole thing blew up in Layla’s face. That was the best part, and I’m almost glad that I was still around to see it happen. First the scandal magazines hounded her with stories about witchcraft and voodoo and all that, but those idiots didn’t even realize how close to the truth they’d come. They just made up some junk, ran a couple of Layla’s ghoulish Rigormortia publicity pictures, and let it go at that.

Layla didn’t quit, though. I’ll give her that. Even when she hit bottom, she kept pitching. The director and the columnist faded from view despite her best efforts. She went through a mess of Tab’s and Ty’s and Troy’s, but none of them made it any where. Pretty soon she was left alone with the starlet. That’s when she decided to go into the legend business.

I’m not sentimental about it, though. Layla was the one who wanted to play chicken. I just went along for the ride, so to speak. But if she was the one who lost her temper, well, I was the one who made her lose it.

I guess that makes me the big winner, doesn’t it?

See, I’d realized what Layla didn’t know, what none of the people who worshiped her could ever learn. The wanting, the needing, is the best part. Once you get something, you’ll never hunger for it in that same way again. And once you surrender something, you’ve lost it forever; it’s what you are, and it’s gone gone gone. Ask the director, or the columnist, or the legion of Tab’s and Ty’s and Troy’s.

As for me, I’d decided that it was better to keep the lion’s share all to myself. Layla wasn’t going to have it. The director and those like him weren’t going to strip it away, bit by bit, year by year. I never wanted to wake up and look in the mirror, wondering where it had gone.

Quit while you’re ahead, is what the game is called. That’s how I saw it then. From where I’m sitting now, it doesn’t seem so clear-cut.

But when I climbed into the Spyder that last time, I figured I was headed straight for hell. Layla’s chosen revenge was fine by me — let the Spyder roar and the blood flow. That was how I felt about it. I was going to die young and leave a good-looking corpse and all that. I was counting on the power of legend — a handful of Technicolor hours that would never change — but I never figured I’d be around to see the legend take hold.

I guess I’d never considered the business end of the proposition.

The studio laid it on heavy with my family back in Indiana. The body of his car was aluminum, you see. It couldn’t stand up to such a battering. It’s so tragic. What a future he had, and to be left a cripple. Brain-damaged. Horribly disfigured. Better to place him in a private sanitarium. Let the world think him dead. The fans would pry, you understand, torture him. This way he will always be young. And the desert is such a peaceful place.

Things have been quiet for a long time, but it’s never quiet inside my head. I always demand blue sheets on my bed. When I sleep, I dream of Joselito and Granero and Maera — Hemingway’s bullfighters, all three buried long ago in the rich soil of Spain. I dream of these men in their suits of light, and of angry black eyes and sharp horns.

The walls of my room are a bright and cheery yellow.

Evenings I watch the desert sky. On temperate nights the nurses wheel me outside, my faded red windbreaker draped over my shoulders. Wonderful colors bleed overhead, night after night. Always something different, if you’re willing to watch. Sometimes the sky is as red as blood, but it never seems to make any difference, even though I keep hoping that it will.

I miss the color of blood. Real blood, I mean. I remember the hot brightness rushing out of me as the broken steering wheel speared my chest, remember how I painted myself and painted the Spyder and how the speedometer was masked by a curtain of blood. I remember staring down at the torn pieces of flesh that clung to the twisted metal and clung to my bones and knowing that every piece belonged to me and every drop of blood was mine and everything around me in that moment was as simple and clear as the waxy red shine of that stubby red crayon down in Texas.

And then they came and scraped me out of the car and stitched me back together. And in time the angry scars faded from scarlet to dull, dusty purple. All of it happened so fast, really, and then it was over.

And there was no turning back.

Like with Layla and me. I know that I was right about her and all the others, and about being hungry.

Like I said: once you get something, you’ll never hunger for it in that same way again.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t be hungry.

The walls of my room are a bright and cheery yellow, and the sheets on my bed are blue, and the sky is often as red as blood. But I know that my life is a dull, dusty purple — the color of a scar — and a blood-red sky can never change that.

Because in this desert the blood in the sky dried long ago.

And the fog never comes.

MINUTES

11:59.

Moonlight filtered through the oatmeal-colored drapes, bathing the bed in an amber glow. Under the covers, Susan Hunter tossed and turned, caught in the grip of a nightmare.

Outside, the sound of gravel crunching beneath heavy boots.

Susan awoke. Her eyelids, smeared with runny mascara, flashed open. Empty green eyes in goblin-black pools.

The sound. Crunching. Giant iron fists smashing tiny, bleached skulls.

A temple bell rang. Soft. Then loud. Soft, then loud.

Susan’s breath caught in her throat.

On the bedroom drapes, a shadow.

The oily shadow boiled across the translucent drapes. Susan shook away her dream of giant fists, tiny skulls, and temple bells.

The shadow loomed larger.

Susan heard footsteps on the gravel path.

Crunch. Crunch. Giant fists. Tiny skulls.

Moonlight pooled on the bedroom floor. Susan clutched the down comforter; she could sense someone staring through the tiny crack where the drapes didn’t quite meet.

“Randy,” she whispered. “There’s someone outside.” Her hand slipped across the sheets, searching for her husband’s callused fingers. She was ready to forgive every angry word he’d spoken earlier, forget all the biting remarks that had made her cry and —

A cold, empty space where Randy should have been.

Instantly, Susan knew that she was alone in the house. She shivered. Her wedding ring felt like a band of ice.

Damn him. Damn Randy Hunter. He’d slipped out to the bar. He wasn’t going to protect her. She’d have to suffer for his crime all over again, and this time he wasn’t even going to share the punishment.

Susan wondered if the man outside had planned it that way.

12:00.

Gravel crunched beneath heavy boots.

A brass wind-bell rang in a willow tree. Soft. Then loud. Soft, then loud.

Willow branches swayed; their twisted black shadows crept fingerlike across the drapes and scratched at the shadow.

Suddenly, the shadow melted away.

A booming slam. Metal smashing metal.

A scream.

Quietly, Susan picked up the phone. She punched 9, then 1, then hung up, knowing that the law wouldn’t help. Sheriff Conrad hated Randy and pitied her. He’d ask why Randy couldn’t investigate the noises. He’d want to know where Randy was.

Susan pictured Sheriff Conrad’s stern, cynical face. “In my opinion, judge, Mr. Hunter shows little remorse for his actions. He seems to think that this awful accident was a case of simple bad luck. He doesn’t want to recognize that his drinking was the cause… his neglectful behavior... his childish disregard.

Susan drew a deep breath, telling herself that she’d only seen a shadow, and that the scream could have been a bobcat.

Or a drunken farm worker on a midnight tear. Or —

Susan didn’t want to think about it.

God, why do we stay here? The middle of nowhere, the back road to hell—

Gravel crunched. The shadow was back, but this time Susan could make out a head, a torso, and arms.

Runny mascara burned Susan’s eyes. She waited for the sound of shattering glass.

The shadow’s left arm came up fast. Something squealed against the windowpane and Susan buried her face in her mascara-stained pillow. When she looked back at the drapes, the shadow was gone. Three heavy lines were smeared on the window, straight lines that left crooked shadows on the pleated drapes. Two were horizontal and parallel; the other was vertical.

Next to the lines, Susan could make out a fat circle. She watched as a cobweb-thin drip rolled through its center, transforming the circle into a “0.” Her body tightened as she remembered the angry neighbors she’d seen at the courthouse, many of them carrying posters with a red “0” painted over her husband’s name.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she whispered. “Randy isn’t even here. Leave me alone.”

12:01.

A wind-bell rang.

The willow-branch shadows scratched at the lines and the circle. Another booming slam. Metal smashing metal.

Another scream.

Susan squinted hard, fighting back tears. She wished that she’d hidden Randy’s car keys, but deep down she knew that hidden keys wouldn’t have stopped him. The fancy dinner that she’d prepared, now sitting cold on the kitchen table, hadn’t kept him home. Neither had the sexy dress, or the make-up. Her special efforts had only made things worse.

Because they’d never let Randy forget. He hadn’t meant to cripple the Maltin girl. If she hadn’t tried to pass him on that bridge nothing would have —

“Leave me alone!”

“But don’t you understand, Randy? We’ve got to talk about it. You just can’t shut me out. I’m your wife, Randy. I want to know what you’re thinking. I love — ”

“Don’t say it! I’m tired of talking. No one fucking listens! I talk and talk and nobody hears one fucking word!”

Flashbulb images she was unable to forget: Randy’s hand rising, shaking, nails chewed to the quick, knuckles gnawed bloody; Randy’s hand, tan and steady, holding the wedding ring; Randy’s hand floating in the air, a thing somehow separate from her husband; Randy’s hand, now a fist, punching the kitchen door; Randy’s hand wiping away her tears.

Susan wiped her crusty mascara. Now there were more tears.

The shadow was back.

The squealing sound. Susan made herself look. Two more smears on the window, two more snaking shadows projected on the pleated drapes. One vertical. One horizontal.

Susan bit her lower lip. No one tried to understand Randy’s side of it. Everyone in town had liked him before the accident, liked her too, but they were both treated like ghosts afterwards Randy apologized, but he didn’t seem to understand that apologies couldn’t cover the thing that he’d done. And nobody wanted to hear Randy whisper that the accident was just a bad break, something that could have happened to any of the folks who spent their weekends drinking in the local bars. No one wanted to think about that.

But Randy could think of little else. Excuses held his guilt at bay. And now one of Randy’s old friends was here at the house, scrawling something on the window, stirring Randy’s guilt.

Hurting Randy; hurting Susan, too.

And that was a big part of it, wasn’t it? Because Susan carried Randy’s guilt, too. It ate at her, devoured parts of her that she knew she could never get back. It stole her smile and ripped the life from her eyes. She couldn’t even look at her neighbors anymore, and every time she drove Randy’s dented Camaro into town she felt a little sick.

“I understand.” She’d said that to Randy over and over until it didn’t mean anything anymore, but no one had ever said it to her. Because no one wanted to understand what hell was really like, not unless they had to.

Another booming slam. Another scream.

The oily shadow. The squealing sound. Two more thick circles appeared on the window, one above the other, connected by a vertical line.

Tears spilled down Susan’s face.

A wind-bell rang.

The willow-branch shadows scratched at the lines and the circles.

12:02.

There was one bar — a dive out by the highway — that would still serve Randy, and Susan remembered the phone number. She pressed the receiver to her lips, whispering under the covers. She prayed that no one was staring at her through the crack between the drapes.

Susan remembered the staring eyes of the Maltin brothers burning holes in Randy’s back as he stood before the judge. She remembered the two bearded men holding their sister’s prosthetic hands, patting them, squeezing them when the judge announced the terms of Randy’s probation.

She remembered wondering if the Maltin brothers thought that metal hooks could feel.

“I’m sorry, Miz Hunter, but Randy left a good hour ago,” the sleepy barkeep drawled. “Ain’t he come home? Hey, listen, if anything happens he wasn’t at my place tonig — ”

Susan dropped the receiver.

12:03.

Gravel crunched.

A wind-bell rang.

Another booming slam. Metal smashing metal. Another scream.

Crying.

Susan’s heart thundered. The scream. The crying.

Randy.

Unsteadily, Susan rose from the bed and drew a flannel bathrobe over her slim shoulders. She stared at the drapes, trying to separate the tangled shadows from the thick, painted lines on the glass.

Randy’s work-boots crunched over the gravel path. His shadow melted across the window.

Susan pulled a cord and the drapes whispered open.

Randy swayed in the bright glow of the full moon, a relieved smile knifed across his sweaty face. His battered, yellow Camaro was parked on the lawn directly behind him, the hood open and smeared with blood. Randy raised the smashed mess that had once been his callused right hand and pressed it against the bedroom window. Splintered bone and torn flesh squealed wetly across the glass, leaving a bloody trail.

Susan sank into the shadows, unable to look away. The horrible squealing sound screamed in her ears.

A backward “e” appeared on the glass.

Finished, Randy stumbled across the gravel path and, one last time, slammed the Camaro’s hood. Metal smashed metal. He sank against the bloody grille and sobbed.

Susan moved to the window, reading the backward writing. Two words.

Forgive me.

A brass wind-bell rang in the willow branches above Randy’s head. Whimpering, he wrapped his ruined hand in his shirttail and closed his eves.

Susan’s hands trembled. Black shadows slithered around her fingers and poured, like cold blood, over her delicate wrists. She winced. The tiny bones beneath her palms grated like sharp stones. Her fingers throbbed.

Staring at her husband, Susan curled her fingers into fists and embraced the pain.

WHERE THE WOODBINE TWINETH

When the war was over the living came home. Not a rifle among them but those that had been transformed into crutches or canes, but rifles would not have mattered to men who were tired of war and wounds and death. Their bellies were empty and they broke their swords into plowshares, and they embraced a land they remembered and people they could not forget and wished the simple wish that they had never gone to war.

Of course, the dead came home, too. They came at night, and warily… their bellies bloated with grave worms, their hearts as heavy as fallen fruit. They marched in tattered battalions beneath willows that whispered in the sultry summer wind, and they paused at forgotten crossroads bordered by thorny brush and bayonet bramble, and they marched on and made their camps in cemeteries where mortal footfalls were seldom heard, far past the place where the woodbine twineth.

That was how it was with the living and the dead. But others came home, too. Men like John Barter. Barter had seen many places since leaving the South. Places to the north, places with names that he could never forget. Gettysburg… Cemetery Ridge… Devil’s Den…

But John Barter did not speak of those places. He spoke hardly at all. He came home with a mouthful of bone buttons that he had sliced off a Union sergeant’s uniform. He chewed and sucked those buttons all the way from Virginia, tramping the lonely miles in sunshine and in shadow, and he came home with rags on his feet and seven toes, and he came home with a sword that was as sharp as an officer’s tongue.

He came home with a fiddle, too, an instrument given him by his wife on the day of his enlistment. A single nail pierced the fiddle’s neck, the wood scissored around it like the slivered hand of Jesus on a crucifix. Still, the fiddle made sweet music. All Barter’s comrades said so… both the living and the dead. Even a Yankee at a distant outpost could be moved to tears by the sound of Barter playing “Aura Lee” on the eve of battle.

So Barter brought the fiddle home, just as his wife knew he would. He carried it all the way from Virginia wrapped in a mildewed regimental flag, and her heart beat a little faster at the sight of the instrument in her husband’s hands. Of course, the nail that pierced the fiddle’s neck had rusted since she had driven it home on that far-off day, but she had expected that. Time rusted all things.

Her name was Loreena, and she was a woman only seven years gone from a country very different than this one. That was the reason she knew the things she did. In Loreena’s country, the land was so very green and the shadows so very long that in the end everything was nearly black. Heavy clouds held the people to the land and did not let them stray, but the clouds could have been as heavy as iron and still they would have been unable to hold Loreena. She was a woman made for other places, and she did not fear the heavens and she did not fear the earth.

Loreena did not fear much of anything. Not the living. Not the dead. As a girl she had learned many secrets from her grandmother, a woman who spoke only in whispers. Loreena kept those whispered words in her head and in her heart. She listened to them still, as she practiced the craft her grandmother had taught her. The old woman’s whispers told her that the world held a place for all things, and Loreena wanted nothing more than to stake one small corner of it for her husband and herself, for she loved John Barter as she could love no other.

When Barter’s ragged feet crossed the threshold of their cabin. Loreena took the fiddle from his hands. Even before they embraced, she took it. Barter’s picture hung on the wall, secured by a nail grown nearly as rusty as the one that pierced the fiddle. Barter hardly recognized himself, for the picture had been made before the war.

Loreena took that picture off the wall as if it were something dead and threw it into the fireplace. Then she grabbed Barter’s fiddle by the neck — as if it were something alive — and she nailed it to the wall in the picture’s place. Finally she parted her husband’s lips with gentle fingers and, one by one, took the bone buttons from his mouth and placed them on the mantelpiece.

Still, John Barter did not say a word, so Loreena kissed him deeply, and she kissed him long. And when their lips parted she stripped the ragged uniform off her husband’s back and tossed it into the blazing fireplace, and then she took off her clothes and guided her husband’s fingers over her naked flesh until they found the tight circle of silk around her neck.

Barter’s hands circled that ribbon and his fingers disappeared in Loreena’s long black hair, and beneath that hair at the back of her neck his fingers found a black velvet bag knotted to that silk ribbon, and in that bag were eleven nails — just a little rusty — that pricked Loreena’s neck on moonless nights and brought bad dreams.

But now those bad dreams were banished… or so Loreena thought. For she believed in magic. And she believed in a twelfth nail that had bound a portrait to a wall of the home she shared with John Barter, just as she believed in the power of a thirteenth nail that was driven through a fiddle’s neck.

A thirteenth nail now driven into that very same wall.

A nail that bound a fiddle to that wall.

Yes. Loreena believed in magic.

Just as she believed in a man’s soul.

One that had never been allowed to wander.

But Barter was a different man now. He didn’t want to be different at all, but he was. He wanted to sleep with the dark wings of Loreena’s hair brushing his face and the wild scent of her on his lips… and yet he did not want to sleep at all, wanted instead to steal his fiddle from the wall and serenade his fallen comrades by a blazing campfire, slicing the bow back and forth while Yankee blood gleamed on his fingernails in the firelight.

Barter wanted to share these strange thoughts with his wife, but he could not do that. When he tried he found that his words had gone, and yet sometimes he was afraid that they would spill from his lips before he could stop them. So he took a few bone buttons from the mantelpiece and put them in his mouth, and then he could not speak a word.

But he could listen well enough, and he found that there were many things to hear. The voices of the living, telling him that he needed to forget. The voices of the dead, telling him that he had forgotten too much already. He heard these things clearly, the same way his wife heard the whispers of her dead grandmother.

And in this way one year passed, and then another, and then a third. And in that time Barter discovered that there were many things he could not do. He could not beat his sword into a plowshare. He could not drive its sharp blade into the earth. And he could not keep his eyes from the fiddle nailed to the wall, just as he could not keep his fingers from the nail that held it there, a nail with a flat head that flaked rust like dead skin.

Though he touched it — gently, the way one would touch the stem of a flower — Barter never tested the strength of that nail.

He knew what it meant to his wife.

One day Barter carried his sword to the livestock pen. He was surprised to find that the pen was full of Yankees, smart and tall in the crisp blue uniform of the victor.

The Yankees taunted him, making sport of his tattered clothes and his tattered ways. Barter wanted to ignore them, but that was impossible. Their blue suits shone like the night, and their brass buttons gleamed like the sun. Their pink faces were rosy with laughter, but their words lashed Barter like his own memories.

Barter sucked bone buttons and tried not to listen, but he could no more do that than escape his own thoughts. Finally he could stand no more. He charged the Yankees with a rebel yell, and he struck them down with a terrible swift sword no Northerer’s hand would ever hold, and when he had finished with them he sliced the gleaming buttons off their blue uniforms and stuffed those buttons into his mouth along with the buttons of bone.

The taste of brass was very much like the taste of blood. Something sharp, a slap to the face, a trumpet call to a sleeping man. The taste set Barter’s senses on edge. Soon he noticed that many of the fallen Yankees had faces like pigs. Their officer, a captain, was as big as a bull. Most of the Yankees were dead, but some of them still breathed. Barter spit buttons of brass and bone from his mouth and asked the Yankees if they were men or animals, but they only screamed and screamed and screamed.

Loreena ran to her husband’s side, the silk ribbon tight around her neck, the nails in the velvet bag pricking her spine. She screamed, too, but Barter did not hear her. He only heard the music of eleven nails dancing, a sound like rainfall going to rust.

Loreena grasped his bloodstained hand, but Barter could not feel her fingers. Her fingers fell away like rust, like rainfall.

Twilight had come and gone, but Barter felt that he was knee-deep in it. That was all he felt. But it was not all he saw, or heard. Dead soldiers marched through scarlet shadows. He heard their every step. They came — their bellies bloated with grave worms, their hearts as heavy as fallen fruit — and they ringed the livestock pen, and they stared at Barter and they stared at his sword, and they saw that both were stained with the blood of pigs and cattle.

“That is a poor use of good steel,” said one of the soldiers, and Barter nodded in agreement.

He knew the soldier was right. Everyone knew. The truth of the soldier’s words was reflected in the faces of his fallen comrades. Pity shone in their dead eyes. Barter tried to look away, but found he could not. He stood there with the sword in his hand, with slain beasts at his feet, and he knew that his comrades saw him for what he had become.

There were no buttons in Barter’s mouth. He looked for words there, but found none.

But his comrades had words. One of them stepped into the livestock pen and took Barter’s hand.

“Come with us,” the soldier said.

Barter nodded, but he could not move. He wanted to go with the men, even though he knew he did not belong with them any more than he belonged with Loreena. His portrait had tasted flame a long time ago, and his fiddle had been nailed to the wall for three long years. Barter could barely remember “Aura Lee.” Sometimes he tried to hum it around the buttons in his mouth, but it never sounded the same, and Barter knew that it never would —

The dead men turned away.

The moment had passed, and they could wait no longer.

“Goodbye,” was all they said.

In the livestock pen, dying Yankees screamed their last. In the woods, just past a forgotten crossroads bordered by thorny brush and bayonet bramble, dead men sang “Aura Lee” as they marched to a cemetery camp where mortal footfalls were seldom heard.

In John Barter’s cabin, Loreena placed her husband’s hands flat on the table that stood beneath the fiddle. A hammer lay above Barter’s bloodstained fingertips. Loreena took the silk ribbon from around her neck. She opened the velvet bag that was attached to it. spilling eleven nails into her open palm. But all that remained of the nails were brittle shards and rusted flakes, and they sifted through Loreena’s fingers like sand.

Loreena started to cry, because time rusted all things.

Even magic. Even men.

But Barter smiled at his wife. He took the fiddle from the wall. That was not hard to do, for the nail that held it in place was very weak.

Barter tossed the fiddle into the fireplace. He watched it burn the way he had watched his unfamiliar portrait burn, and he took the last of the bone buttons from the mantelpiece and placed them in his mouth and sucked on them with Loreena standing close by his side but so far away, and he didn’t say a word as the fiddle popped and sizzled in the flames.

He listened, instead, to the sound of a flickering campfire… far, far away.

Far past the place where the woodbine twineth.

(For Manly Wade Wellman)

THE HOLLOW MAN

Four. Yes, that’s how many there were. Come to my home. Come to my home in the hills. Come in the middle of feast, when the skin had been peeled back and I was ready to sup. Interrupting, disrupting. Stealing the comfortable bloat of a full belly, the black scent of clean bones burning dry on glowing embers. Four.

Yes. That’s how many there were. I watched them through the stretched-skin window, saw them standing cold in the snow with their guns at their sides.

The hollow man saw them too. He heard the ice dogs bark and raised his sunken face, peering at the men through the blue-veined window. He gasped, expectant, and I had to draw my claws from their fleshy sheaths and jab deep into his blackened muscles to keep him from saying words that weren’t mine. Outside, they shouted, Hullo! Hullo in the cabin! and the hollow man sprang for the door. I jumped on his back and tugged the metal rings pinned into his neck. He jerked and whirled away from the latch, but I was left with the sickening sound of his hopeful moans.

Once again, control was mine, but not like before. The hollow man was full of strength that he hadn’t possessed in weeks, and the feast was ruined.

They had ruined it.

“Hullo! We’re tired and need food!”

The hollow man strained forward, his fingers groping for the door latch. My scaled legs flexed hard around his middle. His sweaty stomach sizzled and he cried at the heat of me. A rib snapped. Another. He sank backward and, with a dry flutter of wings, I pulled him away from the window, back into the dark.

“Could we share your fire? It’s so damn cold!”

“We’d give you money, but we ain’t got any. There ain’t a nickel in a thousand miles of here… ”

Small screams tore the hollow man’s beaten lips. There was blood. I cursed the waste and twisted a handful of metal rings. He sank to his knees and quieted.

“We’ll leave our guns. We don’t mean no harm!”

I jerked one ring, then another. I cooed against the hollow man’s skinless shoulder and made him pick up his rifle. When he had it loaded, cocked, and aimed through a slot in the door, I whispered in his ear and made him laugh.

And then I screamed out at them, “You dirty bastards! You stay away! You ain’t comin’ in here!”

Gunshots exploded. We only got one of them, not clean but bad enough. The others pulled him into the forest, where the dense trees muffled his screams and kept us from getting another clear shot.

The rifle clattered to the floor, smoking faintly, smelling good. We walked to the window. I jingled his neck rings and the hollow man squinted through the tangle of veins, to the spot where a red streak was freezing in the snow.

I made the hollow man smile.

So four. Still four, when night came and moonlight dripped like melting wax over the snow-capped ridges to the west. Four to make me forget the one nearly drained. Four to make me impatient while soft time crept toward the leaden hour, grain by grain, breath by breath…

The hour descended. I twisted rings and plucked black muscles, and the hollow man fed the fire and barred the door. I released him and he huddled in a corner, exhausted.

I rose through the chimney and thrust myself away from the cabin. My wings fought the biting wind as I climbed high, searching the black forest below. I soared the length of a high mountain glacier and dove away, banking back toward the heart of the valley. Shadows that stretched forever, and then, deep in a jagged ravine that stabbed at a river, a sputtering glimmer of orange. A campfire.

So bold. So typical of their kind. I extended my wings and drifted down like a bat, coming to rest in the branches of a giant redwood. Its live green stench nearly made me retch. Huddling in my wings for warmth, I clawed through the bark with a wish to make the ancient monster scream. The tree quivered against the icy wind. Grinning, satisfied, I looked down.

Two strong, but different. One weak. One as good as dead.

Three.

Grizzly sat in silence, his black face as motionless as a tombstone. Instantly, I liked him best. Mammoth, wrapped in a bristling grizzly coat he looked even bigger, almost as big as a grizzly. He sat by the fire, staring at his reflection in a gleaming ax blade. He made me anxious. He could last for months.

Across from Grizzly, Redbeard turned a pot and boiled coffee. He straightened his fox-head cap and stroked his beard, clearing it of ice. I didn’t like him. His milky squint was too much like my own. But any fool could see that he hated Grizzly, and that made me smile.

Away from them both, crouching under a tree with the whimpering ice dogs, Rabbit wept through swollen eyes. He dug deep in his plastic coat and produced a crucifix. I almost laughed out loud.

And in a tent, wrapped in sweat-damp wool and expensive eiderdown that couldn’t keep him warm anymore, still clinging to life, was the dead man, who didn’t matter.

But maybe I could make him matter.

And then there would only be two.

When the clouds came, when they suffocated the unblinking moon and brought sleep to the camp, I swept down to the dying fire and rolled comfortably in the crab-colored coals. The hush of the river crept over me as I decided what to do.

To make three into two.

Three men, and the dead man. Two tents: Grizzly and Redbeard in one, Rabbit and the dead man in the other. Easy. No worries, except for the dogs. (For ice dogs are wise. Their beast hearts hide simple secrets…)

The packed snow sizzled beneath my feet as I crept toward Rabbit’s tent. The dead man’s face pressed against one corner of the tent, molding his swollen features in yellow plastic. Each rattling breath gently puffed the thin material away from his face, and each weak gasp slowly drew it back. It was a steady, pleasant sound. I concentrated on it until it was mine.

No time for metal rings. No time for naked muscle and feast. Slowly, I reached out and took hold of Rabbit’s mind, digging deep until I found his darkest nightmare. I pulled it loose and let it breathe. At first it frightened him, but I tugged its midnight corners straight and banished its monsters, and soon Rabbit was full of bliss, awake without even knowing it.

I circled the tent and pushed against the other side. The dead man rolled across, cold against the warmth of Rabbit’s unbridled nightmare.

“Jesus, you’re freezin’, Charlie,” whispered Rabbit as he moved closer. “But don’t worry. I’ll keep you warm, buddy. I’ve gotta keep you warm.”

But in the safety of his nightmare, that wasn’t what Rabbit wanted at all.

I waited in the tree until Grizzly found them the next morning, wrapped together in the dead man’s bag. He shot Rabbit in the head and left him for the ice dogs.

Redbeard buried the dead man in a silky snowdrift.

That day was nothing. Grizzly and Redbeard sat at the edge of the clearing and wasted their only chance. Grizzly stared hungrily at the cabin, seeing only what I wanted him to see. Thick, safe walls. A puffing chimney. A home. But Redbeard, damned Redbeard, wise with fear and full of caution, sensed other things. The dead man’s fevered rattle whispering through the trees. An ice dog gnawing a fresh, gristly bone. And bear traps, rusty with blood.

Redbeard rose and walked away. Soon Grizzly followed.

And then there was only the hollow man, rocking gently in his chair. The soles of his boots buffed the splintery floor and his legs swung back and forth, back and forth.

Two. Now two, as the second night was born, a silent twin to the first. Only two, as again I twisted rings and plucked muscles and put the hollow man to sleep. Just two, as my wings beat the night and I flew once more from the sooty chimney to the ravine that stabbed a river.

There they sat, as before, grizzly and fox. And there I watched, waiting, with nothing left to do but listen for the sweet arrival of the leaden hour.

Grizzly chopped wood and fed the fire. Redbeard positioned blackened pots and watched them boil. Both planned silently while they ate, and afterwards their mute desperation grew, knotting their minds into coils of anger. Grizzly charged the dying embers with whole branches and did not smile until the flames leaped wildly. The heat slapped at Redbeard in waves, harsh against the pleasant brandy-warmth that swam in his gut and slowed his racing thoughts.

“Tomorrow mornin’,” blurted Redbeard, “we’re gettin’ away from here. I’m not dealin’ with no crazy hermit.”

Grizzly stared at his ax-blade reflection and smiled. “We’re gonna kill us a crazy hermit,” he said. “Tomorrow mornin’.”

Soon the old words came, taut and cold, and then Grizzly sprang through the leaping flames, his black coat billowing, and Redbeard’s fox-head cap flew from his head as he whirled around. Ax rang against knife. A white fist tore open a black lip, and the teeth below ripped into a pale knuckle. Knife split ebony cheek. Blood hissed through the flames and sizzled against burning embers. A sharp crack as the ax sank home in a tangle of ribs. Redbeard coughed a misty breath past Grizzly’s ear, and the bigger man spun the smaller around, freed his ax, and watched his opponent stumble into the fire.

I laughed above the crackling roar. The ice dogs scattered into the forest, barking, wild with fear and the sour smell of death.

So Grizzly had survived. He stood still, his singed coat smoking, his cut cheek oozing blood. His mind was empty—there was no remorse, only a feeling that he was the strongest, he was the best.

Knowing that, I flew home happy.

There was not much in the cabin that I could use. I found only a single whalebone needle, yellow with age, and no thread at all. I watched the veined window as I searched impatiently for a substitute, and at last I discovered a spool of fishing line in a rusty metal box. Humming, I went about my work. First I drew strips of the hollow man’s pallid skin over his shrunken shoulder muscles, fastening them along his backbone with a cross stitch. Then I bunched the flabby tissue at the base of his skull and made the final secret passes with my needle.

Now he was nothing. I tore the metal rings out of his neck and the hollow man twitched as if shocked.

A bullet ripped through the cabin door. “I’m gonna get you, you bastard,” cried Grizzly, his voice loud but worn. “You hear me? I’m gonna get you!”

The hollow man sprang from the rocker; his withered legs betrayed him and he fell to the floor. I balanced on the back of the chair and hissed at him, spreading my wings in mock menace. With a laughable scream, he flung himself at the door.

Grizzly must have been confused by the hollow man’s ravings, for he didn’t fire again until the fool was nearly upon him. An instant of pain, another of relief, and the hollow man crumpled, finished.

And then Grizzly just sat in the snow, his eyes fixed on the open cabin door. I watched him from a corner of the veined window, afraid to move. He took out his ax and stared at his reflection in the glistening blade. After a time Grizzly pocketed the ax, and then he pulled his great coat around him, disappearing into its bristling black folds.

In the afternoon I grew fearful. While the redwoods stretched their heavy shadows over the cabin, Grizzly rose and followed the waning sun up a slight ridge. He cleaned his gun. He even slept for a few moments. The he slapped his numb face awake and rubbed snow over his sliced cheek.

Grizzly came home.

I hid above the doorway. Grizzly sighed as he crossed the threshold, and I bit back my laughter. The door swung shut. Grizzly stooped and tossed a thick log onto the dying embers. He grinned as it crackled aflame.

I pushed off hard and dove from the ceiling. My claws ripped through grizzly hide and then into human hide. Grizzly bucked awfully, even tried to smash me against the hearth, but the heat only gave me power and as my legs burned into his stomach Grizzly screamed. I drove my claws into a shivering bulge of muscle and brought him to his knees.

The metal rings came next. I pinned them into his neck: one, two, three, four.

After I had supped, I sat the hollow man in the rocker and whispered to him as we looked through the veined window. A storm was rising in the west. We watched it come for a long time. Soon, a fresh dusting of snow covered the husk of man lying out on the ridge.

I told Grizzly that he had been my favorite. I told him that he would last a long time.

RETURN OF THE SHROUD

Professor Jacob Hearthstone listened to Dr. Taoka’s words, mentally translating them with a slight bit of difficulty. Though the Japanese language was second nature to Hearthstone, he still had trouble deciphering terms not used in everyday conversation, and such was the case with the surgeon’s medical jargon. But Hearthstone realized that words were not the important thing here. Anyone familiar with the niceties of Japanese culture could ignore the words, concentrate only on Taoka’s body language, and easily recognize the true intent of the surgeon’s visit.

Dr. Taoka was here to beg forgiveness.

Hearthstone closed his eyes and let Taoka’s quiet words engulf him. Cloaked in the surgeon’s explanations were effusive excuses beyond number. The professor sighed mightily, and Taoka began to speak faster.

The true hell of it was that the surgeon’s explanations made perfect sense. After all, Dr. Taoka had come to Hearthstone with high recommendations and an excellent reputation among the most conservative elements of the Tokyo medical community. But Hearthstone, unfettered from the chains of logic and reason during his bride’s long illness, had an increasingly difficult time processing information that should have made perfect sense.

The old man fought his suspicions, watching the surgeon’s lips twist as he stumbled over a particularly difficult explanation. Dr. Taoka was not a butcher, he told himself. The surgeon could not be an avenging murderer. He was exactly who, and what, he claimed to be.

And yet…

Taoka was skilled in the use of blades. Hearthstone had watched him from the gallery above the surgery, had seen him take the scalpel from the towel-covered tray, the tray that, covered, existed in shadow. With his own eyes Hearthstone had watched the surgeon put blade to flesh — the flesh of Hearthstone’s bride — and he had noted the familiar intensity that burned in the man’s eyes.

If man he was.

Hearthstone fought against his powerful memory, but a memory that cataloged even the most minor impression could not be dammed. Everything came flooding back. The blade. Taoka’s eyes. The cotton mask that had covered the surgeon’s mouth. Hearthstone had watched the thin material puff out with an exhalation; he’d seen it draw back with Taoka’s next breath.

The mask had drawn tight against a lurid grin. Of that, Hearthstone was certain. And at that moment, standing alone in the gallery, the sibilant hint of a Beethoven sonata issuing from stereo speakers below, Hearthstone had remembered another blade and another woman.

And the same grin.

At that moment, the surgeon made the first deep incision.

At that moment, screaming violins sliced the silence.

And now the surgeon spoke of infection and fever. The diagnosis was poor. Hopeless, really, but Taoka was trying desperately not to say that.

Trying desperately, Hearthstone thought, not to smile.

“Thank you, Doctor Taoka,” the old man said, his Japanese impeccable, his accent perfect. “This is awful news, of course, and I find myself terribly saddened by it. But I would like you to put the best face on your report. A happy face, if you please.”

“Professor Hearthstone… I’m afraid that I don’t understand.”

Hearthstone bent forward. “Sir, I would appreciate it very much if you would smile for me.”

Doctor Taoka was confused. Perhaps this was an American custom with which he was unfamiliar. He made to protest. But as his mind searched for a tactic that would not offend, his lips twisted unbidden into a perplexed grin.

Hearthstone thanked the surgeon and promptly shot him dead.

The first time they met, long before Hearthstone had ever seen Japan, the professor asked, “Are you demon or angel?”

“I am… The Shroud.” The answer came in a purring whisper. “I come for those who are evil. Those who are evil must suffer, then die.”

Hearthstone shivered, embarrassed to be frightened by such base melodrama. Silly to have come here, to headquarters, alone. The stranger had been waiting for him, had slipped from the shadows and whispered that he was an avenger, a ghost.

Don’t surrender to the fear, Hearthstone warned himself. Keep the madman talking until someone comes to check on you. Listen to his insane babbling, and kill him when the odds are in your favor.

Hearthstone turned to the window. Below, the San Francisco streets swam with fog, but it was a low fog. Across the street, it hung far below a theatre marquee bathed in the white glow of overhead lamps, a stark illumination that transformed the reaching gray tendrils into cottony puffs that resembled the cloudy floor of some Hollywood heaven.

Black letters on the marquee. Frankenstein double-billed with Dracula.

Ah, true melodrama. Hearthstone chuckled at that. “Sir, if it’s evil you’ve come for, I believe you’ve come to the wrong place. Messieurs Lugosi and Karloff are across the street.”

Silence.

“A small joke,” Hearthstone began, his throat constricting involuntarily as the stranger advanced, quiet as the evening fog. And then words spilled unbidden from the professor’s thin lips, driven by a pure, instinctive terror that he had never experienced previously. “A small joke… from a small, unimportant man. I deal only in narcotics, synthesized through methods I discovered while employed by some of our more adventurous captains of industry. Mere entertainments for the bored and the jaded, those who find no solace in the pleasures approved by modern society… I’m sure you understand. Perhaps you, sir… Perhaps you would like — ”

Laughter echoed from the velvet draperies that hung about the window. The inhuman sound forced Hearthstone to shrink away from the room’s lone source of light.

“Please understand,” Hearthstone begged, stumbling toward his desk, his eyes searching the room, “I am not a rich man, but if it’s money you want… ”

Mellow shadows pooled on the pine floor as The Shroud — now silhouetted in the gray glow of the window — moved forward. Planks complained as if punished by a heavy tread, but the self-proclaimed avenger was drifting toward Hearthstone like the wispy shadow of something floating outside on the night fog. The thing — Hearthstone’s instinctive fear told him that this could not be a man — came closer, its harsh laughter rising.

“A shadowshow for you, Professor. Without fee…”

Another sound. The swish of a cape on the hardwood floor. “Mister Lugosi,” the voice whispered, suddenly tinged with a familiar accent.

Red eyes burned in the darkness. Hearthstone reached out. fingers scrabbling across the stained blotter, and flicked on the desk lamp. The bulb flared, then exploded, and the brief instant of brightness momentarily blinded the professor.

The scent of ozone flooded the stuffy room. Hearthstone caught the sizzle of lightning and the slightest glimpse of a scarred neck spiked with twin bolts. “Mr. Karloff,” the voice enthused.

No longer the sound of a sweeping cape. Now heavy boots beat a slow rhythm across the pine floorboards.

Spots swam before Hearthstone’s eyes. He rubbed at them, blinking away tears. The spots danced, rotated, all but a single black globe that stared him down and made him sob.

“Anyone,” the voice whispered.

A black slit spread across the ebony circle and split into a grin.

“Anywhere… ”

Puddled against the wall.

“Anytime… ”

Slipped toward the window.

“Good night, Jacob Hearthstone,” said The Shroud. “And remember — next comes suffering.”

“Damn,” Professor Hearthstone said. “Double damn.”

He stared at Taoka’s face. The surgeon’s corpse didn’t grin. Rather it frowned, its thin lips blemished by a gout of blood that was already drying. And though the room was flooded with light, as were all the rooms within the professor’s compound, Hearthstone searched desperately for a single shadow.

None near Taoka’s bloody mouth. None in the corners of the room. None behind the satin draperies, nor beneath the lacquered desk, nor behind the rice-paper doors of the closet.

His bride had often asked him, “Why do we need all this light? You’ve already killed him, haven’t you?”

Always he corrected her without drawing attention to the correction, and always he pretended that yes, indeed, he was certain that he had killed the thing. ”It was a demon, and I am too much the cynic to believe that this world is cursed with the presence of only one demon. There may be others far more powerful than The Shroud.”

No, he would not remember. The path of memory was dangerous. Possibly fatal.

Hearthstone clapped his hands. Pulled himself into the present moment.

He stared at the dead surgeon. At the caked blood on his lips. At the corners of the room.

At the complete absence of shadows.

In the lore of San Francisco’s Chinatown, the incident was know as The Night Of The Axes. It was Professor Hearthstone’s finest moment. He had maintained a low profile for several months, partially due to worry over the strange nocturnal visit that had occurred at his headquarters, partially because his next move required careful planning.

Hearthstone had long coveted the secrecy that a Chinatown operation would afford his particular concerns. The police steered clear of the foreign population, and the professor felt that his business would go undetected if he could conduct it from a section of the city that was little known or understood.

The only problem with Hearthstone’s scheme was that there were others who already controlled the area. Namely the Wong Ching Benevolent Society, an organization known as much for its wealth as its ruthless behavior.

But within that equation lay the answer to the professor’s dilemma. If Chinatown understood wealth, then its occupants would understand him. And if the Wong Chings understood ruthless behavior, then ruthless behavior would be the order of the day.

Hearthstone recruited a pack of hale and hearty Irishman from one of the city’s more notorious waterfront bars and appointed a recently busted policeman named Thomas Clancy as their leader. Equipped with firefighting garb and axes, the Irishmen descended upon a restaurant called Sun Lim’s, which happened to serve as headquarters to the Wong Chings. When their axe blades grew dull and the tiled floors were well-oiled with Chinese blood, the merry Irish mob torched the building. They watched the flames dance, drinking strange Oriental liquor and singing a merry tune of their native land.

Then get ye a dozen stout fellows,

And let them all stagger and go,

And dig a great hole in the meadow,

And in it put rosin the bow.

The incident was reported in the local press as an accidental fire. Even in those days, the mayor feared civil unrest if the truth was widely reported. But the mayor needn’t have worried, for the true story was know by all in Chinatown. The tale terrified even the bravest members of the teaming populace. The word riot was not spoken, was not even thought.

This pleased Professor Hearthstone. He immediately launched the second phase of his operation, flooding the community with money and gifts to demonstrate the largess of the new regime.

In the shabby apartments and cellars of Chinatown, people began to speak happily of the collapse of the Wong Ching Benevolent Society.

In a lavish suite overlooking Grant Avenue, Professor Hearthstone set about learning the Chinese language.

And in the gutted ruins of Sun Lim’s Restaurant, a dark thing laughed.

“You should not have let him pass, Mr. Machii.”

The yakuza lieutenant, his shaved head lowered, stared at the kitchen floor. Hearthstone knew that the man would not comment until instructed to do so.

Another bumbler, Hearthstone thought. Not like in the old days, when the yakuza were the world’s best. No, those days were long gone. Today, too many yakuza were simple punks drawn from the bosozoku gangs. And they didn’t leave their bosozoku past behind, still caring more about motorcycles and hotrods and dirty magazines than matters of economics or honor.

“Dr. Taoka made the mistake of allowing his loyalties to fall into question,” Hearthstone continued. “I’m afraid that such questions must be dealt with in a harsh manner. We must act swiftly, even if our suspicions are tenuous at best. As we say in America, we must shoot first and ask questions later.” Hearthstone suppressed a smile. “Bang bang bang. Understand?”

An almost imperceptible nod from the yakuza; even a bosozoku could understand such a simple message. Hearthstone watched the man’s bristly eyebrows shift as he studied the floor — Hearthstone’s shoes, his own shoes, the elegant dish that lay on the floor between them, the raw, teriyaki-drenched filet mignon that filled the dish.

Was he afraid? Or was he thinking, measuring the distance, weighing the time that it would take to strike?

No. That was imagination.

“You will not make this mistake again, will you, Mr. Machii?”

The yakuza lieutenant bowed.

Hearthstone brightened, his mind focusing. Of course. A test. That was the sane man’s measure of loyalty. “And you will do something to restore my faith in your abilities, will you not?”

Machii did not hesitate. Still avoiding Hearthstone’s eyes, he turned to the kitchen counter and positioned a marble cutting stone. He placed his left hand on the stone, fingers splayed, and slipped a neatly folded handkerchief under the smallest finger.

The yakuza’s fingernails were stained with engine oil. The professor allowed himself a slight frown. No demon, this one. Only bosozoku trash.

A slim knife appeared in Machii’s right hand. A swift slash — no sound of blade meeting marble — and the yakuza’s left pinky was severed at the juncture of the proximal and middle phalanges.

Beads of sweat erupted on Machii’s forehead. Carefully, he folded the handkerchief over the severed finger. Once. Twice.

Hearthstone nearly laughed at the scene. A clean white shroud for a dirty little finger.

A shroud…

Machii peered into Hearthstone’s eyes. The professor backed away, fighting the memories that came flooding back.

Hearthstone held out a hand.

The yakuza snorted against the pain. His lower lip quivered. (Hearthstone watching.) Tightened into an agonized grin. (Hearthstone reaching inside his coat.) Parted as he took a very small breath.

His last breath.

His last grin.

A single slug exploded from the barrel of Hearthstone’s automatic, and the yakuza slumped forward. His severed digit slipped from the handkerchief and dropped into the elegant dish. A thick line of blood oozed over the filet mignon and puddled beneath the thin teriyaki sauce.

Hearthstone watched the yakuza’s face, stiffened when the man sank to the floor.

It wasn’t that the man’s death disturbed the professor.

Behind him, something had begun to growl.

She came each day to Hearthstone’s Grant Avenue suite, though she preferred to call the street Dupont Gai, or old Dupont Street, in the manner of the local population. She came with books tucked under one arm, ready to teach the Chinese language to Jacob Hearthstone.

Her name was Anastasia White, and she had grown up in Shanghai. Her father was a diplomat — of what nation she would not say. Her mother was not a topic for conversation, either. But Hearthstone judged that Anastasia’s mother must have been a true beauty, for the young woman’s complexion was a stunning creamy gold and her amber eyes were as delectable as spiced almonds.

Needless to say, Hearthstone played at being a poor student, ever eager to keep the beauteous Miss White in his employ. Soon they were working their way through the extensive menu at Madame Liu’s, Anastasia’s favorite restaurant, under the pretense that chatting with the waitresses was good practice for the professor; but before long there was no need of pretense. There were evenings at the opera and excursions to the cinema, though Hearthstone attempted to avoid the latter, especially when the night’s program included features starring Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff. No sense, he thought, in rekindling unpleasant memories when romance was on his mind.

And then, on a rare, warm afternoon, Anastasia came to him in tears. “Professor, I’m afraid that I will be leaving San Francisco immediately. I’ve come to refund the balance of this month’s lesson payment, as I shan’t be able to instruct you further.”

“My dear, whatever can the matter be?” Hearthstone asked, strong concern evident in his voice. “And why so formal? This isn’t like you at all.”

“Please, Jacob. Don’t make this difficult.”

“But I must insist — ”

“Very well. A man has been visiting my apartment. A very disagreeable man. He has related several stories concerning his association with you, stories which I refused to believe until very recently. And then, just last night, he threatened to reveal our relationship to the most sordid members of the press. He demanded blackmail payments. When I refused, he… he forced himself… ”

Anastasia broke down, and Hearthstone moved to comfort her. “This… this man,” he said, his voice trembling as he remembered The Shroud. “You must tell me his name.”

Anastasia managed to collect herself enough to whisper, “His name is Thomas Clancy.”

A relieved smile twisted the corners of Hearthstone’s lips. Clancy. The busted policeman who had headed up the takeover of Chinatown. ‘You mustn’t worry, my dear,” he said. “I will handle this matter. Personally.”

Within the hour, the professor was standing outside a dingy saloon which, while located in the same city, was a world away from his Chinatown home. A blood-red scarf was draped around his neck. A target pistol was secreted beneath his camelhair coat. Four masters of wing chun gung fu stood at his side.

“I’m going in,” he said, his Chinese impeccable. “Alone.” His subordinates knew better than to argue.

Hearthstone entered the saloon. Yellow light swimming with smoke. The smell of whiskey and beer and the unwashed. A song ringing over loud conversation — the same song he’d heard during the destruction of Sun Lim’s Restaurant many months before.

When I’m dead and laid out on the counter,

A voice you will hear from below,

Sayin’ send down a hogshead of whiskey,

To drink with old rosin the bow.

In a dark corner, all alone, sat Thomas Clancy. Hearthstone elbowed his way through the crowd, one gloved hand on his hidden pistol.

Hearthstone sat down. Clancy grinned. The Irishman held a bowie knife in his left hand, and he was sawing it gently across the top of his right wrist. There were dozens of small cuts there, some scabbed over, some weeping blood.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Clancy whispered, “for a high ‘n’ mighty pris, she was awful lively ‘tween the — ”

The pistol thundered, time and again, until the chambers were empty.

Clancy still grinned. His voice came in a purring whisper. “Remember, Jacob Hearthstone, I come for those who are evil… Those who are evil must suffer… They must suffer, and then they must… ”

Clancy slumped backward. His jaw slackened and a bloody bubble formed on his lips.

Hands grabbed at Hearthstone’s arms. Someone wrestled the empty pistol from his grip.

The bloody bubble burst. A scarlet shadow poured from Clancy’s mouth and rippled across the scarred tabletop. It hit the floor and slithered over the professor’s shoes. Hearthstone screamed at the icy feel of the thing. The crowd screamed as well, but their screams were for him, for his blood.

The professor fought against his subduers, and he saw for the first time that they were policemen. Irishmen like Clancy. A punch thundered into his stomach. Clancy was a busted copper, but there was no such thing as a busted Irishman.

The professor hit the floor. Filthy sawdust caked his bleeding lip and stained his expensive camelhair coat. He rolled away from his attackers, desperately trying to gain his feet. He didn’t fear kicks or punishment. No, he feared the scarlet shadow that had slipped from Clancy’s mouth, the shadow that had to be The Shroud.

God. Where were his reinforcements? Where were the wing chun men now that he needed —

The Irishmen pulled Hearthstone to his feet and towed him into the alley behind the saloon — deeper, deeper — the professor’s eyes watching the street, drinking in the maddening scene with the sardonic humor of a true masochist, an unabashed cynic.

For in the street, he saw it. The shadowthing that was The Shroud. It expanded like a great net and ensnared the wing chun masters, whose punches and chops proved laughably ineffectual as the thing tightened its grip on their muscular bodies, crushing bones and reducing flesh to bloody pulp.

Then came the true horror.

Once more a snake, the scarlet shadow slithered across the bloodslick pavement. Encircled a creamy gold ankle. Coiled around a delicate calf, a perfect knee, and disappeared beneath the skirt of the woman with amber eyes.

The Doberman advanced, growling, its nails ticking against the tiled kitchen floor.

“Down, Dempsey… Good boy, Dempsey.” Hearthstone whispered, inching toward the center of the kitchen.

He glanced at Machii’s corpse. Damn. For the last few months, the yakuza had been feeding Dempsey, and now the dog thought that Machii was its master, thought that Machii was the one who provided teriyaki-marinated filet mignons.

Hearthstone almost laughed. If only his bride hadn’t loved the dog so much. If she hadn’t spoiled the animal, and if he hadn’t gone along with the spoiling… If only he’d complained about the price of filet mignon in the Japanese markets, then maybe Dempsey wouldn’t care a damn about the dead man on the floor… If only…

If only he hadn’t been crazy enough to think that Machii was The Shroud returned.

Hearthstone toed the expensive dish and slid it toward Dempsey. Slowly, slowly…

“Good boy. Good doggy.”

The dog began to pant.

Sniffed at the teriyaki-drenched finger that floated in the dish.

Parted its lips… and grinned.

After three months in the hands of incompetent prison doctors, Hearthstone was happy to join the general population in the penitentiary. His ribs had healed nicely, his back bothered him only when the weather was bad, and he soon accustomed himself to eating solid food despite the absence of several teeth which he’d left behind in a San Francisco alley.

Silly, really. The whole idea. Heal a man in order to fry him whole and hearty in the electric chair.

Though most death row inmates were not allowed to work or even move among the general population, an exception was made in Hearthstone’s case. After all, the warden had never before had the services of a full professor at his disposal.

So, Jacob Hearthstone, prisoner number 37965, was allowed to present lectures to his fellow convicts. These lectures took place in the prison library, and before long Hearthstone had insinuated himself among the library staff. In a few short months he was a member of that staff, charged with the delivery of books and magazines to the prisoners in their cells. This duty gave him a feeling of freedom and took his mind off the execution date which drew closer with each passing day.

Hearthstone wanted to move among the general population for one reason: he wanted to determine if he was a madman. His visits from the demon known as The Shroud seemed increasingly fantastic as time passed, and he often wondered if he had imagined the monster, conjured it up, as it were, out of thin air. As he moved from cell to cell he listened for any mention of the mysterious creature, and sometimes he ventured a question or two with inmates he knew and trusted.

In Hearthstone’s seventh month of incarceration a new prisoner appeared on death row, a transfer from a federal pen on the east coast. Hearthstone struck up a conversation with the man soon after, explaining that he was a pipeline to the library and could obtain materials that would help the new fish pass the time.

“Sure.” The man smiled at the suggestion. “Bring me anything you got on electricity, and bring me anything you got on the human soul.”

Hearthstone thought the requests odd, but he didn’t say anything, for he had learned that questioning a prisoner’s taste in even the most unimportant matters could be a fatal mistake. He’d seen a con killed with a sharpened spoon for daring to denigrate his cell mate’s preference for a certain brand of cigarette.

And apart from all questions of jailhouse etiquette, Hearthstone didn’t trust this man’s eyes. They were dark green and always moist, almost as if brimming with tears, two fathomless pools that swam on the con’s chalky, stretched visage. The eyes were part of the new fish’s mystery, and their peculiar cast made Hearthstone all the more eager to investigate him.

So he brought the man a stack of books. Books by Edison and books by Kant. And then he brought more. William James, Descartes. The new fish read them all. And soon they were talking.

Hearthstone called his new friend The Electric Man.

Before long, The Electric Man exhausted the prison library’s meager resources. “Just let me talk to you, Jake,” he said. “You’re a professor. You should know all the answers.”

Ignoring the vulgar familiarity, Hearthstone said that he was happy to indulge such a request.

“Okay, Professor. I been reading all this stuff, and it just don’t tell me what I need to know. I mean, I know about electricity. That stuff I can figure. The stuff about the soul is tougher, but some of it makes sense, too. But what I don’t get, what I don’t know anything about, is the two things together. Get me?”

“Go on… I’ll try to follow.”

“That’s jake. Now I’m gonna lay it out flat, and if you don’t want to believe me, you just say the word and I’ll never look at you again. But what would you think if I told you that the screws strapped me into the electric chair back east two years ago, and one of ‘em pulled the switch and gave me a real good ride, and nothing happened to me at all?”

Hearthstone thought of his fast-approaching execution date. “I’d ask you how you managed the trick.”

The Electric Man grinned. “Oh, it’s an easy one, y’see. All you got to do is get someone to come inside you, swim around in your blood, and steal your soul.”

Hearthstone grinned. “Where do I sign up?”

“It ain’t funny, Jake,” The Electric Man said. “You ever hear of something called The Shroud?”

“As it happens, I’ve met the fellow.”

“Uh-huh. I thought you had the look. Well, I’m the world’s greatest expert on the son of a bitch. I’ve had him in my head, and it wasn’t what you’d call a barrel of laughs.” The Electric Man shivered at the memory. “And ever since then I been tryin’ to figure it all out. Figure him out. But I just can’t do it. I got too many questions. And now I’m startin’ to think that it ain’t a thing you can answer. It ain’t like a puzzle where all the pieces fit.

“Look, Professor, I only want to know one thing: if that devil made off with my soul, and if they strapped me in the chair and it didn’t do nothin’ but curl my hair, do you think I’m ever gonna be able to die?”

Hearthstone said, “Before I can answer that question, you must tell me what you know of The Shroud.”

Hearthstone readied his pistol.

The dog’s grin gaped into a yawn, and then the animal dipped its huge head and sniffed at the food that the professor had pushed its way.

Hearthstone smiled. “Oh my, you’re jumping at shadows, old boy, jumping at every damn stimulus that fires those very old synapses… ”

Dempsey began to eat.

Hearthstone relaxed. Remembered.

The Electric Man’s voice: He came after me, y’see. Doesn’t matter what I did, doesn’t matter that other guys did worse… he just came after me. Told me I was gonna suffer, then die. Oh, he kept his word about that sufferin’ part. My wife, well, the first night he came around she seen him, and she got so damn scared she went into convulsions and almost bit her tongue clean off. Right on the livin’ room rug. Yeah, that was sufferin’ all right, and I ain’t even sure the bastard meant for that to happen. Then things got worse. He started stealin’ money from me — it’d just disappear right out of my pockets — and I couldn’t pay off my boys, and soon they was huntin for me.

The sounds of Dempsey licking meat, chewing, swallowing.

Yeah, came for me in the morning, he did. I was shavin’, looked up and seen him behind me. Well, the razor slipped and I cut myself. Bam! He was on me like a wild animal or somethin’ and then he wasn’t there at all — outside of me, that is — but I could feel him swimmin’ around in my blood, squirmin’ in my guts. The devil was inside of me!

The filet mignon was gone. Tentatively, Dempsey licked at the severed finger.

He makes me get all duded up — straw hat, corsage… everything. Makes me get my Tommy gun, y’see. Walks me out to a Cadillac, a Sport Phaeton, and there’s a dame sittin’ behind the wheel. Brown eyes that was almost gold, pretty, a dancer from one of my speakeasies. She don’t say nothin’ just smiles and drives me over to my boys’ digs and drops me off But that devil’s still inside me, seel He trots me upstairs. Makes me open up on my own boys. God, I seen some things… but this was awful. These was my friends. And I got mad — crazy mad — thinkin’ about what he’d made me do, thinkin’ about how he d hurt my wife.

The dog took the severed digit in its teeth. Flicked its head. Bit.

I started to fight the bastard then and there. I stuck my hand in front of the gun barrel and blasted a few rounds right through it, through my wrist, too— see the scars here? Anyway, I was screamin’ — my hand spewin’ blood all over me and all over the room and my boys, the awful stink swimmin’ in my head — screamin’ for the bastard to get the hell out of me. Willin’ him to get out of me!

Dempsey swallowed. Panted.

And then came the worst part. It was bad enough back home, lookin’ at my eyes in the mirror, lookin’ at the little cut on my neck, knowin’ that thing was inside of me. But it was even worse seein’ it wash out of me in all that blood. God, it was scrambled all over the floor like rotted guts from a slaughterhouse, and it pulled itself together… just came together like somethin’ out of a nutty cartoon. The damn thing crawled over the bodies of my boys and I started to let it have it with the gun… wracked the thing pretty good, wracked up my boys’ dead bodies, too, but I didn’t even care no more… and then it spun around when it got to the window, stood up, holdin’ out something black in its hand, a bloody thing that looked like a baby. And it said in that voice it has, ‘You live without it, dead man. You just try living without your soul…’”

Dempsey ducked his head against Hearthstone’s shoes and whined, begging for another finger.

So, there was a weakness in the fabric of The Shroud, a weakness that gave Professor Hearthstone hope. Perhaps it was simple fear, and perhaps it was something more complex — something that could not be named. Still, Hearthstone knew that if the riddle of The Shroud could be solved, death might not be inevitable.

Hearthstone considered all the possibilities as his execution date drew nearer. He thought of The Electric Man’s state of mind during The Shroud’s invasion of his body and decided that the gangster’s own fear had allowed The Shroud to control him. And then he remembered how The Electric Man’s own anger had grown - anger at what had happened to his wife, anger at what The Shroud had forced him to do to his fellows — boiling to a hateful rage that was pure and possibly quite insane.

When he finished his examination of The Shroud’s battle with The Electric Man, Hearthstone was confident that he could form a plan of attack should the demon reappear. He prayed that such a creature as The Shroud could not glory in silent victory. He concentrated on hate, and he was pleased to find that insanity was a prize well within his grasp. And on the night before his execution, the thing came, a nightmarish red-black pudding that sluiced through the bars of his cell and puddled on the brick wall, oozing a great, ugly grin.

“I have supped on your suffering, Jacob Hearthstone,” The Shroud said. “And now, as I promised, you will die.”

The professor’s only reply was a smile. He thought of Anastasia White. He closed his eyes and saw her. Straightened and heard his ruined back pop and complain. Gritted his remaining teeth and pictured bloody molars dotting the slimy cobblestones of a San Francisco alley.

“Tomorrow when you sit in the electric chair, I will be there,” The Shroud said. “I will be inside the man who wears the hood. Mine will be the hand that pulls the switch.”

Hearthstone wasn’t listening. He was deep inside his own head. He saw Thomas Clancy sitting before him, a bloody bubble on his lips. Saw the bowie knife clenched in Clancy’s left hand, the thin cuts on the Irishman’s wrist.

Suddenly Hearthstone stood and stepped close to the wall, confronting the scarlet grin, sucking the fetid breath that boiled from The Shroud’s mouth as if it were the finest perfume in all the world. He removed his glasses, slipped the cover from one of the ear pieces, and drew the rough metal across the back of his right hand. A trickle of blood seeped from the wound.

Hearthstone challenged The Shroud. “Come in, you bastard. If you dare… if you are not frightened.”

The scarlet thing was breathing fast now. It slid away, toward the ceiling, but the smell of blood was too great a lure. The shadow sprang from the wall, poured over Hearthstone’s hand, and burrowed inside his wound.

I know you, Hearthstone began. I know your amber-eyed bitch.

Great whistling gasps wracked the professor’s lungs. He felt claws scrabbling over his heart, fighting for purchase.

Nothing there, devil. No fear to hold onto. Only hatred, strong and pure.

The Shroud twisted in his guts. Hearthstone doubled over.

Oh, you’re good. But not that good. Because I remember. I met a man who fought you to a draw, and I learned well the lessons that he taught me.

Teeth ripped at his brain. A fist clenched his heart.

Hearthstone’s insanity pushed them away. I’ve had your bitch. I’ve pressed my lips to hers. Felt that creamy skin under my fingertips. And now I have you.

The Shroud slipped across the condemned man’s shoulderblades and down the bones of his arm. Hearthstone pressed his left hand over the wound on his right. Not so fast, he thought. Don’t leave me just yet…

The Shroud coiled inside Hearthstone’s forearm. The professor felt the thing shiver. Felt it shrink.

Hearthstone laughed. Your Irishmen were tougher than this. Your bitch had more backbone.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor. A guard on bed-check duty.

“Now comes the real test,” Hearthstone whispered. “Let’s see who’s in control.”

Hearthstone parted his fingers. He willed The Shroud to extend itself in a thin coil that snaked between the bars, and then he unleashed the full power of his insanity, creating a dark monster in his mind, commanding it to grow in the shadow-choked corridor.

Part jaguar.

Part ogre.

Part Kong of Skull Island.

The shadowthing roared. The guard fired his pistol once and was batted against the brick wall by a huge black tail. He lurched to the center of the corridor, unconscious but still on his feet, and was smashed against the opposite wall by a shadowfist.

Keys rattled. Hearthstone’s cell door swung open.

Hearthstone stepped from his prison and joined his ebony escort.

Soon the prison corridors swam with blood.

Later, laughing uncontrollably, the professor wandered the deserted city streets. He twisted The Shroud into a gnarled knot, a feeble arthritic thing. Blew the devil up like a balloon until it was a fat ebony clown. Made the demon crawl on its belly, an armless, legless freak.

Tired of frivolity, Hearthstone ripped the thing’s umbilical tail out of his wrist. The Shroud twisted on the pavement, a red-muscled horror that whined like a skinned dog. Hearthstone stomped it, spat upon it, laughed at it, gloried in the way it shrank from the dim glow of the streetlights.

He kicked it down the street, watching it carom like a child’s ball. Chased after it, kicked again. It bounced from one curb to the other, then suddenly sprang claws and raced toward the gutter. Nails clicked on wet pavement, and a second later it disappeared into a drainage opening.

Hearthstone ran to the curb. “Run away, coward!” he shouted, his eyes yellow in the glow of the streetlights. “Run away from the man who turned an electric chair into a throne!”

Dempsey padded forward, secure on a leash that Hearthstone held in his left hand. In his right he gripped the automatic, which he’d reloaded while the dog gobbled a second filet mignon.

No shadows, the professor told himself. No shadows here. And no shadows on the night the thing died. No shadows then, either.

It had been a great change for him, of course. Leaving America. Relocating to Japan. But the country had seemed ripe for the plucking at the close of World War II, and he’d cashed in his chips in America and reinvested in the land of the rising sun.

It proved to be a wise course of action. Soon Hearthstone doubled his money. Then he tripled it.

He waited for someone to challenge him. No one did. Not the Americans. Not the Japanese.

Not The Shroud.

But did it matter where the shadows hid? His bride… the doctor… the yakuza… even the dog… they had all walked among the shadows at one time or another, had they not? And surely they had all bled. Was there not the possibility? Wasn’t it always there?

As long as he remembered.

As long as he pulled over the riddle of The Shroud.

It was.

So, best to be careful.

Eagerly, Dempsey pulled at the leash as they moved down the hall, but the professor held him back. “Easy, boy. Easy, Dempsey. ”

The money didn’t make him feel much better. He took a young bride, but she didn’t make him feel much better, either. He remembered The Shroud’s promise that he would suffer before he died. And one evening he looked at his bride and realized that he was making himself suffer.

His bride had beautiful amber eyes. She could have been a sister to Anastasia White. And he had slipped the ring on her finger, not The Shroud. He alone had brought her into his home.

Hearthstone felt the sting of prophecy. He knew that as long as he remembered the past, he would suffer each time he looked into his bride’s eyes.

Dempsey stopped at the end of the corridor. Scrapped at the closed door there.

“I don’t know if we should disturb her.” Hearthstone was unable to banish fear from his voice. “The doctor says she hasn’t much time left. ”

The past was always there. Hearthstone was carrying it around, all of it, locked in his heart. All those old failures scrabbling over his innards like the claws of The Shroud.

But there was a way to put an end to it.

He would collect all the pieces of his past, everything that he hadn’t destroyed. He would stare at them, make his peace with them. And then he would crush them under the heel of his boot.

And then, and only then, could he begin to live again.

With shaking fingers, Hearthstone opened the door a crack. Closed it and shrank away.

Shadows. The room was full of them.

In there, in the dark, she was sleeping. Though Hearthstone had instructed Taoka to keep the room well-lighted at all times, the good doctor had obviously disobeyed his orders.

The professor stared at the black line of darkness where the bottom rail of the door fell just short of meeting the plush rug.

Calm yourself, Jacob. The thing is dead.

No. Not as long as you remember. Memory makes everything alive.

Drawing a deep breath, Hearthstone reached for the knob once again.

The yakuza brought a dozen old Irishmen to Hearthstone’s country estate. The professor watched their executions on a gray morning, so early that the event didn’t seem quite real. Afterwards, he returned to his bride’s bed for a few hours, where he dozed and dreamed of the beating he’d suffered years before. Waking, he talked to her of the executions and of his memories. He was delighted to find that both events seemed unreal, as if they’d happened to another man.

Three doctors followed the Irishmen. They came of their own free will, under the assumption that they were attending a medical conference. It was only while waiting in the cabin of Hearthstone’s yacht that they realized something was amiss, for even after the passage of several decades each man recognized the others as old colleagues. None of them remembered Jacob Hearthstone, but he was considerate enough to relate his own memories of his stay in the prison infirmary. When the pleasantries were over, he introduced the doctors to three bosozoku with sledgehammers in their hands.

Hearthstone opened the door. Just an few inches. He slipped his hand into the darkness, his fingers fumbling for the light switch.

Hearthstone felt better after the Irishmen’s visit. Better still after his audience with the prison doctors. But on the day the yakuza brought Anastasia White to him, he knew that he was going to feel very fine, indeed.

Hearthstone flicked the switch. Light washed away shadow.

That was all he needed.

Light was the bane of The Shroud.

Pure, clean, electric light.

Electric…

A voice from the past — a memory he’d thought erased now — an observation by a man once on intimate terms with The Shroud: “And now I’m startin’ to think that it ain’t a thing you can answer. It ain’t like a puzzle where all the pieces fit.”

And then a thought: if hatred could banish The Shroud, if insanity could defeat him, could the same elements, stored deep in the heart for much too long, return him to life when they were finally purged?

Anastasia was still beautiful. Still slim. Still a stylish dresser. But there was a sadness in her amber eyes that was somehow beyond description. And worst of all, she refused to play Hearthstone’s games. She refused to reminisce about the old days in San Francisco; she ignored his queries concerning the fate of The Shroud.

Hearthstone’s bride rested on the small bed, her black hair fanning over white pillowslips.

Somewhere beneath that hair, dark shadows lurked.

Dempsey growled, snorting at the antiseptic odor of the chamber.

Silently, Hearthstone approached the sickbed. “My dear, won’t you smile for me?”

Anastasia’s silence was like stone. Hearthstone’s heart sank. She would give him nothing. She knew her life was lost, and she would make no desperate pleas, no bargains that he could betray.

She refused him satisfaction.

He stared at her, thinking of the days when he’d mulled Shroud riddles with such enthusiasm, thinking of all his hypotheses and conclusions…

…wondering at the fiery glow in her amber eyes.

Hearthstone’s bride did not move. He brushed her hair, let his fingers drift to the plastic oxygen mask strapped over her mouth. “My goodness.” He laughed. “Of course you can’t smile with this thing in the way.”

Hearthstone took the katana from its case, unsheathed the weapon, and showed its silver blade to Anastasia White. “I have been thinking about our friend The Shroud,” he began. “I’ve been thinking about the way it scurried through a sewer grate when I was close to killing it. For many years I thought it was down there, under the city, licking its wounds.” Hearthstone stared at Anastasia’s eyes, recognizing the gaze of an unexpected guest. “Now I don’t think that anymore… Oh, I think it’s licking its wounds all right. I still think that. But I think it found another sewer, one that runs with blood.”

His brides breaths came short and fast without the oxygen mask, and he prodded the corners of her mouth. “Smile… smile…”

“I’m not going to kill you, Anastasia. It’s The Shroud I want. It’s always been The Shroud.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears. She could not keep her silence. “Leave him alone,” she begged. “He’s tired. He’s broken… You’ve beaten him once. Isn’t that enough?”

“No, never enough.” Hearthstone raised the katana, held it to her eye, thinking of the way The Shroud used human hosts, recalling the thing’s aversion to light and the way it had scuttled for the protection of a dark sewer. He remembered the prison cell where he’d tempted the creature. He remembered the insane hatred he’d used to defeat it.

But he hadn’t killed it.

It ran. It took refuge.

Anastasia White. The Shroud.

Hearthstone grinned. “Any port in a storm. Is that not the way of it, my dear?”

The professor prodded open an eye. Stared at the amber orb.

Blank. Nothing there. Anastasia was…

No. This was his bride.

He lifted his bride’s head and examined the white pillowslip. Next he drew back the sheets and blankets and checked them carefully. Satisfied he ran his fingers through his bride’s hair; but still found nothing there.

He sighed. Stepped back. Impossible. Taoka was dead. And Machii was dead. And Dempsey was loyal.

His bride…

Impossible. But something was here. He could feel it.

And whatever it was, it was more than a memory.

He pulled Anastasia to him. Parted her mouth and kissed her. He forced his tongue against hers, felt it squirm away.

Like that night in the prison, he thought. Like The Shroud, shrinking from my power.

Anastasia pushed at him. “He’s weak.” She sobbed. “He’s nearly dead, just leave him be. Let him die in peace.”

Hearthstone slashed Anastasia’s shoulder with the katana, then drew the blade across his palm. “Come on, you bastard,” he said. “It’s time to face your master.”

Hearthstone took the stainless steel scissors from the top of the dresser. He cut open his bride’s nightgown, then drew it apart.

He stared down at the purple scar that ran the length of her breastbone.

Black blood oozed from Anastasia’s wound. She pressed a hand against it, stemming the flow, her fingers trapping the creature that desperately wanted out. “You won’t have him,” she said, her eyes glowing with defiance. “Not while I’m alive.”

“Very well,” Hearthstone said.

His bride shivered as the scissors touched her sternum.

Anastasia shivered as Hearthstone drove the katana into her breast. She fell back, slipping off the short blade, collapsing onto the floor with hardly a sound.

Hearthstone dropped to his knees and pressed his wounded hand against Anastasia’s bloody chest.

Her heart wasn’t beating.

She wasn’t breathing.

She wore a slight grin that fell somewhere short of a smile.

“Come out, you bastard,” he whispered, his eyes everywhere at once: on the shadows that swam beneath the furniture; on Anastasia’s blood; on the hem of her silk dress, which ruffled under a breeze from the open window. Each image burned into his brain as if branded there.

“Come out, you coward.” He closed his eyes but saw the room, the blood, Anastasia’s dress. “Come out and let me forget.”

Hearthstone held his hand to Anastasia’s breast, whimpering in frustration, until her blood began to dry.

He sat there alone, but for his memories.

Hearthstone stared at his bride’s lips. At the scissors in his hand.

No, it couldn’t be.

He wouldn’t do this.

His bride was an innocent. She was not possessed. Neither was Dr. Taoka. Nor the yakuza, Mr. Machii. Nor Dempsey.

This was madness. Time had passed, so much time without incident. The Shroud was dead.

Dead to the world.

Dead, everywhere, but in Jacob Hearthstone’s memory.

Anyone…

The professor turned toward the mirrored wall and stared at his reflection. What he saw didn’t match his memories.

If he had to remember everything, why couldn’t he remember how to be the man he once was? Young, strong, confident…

Now he was none of those things.

Hearthstone laughed at the feeble old man in the mirror. Here was the true seat of memory. A withered receptacle, nothing more. “Wipe the slate clean, grandpa. Purge the hatred, the insanity. Make afresh start. ”

Hearthstone turned the scissors on himself and drove the blades deep into his chest.

Anywhere…

Blood coursed from the wound.

Anytime…

The shadows flowed over him, along with the laughter, along with a whispered promise.

Those who are evil must suffer, then die.

Hearthstone pressed cold fingers against the wound and felt warm blood pump from his heart. “Are you demon or angel?” he asked.

The answer came from the shadows.

I am… The Shroud.

TOMBSTONE MOON

Black entered the cemetery shack and tossed the severed ear onto the desk, between a can of Brown Derby beer and a salami sandwich that was missing a bite.

The desert wind whipped through the open doorway, salting the warped floorboards with gritty sand. Black was already sick of the desert — sick of the earthy smell, sick of the unyielding heat, sick of the sand in his boots.

He closed the door, but that didn’t help much. The shack’s only window was open a fraction of an inch, and the steady wind whistled through its corroded metal lips. The sound was unsettling. Black leaned on the latch, but the window was rusted in place and wouldn’t budge.

Black sighed. Only open a fraction of an inch, but a fraction of an inch was enough to mess with his senses.

Well, there was nothing to be done about it. Black rubbed a clean circle on the grimy glass. His ’73 Toyota Corolla sat about twenty feet from the shack. The engine ticked and pinged, trying to cool without much success. Rust spots on the hood and trunk shone like pools of dark rum in the light of the setting sun.

A week’s parking at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas had cost twenty-five bucks, and that little fact irritated Black. He doubted he could sell the damned car for twenty-five bucks. But the Toy was inconspicuous, and that was the important thing.

Black scanned the desert. There wasn’t much to see besides his car. Whistler’s limo was nowhere in sight. Neither was the prospector’s Ford pickup — Black had hidden it in an arroyo on the other side of the old state road. Only the cemetery lay before him, a borderless expanse dotted with tombstones that had been sandblasted blank over a period of forty years.

Anonymous graves, forgotten by a town that had folded when the interstate opened. Black thought about that. If your grave went untended, if your sacred piece of ground was forgotten — or worse, desecrated — was there a chance that something evil might get its hands on your soul even though you’d been laid to rest in a proper Christian cemetery?

Black wondered if it made a difference. He supposed that every grave was forgotten sooner or later. He toyed with the severed ear, flipping it from between the beer and the sandwich. He’d never thought about graveyards, or tombstones, or Christian burial before in his life. He’d never thought about heaven or hell, either. He knew that such worries could get in the way of a man in his business, and he’d always felt fortunate to consider them a waste of his time.

Before today.

Even now, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to start thinking about those things. He’d never felt comfortable tackling life’s little intangibles.

He looked at the sandwich and his stomach growled.

The prospector wasn’t coming back for it.

The salami was greasy and good. Black ate the meat and threw away the bread, because the latter was salted with sand. He chased salami with warm Brown Derby beer and tossed the empty can over his shoulder. It bounced off of a filthy duffle-bag and rolled to a stop against the rusty blade of the prospector’s shovel.

Black wanted to sort through the old-timer’s duffle, but he didn’t want Whistler to come barging in while he was at it. Instead, he pulled up a chair and rested his feet on top of the desk.

Soon it was dark. Black lit a few candles and watched faint shadows dance on a map of the cemetery that was mounted next to the door. The map was dotted with black pins, except for one spot in the right-hand corner where a white pin stood out, as stark and unexpected as a corpse at a family reunion.

Black grinned, thinking I Bury the Living. He’d seen that movie late one night in a cheap hotel room in Denver. It starred Richard Boone, and that was the only reason that Black had stayed awake for it, because more than a few clients had told him that he resembled the young Richard Boone. He did, kind of— they were both all ruined around the eyes, and they both had noses that were of equal thickness from skull to tip, like carelessly fitted hunks of pipe.

Anyway, the movie was about a guy who thought that he was murdering people by sticking black pins in a map that marked presold cemetery plots. Boone was pretty good in it, worrying that he was some kind of psychic monster or something. It wasn’t Have Gun, Will Travel, but it was okay, until the ending.

Because the ending was a cheat — it turned out that Boone wasn’t a monster, after all. He hadn’t killed anyone. The deaths were only a cheap coincidence, nothing to do with God or the Devil. And while Black had certainly never believed in anything supernatural — or much of anything at all, for that matter — he thought that in the movies there should always be something spooky, something unknown or unknowable —

The wind whistled through the window’s corroded lips.

A dirty yellow halo bloomed on the glass.

Bright light seeped beneath the bottom rail of the door.

The glow of headlights.

Whistler’s limo.

Black reached behind him and straightened the knife that was tucked under his belt, then covered the weapon with his shirttail.

The cold steel felt good against the small of his back.

Black stepped to the window and watched a tall man ease out of a black Cadillac limousine. Even in the flat, uncritical light of the full moon, Black didn’t like the look of Diabolos Whistler, Junior. He didn’t like the man’s accountant eyes, and he didn’t like his spotless snakeskin boots, and he didn’t like the silver-and-turquoise studs that sheathed his collar like a couple of gigantic arrowheads.

Whistler came through the doorway, his distressed-leather duster wind-wrapped around his ankles, and stood poised in the center of the room like a shootist ready to slap leather.

“You’ve come to the wrong place,” Black said.

“Huh?”

“You want to go west on the interstate. Stop when you hit the water.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Beverly Hills. Rodeo Drive, to be precise. Looks like that’s where you belong, in that getup.”

“Okay. You’ve had your little joke.”

Black grinned. “Close the door, Tex.”

Whistler did, his nose wrinkling. “God, it stinks in here… We could have done this in Vegas, you know.”

“Too many tourists,” Black said. “Besides, I didn’t much notice the stink. Maybe because I stink too. Last shower I had was at the hotel, before I climbed aboard a taxi with four sweaty tourists. Then I had a two hour wait at the Baja airport. If you’ve ever been there this time of year you know it’s like a sauna. I flew out on Airo Mexico, which is like flying in a school bus. They fed me a lousy lunch and didn’t even have any coffee. I got mad and tossed the plastic cup on the floor, and the smart-assed stewardess got all huffy — told me that I was breaking up a matched set. Then came Vegas where I had to pay twenty-five bucks to get my Toy -”

“Okay. Okay.” Whistler dabbed his sweaty brow with a silk handkerchief that was supposed to look like a cowboy’s bandana but didn’t.

Black said, “I just wanted you to know that things haven’t been going according to expectations today.”

“Like I said: okay. Let’s drop it.”

Black shrugged.

“Well, did you do it?”

“Of course I did.” Black pointed at the ear. “Let’s do business, Junior.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Okay. No need to get testy.” Black looked away, at the map. God, he hated this guy. He didn’t care if Whistler had made the cover of Newsweek. That wasn’t anything to him. After all, hadn’t Newsweek put Max Headroom on the cover once? Hadn’t they run that silly story, IS GOD DEAD?

Maybe Time had done that one. Black thought about it but couldn’t remember, and he decided that it didn’t much matter.

Junior took a ziplock bag and a pair of tweezers out of his coat pocket and made a big production of bagging the ear. “We’ll run tests on this, you know. My lab people have Father’s complete medical records, and we’ll know if you’re trying to pull anything.”

“I fulfilled our contract,” Black said simply. “I brought the ear to prove that, per your instructions. It was a fairly easy job, except that it took me a week to find your father. He was staying in a beachfront condo at the tip of Baja, all alone, unless you want to count those mummies that were stacked in the bedroom closet. Anyway, I did him and buried his body at the end of a road that no cop will ever bother with. If you want to know the details, he went pretty easy. I came up from behind and stabbed him just above the first vertebra. He gasped a little bit. Then he started mewling… sounded more like a newborn babe than an eighty-five-year-old master of occult sciences. It didn’t last more than a second or two, but — ”

“That’s enough.”

“No, it’s not. It might be for you, but it’s not for me. If you want me to shut up about it, pay me.” Black grinned. “That’ll shut me up.”

“Come out to the limo.”

“No. That thing looks like a hearse.” Black pretended to scratch his back; his fingers closed on the hilt of the knife. “You put the money in my Toy. I trust you, Junior.”

“Have it your way, Mr. Black.” Whistler left the shack.

Black closed his eyes and used his ears, listening through the wind. He believed you could learn a lot by listening, especially if you knew what to listen for. He heard a car door opening. He was sure that it was a door, not the trunk, and that made him happy; Whistler was the kind of guy who would hide a gun in the trunk if he had one.

The door closed easily, smoothly. Junior was nice and relaxed. Then Black heard a long creak as Whistler opened the door of the Toy.

An instant later he heard a rusty slam.

Black chuckled. “Temper, temper.”

Black was surprised when Whistler returned to the shack.

“I’ve been thinking,” Whistler began. “I could use a man like you on a permanent basis. I’m sure you can appreciate that mine is an organization on the move. With my father out of the way and me at the helm, we’ll be more than just another cult. We’ll be an accepted religion.” He slapped a magazine down on the desk. “Just take a look.”

Newsweek. Black glanced at Junior’s picture above the blurb that read, THE NEW HEDONISM.

Black slid the magazine toward Whistler. “Look, I’m not much of a joiner. You bought me once. You can buy me again, should the need arise. I only work when I need the money.” He smiled. “Besides, I want to see how things develop. I wouldn’t want to make too many commitments with the end of the world so close at hand.”

Whistler laughed.

Black said, “You don’t believe any of it, do you?”

“What?”

“All that stuff your old man preached. All that stuff about a new satanic age coming on the heels of his death. Satan rising from the ruin of Diabolos Whistler’s corpse like Jesus born of Mary. The end of the Christian era and the beginning of — ”

“You’ve been doing your homework, Mr. Black.”

“Hanging around airports, you have plenty of time to read. You run into all sorts of interesting folks selling all sorts of interesting pamphlets.”

“Very funny.” Whistler snatched up the magazine and shoved it into his coat pocket. “Look, this is a job to me. Some people put on suits and ties and run corporations. They tell their stockholders what the chumps want to hear. I put on a black leather jacket and run a religion.”

“But you don’t pay taxes.”

“Come, come, Mr. Black. Neither do the corporations.”

“But your father — ”

Whistler cut him off with a sigh. “My father didn’t have much business sense. He was wasting our money, frittering it away on archaeological expeditions and medieval manuscripts without the slightest concern for the bottom line. Our operation was poised upon the brink of a sinkhole called debt, and my father was determined to shove us over the edge.”

“And now he won’t have the chance.”

“Now he’ll be my ace in the hole. People love a good mystery. They still talk about Ambrose Bierce disappearing into the Mexican desert, don’t they? They even speculate about Jim Morrison… ”

Black yawned. “Morrison died choking on his own vomit in a bathtub in Paris. Your old man died with six inches of steel jammed through his neck.”

Whistler’s breaths came short and hard through flared nostrils. Finally, he said, “You think about my offer. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“Right. Rodeo Drive.”

“Wrong, Mr. Black. You watch for me on the financial page.”

Whistler left the shack. Black let him go, wondering how long the kid would last. He thought about how nice it would be to milk Junior for some extra green, but he doubted that either of them would be around long enough for that. As it was, Black felt lucky to be paid for this job.

Black closed his eyes. “You go find a lab and play with your ear,” he said. ‘You see if you still think it’s important in a day or two.”

A car door slammed. A sound you could recognize if you knew what to listen for: an angry man hurrying on a treadmill to nowhere.

Headlight beams washed over the grimy window.

Black opened the desk drawer and stared down at a lump of leathery red flesh that came to a twisted point.

When Black severed Whistler Senior’s ear out on that Baja backroad, it looked like any other human ear. But when he arrived at the cemetery shack and removed the ear from the false bottom of his suitcase, he realized what it had become.

The prospector returned to the shack at almost the same moment, thirsty for Brown Derby beer and surprised as hell to see a rusty rice-rocket parked in front of his current digs. Black slipped the ear into the drawer just as the old-timer stepped through the doorway with a big, “Howdy, stranger.” Then he listened to the prospector’s story, the old one about milking silver from an abandoned mine up in the mountains.

Mine, hell. One look at the prospector’s flimsy shovel told Black what kind of mining this guy was doing. He’d heard about scavengers who hit abandoned cemeteries, but he’d never run into one. He’d never been eager to mix with that kind of man.

Funny, doing what he did for a living and feeling like that.

So Black let the prospector gab and drink Brown Derby beer. After a while, Black told the old guy that he had an ice chest fall of Anchor Steam out in the Toy’s trunk. Said that he was bringing it in from San Francisco for a buddy, but what the hell. The prospector went for it with a nod and a wrinkled grin — Black imagined that it was the same grin the old guy wore when he hit pay dirt.

In the heat, in the blowing sand, Black stabbed the prospector just above the first vertebra and watched him crumple like a puppet shorn of strings.

When the old guy stopped bleeding, Black severed his left ear.

Black rolled the prospector’s body out of the Toy’s trunk. He returned to the shack to get the duffle and the shovel. Old man Whistler’s ear lay in the drawer. It had sprouted a hedge of tiny white spikes that were as thin as cactus thorns but as hard as teeth.

Black pulled the last white pin out of the cemetery map. Found a black pin in the desk. Stabbed it through Whistler’s ear and pinned the ear to the spot where the white pin had been.

Outside, the moon crested the ash-colored mountains like an enormous tombstone. Black took off his shirt and let the evening breeze caress his sweaty back. His sweat smelled like beer. He dragged the prospector’s skinny corpse through the graveyard. The dead man’s heels dug little ditches in the sand.

Black found the empty plot and was kind of surprised that it wasn’t marked with a big white pin. He started to dig. He felt a little better. The wind had dried his sweat, and the desert air smelled good. Dry and clean, like the sky. The baked-earth smell that had bothered him in the heat of the day was long gone.

He went down about two feet before the sand started to sift back into the hole. He rolled the prospector’s body into the grave, upended the duffle and poured diamond rings and gold teeth and silver crosses over the corpse, and covered it up.

The cool wind smoothed the mounded sand. Black tossed the empty duffle to the wind and watched it tumble past a row of blank tombstones. He thought about the ear pinned to the map in the cemetery shack, and he thought about the body that he had buried on that Baja backroad, remembered burying that body without a second thought. He wondered what it looked like right now, that body.

Black stared at the moon. Maybe he should make a marker for the prospector’s grave. Maybe he ought to dig the registration slip out of the old-timer’s truck and pin it to a cross so the skinny old guy wouldn’t go unknown. Maybe… He shook his head. That was the flip side all right, but he didn’t have any proof that it really existed.

What he had was the ear.

What he figured he didn’t have was a whole lot of time.

Black hesitated, then planted the shovel at the head of the grave.

The wind picked up, howling like something evil, something young and strong. Blasts of sand worried the anonymous tombstones. Black imagined the sound of hoofbeats — cloven hoofs racing sharp and fast over a stretch of blacktop somewhere south of the border.

He hurried to his car, wondering if he’d hear that sound.

Wondering if he knew what to listen for.

(For Tia Travis)

THE MOJAVE TWO-STEP

The desert, just past midnight. A lone truck on a scorched black licorice strip, two men — Anshutes and Coker — inside.

Outside it’s one hundred and twenty-five degrees under a fat December moon. Frosty weather in the twilight days of global warming… and just in time for the holiday season.

Sure, driving across the desert was a risk, even in such balmy weather. Not many people owned cars anymore, and those who did avoided the wide white lonesome. Even roadcops were smart enough to leave the Mojave alone. It was too hot and too empty, and it could make you as crazy as a scorpion on a sizzling-hot skillet. If you broke down out here, you ended up cooked to a beautiful golden brown — just like Tiny Tim’s Christmas goose.

But that wasn’t going to happen to Coker. He was going to spend New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas. The town that Frank and Dean and Sammy had built all those years ago was still the place he wanted to be. Hell on earth outside, air-conditioned splendor within. If you had the long green, Vegas gave you everything a growing boy could desire. A/C to the max, frosty martinis… maybe even a woman with blue eyes that sparkled like icebergs.

Let the swells fly into town in air-conditioned jets, Coker figured. He’d take the hard road. The dangerous road. The real gambler’s road. He’d ride that scorched highway straight down the thermometer into double digits, and the A/C would frost everything but his dreams. A little business, a couple lucky rolls of the dice, and his life would change for good… then he’d leave town with a jet of his own. Slice it up like an Eskimo Pie and that was cool, any way you figured it.

It was all part of the gamble called life. Like always, Lady Luck was rolling the dice. Rattling the bones for Coker and for his partner, too, even though Anshutes would never admit to believing in any airy jazz like that.

Coker believed it. Lady Luck was calling him now. Just up the road in Vegas, she waited for him like a queen. God knew he’d dreamed about her long enough, imagining those iceberg eyes that sparkled like diamonds flashing just for him.

All his life, he’d been waiting for the Lady to give him a sign. Coker knew it was coming soon. Maybe with the next blink of his eyes. Or maybe the one after that.

Yeah. That was the way it was. It had to be.

Really, it was the only explanation.

Check it out. Just two days ago Coker and Anshutes had been on foot. Broiling in Bakersfield with maybe a gallon of water between them, seven bucks, and Anshutes’ .357 Magnum… which was down to three shells. But with that .357 they’d managed to steal five hundred and seventy-two bucks, a shotgun, and an ice cream truck tanked with enough juice to get them all the way to Vegas. Plus they still had the Magnum… and those three shells.

Now if that wasn’t luck, what was?

One-handing the steering wheel, Coker gave the ice cream truck a little juice. Doing seventy on the straightaway, and the electric engine purred quieter than a kitten. The rig wasn’t much more than a pick-up with a refrigeration unit mounted on the back, but it did all right. Coker’s only complaint was the lack of air-conditioning. Not that many automobiles had A/C anymore… these days, the licensing fees for luxuries which negatively impacted the sorry remains of the ozone layer cost more than the cars. But why anyone who could afford the major bucks for a freon-licensed vehicle would forgo the pleasure of A/C, Coker didn’t know.

The only guy who had the answer was the owner of the ice cream truck. If he was still alive… and Coker kind of doubted that he was. Because Anshutes had excavated the poor bastard’s bridgework with the butt of his .357 Magnum, emptied the guy’s wallet, and left him tied to a telephone pole on the outskirts of Bakersfield. By now, the ice cream man was either cooked like the ubiquitous Xmas goose or in a hospital somewhere sucking milkshakes through a straw.

Coker’s left hand rested on the sideview mirror, desert air blasting over his knuckles. Best to forget about the ice cream man. His thoughts returned to the Lady. Like always, those thoughts had a way of sliding over his tongue, no matter how dry it was. Like always, they had a way of parting his chapped lips and finding Anshutes’ perennially sunburnt ear.

“Know where I’m heading after Vegas?” Coker asked.

“No,” Anshutes said. “But I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”

Coker smiled. “There’s this place called Lake Louise, see? It’s up north, in Canada. Fifty years ago it used to be a ski resort. Now the only skiing they do is on the water. They’ve got palm trees, papayas and mangoes, and girls with skin the color of cocoa butter. Days it’s usually about thirty-five Celsius, which is ninety-five degrees American. Some nights it gets as low as sixty.”

Anshutes chuckled. “Sounds like you’ll have to buy a coat.”

“Go ahead and laugh. I’m talking double-digit degrees, partner. Sixty. Six-oh. And girls with skin like cocoa butter. If that’s not a big slice of paradise, I don’t know what is.”

“Get real, amigo. A guy with your record isn’t exactly a prime candidate for immigration. And our dollar isn’t worth shit up north, anyway.”

“Drop some luck into that equation.”

“Oh, no. Here we go again — ”

“Seriously. I can feel it in my bones. Something big is just ahead, waiting for us. I’m gonna take my cut from the ice cream job and hit the tables. I’m not walking away until I have a million bucks in my pocket.”

“Even God isn’t that lucky” Anshutes snorted. “And luck had nothing to do with this, anyway Planning did. And hard work. And a little help from a .357 Magnum.”

“So what are you gonna do with your money?” Coker asked sarcastically. “Bury it in the ground?”

“Depends on how much we get.”

“The way I figure it, we’re looking at something large. Forty grand, maybe fifty.”

“Well, maybe thirty.” Anshutes gnawed on it a minute, doing some quick calculations. “I figure the Push Ups will go for about fifty a pop. We got five cases of those. The Fudgsicles’ll be about sixty-five. Figure seventy-five for the Drumsticks. And the Eskimo Pies — ”

“A hundred each, easy,” Coker said. “Maybe even a hundred and twenty-five. And don’t forget — we’ve got ten cases.”

“You sound pretty sure about the whole thing.”

“That’s because I believe in luck,” Coker said. “Like the song says, she’s a lady. And she’s smiling on us. Right now. Tonight. And she’s gonna keep on smiling for a long, long time.”

Coker smiled, too. Screw Anshutes if he wanted to be all sour. “You know what we ought to do,” Coker said. “We ought to pull over and celebrate a little. Have us a couple of Eskimo Pies. Toast Lady Luck, enjoy the moment. Live a little — ”

“I’ve lived a lot,” Anshutes said. “And I plan to live a lot longer. I’m not going to play the fool with my money. I’m not going to blow it on some pipe dream. I’m going to play it smart.”

“Hey, relax. All I’m saying is — ”

“No,” Anshutes said, and then he really went verbal. “You’ve said enough. We’re in this to make some real money for a change. And we’re not gonna make it by pulling over to the side of the road, and we’re not gonna make it by toasting Lady Luck with an Eskimo Pie in the middle of the Mojave Desert, and we’re not going to make it by blowing our swag in some casino… ”

Anshutes went on like that.

Coker swallowed hard.

He’d had just about enough.

“I’m pulling over,” he said. “I’m going to have an Eskimo Pie, and you’re goddamn well going to have one with me if you know what’s good for you.”

“The hell I am!” Anshutes yanked his pistol. “You goddamn fool! You take your foot off the brake right now or I’ll — ”

Suddenly, Anshutes’ complaints caught in his throat like a chicken bone. Ahead on the road, Coker saw the cause of his partner’s distress. Beneath the ripe moon, knee-deep in heatwaves that shimmered up from the asphalt, a big man wearing a ten-gallon cowboy hat walked the yellow center line of the highway. He only had one arm, and he was carrying a woman piggyback — her arms wrapped around his neck, her long slim legs scissored around his waist. But the woman wasn’t slowing the big guy down. His pace was brisk, and it was one hundred and twenty-five degrees and the rangy bastard didn’t even look like he’d broken a sweat —

Coker honked the horn, but the cowboy didn’t seem to notice. “Don’t hit him!” Anshutes yelled. “You’ll wreck the truck!”

Anshutes closed his eyes as Coker hit the brakes. Tires screamed as the ice cream truck veered right and bounded along the shoulder of the road. Gravel rattled in the wheel wells and slapped against the undercarriage like gunfire, and Coker downshifted from fourth gear to third, from third to second, ice cream visions dancing in his head, visions of Drumsticks and Push Ups bashing around in the refrigeration unit, visions of broken Fudgsicles and mashed Eskimo Pies…

Visions of Lady Luck turning her back…

The electric engine whined as he shifted from second to first and yanked the emergency brake. The truck seized up like a gutshot horse, and the only thing that prevented Coker from doing a header through the windshield was his seat belt.

Coker unbuckled his belt. Anshutes set his pistol on the seat and fumbled with his seat belt. Coker grabbed the .357 and was out of the cab before his partner could complain.

The hot asphalt was like sponge cake beneath Coker’s boots as he hurried after the man in the ten-gallon hat. The cowboy didn’t turn. Neither did the woman who rode him. In fact, the woman didn’t move at all, and as Coker got closer he noticed a rope around her back. She was tied to the cowboy. Coker figured she was dead.

That was bad news. Two strangers. One alive, one dead. Snake eyes. A jinxed roll if ever he saw one.

Bad enough that the cowboy had nearly killed him. But if he’d put the jinx on Coker’s luck —

Coker aimed at the ripe moon and busted a round. “Turn around, cowboy,” he yelled. “Unless you want it in the back.”

The cowboy turned double-quick, like some marching band marionette. The one-armed man’s face was lost under the brim of his ten-gallon hat, but moonlight splashed across his torso and gleamed against his right hand.

Which was wrapped around a pistol.

“Shit!” Coker spit the word fast and fired another shot. The bullet caught the cowboy in the chest, but the big man didn’t even stumble. He didn’t return fire, either… and Coker wasn’t going to give him the chance.

Coker fired again, dead center, and this time the bullet made a sound like a marble rattling around in a tin can.

The cowboy’s chest lit up. Neon rattlesnakes slithered across it. Golden broncos bucked over his bulging pecs. Glowing Gila monsters hissed and spread their jaws.

Three broncos galloped into place.

The cowboy’s chest sprung open like the batwings on an old-fashioned saloon.

Silver dollars rained down on the highway.

And the cowboy kept on coming. Coker couldn’t even move now. Couldn’t breathe. Oh man, this wasn’t a jinx after all. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. This was the omen to end all omens. All of it happening in the blink of an eye.

One more blink and he’d see things clearly. One more blink and the future would turn up like a Blackjack dealt for high stakes —

But Coker couldn’t blink. He couldn’t even move —

Anshutes could. He stepped past his partner, scooped up a silver dollar as it rolled along the highway’s center line. The cowboy kept on coming, heading for Anshutes now, but Anshutes didn’t twitch. He waited until the big man was within spitting distance, and then he slipped the coin between the determined line of the advancing cowboy’s lips.

Immediately, the cowboy’s gunhand swept in an upward arc.

Then he stopped cold.

Anshutes scooped a handful of silver dollars off the road and tossed them at Coker.

“Guess you’ve never heard of a one-armed bandit,” he said.

Coker’s jaw dropped quicker than a bar of soap in a queer bathhouse. Anshutes sighed. Christ, being partnered up with this starry-eyed fool was something else.

“The cowboy here’s a robot,” Anshutes explained. “Comes from a casino called Johnny Ringo’s, named after the gangster who owns the place. Ringo himself came up with the concept for an ambulating slot machine, hired some ex-Disney imagineers to design the things. They walk around his joint twenty-four hours a day. You’d be surprised how many idiots feed dollars into them. I guess they all think they’re lucky… just like you.”

“This thing’s a robot?” Coker asked.

“That’s what I said.”

“Why’d it stop moving?”

“’Cause I fed it a dollar, genius.” Anshutes pointed at the machine’s lone arm, which was raised in the air. “The Cogwheel Kid here can’t do anything until I make my play. I have to pull his arm to set him in motion again. Then those neon wheels will spin, and either he’ll cough up some dough or start walking, looking for another mark. Unless, of course, your bullets dug a hole in his motherboard, in which case who knows what the hell he’ll do.”

Coker blinked several times but said nothing. To Anshutes, he looked like some stupid fish that had just figured out it lived in a tank. Blink-blink-blinking, checking out the big bad pet shop world that lurked beyond the glass.

“It’s an omen,” Coker said finally. “A sign — ”

“Uh-uh, buddy. It’s called the Mojave Two-Step.”

“The Mojave what?”

“The Mojave Two-Step.” Anshutes sighed. “Here’s what happened. This little lady crossed Johnny Ringo. Who knows what the hell she did, but it was bad enough that he wanted to kill her good and slow. So he tied her to one of his walking slots, and he pointed the damn thing west and turned it loose. It’s happened before. Just a couple months ago, one of these things trudged into Barstow with a dead midget tied to its back. Leastways, folks thought it was a midget. A couple weeks under the Mojave sun is liable to shrink anyone down to size.”

“Jesus!” Coker said. “How does Ringo get away with it?”

“He’s rich, idiot. And that means you don’t mess with him, or anything to do with him or he’ll kill you the same way he killed this girl — ”

Right on cue, the girl groaned. Annoyed, Anshutes grabbed her chin and got a look at her. Blue eyes, cold as glaciers. Surprisingly, she wasn’t even sunburned.

Anshutes huffed another sigh. There wasn’t any mystery to it, really. They weren’t that far from Vegas. Twenty, maybe thirty miles. Could be that Ringo had turned the robot loose after dark, that the girl hadn’t even been in the sun yet. Of course, if that was the case it would make sense to assume that the robot had followed the highway, taking the most direct route. Anshutes didn’t know what kind of directional devices Ringo had built into his walking slots, but he supposed it was possible. There wasn’t anything between Vegas and Barstow. Nobody traveled the desert highway unless they absolutely had to. Even if the robot stuck to the road, it was an odds on cinch that the girl would wind up dead before she encountered another human being.

The girl glanced at Anshutes, and it was like that one glance told her exactly what kind of guy he was. So she turned her gaze on Coker. “Help me,” she whispered.

“This is too weird,” Coker said. “A woman riding a slot machine… a slot machine that paid off on the road to Vegas. It is an omen. Or a miracle! Like Lady Luck come to life… like Lady Luck in the flesh — ”

“Like Lady Luck personified,” Anshutes dropped a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Now you listen to me, boy — what we’ve got here is a little Vegas whore riding a walking scrap heap. She doesn’t have anything to do with luck, and she isn’t our business. Our business is over there in that truck. Our business is a load of ice cream. Our business is getting that ice cream to Vegas before it melts.”

Coker’s eyes flashed angrily, and Anshutes nearly laughed. Seeing his partner go badass was like watching a goldfish imitate a shark.

“You’d better back down, boy,” Anshutes warned.

Coker ignored him. He untied the young woman’s wrists and feet. He pulled her off of the Cogwheel Kid’s back and cradled her in his arms, and then he started toward the ice cream truck.

Anshutes cleared his throat. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Even if she’s not Lady Luck, this lady’s hurting,” Coker said. “I think she deserves an ice cream. Hell, maybe she deserves two. Maybe I’ll let her eat her fill.”

Anshutes didn’t answer.

Not with words, anyway.

He raised the sawed-off shotgun he’d stolen from the ice cream man, and he cocked both barrels.

Coker said, “You think you’re pretty cool, don’t you?”

“Cooler than Santa’s ass,” Anshutes said.

“And you’ll shoot me if I give the lady an ice cream?”

“Only way she gets any ice cream is if she pay for it.”

Coker turned around. “How about if I pay for it?”

“I don’t care who pays. You, the little whore, Lady Luck or Jesus Christ. As long as I get the money.”

“That’s fine.” Coker smiled. “You’ll find your money on the road, asshole.”

“What?”

“The jackpot. The money I shot out of the slot machine. It’s all yours.”

‘You’re crazy.”

“Maybe. But I’m gonna buy me a shitload of ice cream, and this little lady’s gonna eat it.”

Coker set the girl down at the side of the road, peeling off his shirt and rolling it into a pillow for her head. Then he walked over to the truck and opened the refrigerated compartment.

“No Eskimo Pies,” Anshutes said. “Let’s get that straight.”

“I’m getting what I paid for,” Coker said.

Anshutes shook his head. What a moron. Ponying up fistfuls of silver dollars, just so some little Vegas whore could lick a Push Up. If that was the way Coker wanted it, that was fine. In the meantime, Anshutes would make himself some money, and Lady Luck wouldn’t have jack to do with it. Hell, for once hard work wouldn’t have jack to do with it either. For once, all Anshutes had to do to make some money was bend over and pick it up.

Silver dollars gleamed in the moonlight. Anshutes put down the shotgun. Not that he was taking any chances — he made sure that the weapon was within reach as he got down to work, filling his pockets with coins.

Behind him, he heard the sound of the refrigerator compartment door slamming closed. Coker. Jesus, what an idiot. Believing that some Vegas slut was Lady Luck. Personified.

Anshutes had told the kid a thousand times that luck was an illusion. Now he realized that he could have explained it a million times, and he still wouldn’t have made a dent. The kid might as well be deaf. He just wouldn’t listen —

Anshutes listened. He heard everything.

The sound of silver dollars jingling in his pocket, like the sound of happiness.

But wait… there was another sound, too.

A quiet hum, hardly audible.

The sound of an electric engine accelerating.

Anshutes turned around fast, dropping coins on the roadway. The ice cream truck was coming fast. The shotgun was right there on the double yellow line. He made a grab for it.

Before he touched the gun, the ice cream truck’s bumper cracked his skull like a hard-boiled egg.

Kim felt better now.

A couple Eskimo Pies could do that for a girl.

“Want another?” the guy asked.

“Sure,” Kim said. “I could probably eat a whole box.”

“I guess it’s like they say: a walk in the desert does wonders for the appetite.”

The guy smiled and walked over to the ice cream truck. She watched him. He was kind of cute. Not as cute as Johnny Ringo, of course, but Johnny definitely had his downside.

She sat in the dirt and finished her third pie. You had to eat the suckers fast or else they’d melt right in your hand. It was funny — she’d left Vegas worse than flat broke, owing Johnny twenty grand, and now she had three hundred bucks worth of ice cream in her belly. Things were looking up. She kind of felt like a safe-deposit box on legs. Kind of a funny feeling. Kind of like she didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry.

The guy handed her another Eskimo Pie. “Thanks — ” she said, and she said it with a blank that he was sure to fill in.

“Coker,” he said. “My first name’s Dennis, but I don’t like it much.”

“It’s a nice name,” Kim said. Which was a lie, but there was no sense hurting the poor guy’s feelings. “Thanks, Dennis.”

“My pleasure. You’ve had a hell of a hard time.”

She smiled. Yeah. That was one way of putting it.

“So you’re heading for Vegas,” she said.

Coker nodded. “Me and my buddy… well, we ended up with this truckload of ice cream. We wanted a place where we could sell it without much trouble from the law.”

“Vegas is definitely the place.”

“You lived there awhile?”

She smiled. She guess you could call what she’d done in Vegas living. If you were imaginative enough.

“Kim?” he prodded. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. Man, it was tough. She should have been happy… because the guy had saved her life. She should have been sad… because Johnny Ringo had tried to kill her. But she couldn’t seem to hold onto any one emotion.

She had to get a grip.

“You ever been to Vegas?” she asked.

“No,” the guy said. “Going there was my partner’s idea.”

“It’s a tough place.”

“I don’t care how tough it is.” He laughed. “As long as it’s the kind of place you can sell an ice cream bar for a hundred bucks, I’m there.”

She nodded. Ice Cream was worth a lot in Vegas.

But other things came pretty cheap.

“It’s a rich town,” she said, because saying that was really like saying nothing. “It’s full of rich men and women. I read somewhere that the entire budget for law enforcement in the United States is about a third of what it costs to power Vegas’ air-conditioners for a month.”

“Wow. That’s amazing.”

“Not really. Vegas is a desert. It’s an empty place. Everything that’s there, someone put it there. Only the rich can afford a place like that. They come and go as they please, jetting in and out in their fancy planes. Everybody else — they’re pretty much stuck there. That’s what happened to me. I was a dancer. I made pretty good money that way. But every dime I made was already spent on my apartment, or A/C, or water or food. I kept waiting for my lucky break, but it never came. I just couldn’t get ahead. Before I knew it, I got behind. And then I got in trouble with my boss — ”

“Johnny Ringo?”

“You know about him?”

Coker nodded at the one-armed bandit. “I’ve heard of the Mojave Two-Step.”

Kim swallowed hard. ‘You never want to dance that one,” she said. “I’m here to tell you.”

The guy looked down at the road, kind of embarrassed. Like he wanted to know her story, but was too shy to ask for the details.

“Well, maybe your luck’s due to change,” he said. “It happened to me. Or it’s going to happen. It’s like I can see it coming.”

“Like a dream?”

“Or an omen.”

Kim smiled. “I like that word.”

“Me too. It’s kind of like a dream, only stronger.”

“I used to have this dream,” Kim said. “When I first came to Vegas. That I was going to hit it big. That I’d live in a penthouse suite with the A/C set at sixty-eight degrees. That the sun would never touch my skin and I’d be white as a pearl.”

The guy didn’t say anything. Still shy. Kim had forgotten about that particular emotion. She hadn’t run across it much in the last few years. Not with Johnny Ringo, and not with any of his friends. Not even with the two-legged slots that followed her around the casino night after night until she fed them dollars just so they’d leave her alone.

In Vegas, everyone wanted something. At least the walking slots came a lot cheaper than their flesh-and-blood counterparts.

Funny. She didn’t feel good about it, but she didn’t exactly feel bad, either.

That’s just the way it was in Vegas.

It was a rich man’s town.

Or a rich woman’s.

Kim finished her Eskimo Pie. She liked what the guy (what was his name again?) had said about omens. That they were dreams, only stronger.

She stared at the ice cream truck.

She thought: it’s not often you get a second chance.

“You want another?” the guy asked.

She laughed. “Just one more?”

Of course, he thought she was talking about an Eskimo Pie, when that really wasn’t what she wanted at all.

He went after the ice cream. She watched him go.

Past the dead guy on the highway

Past the second chance that lay there on the yellow line.

Kim really didn’t have a choice.

She had to pick it up.

She heard the freezer door close. Watched the guy (Dennis, that was his name) step from behind the truck.

He was all right about it. He kind of smiled when he saw the shotgun in her hands, like he already understood.

“I’m sorry, Dennis,” she said. “But dreams die hard. Especially strong ones.”

“Yeah.” he said. “Yeah.”

Coker stood in the middle of the road, eating an Eskimo Pie, listening to “Pop Goes the Weasel.”

The ice cream truck was gone from view, but he could still hear its little song. That meant she was up ahead somewhere, playing the tape.

Maybe she was playing it for him. The music drifted through the night like a sweet connection. Coker listened to the song while he finished his Eskimo Pie. Anshutes couldn’t stand the music the truck made. He wouldn’t let Coker play it at all.

Well, Anshutes didn’t have a say in anything anymore. Coker stared at his ex-partner. The big man lay dead on the highway like roadkill of old, his pockets stuffed with silver dollars.

Coker turned them out, filling his own pockets with the coins. Then he walked over to the one-armed bandit.

The Cogwheel Kid was primed for action — Anshutes’ coin between his lips, his lone robotic arm held high in the air. Coker pulled the slot machine’s arm. Ribbons of neon danced across the one-armed bandit’s chest. Bucking broncos, charging buffaloes, jackalopes that laughed in the desert night.

After awhile, the neon locked up.

Two tittering jackalopes with a snorting buffalo between them.

Hardly a jackpot.

Coker smiled as the neon flickered out. Losing wasn’t a big surprise, really. After all, Lady Luck was gone. She was up ahead, driving an ice cream truck, heading for the land of dreams.

The Cogwheel Kid started walking. He headed east, toward Vegas, looking for another mark.

Coker jumped on the robot’s back and held on tight.

He smiled, remembering the look of her frosty blue eyes. Lady Luck with a shotgun. He should have hated her. But he was surprised to find that he couldn’t do that.

She was chasing a dream, the same way he was.

He couldn’t help hoping she’d catch it.

The same way he hoped he’d catch her.

If he was lucky.

CARNE MUERTA

Curtain tossed the canteen in the dirt, just beyond the reach of the man with the broken hands. Not out of pity or compassion, but as punctuation — a period against the red earth, big and round and implacable and unmoving.

Leaving the canteen was only a gesture. Curtain had broken Sanchez’s hands with a claw hammer while Kirby and Wyatt held the Mexican. Now Sanchez’s fingers were twisted and swollen like rotten sausages. Even so, Curtain had done a good job tightening the cap on the canteen. Sanchez would never be able to open it. Not in a month of Sundays.

Curtain watched as Sanchez reached for the canteen. Broken hands dripping blood on polished leather. Mouth open. Dry tongue on jerky lips. Swollen clown fingers smearing the cap with blood, then slipping off, slipping off… slipping off again.

Kirby kicked the canteen out of Sanchez’s hands. It skidded across the dirt at a slight angle, leaving a mark like an especially long comma.

No one said anything. Kirby and Wyatt paced the Mexican as he bellied across the floor of Apache Canyon like a crippled sidewinder. The canyon was deep here. There were many shadows. But it was August and this was Arizona, and shadows did not make a difference. It was hot.

Sanchez hooked the strap of the canteen with his forearm and pulled it to his chest.

“You’ve got to hand it to the little bastard,” Kirby said. “He doesn’t give up, does he?”

“Maybe he doesn’t know how,” Wyatt said.

“He’ll learn,” Curtain said.

Curtain’s first name was Walter. No one called him Walt. He had a lot of money, and he was very wise with it. As far as he was concerned, all that buyer beware stuff was a load of crap. He didn’t believe in it. He believed in getting what he paid for. He figured that was the least a man should expect out of life.

Kirby drew his Glock M22 and aimed at Sanchez’s face. “Want me to finish him?”

“No.” Curtain sighed. Normally, the question wouldn’t have bothered him, because — normally — Kirby would have been the one to handle someone like Jesus Sanchez. But there was nothing normal about this situation. Apart from some minor assistance, Curtain was handling this job himself. And when he handled a job personally, he handled it start to finish. His own way.

Consequently, Kirby’s question was insulting. If Curtain wanted to finish this particular job with a gun, well then, he had his own. But this wasn’t a gun kind of job. This was a claw hammer kind of job. And as far as Curtain was concerned, he’d finished it.

Curtain glanced at the hammer in his hand, wondering why he was still holding it.

He dropped it in the dirt.

It landed without a sound, a bloody exclamation point.

“Let’s go,” Curtain said.

Kirby looked astonished. “You sure you want to leave him like this?”

Curtain glared at the bigger man, nodding very slowly.

“What about the canteen?” Kirby asked. “It’s a long way back to the Mercedes, you know. And it’s fucking hot today.”

“It’s fucking hot everyday,” Wyatt said, as if sarcasm would defuse the simmering tension. “This is Arizona.”

“Yeah,” Kirby said. “This is fucking Arizo — ”

“We’re finished here,” Curtain said quickly, because he was the boss, and his word was the word.

If Curtain said they’d leave Jesus Sanchez, they’d leave him.

If Curtain said they’d leave the canteen, they’d leave it too.

Right or wrong didn’t matter. A cast iron non-negotiable don’t-fuck-with-me attitude did. And as far as Curtain was concerned, Kirby should fucking well know that.

Curtain turned his back on the whole mess and started up the shadow-choked throat of the canyon. A few steps and he realized that Kirby and Wyatt weren’t following him. He didn’t have to look back to know that. The rut that passed for a trail was thick with shale and gravel. Even an Apache couldn’t move quietly in Apache Canyon.

So his ears told him that the gunmen weren’t walking, but they were talking. Whispering, really. And nothing singed Walter Curtain’s bacon quite as thoroughly as employees whispering behind his back.

He was ready to lose his temper when he heard footsteps.

He glanced over his shoulder.

Wyatt was coming.

Kirby stood below, looking long and hard at Jesus Sanchez.

Curtain whistled loud and shrill, the same way he whistled at his dog.

Kirby looked up at him.

Just like an Irish Setter, he came right along.

The first part of the hike was the toughest. The canyon rose at a steep, straight angle for a quarter mile. Twenty feet and Curtain wanted to stop for a breather. But he couldn’t do that yet. He kept at it. Switchbacks would have made the climb easier. But while the canyon was on government land, no park service crew was going to cut a trail in a meandering gash that any sensible billy goat would avoid.

Rock and shale slipped beneath their boots. Two miles hard and they’d be at the Mercedes. Even then, twenty miles of desert separated them from the slightest rumor of a town.

But it would be good to get back to the Mercedes. The ride was a first class toy. An ML320 — king of the sports utility vehicles, these days known as SUV’s. Curtain figured he deserved the best.

Wyatt would ride in the back seat. In a bigger car, that spot was reserved for Curtain. But in the SUV, there wasn’t much leg-room in the back, and the air-conditioning was less effective. So Curtain would ride shotgun.

Kirby would drive. He always drove. In a way, it bothered Curtain, because the car was his. But Curtain was the boss. The only time he drove was when he was alone. Kirby was his employee, so it was only right that he play chauffeur. If that was the price of keeping up appearances, then —

Damn, Curtain wanted to stop and catch his breath.

Below, Jesus Sanchez screamed in Spanish. Still proclaiming his innocence. Now adding his curse.

Curtain had his excuse. “Hold up,” he said.

Looking down, Curtain experienced a little spin of vertigo. They’d climbed higher than he thought.

The Mexican was not where they had left him. He had crawled about ten feet, onto a forked tongue of rock. He had the canteen, but the cap was still in place.

“Will you look at the little bastard,” Kirby said.

“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “Seems like Jesus isn’t a very quick study.”

“Give him time,” Curtain said.

They stood there in silence. Curtain tried to control his breathing. He thought about taking a shot at Sanchez, just to shut him up. Curtain was packing a Glock M24, which was just a little larger than the M22’s he’d purchased for Kirby and Wyatt.

Chalk the selection up to Money magazine. Curtain had read an article about corporate hunting retreats. Tips for managers, that kind of thing. The gist of the article was that the boss should always carry the biggest gun as a symbol of his authority.

But when it came to guns, Curtain knew that size didn’t matter. Skill was what counted. And Curtain doubted that he could hit Sanchez from this distance. If he missed, he’d hear it from Kirby. Even at this range, the big Irishman could probably pick off the Mexican. He was damn good with a gun. Even Wyatt ran a distant second to Kirby when it came to small arms work.

But there wasn’t any need, because Wyatt was right about one thing. Jesus Sanchez wasn’t a quick study.

Still, Walter Curtain had faith in his teaching methods.

Sanchez would catch on sooner or later.

Eventually, he’d shut up. Eventually, he’d have to.

Eventually, he’d be dead.

Curtain sidled past Kirby and Wyatt and took the lead.

“Carne muerta,” he whispered.

“What?” Kirby asked.

Wyatt translated. “Dead meat.”

Curtain’s heart pounded in his chest. Leading was harder than following. He had to set the pace, and it was disheartening to find that the pace he set wasn’t anything the hired guns couldn’t handle. The way they dogged his heels — Wyatt in the middle and Kirby in the rear — you’d think that he’d grown a couple of shadows.

Curtain grinned. That’s how it is when you’re the boss, he thought. And he liked being the boss. He liked to see people jump when he snapped his fingers.

Wyatt had figured that out a long time ago. Kirby was still learning. Jesus Sanchez was another story completely. And so was Curtain’s wife.

Her name was Rita. Half Mex, half Irish, but she kept the Irish to herself. She called Curtain “patron.” The way she said it, you’d think she really wasn’t joking at all.

“Patron.” Wyatt had to translate that one for Kirby, too. Curtain still remembered laughing as he eavesdropped on their conversation, the one hardcase telling the other that “patron” was Spanish for “big daddy.”

That was the way Curtain saw it, too. When they met at a college fund-raiser, he was forty and Rita was twenty-two. Part of a mentoring program, someone’s bright idea to shake some extra scratch from the alumni. They kept it pretty quiet through her senior year, and Curtain really thought he’d been a perfect gentleman about the whole thing.

And he took the mentoring seriously. Rita finished with a 3.83 GPA and an MBA. Not that she was ever going to need her degree. Curtain didn’t want a business partner. He wanted a partner between the sheets.

For a couple years, it went just that way. Everything seemed okay. Rita was a little bored, sure. Sometimes she got on Curtain’s nerves, wanting to get involved in the business. He was tempted to develop a home study course, Corporate Wives 101. But instead he kept Rita happy with trips when he could steal a few days away from the business and expensive gifts when he couldn’t.

Then Curtain started noticing things. Rita would disappear for an afternoon, take off for a weekend.

With friends, she said. The old college gang.

He knew better. Rita had never been the type to have many friends. And as far as he knew, he was the old college gang.

Curtain told Wyatt to check things out. He didn’t have time to do it himself. Besides, he couldn’t do something like that. Surveillance wasn’t his game. What Curtain did was manage the Bahamian accounts, the holdings in the Pacific Rim.

What Wyatt did was something very different.

And Wyatt was good at what he did. He wasn’t a hothead like Kirby. Wyatt understood the way things worked. He knew when to talk and when to shut up.

Eventually, Wyatt told Curtain about Jesus Sanchez. Sanchez handled a few racehorses for Curtain and ran his private stable. There wasn’t much to it, really. The guy was a glorified stableboy. Of course, Wyatt didn’t say that. He knew what to say and what to leave out. He knew better than to rub his boss’s nose in it.

Curtain could do that job for himself. He imagined the stableboy doing Rita in the fucking barn. Right there in a stall, bent over a hay bale with her riding breeches down around her knees. Sanchez playing the show stud, Rita the brood mare —

No, Walter Curtain wasn’t going to start thinking those thoughts again. You thought like that, the next thing you knew you’d lose it all.

But that was the way it was when you were the front runner.

You always imagined what it was like to finish out of the money.

Curtain was sweating like a pig. He didn’t want to stop, but he needed a breather.

‘You all right?” Wyatt asked.

Curtain nodded. “Just give me a minute.”

“Shit, give me two,” Kirby said, and he slouched against a rock in a muted patch of shade.

Curtain stared ahead. At least they were done climbing. The trail had leveled out. They had another mile and a half to go.

Mile and a quarter, if they were lucky.

No matter how far it was, there wasn’t an inch of it in the shade.

“From here on out, we’re cookin’,” Kirby said.

“It could be worse,” Wyatt said. ‘You could be Jesus Sanchez.”

‘Yeah.” Kirby laughed, and it seemed his anger had dulled. “I’ve got to admit, the patron here knows his way around a hammer just like a Roman centurion on Easter Sunday. Fuck, ol’ Jesus sure lived up to his name, the way he got nailed.”

The big ox went on like that. Sweat dripped off Curtain’s nose. He was getting uncomfortable again. For the first time, he realized that using the hammer had been a mistake.

Sure, he wanted revenge. Sure, it felt good. But using a claw hammer. Jesus. That wasn’t his game. Not at all. That was why he had Kirby and Wyatt.

He’d definitely crossed a line that he didn’t want to cross. And Kirby and Wyatt knew it. Wyatt had the good sense to keep his trap shut, but he probably felt the same way as Kirby. They’d seen the boss try his hand at their work, seen he wasn’t nearly as efficient as they were, and now they were like a couple of seasoned old-timers slapping the new kid on the back while they demolished a six-pack.

The roles were reversed.

Curtain had to nip this one in the bud, and fast.

He glanced at Wyatt, and that was all it took.

“Shut up, Kirby,” Wyatt said.

“Hey!” The big man was offended all over again. “All I’m saying is the boss knows his business. In and out, over and around and — ”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “We know what you’re saying. But nobody wants to hear it.”

“Jesus.” Kirby grunted. “Pardon me all to hell.”

He stepped past Curtain without even looking at him.

Wyatt shrugged. “After you.”

Curtain bristled, but he made a joke of it because he couldn’t afford to piss off the both of them.

“You first,” he said. “I think I need a buffer.”

Wyatt grinned. “I think you might be right.”

Another quarter mile. The canyon widened, but that just meant there was more room for sunlight. They moved through it, three gringos on a sandstone griddle. Heat baked the soles of their boots, which kicked up plenty of dust that the man in the rear ate without a word of complaint.

The dust was bitter, and Curtain was too dry to spit. He started thinking about the canteen he’d left with Jesus Sanchez. Leaving the canteen was a gesture meant to conclude the matter in an appropriately sardonic manner. In retrospect, it was a hell of a mistake. Curtain wanted a drink of water. Hell, he would have traded shares of Microsoft for one.

The way Kirby was panting, it was a sure bet he wanted a drink too. Best not to mention the canteen. Things were touchy enough as it was. Besides, there was another canteen in the SUV. And they couldn’t be more than a half a mile away from it.

Sure, they were in the sun, and it was noon sun.

And this was August. And this was Arizona.

But fuck it. The trail was highway from here on out. Thirsty or not, anyone could make the last half mile. A peg-legged man pushing a wheelbarrow full of steaming horseshit could make it.

Let Kirby charge on like a damn fool if he wanted to. Curtain would remain calm. He wouldn’t let the heat burn him down, be it emotional or meteorological. He didn’t have to be in front to be the leader.

Curtain shook his head. Just look at the idiot, he thought. Kirby hadn’t even put on any sunblock. The dumb Irishman was beet red.

Beet red and slowing his pace.

Beet red and planting his sizable ass on a rock.

In the middle of the pack, Wyatt shook his head.

In the rear, Curtain did the same.

Kirby glared at them as they approached. “Wish we had that fuckin’ canteen,” he said.

“Wishes are a waste of time,” Wyatt said.

Curtain didn’t say a word.

Like they say in the war movies, Curtain took point.

In the lead again. Wyatt in the middle. Kirby dragging ass in the rear.

Curtain wanted to laugh. Wish we had that fuckin’ canteen. The goddamned muscle-headed moron. Everyone knew it. Even Rita. She hated Kirby. She said he was the worst kind of jackass, and she jerked his chain every chance she got.

Like that time in Puerto Vallarta. Curtain had some business down there. Bad business. He took Kirby and Wyatt along just in case things got rough, which they did. Afterwards, they went out to dinner together. It was one of the few times he socialized with the hired help, and he only did it at Rita’s insistence. Anyway, Kirby said he couldn’t read a menu in Spanish, but Rita knew that he couldn’t read at all. She told him to order the puta asada, and the idiot actually did. Wyatt had laughed like a son of a bitch and —

Gunfire slapped at Curtain’s heels. He nearly pissed himself. He was yelling at Kirby before the reports had echoed off the canyon walls because he didn’t think this was one bit funny.

He turned and saw:

The dumb Irishman’s smile.

The Glock in his very fast hand.

The dead rattler in a tangle of white rock.

“Carne muerta,” Kirby said, passing Curtain by.

After that, Curtain didn’t want anyone behind him.

Wyatt took point, and he didn’t take it slow.

Kirby ran second, and he did take it slow. It was a lucky thing that he was fast with that damn gun, though. Not that Curtain was going to compliment the idiot. After all, he paid Kirby to be fast. The Irishman was only earning his money.

Curtain could have passed the big man had he wanted to. The idea was tempting, because it would put him closer to a nice long drink of water and the best air-conditioning system available in a SUV. But he could wait. After all, it was his Mercedes and his canteen. He could stand the heat a little while longer.

Besides, it could have been a whole lot worse. Sure. Like Wyatt said, he could have been Jesus Sanchez.

Curtain stopped and looked down the canyon. It seemed they’d come a lot farther than two miles. The Mexican was back there somewhere. Across a sandstone griddle and down a rocky red throat, baking to death, bleeding in shadows that showed no mercy.

It was dead quiet.

Sanchez wasn’t screaming anymore.

His curses had fallen on deaf ears.

No ears at all, really.

Curtain wondered if the idiot had given up yet.

He wondered if Jesus Sanchez had finally learned his place.

When Kirby and Curtain caught up, Wyatt was leaning against the SUV. He looked as thirsty as Curtain felt.

But right now, Wyatt couldn’t do Curtain a bit of good. Wyatt wasn’t the driver. He didn’t have the keys.

Curtain said, “Give me the keys, Kirby”

“Fuck that.” Kirby didn’t even look at him. He unlocked the liftback and grabbed the extra canteen.

Curtain said, “Toss it here.”

“Fuck that too.”

Curtain bristled. It was his canteen. After all, he was the boss. But Kirby acted like he had forgotten all about that. He gave the canteen a shake, smiled at the enticing slosh.

The fucker knew exactly what he was doing.

One more chance, Curtain thought. I’ll give him one more chance.

“A joke’s a joke,” Curtain said.

“This ain’t no joke,” Kirby said. He raised the canteen, as if he were proposing a toast. “Here’s to assholes who can’t say thank you.”

Curtain had been mad, but now he was boiling. If the big Irishman didn’t give him the first drink, he’d fire his Mick ass on the spot and let him walk home.

With his very fast hands, Kirby unscrewed the cap.

Before Curtain could say another word, the first bullet caught Kirby square in the chest. A second made a red puddle of his belly. Then Wyatt stepped over Kirby and shot the big man one last time in the head.

“Jesus,” Curtain whispered. “Jesus!”

Water burbled over the dry earth. Wyatt scooped up the canteen, saying, “He would have killed you, Mr. Curtain.”

“Over a canteen.” Curtain shook his head in astonishment. “Over a fucking drink of water.”

“No,” Wyatt said. “You and I both know that it was a little more complicated than that.” He stared down at the dead man and shook his head. “Some dogs just never learn to heel.”

A moment of silence followed. Not out of respect for the dead man. It was just that there wasn’t anything else to say about Kirby.

But there was more to be said.

Curtain swallowed hard. “How about that drink?”

Wyatt stared at the canteen. Curtain stared at it too.

Wyatt smiled. “You want a drink, patron?”

The last word slapped Curtain hard. Rita’s word. And the way Wyatt said it, you’d think he really wasn’t joking at all.

Wyatt raised the canteen to his lips. He took a long drink, his Glock trained on his employer’s very thirsty belly.

It came clear in Curtain’s head. The trip through Apache Canyon. Wyatt jockeying for position, always ending up in the middle of the pack instead of the back. Wyatt couldn’t do anything there. Not sandwiched between the two men he wanted to kill. Kirby was fast, and even if Curtain wasn’t, Wyatt wasn’t the kind to take chances. So he waited until they reached the Mercedes, and Kirby had a fistful of canteen, and —

“I would have done it sooner, Wyatt began. “But — ”

“You don’t have to draw me a diagram,” Curtain said.

“I know. You’re smarter than that.”

And that was the truth. And that was awful. Because Curtain could see it now, all of it. Wyatt and Rita. Christ, he wondered if they’d fucked down in Puerto Vallarta, right under his nose.

And Jesus Sanchez… he wasn’t even in the picture. He really was a fucking stableboy, for Christsakes. Wyatt and Rita had played it all very smart, convincing Curtain that his wife wanted nothing more than the proverbial roll in the hay when she really wanted so much more.

Curtain had to admit they’d make a good team. Different style than his, but good. More of a division of labor kind of thing — the girl with the MBA and the guy with the gun.

They’d make a good team, if they had the chance.

Curtain stared at the canteen in Wyatt’s hand. He wanted to smile, but he didn’t. He kept his smile to himself, and he spoke slowly, calmly…

“About that drink… ” Curtain began.

Wyatt smiled. A condescending smile. A smug smile.

He said, “There’s a difference between being a fast study, and being fast.”

Wyatt raised the canteen.

Curtain went for his gun.

But that wasn’t his game.

Not at all.

BUCKET OF BLOOD

Highway 50 cuts a ragged wound across the belly of California, finally ripping across the border into Nevada. A little slice north and you’re in Virginia City. And when you’re done there — and if you’re lucky — it’s east on 50 until 95 slashes south.

Tonopah… Scotty’s Junction… Beatty and Amargosa Valley and Indian Springs.

And straight on into Vegas.

According to the AAA California/Nevada TourBook, the trip should take nine hours.

We say fuck the AAA California/Nevada TourBook.

Me and Mitch, that is. We’ve got us a Mustang convertible, and it’s tanked to the gills with Chevron Premium. Two sixes of iced Pacifico in the trunk, bricks of every kind of cheese known to man because Mitch can’t control himself in a grocery store, an old Hamm’s Beer display sign that lights up and an authentic Jayne Mansfield hot water bottle and a dozen matchbooks from various incarnations of the Mustang Ranch (because Mitch can’t control himself in an antique shop, either), T-shirts from every tourist trap along the way, and a couple of pairs of swimming trunks.

No swimming tonight, though. The cold desert air bites like a pissed-off rattlesnake tossed onto smoldering campfire coals, but we’ve got the top down anyway.

Even though we’ve got the heater cranked full blast, I’m shivering behind the wheel — leather coat zipped up tight, face numb as the hide of a zombie that stumbled off a midnight movie screen. Mitch is a hardcase, of course. No coat for this boy — he’s wearing that T-shirt. The one he got up the street from the Bucket of Blood Saloon while I bided my time, stretching the last sip of a three buck beer that I couldn’t afford.

It’s an eye catcher, the shirt is. Bullet holes cratering high on the chest, bright red blood driving over the legend:

SLOWEST GUN IN

VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA

The sign over the batwing doors said Bucket of Blood Saloon. Inside, Big John Dingo stood straight and tall, black eyes shining like fresh tarantula blood, lips twisted into a snarl.

“Fill yer hand, ya sorry sonofabitch!”

“Hold on,” Mitch began. I’m not ready — ”

“Not with yer pecker, idiot!” the gunfighter growled. “Fill yer hairy palm with a six-gun, ’cause I’m about to blow yer pimply ass south of eternity!”

The batwing doors swung open. Big John clutched a fistful of Colt .45 while Mitch made a grab for his pistol.

Mitch missed the holster entirely. He was laughing way too hard — one hand searching for his pistol, the other wrapped around a beer.

The gunfighter’s pistol sparked. “HAHAHAHAHA!” he screeched. “Another pencil-dicked pilgrim eats it! No one outdraws Big John Dingo! I can fuck longer and draw faster than any man alive! I never come up for air! I live on pussy and hot lead! Drop a quarter, ya redneck peckerwood! Try your luck! HAHAHAHAHA!”

Mitch swigged beer and turned away from the mechanical gunman.

“More quarters?” the bartender asked.

“No.” Mitch laughed at the mannequin as the batwing doors closed on the tiny booth. “Where the hell did you get this thing?”

“Used to be in a drug store over in Carson City. A kid’s game, right along with the gum machines and the fiberglass pony ride. Of course, the gunfighter didn’t talk like that when he was outdrawing six-year-olds. My boss hired a fellow who did a little work on him. He juiced the gunfighter’s speed a little, recorded a new tape and — ”

“You think your boss would sell it?” Mitch interrupted.

“Well, I don’t know… ”

Mitch drained his beer. “What do you think, Kurt? Would the crowd down at the bar love this thing, or what?”

I nodded. “Sure they would. But what about you? I mean, can you imagine listening to Big John Dingo all night long, every night?”

The mechanical gunfighter kicked into gear as if on cue. “C’mon ya candy-assed cocksuckers! Yer dicks are wrapped in Tom Jones’ old socks! Ya got cojones the size of goober peas! Ain’t a one of you man enough to take on Big John Dingo!”

Mitch set his empty beer on the counter. “I guess it would get old pretty fast.”

“Good Tom Jones line, though,” I said.

Mitch did some business with the bartender, stocking up on Bucket of Blood Saloon souvenirs. A T-shirt, a coffee cup, even a cassette tape featuring Big John Dingo’s witty repartee. In just under three minutes, Mitch dropped thirty bucks and change.

And he wasn’t done yet. “Want another round?” he asked, his wallet still open.

I shook my head.

“C’mon. I’m buyin’.”

“No. I’m okay.”

“C’mon.” Mitch sidled up on the barstool next to me. “Ease off a little. Stop worrying. I thought you were going to leave all that money shit behind for the weekend. Sure you’re hurting now, but what was it you said?”

“This too will pass.”

“Yeah. It fuckin’ will. Things will come around for you, same way they came around for me. Right now you’re hurting, and I’m not. It’s as simple as that. So let me buy you a — ”

Mitch left it there. Suddenly, he was staring over my shoulder, transfixed, and I knew that look.

I knew what I’d see before I even turned. She’d be tall and dark. Thin. That was a given. When it came to women, Mitch definitely favored a certain type. Genus Gen X, species Morticia Adamsette.

But this one wasn’t dressed in black, which was kind of a surprise. She wore a white T-shirt with faux bullet holes that streamed equally faux blood.

“Hey,” Mitch said. “Where’d you get that shirt?”

“That’s not the question,” she said.

Mitch raised his eyebrows. “What is?”

“The question is what you’ll give me for it.”

They laughed. Mitch bought her a drink. Her name was Doreen. Past the expected pleasantries, I kept my mouth shut and didn’t get in the way. Hell, I could barely afford my own drink, let alone someone else’s.

Mitch and Doreen talked about T-shirts until that went dead, and then they found something else to talk about, and pretty soon I noticed that Doreen’s hand was on Mitch’s thigh.

Doreen made the inevitable trip to the Ladies’, and Mitch got down to business.

“You mind?” Mitch asked.

“No, man,” I said. “Go for it.”

“You okay? I mean, you’ve got enough money, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Go on. Have fun. If I’m not here, I’ll be in the car.”

Mitch and Doreen left together, heading for the shop that sold the SLOWEST GUN IN VIRGINIA CITY’ T-shirts, which was where Doreen worked. She said that she lived in a little apartment above the place, and there was only one reason I could think of for her to impart that particular information.

The bartender and I traded grins as Mitch and Doreen crossed the plank sidewalk outside the saloon. The old guy was all ruined around the eyes and someone had stove in his nose a long time ago. Even though he worked in a saloon, he looked like he managed to spend a lot of the time in the sun. According to his nameplate, his name was Roy and he hailed from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

That info didn’t do me any good — I’d never been to Albuquerque. But Roy knew how to keep a conversation moving without any help. Just as smooth as Johnny Carson, he asked, ‘“Nother round?”

I thought about my wallet first.

Then I thought about Mitch… and Doreen.

“Why not,” I said. “Maybe I’ll be here awhile.”

“Knowing Doreen, I can practical guarantee it, amigo.”

Roy grinned and opened a bottle. I had four bucks in my pocket, the last of the money I’d brought on our trip. A weekend getaway — some gambling, a few thrift shops, a few tourist traps. We were heading home tomorrow, anyway. If Mitch got lucky with Doreen and I ended up spending the night in Mitch’s Mustang, eating crackers and cheese and drinking Pacifico, that would suit me just fine. Most nights I didn’t do that good at home.

Feeling fuck-it-all magnanimous, I peeled off three bucks for the beer, tipped Roy my last dollar, and raised my bottle.

“Here’s to true love,” I said.

“Yeah,” Roy said, soaping Doreen’s lipstick off her empty glass. “Right.”

My hands are angel white in the moonlight. Mitch — head back, eyes closed— wears the beatific expression of a saintly corpse. Trapped between his Converse All-Stars is a change bucket, the kind slot players use to collect their winnings. This one’s from the Bucket of Blood Saloon. A first class souvenir. It’s half full, brimming, contents gleaming in the moonlight.

Get me to Vegas, one of those five star casinos with five buck slots, and I’m putting that bucket to work for me.

Maybe it’s the bucket that’s lucky. Maybe the shiny contents. Or maybe it’s me.

One thing’s for certain — I can’t lose.

Not tonight, anyway.

I’ve got to get to Vegas.

Before my luck runs out.

Mitch owned a couple of clubs in San Francisco, hole-in-the-wall joints in the Mission District. He started out on the cheap, backed only with a little bit of an inheritance from his dad, and there wasn’t anything fancy about either place. Just a come-one-come-all attitude, a half-dozen beers on tap, clean glasses, and live music a couple nights a week. Mitch said that the secret to his success was throwing a good party every night. He definitely knew how to do that.

We’d been friends for a long time — since high school — and I was real happy for him. But mostly I wished I could be real happy for me, too. I’d been making my living as a writer for the last five years, but mine was a strictly hanging-on-by-the-skin-of-my-teeth kind of existence. I was more than a little tired of worrying about the rent, and the credit card bill, and the beater of a car that had been rolling atop four balding tires for the last five thousand miles. And I was sure enough sick of eating bologna sandwiches for dinner.

I knew that in a lot of ways I was luckier than most. I sold everything I wrote. Four published novels under my belt, and a fifth on the way. Every one of them had garnered good reviews, and I had a drawerful of laudatory quotes from writers I admired.

But I’d never come close to making the kind of score I wanted to make. No publisher had ever shot the big advance my way, or offered to send me on tour, or put a single penny into publicizing my books. No Hollywood bigwigs had optioned any of my novels for the movies. People I respected told me that I had a bright future and that financial success was just around the corner. But I’d been hearing that for so long that it annoyed me more than anything else.

People told me other things, too. Like money isn’t everything. Of course, it was my considered opinion that people who spoke about money in those terms slapped filet mignon on the barbecue grill whenever the mood struck them and fed the scraps to the dog. To put it plainly, they hadn’t eaten a bologna sandwich in many many moons.

My stomach growled. There was a popcorn machine at the end of the bar. Popcorn was free if you were buying a beer. I helped myself to a bowl.

I glanced at my watch. It was a little past eight o’clock. Mitch must have gotten lucky. The tourist crowd at the saloon was starting to thin out. Plenty of barstools stood vacant, and the clatter of the slot machines was practically nonexistent. Roy was chatting with a few local alcoholics who appeared glued to their stools, but his heart sure didn’t seem to be in it.

No such problem with Big John Dingo. He waited behind the barroom doors, the cassette tape rolling endlessly, spewing his rattler-rough come-on for just one more quarter.

A guy wandered up to the mechanical gunslinger. He sure didn’t seem like the type. He looked as trail worn as Big John himself, and he wore a T-shirt that proclaimed: TOP HAND AT THE MUSTANG RANCH.

The T-shirt was black, but the material was so faded that it couldn’t disguise several angry smears of machine oil. I wondered if the guy was a biker. He looked the part. I was just about to congratulate myself for my keen observational skill when he produced a key from a ring chained to his belt, unlocked Big John Dingo’s change box, and pawed a mound of quarters into his hand.

The take wasn’t much more than what Mitch fed the machine a couple hours earlier. The greaseball wandered over to Roy and stacked quarters carefully on the bar. He slid two stacks to Roy and kept the other for himself.

“Fucked up way to make a living,” the guy said.

Roy stared at the greaseball. Or maybe he was staring at the greaseball’s T-shirt. Because what Roy said was, “There’s worse ways.”

The words sent an uncomfortable shiver up my spine. For a second I thought there might be trouble, but the greaseball only shrugged and pocketed his quarters. He wandered over to one of the slot machines and fed the one-armed bandit until his money was gone. Then he glanced around the room, like he was waiting for someone.

I knew how that felt, the same way I knew that this guy had made a mucho grande mistake — he’d shot his pathetic little wad and come up short one beer in his hand, so he didn’t have an excuse to hang around.

“I’ll be back,” he said, and his shadow followed him outside like a thirty-weight stain.

“Wonderful,” Roy said.

I finished my popcorn and wandered around the saloon. The slots were old, not the electronic gizmos you find in Reno, Tahoe, and Vegas. Some of ’em, I could imagine dusty miners pulling the handles. After all, the Bucket of Blood Saloon had been open since 1876.

My boots made muffled thuds against the weathered floorboards. A silver-haired lady smiled at me from behind the cashier’s cage. “Try your luck?” she asked. “How about a roll of quarters?”

I shrugged and looked down, embarrassed by my empty pockets. Then I spotted it, on the floor in front of a quarter slot machine. A single quarter, gleaming in a pool of soft yellow light.

I looked around. The greaseball was long gone. I sure wasn’t going to chase after him. Maybe he’d dropped the quarter. But maybe he didn’t. I’d watched several people play the slots in the last few hours. Any one of them might have dropped that quarter.

I picked it up and slipped it into the slot machine.

I pulled the handle.

Three plums spun into place.

The one on the right shuddered a little.

Then a buzzer sounded, because the plum held firm.

“I’m thinking maybe another bar is the way to go, ” I say. “If my luck holds in Vegas, I’ll go in on it with you as a partner. Of course, it would be your show…”

I glance over at Mitch, but he doesn’t say a word. His head hangs low. He s staring into the brimming slot bucket between his feet.

“Yeah, ” I say, backtracking in case I made a mistake. “Maybe that’s a bad idea. You’ve already got two bars. That’s nothing new for you. What we need is a challenge.”

I drive on, through Tonopah. I’m not stopping. Not for anything. All I want is Vegas, another casino, a big one with acres of slots.

Dollar machines. Five dollar machines. Ten dollar machines. ‘Movies,” I say. ‘We take one of my short stories. Do the damn thing ourselves. I write it. You produce it. We find a director who’ll get the motherfucker right. ”

I slap the steering wheel with my hand. Yeah. That’s a hell of a good idea. Mitch has the connections, too. There’s a pack of youngun movie guys who hang out at one of his clubs.

Man, I’m not even cold anymore. I honk the horn, long and loud.

I step on the gas.

I played the quarter slots for an hour. And then the dollar slots for two. Finally I ended up at a big monster of a dollar machine called THE BUCKET OF BLOOD.

God knows how many pulls on that sucker.

Fifteen of them hit jackpots.

Two hundred silver dollars. Five hundred silver dollars. Seven-fifty. A piddly seventy-five. And on like that. Enough to fill up three Bucket of Blood Saloon slot buckets.

But those jackpots were just small change. The last one was the big one. Three black buckets tripped into view, each one dripping blood.

Ten thousand dollars.

The machine didn’t pay that one, of course. Roy handed me the check. I stared at it hard.

One of the barflies laughed. “I guess you’re buying!”

“I guess I am!” I said, not taking my eyes off the check.

The barfly stared over my shoulder at all those zeros. I could smell rum on his breath, but I didn’t spare him a glance. Not when I had the check to look at.

“You won ten thousand bucks off a quarter?” The barfly’s voice trembled with awe. “You gotta be the luckiest man alive!”

I started to tell the story again. I couldn’t help myself. How I was broke… flat… busted. How I found the quarter on the floor. How I figured what the hell and dropped it into the closest one-armed bandit —

A hand dropped on my shoulder and just about spun me out of my boots.

“That was my goddamn quarter.”

Surprisingly, I recognized the voice. The words were spoken by Big John Dingo, but it was the greaseball who had hold of my shoulder. They were one in the same. It shouldn’t have surprised me. After all, the greaseball had fixed the old arcade machine. He’d obviously supplied the gunfighter’s voice, too.

His eyes seared me like a hunk of dead steak. “I want my money.”

“Fuck that.” I shook him off and stood my ground. “I won that money It’s mine.”

“You won it with my fuckin’ quarter, dickhead. Give it up or there’s gonna be trouble.”

“No way — ”

A crashing blow from a big right hand and I felt like I was headed for the promised land. My knees banged hard against the weathered floorboards and a loud creak tore the air. For a second I couldn’t decide if the sound came from the floorboards buckling or my own tired bones —

“That’s enough, Big John.”

It was Roy’s voice. I couldn’t see him. I was on my knees, looking at Big John’s belt buckle. It was probably the only thing on him that was clean. Polished silver, and I could see my reflection in it, funhouse mirror-style.

I looked more than a little perplexed. And that’s the way I felt. The greaseball’s name was Big John, same as the gunslinging dummy. It was crazy. Twilight Zone stuff. I halfway expected to look over at the slot machine and see Rod Serling standing there —

But there was only Big John. He grabbed a handful of my hair and tilted my head until my eyes found his. He drew back that right hand again and I cringed.

“You give me that money — ”

Roy’s voice again, accompanied by a sharp clicking sound. “I mean it, Johnny boy. Don’t give me a reason.”

The greaseball let me go. A couple of the barflies helped me to my feet. I turned to the bar and saw Roy standing there, a pistol in his hand.

“I want that money, pilgrim,” Big John said. “I’ve a right to it. It’s mine. If you think you’re leavin’ Virginia City without givin’ it to me, you’d better think again, you pencil-dicked motherfucker.”

I could barely whisper. “Not one dime,” I said.

“That’s enough.” Roy cut me off with a sharp glance. “Say another word, and I’ll throw the both of you out.”

Big John headed for the door. “I got a gun of my own,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

“Wonderful,” Roy said.

A second later the bartender slammed a shot of whiskey onto the bar.

I drank it straight down.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” I said. “I’ve got to find my buddy. That girl… Doreen… you know where she lives?”

Roy nodded. “Apartment above a T-shirt shop. Across the street, about a half a block up.”

Jesus. That wasn’t much help. Every other store on the street was a T-shirt shop. “What’s the name of the place?” I asked.

Roy looked me dead in the eye.

“Big John’s,” Roy said, and then he sighed.

Happiness. Yeah. I know the definition of that.

Scotty’s Junction in your rearview mirror and Vegas comin’ up.

“Let that motherfucker try to mess with us!” I yell. “His ass didn’t know what he was in for!”

Mitch doesn’t say a word. I wonder if I’ve gone too far. I’m damn happy about the money. I’m happy about Big John, too. But Mitch isn’t.

Maybe it’s Doreen… Maybe that’s it… Maybe he’s worried about her.

Hell. He doesn’t have to worry. Big John isn’t going to lay a hand on Doreen. Not anymore.

I glance over at Mitch, at his T-shirt. At those bullet holes. I want him to be happy. I want us to be like Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen, headed for boot hill in The Magnificent Seven.

What was it Steve asked when those lousy sidewinders took a shot at Yul?

“You get elected?” Yeah. That was it.

I ask Mitch, “You get elected?”

He doesn’t say a word. So I say them for him.

“No, but I got nominated real good. ”

“You don’t want to mess with him,” Roy said. “Big John Dingo’s a real asshole. He’s been around town for a few years now. Blew in with a string of schemes that were gonna make him rich. He thought so, anyway. First it was the Big John Dingo Gunslinger machine. He fixed that old relic up for us, got the idea that he was gonna sell them things to every bar in the nation. Of course, reality sort of disabused him of that notion. Then it was the T-shirt shop. Then… well, poor Doreen… Shit, she ain’t the homecoming queen, but ain’t no girl deserves to have her man turnin’ her out.”

I heard what Roy said, but I was about three steps past him. “Let me borrow your gun.”

“Let me call the sheriff.”

“No,” I said. “We don’t have time for that. Dingo’s crazy. He said he was going after his own gun. And if he finds Doreen with my buddy — ”

“He don’t know the fella’s your friend. Hell, Doreen with another man… that’s just business as usual, as far as Big John’s concerned.”

“Oh, yeah. He won’t mind finding another man banging his girl after some lucky son of a bitch made a fortune off a quarter that he dropped on a barroom floor.”

“Don’t forget him gettin’ run off by a geriatric bartender with a gun,” one of the barflies put in.

“Yeah.” Roy sighed. “You boys maybe have a couple of good points there.”

“You bet your ass we do,” I said. “Let me borrow your gun.”

Roy stared down at the pistol. Then he glanced at the three buckets of dollar coins resting on the bar.

He squinted at me. “Can’t loan you my gun,” he said. “But might be you could get me to sell it, if the price was right.”

I pushed one of the buckets his way.

“I don’t know… ” Roy said.

I pushed another bucket across the bar.

Roy smiled. “That’ll about do her.”

If Mitch doesn’t want to talk, that’s fine with me.

Maybe he wants to pout. Maybe he wishes he would have hung around, tried his luck on the slots instead of chasing after Doreen.

He’s used to bailing me out. He’s used to it.

But that’s not what happened tonight.

Tonight the shoe was on the other foot.

Tonight it was my turn.

Maybe Mitch can’t handle that. I don’t care. I stare down at the bucket between his feet.

I don’t care at all.

Let him pout.

I shove a tape into the cassette deck.

I pump up the volume and punch the gas.

The not-so-bright lights of Beatty, comin’ right up.

I stepped onto the plank sidewalk — the gun clutched in one sweaty hand, the bucket of dollar coins cradled under my other arm — and I almost bumped into him.

Mitch, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, wearing a SLOWEST GUN IN VIRGINIA CITY T-shirt and carrying a bag of high-priced souvenirs.

“Shit,” he said, spotting the gun in my hand. “What the hell are you doing, Kurt?”

I’m holding onto this damn bucket of dollars, I thought. That’s what I’m doing. You damn near made me spill my money all over this fucking sidewalk —

“Kurt,” Mitch said. “Hey, Kurt. What’s up with the gun?”

“Did you see him?” I asked, glancing over Mitch’s shoulder at the empty street.

“Who?”

“Dingo.” I shook my head, trying to clear it, but shaking my head only made me feel the punch I’d taken, and my ears started ringing again.

“Who are you talking about?”

“John,” I shouted, barely able to hear myself. “John Dingo. Did you see him?”

“Big John Dingo?” Mitch laughed. “Sure I saw him. He walked straight out of the Bucket of Blood on those mechanical legs of his, and we had us a shootout on Main Street. I sent him to that big toy store in the sky.”

“No,” I said. “John Dingo is real, Mitch. He’s Doreen’s guy. And if he sees us, he’s going to gun us down.”

Mitch swore and started in with a barrage of questions. Most of them were about Doreen. I didn’t have a clue to the answers he was after. They weren’t important, anyway. But if I could get Mitch out of town faster by implying that a jealous boyfriend was after his hide, that was all right with me. I didn’t have time to explain about the money, and how I’d gotten it.

I started talking. I held tight to the bucket of dollars. Dingo wanted that money. My money. He wanted to take it from me.

Maybe it was his quarter that I found on the floor. But even if it was Dingo’s, that didn’t mean that the money I’d won belonged to him, too.

I won that money. Dingo didn’t. It was mine. The bucket of dollar coins. And the ten thousand dollar check.

Mine. And I was damn sure going to keep it.

The most I owed Big John Dingo was a quarter.

But the son of a bitch wasn’t going to get that much out of me.

Not one thin dime.

Not one plug nickel.

Not one red fucking cent.

I turned and started down the street. The gun felt good in my hand.

“Hey,” Mitch said. “Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going! Wait up!”

Just past Beatty, Mitch starts talking.

“Miserable sidewinder shuffled off his mortal coil in the streets of Virginia City,” he says. “That boy pissed on the wrong sombrero, and that’s for damn sure!”

“Yeah,” I say. ‘Yeah!”

Mitch has a head of steam up now. The sleep did him good. He’s talking and talking…

And then we ’re laughing and laughing…

Screeching laughter in the dry desert night.

It was way past time to kiss Virginia City goodbye. I pressed the gas pedal and the Mustang pulled away from the curb.

“Jesus!” Mitch said. “Is that him?”

It was. Big John Dingo, top hand at the Mustang Ranch, striding down the street with a gun in his hand.

His back was to us.

“Turn around,” Mitch said. “Before he sees us! Flip a U-turn, and let’s get the hell out of here!”

I watched Dingo walk. Oh, he had some strut in him. Like fucking John Wayne. Like he was a real big man with that gun in his hand. Like his pockets were jinglin’ with silver dollars, and his belly was full of filet mignon and the best whiskey in the house.

Big John Dingo wasn’t walking like a man who repaired arcade games and sold T-shirts. He wasn’t walking like a man who ate bologna sandwiches for dinner while million-dollar schemes percolated in his brain. And he damn sure wasn’t walking like a man who turned out his own woman.

No. He was strutting like a gunslinger with notches on his gun.

Like the top hand at the fucking Mustang ranch.

I put the car in neutral.

I gunned the motor.

“Kurt!” Mitch yelled. “What the fuck are you DOING!”

Big John turned. I flicked the headlights on bright, and I saw it in his eyes. All the hate. All the self-loathing. All the lust for a buck. All those things that he bottled up day in and day out. All the misery that had tunneled up from the dark pit of his soul because he might have dropped a quarter on the floor of the Bucket of Blood Saloon.

It was a lot to take in all at once, but I knew the look in those eyes all too well.

I saw it every time I stared into a mirror.

I glanced down at the bucket of dollars between Mitch’s feet. At the same time I tapped my shirt pocket, heard the ten thousand dollar check crinkle within.

I glanced at my reflection in the rearview mirror.

My eyes were different now.

“Kurt!” Mitch said. “Jesus Christ! Turn the car around!”

I slammed the Mustang into gear just as Big John fired his pistol, and I ran over the bastard a couple of seconds after the bullets pitted the windshield, and I heard him scream as the Mustang dragged him a half-mile down the road.

When the Mustang spit out his miserable carcass and the back wheels kicked him loose, Big John was all done screaming.

Mitch is telling it again as we drive down the Strip.

“Last fool I shot was slower than Columbus comin’ to America, ” he says. “Miserable sidewinder shuffled off his mortal coil in the streets of Virginia City. That boy pissed on the wrong sombrero, and that’s for damn sure!”

I’m not listening. My senses are alive. I can smell the money here. Just like I can see the neon.

It shines through the bullet holes in the windshield. It bathes Mitch in an otherworldly glow. It spills over the slot bucket between his feet, pooling with the coins and Mitch’s blood.

But he’s okay. Mitch is okay.

He’s talking.

Even though he’s got a couple bullet holes in his chest, he’s talking.

I want everyone to hear what he has to say.

Gunslinger quick, I reach for the cassette deck and turn up the volume.

“HAHAHAHAHA!” Mitch screeches. “Another pencil-dicked pilgrim eats it! No one outdraws Big John Dingo! I can fuck longer and draw faster than any man alive! I never come up for air! I live on pussy and hot lead! Drop a quarter, ya redneck peckerwood! Try your luck! HAHAHAHAHA!”

UNDEAD ORIGAMI

NOVEMBER 25, 1970

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

ONE

As a star athlete at Brigham Young University in the late sixties, Walter Sands had caught footballs (serious business), dribbled basketballs (for fun), even smacked a few tennis balls (in pursuit of a banker’s daughter from Salt Lake City). These skills had earned him a college education, a couple inches of type in Sports Illustrated, and as much pussy as he could handle.

Walter graduated from BYU on a fine summer afternoon. The dean himself slapped the sheepskin into Walter’s hands. The banker’s daughter gave him head while he cruised the streets of Provo in his Mustang convertible, contemplating a bright future with the Cleveland Browns. (Sure, he hadn’t made the cut this year — an elbow injury, still tender, had kept him on the bench for the second half of the college season — but everything would fall into place next year. Walter was sure of that.)

The whole deal was pretty choice for a redneck from Moab. Walter was gonna keep on keepin’ on, as the soul brothers said. This season he’d do some serious kicking back, some equally serious rehabilitation on the elbow. Then he’d hit Cleveland for a tryout next year. Walk on the field and take his rightful place as the next Jim Brown. Right on.

Later that afternoon, after bidding a sad but nonetheless satisfying goodbye to the banker’s daughter, Walter returned to his apartment and found an envelope waiting for him. He ripped it open and unfolded the little piece of paper that would change his life.

Walter read it. He couldn’t believe it.

He’d been drafted.

Walter worried that he might tear the paper in half, the way he was shaking. Funny how a piece of paper could scare you so badly. But Walter knew that this piece of paper was seriously scary. A couple of his high school buddies from Moab had enlisted for no better reason than to escape the old Mormon-missionary-doufous-on-a-bicycle routine, and they’d come back from Vietnam in body bags.

His college deferment had evaporated. It was plain that Cleveland wasn’t about to cover the ass of an unsigned prospect, plainer still that the army doctors wouldn’t be too impressed by his tender elbow. But Walter didn’t panic. He called Uncle Jack.

Uncle Jack wasn’t really Walter’s uncle. He was an older guy who liked to hang around jocks. Not that he was queer or anything. Ask anybody about Uncle Jack, and they’d tell you that he was a man’s man.

Uncle Jack had connections — in business, in government, even with the draft board. He got Walter off the hook and informed him that he could use a kid with good hands. Would Walter mind very much moving to Las Vegas while he waited for the Cleveland Browns to come to their senses?

Walter agreed finger-snap quick, figuring he’d be shagging flies, coaching some pudgy corporate baseball team.

He was shagging flies all right. But these were the kind of flies with wings, legs, and bodies that were plump with black blood. And Walter was shagging them on the ninth floor of the Desert Inn, working for a rather eccentric gentleman by the name of Howard Hughes.

The fat insect buzzed Walter, tickling past his ear. His right hand shot out, made a quick pass, and missed. The fly circled lazily, staying just out of reach, then sped down the empty hallway.

Slowly, but determinedly, Walter followed. Howard Hughes didn’t like fast movements. According to Uncle Jack — the only employee who actually engaged Hughes in meaningful conversation — the billionaire believed that fast movements stirred up deadly germs, even in a sealed tomb like the ninth floor of the Desert Inn. The flyboys, as Uncle Jack called Walter and his associates, couldn’t use fly swatters for the same reason. And Hughes was terrified of chemicals, so insecticide was strictly forbidden.

So fast hands were the order of the day. It was some job, all right. Walter had been at it for five months, and he hated it. He’d killed exactly thirteen flies in that time, and Hughes had said maybe ten words to him.

Walter’s contact with the man who paid his salary had been limited to Hughes’ inspection of his fly kills. The ritual never varied. Walter had to present the dead insect wrapped in a Kleenex shroud. Hughes — generally sitting naked in bed, maybe with a Kleenex of his own covering his withered joint if Walter was real lucky — would reach out with his awful five-inch fingernails and unwrap the Kleenex like it was a birthday present or something. Then he’d spear the insect with a hatpin, just to be sure that it was good and dead. Finally, he’d push it back on the rusty pin with a long fingernail swathed in Kleenex, mounting it like a trophy.

There were plenty of trophies on the pin.

The only good part of the job came after Hughes speared the kill. That was when the billionaire would invariably send a tiny paper airplane floating Walter’s way, laughing as Walter tried to anticipate the craft’s aerodynamic abilities or lack thereof. Catching the plane would earn a slight nod from Hughes, a little tip-of-the-hat from the hotshot aviator he used to be.

Walter wasn’t allowed to unfold the paper airplane in Hughes’ presence. As soon as he was dismissed, he’d smooth it out, eliminating the folds as best he could, but the bank didn’t seem to care. They always cashed Hughes’ checks without a blink. It didn’t matter if they’d been folded or spindled or mutilated, not as long as they bore Hughes’ signature.

Still, money couldn’t eclipse Walter’s fear, and there was no doubt that Hughes scared him. The billionaire’s gray skin was crisscrossed with awful scars, the result of his infamous crash landings. His long beard was unkept, the color of a rusted pipe. And then there was the pure stink of him — his flesh, his breath… But the scariest thing of all was the wildfire that burned in his dark eyes, proof positive that despite all evidence to the contrary Howard Hughes was still very much alert and aware.

And to be left alone with him. Like tonight…

Walter tried to swallow the lump in his throat. Time to get back to work. The hallway was dark, the only sound the buzzing of the fat little insect as it bounced lightly from wall to wall, racing along the ceiling. Ten feet ahead, twenty, then thirty… and forty… all in a matter of seconds.

Up ahead, the door to Howard Hughes’ suite stood open, just a crack.

That was where the fly went.

Walter swore. If the fly actually entered Hughes’ bedroom… Well, Walter had heard all about the screaming fits the old man could throw if confronted by a live insect.

Walter hurried into the suite and flicked on the lights. He couldn’t hear the fly, but that was because Hughes, two rooms away in the bedroom, was watching a movie. The volume on the projector was cranked up to full; Hughes was practically stone deaf.

Walter moved slowly, searching thoroughly. There was no sign of the fly in the first room. He entered the middle room, Uncle Jack’s office, and now the noise from the projector was truly annoying. The piercing treble vibrated in his skull. Some Disney musical or something, that’s what Hughes was —

The fly shot straight toward him and brushed under his nostrils. Walter found himself spitting and swatting like some crazy Jerry Lewis imitator, but the tiny black devil only droned away from him, buzzing along the ceiling, dipping and diving among the models of Hughes’ aircraft that hung suspended on short lengths of fishing line.

Another lazy circle, and the fly returned. Walter didn’t move. He waited.

He didn’t move… didn’t move…

The stupid little bastard landed on his forehead. Dirty insect legs tickled over his hairline, but Walter only grinned. Very gently, he tugged a fresh tissue from the Kleenex box clipped to his belt. You’re dead, amigo, he thought. This time you’re up against the fastest Kleenex in the West.

The fly crawled across his bushy eyebrows, explored the twisted bridge of his nose… and stopped.

Walter slapped himself hard in the face, balling the Kleenex as soon as he made contact with his nose. But somehow the fly escaped, darting away, buzzing just out of reach, and Walter leaped forward, the Kleenex fluttering free, his naked hand grasping for the insect that sped toward Howard Hughes’ bedroom.

Walter’s fingers snapped into a fist. He landed hard, on his tender elbow, and bit back a scream of pain.

He opened his hand. Nothing

The fly dipped and rolled and entered the bedroom. The music was gone now. The collection wheel on the big 35mm projector squeaked round and round, the tail of the film slapping metal.

The fly buzzed.

But Howard Hughes did not scream. Walter got up, rubbing his elbow. Maybe he was lucky. Maybe the old man was asleep, crashed out on Valium or Demerol. The way his elbow felt, Walter could use a Demerol himself. He pulled a fresh Kleenex from his jerry-rigged holster and stepped through the doorway, squinting into the bright slab of light that poured from the projector.

The collection wheel squeaked, and the film slap slap slapped, but Walter could hear the fly, too. The buzzing sound was so damn loud. The fly had to be close.

“Do you hear what I hear, Walter?”

Walter froze. The voice was low, without intonation, nothing more than a drone. For a crazy second he thought that the fly was talking to him.

“Mr. Hughes?” Walter began. “Mr. Hughes, I’m sorry.”

Alien, unfeeling laughter was the only reply. Instinctively, Walter retreated, the Kleenex now damp in his sweaty grasp.

And then the fly came streaking from the core of bright light, and it was followed by another and another and another… and the insects swarmed over Walter’s face, dipping into his ears, brushing his lips until he fell back, ashamed by the feeble screams that spilled from his lips… terrified because he had to open his lips to allow his screams to escape… and he bumped into Uncle Jack’s desk, scattering papers and knocking over a model of a Hughes OH-6A helicopter but he didn’t care… he was too busy swatting, swatting, his hands a blur but none of it was doing any good and the buzzing was now a screeching whine… and Walter wanted to shut his eyes because the flies were crawling on them, but he couldn’t… he couldn’t because what he was seeing was too horrible… so horrible that he couldn’t bring himself to blink…

Howard Hughes stood in the doorway. The harsh light from the projector bathed his knobby gray shoulders, his gnarled fingernails … and the rusty hatpin that was clenched in his bony grasp.

Hughes laughed again. That cool, droning laugh. With the long nails of his thumb and forefinger, the billionaire aviator pinched the hatpin.

His nails ran the length of the rusty pin, and a dozen dead flies joined the battle and swarmed over Walter Sands.

TWO

The tall man with the pencil-thin moustache had a chauffeur, but the chauffeur didn’t get to do much because the tall man liked to drive.

He liked to drive fast. That was what he was doing at the moment. Oh, he was doing a couple of other things as well — namely smoking a cigarette and feeling sorry for himself. The things he did for Howard Hughes. Man oh man. Like they said in the whitebread calypso songs, how low can you go…

He was going there. Arriving any minute, you got that one right.

The man’s name was Jack Morton, but he didn’t hear it very often. Shortly after arriving in Vegas with the aged Mr. Hughes and his posse of Latter-day Saints, the hotel staff at the Desert Inn had taken to calling him Jack the Mormon. A mob guy who’d been a glorified gofer in Hughes’ purchase of the Desert Inn had taken one look at the cigarette dangling from Jack’s lips and shortened the tag to Jack Mormon. Jack took to the name the way it was intended, as a kind of half-assed compliment. The mob guys thought that he was okay. He knew how to make them smile — just by lighting up a cig, or chugging a tumbler of bourbon, or sipping black coffee, or whispering a four-letter word.

Make anyone smile, make them feel like they’ve got you all figured out, and they’ll give you just what you want without any trouble at all. That was Jack Mormon’s big secret. It was also his gift. He could size people up, the same way he’d sized up Howard Hughes. No one knew Hughes better than Jack. After all, he had worked for Hughes since the billionaire’s Hollywood days. He’d started as a stand-in, a guy who could pass for the famed recluse in a pinch, but he’d come a long way since the days when he was nothing more than a wet-nosed dreamer looking for a leg up in the world.

Come a long way, hell. That was the understatement of 1970. These days, Jack held the reins of Howard Hughes’ empire. He kept things running smoothly, and there were plenty of people who liked it that way, several of whom worked in a big white house on Pennsylvania Avenue. To those people, Jack Mormon was Howard Hughes.

But that was important to Jack. As a kid growing up in a flyspeck Utah town, he’d often stared at the two steel rails that cut through the desert and didn’t stop until they hit the Pacific, wondering why no one ever used those rails to escape said flyspeck. He’d always wanted to be somebody, and that was why he’d jumped a freight at seventeen. And now here he was, a lifetime away from those rails, and he was somebody, even if he was somebody else.

That in itself was something, and he wanted to hold on to it. Sometimes that meant attending to the smallest details. Like tonight. Tonight there was a small problem with Mr. Hughes’ dinner.

The chef had been detained.

Jack Mormon sucked cool menthol refreshment into his lungs, then simultaneously exhaled smoke and a dark chuckle. Dinner, you got that one right. Detained, oh yeah, that was putting a cherry on top of it. Because the chef, in this case, was a surgeon who’d had his license pulled in two states. And dinner, if you glanced at the menu, happened to be an aged lady with a blood disorder who was currently residing in a nursing home.

Yeah. Picture, if you will. That was the kind of night this was shaping up to be. Most of the boys were busy closing a deal with the CIA up at Nellis Air Force Base. Strictly dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, but no Hughes employee ever stepped onto a government installation without his own private security contingent. So when the call came in from the surgeon — hey, let’s not gild the lily, let’s call him a glorified body snatcher — Jack knew immediately that he had to handle it, even if it meant leaving the fossil who signed the checks under the not-so-watchful eye of a two hundred and forty-five pound hypochondriac who spent nearly every waking minute massaging his right elbow. Which was just like leaving Hughes alone, as far as Jack Mormon was concerned.

But this situation was every bit as delicate as the CIA deal at Nellis. It was mined with seriously explosive possibilities, and Jack was the only guy who could handle it. He certainly couldn’t hand the mess over to the nine-to-five lawyers — good breeding would go nowhere with a street cop, no matter how quaint an accent might spill from the messenger’s lips. Not likely to work in the still of this frigid night, monsieur.

So Jack Mormon was doing what he always did — thinking on his feet. Well, he was actually thinking on his butt while he was busy driving the car, but that was the kind of completely technical description that would captivate an anal-retentive like Howard Hughes. Jack was thinking, and that was the important thing. Thinking for a thing that waited on the ninth floor of the Desert Inn, hungry for its dinner, a thing that provided a pipeline to one of the most powerful portfolios know to man.

God, sometimes Jack couldn’t stand having that thing in his head.

He skipped a red light, nearly clipping a slow pickup. He slammed on the brakes and parked behind a police cruiser, intentionally penning it in behind a beige sedan. No flatfoot was going to cut things short on Jack Mormon.

Jack opened the door and stepped — as it were — once more unto the windblown breech of the November night. He sized up the situation. The disgraced surgeon — the glorified body snatcher— sat in the rear of the police cruiser. The idiot actually waved at him.

Two cops stood under a neon sign twenty feet away. ELM MANOR CONVALESCENT HOME. In Vegas, even grandpa’s last stop was lit up like a show on the Strip. The cops were busy with a crowd of senior citizens, every one of them clucking, pointing fingers.

Jack Mormon eased a Howard Hughes signature fedora onto his head and slipped into a bomber jacket. He ground his cigarette under his heel.

He smoothed his pencil-thin moustache.

He became another man.

The flies buzzed the gauntlet of aircraft models, darting and dipping in perfect formation like the Red Baron’s famed flying circus. Walter expected the insects to riddle the models with gunfire at any moment, even though he knew the idea was whacked out.

Each maneuver was performed under the watchful eyes of Howard Hughes, as if he were a master of insect tactics. The old buzzard stood in the doorway, looking like a mummy without bandages, a tower of bone with jutting ribs like twin xylophones. Add to that spindly arms scarred over with cardboard flesh, no muscle tone at all, and those horrible fingernails. And don’t forget his eyes, bipping and bopping in huge hollow sockets.

Those eyes locked on Walter’s, and the flies rushed his way.

Walter ducked low, gasping as the insect squadron brushed past him.

“Could you get me a television set, Walter?” Hughes asked.

Walter closed his eyes, but that was no escape — he saw Uncle Jack, and Uncle Jack didn’t look happy. Howard Hughes wasn’t allowed to watch television. Uncle Jack said that it disturbed his routine. And the routine was what kept the machine running, even Walter knew that.

The flies made another pass, but Walter didn’t open his eyes. “Did you hear me, Walter?”

“Yes,” Walter whispered. “I mean… no.”

“SPEAK UP, DAMN YOU!”

Walter remembered that Hughes was nearly deaf. “THERE ARE NO TELEVISION SETS ON THE NINTH FLOOR, MR. HUGHES!”

“But you could get me one if you really wanted to, couldn’t you?”

“NO… WELL, YES. BUT UNCLE JACK… UH, MISTER MORTON SAYS THAT — ”

Hughes’ screech cut Walter’s protest. “Who pays for your services, Walter?”

‘YOU DO, MR. HUGHES.”

“And don’t you think I should get what I pay for?”

“WHY… I GUESS SO… BUT UNCLE JACK WOULDN’T LIKE IT IF I GOT YOU A TELEVISION SET, MR. HUGHES.”

A rattling cackle. “Are you a poetry enthusiast, Walter?”

Walter shook his head.

“My mother used to tell me this one: I knew an old lady who swallowed a fly. I don’t know why she swallowed a fly. Perhaps she’ll die. Isn’t that funny, Walters”

“I don’t think — ” Walter wanted to say more, but he couldn’t, because five sharp fingernails had closed on his jaw, holding it open.

All two hundred and forty-five pounds of Walter Sands trembled with fear. But he refused to open his eyes, no matter what. He wouldn’t do that. Not for anything. Not for a paper airplane worth a million dollars.

Something rattled over Walter’s teeth, something that tasted rusty.

A sharp jab. A tiny bit of pain. Walter tasted his own blood welling on his tongue. Next came a tickling sensation. Then a whining buzz filledhis mouth… tiny legs capered over his teeth, across his tongue, to the place where the blood flowed freely.

The sharp fingernails went away.

“Close your mouth, Walter.”

Obediently, Walter’s jaw snapped closed. The trapped fly raced the length of his tongue. Tiny wings fanned his gums as the insect launched itself, crashed against his wisdom teeth and scampered across his tongue once again, all the while buzzing frantically.

Again, Hughes cackled. “This isn’t much fun, is it, Walter?”

Walter agreed with a pathetic groan.

“Then there’s only one thing to be done.” Hughes’ brittle fingernails tickled Walter’s belly. Walter giggled in spite of himself, his exhalation blasting the trapped fly against the prison walls of his teeth.

“Swallow, dear boy.” Hughes laughed. “Just swallow, and everything will be all right.”

Walter took the elevator to the eighth floor, where he rammed through the first door he came to as if it were a defensive back who had said something cruel about his sister.

No one was home. That didn’t surprise Walter. Paradise waited seven floors below — hundreds of slot machines, poker and blackjack tables, and women with magnificently large breasts who dispensed free liquor.

Walter unplugged the television set and held it under one arm. Funny, his elbow hardly hurt at all anymore. He returned to the elevator and, using the passkey that allowed him access to the ninth floor, made his way back to Howard Hughes’ suite.

He plugged in the television. Turned it on. Extended the rabbit ears. Switched to the Hughes-owned Las Vegas station — KLAS-TV, channel 8 — which was showing a Stewart Granger movie.

Hughes reddened. He screeched, “Walter, that is not what I want to see!”

Walter didn’t know what to do. Apparently, Hughes did. The old man snatched a fly from mid-air and went to work on it with his fingernails, twisting it this way and that, turning the wings, creasing and uncreasing them until the fly seemed several times larger than a fly could possibly be. The wings, previously transparent, were now black and thick. Hughes unfolded them as urgently as Walter unfolded his paper airplane checks, but the thing Hughes held in his hands couldn’t be cashed in any bank.

The bat sprang from his bony grasp and fluttered weakly about the room.

Very suddenly, the creature picked up speed and crashed through the window.

Rooted like a Sequoia before the broken window, Walter watched the bat slice through the neon night.

Flying too fast for the fastest of hands.

The November winds blew hard off the desert, but they didn’t slow the thing that came from the ninth floor of the Desert Inn. It wasted no time arriving at the studios of KLAS-TV.

For several minutes, the thing flitted around the big glass doors in front of the television station. Then the doors flashed open, disgorging a tired executive. Beneath the hiss of the wind came the sound of crisp paper wrinkling. A hundred tiny folds were made as the double doors rushed to meet their casings.

The gap narrowed to an inch.

Plenty of room for a fly.

A lobby. Then corridors. A staircase, going down. A technician, snoozing.

His mouth open.

The technician awoke with a start, coughing. Jesus, he felt like he’d swallowed a moth or something.

He glanced at the monitor. Stewart Granger, quite literally, was foiling a half-dozen villains. The technician sprang from his chair, completely awake now, his gut churning uncomfortably. The fear in his belly sparked a sudden realization in his brain. He was showing the wrong damn movie! If the station manager was watching, this would be his last night on the job!

God, how could he be so careless? He was supposed to be running a Dracula picture tonight! He was sure of it!

That old RKO deal, the Howard Hughes remake from ’57.

Dracula in New Orleans. The picture with Robert Mitchum as the count… the picture with all those goddamn bats in it.

Jesus! Running the wrong picture! How could he be so stupid?

He hustled to the film library, his stomach a tightening knot.

Maybe he had swallowed a goddamned moth.

If so, that goddamned moth had saved his job.

He was in the lobby of the nursing home with the cops and the fossils, busily signing autographs while he talked. “So you see, officers, it’s all a simple mistake. Dr. Hackett was supposed to pick up a charity client in room 101 at the Elm Haven Convalescent Home. He copied the address from a phone book… but he copied the wrong address. That’s why he came here, to the Elm Manor Convalescent Home.” The speaker turned and patted the head of a shrunken lady in a wheelchair. “Dr. Hackett wasn’t trying to kidnap Mrs. Lang. She was simply the occupant of room 101. But at Elm Manor; not Elm Haven.”

The taller of the two cops shook his head. “I don’t know, Mr. Hughes.”

The man with the pencil-thin moustache smiled, spotting a small reception room off the lobby. If this story held it would be a world-class miracle. Still, there was no turning back now. “Well, you boys probably know best,” he said. “But let’s talk about this. In private, huh?”

The three men abandoned the geriatric autograph hounds. The man with the pencil-thin moustache followed the cops into the reception room and closed the door. He removed his fedora. Quite literally, he would come to them hat in hand.

“You boys know that I don’t like a lot of publicity.”

The cops nodded.

“This is just a simple mistake.”

Again, twin nods.

“But if you insist on questioning my employee, who is on a mission of mercy that I have financed, I’m going to have to go over your heads. Not that I want to cause you fellows any trouble. It’s not that. There’s nothing at all personal about this. I just want to make that clear.”

The cops exchanged glances, and then the tall one spoke. “I guess your word is good enough for us, Mr. Hughes.”

“That’s fine.” The older man donned his hat and started toward the door.

“Just one thing,” the tall cop said.

“What’s that?”

The cop blushed. “Uh… If it’s not too much trouble, that is. I mean, I know your hand is probably worn out after signing for all those folks out in the lobby… but could we get your autograph, too?”

Jack Mormon obliged both officers, signing his employer’s name to two slips of paper which he folded into airplanes and sent gliding their way.

The cops chased the planes like a couple of school kids. Mormon returned to the lobby. The pencil-thin moustache, the bomber jacket and the old fedora — the outfit had done the trick for him once again. He was the Howard Hughes that everyone wanted to meet, because no one really wanted to believe the stories about the nutty old recluse that ran in the papers. Not when the same guy had flown around the world, and conquered Hollywood, and bought half of Vegas.

A solicitous smile was glued to Mormon’s face. The crowd stared in awe as he crossed the lobby.

If they only knew the truth. But there was certainly no time for that. Mormon had to get out of here and grab another sick granny for Hughes’ dinner. How he would accomplish that at this hour would be real interesting. But not impossible. Not when you had a sneaky devil like Howard Hughes locked up in your head, not when —

Familiar music swelled behind him, all haunting cello, moody bass clarinet, and funereal timpani. Without the slightest hesitation, Jack pivoted and made a beeline toward the source of the music.

One of the nurses had a little TV on the reception desk, and he grabbed the thing and spun it around.

It was tuned to channel 8, the station Hughes owned.

Credits flashed, the letters as white as stripped bone. Dracula in New Orleans. Robert Mitchum… Jane Russell… Linda Darnell… Jack Buetel… Randolph Scott… Vincent Price… and Hoagy Carmichael as Renfield.

The nurse grinned. “I think it’s your very best picture, Mr. Hughes.”

THREE

The program director — who was pulling an all-nighter to prepare the listings for next month’s TV Guide — was red-faced by the time he slammed into the control room and confronted the technician. “Hey, Charlie, this isn’t the picture we’re supposed to be showing! You know as well as I do that the Hughes people will go nuts if we change the schedule without their approval!”

Charlie stared at the monitor. Glorious shades of black and white painted the 26-inch tube. But Charlie decided that those colors were more than adequate, because the man on the screen wore nothing but black, and his face was as pale and immobile as that of a corpse.

The pale man’s dead eyes seemed to stare directly at Charlie. A shiver traveled the length of the technician’s spine. “The biggest damn vampire ever to stalk the silver screen,” Charlie whispered.

Hulking Robert Mitchum stood on the lid of a coffin, guiding the strange craft through fog-choked bayou waters with supernatural ease. Just ahead was an antebellum mansion, soft light spilling from its windows. Behind crumbling pillars that were alive with black vines, a buxom maiden in a flimsy negligee waited on the leaf-strewn veranda, eager for his cold embrace.

And then Mitchum began to shrink, bit by bit, inch by inch. A bat rippled off his slick hair. His gloved hands sprouted leathery wings and flapped into the night. A dozen fanged creatures peeled away from his broad shoulders, and the process continued until only his dead eyes hung in midair, and then they too were transformed into winged nightmares…

Charlie rubbed his eyes. God, he must have fallen asleep. And this wasn’t right. There weren’t supposed to be any bats in this picture. Only sword fights. And where the hell was Stewart Granger?

“You hear me, Charlie?” The program director shook him. “What’s going on? You want to get both of us fired?”

Charlie’s brow wrinkled, crinkling like a paper bag.

His eyebrows arched and split into sharp segments.

Bat wings unfolded from his face with the rattling music of Japanese fans.

And then Charlie wasn’t there at all. A wave of bats curled through the air. Deafening screeches spilled from a hundred mouths lined with razored teeth.

The program director’s jaw dropped open.

But no more questions spilled from his lips.

Only blood.

The old folks circled Jack Mormon like a pack of hungry wolves, but he wasn’t signing any more autographs. He. was too busy dialing KLAS-TV’s phone number.

He couldn’t get past a busy signal. He hung up, dialed again. Damn. The station manager knew better than to show horror pictures, especially this horror picture. If Hughes was watching it — and there was little doubt in Jack’s mind that Howard Hughes was behind this, one way or another — then things could get really dicey back at the Desert Inn.

The Desert Inn! Jack dropped the receiver and pushed through the crowd. The geriatric set babbled questions about the Spruce Goose and Jane Russell and other Hughes marginalia, but Jack had no time for questions other than his own.

What was going on at this moment on the ninth floor? He’d left the hypochondriacal football player alone with Hughes. It had been unavoidable, but now… Jack cursed his stupidity. It was a bad decision, even if it had been unavoidable. The kid was brain dead, perfect fodder for flyboy duty. But he didn’t even know that Hughes was dangerous. None of the flunkies knew anything about the billionaire’s peculiar condition.

Jack slammed through the double doors. Politely put, he was up excrement creek without a implement of locomotion. Hughes, even in his weakened condition, wasn’t a man who’d cut his rivals a millimeter of slack.

The glorified body snatcher yelled at Jack from the rear seat of the police cruiser, but Jack didn’t stop to tell the old ghoul that he was off the hook. The cops could do that. The limo was warm and ready to roll. The driver, Provo Sam, knew his business — he got out of Jack’s way, sliding into the shotgun seat.

Jack put the car in gear, hit the gas, and cut off a delivery truck as he made the first light with a whisper of yellow to spare.

The big car roared toward the Strip. Jack got on the radio. He was patched through to Nellis Air Force Base in a matter of seconds.

The bats darted across a fog-shrouded riverbank, gliding toward the veranda. Flying in a tighter formation now, they formed a swirling tornado that darkened, thickened, coalesced…

The bats became Robert Mitchum.

Howard Hughes smiled. This was his masterpiece. Oh, the critics had panned it, just as they had panned his Genghis Khan epic. They had claimed that Robert Mitchum was no more convincing as a vampire than John Wayne had been as a Mongol warrior. But Hughes knew better. He knew what he saw.

The bats. The beautiful, beautiful bats.

The critics complained about them, too. They said that the bats garnered more screen time than Mitchum. Untrue, of course, but a quibble nonetheless. Were the simpering idiots truly blind to the beauty of these creatures?

Could they not seer

Hughes could see. The bats were beautiful, as gorgeous as the warplanes that had soared in his first epic, Hell’s Angels, and something more.

The bats had true freedom. They were not machines.

A certain amount of cinematic legerdemain had been involved in their creation, to be sure, but there was a good deal of magic involved, as well. Hughes had found a Japanese magician through Orson Welles, a prestidigitator whose greatest trick was producing a colony of bats from a simple stack of black paper. Hughes had offered the man a great deal of money to share his secrets. At first the magician refused, but Hughes pursued him with the single-minded fervor he had trained on so many others — businessmen, aviators, starlets — until the man surrendered.

That was how it seemed, at first. Hughes stared at the screen. Robert Mitchum advanced on the beauteous Jane Russell, her skin pure cream, his hands black horrors.

Hughes looked away, at his own skin. Dark veins slithered beneath tissue-paper epidermis. His entire body rippled with scars, tiny and large.

Each one was a badge of honor.

Hughes recalled the magician’s smile on the night he revealed all. He recalled the swirling sheets of black paper, twisting and folding as they launched themselves, each one flying through the night with such ease, such grace.

Each one, cutting him so deeply.

Each one, leaving a scar.

Jack and Provo Sam hurried through the hotel lobby. They were close to the elevators when someone yelled, “Look, it’s Howard Hughes!”

Jack sighed. If he’d thought to shed the hat and the bomber jacket, he would have been just another guy. But with the costume, his naturally gaunt figure, his pencil-thin moustache… and this being the Desert Inn…

It was too late for second guessing. The two men broke into a trot, heading for the elevators. They were lucky. The middle elevator whispered open just as they reached it, revealing a bellboy with a load of luggage.

Jack grabbed the kid and shoved him out of the elevator. Provo Sam pulled a revolver, very discretely, so that only the bellboy would see it.

The kid ran. But the crowd kept coming. Flashbulbs popped. People screamed. His back to the crowd, Provo Sam cocked his gun. “You just give the word,” he said.

Fortunately for the crowd, the elevator doors closed.

Provo Sam inserted a key into the control box, flipping the lock that would allow the elevator to stop at the ninth floor.

Jane Russell swooned, falling into Robert Mitchum’s arms, and he caressed her naked shoulders with hands sheathed in leather gloves.

Hughes felt his blood rising. Collapsed veins plumped in his arms. This was the kind of stimulus he’d been missing. No Disney movie could stir his blood the way this picture did. He enjoyed true hunger for the first time in years.

Jack Morton had all but murdered him. It was Morton who had fed him a diet a saccharine cartoons when what he longed for was breasts… and blood. It was Morton who had prohibited films featuring creatures or machines that could take to the air on free wings.

Other humiliating memories of his captivity nearly made Hughes weep. Once, he had demanded some black paper, and one of the lackeys had actually brought a few sheets to his suite. But Morton had managed to intercept them at the last moment, after which he punished Hughes, forcing him to create paper dolls from scented pink stationary, rosy little horrors which danced and pirouetted until Hughes screamed in agony.

And Hughes’ pain didn’t stop there. For years he had subsisted on the blood of the sick and the aged, and he had grown weak battling the diseases of his victims. This too was Jack Morton’s doing.

Jane Russell moaned. Her plump lips parted, alive with warm blood. Mitchum’s hands were becoming more adventurous. His mouth closed on the marble beauty of Jane Russell’s neck, on a deliciously throbbing artery.

A wildfire of hunger burned in Hughes’ belly.

How much time did he have before Morton and his lackeys returned?

He hissed through a tangle of fanged teeth. He didn’t have long, he was sure of that.

Hughes turned to the only living creature in the room. Walter Sands was no Jane Russell, but this wasn’t the time to be particular.

Ignoring his pitiful whimpers, Hughes opened Walter’s shirt.

Using his longest fingernail, he sliced a thin line along Walter’s chest.

“Please, Mr. Hughes, I’ll do anything — ”

Howard Hughes didn’t listen.

He opened Walter Sands like an envelope.

Provo Sam grabbed a rifle from the armory in room 903 and joined Jack Mormon outside Hughes’ suite. Jack had a walkie-talkie in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“He’s in there,” Jack said. “I can hear him feeding.”

Sam tried to ignore the insatiable moans that spilled from the room. He double-checked the rifle. “Tranquilizers,” he said. “The ones the CIA boys cooked up for us.”

Jack ground his cigarette into the plush carpet. “If Hughes gets through the window before you can hit him, don’t fire. We don’t know how much of that poison his system can take, and we don’t want our meal ticket splattering all over the Strip.”

Hughes knew that they would come. In fact, he was waiting for them. He wanted to see Jack Morton one last time. He wanted to spit Walter Sands’ blood in his doppelganger’s face.

But it was another man who came through the doorway, a man with a rifle. Hughes laughed at the weapon, but the man didn’t hesitate. He fired.

Hughes pulled the dart from his shoulder. The stink of the thing scorched his nostrils. It was a tranquilizer dart, but this wasn’t just any tranquilizer.

Garlic. The horrid essence pumped through Hughes’ veins. And now Morton stood before him, smiling beneath his horrible little moustache.

“Jack,” Hughes said, “you’re a real bastard.”

“I had a good teacher, Mr. Hughes.”

Hughes rubbed his shoulder, and then he began to laugh.

Provo Sam chambered another dart, but the vampire picked up Walter Sands’ corpse and threw it in Sam’s direction. Two hundred and forty-five pounds of dead football player bounced the shooter off the wall.

And now Hughes was in a hurry to leave. He ripped at his own flesh, and the sound was that of an eager child confronting a roomful of presents on Christmas morning.

Much too eager. In a matter of seconds, Hughes was an unrecognizable mess. Perhaps it was his eagerness, perhaps an effect of the garlic. Hughes looked like nothing so much as a kite made by an idiot child. But he sprang through the broken window all the same, dragging a bloody tail after him.

Jack Mormon watched Hughes go. He spoke a few short words into the walkie-talkie, brushed broken glass from the sill, and poked his head outside.

He looked to the heavens. Shot a “thumbs up” signal into the air.

A chopper, direct from Nellis, hovered over the Desert Inn.

Jack waved it on, after the vampire.

FOUR

Provo Sam was stunned, but otherwise okay. Jack drove north, alone. He tried to guess how far he’d travel before the call came in over the radio.

It didn’t matter. Not really. All that mattered was that the call would come. Jack was certain of that. You didn’t impersonate someone without getting under his skin. If you were really good, you could slip into your subject’s head and see the world through his eyes. That’s the way it was with Jack Mormon and Howard Hughes.

From the beginning, Jack had spotted the patterns. Howard Hughes was an excitable guy, a guy who took too many chances. He took them with airplanes, with women, with movies that leeched his money… and, once upon a time, he’d even taken a desperate chance with a Japanese magician who wasn’t at all what he seemed to be.

Jack shook his head, pushing the limo’s big engine for all it was worth. The whole deal was amazing. By all rights, Hughes should have died long ago. Crashing an S-43, or an XF-11, or some big albatross made out of wood. The funny thing was, a guy like Hughes probably would have been perfectly happy to make his exit just that way.

Howard Hughes was his own worst enemy. That was why, like it or not, Hughes needed someone like Jack Mormon, a guy who’d protect him from himself. That was a full-time job, and it was obvious that some changes were necessary. Vegas was just too big. The time had come to move somewhere a little more secluded, where there would be less attention from the gentlemen of the press.

Nassau. Paradise Island. With a little luck, the move could be made very quickly. The plan had been simmering on Mormon’s back burner for a while, and now seemed as good a time as any to bring it to a boil.

Jack was really getting in tune with the idea when the call came

“We got him. He made it as far as the Valley of Fire. He crashed into a sandstone formation, but he’s okay.”

“Good. Get him out to Nellis. We’re moving.”

“Tonight? What if he gives us a problem?”

“He won’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

“We’ve got two hours until daybreak. He’ll roast to death in the sunlight. If he lived through his latest crash, he’s not going to want to go out like a piece of meat on a rotisserie. Not when he’ll have a whole new set of scars that he can brag about.”

“You’re amazing, Jack.”

“I’m just a good employee.” Jack laughed. “And when you come right down to it, that’s just a simple matter of understanding the boss.”

Jack signed off, made a quick U-turn, and headed toward Nellis.

Yep. It was just that simple. You didn’t impersonate someone without getting under his skin. If you were really good, you could slip into your subject’s head and see the world through his eyes.

But what happened, Jack wondered quite suddenly, when you looked through those eyes, and you couldn’t even blink anymore?

Jack laughed at the crazy thought. He glanced at the rear-view mirror, and for just a second he confronted a wide-eyed little boy who liked to stare at two steel rails that ran through the Utah desert. Then he blinked and once again found himself staring into Howard Hughes’ eyes.

He saw all the crazy things that Hughes had made of himself — the human things… and the inhuman things. The bats, and the bloody kite, and the other horrors Jack had seen but never shared with another living soul.

Jack pulled over to the side of the road. Howard Hughes. Always running away, but never getting anywhere, because there was no way he could escape the things inside him.

Very suddenly, very clearly, Jack saw himself driving fast, piling into a sandstone formation somewhere out in the desert, and he laughed and laughed and laughed until his ribs started to hurt.

He got his breath, put the car in gear, and lead-footed it into the night. God, this was crazy. He twisted the rear-view mirror at a useless angle, so that he couldn’t see anything at all.

He should go to Nellis. Should, hell. That’s what he had to do. There were arrangements to make. Deals to cut…

There was the road, unfolding before him.

“Y’know” he said to no one in particular, “once upon a time you were a pretty nice guy.” And then he rolled down the window and sent Howard Hughes’ fedora tumbling into the night.

In the distance, somewhere beyond the November wind, came the low whistle of a train riding steel rails.

HARVEST

Arboles de la ladera porque no han reverdecido

Por eso calandrias cantan o las apachuria el

nido…

—Las Amarillas

(Traditional Folk Song)

Raphael Baca split the skin, weeping as he uncovered the skull beneath. He slipped his fingers under a fleshy flap and tugged. The skin peeled off in one piece and he dropped it to the floor, a limp, bloody husk.

He threw the skull into a corner and kicked the skin after it. How many times would it happen? How many seasons would pass before he peeled an orange and found only fruit?

Through the winter, through the spring, he had prayed that things would be different this year. And just this morning his hopes had swelled when he discovered the first orange of the new season, for the fruit had not screamed when he chopped it from the dead branch with his machete.

But in the end it had all been the same as the year before.

Raphael sat at the kitchen table and sharpened his machete. He listened to the wind, heard the woman wailing above it as she wandered the empty streets of C-Town. Raphael prayed that he would look up from his work, through the kitchen window, and see the bruja leading the children’s ghosts through the deserted streets and away. But Raphael did not bother to look up, because the kitchen window was dirty

It didn’t matter. He had never seen the woman — not even once.

He had only heard her cries.

And then, suddenly, he could not hear her at all.

The music of the flies was much too loud.

They came, fat and black, squeezing through chinks in the window, buzzing around the bloody fruitskull, ignoring the other skulls that had been picked clean during the previous season.

A stray fly danced over Raphael’s bloodstained fingers. He listened to its music and did not move. The fly was hungry, and he would not disturb it. He would not raise his hand against even the most disgusting of God’s creatures.

He stared at the dirty window and imagined the woman out there, somewhere, weeping for an audience of ghosts.

The afternoon waned. The flies had gone, their bellies full. Raphael left the shanty. He checked the mailbox at the end of the road, hoping for a reply from the government, but there was nothing waiting for him. There hadn’t been any mail in more than a year. He started along the border of the grove, avoiding the bruja’s domain.

Not far from the mailboxes, a car was parked on the shoulder of the dirt road. Dead trees blanketed it with feeble fingers of shade, printing strange cracks on the white hood and hardtop. Raphael looked inside. He saw keys hanging from the ignition and a wallet tucked haphazardly beneath the front seat. He glanced into the grove but saw no one there.

He hurried away. The wind was rising, and he could almost hear the evil woman weeping again.

This was not the first abandoned car that Raphael had discovered. He imagined the bruja falling upon the driver, an innocent who took a wrong turn off the highway. An innocent who had no protection. These days, people didn’t believe in creatures like the one that haunted C-Town. They had no faith to protect them.

Raphael wished that he could do something to protect the people who came here, but he could do nothing. Gripping his machete, he walked to the west side of the grove, almost to the highway. The sunlight was still strong there. He skirted the dead trees and was happy at their nakedness, pleased by the spindly shadows that were much too feeble to frighten him.

He sat down and thought about the bewitched fruit. The bruja’s bugs had killed the trees when the farmers stopped spraying. Raphael imagined that the insects made her witchcraft possible, even though the trees were long dead. He wished he could find a spray that would kill the cursed bugs, and he decided that tonight he would write another letter to the government and ask if they knew of such a spray.

The sun drifted slowly from the sky. Raphael’s shadow stretched before him, as long and gray as a rich man’s gravestone.

None of Raphael’s children had gravestones. Not Ramona, not Alicia, not Pablo or Paulo. Before his wife left him, Raphael had promised her that he would buy stones as soon as he had enough money to fix the old car. They had to do that first, he said, because they needed the car to visit the cemetery. It was too far away, otherwise.

But it never worked out. His wife left him, and he never had any money. He didn’t have the car anymore, either, and the only time he visited the camposanto was when nobody came for the cars that he found near the grove.

When that happened, he would drive to the camposanto and park nearby. Then he would visit his children. He always found their graves, even though they had no headstones.

Except when the long shadows fell.

And when the shadows turned to darkness and the gravestones disappeared, he walked back to C-Town.

Alone. Crying

Shadows fell across the grove, thickening, stretching toward him. Raphael moved on and found a rabbit trapped in one of his snares. He took it back to the shanty, where he built a fire beneath a dead oak tree.

Sometimes he worried about eating the rabbits. If the lawyers were right, the animals could be sick with the same disease that killed the children.

The idea frightened him. He looked at the rabbit, suddenly afraid of it. But he was hungry, and he knew that the lawyers were wrong. He had eaten many rabbits in the last two years, and he was not sick.

Still, he was afraid, because he knew that C-Town was bewitched. He hung the rabbit and skinned it, his hands unsteady, his face dripping sweat. And then he laughed and laughed, because it was only a dead rabbit, after all, and there was only good meat in the places where he had imagined that he might find sticky fruit.

That night Raphael lay still and listened to the bruja’s weeping.

He had heard of her as a boy in Mexico. The story had come from the lips of his grandmother. “You must be a very good little nino, Raphael,” she had said. “If you are not, La Llorona will come for you.”

“Who is she, Grandma?”

“She is a very bad bruja. Long ago, someone stole her babies. Now she steals children who are bad, because she knows that their parents will not miss them.”

Raphael wasn’t the only one who knew the story. As the children of C-Town fell ill and the doctors failed to help them, more and more people remembered the tale. Raphael’s neighbors had not spoken La Llorona’s name in years, except in jest. But death made things different, especially the deaths of so many. The priest at the little chapel near the highway tried to stop the talk. He said that it was all superstitious nonsense. But the priest only came to the chapel once a week, and soon it seemed that the stories were more than just rumors.

Epifanio Garcia said that he saw La Llorona in the grove one evening, spying on his shanty. Epifanio and his wife had two babies, and he was determined to protect them. He chased La Llorona through the grove, but he could not catch her. He said that every tree which the bruja touched was instantly blighted, its fruit suddenly heavy with huge black bugs.

Rosita Valdez said that she was walking to Mass when she came upon La Llorona drinking from an irrigation ditch. Rosita was so frightened by the evil one’s muddy leer that she ran home without stopping, and that was something, because Rosita was barely five feet tall and weighed nearly two hundred pounds.

Epifanio’s babies fell ill and died. Rosita’s daughter died, too.

Not everyone who lost children saw the weeping woman. Raphael never saw her. But everyone heard her, even over the children’s cries. Each night her wails haunted the camp, sawing through the dead trees along with the summer wind. The poor little ones feared La Llorona so much that they could not sleep at night for the terror of her. They shivered and wept and begged for God’s mercy. But God did not help them. He did not heal the sickness that stole their appetites but somehow left them as fat and bloated and bald as giant babies. And He did nothing to stop La Llorona.

The lawyers said that the sickness came from the water, but Raphael did not believe them. He knew that La Llorona was making the children sick so that they could not escape when she came for them.

She came for Raphael’s children over the space of a month. Poor little Paulo was the last to go. His final days were spent in agony. He cried and cried, promising his father that he was a good little boy and that La Llorona would not take him. Raphael wiped his son’s tears and said that he would stay with Paulo always.

Paulo was the youngest. Raphael sent him to school whenever the family was going to be at one colonias for a long time. When Paulo fell ill, Raphael brought him books to read, and Paulo taught his father how to read them, too. They slept together, holding each other close in the tiny bed.

Night after night, Raphael listened to his son weeping.

He listened to the wind weeping.

He listened to La Llorona’s cries as she walked the dirt streets of C-Town. Each night she came closer, her sobs louder in the tiny room. One night Raphael felt her breath on his face, her tears on his cheeks, and then he heard Paulo take his last breath.

Raphael awoke to the sound of a plane overhead. It came in low and shook the shanty. He ran outside, naked, and watched it fly over the dead grove.

It flew on, releasing no spray, silver wings gleaming in the morning sunlight. The roar of its engines became a hum, then the sound of an insect, then faded away to silence.

Raphael dressed, grabbed his machete and the letter he had written the night before, and headed for the chapel, where there was a mailbox.

He walked through the empty streets, listening to the silence. Everyone but Raphael was gone now. Many left when the sickness started. More left after Epifanio and Rosita encountered La Llorona. The rest abandoned their homes after the lawyers came.

One of the lawyers had talked to Raphael. He was a polite man, but he had bad ideas in his head, and Raphael had refused to sign the papers that so many of his neighbors had signed.

“Mr. Baca,” the lawyer said, “I know money cannot replace the loss of your children, and I know that appearing in a courtroom can be a frightening thing. But unless we fight them, the people that did this to you will do the same thing to other people, as well.”

Raphael didn’t know how to explain it to the man. C-Town had been a good colonias before La Llorona came. The fruit was delicious and the water was plentiful, and his family had made the most of both resources. They had worked in C-Town every season for the past ten years, and they had never fallen ill before.

C-Town was not the real name of the place, of course. That was the name the lawyers used — Cancer Town, the place that killed little children by poisoning their blood.

Raphael tried to explain that La Llorona was taking the children, but the lawyer could not understand. He was too intent on explaining things to Raphael. He said that the corporation that owned the land was attempting to declare bankruptcy to avoid his lawsuit. He said that there would be no more work in C-Town, and that Raphael should not stay, because C-Town was a very dangerous place to live, even for adults.

Raphael agreed. C-Town was dangerous because La Llorona was there. But he would not leave. He had nowhere else to go.

One day, long after Raphael’s neighbors had moved on, a man came from the corporation that owned the land. The man told Raphael that he would have to move. Raphael tried to tell him about La Llorona, but the man was just like the lawyer and wouldn’t listen.

Raphael asked if the man knew of anyone who would listen to his story. The man thought about it for a long time. Finally, he gave Raphael the address of the Department of Agriculture. Raphael thanked him very sincerely. The man must have been pleased with that, because his smile became very broad, indeed.

Raphael wrote many letters to the Department of Agriculture. He never received an answer. He thought that it must be his fault. He was a good reader, but he had trouble writing. His printing was not nearly as neat as that of his teacher, Paulo, and sometimes he did not know the right words to use.

Still, he thought that his latest letter was the best yet. In it, he told the Department people not to listen to any lawyers. He promised that he would tell them all about La Llorona and the dead children if they would only come to C-Town.

The afternoon was cloudy, the sky the color of a wet stone.

Raphael cut across the grove, hurrying to mail his letter before a summer shower hit. It was very still among the trees. Raphael’s boots crunched over dead twigs. His steps came faster and faster, and he found that his throat had gone very dry.

“Thirsty, Raphael? My fruit is so gooood. Sweet and juicy, Raphael. Come and taaaste… ”

The bruja seemed to be standing next to him. Raphael’s gaze darted through the grove. He saw nothing, but heard everything. A ripping sound, flesh being tended from bone. A scream. And then another sound, a moan of pleasure as La Llorona sucked at the horrid fruit.

Raphael ran. The sky was darker now. Above him, dead branches creaked against a rising wind. One broke loose and crashed to the ground in front of him. He tripped and fell, his hands skidding over wood that was pitted and hollow with the efforts of many insects.

The weeping sounds washed over him as he lay there. Not just the cries of La Llorona. A dozen tiny sobs rang in his ears, each choking with pain and fear. Raphael rolled away, eyes closed.

He felt something grabbing him, holding him still.

The branches. The grove was coming alive…

He opened his eyes. The fruit loomed above him, suspended from a dead branch by a net of shadows. Its pink lips moved around white teeth.

“Raphael… it said. “Raphael Baca…”

Raphael lashed out with his machete, severing the fruit. It dropped and rolled against a tree trunk, and a great shard of bark came loose and fell on it. Raphael ran to the shanty, hands over his ears, but he could not escape the ghostly weeping or the anguished cries that poured from his own lips.

Morning brought the sun, and silence.

Raphael went outside, into the light.

A truck was parked in front of the shanty.

There were words on the door of the truck. Big gold letters. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. But there was no one inside the truck, and no one on the streets of C-Town.

Raphael walked to the edge of the grove. Nothing moved there. No fruit hung from the naked branches. No sounds drifted on the warming breeze. Not the weeping of La Llorona. Not the cries of the dead children.

Raphael knelt down. He prayed that the person from the Department of Agriculture had not entered La Llorona’s grove.

He waited for someone to appear, thinking how best to explain things.

He waited a long time.

When no one came, he got his machete and went into the grove, searching for another orange.

THE BARS ON SATAN’S JAILHOUSE

Don’t marry your daughter to a Gold Mountain Boy,

He will not be in bed one full year out of ten

Spiders spin webs on top of her bed

While dust covers fully one side.

— Anonymous

By the ghost of the fifth moon, five coyotes raced toward a wagon. Huge paws ripped divots in barren soil, sleek pelts shone in the amber glow of the coming morning, feral hearts pumped the blood of the beast while hungry eyes studied an Asian woman who held an iron fan and a black driver who steadied the horses.

The black man felt hunger in the pit of his own empty stomach as he watched the beasts advance. But he made no move after tugging the reins, for he had seen something else.

Another coyote, waiting on a low ridge to the north.

A coyote that held a rifle.

The pack continued its charge. Still, the black man didn’t move. Neither did his young companion, who by now had noticed the predators. Gunshots broke the silence, like nothing more than a sharp series of barks. The lead coyote crashed to the ground midleap, tumbled squealing against a pole planted at the side of the dirt road not ten feet from the wagon, and did not get up.

The horses screamed, and the driver jerked the reins and quieted them. Another bark from the rifle and a second beast was literally slapped muzzle to roadbed as if by the hand of God. With that the remaining coyotes veered away from the wagon, away from the coyote with the rifle, darting toward the south.

But not fast enough. A final bullet found the slowest predator — nipping tailbone and shaving asshole, separating the beast from its tail — and the anguished howl that rattled across the wounded predator’s teeth was enough to goose the sun over the mountains that lay to the east. At least, that was how it seemed to the black man who held the reins. Cause, and effect.

But having no great love of philosophy of rumination, the man’s attention turned to the coyote with the rifle. The creature loped across the rutted road, collected the amputated tail, and advanced on the wagon, rifle held over its head in the universal signal of peace.

The creature’s muzzle did not move as it said, “They’ll spread the word, y’know. They’ll run back to their hellhole and howl and whimper, and they’ll tell every damn pup ’bout how one of their own shot hell out of ’em and kept ‘em from their dinner.”

Her back stiff, her brown eyes unblinking, the woman in the wagon slapped closed her fan, transforming it into an iron cudgel to which she held tight. Likewise, her companion held tight to the reins. He did not reach for the pistol secreted beneath his worn duster. His hands did not become fists.

He smiled.

The coyote chuckled, scratching its chin. Then it pushed its entire muzzle up and back, revealing a face the color of oatmeal and blue eyes that squinted against the dull morning light. Unmasked, the coyoteman trained an ear toward the south, even though the driver and the woman heard nothing. “Hear ’em howl?” the coyoteman asked. “They’re talkin’ about me. Tellin’ stories. I’m their devil. I’m their hell.”

The coyoteman showed a healthy set of teeth — not a smile, but an animal trying to smile. “Most folks think I’m crazy, sayin’ somethin’ like that,” he continued. “But I ain’t crazy. I got the devil in my blood. My own mama told me so. See, my daddy was a coyote. Like I said, like my mama said — it’s in my blood. Mr. Gerlach — that’s my boss — he reads all kinds of books. He knows about such things. He says what I am is what you call a liecanthrowup.”

“That’s a mouthful,” the black man said, and he didn’t so much as grin.

“That’s me, all right.” The coyoteman nodded, brushing his chin with his escaped brother’s amputated tail. “And believe you me, it ain’t easy bein’ part ky-ote. Hard to find work when your blood’s got the fever like mine. Folks think you’re peculiar, just ’cause you want to live in a hole in the ground and take your food raw, which is the way God served it up, ain’t it? But Mr. Gerlach, he saw a use for me right off. Coyotes ain’t thinnin’ the newborn calves from Mr. Gerlach’s herd like they once did, not with yours truly around. Pretty soon I’ll have the whole pack headin’ for greener… uh, I should say redder pastures.”

With the last comment, the coyoteman flipped the bloody tail at his audience as if it were an obscene exclamation point. He howled laughter, and it took a long time for him to stop, because he was waiting for the people in the wagon to join in the joke. But they managed to abstain. The black man was busy staring down the road, and his companion had slapped open her iron fan and was pumping it in the coyoteman’s direction.

The black man asked, “Where is Midas Gerlach’s ranch?”

The coyoteman raised the pelt that covered his thin belly and expertly pinched a flea into eternity. “You’re standin’ on it, pilgrim. You look around, and on a clear day you can see until tomorrow. And it’s Midas Gerlach owns every inch of what you’re seeing.”

“And where exactly does Mr. Gerlach hang his hat?”

“Five miles down this road. Can’t see his place from here, but it’s there. But a man like you don’t want to go down this road.” The coyoteman wrinkled his nose and sniffed the stranger’s boots, which bristled with wiry hairs and sharp white ridges that looked like pure misery — bones or teeth, the coyoteman couldn’t rightly decide which, and he didn’t really want to move close enough to make a thorough investigation. “I can smell you, pilgrim,” he said by way of conclusion. “And whatever scent I’m readin’, it ain’t rabbit.”

The black man didn’t reply. He stared at the road, at the dead coyote wrapped around the base of the nearby pole. Scant minutes ago the creature had been leading the hunt. But now…

The coyoteman said, “You’re lookin’ at the wrong end of that pole, friend.”

The stranger looked up and saw for the first time the thing the night had hidden, the thing that was more than plain in the morning light — a severed head leering down at him from the crown of the pole.

“Pinkerton men came through a week ago,” the coyoteman explained, pointing to another pole a quarter-mile or so distant. “Five of ’em. They didn’t smell like rabbits either. Not until Mr. Gerlach got done with ’em, that is. Skinned rabbits was what they smelled like at the end. And believe you me, they was ready for the stew-pot.” He giggled. “You ever hear a rabbit scream? Well, have yuh?”

If he had known what the coming hours would bring, the stranger might have searched his memory for an answer to that question. But though he knew many things that other men did not, he did not know the future, so he tugged the reins.

The horses moved forward. The coyoteman walked beside the wagon, his hand raised against the rising sun. “You listen to me,” he said. “You pay attention! Mr. Gerlach, he treated them Pinkerton men just like I treat the coyotes.” The black man slapped the ribbons, the team broke into a trot, and so did the coyoteman. “Mr. Gerlach’s got a fever in his blood, even worse than mine. But his misery ain’t from a coyote… it’s from his family.” The wagon passed another pole crowned with a severed head — generous golden tresses in imitation of George Armstrong Custer, bullet hole three inches behind the left ear in imitation of Abraham Lincoln. “People tell stories just like coyotes, but these stories are true! The whole Gerlach family done been blood crazy for years… cousin marryin’ cousin… brother and… it just ain’t what’s meant to be.” The coyoteman was sprinting now, nearly breathless. “Why, you just look in the family plot and you’ll see… Mr. Gerlach’s granddaddy buried right next to his own daughter… and… ”

The driver hollered at the team, cracking the ribbons with real authority now. The horses raced forward, and the coyoteman tried to keep the pace. There were many things he wanted to say. He wanted to tell the driver about Midas Gerlach’s granddaddy, how Midas’ grandma had taken after him with a butcher knife. Cut off the old reprobate’s willie and tossed it right down the shit shaft one cold winter’s night, shortly after the old fool had threatened to bless his daughter with a baby brother for thirteen-year-old Midas. The coyoteman wanted to say all these things, just as he wanted to keep on running, but his lungs were working like a bellows with a couple of holes in it, and his legs were like those of a sickly kitten, and all he could say was, “Midas is… Midas is… he’s crazy with the blood… ”

The coyoteman stumbled to a stop and doubled over, dropping the rifle and the coyote-head helmet, hands locking over his knees as he gasped for breath. The coyote was hiding in his blood, and he couldn’t keep up with the wagon, which was gone with the shadows, with the last cool breath of morning.

The sun beat down and there was nowhere to hide. “You got to understand,” the man said, because he had to finish even if no one could hear him. “How it is… with Mr. Gerlach and folks around these parts. It’s like me and the coyotes… it’s like… ”

But he was bone-tired now, like he always was after a hunt. Ready for the cool hollow of his burrow. He mopped his forehead with the coyote tail. Then he shed his furry shirt, wrapped the coyote headpiece around it, and tucked the bundle under one arm. Rifle in hand, he trudged up the road.

And though he panted, he kept his tongue in his mouth.

Late afternoon. The unrelenting sun beat through the window, warming the young woman’s nakedness like the fires of heaven.

Her tits were truly the color of alabaster. That the Chinaman had promised, though Midas Gerlach hadn’t believed him until now. Midas had bought the woman through the mail — bargaining, waiting as each offer and counter offer traveled by stage and train from Fiddler to San Francisco or vice versa. He had committed the Chinaman’s descriptive poetry to heart, but he hadn’t dared believe it. He’d read plenty of yellowback novels and he knew that, numero uno, Chinamen were given to poetic excess and, numero dos, Chi-nee women were as yellow as the first corn of the season.

But it wasn’t like that with the woman who lay on Midas’ bed. If you judged by her, the Chinamans promises were as bankable as cash on the barrelhead. Lie’s tits were the color of alabaster, and they were round and perfect and as hard as any rock God had put on His green earth. Better still, Lie went on from there, her body pure poetry that Midas hadn’t found in any letter. Her nipples were as meaty as jerky, and she complained not at all as he took each in turn between his tobacco-stained teeth, stretching those tiny mounds of Chi-nee jerky into a ten-course meal, which was an image that had never crossed the poetic Chinaman’s mind.

Quick corner-of-the-eye glances filled Midas’ mind with other images. Lie’s fingers digging into the feather bed, knuckles bleached bone white, nails chewed to the quick. Her fan lying open on the floor in a puddle of sunshine, a heavy iron thing that only an inscrutable Chi-nee would invent. His gun belt hanging from the bedpost just above her left hand, but she wasn’t the kind to go reaching for it even though she carried an iron fan that could probably bust bones as efficiently as a railroad brakeman’s club. No. She was hiding. Eyelids closed, brow straining for high cheekbones like fingers strain for palms when a desperate man makes a fist. Lips drawn back, lavender tongue clamped between her teeth with the same studied effort Midas trained on her nipples.

Thin tangle of brush between her legs like an undertaker’s dark thread, like the crimped legs of a dozen dead black widow spiders.

Nipple between his teeth, Midas grinned. Hell and damnation and dreams that come true. A woman who’d take her man without question or complaint. A woman who wasn’t capable of such nonsense. A woman who had been as mute as the day was long since she’d slipped from between her mama’s legs below decks on a ship bound for the land of gold mountains.

The beauty and voice of a flower. That was the Chinaman’s poetry, as haunting as the work of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.

A ten-course jerky meal and the music of smacking lips. That was Midas Gerlach’s poetry. A barroom limerick.

Yessiree. The Chinaman had taken the ass-end of the deal, all right. And the best waited below. Midas’ tongue traveled the length of Lie’s belly. Through the tangle of undertaker’s thread, down one firm alabaster thigh. He threw back the sheet — a clean one, catalog-bought and saved expressly for this occasion. Two teeny little stumps waited at the base of Lie’s ankles, both of them just as white as white could be, each one dotted with five little nubbins twisting this way and that, wriggling this little piggy went to market, this little piggy went to town…

Midas took one toe between his lips, then another. This little piggy had roast beef… this little piggy had none. Suckled like a contented baby. Wee wee wee… all the way home.

Home. China was a world away, but in his heart of hearts Midas knew that he belonged there. With his face buried in yellowback adventure novels he’d loved since he was just a sprout, he often dreamed of foreign shores even though his dead granddaddy’s voice still rang in his head. Those books ain’t manly things. Maybe that’s the way it was in the San Joaquin Valley shitsplat called Fiddler, California, but it wasn’t that way everywhere. Midas liked to read about Chinamen and their ways. He understood them — them with their dungeons and concubines and silk robes heavy with the perfume of opium. Even though he was a white man and a Christian, he understood the things those yellow men liked to do.

Wonderful things. Outre oriental practices that the book writers barely dared relate. Veiled descriptions which trapped Midas’ breath in his throat. Wicked scimitars that could split a man dandruff to dingleberry with one stroke. Opium dreams that taught a man the truth of his heart. Wives by the dozen, each one familiar with the taste of the whip. And best of all, feet sculpted like those at the base of Lie’s alabaster legs, tender young feet wrapped with long strips of silk. Ribbons circling tighter, tighter, tight as a Merry Christmas that never comes.

Bound feet. Saving part of a little girl for ever and ever in a grown woman’s body.

Midas closed his eyes. Suddenly he wasn’t the biggest fish in the little pond called Fiddler, California. He wasn’t a man who ate flapjacks for breakfast and broke horses with a brakeman’s club and drank cheap tequila out of a whore’s high-button shoe and shot down drummers in the local saloons if they so much as cracked a smile when he got to studying their assortments of ladies’ footwear.

For in his mind’s eye Midas was a man who eschewed denim, preferring garments fashioned from the finest oriental silk. His hair was oiled with strange perfumes instead of barber’s tonic. His bed chamber was heavy with the spicy tang of incense. Not one whiff of tequila or horseshit or lonely man’s sweat assaulted his refined olfactory senses.

But, even in the pit of his reverie, it was still Lie’s toe that was trapped between his lips. The toe of a Chi-nee princess raised expressly for his pleasure.

Because, in the pit of his reverie, Midas Gerlach was the Emperor of China, and he suckled on that toe as if it were the tit of the Empress Dowager herself.

Eyes open now.

The coyote’s words had been wise, for this was not the way it was supposed to be.

Breasts raw and red. Thin line of blood weeping from tongue.

She could not speak, but she could hear. Too well. Each little sound was amplified a hundredfold. Father said that evil spirits had stolen her voice when she was still in her mother’s belly, so the Gods had given her the hearing of a dragon in return.

White man sucking. A hungry man slurping noodles. Skin of a ghost hanging loosely from his bones like clean laundry flapping on a hot August breeze. Blue veins. Cold hands. Ghost hands. But his teeth were sharp. The teeth of the hungry goblin from her mother’s midnight stories.

The goblin with brown hair curling over his chest and shoulders.

Hair the color of the herbalist’s bitter roots.

Herbs that made her retch but didn’t give her a voice.

Father said the herbalist was a cheat.

Father took the herbalist’s tongue with a hatchet.

Father’s justice.

But Father was not here to protect her. Father was in San Francisco with the white goblin’s money. Using it to take another’s money by now. That was the way of it. Sure as she’d never touch the hard earth of Father’s homeland. Sure as the white goblin was sucking her twisted toes.

His clothes on the floor. The shed hide of a goblin.

Her clothes in the fire, flame and ash.

And in the corner — towering over the palace of the Empress Dowager, a giant in the Empress’ own private courtyard — the pine woman stood waiting, not daring to shrink from the flames.

Waiting, pine body straining against a white dress of silk and lace. Dancing flames casting her pine shadow over the curving roof of the palace. White veil a bleached shadow over slivered lips.

In China, white was the color of mourning.

The goblin stopped his sucking. Opened his eyes. Nudged Lie’s raw, red breasts with his evil chin, licking his horrid pink lips.

Lie made the pine woman’s face her own. She traveled to a place deep inside herself, a secret place far from the white goblin’s house. A place where he could not reach her.

And from that place, for the first time, the young daughter of the Mysterious East caught the bitter scent of the white goblin’s hidden gold.

Midas knew his limit, and he’d done reached it.

Hurriedly, he rose and christened his bride-to-be. She just lay there and took it like a dream. He had to pick her up before she’d even move. He set her in front of the dresser mirror, and she stood there as still and stiff as the pine dressmaker’s dummy in the corner of the room. Midas had to pour water into the bowl for her, wet the cloth. But damned if he was going to wipe her down, and she seemed to know it. Cool cloth in her tiny hand, she got the idea and busied herself.

Midas watched her from behind, but she was perfect and demure and didn’t dare catch his eye in the mirror. Her eyes were downcast, staring into the depths of the reflection, studying the fire that burned in the fireplace behind her and the model of the Empress Dowager’s palace that dominated the floor of Midas’ bedroom.

Midas had lovingly assembled the model, recreating every detail from vivid descriptions found in one of his yellowback novels. He wanted to tell Lie about it — what the model meant to him, the dreams it held — but all that would have to wait. Right now he didn’t want to talk. He only wanted to drink in her beauty, which jerked him around like a stiff shot of tequila.

Sweat on her tight little buttocks, twin globes that were as slick and shiny as a couple of perfect pearls. From behind, she looked like an innocent little girl. And maybe she was. Haired over, but just barely. Spider-leg hairs. Hairs like undertaker’s thread.

No. Midas licked at the salty-sweet, faintly leatherish taste in his mouth. He closed his eyes and concentrated on a flavor that had no equal.

A sweet blossom’s flavor. The Chinaman’s own daughter. Or so the Chinaman said. But the Chinaman was a man who owned a gambling hall, and a man like that wasn’t exactly on intimate terms with the truth. That’s what a lawman up in San Francisco had told one of Midas’ gun-dogs.

But the Chinaman had been straight about the girl. Maybe not about the daughter part — maybe that part was supposed to make the deal more appealing in an outre oriental way, like the things described in those yellowback novels — but he’d been straight about the rest of it. He’d delivered. He’d sent the girl down from San Francisco in a wagon so there wouldn’t be any fuss or gossip at the train station, just like he’d promised.

Midas stepped past the dressmaker’s dummy, his hairy shoulder brushing the bridal gown he’d had made special for Lie. He stood next to it, tall and proud in the courtyard of the Empress Dowager’s palace, dwarfing the structure. Sunlight glinted off the sloping angles of a dozen golden roofs, warming Midas’ naked skin.

Midas was a man who could never get warm enough.

He stood in the sunlight, staring at the same scene that had greeted him every day for thirty-three years. The Gerlach family plot was a hundred feet from his window. His granddaddy’s headstone dwarfed those surrounding it, his mama’s headstone on one side and his grandma’s on the other. Only one thing was different about the scene today. There was a nigger out there on Midas’ property, about fifty feet this side of the family plot and another twenty paces or so to the west, pretty near the old outhouse where the best part of Midas’ granddaddy had been so shamefully interred lo those many years ago. This nigger had a shovel lashed to his shot-up hand with a length of barbed wire, and he was busy digging a new shit shaft in the hard, hot earth of Fiddler, California.

Midas scratched his head. Still all pixilated from his frolic with Lie, but Jesus, he needed to calm down and think this through.

The Chinaman had sent Lie, sure. But he’d also sent the nigger. Nigger had been the one driving the wagon.

But he wasn’t a wagon-driving kind of buck. Not hardly. He was a buck gunfighter. Buck bounty man, actually, to put the right name to it. A gunman with a Navy Colt secreted beneath his canvas duster. Imagine that. A wagon-driving buck with the stink of sweat and horseshit and trail dust about him trying to draw down on Midas Gerlach on the very ranch where three generations of Gerlachs had been born and bred.

That didn’t go down too good, not in this county. Midas was a wanted man, sure. Everyone knew that. But the Gerlachs ruled the town of Fiddler, the whole damn county. A network of cousins and uncles and assorted bastards kept things going the way they’d always gone. No one was going to collect the bounty on Midas Gerlach. Especially not some nigger with a Navy Colt.

The price on Midas’ head was a doozy, though. Truth be told, he was mighty proud of it. The larger the dollar sign, the larger the man. That’s what his granddaddy had always said. And Midas had earned it, too. Not in any pedestrian manner, mind you. Nothing so simple as the murder of man, woman, or child.

People up in Sacramento City still talked about it. How some rich rancher staying at a ritzy hotel by the river carved up a whore with the French chef’s best cutlery. Paiute Injun whore who had a real taste for brandy with a slice of summer peach, and the law still held him accountable, even though anyone who knew the Gerlach clan from Midas’ granddaddy on down damn well knew that the whole bunch of them couldn’t control their passions when the brandy had them by the balls. Peached or straight it did not matter.

But it wasn’t the cutting up part that had bothered the good citizens of Sacramento City. It was the simple fact that Midas (in the pixilated afterglow of a frolic similar to the one he’d just enjoyed with Lie) had sautéed the slut’s feet in the French chef’s best skillet, cooking her little toesies to a golden brown in a rich sauce of champagne and wild mushrooms and plenty of butter. When the hotel staff found him after the deed was done, sixty-two bones lay stripped clean on the hotel’s finest Staffordshire Blue china, and Midas was working his bicuspids with a toothpick. His disposition was later described as more than agreeable by the concierge, certainly polite despite a few discreet belches. In fact, everything seemed just fine and dandy until the hotel doorman peeked into the kitchen and confronted the untended remains of Midas’ gustatory extravaganza, at which point the hale and hearty Irishman promptly lost the half-pint of whiskey that had insulated him against the surprisingly intemperate June weather.

The Sacramento City papers played it up big. Said that Midas was worse than that Alferd Packer fellow out Colorado way, worse than the miserable wretches who called themselves the Donner Party. And then the gentlemen of the press got to embellishing the story, and pretty soon Midas found that he had consumed not only the whore’s feet but also the French chef’s privates — cooked up with a big mess of oysters was how the story went — and that little tale put the noblest son of the house of Gerlach off his feed for a full week. Such embellishments continued, each revelation helping to jack the bounty on Midas’ head to Tower of Babel proportions, until it got to the point where Diamond Jim Brady himself might get all wet in the mouth and strap on a gun, let alone some buck with a scarred Colt that had most-likely seen its last duty at Gettysburg.

Such memories aroused a man’s thirst. Midas stepped across the courtyard of the Empress Dowager’s palace, bent low and removed the roof of a building that had housed the Empress’ eunuchs. He snatched up a bottle of tequila, taking dim satisfaction, as always, in his choice of hiding place.

He washed the taste of Lie’s toes from his mouth, one pleasure eclipsing the other, while he watched the nigger work.

Hell and damnation. Diamond Jim was going to have to get in line. Discounting the Pinkerton men, the buck was the third gunman to come looking for Midas just this month. He was the only one to get as far as the ranch. Or maybe he was just the first one to get to the ranch. And him with shaggy boots that looked to be made from dead rats and tattered clothes that maybe fit him when thirty or forty pounds of extra meat hung on his bones.

Midas drank. This buck wasn’t scarecrow skinny, though. He was what you’d call rangy. Tough — all hungry-eyed and Sunday-serious. He made those Pinkerton men look like weepy choir boys. Took his beating like one of Midas’ prize horses, all proudlike. Even the ranch hands — trigger-happy desperados, every one — had to admit that this buck had a different stripe to him, and they were the kind of men who hated niggers more than any other creatures that walked on two legs.

The buck could shoot, too. Clipped Midas’ ear, but that wasn’t anything to get excited about. Hell, it was Midas who shot the gun out of the buck’s hand just as slick and cool as Deadwood Dick.

But all Midas had to do was take one look at the buck to know that the bastard was as good as finished. Buck out there digging a hole. Digging his own grave.

Well that wasn’t rightly true. Not quite.

Midas took a final swig of tequila, crunching the worm between his teeth as he glanced at Lie. She’d dried her buttocks with a towel. They didn’t shine like pearls anymore. No, now her sweetcheeks had the look of cool marble monuments that might have been carved by Michelangelo himself.

Midas swallowed the worm. Such unsullied beauty as that of his bride-to-be couldn’t be forced to sit upon the outdoor privy Midas and his boys had employed lo these many years. That wasn’t to be. By God, the bride of Midas Gerlach would not suffer a splinter in her behind. Neither would she breathe the unseemly combustulations of a dozen sworn profligates.

So the buck bounty man wasn’t digging his own grave. He was digging a new shit shaft for Midas Gerlach’s bride-to-be. The old shit shaft would be the buck’s grave, though Midas worried that it was slightly sacrilegious to bury a nigger in the same spot where lay Granddaddy Gerlach’s pecker, be it shit shaft or no.

But he also figured that the buck could go to his final reward knowing that his last task on God’s green earth had been a noble one, for there was no nobler effort than shielding true beauty from the undeniable vulgarity which thrived within this vale of tears. At least, that was the opinion of a certain poet from the Mysterious East.

Midas figured that the stranger wouldn’t understand that, though. It didn’t really matter, because the stranger didn’t have a whole lot more understanding to do.

All he had to do was dig a hole.

Then he had to take enough bullets so that he’d fall into another one.

Then he had to die.

Maybe not in that precise order. Midas chuckled. If the stranger was really smart, he’d stomach as much lead as he could, just to be sure he was dead through before he plummeted into the fetid abyss.

The barbed wire had gouged a raw trench through the flesh of his wrist just as thoroughly as a crown — or more properly, a bracelet — of thorns might have done, and the bullet hole through his hand had the angry look of a cheap steak dredged in pepper and Louisiana Tabasco, but the stranger didn’t feel any pain. After hours of digging in the hot sun without water or a single minute’s rest, he barely felt anything. He only felt himself and the shovel, the hard earth, and the heat.

He didn’t know who or where or even what he was. Not anymore. Not in this hellish furnace of a place. Not with slow trickles of blood weeping from his hand. Hand a part of the shovel handle. Booted feet stomping shovel blade. Left, then right. Biting the earth. His boots, each one bristling with the razor teeth of a dozen midnight horrors, biting the earth and making it whimper.

No. Not the earth. That whimper came from his throat.

It wasn’t a whimper of pain. The digging man was lost. Utterly. Completely. He knew that for sure and for certain, and that was what made him whimper. He’d been somebody when he came to this place. Somebody strong. And before that, he’d been somebody else. Somebody who wasn’t strong. But the Chinaman had changed him. The Chinaman had given him a pair of boots with teeth that could bite the earth and make it whimper. And it was the hell of losing that strength that made the stranger whimper like a motherless child.

He scooped a shovelful of dirt out of the hole. The Chinaman. He seemed a real memory. White hair and coffee-colored eyes that were as pretty as a woman’s. The Chinaman didn’t seem like someone the black man would imagine. Down South, he’d never seen a Chinaman at all. Down South, there were white folks and colored folks, and he’d seen plenty of both in his time.

That was another piece of it. He punched the shovel into the earth and the crown of thorns bit his wrist.

Not a crown, a bracelet.

No matter. Down South, he’d seen a crown of thorns. Down South, there was a church, and in that church was a preacher named Stackhouse, and that preacher named Stackhouse had carved himself a black Jesus with a crown of thorns that made you ache with pure misery could bring Satan’s own bitch to her knees like a gentle lamb. And that preacher named Stackhouse had had himself a son, a boy who didn’t want to have any lamb in him at all. A good-for-nothing lay-about who would do, but not do right. A boy who’d read, but wouldn’t read the good book. He’d read books stolen from the homes of indecent white folks. He’d work his fingers, but he’d work them around a deck of cards or a bottle, not around a shovel or a hoe.

But the black man held a shovel now, so that preacher’s boy couldn’t be him. Still, the memory seemed so real. And the name was so familiar. Stack…

What was it, now? Just there on his tongue a second ago, and now it was gone.

Stack —

“Stackalee… ”

The Chinaman’s voice echoed against the walls of the hole, and the black man glanced at the four dirt walls surrounding him before he realized that the word had spilled from his own lips.

And then he remembered other words. Words heard out the backside of that church Down South, linked up so that they made stories. Stories about an eternal bad man who wore an oxblood Stetson, a man who made church-going women slick between the legs with a sharp glance, a man who shook up the earth with his feet, a man who scared a preacher’s youngest son but scared him with a fear that made his blood surge with all the power of a river come springtime.

“Stackalee.” The name was on the digging man’s lips, and it seemed to fit there, just the way a man fits a woman.

He sucked a deep breath. His blood surged. Suddenly, he knew why he was here in this hole with a shovel wired to his hand. He’d made a little mistake, and now he was paying for it with his sweat and blood. The men who’d put him here figured that he could never do what they’d asked of him.

The men? No, that wasn’t right. The man. That fiery Southern preacher, him so high and mighty, speachifyin’ and preachifyin’. “Dig your hole deep, sonny boy. Gonna take a deep deep hole to hold all your shameless sins.”

Oh, he could dig a hole deep, all right. Man name of Stackalee, he once dug a hole straight down to hell just so he could kick the devil’s brimstone ass. A man with fanged boots stitched by a Chinaman, he could put the bite to a shovel with those boots, make that shovel work a damn sight harder. Especially if his name was Stackalee.

“That’s my name,” the man said, no whimper left in him. “Yes, that’s who I am.”

He punched the shovel into the ground, again and again, and each time he brought it away he expected to see the white face of Satan beaming up at him from below.

Things didn’t work out that way, though.

Because, the first time he looked up, expecting to see the unforgiving sun wearing its implacable mask of indifference, there was old Satan, above him, waiting.

Staring into the pit.

Smiling.

The white goblin was gone now.

Lie was alone.

She wasn’t supposed to be alone. But neither should she have lain naked in the white goblin’s bed, nor bear the marks of his teeth and lips upon her body. Father’s dark man was to have protected her from all of that. Him, with his six-gun and his magic boots.

But Father’s dark man was outside, digging in the earth like a mole.

Father had made the magic boots. Stitched them from the bodies of living bats that jerked and screamed when the dark man pulled the boots onto his feet for the first time. Father had promised that the boots would give the man the strength he had long wanted, and the man saw soon enough that Father’s words were true, because soon enough the dark man’s six-gun thundered and his enemies fell.

With his fist the dark man crushed a deputy’s skull — not surprised to find that he could do such a thing, but certainly astonished to find that the simpering idiot actually had a brain inside his head. With nothing more than a sharp glance he severed a hangman’s rope, and the thunder in his boots turned the stone walls of a jail to powder and pebble.

Father took the dark man’s money. Not only for the boots — there was the high price of a fugitive’s room and board, the higher price of silence. But Father told the man how he could get his money back. The man agreed with nothing more than a nod, and in that moment Lie had felt the power of the stranger’s razor-edged glance cut straight to the secret depths of her heart. She had felt, just for an instant, that a man who looked into her soul with such eyes could deal with a goblin who wrote letters that stank of lust and misery. Maybe Father could outsmart that monster, after all. Lie hoped so. For that monster, Father said, dined on human flesh, calculating the riches of a hundred men on an abacus of human bone. That monster, Father said, would fall before no ordinary man.

But what would Father say now? His terror in fanged boots was digging in the ground like a railroad coolie. What would Father do if he saw that? Cut off the dark man’s feet with his ceremonial axe, the way he had taken the herbalist’s tongue?

Would Father leave her here with the goblin who ate the flesh of humans?

No. That could not happen. The very idea of being trapped in this furnace of a place chilled her, like a hot breeze sliced cold as it gusted through a forest of stone cemetery monuments.

Lie had no faith in her father, a man who had used her as a poker chip. But her faith, somehow, swelled with the power of a razor-edged glance that could never be held.

Until she looked through the window.

And saw the pale goblin holding a gun in each hand.

And her dark man.

And his blood.

The men had split the buck’s face into a dozen pieces — at least, that was the way it looked to Midas — but damned if the hardcase couldn’t still manage an uppity little grin.

“That’s enough, boys.” Something about the buck had suddenly made Midas all twitchy, and he wanted to conclude this matter and get on with the business at hand. “Now, do like I told you.”

“Damn thing’s gonna fall apart if’n we try to move it,” said one of the men.

“Bullshit,” said another. “Didn’t fall apart last week when you pushed it over. And that was with me in it.”

“You mebbe got a point there.”

Everyone laughed. Even the buck. But when Midas’ men stopped laughing, the buck didn’t. His belly heaved until his eyes filled with tears. Midas waved his men to work with his six-guns, but that only made the buck laugh harder.

The deadliest gunmen within a hundred miles heaved and struggled like a bunch of field hands, easing the old outhouse from above its horrid well. Midas planned to relocate the communal privy nearer the men’s quarters, and it looked like it was going to be rough going. One of the pistoleros slipped and nearly fell into the brimming shit shaft, grabbing the teetering structure for dear life, his gun-hand suddenly the home of a half-dozen splinters. Rivulets of blood wept from the buck’s split lip but still he smiled full and wide, tittering like a schoolgirl as Midas’ gun-dogs pulled their compadre from danger. “Smells like the gate of hell itself,” one of the men said, and the buck whispered, “Oh, you don’t know, you just don’t know.” And then the buck glanced at Midas, who stood in front of a brand new outdoor privy with a quarter moon cut in the door and

MRS. MIDAS GERLACH

PRIVATE

inscribed just below it, and he looked at the hole he’d dug in the hard earth of Fiddler and he laughed and laughed.

The gunmen moved the pristine outhouse over the freshly excavated hole. The buck was nearly busting a gut now, tears spilling from his brown eyes. The entire display was an affront to Midas’ sensibilities. He had to make the buck understand, because he didn’t want this kind of thing happening in front of his men. “Death isn’t a laughing matter,” he intoned. “You should go to your grave with dignity. Your last action, digging this hole, has been a noble one. After all, the poets of the Mysterious East tell us that there is no nobler effort then the shielding of true beauty from the undeniable vulgarity which thrives within this vale of — ”

The buck howled and hooted.

Midas’ guts were as tight as fiddle strings. He knew his men had noticed his distress, and that wasn’t good. But there was something about the stranger’s roaring laughter that burrowed under his skin like a ravenous tick. And the stranger’s eyes were just as bad, all proud and haughty, cutting at Midas with little razor glances.

Midas resolved to hold firm. “Now you hush up,” he ordered. “You’re acting like a scared woman. Act like a man.”

Again a razor glance slashed him, and then the buck shook his head. “Oh, I won’t do that, boss, ’cause I ain’t no man. You’re about to find that out.”

Now it was Midas’ turn to laugh. “Hear that boys? He ain’t a man, huh? Well… hell… I guess that is pretty plain to see after all.” The men chortled and guffawed, taking his meaning. “So, boy… why don’t you tell us just what you are?”

The buck spit a red glob into the dust. “I’m a goblin killer,” he said, kicking up a swirl of bloody dust with his shaggy boots.

The men went at him again, a whirlwind of fists and feet. But the buck refused to fall, and they backed off instinctively — tired, hot and confused — and when they had backed off the buck was still there under the hot sun, just as before, dust swirling around him, the look on his face all grit and sand and vinegar.

For a moment, it was quiet.

A low cloud of red dust hung between Midas and the stranger. Neither man blinked. There was no question who the stranger was looking at, no doubt about what he saw.

Midas waved his guns.

The men pulled the buck to the edge of the brimming pit, the heels of his scruffy boots not more than an inch from the precipice.

Midas took aim.

Two sharp clicks sounded as he cocked his pistols.

For a long moment, everything was very quiet. Midas smiled, letting the ominous silence hang there between him and the buck.

And then the buck’s shaggy boots started to scream.

Lie turned away from the window just as the white goblin cocked his pistols. She could not bear to watch her dark man die.

She wanted to weep, but this was no time for tears. There was no time for anything now. No time for sadness, no time for dreams. Only time to take what Father wanted. Take as much of it as she could carry.

Find a horse.

Escape before the white goblin came for her.

She moved on her tiny feet as always — slowly, carefully. Even the smallest steps were excruciatingly painful, each one a sharpened shard of bamboo piercing her foot. She was as unsteady as a babe, but she did not stop, did not allow herself to fall.

Across the room she moved. Slowly, carefully. She reached the palace of the Empress Dowager and removed the structure’s roof.

Inside was the stink of the white goblin’s gold.

Gold coins. Paper money, too.

And on top of it all, an abacus made of human bone.

Lie’s breath caught in her throat. She snatched up the horrid thing and threw it against the wall. The abacus shattered. Pieces fell, scattering across the floor. Only when the last sliver of bone rolled to a stop did she breathe again.

Slowly, carefully, she moved to the closet. Opened the door. Rummaged around.

The carpetbag she found in one corner stank of the white goblin, but it was empty. Soon she had filled it. Some gold, but mostly paper money. Riches as light as foolish laughter.

The goblin had burned her clothes, but it took no time at all to slip into one of his shirts, which on her was almost as long as a dress.

Fistfuls of gold coins had rolled into one low corner of the room, a magical pond shimmering there. Paper money was scattered on the floor like the leaves of autumn.

She knew that she should find a match. Burn some of the paper money. An offering to the Gods, for luck… But what she needed most of all was time. Only time could make her luck.

Lie knew no God of time, so she hurried onward.

Midas prodded the stranger’s shaggy boots with the barrel of his pistol. Stitched wings flapped madly. Beady red-black eyes glared up at Midas and his gun-dogs. Angry shrieks spilled from midnight lips. Razor teeth chattered like castanets as two-dozen tiny mouths snapped open and closed, longing for the taste of human flesh.

“Jesus!” one of the gun-dogs said. “His boots are made outta bats!”

Midas whispered, “I’ll be damned.”

“That’s a fact,” the stranger said.

Midas sneered at the black gunman. Four of the gun-dogs had ahold of the boy, pinning him to the ground. He wasn’t going anywhere, him and his smart mouth.

Midas grinned. Suddenly, he was real disinterested in the gunslinging buck.

The buck’s boots, though… now they were another story.

Again Midas poked at the fanged horrors, running the pistol barrel through a wave of bristly black hair, over a ridge of dangerous teeth. One of the hideous little mouths snapped closed, taking hold of the gun, chewing, razor teeth squealing over polished metal.

A held breath escaped Midas’ lips. Hell and damnation. He couldn’t believe it. Down in his drawers, his beaver rifle was getting real stiff, just the way it did when he got to studying one of those mail-order catalogs from the fancy ladies’ footwear emporiums back East.

Squinting, Midas studied the sin-black soles of the stranger’s boots from heel to toe. The rancher’s eye was well-trained when it came to such matters, and these gunboats appeared to be just about his size.

Such magnificent footwear could not be consigned to the bottom of a shit shaft, that was for damn sure.

“Get them things off his feet,” Midas ordered.

The gun-dogs regarded the writhing horrors — leathery wings flapping against tight stitches, teeth whipsawing this way and that in all those awful little mouths, nasty little screams slicing the evening air.

In a couple of eyeblinks, almost every hand had found a pocket in which to hide.

Midas spit in the dirt. “Damn your yella hides, boys.”

Red Bailey was the only gun-dog to be cowed by the insult. He snatched a bowie from his boot and offered, “Maybe I’ll just take ’em off at the nigger’s ankles.”

“We’d still have to get his feet out of ’em.”

“Then how about I just slice the damn things apart,” Red said. “We can sew ’em back together later.”

“No.” Midas scratched his chin. He needed some answers. Maybe there was a trick to getting the damn boots off of the buck’s feet. But if there was, the buck wasn’t going to tell him about it. And the threat of another beating was useless, because the buck had already stood up to the best they could offer. Besides, the poor boy had to know by now that he was bound to die, any way you figured it.

A grin creased Midas’ face. He should have thought of it before.

“Don’t do a thing ’til I get back,” he said, starting toward the house.

Lie slipped into the hallway, one hand on the wall, one hand holding the carpetbag. Swaying on her tiny feet, but moving forward. Gritting her teeth against pain that sliced and stabbed. Searching for a way out of the house other than the front door.

There were many rooms in the white goblin’s house. Too many. Like a Chinese palace where the rooms connected in almost impossible ways, designed by crafty architects who hoped to trap an eternity of luck.

Somewhere far behind her, she heard the front door opening. Then she heard the white goblin’s voice. “Those boots your nigger is wearing,” he said, and Lie heard his footsteps whispering over the Indian carpet in the main room, his boot heels ringing on the hardwood hallway that led to the bedroom. “I like the goddamn things. I really like ’em.” She listened as the bedroom door squealed open on dry hinges. “I want you to come outside with me, show me how he takes ’em off without getting his fingers chewed down to the nub — ”

The white goblin’s footfalls stopped suddenly. Lie could imagine the twisted expression on his face, his anger boiling as he realized that she was not in the bedroom.

His voice was like thunder. “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!”

She stumbled down the hallway, searching for an exit, each step agony. Behind her, heavy footsteps shook the house. Still, she did not slow her pace. Not until the white goblin himself turned a sharp corner. Not until his great shadow covered her like a shroud.

He made a grab for the carpetbag, but Lie refused to surrender easily. She forced him to fight for it. He had to pry it from her hand, finger by finger.

His free hand closed around her neck. “I paid for you!” he shouted. “You’re my property! Lock, stock, and barrel! That’s the deal!”

He raised his hand, almost slapped her.

She could not decide why he did not.

A great sigh escaped him. “Goddamn me for giving you my heart,” he said. His eyes filled with poison as he spoke, and she wished that he would have slapped her instead.

“Get back to the bedroom,” he ordered. “Our bedroom. Get into that white dress. The one I had made special. Under the bed, in a pink box, you’ll find some little white booties to go with it. They’ve got pearls on ’em. I ordered ’em special from Chicago, from an outfit makes baby booties and such for rich folks. Get into those, too.”

She only stared at him.

“I know you understand me,” he said, marching down the hallway, tossing the carpetbag into a room with a doorway so small it might as well not have been there at all.

The white goblin turned a corner.

All that remained was the sound of his footsteps.

The creak of the front door.

A door he did not have to slam.

Midas stood on the porch, staring up at the sky

The heavens had gone all angry with the sunset, violet sky warring with black-fisted clouds that hooked and uppercutted against the wind, the sun sinking down slow and easy and kind of timid, like it was plumb worn out and didn’t have much of a notion to do anything about it.

At his feet were buckets of beer and whiskey bottles by the dozen. To his side stood a player piano from a whorehouse in Fiddler proper, borrowed especially for the grand occasion. Overhead, paper lanterns swayed from the eaves of the Gerlach homestead. The lanterns glowed just as red as red could be, painted with Chi-nee characters that symbolized happiness and love, and not just your everyday garden-variety happiness and love, but happiness and love of the eternal variety.

Midas spit over the rail, into the dust.

Fifty feet straight on waited several rows of long tables covered over with red-and-white checkerboard tableclothes, each one set with china plates and real silver utensils, each one ready with more buckets of beer and whiskey bottles by the dozen. Beyond the tables was a cooking pit, dug down but not too deep, heaped with good oak that had long since burned down to a serious bed of coals. Midas’ men had borrowed a couple of jailhouse doors from the sheriff’s lockup in Fiddler, and with these they had covered over the pit. Several dead hogs kept company with a couple dead cows and a few dead lambs there on the bars, each carcass roasting to black perfection. The smell was all blood and iron, and it made Midas’ head swim.

“Boss? You okay? Can you hear me, boss?”

Midas blinked several times, glancing down. The buck bounty man stood at the foot of the porch steps, still smiling as proud as proud could be even though a half-dozen guns were aimed at his nappy head.

Midas grinned himself, figuring that this stranger must have had one hell of a smoke wagon hanging between his legs to be kicking up the sand at this late date.

“What you want us to do with this here nigger, Mr. Gerlach?”

The grin went soft on Midas’ face. He actually started to shake, because somehow he knew that this uppity grinnin’ buck was responsible for ruining everything.

Sure. That was the way it was. The buck had been the burr under his saddle, all along. It was the buck’s fault that the Chinaman’s daughter had been disobedient. That had to be it… there was nothing in the Chinaman’s letters to explain it otherwise. The buck must have put ideas into her poor little head, convincing her to steal from her husband-to-be.

Yeah. The buck had hatched the whole scheme.

And that wasn’t the only damage he’d done. It was the stranger’s fault that Midas’ own men were now staring at him with snickering little grins branded on their faces, just as it was the stranger’s fault that Midas Gerlach was standing before them, shaking like a sissified gent. Standing there on his own front porch, on his wedding day, his big ol’ puppy-dog of a heart breaking with the knowledge that the bloom was off the fucking rose.

Forever more. Amen.

Without warning, Midas erupted. A torrent of words gushed over his lips. He shouted about blood and honor and true love and outre oriental practices, and he couldn’t seem to put a cork in it. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t rein in a single syllable. He took great solace in the fact that a gun was in his hand, for he was certain that he was going to use it in just a minute or maybe less, and then he would surely shut up. But there were some things that needed saying before he sent this buck straight to hell.

Innumerable things. And Midas was saying each and every one of them, though his brain didn’t have one damn thing to do with it. The words were bubbling up direct from his guts, and he couldn’t control them any more than a holy roller can control himself when he’s caught up in the spirit and chattering in tongues. The words were jumping and leapfrogging and somersaulting right on out of Midas’ mouth — each and every one of them racing hellbent for the ears of his audience — but at the same time they were filling him up, too, filling him so full that he was sure to bust if he didn’t pretty quickly cock the hammer and let fly with an avalanche of lead.

Midas looked away, just for a second, just to catch his breath.

And there she was. A real vision. Standing in the doorway, all white like the pearly gates of God’s own heaven. The Chinaman’s daughter was wearing the wedding gown Midas had bought for her, waiting there beneath the red paper lanterns that glowed with promised happiness and love of the eternal variety.

She wore pearl booties on her pretty little feet — those delicate booties that had come all the way from Chicago — the booties Midas had hidden under his stinking bed like a well-kept promise.

The Chinaman’s daughter held out one dainty hand to him, her beautiful fingers painted red by glowing lantern-light. There was no way around it. Midas’ cursed heart sang with joy. His anger melted at the sight of her, for he’d been imagining this moment just this way since the arrival of the Chinaman’s first letter.

Midas stumbled toward her like some big stupid kid, and suddenly it was as if he were floating on air, as if his big clumsy Monitor and Merrimac gunboat feet weren’t touching the ground at all.

Red Bailey called out, “What about the nigger’s boots?”

“Forget ’em,” Midas said, taking the hand of his Chi-nee princess.

“What about the nigger proper, then? You want us to kill what’s left of him? Or you want us to save him for you?”

Midas didn’t give one good goddamn what his gun-dogs did, and he told them so.

For a time he imagined that he was back in that church Down South, the one with the black Jesus. It seemed in his reverie that Jesus lay on the pew next to his, and it was a hot day, August hot —

No. Worse than that. Brimstone hot. Hell hot. That’s what it was.

Jesus wasn’t holding up too well. He’d been born in a land of deserts, but He couldn’t take this. Whimpering like a babe in arms, He was. Why, Stack was pure embarrassed for the old boy. He wanted to tell Him to muscle up and bear it, the way He’d borne that crown of thorns while nailed up there on the church wall through the long years of Stack’s childhood, but he was so dry he figured he’d have to be primed before he could spit, let alone talk.

So Stack just lay there in the heat, taking it himself.

Just like Daddy had promised he’d do one day, and the fact that his daddy was long dead and buried didn’t keep the old man from reminding him. “See,” he said, whispering in his son’s ear, “told you how you’d end up, didn’t I? Told you it’d be the pit for you, you with your evil ways. You at the gate now, ain’t cha, boy? Take a look, see what’s on the other side.”

Stack wanted a look, a good long one. He’d heard about this place for a long, long time. He’d had the fear of it beat into him ever since he could remember. And now that he was here he wanted to see if all the fear had been worth it, if the short time he’d stood on two legs like a man was indeed cause for eternal punishment. He wanted to find out if the stark reality of his final destination would have made it easier to bow and scrape. He wanted to know if such knowledge would have made it easier to spend his life in lame servitude of one kind or another, in shame, apologizing for his very birth.

“Go ahead, boy,” his daddy said. “Look through the gate.”

He got one eye open. Sweet Jesus, he could see the fires. Feel them, too. One cheek pressed against the very bars that formed the gate, and that cheek was sizzling like bacon on a hot griddle.

“I warned you, boy. Didn’t I warn you? But you wouldn’t listen. Not one word did you hear. If you’d led the right life. If you’d been meek, like a lamb, you’d have been right, and the Lord would be forgivin’ you about right now, and you’d be enterin’ His Kingdom on your knees, the way He intended.”

“Easy on him, preacher,” Jesus said. “We forgive, Me and Mine. Your boy wasn’t a bad one. He wasn’t evil. He just never wanted to crawl, is all. And now that he’s done… Well, when you’re done, you’re done straight through. And then there’s no turning back.”

Even the preacher knew better than to talk back to Jesus. The preacher’s son was thankful for that little miracle, especially seeing as how Jesus had been kind enough to accompany him to the gates of hell.

Stack figured he should thank the Good Lord’s boy for that. He pushed away from the bars, turned toward the place His voice had come from.

A pig stared back at him with blind eyes, head charred, a well-cooked apple sizzling in its mouth. The pig did not utter a single word, and Stack had the strong suspicion that it wasn’t just the apple that kept the dead hog from talking.

The porker was ready for the knife and fork. Lying above coals that were a long way from brimstone but burned hell-hot nonetheless. Lying there on a scorcher of a grill with a few lambs which had no doubt come to the fire real meek and mild, a bunch of other hogs, a couple cows, and one really stupid bastard for company.

And then came the laughter. “Stick a fork in the nigger and see if he’s done.”

The gun-dog who held the fork obliged. He jabbed Stack’s shoulder, giving the big fork a generous twist. There were only two tines, each one just short of two inches in length, but they bit and sliced like the devil’s own pitchfork. Stack nearly passed out as pain stampeded his senses.

“It’s like they say, bucko,” the holder of the fork opined. “When you’re done, you’re done straight through. And it appears that you still got mucho momentos to go ’fore you’re cooked up good and proper, amigo.”

The men’s laughter mixed right in there with the pain. Stack grimaced. He’d stared through the gates of hell, lain on those gates with the other dead animals, the stupid creatures that went through life meek and mild, but nothing burned him quite the way the hyena laughter of these two fools did.

That was when he knew, for sure and for certain, with no questions at all. He was done, all right. Done, once and for all.

He was done crawling. And for damn sure he was done suffering the grief of bastards like these.

The man with the fork knelt over him, grinning, still giving it the twist. Bobcat-quick, Stack reached up and snatched a fistful of the man’s shirt, surprising him and tumbling him forward across Stack’s own chest, so that the man landed on the grill between half a cow and a generous hunk of lamb.

The other gun-dog might have pulled his Colt in that short instant, but he had to drop the half-empty whiskey bottle he was holding before he could go for the weapon. Stack was off the grill just that fast. An instant later the big fork was buried in the pistolero’s guts.

And then Stack had a pistol.

In the time it would take an exceptionally thirsty man to down a shot of whiskey, Stack had emptied the weapon.

That left him with a choice of six more just like the first.

He jammed a couple into his belt, snatched up another, and moved into the night.

Lead flew hot and heavy.

When it was over, Stackalee stood alone.

Midas hid, all alone in the dark.

He’d seen it all through the bedroom window. Seen his gun-dogs mowed down like they were an army of bovine retards. Blind bovine retards. And then he’d turned to the Chinaman’s daughter, and she’d looked at him with that little bitty bit of a smile on her face, her eyes seeming to say, Now he’ll come for you, and hearing a gal talk through her eyes, and realizing that the words those eyes had spoken were without a doubt the God’s honest truth, well, that had scared Midas worse than anything.

It was quiet now. Finally. That was good, because it meant things were most likely over. But it could be bad, too, because if things weren’t over he would have to stay hidden awhile longer.

And that meant Midas had to stay very quiet. That was a hard thing to do, especially since there was something down in his gut that was busy tickling him. He tried to ignore it, but every minute or two he just naturally had to let a little giggle bubble over his lips.

Like now. He giggled and spit like a babe in arms. Had to bite his lip real hard to cut it off.

The tickling thing didn’t satisfy easy, though. It scrabbled around in Midas’ belly, rippling over his ribs, but he couldn’t allow himself to give in to it. He closed his eyes and covered his mouth with his hands. He had to stop giggling, because if the gunslinger was still out there…

God. Midas knew that he had to steer clear of that man if he wanted to live. The bastard had more lives that a cat. And the things that man had done, the things he’d lived through. He wasn’t like any man Midas had ever heard about. Not outside of a yellowback novel, anyhow.

Just wait it out, Midas thought. It’s not so bad, waiting in the darkness. It’s almost peaceful. Not cowardly at all. Just biding your time — which is only the smart thing to do, after all. Waiting. All alone. In the darkness. In —

The door swung open on squeaky hinges. From above, a sliver of moonlight slashed Midas’ face.

Quickly, he ducked out of sight.

Above, floorboards groaned as the stranger positioned himself.

Midas wanted to move, but he couldn’t.

The bounty man coughed a couple times. Sniffed once, then settled down to business.

A hot yellow stream washed Midas Gerlach’s face, but Midas did not squirm or cry out from his hiding place in the virgin shit shaft. He did not make a move or a sound until he heard the stranger step away, until the outhouse door slammed closed above him and the echoes of the stranger’s horrible boot heels rang in the distance. Then and only then did torrents of laughter spill from Midas Gerlach’s lips.

Midas hushed up soon enough, suddenly afraid that he’d laughed prematurely. But the stranger didn’t return, so he couldn’t have heard…

Midas nodded vigorously. That had to be the way it was. He was safe now. Still, Midas kept his eyes closed. He listened intently, and it wasn’t long before he heard music coming from the player piano he’d borrowed from that Fiddler whorehouse.

It stood all alone out there in the night, beneath red lanterns that glowed with promises of happiness and love of the eternal variety, playing to an audience of dead men.

Midas shivered.

It’s not so bad down here in the ground, waiting in the darkness. It’s almost peaceful. Not cowardly at all. It’s only the smart thing to do, after all.

Waiting… all alone… in the darkness.

Midas lay down on the floor of the new shit shaft and curled himself into a ball. He thought of his grandpa and his grandma, of the night so long ago when Grandma had sliced off Grandpa’s willie and tossed it down the old shit shaft. He thought of that little hunk of meat nestled down there under all that crap, just waiting, year after year, without a single complaint.

Midas Gerlach fell asleep in the hard earth of Fiddler, California, knowing for sure and for certain that patience, indeed, was a virtue.

When it was over, music came. Lie could not imagine where it came from, for Father’s terror in fanged boots had entered the goblin’s house shortly after the music began, and most everyone else was dead.

Lie had been waiting for the dark man to come. Her eyes took him in, head to toe. The blood, the burns, all of him. Still, he looked good, better than before. The spark that she had glimpsed in his razor-edged glance now seemed to have settled into his eyes for good, and he seemed strangely content.

This pleased her.

She knew that he could not understand what had happened this night, or how he had survived it. Many questions were locked behind his eyes. It seemed obvious that he thought the answers to his questions were locked behind her unspeaking lips.

But this was not so. And even if it were so, Lie could no more answer his questions than ask her own. As her father often said, she had the voice of a flower. And a flower could speak not a single word.

She picked up the carpetbag. He collected fistfuls of gold coins. He dropped them into the toy palace and hoisted it onto his good shoulder. Together, they left the white goblin’s house.

She knew he would not understand what she had to do. On the porch, she stopped and opened the carpetbag, removing a wad of paper money and a box of lucifers.

She lit a match and set the wad of bills aflame. She did this for luck — a custom learned in Father’s gambling hall. She did not expect her dark man to understand such things.

But some things did not require an explanation. The dark man seemed to understand all too well. He turned to a strange wooden box which stood on the front porch. A row of black and white teeth danced on a lone shelf on this box, teeth pressed by invisible fingers. Sprightly music spilled from the box’s heart. Strange magic Lie could not understand.

The dark man smashed several whiskey bottles over the box, then collected the burning bills from the place Lie had dropped them. He fed the dying flames with a larger wad of money, and with these he set the magic box aflame.

Lie took off the white dress the goblin had forced upon her, shed too the horrible little booties with their dangling pearls. These she tossed into the fire.

The dark man draped his scorched duster over her shoulders. She slipped her arms into the big sleeves — one was little more than an ashy flap of material — and buttoned the front. Then she snatched up the carpetbag and started toward the wagon, charred coattails whispering against her ankles.

The dark man walked at her side, the toy palace filled with gold tucked under one arm. Behind them the flames grew hotter, roaring now, and the sprightly music died away.

Lie tossed the carpetbag in the back of the wagon.

Gunfire exploded in the distance.

Lie shivered, and the dark man laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said, pointing at the moon above. “It’s only that damn coyote fella. His blood must be on the boil tonight.”

Lie did not laugh, but she smiled.

There was nothing left to do but take her dark man’s hand.

And lead him from that place.

(For Woody Strode and Robert Ryan)

Content

Partridge Norman The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists