The Bad Place

by Dean R. Koontz

Every eye sees its own special vision; every ear hears a most different

song.  In each man's troubled heart, an incision would reveal a unique,

shameful wrong.

Stranger friends hide here in human guise than reside in the valleys of

Hell.  But goodness, kindness and love arise in the heart of the poor

beast, as well.

-The Book of Counted Sorrows

THE NIGHT was becalmed and curiously silent.  A faint scent of smoke

hung on the motionless air though no smoke was visible.

Sprawled face down on the cold pavement, Frank Pollard did not move when

he regained consciousness; he waited in the hope that his confusion

would dissipate.  He blinked, trying to focus.  Veils seemed to flutter

within his eyes.  He sucked deep breaths of the cool air, tasting the

invisible smoke, grimacing at the acrid tang of it.

Shadows loomed like a convocation of robed figures, crowding around him.

Gradually his vision cleared, but in the yellowish light that came from

far behind him, little was revealed.  A large trash dumpster, six or

eight feet from him, so dimly outlined that for a moment it seemed

strange, as though it were an artifact of an alien civilization.  Frank

stared at it for a while before he realized what it was.  He did not

know where he was or how he had gotten there.  He could not have been

unconscious longer than a few seconds for his heart was pounding as if

he had been running for his life only moments ago.

Fireflies in a windstorm....

That phrase took flight through his mind, but he had no idea what it

meant.  When he tried to concentrate on it and make sense of it, a dull

headache developed above his right eye.

Fireflies in a windstorm....

He groaned softly.

Between him and the dumpster, a shadow among shadows moved, quick and

sinuous.  Small but radiant green eyes regarded him with icy interest.

Frightened, Frank pushed up onto his knees.  A thin, involuntary cry

issued from him, almost less like a human sound than like the muted wail

of a reed instrument.

The green-eyed observer scampered away.  A cat.  Just an ordinary black

cat.

Frank got to his feet, swayed dizzily, and nearly fell over an object

that had been on the blacktop beside him.  Gingerly he bent down and

picked it up: a flight bag made of supple leather, packed full,

surprisingly heavy.  He supposed it was his.  He could not remember.

Carrying the bag, he tottered to the dumpster and leaned against its

rusted flank.

Looking back, he saw that he was between rows of what seemed to be

two-story stucco apartment buildings.  All of the windows were black. On

both sides, the tenants' cars were pulled nose-first into covered

parking stalls.  The queer yellow glow, sour and sulfurous, almost more

like the product of a gas flame than the luminescence of an incandescent

electric bulb, came from a street lamp at the end of the block, too far

away to reveal the details of the alleyway in which he stood.

As his rapid breathing slowed and as his heartbeat decelerated, he

abruptly realized that he did not know who he was.  He knew his

name-Frank Pollard-but that was all.  He did not know how old he was,

what he did for a living, where he had come from, where he was going, or

why.  He was so startled by his predicament that for a moment his breath

caught in his throat; then his heartbeat soared again, and he let his

breath out in a rush.

Fireflies in a windstorm...

What the hell did that mean?

The headache above his right eye corkscrewed across his forehead.

He looked frantically left and right, searching for an object or an

aspect of the scene that he might recognize, anything, an anchor in a

world that was suddenly too strange.  When the night offered nothing to

reassure him, he turned his quest inward, desperately seeking something

familiar in himself, but his own memory was even darker than the

passageway around him.

Gradually he became aware that the scent of smoke had faded, replaced by

a vague but nauseating smell of rotting garbage in the dumpster.  The

stench of decomposition filled him with thoughts of death, which seemed

to trigger a vague recollection that he was on the run from someone-or

something that wanted to kill him.  When he tried to recall why he was

fleeing, and from whom, he could not further illuminate any scrap of

memory; in fact, it seemed more an awareness on instinct than a genuine

recollection.

A puff of wind swirled around him.  Then calm returned as if the dead

night was trying to come back to life but had aged just one shuddering

breath.  A single piece of waste paper, swept up by that suffocating air

clicked along the cement and scraped to a stop against his right shoe.

Then another puff.

The paper whirled away.

Again the night was dead calm.

Something was happening.  Frank sensed that these silent whiffs of wind

had some malevolent source, or meaning.

Irrationally, he was sure that he was about to be crushed by a great

weight.  He looked up into the clear sky, at the empty blackness of

space and at the malignant brilliant of the distant stars.  If something

was descending toward Frank he could not see it.

The night exhaled once more.  Harder this time.  Its breath was sharp

and dank.

He was wearing running shoes, white athletic socks, and a long-sleeved

blue-plaid shirt.  He had no jacket, an could have used one.  The air

was not frigid, just mildly cooling.  But a coldness was in him, too, a

staggering fear, and he shivered uncontrollably between the cool caress

of the night and that inner chill.

The gust of wind died.

Stillness reclaimed the night.

Convinced that he had to get out of there-and fast, he pushed away from

the dumpster.  He staggered along the alley retreating from the end of

the block where the street lamp glowed, into darker realms, with no

destination in mind, directed only by the sense that this place was

dangerous and that was if indeed safety could be found, lay elsewhere.

The wind rose again, and with it, this time, came a whistling, barely

audible, like the distant music of a flute of some strange bone

instrument.

Within a few steps, as Frank became surefooted and as his eyes adapted

to the murky night, he arrived at a confluence of passageways.

Wrought-iron gates in pale stucco arches lay to his left and right.

He tried the gate on the left.  It was unlocked, secured only by a

simple gravity latch.  The hinges squeaked, eliciting a wince from

Frank, who hoped the sound had not been heard by his pursuer.

By now, although no adversary was in sight, Frank had no doubt that he

was the object of a chase.  He knew it was surely as a hare knew when a

fox was in the field.

The wind shuttered again at his back, and the flowerlike music, though

barely audible and lacking a discernible melody, was haunting.  It

pierced him.  It sharpened his fear.

Beyond the black iron gate, flanked by feathery ferns and bushes, a

walkway led between a pair of two-story apartment buildings.  Frank

followed it into a rectangular courtyard somewhat revealed by

low-wattage security lamps at each end.  First-floor apartments opened

onto a covered promenade; the doors of the second-floor units were under

the tile roof of an iron-railed balcony.  Lightless windows faced a

swath of grass, beds of azaleas and a few palms.

A frieze of spiky palm-frond shadows lay across one palely illuminated

wall, as motionless as if they were carved on a stone tablet.  Then the

mysterious flute warbled softly again, the reborn wind huffed harder

than before, and the shadows danced, danced.  Frank's own distorted,

dark reflection whirled briefly over the stucco, among the silhouettes,

as he hurried across the courtyard.  He found another walkway, another

gate, and ultimately the street on which the apartment complex faced.

It was a side street without lampposts.  There, the reign of the night

was undisputed.

The blustery wind lasted longer than before, churned harder.  When the

gust ended abruptly, with an equally abrupt cessation of the unmelodic

flute, the night seemed to have been left in a vacuum, as though the

departing turbulence had taken with it every wisp of breathable air.

Then Frank's ears popped as if from a sudden altitude change; as he

rushed across the deserted street toward the cars parked along the far

curb, air poured in around him again.

He tried four cars before finding one unlocked, a Ford.  Slipping behind

the wheel, he left the door open to provide some light.

He looked back the way he had come.

The apartment complex was dead-of-the-night and Wrapped in darkness.  An

ordinary building yet inexplicably sinister.

No one was in sight.

Nevertheless, Frank knew someone was closing in on him.  He reached

under the dashboard, pulled out a tangle of wires, and hastily

jump-started the engine before realizing such a larcenous skill

suggested a life outside of the law.

he didn't feel like a thief.  He had no sense of guilt and no apathy

for-or fear of-the police.  In fact, at the moment, would have welcomed

a cop to help him deal with whoever or whatever was on his tail.  He

felt not like a criminal, like a man who had been on the run for an

exhaustingly long time, from an implacable and relentless enemy.

As he reached for the handle of the open door, a brief pale blue light

washed over him, and the driver's-side window of the Ford exploded.

Tempered glass showered into the rear seat, gummy and minutely

fragmented.  Since the front door was not closed, that window didn't

spray over him; instead, most of it fell out of the frame, onto the

pavement Yanking the door shut, he glanced through the gap where the

glass had been, toward the gloom-enfolded apartment and saw no one.

Frank threw the Ford in gear, popped the brake, tramped hard on the

accelerator.  Swinging away from the curb, he clipped the rear bumper of

the car parked in front of him.  A brief peal of tortured metal rang

sharply across the night.

But he was still under attack: A scintillant blue light, at one second

in duration, lit up the car; over its entire interior.  The windshield

cracked with thousands of jagged lines, though it had been struck by

nothing he could see.  Frank averted his face and squeezed his eyes shut

just in time to avoid being blinded by flying fragments.  For a moment

he could not remember where he was going, but he didn't let up on the

accelerator preferring the danger of collision to the greater risk of

breaking and giving his unseen enemy time to reach him.  Glass rained

over him, spattered across the top of his bent head; luckily, it was

safety glass, and none of the fragments cut him.

He opened his eyes, squinting into the gale that rushed through the now

empty windshield frame.  He saw that he'd gone half a block and had

reached the intersection.  He whipped the wheel to the right, tapping

the brake pedal only lightly, and turned onto a more brightly lighted

thoroughfare.

Like Saint Elm's fire, sapphire-blue light glimmered on the chrome, and

when the Ford was halfway around the corner, one of the rear tires blew.

He had heard no gunfire.  A fraction of a second later, the other rear

tire blew.

The car rocked, slewed to the left, began to fishtail.

Frank fought the steering wheel.

Both front tires ruptured simultaneously.

The car rocked again, even as it glided sideways, and the sudden

collapse of the front tires compensated for the leftward slide of the

rear end, giving Frank a chance to grapple the spinning steering wheel

into submission.

Again, he had heard no gunfire.  He didn't know why all of,this was

happening-yet he did.

That was the truly frightening part: On some deep subconscious level he

did know what was happening, what strange force was swiftly destroying

the car around him, and he also knew that his chances of escaping were

poor.

A flicker of twilight blue...

The rear window imploded.  Gummy yet prickly wads of safety glass flew

past him.  Some smacked the back of his head, stuck in his hair.

Frank made the corner and kept going on four flats.  The sound of

flapping rubber, already shredded, and the grinding of metal wheel rims

could be heard even above the roar of the wind that buffeted his face.

He glanced at the rear view mirror.  The night was a great black ocean

behind him, relieved only by widely spaced street lamps that dwindled

into the gloom like the lights of a double convoy of ships.

According to the speedometer, he was doing thirty miles an hour just

after coming out of the turn.  He tried to push it up to forty in spite

of the ruined tires, but something clanged and clinked under the hood,

rattled and whined, and the engine coughed, and he could not coax any

more speed out of it.

When he was halfway to the next intersection, the street lamp either

burst or winked out.  Frank couldn't tell which one it was because the

street lamps were widely spaced, he could see enough to drive.

The engine coughed, then again, and the Ford began to gain speed.  He

didn't brake for the stop sign at the next intersection Instead he

pumped the accelerator but to no avail.

Finally the steering failed too.  The wheel spun uselessly in his sweaty

hands.

Evidently the tires had been completely torn apart.  The contact of the

steel wheel rims with the pavement flung up turquoise sparks.

Fireflies in a windstorm....

He still didn't know what that meant.

Now moving about twenty miles an hour, the car headed straight toward

the right-hand curb.  Frank tramped the brakes, but they no longer

functioned.

The car hit the curb, jumped it, grazed a lamppost with a sound of sheet

metal kissing steel, and thudded against the bark of an immense date

palm in front of a white bungalow.  Lights came on in the house even as

the final crash was echoing in the cool night air.

Frank threw the door open, grabbed the leather flight bag from the seat

beside him, and got out, shedding fragments of gummy yet splintery

safety glass.

Though only mildly cool, the air chilled his face because sweat trickled

down from his forehead.  He could taste it when he licked his lips.

A man had opened the front door of the bungalow as he stepped onto the

porch.  Lights flicked on at the house door.

Frank looked back the way he had come.  A thin cloud of luminous

sapphire dust seemed to blow through the street.

As though shattered by a tremendous surge of current, the bulbs in

street lamps exploded along the two blocks behind him, the shards of

glass, glinting like ice, rained on the blacktop.  In resultant gloom,

he thought he saw a tall, shadowy figure more than a block away, coming

after him, but he couldn't be sure.

To Frank's left, the guy from the bungalow was hurrying down the walk

toward the palm tree where the Ford had come to rest.  He was talking,

but Frank wasn't listening to him.

Clutching the leather satchel, Frank turned and ran.  He was not sure

what he was running from, or why he was so afraid, or where he might

hope to find a haven, but he ran nonetheless because he knew that if he

stood there only a few seconds longer, he would be killed.

THE WINDOWLEss rear compartment of the Dodge van was illuminated by tiny

red, blue, green, white, and amber indicator bulbs on banks of

electronic surveillance equipment but primarily by the soft green glow

from the computer screens, which made that claustrophobic space seem

like a chamber in a deep-sea submersible.

Dressed in a pair of Rockport walking shoes, beige coat and a maroon

sweater, Robert Dakota sat on a swivel chair in front of the twin video

display terminals.  He tapped his toes against the floorboards, keeping

time, and with his right hand he happily conducted an unseen orchestra.

Bobby was wearing a headset with stereo ear phones and with a small

microphone suspended an inch or so in front of his lips.  At the moment

he was listening to Benny Goodman's "One O'Clock Jump," the primo

version of Count Basie's swing composition, six and a half minutes of

heaven.  Just as he took up another piano chorus and as Harry James

launched into the brilliant trumpet stint that led to the infamous swing

history of that era.

Bobby was deep into music.  But he was also acutely aware of the

activity on the display terminals.  The one on the right was linked, via

microwave with the computer system at the Decodyne Corporation, in front

of which his van was parked.  It revealed what Tom Rasmussen was up to

in those offices at 1:10 Thursday morning, no good.

One by one, Rasmussen was accessing and copying the files of the

software-design team that had recently completed Decodyne's new and

revolutionary word-processing program "Wizard."

The Wizard files carried out instructions of electronic draw bridges,

moats, and other parts.  Tom Rasmussen was an expert in computer

security, however, and there was no fortress that he could not

penetrate, given enough time.  Indeed, if Wizard had not been developed

on a secure in-house computer system with no links to the outside world,

Rasmussen would have slipped into the files from beyond the walls of

Decodyne, via a modern and telephone line.

Ironically, he had been working as the night security guard at Decodyne

for five weeks, having been hired on the basis of elaborate-and nearly

convincing-false papers.  Tonight he had breached Wizard's final

defenses.  In a while he would walk out of Decodyne with a packet of

floppy diskettes worth a fortune to the company's competitors.

"One O'Clock Jump" ended.

Into the microphone Bobby said, "Music stop."

That vocal command cued his computerized compact-disc system to switch

off, opening the headset for communication with Julie, his wife and

business partner.

"You there, babe?"

From her surveillance position in a car at the farthest end of the

parking lot behind Decodyne, she had been listening to the same music

through her own headset.  She sighed.  "Did Vernon Brown ever play

better trombone than the night of the Carnegie concert?"

"What about Krupa on the drums?"

"Auditory ambrosia.  And an aphrodisiac.  The music makes me want to go

to bed with you."

"Can't.  Not sleepy.  Besides, we're being private detectives,

remember?"

"I like being lovers better."

"We don't earn our daily bread by making love."

"I'd pay you," she said.

"Yeah?  How much?"

"Oh, in daily-bread terms...  half a loaf."

"I'm worth a whole loaf."

Julie said, "Actually, you're worth a whole loaf, two croissants, and a

bran muffin."

She had a pleasing, throaty, and altogether sexy voice that he loved to

listen to, especially through headphones, when she sounded like an angel

whispering in his ears.

She would have been a marvelous big-band singer if she had been around

in the 1930s and '40s-and if she had been able to carry a tune.  She was

a great swing dancer, but she couldn't croon worth a damn; when she was

in the mood to sing along with old recordings by Margaret Whiting or the

Andrews Sisters or Rose mary Clooney or Marion Hutton, Bobby had to

leave the room out of respect for the music.

She said, "What's Rasmussen doing?"

Bobby checked the second video display, to his left, which was linked to

Decodyne's interior security cameras.  Rasmussen thought he had

over-ridden the cameras and was uncertain; but they had been watching

him for the last few weeks, night after night, and recording his every

treachery on video tape.

"Old Tom's still in George Ackroyd's office, at the computer there."

Ackroyd was project director for Wizard.

Bob glanced at the other display, which duplicated what Rasmussen was

seeing on Ackroyd's computer screen.  "He just copied the last Wizard

file onto diskette."

Rasmussen switched off the computer in Ackroyd's office.  Simultaneously

the linked VDT in front of Bobby went blank.

Bobby said, "He's finished.  He's got it all now."

Julie said, "The worm.  He must be feeling smug."

Bobby turned to the display on his left, leaned forward, and watched the

black-and-white image of Rasmussen at Ackroyd's terminal.

"I think he's grinning."

"We'll wipe that grin off his face."

"Let's see what he does next.  Want to make a bet?  On whether he'll

stay in there, finish his shift, and waltz out in the morning or leave

right now?"

"Now," Julie said.

"Or soon.  He won't risk getting caught with the floppies.  He'll leave

while no one else is there."

"No bet.  I think you're right."

The transmitted image on the monitor flickered, rolled, but Rasmussen

did not get out of Ackroyd's chair.  In fact he slumped back, as if

exhausted.  He yawned and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"He seems to be resting, gathering his energy," Bobby said

"Let's have another tune while we wait for him to move."

"Good idea."  He gave the CD player the start-up cue "Begin music"-and

was rewarded with Glenn Miller's "In the Mood."

On the monitor, Rasmussen rose from the chair in Ackroyd's dimly lighted

office.  He yawned again, stretched, and crossed the room to the big

windows that looked down on Michaelson Drive, the street on which Bobby

was parked.

If Bobby had slipped forward, out of the rear of the van and into the

driver's compartment, he probably would have been able to see Rasmussen

standing up there at the second-floor window, silhouetted by the glow of

Ackroyd's desk lamp, staring out at the night.

He stayed where he was, however, satisfied with the view on the screen.

Miller's band was playing the famous "In the Mood" riff, again and

again, gradually fading away, almost disappearing entirely but...  now

blasting back at full power to repeat the entire cycle.

In Ackroyd's office, Rasmussen finally turned from the window and looked

up at the security camera that was mounted on the wall near the ceiling.

He seemed to be staring straight at Bobby, as if aware of being watched.

He moved a few steps closer to the camera, smiling.

Bobby said, "Music stop," and the Miller band instantly fell silent.

To Julie, he said, "Something strange here

"Trouble?"

Rasmussen stopped just under the security camera, still grinning up at

it.  From the pocket of his uniform shirt, he withdrew a folded sheet of

typing paper, which he opened and held toward the lens.  A message had

been printed in bold black letters: GOODBYE, ASS HOLE.

"Trouble for sure," Bobby said.

"How bad?"

"I don't know."

An instant later he did know: Automatic weapons fire shattered the

night-he could hear the clatter even with his earphones on-and

armor-piercing slugs tore through the walls of the van.

Julie evidently picked up the gunfire through her headset.

"Bobby, no!"

"Get the hell out of there, babe!  Run!"

Even as he spoke, Bobby tore free of the headset and dived off his

chair, lying as flat against the floorboards as he could.

FRANK Pollard sprinted from street to street from alley to alley,

sometimes cutting across the lawns of the dark houses.  In one back yard

a large black dog with yellow eyes barked and snapped at him all the way

to the board fence briefly snaring one leg of his pants as he clambered

over the barrier.  His heart was pounding painfully, and his throat was

hot and raw because he was sucking in great drafts of the cold dry air

through his open mouth.  His legs ached.  The flight bag pulled on his

right arm, and with the lunging step that he took, pain throbbed in his

wrist and shoulder socket.  But he did not pause and did not glance

back, because he felt as if something monstrous was at his heels, a

creature that never required rest and that would turn him into stone

with its gaze if he dared set eyes upon it.

In time he crossed an avenue, devoid of traffic at that late hour, and

hurried along the entrance walk to another apartment complex.  He went

through a gate into another court yard this one centered by an empty

swimming pool with a crack and canted apron.

The place was lightless, but Frank's vision had adapted to the night,

and he could see well enough to avoid falling in the drained pool.  He

was searching for shelter.  Perhaps there was a communal laundry room

where he could hide.

He had discovered something else about himself as he fled his unknown

pursuer: He was thirty or forty pounds over weight and out of shape.  He

desperately needed to catch his breath-and think.

As he was hurrying past the doors of the ground-floor unit he realized

that a couple of them were standing open, sagging on ruined hinges. Then

he saw that cracks webbed some windows, holes pocked a few, and other

panes were missing altogether.  The grass was dead, too, as crisp as

ancient paper, and the shrubbery was withered; a seared palm tree leaned

at a precarious angle.  The apartment complex was abandoned, awaiting a

wrecking crew.

He came to a set of crumbling concrete stairs at the north end of the

courtyard, glanced back.  Whoever...  whatever was following him was

still not in sight.  Gasping, he climbed to the second-floor balcony and

moved from one apartment to another until he found a door ajar.  It was

warped: the hinges were stiff, but they worked without much noise.  He

slipped inside, pushing the door shut behind him.

The apartment was a well of shadows, oil-black and pooled deep.  Faint

ash-gray light outlined the windows but provided no illumination to the

room.

He listened intently.

The silence and darkness were equal in depth.

Cautiously, Frank inched toward the nearest window, which faced the

balcony and courtyard.  Only a few shards of glass remained in the

frame, but lots of fragments crunched and clinked under his feet.  He

trod carefully, both to avoid cutting a foot and to make as little noise

as possible.

At the window he halted, listened again.

Stillness.

As if it was the gelded ectoplasm of a slothful ghost, a sluggish

current of cold air slid inward across the few jagged points of the

glass that had not already fallen from the frame.

Frank's breath steamed in front of his face, pale ribbons of vapor in

the gloom.

The silence remained unbroken for ten seconds, twenty, thirty, a full

minute.

Perhaps he had escaped.

He was just about to turn away from the window when he heard footsteps

outside.  At the far end of the courtyard.  On the walkway that led in

from the street.  Hard-soled shoes rang against the concrete, and each

footfall echoed hollowly off the stucco walls of the surrounding

buildings.

Frank stood motionless and breathed through his mouth, as if the stalker

could be counted on to have the hearing of a jungle cat.

When he entered the courtyard from the entrance walkway, the stranger

halted.  After a long pause he began to move again though the

overlapping echoes made sounds deceptive, seemed to be heading slowly

north along the apron of the porch toward the same stairs by which

Frank, himself, had climb to the second floor of the apartment complex.

Each deliberate, metronomic footfall was like the heavy thud of a

headsman's clock mounted on a guillotine railing, counting off the

seconds until the appointed hour of the blade's descent.

As IF alive, the Dodge van shrieked with every bullet that tore through

its sheet-metal walls, and the wounds were inflicted not one at a time

but by the score, with such relentless fury, the assault had to involve

at least two machine guns.  While Bobby Dakota lay flat on the floor,

trying to catch God's attention with fervent heaven-directed prayers,

fragments of metal rained down on him.  One of the computer screens

imploded, then the other terminal, too, and all the indicator lights

went out, but the interior of the van was not entirely dark; showers of

amber and green and crimson and silver sparks erupted from the damaged

electronic units as one steel jacketed round after another pierced

equipment housings and shattered circuit boards.  Glass fell on him,

too, and splinters of plastic, bits of wood, scraps of paper; the air

was filled with a virtual blizzard of debris.  But the noise was the

worst of it; in his mind he saw himself sealed inside a great iron drum,

while half a dozen big bikers, stoned on PCP, pounded on the outside of

his prison with tire irons, really huge bikers with massive muscles and

thick necks and coarse peltlike beards and wildly colorful Death's-head

tattoos on their arms-hell, tattoos on their faces-guys as big as Thor,

the Viking god, but with blazing, psychotic eyes.

Bobby had a vivid imagination.  He had always thought that was one of

his best qualities, one of his strengths.  But he could not simply

imagine his way out of this mess.

With every passing second, as slugs continued to crash into the van, he

grew more astonished that he had not been hit.  He was pressed to the

floor, as tight as a carpet, and he tried to imagine that his body was

only a quarter of an inch thick, a target with an incredibly low

profile, but he still expected to get his ass shot off.

He had not anticipated the need for a gun; it wasn't that kind of case.

At least it hadn't seemed to be that kind of case.

A.38 revolver was in the van glove box, well beyond his reach which did

not cause him a lot of frustration, actually, because a single handgun

against a pair of automatic weapons was not much use.

The gunfire stopped.

After that cacophony of destruction, the silence was so profound, Bobby

felt as if he had gone deaf.

The air reeked of hot metal, overheated electronic components, scorched

insulation-and gasoline.  Evidently the van's tank had been punctured.

The engine was still chugging, a few sparks spat out of the shattered

equipment surrounding Bobby, and his chances of escaping a flash fire

were a lot worse than his chances of winning fifty million bucks in the

state lottery.

He wanted to get the hell out of there, but if he burst out of the van,

they might be waiting with machine guns to gun him down.  On the other

hand, if he continued to hug the floor in the darkness, counting on them

to give him up for dead without checking on him, the Dodge might flare

like a fire primed with starter fluid, toasting him as crisp as a

marshmallow.

He had no difficulty imagining himself stepping out of the van and being

hit immediately by a score of bullets, jerking and twitching in a

spasmodic death dance across the black street, like a broken marionette

jerked around on tangled strings.  But he found it even easier to

imagine his skin peel off in the fire, flesh bubbling and smoking, hair

whooshing like a torch, eyes melting, teeth turning coal-black as flames

seared his tongue and followed his breath down his throat into his

lungs.

Sometimes a vivid imagination was definitely a curse.

Suddenly the gasoline fumes became so heavy that he had trouble drawing

breath, so he started to get up.

Outside, a car horn began to blare.  He heard a racing engine drawing

rapidly nearer.

Someone shouted, and a machine gun opened fire again.  Bobby hit the

floor, wondering what the hell was going on, but as the car with the

blaring horn drew nearer, he realized what must be happening: Julie.

Julie was happening.  some times she was like a natural force; she

happened the way a storm happened, the way lightning happened, abruptly

crackling down a dark sky.  He had told her to get out of there, to save

herself, but she had not listened to him; he wanted to kick her butt for

being so bullheaded, but he loved her for it too.

Sidling AWAY from the broken window, Frank tried to time his steps to

those of the man in the court yard below, with the hope that any noise

he made, trotting on gravel would be covered by his unseen enemy's

advance.  He figured that he was in the living room of the apartment,

that it was pretty much empty except for whatever debris that had been

left behind by the last tenants or had blown through the missing

windows, and indeed he made it across that chamber and a hallway in

relative silence, without colliding with anything.  He hurriedly felt

his way along the hall, which was as dark as a predator's lair.  It

smelled of mold and mildew and urine.  He passed the entrance to a room,

kept going, turned right through the next doorway, and shuffled to

another broken window.  This one had no splinters of glass left in the

frame, it did not face the courtyard but looked onto a lamplit and empty

street.

Something rustled behind him.

He turned, blinking blindly at the gloom, and almost passed out.

But the sound must have been made by a rat scurrying over the floor,

close to the wall, across dry leaves or bits of debris Just a rat.

Frank listened for footsteps, but if the stalker was still focused on

him, the hollow heel clicks of his approach were completely muffled by

the walls that now intervened.

He looked out the window again.  The dead lawn lay as dry as sand and

twice as brown, offering little cushion.

He dropped the leather flight bag, which landed with a thud.  Wincing at

the prospect of the leap, he climbed onto the window ledge, crouching in

the broken-out window, hands braced against the frame, where for a

moment he hesitated.

A gust of wind ruffled his hair and coolly caressed his face.  But it

was a normal draft, nothing like the natural whiffs of wind that,

earlier, had been accompanied by the unearthly and unmelodic music of a

distant flute.

Suddenly, behind Frank, a blue flash pulsed out of the living room, down

the hall, and through the doorway.  The strange tide of light was

trailed closely by an explosion and a concussion wave that shook the

walls and seemed to churn the air into a more solid substance.  The

front door had been blasted to pieces; he heard chunks of it raining

down on the floor of the apartment a couple of rooms away.

He jumped out of the window, landed on his feet.  But his knees gave

way, and he fell flat on the dead lawn.

At that same moment a large truck turned the corner.  Its cargo bed had

slat sides and a wooden tailgate.  The driver smoothly shifted gears and

drove past the apartment house, apparently unaware of Frank.

He scrambled to his feet, plucked the satchel off the barren lawn, and

ran into the street.  Having just rounded the corner, the truck was not

moving fast, and Frank managed to grab the tailgate and pull himself up,

one-handed, until he was standing on the rear bumper.

As the truck accelerated, Frank looked back at the decaying apartment

complex.  No mysterious blue light glimmered at any of the windows; they

were all as black and empty as the sockets of a skull.

The truck turned right at the next corner, moving away into the sleepy

night.

Exhausted, Frank clung to the tailgate.  He would have been able to hold

on better if he had dropped the leather flight bag, but he held fast to

it because he suspected that its contents might help him to learn who he

was and from where he had come and from what he was running.

CUT AND run!  Bobby actually thought she would cut and run when trouble

struck-"Get the hell out of here"

cut and run?  just because he told her to!  If she was an obedient

little wifey, not a full-fledged partner in the agency, not a damned

good investigator in her own right, just a token backup who couldn't

take the heat when the nice kicked in.  Well, to hell with that.

In her mind she could see his lovable face-merry blue eyes pug nose,

smattering of freckles, generous mouth-framed thick honey-gold hair that

was mussed (as was most often the case) like that of a small boy who had

just gotten up from a nap.  She wanted to bop his pug nose just hard

enough to make his blue eyes water, so he'd have no doubt how the cut-an

run suggestion annoyed her.

She had been on surveillance behind Decodyne, at the end of the

corporate parking lot, in the deep shadows under a massive Indian

laurel.  The moment Bobby signaled trouble she started the Toyota's

engine.  By the time she heard gunfire over the earphones, she had

shifted gears, popped the emergency brake, switched on the headlights,

and jammed the accelerator toward the floor.

At first she kept the headset on, calling Bobby's name, trying to get an

answer from him, hearing only the most god awful ruckus from his end.

Then the set went dead; she couldn't hear anything at all, so she pulled

it off and threw it into the back seat.

Cut and run!  Damn him!

When she reached the end of the last row in the parking lot she let up

on the accelerator with her right foot, simultaneous tapping the brake

pedal with her left foot, finessing the small car into a slide, which

carried it onto the access road that led around the big building.  She

turned the steering wheel into the slide, then gave the heap some gas

again even before the back end had stopped skidding and shuddering.  The

tires barked, and the engine shrieked, and with a rattle-squeak-twang of

tortured metal, the car leaped forward.

They were shooting at Bobby, and Bobby probably wasn't even able to

shoot back, because he was lax about carrying a gun on every job; he

went armed only when it seemed that the current business was likely to

involve violence.  The Decodyne assignment had looked peaceable enough;

sometimes industrial espionage could turn nasty, but the bad guy in this

case was Tom Rasmussen, a computer nerd and a greedy son of a bitch,

clever as a dog reading Shakespeare on a high wire, with a record of

theft via computer but with no blood on his hands.  He was the high-tech

equivalent of a meek, embezzling bank clerk-or so he had seemed.

But Julie was armed on every job.  Bobby was the optimist; she was the

pessimist.  Bobby expected people to act in their own best interests and

be reasonable, but Julie half expected every apparently normal person to

be, in secret, a crazed psychotic.

A Smith & Wesson.357 Magnum was held by a clip to the back of the glove

box lid, and an Uzi-with two spare, thirty-round magazines-lay on the

other front seat.  From what she had heard on the earphones before

they'd gone dead, she was going to need that Uzi.

The Toyota virtually flew past the side of Decodyne, and she wheeled

hard left, onto Michaelson Drive, almost rising onto two wheels, almost

losing control, but not quite.  Ahead, Bobby's Dodge was parked at the

curb in front of the building, and another van-a dark blue Ford-was

stopped in the street, doors open wide.

Two men, who had evidently been in the Ford, were standing four or five

yards from the Dodge, chopping the hell out of it with automatic

weapons, blasting away with such ferocity that they seemed not to be

after the man inside but to have some bizarre personal grudge against

the Dodge itself.  They stopped firing, turned toward her as she came

out of the driveway onto Michaelson, and hurriedly jammed fresh

magazines into their weapons.

Ideally, she would close the hundred-yard gap between herself and the

men, pull the Toyota sideways in the street, slip out, and use the car

as cover to blow out the tires on their van and pin them down until

police arrived.  But she didn't have time for all of that.  They were

already raising the muzzles of their weapons.

She was unnerved at how lonely the night streets looked this hour in the

heart of metropolitan Orange County, bare of traffic, washed by the

urine-yellow light of the sodium-streetlamps.  They were in an area of

banks and office buildings no residences, no restaurants or bars within

a couple of blocks.  It might as well have been a city on the moon, or a

vision of the world after it had been swept by an Apocalyptic disaster

that had left only a handful of survivors.

She didn't have time to handle the two gunmen by the book and she could

not count on help from any quarter, so she would have to do what they

least expected: play kamikaze, use her car as a weapon.

The instant she had the Toyota fully under control, pressing the

accelerator tight to the floorboards and rocketed straight at the two

bastards.  They opened fire, but she was already slipping down in the

seat and leaning sideways a little trying to keep her head below the

dashboard and still hold the wheel relatively steady.  Bullets snapped

and whined off the car.  The windshield burst.  A second later Julie hit

one of the gun men so hard that the impact snapped her head forward,

against the wheel, cutting her forehead, snapping her teeth together

forcefully enough to make her jaw ache; even as pain needled through her

face, she heard the body bounce off the front bumper and slam onto the

hood.

With blood trickling down her forehead and dripping from her right

eyebrow, Julie jabbed at the brakes and sat up at the same time.  She

was confronted by a man's wide-eyed corpse jammed in the frame of the

empty windshield.  His face in front of the steering wheel-teeth

chipped, lips torn, chin slashed, cheek battered, left eye missing-and

one of his broken legs was inside the car, hooked down over the

dashboard.  Julie found the brake pedal and pumped it.  With the sudden

drop in speed, the dead man was dislodged.  His limp body rolled across

the hood, and when the car slid to a shaky halt he vanished over the

front end.

Heart racing, blinking to keep the stinging blood from blue ring the

vision in her right eye, Julie snatched the Uzi from the seat beside

her, shoved open the door, and rolled out, moving fast and staying low.

The other gunman was already in the blue Ford van.  He gave it gas

before remembering to shift out of park, so the tires screamed and

smoked.

Julie squeezed off two short bursts from the Uzi, blowing out both tires

on her side of the van.  But the gunman didn't stop.  He shifted gears

at last and tried to drive past her on two ruined tires.

The guy might have killed Bobby; now he was getting away.  He would

probably never be found if Julie didn't stop him.  Reluctantly she swung

the Uzi higher and emptied the magazine into the side window of the van.

The Ford accelerated, then suddenly slowed and swung to the right, at

steadily diminishing speed, in a long arc that carried it to the far

curb, where it came to a halt with a jolt.

No one got out.

Keeping an eye on the Ford, Julie leaned into her car, plucked a spare

magazine from the seat, and reloaded the Uzi.  She approached the idling

van cautiously and pulled open the door, but caution was not required

because the man behind the wheel was dead.  Feeling a little sick, she

reached in and switched off the engine.

Briefly, as she turned from the Ford and hurried toward the

bullet-riddled Dodge, the only sounds she could hear were the sounds of

a faint breeze in the lush corporate landscaping that flanked the

street, punctuated by the gentle hiss and rattle of palm fronds.  Then

she also heard the idling engine of the Dodge, simultaneously smelled

gasoline, and shouted, "Bobby!"

Before she reached the white van, the back doors creaked open, and Bobby

came out, shedding twists of metal, chunks of plastic, bits of glass,

wood chips, and scraps of paper.  He was gasping, no doubt because the

gasoline fumes had driven most of the breathable air out of the Dodge's

rear quarters.

Sirens rose in the distance.

Together they quickly walked away from the van.  They had gone only a

few steps when orange light flared and flames rose in a wooooosh from

the gasoline pooled on the pavement, enveloping the vehicle in bright

shrouds.  They hurried beyond the corner of intense heat that surrounded

the Dodge and stared for a moment, blinking at the wreckage, then at

each other.

The sirens were drawing nearer.

He said, "You're bleeding."

"Just skinned my forehead a little."

"You sure?"

"It's nothing.  What about you?"

He sucked in a deep breath.  "I'm okay."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"You weren't hit?"

"Unmarked.  It's a miracle."

"Bobby?"

"What?"

"I couldn't handle it if you'd turned up dead in there.

"I'm not dead.  I'm fine."

"Thank God," she said.

Then she kicked his right shin.

"Ow!  What the hell?"

She kicked his left shin.

"Julie, dammit!"

"Don't you ever tell me to cut and run."

"What?"

"I'm a full half of this partnership in every way."

"But-"

"I'm as smart as you, as fast as you-"

He glanced at the dead man on the street, the other on the Ford van,

half visible through the open door, and he said, "That's for sure,

babe."

"-as tough as you-"

"I know, I know.  Don't kick me again."

She said, "What about Rasmussen?"

Bobby looked up at the Decodyne building.  "You think he's still in

there?"

"The only exits from the parking lot are onto Michaelson and he hasn't

come out this way, so unless he fled on foot,"

"In there?"

"all right.  We've got to nail him before he slides out of the trap with

those diskettes."

"Nothing worthwhile on the diskettes anyway," Bobby said.

Decodyne had been on to Rasmussen from the time he applied for the job,

because Dakota & Dakota Investigation which was contracted to handle the

company's security checks-had penetrated the hacker's highly

sophisticated false ID.  Decodyne's management wanted to play along with

Rasmussen long enough to discover to whom he would pass the Wizard files

when he got them; they intended to prosecute the money man who had hired

Rasmussen, for no doubt the hacker's employer was one of Decodyne's

primary competitors.

They had allowed Tom Rasmussen to think he had compromised the security

cameras, when in fact he had been under constant observation.  They also

had allowed him to break down the file codes and access the information

he wanted, but unknown to him they had inserted secret instructions in

the files, which insured that any diskettes he acquired would be full of

trash data of no use to anyone.

Flames roared and crackled, consuming the van.  Julie watched chimeras

of reflected flames slither and caper up the glass walls and across the

roof and coalesce there in the form of gargoyles.

Raising her voice slightly to compete with the fire and with the shriek

of approaching sirens, she said, "Well, we thought he believed he'd

circumvented the videotape records of the security cameras, but

apparently he knew we were on to him."

"Sure did."

"So he also might've been smart enough to search for an anticopying

directive in the files-and find a way around it."

Bobby frowned.  "You're right."

"So he's probably got Wizard, unscrambled, on those diskettes.

"Damn, I don't want to go in there.  I've been shot at enough tonight."

A police cruiser turned the corner two blocks away and sped toward them,

siren screaming, emergency lights casting off alternating waves of blue

and red light.

"Here come the professionals," Julie said.  "Why don't we let them take

over now?"

"We were hired to do the job.  We have an obligation.  honor is a sacred

thing, you know.  What would Sam Spade think of us?"

She said, "Sam Spade can go spit up a rope."

"What would Philip Marlowe think?"

"Philip Marlowe can go spit up a rope."

"What will our client think?"

"Our client can go spit up a rope."

"Dear, 'spit' isn't the popular expression."

"I know, but I'm a lady."

"You certainly are."

As the black-and-white braked in front of them, another police car

turned the corner behind it, siren wailing, and entered Michaelson Drive

from the other direction.

Julie put her Uzi on the pavement and raised her hand to avoid

unfortunate misunderstandings.

"I'm really glad you're alive, Bobby."

"You going to kick me again?"

"Not for a while."

FRANK Pollard hung on to the tailgate and rode the truck nine or ten

blocks, without drawing the attention of the driver.

Along the way he saw a sign welcoming him to the city of Anaheim, so he

figured he was in southern California, although he still didn't know if

this was where he lived or whether he was from out of town.  Judging by

the chill in the air, it was winter-not truly cold but as frigid as it

got in these climates.  He was unnerved to realize that he did not know

the date or even the month.

Shivering, he dropped off the truck when it slowed and turned onto a

service way that led through a warehouse district.  Huge,

corrugated-metal buildings-some newly painted and some streaked with

rust, some dimly lit by security lamps and some not-loomed against the

star spattered sky.

Carrying the flight bag, he walked away from the warehouses.  The

streets in that area were lined with shabby bungalows.  The shrubs and

trees were overgrown in many places: untrimmed palms with full skirts of

dead fronds; bushy hibiscus with half-closed pale blooms glimmering

softly in the gloom; jade hedges and plum-thorn hedges so old they were

more woody than leafy; bougainvillea draped over roofs and fences,

bristling with thousands of untamed, questing trailers.  His soft-soled

shoes made no sound on the sidewalk, and his shadow alternately

stretched ahead of him and then behind, as he approached and then passed

one lamppost after another.

Cars, mostly older models, some rusted and battered, were parked at

curbs and in driveways; keys might have dangled from the ignitions of

some of them, and he could have jump started any he chose.  However, he

noted that the cinder block walls between the properties-as well as the

walls of a decrepit and abandoned house-shimmered with the

spray-painted, ghostly, semi-phosphorescent graffiti of Latino gangs,

and didn't want to tinker with a set of wheels that might belong to one

of their members.  Those guys didn't bother rushing to a phone to call

the police if they caught you trying to steal one of their cars; they

just blew your head off or put a knife in your neck.  Frank had enough

trouble already, even with his head intact and his throat unpunctured,

so he kept walking.

Twelve blocks later, in a neighborhood of well-kept houses and better

cars, he began searching for a set of wheels that would be easy to

boost.  The tenth vehicle he tried was a one year-old green Chevy,

parked near a street lamp, the doors unlocked, the keys tucked under the

driver's seat.

Intent on putting a lot of distance between himself and the deserted

apartment complex where he had last encountered his unknown pursuer,

Frank switched on the Chevy's heater and drove from Anaheim to Santa

Ana, then south on Bristol Avenue toward Costa Mesa, surprised by his

familiarity with the streets.  He seemed to know the area well.  He

recognized buildings, shopping centers, parks, and neighborhoods past

while he drove, though the sight of them did nothing to rekindle his

burnt-out memory.  He still could not recall who he was, where he lived,

what he did for a living, what he was running from or how he had come to

wake up in an alleyway in the middle of the night.

Even at that dead hour-the car clock indicated it2:48-he figured his

chances of encountering a traffic cop was greater on a freeway, so he

stayed on the surface street through Costa Mesa and the eastern and

southern fringes of Newport Beach.  At Corona Del Mar he picked up the

Pacific Coast Highway and followed it all the way to Laguna Beach

encountering a thin fog that gradually thickened as he progressed

southward.

Laguna, a picturesque resort town and artists' colon shelved down a

series of steep hillsides and canyon walls toward the sea, most of it

cloaked now in the thick fog.  Only an occasional car passed him, and

the mist rolling in from the Pacific became sufficiently dense to force

him to reduce his speed to fifteen miles an hour.

Yawning and gritty-eyed, he turned onto a side street east of the

highway and parked at the curb in front of a dark, two story, gabled,

Cape Cod house that looked out of place on these Western slopes.  He

wanted to get a motel room, but before he tried to check in somewhere,

he needed to know if he had any money or credit cards.  For the first

time all night, he had a chance to look for ID, as well.  He searched

the pockets of his jeans, but to no avail.

He switched on the overhead light, pulled the leather flight bag onto

his lap and opened it.  The satchel was filled with tightly banded

stacks of twenty- and hundred-dollar bills.

THE THIN soup of gray mist was gradually stirring itself into a thicker

stew.  A couple of miles closer to the ocean the night probably was

clotted with fog so dense that it would almost have lumps.

Coatless, protected from the night only by a sweater, but warmed by the

fact that he had narrowly avoided almost certain death, Bobby leaned

against one of the patrol cars in front of Decodyne and watched Julie as

she paced back and forth with her hands in the pockets of her brown

leather jacket.  He never got tired of looking at her.  They had been

married seven years, and during that time they had lived and worked an

played together virtually twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Bobby had never been the kind who liked to hang out with a bunch of guys

at a bar or ball game-partly because it was difficult to find other guys

in their middle thirties who were interested in the things that he cared

about: big-ban music, the arts and pop culture of the '30s and '40s, and

classic Disney comic books.

Julie wasn't a lunch-with-the-girls type either, because not many

thirty-year-old women were into the big-band era, Warner Brothers

cartoons, martial arts, or advanced weapons training.  In spite of

spending so much time together, they remained fresh to each other, and

she was still the most interesting and appealing woman he had ever

known.

"What's taking them so long?"  she asked, glancing up at the now-lighted

windows of Decodyne, bright but fuzzy rectangles in the mist.

"Be patient with them, dear, Bobby."

"They don't have the dynamism of Dakota and Dakota.  They're just a

humble SWAT team."

Michaelson Drive was blocked off.  Eight police vehicle cars and

vans-were scattered along the street.  The chill night crackled with the

static and metallic voices sputtering out of police-band radios.  An

officer was behind the wheel of one of the cars, and other uniformed men

were positioned at both ends of the block, and two more were visible at

the front doors of Decodyne; the rest were inside, looking for

Rasmussen.  Meanwhile, men from the police lab and coroner's office were

photographing, measuring, and removing the bodies of the two gunmen.

"What if he gets away with the diskettes?"  Julie asked.

"He won't."

She nodded.  "Sure, I know what you're thinking-Wizard was developed on

a closed-system computer with no links beyond Decodyne.  But there's

another system in the company, with modems and everything, isn't there?

What if he takes the diskettes to one of those terminals and sends them

out by phone?"

"Can't.  The second system, the outlinked system, is totally different

from the one on which Wizard was developed.  Incompatible."

"Rasmussen is clever."

"There's also a night lockout that keeps the outlinked system shut

down."

"Rasmussen is clever," she repeated.

She continued to pace in front of him.

The skinned spot on her forehead, where she had met the steering wheel

when she'd jammed on the brakes, was no longer bleeding, though it

looked raw and wet.  She had wiped her face with tissues, but smears of

dried blood, which looked almost like bruises, had remained under her

right eye and along her jaw line.  Each time Bobby focused on those

stains or on the shallow wound, a pang of anxiety quivered through him

at the realization of what might have happened to her, to both of them.

Not surprisingly, her injury and the blood on her face only accentuated

her beauty, making her appear more fragile and therefore more precious.

Julie was beautiful, although Bobby realized that she appeared more so

to his eyes than to others, which was all right because, after all, his

eyes were the only ones through which he could look at her.  Though it

was kinking up a bit now in the moist night air, her chestnut-brown hair

was usually thick and lustrous.  She had wide-set eyes as dark as

semi-sweet chocolate, skin as smooth and naturally as toffee ice cream,

and a generous mouth that always taste sweet to him.  Whenever he

watched her without her being fully aware of the intensity of his

attention, or when he was apart from her and tried to conjure an image

of her in his mind, he always thought of her in terms of food:

chestnuts, chocolate toffee, cream, sugar, butter.  He found this

amusing, but he always understood the profundity of his choice of

similes: She reminded him of food because she, was more than food, she

sustained him.

Activity at the entrance to Decodyne, about sixty feet away at the end

of a palm-flanked walkway, drew Julie's attention and then Bobby's.

Someone from the SWAT team had closed the doors to report to the guards

stationed there.  A moment later one of the officers motioned for Julie

and Bobby to go forward.

When they joined him, he said, "They found this Rasmusen.  You want to

see him, make sure he has the right diskettes?"

"Yeah," Bobby said.

"Definitely," Julie said, and her throaty voice didn't sound at all sexy

now, just tough.

KEEPING A lookout for any Laguna Beach police who might be running

graveyard-shift patrols, Frank Pollard removed the bundles of cash from

the flight bag and piled them on the car seat beside him.  He counted

fifteen packets of twenty-dollar bills and eleven bundles of hundreds.

He judged the thickness of each wad to be approximately one hundred

bills, and when he did the mathematics in his head he came up with

$140,000.  He had no idea where the money had come from or whether it

belonged to him.

The first of two small, zippered side compartments in the bag yielded

another surprise-a wallet that contained no cash and no credit cards but

two important pieces of identification: a Social Security card and a

California driver's license.  With the wallet was a United States

passport.  The photographs on the passport and license were of the same

man: thirtyish, brown hair, a round face, prominent ears, brown eyes, an

easy smile, and dimples.  Realizing he had also forgotten what he looked

like, he tilted the rear view mirror and was able to see enough of his

face to match it with the one on the ID.  The problem was...  the

license and passport bore the name James Roman, not Frank Pollard.

He unzipped the second of the two smaller compartments, and found

another Social Security card, passport, and California driver's license.

These were all in the name of George Farris, but the photos were of

Frank.

James Roman meant nothing to him.

George Farris was also meaningless.  And Frank Pollard, whom he believed

himself to be, was only a cipher, a man without any past that he could

recall.

"What the hell am I tangled up in?"  he said aloud.

He needed to hear his own voice to convince himself that he was, in

fact, not just a ghost reluctant to leave this world for one to which

death had entitled him.

As the fog closed around his parked car, blotting out most of the night

beyond, a terrible loneliness overcame him.

He could think of no one to whom he could turn, nowhere which he could

retreat and be assured of safety.  A man with a past was also a man

without a future.

WHEN BOBBY and Julie stepped out of the elevator onto the third floor,

in the company of a police officer named McGrath, Julie saw Tom

Rasmussen sitting on the polished gray vinyl tiles, his back against the

wall of the corridor, his hands cuffed in front of him and linked by a

length of chain to shackles that bound his ankles together.  He was

pouting.  He had tried to steal software worth tens of millions of

dollars, if not hundreds of millions, and from the window of Ackroyd's

office he had cold-bloodily given the signal to have Bobby killed, yet

here he was pouting like a child because he had been caught.  His weasel

face was puckered, and his lower lip was thrust out, and his

yellow-brown eyes looked watery, as though he might break into tears if

anyone dared to say a cross word.  The mere sight of him infuriated

Julie.  She wanted to kick his teeth down his throat, all the way into

his stomach, so he could re-chew whatever he had last eaten.

The cops had found him in a supply closet, behind boxes that he had

rearranged to make a pitifully obvious hiding place.  Evidently,

standing at Ackroyd's window to watch the fireworks, he had been

surprised when Julie had appeared in the Toyota.  She had driven the

Toyota into the Decodyne parking lot early in the day and had stayed far

back from the building, in the shadows beneath the boughs of the laurel,

where no one had spotted her.  Instead of fleeing the moment he saw the

first gunman run down, Rasmussen had hesitated, no doubt wondering who

else was out there.  Then he heard the sirens, and his only option was

to hide out in the hope they would only search the building casually and

conclude that he had escaped.  With a computer, he was a genius, but

when it came to making cool decisions under fire, Rasmussen was not half

as bright as he thought he was.

Two heavily armed cops were watching over him.  But because he was

huddled and shivering and on the verge of tears they were a bit

ludicrous in their bulletproof vests, cradling automatic weapons,

squinting in the fluorescent glare, and looking grim.

Julie knew one of the officers, Sampson Garfeuss, from her own days with

the sheriffs department, where Sampson had served before joining the

City of Irvine force.  Either his parents had been present or he had

striven mightily to live up to his name, for he was both tall and broad

and rocklike.  He held a little box that contained four small floppy

diskettes.

He showed it to Julie and said, "Is this what he was after?"

"Could be," she said, accepting the box.

Taking the diskettes from her, Bobby said, "I'll have to go down one

floor to Ackroyd's office, switch on the computer POP these in, and see

what's on them."

"Go ahead," Sampson said.

"You'll have to accompany me," Bobby said to McGrath the officer who had

brought them up on the elevator.

"keep a watch on me, make sure I don't tamper with the evidence, he

indicated toward Rasmussen.  "We don't want this piece of slime thinking

they were blank disks, saying I framed him copying the real stuff onto

them myself."

As Bobby and McGrath went into one of the elevators and descended to the

second floor, Julie hunkered down in front of Rasmussen.

"You know who I am?"

Rasmussen looked at her but said nothing.

"I'm Bobby Dakota's wife.  Bobby was in that van your goons shot up.  It

was my Bobby you tried to kill."

He looked away from her, at his cuffed wrists.

She said, "Know what I'd like to do to you?"  She held one of her hands

down in front of his face, and wiggled her manicured nails.

"For starters, I'd like to grab you by the throat hold your head against

the wall, and ram two of these nice sharp fingernails straight through

your eyes, all the way deep, real deep in your fevered little brain, and

twist them around, see if maybe I can unscramble whatever's messed in

there."

"Jesus, lady," Sampson's partner said.  His name was Burdock.  Beside

anyone but Sampson, he would have been a better man.

"Well," she said, "he's too screwed up to get any help from a prison

psychiatrist."

Sampson said, "Don't do anything foolish, Julie."

Rasmussen glanced at her, meeting her eyes for only a second, but that

was long enough for him to understand the depth of her anger and to be

frightened by it.  A flush of childish embarrassment and temper had

accompanied his pout, but now his face went pale.

To Sampson, in a voice that was too shrill and querulous to be as tough

as he intended, Rasmussen said, "Keep this crazy bitch away from me."

"She's not actually crazy," Sampson said.  "Not clinically speaking, at

least.  Pretty hard to have anyone declared crazy these days, I'm

afraid.  Lots of concern about their civil rights, you know.  No, I

wouldn't say she's crazy."

Without looking away from Rasmussen, Julie said, "Thank you so much,

Sam."

"You'll notice I didn't say anything about the other half of his

accusation," Sampson said good-naturedly.

"Yeah, I got your point."

While she talked to Sampson, she kept her attention on Rasmussen.

Everyone harbored a special fear, a private bogeyman built to his own

specifications and crouched in a dark corner of his mind, and Julie knew

what Tom Rasmussen feared more than anything in the world.  Not heights.

Not confining spaces.  Not crowds, cats, flying, insects, dogs, or

darkness.  Dakota & Dakota had developed a thick file on him in recent

weeks, and had turned up the fact that he suffered from a phobia of

blindness.  In prison, every month with the regularity of a true

obsessive, he had demanded an eye exam, claiming his vision was

deteriorating, and he'd petitioned to be tested periodically for

syphilis, diabetes, and other diseases that, untreated, could result in

blindness.  When not in prison-and he had been there twice-he had a

standing, monthly appointment with an ophthalmologist in Costa Mesa.

Still squatting in front of Rasmussen, Julie took hold of his chin.  He

flinched.  She twisted his head toward her.  She thrust two fingers of

her other hand at him, raked them down his cheek, making red welts on

his wan skin, but not hard enough to draw blood.

He squealed and tried to strike her with his cuffed hands, but he was

inhibited by both his fear and the chain that tethered his wrists to his

ankles.

"What the hell you think you' doing?"

She spread the same two fingers with which she'd scratched him, and now

she poked them at him, stopping just two inches short of his eyes.

He winced, made a mewling sound, and tried to pull loose of her, but she

held him fast by the chin, forcing a confrontation.

"Me and Bobby have been together eight years, more than seven, and

they've been the best years of my life but you come along and think you

can just squash him the way you'd squash a bug."

She slowly brought her fingertips closer to his eyes.  An inch and a

half.  One inch.

Rasmussen tried to pull back.  His head was against the wall He had

nowhere to go.

The sharp tips of her manicured fingernails were less than half an inch

from his eyes.

"This is police brutality," Rasmussen said.

"I'm not a cop," Julie said.

"They are," he said, rolling his eyes at Sampson and Burdock.  "Better

get this bitch away from me, I'll sue your ass off."

With her fingernails she flicked his eyelashes.

His attention snapped back to her.  He was breathing fast and suddenly

he was sweating too.

She flicked his lashes again, and smiled.

The dark pupils in his yellow-brown eyes were open wide.

"You bastards better hear me, I swear, I'll sue, they'll kick you off

the force-"

She flicked his lashes again.

He closed his eyes tight.

"-they'll take away your god damned uniforms and badges, they'll throw

you in prison, an you know what happens to ex-cops in prison, they get

the shit kicked out of them, broken, killed, raped!"  His voice spiraled

up, cracked on the last word, like the voice of an adolescent boy.

Glancing at Sampson to be sure she had his tacit if not active approval

to carry this just a little further, glancing also at Burdock and seeing

that he was not as placid as Sampson but would probably stay out of it

for a while yet, Julie pressed her fingernails against Rasmussen's

eyelids.

He attempted to squeeze his eyes even more tightly shut.

She pressed harder.

"You tried to take Bobby away from me, so I'll take your eyes away from

you."

"You're nuts!"

She pressed still harder.

"Make her stop," Rasmussen demanded of the two cops.

"If you didn't want me to have my Bobby to look at, why should I let you

look at anything ever again?"

"What do you want?"

Perspiration poured down Rasmussen's face; he looked like a candle in a

bonfire, melting fast.

"Who gave you permission to kill Bobby?"

"Permission?  What do you mean?  Nobody.  I don't need-"

"You wouldn't have tried to touch him if your employer hadn't told you

to do it."

"I knew he was on to me," Rasmussen said frantically, and because she

had not let up the pressure with her nails, thin tears flowed from under

his eyelids.

"I knew he was out there, tumbled to him five or six days ago, even

though he used different vans, trucks, even that orange van with the

county seal on it.  So I had to do something, didn't I?  I couldn't walk

away from the job, too much money at stake.  I couldn't just let him

nail me when I finally got Wizard, so I had to do something.  Listen,

Jesus, it was as simple as that."

"You're just a computer freak, a hired hacker-morally bent, sleazy, but

you're no tough guy.  You're soft, squishy-soft.  You wouldn't plan a

hit on your own.  Your boss told you to do it."

"I don't have a boss.  I'm freelance."

"Somebody still pays you."  She risked more pressure, not with the

points of her nails but with the flat surfaces, although Rasmussen was

so swept away by a rapture of fear that he might still imagine he could

feel those filed edges gradually carving through the delicate shields of

his eyelids.  He must be seeing interior starfields now, bursts and

whorls of color, and maybe he was feeling some pain.  He was shaking;

his shackles clinked and rattled.  More tears squeezed from beneath his

lids.

"Delafield."  The word erupted from him, as if he had been trying

simultaneously to hold it back and to expel it with all his might.

"Kevin Delafield."

"Who's he?"  Julie asked, still holding Rasmussen's chin with one hand,

her fingernails against his eyes, unrelenting.

"Microcrest Corporation."

"That's who hired you for this?"

He was rigid, afraid to move a fraction of an inch, convinced that the

slightest shift in his position would force her fingernails into his

eyes.

"Yeah.  Delafield.  A nut case.  A renegade.  They don't understand

about him at Microcrest.  They know he gets results for them.  When this

hits the fan, I won't be surprised by it, blown away.  So let go of me.

What do you want?"

She let go of him.

Immediately he opened his eyes, blinked, testing his vision then broke

down and sobbed with relief.

As Julie stood, the nearby elevator doors opened, and Bobby returned

with the officer who had accompanied him down stairs to Ackroyd's

office.  Bobby looked at Rasmussen, his head at Julie, clucked his

tongue, and said,

"You've been naughty, haven't you, dear?  Can't I take you anywhere

"I just had a conversation with Mr. Rasmussen.  That's all."

"He seems to have found it stimulating," Bobby said.

Rasmussen sat slumped forward with his hands over his eyes, weeping

uncontrollably.

"We disagreed about something," Julie said.

"Movies, books?"

"Music."

"Ah."

Sampson Garfeuss said softly, "You're a wild woman Julie."

"He tried to have Bobby killed," was all she said.

Sampson nodded.

"I'm not saying I don't admire will sometimes...  a little.  But you

sure as hell owe me on this one."

"I do," she agreed.

"You owe me more than one," Burdock said.

"This guy's going to file a complaint.  You can bet your ass on it."

"Complaint about what?"  Julie asked.  "He's not marked."

Already the faint welts on Rasmussen's cheek were faint Sweat, tears,

and a case of the shakes were the only evidence of his ordeal.

"Listen," Julie told Burdock, "he cracked because I just happened to

know exactly the right weak point where I could give him a little tap,

like cutting a diamond.  It worked because scum like him thinks everyone

else is scum, too, thinks we're capable of doing what he'd do in the

same situation.  I'd never put out his eyes, but he might've put mine

out if our roles were reversed, so he thought for sure I'd do him like

he would've done me.  All I did was use his own screwed-up attitudes

against him.  Psychology.  Nobody can file a complaint about the

application of a little psychology."

She turned to Bobby and said, "What was on those diskettes?"

"Wizard.  Not trash data.  The whole thing.  These have to be the files

he duplicated.  He only made one set while I was watching, and after the

shooting started he didn't have time to make backup copies."

The elevator bell rang, and their floor number lit on the board.  When

the doors opened, a plain-clothes detective they knew, Gil Dainer,

stepped into the hallway.

Julie took the package of diskettes from Bobby, handed them to Dainer.

She said, "This is evidence.  The whole case might rest on it.  You

think you can keep track of it?"

Dainer grinned.

"Gosh, ma'am, I'll try."

FRANK POLLARD-alias James Roman, and George Farris-looked in the trunk

of the stolen Chevy found a small bundle of tools wrapped in a felt

pouch tucked in the wheel well.  He used a screwdriver to take the

plates off the car.

Half an hour later, after cruising some of the higher and more quiet

neighborhoods in fog bound Laguna, he parked on a dark side street and

exchanged the Chevy's plates for those on an Oldsmobile.  With luck, the

owner of the Olds wouldn't notice the new plates for a couple of days,

maybe even a day or longer; until he reported the switch, the Chevy

wouldn't match anything on a police hot sheet and he would, therefore be

relatively safe to drive.  In any case, Frank intended to get rid of the

car by tomorrow night and either boost a new one or use some of the cash

in the flight bag to buy legal wheels.  Though he was exhausted, he

didn't think it wise to check into a motel.  Four-thirty in the morning

was a damned hour for anyone to be wanting a room.  Furthermore, he was

unshaven, and his thick hair was matted and oily, and his jeans and

checkered blue flannel shirt were dirty and filthy from his recent

adventures.  The last thing he wanted to do was call attention to

himself, so he decided to catch a couple hours of sleep in the car.

He drove farther south, into Laguna Niguel, where he parked on a quiet

residential street, under the immense bow of a date palm.  He stretched

out on the back seat, as foully as possible without benefit of

sufficient legroom or pillow and closed his eyes.

For the moment he was not afraid of his unknown pursuers because he felt

that the man was no longer nearby.  Temporarily, at least, he had given

his enemy the shake, and had no desire to lie awake in fear of a hostile

face suddenly appearing at the window.  He was also able to put out of

his mind all questions about his identity and the money in the flight

bag; he was so tired-and his thought processes were so fuzzy-that any

attempt to puzzle out solutions to those mysteries would be fruitless.

He was kept awake, however, by the memory of how strange the events in

Anaheim had been, a few hours ago.  The foreboding gusts of wind.  The

eerie flowerlike music.  Imploding windows, exploding tires, failed

brakes, failed steering...

Who had come into that apartment behind the blue light?

Was "who" the right word...  or would it be more accurate to ask what

had been searching for him?

During his urgent flight from Anaheim to Laguna, he'd not had the

leisure to reflect upon those bizarre incidents, but now he could not

turn his mind from them.  He sensed that he had survived an encounter

with something unnatural.  Worse, he sensed that he knew what it was-and

that his amnesia was self-induced by a deep desire to forget.

After a while, even the memory of those preternatural events wasn't

enough to keep him awake.  The last thing that crossed his waking mind,

as he slipped off on a tide of sleep, was that four-word phrase that had

come to him when he had first awakened in the deserted alleyway:

Fireflies in a windstorm....

BY THE time they had cooperated with the police at the scene, made

arrangements for their disabled vehicle and talked with the three

corporate officers who showed at Decodyne, Bobby and Julie did not get

home until shortly before dawn.  They were dropped at their door by a

police cruiser, and Bobby was glad to see the place.

They lived on the east side of Orange, in a three-bedroom

sort-of-ersatz-Spanish tract house, which they had bought new two years

ago, largely for its investment potential.  Even though the relative

youth of the neighborhood was apparent the landscaping: and None of the

shrubbery had reached full size the trees were still too immature to

loom higher than the gutters on the houses.

Bobby unlocked the door.  Julie went in, and he followed The sound of

their footsteps on the parquet floor of the foyer echoing hollowly off

the bare walls of the adjacent and utter empty living room, was proof

that they were not committed to the house for the long term.  To save

money toward the fulfillment of The Dream, they had left the living

room, dining room, and two bedrooms unfurnished.  They installed carpet

and cheaper draperies.  Not a penny had been spent on other

improvements.  This was merely a way station enroute to The Dream, so

they saw no point in lavishing funds on dreams.

The Dream.  That was how they thought of it-with a capital d They kept

their expenses as low as possible in order to fund The Dream.  They

didn't spend much on clothes or vacations, and they didn't buy fancy

cars.  With hard work and iron determination, they were building Dakota

and Dakota Investigations into a major firm that could be sold for a

large capital gain, so they plowed a lot of earnings back into the

business to make it grow.  For The Dream.

At the back of the house, the kitchen and family room-and the small

breakfast area that separated them-were furnished.  This-and the master

bedroom upstairs-was where they lived when at home.

The kitchen had a Spanish-tile floor, beige counters, and dark oak

cabinets.  No money had been spent on decorative accessories, but the

room had a cozy feeling because some necessities of a functioning

kitchen were on display: a net bag filled with half a dozen onions,

copper pots dangling from a ceiling rack, cooking utensils, bottles of

spices.  Three green tomatoes were ripening on the windowsill.

Julie leaned against the counter, as if she could not stand another

moment without support, and Bobby said, "You want a drink?"

"Booze at dawn?"

"I was thinking more of milk or juice."

"No, thanks."

"Hungry?"

She shook her head.  "I just want to fall into bed.  I'm beat."

He took her in his arms, held her close, cheek to cheek, with his face

buried in her hair.  Her arms tightened around him.

They stood that way for a while, saying nothing, letting the residual

fear evaporate in the gentle heat they generated between them.

Fear and love were indivisible.  If you allowed yourself to care, to

love, you made yourself vulnerable, and vulnerability led to fear.  He

found meaning in life through his relationship with her, and if she

died, meaning and purpose would die too.

With Julie still in his arms, Bobby leaned back and studied her face.

The smudges of dried blood had been wiped away.  The skinned spot on her

forehead was beginning to scab over with a thin yellow membrane.

However, the imprint of their recent ordeal consisted of more than the

abrasion on her forehead.  With her tan complexion, she could never be

said to look pale, even in moments of the most profound anxiety; a

detectable grayness seeped into her face, however, at times like this,

and at the moment her cinnamon-and-cream skin was underlaid with a shade

of gray that made him think of headstone marble.

"It's over," he assured her, "and we're okay."

"It's not over in my dreams.  Won't be for weeks."

"A thing like tonight adds to the legend of Dakota and Dakota.

"I don't want to be a legend.  Legends are all dead."

"We'll be living legends, and that'll bring in business.  The more

business we build, the sooner we can sell out, grab the Dream."

He kissed her gently on each corner of her mouth

"I have to call in, leave a long message on the agency machine so Clint

will know how to handle everything when he goes to work."

"Yeah.  I don't want the phone to start ringing only a couple of hours

after I hit the sheets.

He kissed her again and went to the wall phone beside the refrigerator.

As he was dialing the office number, Julie walk to the bathroom off the

short hall that connected the kitchen to the laundry room.  She closed

the bathroom door just as the answering machine picked up:

"Thank you for calling Dakota and Dakota.  No one-"

Clint Karaghiosis -whose Greek-American family had been fans of Clint

Eastwood from the earliest days of his first television show, and had

named their baby after him.  "Rawhide"-was Bobby and Julie's right hand

man at the office.  He could be trusted to handle any problem.  Bobby

left a long message for him, summarizing the events at Decodyne and

noting specific tasks that had to be done to wrap up the case.

When he hung up, he stepped down into the adjoining family room,

switched on the CD player, and put on a Benny Goodman disc.  The first

notes of "King Porter Stomp" brought the dead room to life.

In the kitchen again, he got a quart can of eggnog from the

refrigerator.  They had bought it two weeks ago for their at-home, New

Year's Eve celebration, but had not opened it after all, on the holiday.

He opened it now and half-filled the water glasses.

From the bathroom he heard Julie make a tortured sound she was finally

throwing up.  It was mostly just dry heaves because they had not eaten

in eight or ten hours, but the spasm sounded violent.  Throughout the

night, Bobby had expected her to succumb to nausea, and he was surprised

that she had retained control of herself this long.

He retrieved a bottle of white rum from the bar cabinet in the family

room and spiked each serving of eggnog with a double shot.  He was

gently stirring the drinks with a spoon to blend in the rum, when Julie

returned, looking even grayer than before.

When she saw what he was doing, she said, "I don't need that.

"I know what you need.  I'm psychic.  I knew you'd toss your cookies

after what happened tonight.  Now I know you need this.

" He stepped to the sink and rinsed off the spoon.

"No, Bobby, really, I can't drink that."

The Goodman music didn't seem to be energizing her.

"It'll settle your stomach.  And if you don't drink it, you're not going

to sleep."

Taking her by the arm, crossing the breakfast area, and stepping down

into the family room, he said, "You'll lie awake worrying about me,

about Thomas"Thomas was her brother-"about the world and everyone in

it."  They sat on the sofa, and he did not turn on any lamps.  The only

light was what reached them from the kitchen.

She drew her legs under her and turned slightly to face him.  Her eyes

shone with a soft, reflected light.  She sipped the eggnog.

The room was now filled with the strains of "One Sweet Letter From You,"

one of Goodman's most beautiful thematic statements, with a vocal by

Louise Tobin.

They sat and listened for a while.

Then Julie said, "I'm tough, Bobby, I really am."

"I know you are."

"I don't want you thinking I'm lame."

"Never." :

"It wasn't just the shooting that made me sick, or using the Toyota to,

run that guy down, or even the thought of almost losing you-'

"I know.  It was what you had to do to Rasmussen."

"He's a slimy little weasel-faced bastard, but even he doesn't deserve

to be broken like that.  What I did to him stank."

"It was the only way to crack the case, because it wasn't nearly cracked

till we'd found out who hired him."

She drank more eggnog.  She frowned down at the milky contents of her

glass, as if the answer to some mystery could be found there.

Following Tobin's vocal, Ziggy Elman came in with a trumpet solo,

followed by Goodman's clarinet.  The sounds made that boxy, tract-house

room seem like the most romantic place in the world.

"What I did...  I did for The Dream.  Giving Decodyne's Rasmussen's

employer will please them.  But breaking him somehow...  It was worse

than wasting a man in a fair gunfight."

Bobby put one hand on her knee.  It was a nice knee.  All these years,

he was still sometimes surprised by her slenderness and the delicacy of

her bone structure, for he always thought of her as being strong for her

size, solid, formidable.

"If you hadn't put Rasmussen in that vise and squeezed I would've done

it."

"No, you wouldn't have.  You're scrappy, Bobby, and you're smart and

you're tough, but there're certain things you never do.  This was one of

them.  Don't jive me just to make me feel good."

"You're right," he said.

"I couldn't have done it.  But glad you did.  Decodyne's very big time,

and this could've put us back years if we'd flubbed it."

"Is there anything we won't do for The Dream?"

Bobby said, "Sure.  We wouldn't torture small children with red-hot

knives, and we wouldn't shove innocent old people down long flights of

stairs, and we wouldn't club a basket of newborn puppies to death with

an iron bar-at least without good reason."

Her laughter lacked a full measure of humor.

"Listen," he said, "you're a good person.  You've got a good heart, and

nothing you did to Rasmussen blackens it at all.

"I hope you're right.  It's a hard world sometimes."

"Another drink will soften it a little."

"You know the calories in these?  I'll be fat as a hippo

"Hippos are cute," he said, taking her glass and heading back toward the

kitchen to pour another drink.  "I love POS."

"You won't want to make love to one."

"Sure.  More to hold, more to love."

"You'll be crushed."

"Well, of course, I'll always insist on taking the top."

CANDY WAS going to kill.  He stood in the dark living room of a

stranger's house, shaking with need.  Blood.  He needed blood.

Candy was going to kill, and there was nothing he could do to stop

himself.  Not even thinking of his mother could shame him into

controlling his hunger.

His given name was James, but his mother-an unselfish soul, exceedingly

kind, brimming with love, a saint-always said he was her little candy

boy.  Never James.  Never Jim or Jimmy.  She'd said he was sweeter than

anything on earth, and "little candy boy" eventually had become "candy

boy," and by the time he was six the sobriquet had been shortened and

capitalized, and he had become Candy for good.  Now, at twenty-nine,

that was the only name to which he would answer.

Many people thought murder was a sin.  He knew otherwise.  Some were

born with a taste for blood.  God had made them what they were and

expected them to kill chosen victims.  It was all part of His mysterious

plan.

The only sin was to kill when God and your mother did not approve of the

victim, which was exactly what he was about to do.  He was ashamed.  But

he was also in need.

He listened to the house.  Silence.  Like unearthly and dusky beasts,

the shadowy forms of the living-room furniture huddled around him.

Breathing hard, trembling, Candy moved into the dining room, kitchen,

family room, then slowly along the hallway that led to the front of the

house.  He made no sound that would have alerted anyone asleep upstairs.

He seemed to glide rather than walk, as if he were a specter instead of

a real man.

He paused at the foot of the stairs and made one last feeble attempt to

overcome his murderous compulsion.  Failing he shuddered and let out his

pent-up breath.  He began to climb toward the second floor, where the

family was probably sleeping.

His mother would understand and forgive him.

She had taught him that killing was good and moral only when necessary,

only when it benefited the family.

She had been terribly angry with him on those occasions when he had

killed out of sheer compulsion, with no good reason.  She had no need to

punish him physically for his errant ways, because her displeasure gave

him more agony than any punishment she could have devised.  For days at

a time she refused to speak to him, and that silent treatment caused his

cheeks to swell with pain, so it seemed as if his heart would spasm

cease to beat.  She looked straight through him, too, as if he no longer

existed.

When the other children spoke of him, she said, "Oh, you mean your late

brother, Candy, your poor brother.  Well, remember him if you want, but

only to yourselves, not to me, never to me, because I don't want to

remember him, not that bad seed.  He was no good, that no good at all,

wouldn't listen to his mother, not him, he thought he knew better.  Just

the sound of his name makes me feel sick, revolts me, so don't mention

him in my hearing."

Candy had been temporarily banished to the world of the dead for having

misbehaved, no place was set for him at the table, and he had to stand

in a corner, watching the others eat, as if he was a visiting spirit.

She would not favor him with either a frown or a smile, and she would

not stroke his hair or touch his face with her warm soft hands, and she

would not let him cuddle against her or put his weary head upon her

breast, and at night he had to find his way into a troubled sleep

without being guided there by either her bedtime stories or sweet

lullabies.  In that total banishment he learned moor Hell than he ever

hoped to know.

But she would understand why Candy could not help himself tonight, and

she'd forgive him.  Sooner or later she always forgave him because her

love for him was like the love of God for all His children: perfect,

rich with forbearance mercy.  When she deemed that Candy had suffered

enough, she always had looked at him again, smiled for him, opened arms

wide.  In her new acceptance of him, he had experienced as much of

Heaven as he needed to know.

She was in Heaven now, herself.  Seven long years!  God, how he missed

her.  But she was watching him even now.  She would know he had lost

control tonight, and she would be disappointed in him.

He climbed the stairs, rushing up two risers at a time, staying close to

the wall, where the steps were less likely to squeak.  He was a big man

but graceful and light on his feet, and if some of the stair treads were

loose or tired with age, they did not creak under him.

In the upstairs hall he paused, listening.

Nothing.

A dim night-light was part of the overhead smoke alarm.  The glow was

just bright enough for Candy to see two doors on the right of the hall,

two on the left, and one at the far end.

He crept to the first door on the right, eased it open, and slipped into

the room beyond.  He closed the door again and stood with his back to

it.

Although his need was great, he forced himself to wait for his eyes to

adjust to the gloom.

Ashen light, from a street lamp at least half a block away, glimmered

faintly at the two windows.  He noticed the mirror, first, a frosty

rectangle in which the meager radiance was murkily reflected; then he

began to make out the shape of the dresser beneath it.  A moment later

he was also able to see the bed and, dimly, the huddled form of someone

lying under a light-colored blanket that was vaguely phosphorescent.

Candy stepped cautiously to the bed, took hold of the blanket and sheets

and hesitated, listening to the soft rhythmic breathing of the sleeper.

He detected a trace of perfume mingled with a pleasant scent of warm

skin and recently shampooed hair.  A girl.  He could always tell

girl-smell from boy smell.  He also sensed that this one was young,

perhaps a teenager.  If his need had not been so intense, he would have

hesitated much longer than he did, for the moments preceding a kill were

exciting, almost better than the act itself.

With a dramatic flick of his arm, as if he were a magician throwing back

the cloth that had covered an empty cage to reveal a captive dove of

sorcerous origins, he uncovered the sleeper.  He fell upon her, crushing

her into the mattress with his body.

She woke instantly and tried to scream, even though he surely knocked

the wind out of her.  Fortunately, he had unhumanly large and powerful

hands, and he had found her face as she began to raise her voice, so he

was able to thrust palm under her chin and hook his fingers in her

cheeks clamp her mouth shut.

"Be quiet, or I'll kill you," he whispered, his lips brushing against

her delicate ear.

Making a muffled, panicky sound, she squirmed under him to no avail.

Judging by the feel of her, she was not yet a woman, perhaps no younger

than twelve, certainly not older than fifteen.

She was no match for him.

"I don't want to hurt you.  I just want you, and when i'm done with you,

I'll leave."  That was a lie, for he had no desire to rape her.  Sex was

no interest to him.  Indeed, sex disgusted him; involving unmentionable

fluids, depending upon the shameless useless organs associated with

urination, sex was an unspeakable repulsive act.  Other people's

fascination with it only proved to Candy that men and women were members

of a fallen humanity and that the world was a cesspool of sin and

madness Either because she believed his pledge not to kill her cause she

was now half-paralyzed with fear, she stopped resisting.  Maybe she just

needed all of her energy to breath with Candy's full weight-two hundred

and twenty pounds pressing on her chest, restricting her lungs.  Against

his hand with which he clamped her mouth shut, he could feel her

inhalations as her nostrils flared, followed by short, hot exhalations.

His vision had continued to adapt to the poor light.

though he still could not make out the details of her face, he could see

her eyes shining darkly in the gloom, glistening terror.  He could also

see that she was a blonde; her pale caught even the dull gray glow from

the windows and with burnished-silver highlights.

With his free hand, he gently pushed her hair back from the right side

of her neck.  He shifted his position slightly, moved down on her in

order to bring his lips to her throat.  He kissed the tender flesh, felt

the strong throb of her pulse against his lips, then bit deep and found

the blood.

She bucked and thrashed beneath him, but he held her down and held her

fast, and she could not dislodge his greedy mouth from the wound he had

made.  He swallowed rapidly but could not consume the thick, sweet fluid

as fast as it was offered.  Soon, however, the flow diminished.  The

girl's convulsions became less violent, as well, then faded altogether,

until she was as still beneath him as if she had been nothing more than

a tangled mound of bedclothes.

He rose from her and switched on the bedside lamp just long enough to

see her face.  He always wanted to see their faces, after their

sacrifices if not before.  He also liked to look into their eyes, which

seemed not sightless but gifted with a vision of the far place to which

their souls had gone.  He did not entirely understand his curiosity.

After all, when he ate a steak, he did not wonder what the cow had

looked like.  This girl and each of the others on whom he'd fed-should

have been nothing more than one of the cattle to him.  Once, in a dream,

when he had finished drinking from a ravaged throat, his victim,

although dead, had spoken to him, asking him why he wanted to look upon

her in death.  When he had said that he didn't know the answer to her

question, she had suggested that perhaps, on those occasions when he had

killed in the dark, he later needed to see his victims' faces because,

in some unlit corner of his heart, he half expected to find his own face

looking up at him, ice-white and dead-eyed.

"Deep down," the dream-victim had said, "you know that you're already

dead yourself, burnt out inside.  You realize that you have far more in

common with your victims after you've killed them than before."

Those words, though spoken only in a dream, and though amounting to the

purest nonsense, had nevertheless brought him awake with a sharp cry. He

was alive, not dead, powerful and vital, a man with appetites as strong

as they were unusual.  The dream-victim's words stayed with him over the

years, and when they echoed through his memory at times like this, they

made him anxious.  Now, as always, he refused to dwell on them.  He

turned his attention, instead, to the girl on the bed.

She appeared to be about fourteen, quite pretty.  Captivated by her

flawless complexion, he wondered if her skin would feel as perfect as it

looked, as smooth as porcelain, if he dared to stroke it with his

fingertips.  Her lips were slightly parted, as if they had been gently

prised open by her spirit was it departed wonderfully blue, clear eyes

seemed enormous, big for her face-and as wide as a winter sky.

He would have liked to gaze upon her for hours.  Letting a sigh of

regret escape him, he switched off the lamp.  He stood for a while in

the darkness, enveloped by the gent aroma of blood.

When his eyes had readjusted to the gloom, he returned to the hall, not

bothering to close the girl's door behind him.

He entered the room across from hers and found it unoccupied But in the

room next to that one, Candy smelled stale sweat, and heard snoring.

This one was a boy, seven or eighteen, not a big kid but not small

either, and he put up more of a struggle than his sister.  However, he

was sleeping on his stomach, and when Candy threw back the covers fell

upon him, the boy's face was jammed hard into the pit of the mattress,

smothering him and making it difficult for him to shout a warning.  The

fight was violent but brief.  The boy passed out from lack of oxygen,

and Candy flopped him over When he went for the throat, Candy let out a

low eager cry that was louder than any sound the boy had made.  Later,

when he opened the door to the fourth bedroom, first pewter light of

dawn had pierced the windows.  shadows still huddled in the corners, but

the deeper darkness had been chased off.  The early light was too thin

to elicit color from objects, and everything in the room seemed to be

one shadow of gray or another.

An attractive blonde in her late thirties was asleep on her side of a

king-size bed.  The sheets and blanket on the other half of the bed were

hardly disturbed, so he figured the woman's husband and had either moved

out or was away on business.  He noted a half-full glass of water and a

plastic bottle of prescription drugs on the night stand.  He picked up

the pharmacy bottle and saw that it was two-thirds full of small pills.

A sedative, according to the label.  From the label, he learned her

name: Roseanne Lofton.

Candy stood for a while, staring down at her face, an old longing for

maternal solace stirred in him.  Need continued to drive him, but he did

not want to take her violently, not want to rip her open and drain her

in a few minutes.

He wanted this one to last.

He had the urge to suckle on this woman as he had suckled on his

mother's blood when she would permit him that grace.  Occasionally, when

he was in her favor, his mother would make a shallow cut in the palm of

her hand or puncture one of her fingers, then allow him to curl up

against her and be nursed on her blood for an hour or longer.  During

that time a great peace stole over him, a bliss so profound that the

world and all its pain ceased to be real to him, because his mother's

blood was like no other, untainted, pure as the tears of a saint.

Through such small wounds, of course, he was able to drink no more than

an ounce or two of her, but that meager dribble was more precious and

more nourishing to him than the gallons he might have drained from a

score of other people.  The woman before him would not have such

ambrosia within her veins, but if he closed his eyes while he suckled on

her, and if he let his mind reel backward to memories of the days before

his mother's death, he might recapture at least some of the exquisite

serenity he had known then...  and experience a faint echo of that old

thrill.

At last, without casting the covers aside, Candy gently lowered himself

to the bed and stretched out beside the woman, watching as her

heavy-lidded eyes fluttered and then opened.  She blinked at him as he

cuddled next to her, and for a moment she seemed to think that she was

still dreaming, for no expression tightened the muscles of her slack

face.

"All I want is your blood," he said softly.

Abruptly she cast off the lingering effects of the sedative, and her

eyes filled with alarm.

Before she could spoil the beauty of the moment by screaming or

resisting, thereby shattering the illusion that she was his mother and

was giving voluntarily of herself, he struck the side of her neck with

his heavy fist.  Then he struck her again.  Then he hammered the side of

her face twice.  She slumped unconscious against the pillow.

He squirmed under the covers to be close against her, withdrew her hand,

and nipped her palm with his teeth.  He put his head on the pillow,

lying face to face with her, holding her hand between them, drinking the

slow trickle from her palm.  He closed his eyes after a while and tried

to imagine that she was his mother, and eventually a gratifying peace

stole over him.  However, though he was happier at that moment than he

had been in a long time, it was not a deep happiness, mere a veneer of

joy that brightened the surface of his heart but the inner chambers dark

and cold.

the residue on his hands troubled him as deeply as if it been fresh

blood.

"Who the hell am I, what's happening to me?"  he wondered aloud.

He knew that he needed help.  But he didn't know to whom he could turn.

AFTER ONLY a few hours of sleep, Frank Pollard woke in the back seat of

the stolen Chevy.  The morning sun, streaming through the windows, was

bright enough to make him wince.

He was stiff, achy, and unrested.  His throat was dry, and his eyes

burned as if he had not slept for days.

Groaning, Frank swung his legs off the seat, sat up, and cleared his

throat.  He realized that both of his hands were numb; they felt cold

and dead, and he saw that he had curled them into fists.  He had

evidently been sleeping that way for some time, because at first he

could not unclench.  With considerable effort, he opened his right

fist-and a handful of something black and grainy poured through his

tingling fingers.

He stared, perplexed, at the fine grains that had spilled down the leg

of his jeans and onto his right shoe.  He raised his hand to take a

closer look at the residue that had stuck to his palm.  It looked and

smelled like sand.

Black sand?  Where had he gotten it?

When he opened his left hand, more sand spilled out.

Confused, he looked through the car windows at the residential

neighborhood around him.  He saw green lawns, dark topsoil showing

through where the grass was sparse, mulch-filled planting beds, redwood

chips mounded around some shrubs, but nothing like what he had held in

his tightly clenched fists.

He was in Laguna Niguel, so the Pacific Ocean was nearby, rimmed by

broad beaches.  But those beaches were white, not black.

As full circulation returned to his cramped fingers, he leaned back in

the seat, raised his hands in front of his face, and stared at the black

grains that speckled his sweat-damp skin.  Sand, even black sand, was a

humble and innocent substance.

BOBBY WAs awakened by a Santa Ana wind blowing through the trees

outside.  It whistled under the eaves, and forced a chorus of ticks and

creaks from the cedar-shingle roof and the attic rafters.

He blinked sleep-matted eyes and squinted at the numbers on the bedroom

ceiling: 12:07.  Because they sometimes worked odd hours and slept

during the day, they had installed exterior Roll-up security shutters,

leaving the room coal-mine dark except for the projection clock's pale

green numerals, which floated on the ceiling like some portentous spirit

message from Beyond.

Because he had gone to bed near dawn, and instantly to sleep, he knew

the numbers on the ceiling meant that it was shortly past noon, not

midnight.  He had slept perhaps six hours.  He lay unmoving for a

moment, wondering if Julie was awake.

She said, "I am."

"You're spooky," he said.

"You knew what I was thinking."

"That's not spooky," she said.  "That's married."

He reached for her, and she came into his arms.

For a while they just held each other, satisfied to be close.  But by

mutual and unspoken desire, they began to make love.

The projection clock's glowing green numerals were too pale to relieve

the absolute darkness, so Bobby could see nothing of Julie as they clung

together.  However, he "saw" her through his hands.  As he reveled in

the smoothness and warmth of her skin, the elegant curves of her

breasts, the discovery of angularity precisely where angularity was

desirable, the tautness of muscle, and the fluid movement of muscle and

bone, he might have been a blind man using his hands to describe an

inner vision of ideal beauty.

The wind shook the world outside, in sympathy with the climaxes that

shook Julie.  And when Bobby could withhold him self no longer, when he

cried out and emptied himself into her the skirting wind cried, too, and

a bird that had taken shelter in a nearby eave was blown from its perch

with a rustle of wings and a spiraling shriek.

For a while they lay side by side in the blackness, their breath

mingling, touching each other almost reverently.  They did not want or

need to speak; talk would have diminished the moment.

The aluminum-slat shutters vibrated softly in the huffing wind.

Gradually the afterglow of lovemaking gave way to a curious uneasiness,

the source of which Bobby could not identify.  The enveloping blackness

began to seem oppressive, as if a continued absence of light was somehow

contributing to a thickening of the air, until it would become as vivid

and unbreathable as syrup.

Though he had just made love to her, he was stricken by the crazy notion

that Julie was not actually there with him, that what he had coupled

with was a dream, or the congealing darkness itself, and that she had

been stolen from him in the night, whisked away by some power he could

not fathom, and that she was forever beyond his reach.

His childish fear made him feel foolish, but he rose onto one elbow and

turned on one of the wall-mounted bedside lamps.

When he saw Julie lying beside him, smiling, her head raised on a

pillow, the level of his inexplicable anxiety abruptly dropped.  He let

out a rush of breath, surprised to discover that he'd pent it up in the

first place.  But a peculiar tension remained in him, and the sight of

Julie, safe and undamaged but for the scabbing spot on her forehead, was

insufficient to completely relax him.

"What's wrong?"  she asked, as perceptive as ever.

"Nothing," he lied.

"Bit of a headache from all that rum in the eggnog?"

What troubled him was not a hangover, but the queer, unshakable feeling

that he was going to lose Julie, that something out there in a hostile

world was coming to take her away.  As the optimist in the family, he

wasn't usually given to grim forebodings of doom; accordingly, this

strange August chill frightened him more than it would have if he had

been regularly subject to such disturbances

"Bobby?"  she said, frowning.

"Headache," he assured her.

He leaned down and gently kissed her eyes, then again, forcing her to

close them so she could not see his face and read the anxiety that he

was unable to conceal.

LATER, AFTER showering and dressing, they ate a hasty breakfast while

standing at the kitchen counter: English muffins and raspberry jam, half

a banana each, and black coffee.  By mutual agreement, they were not

going to the office.  A brief call to Clint Karaghiosis confirmed that

the wrap-up on the Decodyne case was nearly completed, and that no other

business needed their urgent personal attention.

Their Suzuki Samurai waited in the garage, and Bobby's spirits rose at

the sight of it.  The Samurai was a small sports truck with four-wheel

drive.  He had justified its purchase by pitching its dual

nature-utilitarian and recreational-to Julie, especially noting its

comparatively reasonable price tag, but in fact he had wanted it because

it was fun to drive.  She had not been deceived, and she had gone for it

because she, too, thought it was fun to drive.  This time, she was

willing to let him have the wheel when he suggested she drive.

"I did enough driving last night," she said as she buckled herself into

her shoulder harness.

Dead leaves, twigs, a few scraps of paper, and less identifiable debris

whirled and tumbled along the windswept streets.  Dust devils spun out

of the east, as the Santa Anas-named for the mountains out of which they

arose-poured down through the canyons and across the arid,

scrub-stubbled hills that Orange County's industrious developers had not

yet graded and covered with thousands of nearly identical wood

and-stucco pieces of the California dream.  Trees bent to the surging

oceans of air that moved in powerful and erratic tides toward the real

sea in the west.  The previous night's fog was gone, and the day was so

clear that, from the hills, Catalina Island could be seen twenty-six

miles off the Pacific's distant coast.

Julie popped an Artie Shaw CD into the player, and the smooth melody and

softly bouncing rhythms of "Begin the Be guine" filled the car.  The

mellow saxophones of Les Robinson Hank Freeman, Tony Pastor, and Ronnie

Perry provided strange counterpoint to the chaos and dissonance of the

Santa Ana winds.

From Orange, Bobby drove south and west toward the beach cities-Newport,

Corona Del Mar, Laguna, and Dana Point.  He traveled as much as possible

on those few of the urbanize county's blacktop byways that could still

be called back roads They even passed a couple of orange groves, with

which the county had once been carpeted, but which had mostly fallen to

the relentless advance of the tracts and malls.

Julie became more talkative and bubbly as the miles rolled up on the

odometer, but Bobby knew that her spirited mood was not genuine.  Each

time they set out to visit her brother Thomas, she worked hard to

inflate her spirits.  Although she loved Thomas, every time that she was

with him, her fear broke anew, so she had to fortify herself in advance

with manufactured good humor.

"Not a cloud in the sky," she said, as they passed the Irvine Ranch

fruit-packing plant.

"Isn't it a beautiful day Bobby?"

"A wonderful day," he agreed.

"The wind must've pushed the clouds all the way to Japan piled them up

miles high over Tokyo."

"Yeah.  Right now California litter is falling on the Ginza."

Hundreds of red bougainvillea blossoms, stripped from their vines by the

wind, blew across the road, and for a moment the Samurai seemed to be

caught in a crimson snowstorm.  Maybe it was because they had just

spoken of Japan, but there was something oriental about the whirl of

petals.  He would not have been surprised to glimpse a kimono-clad woman

at the side of the road, dappled in sunshine and shadow.

"Even a windstorm is beautiful here," Julie said.

"Aren't we lucky, Bobby?  Aren't we lucky to be living in this special

place?"

Shaw's "Frenzies" struck up, string-rich swing.  Every time he heard the

song, Bobby was almost able to imagine that he was in a movie from the

1930s or '40s, that he would turn a corner and encounter his old friend

Jimmy Stewart or maybe Bing Crosby, and they'd go off to have lunch with

Cary Grant and Jean Arthur and Katharine Hepburn, while all kinds of

screwy things would happen.

"What movie are you in?"  Julie asked.  She knew him too well.

"Haven't figured it yet.  Maybe The Philadelphia Story.

By the time they pulled into the parking lot of Cielo Vista Care Home,

Julie had whipped herself into a state of high good humor.  She got out

of the Samurai, faced west, and grinned at the horizon, which was

delineated by the marriage of sea and sky, as if she had never before

encountered a sight to match it.  In truth it was a stunning panorama,

because Cielo Vista stood on a bluff half a mile from the Pacific,

overlooking a long stretch of southern California's Gold Coast.  Bobby

admired it, too, shoulders hunched slightly and head tucked down in

deference to the cool and blustery wind.

When Julie was ready, she took Bobby's hand and squeezed it hard, and

they went inside.

Cielo Vista Care Home was a private facility, operated without

government funds, and its architecture eschewed all of the standard

institutional looks.  Its two-story Spanish facade of pale peach stucco

was accented by white marble corner pieces, door frames, and window

lintels; white-painted French windows and doors were recessed in

graceful arches, with deep sills.  The sidewalks were shaded by lattice

arbors draped with a mix of purple- and yellow-blooming bougainvillea,

from which the wind drew a chorus of urgent whispers.  Inside, the

floors were gray vinyl tile, speckled with peach and turquoise, and the

walls were peach with white base and crown molding, which lent the place

a warm and airy ambience.

They paused in the foyer, just inside the front door, while Julie

withdrew a comb from her purse and pulled the wind tangles from her

hair.  After stopping at the front desk in the cozy visitors' lobby,

they followed the north hall to Thomas's first floor room.

His was the second of the two beds, nearest the windows, but he was

neither there nor in his armchair.  When they stopped in his open

doorway, he was sitting at the worktable that belonged to both him and

his roommate, Derek.  Bent over the table, using a pair of scissors to

clip a photograph from a magazine, Thomas appeared curiously both

hulking and fragile, thickset yet delicate; physically, he was solid but

mentally and emotionally he was frail, and that inner weakness shone

through to belie the outer image of strength.  With thick neck, heavy

rounded shoulders, broad back, proportionally short arms, and stocky

legs, Thomas had a gnomish look but when he became aware of them and

turned his head to see who was there, his face was not graced by the

cute and beguiling features of a fairy-tale creature; it was instead a

face of cruel genetic destiny and biological tragedy.

"Jules!"  he said, dropping the scissors and magazine, nearly knocking

over his chair in his haste to get up.  He was wearing baggy jeans and a

green-plaid flannel shirt.  He seemed years younger than his true age.

"Jules, Jules!"

Julie let go of Bobby's hand and stepped into the room opening her arms

to her brother.

"Hi, honey."  Thomas hurried to her in that shuffling walk of his, as if

his shoes were heeled and soled with enough iron to preclude lifting

them.  Although he was twenty years old, ten years younger than Julie,

he was four inches shorter than she, just barely five feet.  He had been

born with Down's syndrome, a diagnosis that even a layman could read in

his face: his brow was sloppy and heavy; inner epicanthic folds gave his

eyes an oriental cant the bridge of his nose was flat; his ears were

low-set on a head that was slightly too small to be in proportion to his

body; the rest of his features had those soft, heavy contours often

associated with mental retardation.  Though it was a common shaped more

for expressions of sadness and loneliness, it no less defied its

naturally downcast lines and formed itself into a wondrous smile, a warm

grin of pure delight.

Julie always had that effect on Thomas.

Hell, she has that effect on me, Bobby thought.

Stooping only slightly, Julie threw her arms around her brother when he

came to her, and for a while they hugged each other.

"How're you doing?"  she asked.

"Good," Thomas said.

"I'm good."  His speech was thick but not at all difficult to

understand, for his tongue was as deformed as those of some victims of

DS; it was a little larger than it should have been but not fissured or

protruding.

"I' real good."

"Where's Derek?"

"Visiting.  Down the hall.  He'll be back.  I'm real good.  Are you

good?"

"I'm fine, honey.  Just great."

"I'm just great too.  I love you, Jules," Thomas said happily, for with

Julie he was always free of the shyness that colored his relations with

everyone else.

"I love you so much."

"I love you, too, Thomas."

"I was afraid...  maybe you wouldn't come."

"Don't I always come?"

"Always," he said.  At last he relaxed his grip on his sister and peeked

around her.  "Hi, Bobby."

"Hi, Thomas.  You're looking' good."

"Am I?"

"If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'."

Thomas laughed.  To Julie, he said, "He's funny."

"Do I get a hug too?"  Bobby asked.

"Or do I have to stand here with my arms out until someone mistakes me

for a hatrack?"

Hesitantly, Thomas let go of his sister.  He and Bobby embraced.  After

all these years, Thomas was still not entirely comfortable with Bobby,

not because they had bad chemistry between them or any bad feelings, but

because Thomas didn't like change very much and adapted to it slowly.

Even after more than seven years, his sister being married was a change,

something that still felt new to him.

But he likes me, Bobby thought, maybe even as much as I like him.

Liking DS victims was not difficult, once you got past the pity that

initially distanced you from them, because most of them had an innocence

and guilelessness that was charming and refreshing.  Except when

inhibited by shyness or embarrassment about their differences, they were

usually forthright, more truthful than other people, and incapable of

the petty social games and scheming that marred so many relationships

among "ordinary" people.

The previous summer, at Cielo Vista's Fourth of July picnic, a mother of

one of the other patients had said to Bobby,

"Sometimes, watching them, I think there's something in them-a

gentleness, a special kindness that's closer to God than anything in

us."

Bobby felt the truth of that observation now, as he hugged Thomas and

looked down into his sweet, lumpish face.

"Did we interrupt a poem?"  Julie asked.

Thomas let go of Bobby and hurried to the work table, where Julie was

looking at the magazine from which he had been clipping a picture when

they'd arrived.  He opened his current scrapbook-fourteen others were

filled with his creations and shelved in a corner bookcase near his

bed-and pointed at a two-page spread of pasted-in clippings that were

arranged lines and quatrains, like poetry.

"This was yesterday.  Finished yesterday," Thomas said.

"Took me a looooong time, and it was hard, but now it...  is...  right."

Four or five years ago, Thomas had decided that he wanted to be a poet

like someone he had seen and admired on television.  The degree of

mental retardation among victims of Down's syndrome varied widely, from

mild to severe; Thomas was somewhere just above the middle of the

spectrum, but did not possess the intellectual capacity to learn to

write more than his name.  That didn't stop him.  He had asked for paper

glue, a scrapbook, and piles of old magazines.  Since he rarely asked

for anything, and since Julie would have moved a mountain on her back to

get him whatever he wanted, the items, his list, were soon in his

possession.

"All kinds of magazine he'd said, "with different pretty pictures... but

ugly too.  all kinds."  From Time, Newsweek, Life, Hot Rod, Omni,

Seventeen, and dozens of other publications, he snipped whole pictures

and parts of pictures, arranging them as if they were words, in a series

of images that made a statement that was important to him.  Some of his

"poems" were only five lines long, and some involved hundreds of

clippings arranged in dearly stanzas or, more often, in loosely

structured lines that resembled free verse.

Julie took the scrapbook from him and went to the armchair by the

window, where she could concentrate on his newest composition.  Thomas

remained at the worktable, watching her anxiously.

His picture poems did not tell stories or have recognizable thematic

narratives, but neither were they merely random jumbles of images.  A

church spire, a mouse, a beautiful worn in an emerald-green ball gown, a

field of daisies, a can of Do pineapple rings, a crescent moon, pancakes

in a stack with syrup drizzling down, rubies gleaming on a black-velvet

drape play cloth, a fish with mouth agape, a child laughing, a nun

praying, a woman crying over the blasted body of a loved one in some

Godforsaken war zone, a pack of Lifesavers, a puppy with floppy ears,

black-clad nuns with starched white wimples-from those and thousands of

other pictures in his treasured boxes of clippings, Thomas selected the

elements of his compositions.

From the beginning Bobby recognized an uncanny rightness to many of the

poems, a symmetry too fundamental to be defined, juxtapositions that

were both naive and profound, rhythms as real as they were elusive, a

personal vision plain to see but too mysterious to comprehend to any

significant degree.  Over the years, Bobby had seen the poems become

better, more satisfying, though he understood them so little that he

could not explain how he could discern the improvement; he just knew

that it was there.

Julie looked up from the two-page spread in the scrapbook and said,

"This is wonderful, Thomas.  It makes me want to...  run outside in the

grass...  and stand under the sky and maybe even dance, just throw my

head back and laugh.  It makes me glad to be alive."

"Yes!"  Thomas said, slurring the word, clapping his hands.

She passed the book to Bobby, and he sat on the edge of the bed to read

it.

The most intriguing thing about Thomas's poems was the emotional

response they invariably evoked.  None left a reader untouched, as an

array of randomly assembled images might have done.  Sometimes, when

looking at Thomas's work, Bobby laughed out loud, and sometimes he was

so moved that he had to blink back tears, and sometimes he felt fear or

sadness or regret or wonder.  He did not know why he responded to any

particular piece as he did; the effect always defied analysis.  Thomas's

compositions functioned on some primal level, eliciting reaction from a

region of the mind far deeper than the subconscious.

The latest poem was no exception.  Bobby felt what Julie had felt: that

life was good; that the world was beautiful; elation in the very fact of

existence.

He looked up from the scrapbook and saw that Thomas was awaiting his

reaction as eagerly as he had awaited Julie's, perhaps a sign that

Bobby's opinion was cherished as much as hers, even if he still didn't

rate as long or as ardent a hug as Julie did.

"Wow," he said softly.  "Thomas, this one gives such a warm, tingly

feeling that...  I think my toes are curling."  Thomas grinned.

Sometimes Bobby looked at his brother-in-law and felt two Thomases

shared that sadly deformed skull.  Thomas and one was the moron, sweet

but feebleminded.  Thomas and two was just as smart as anyone, but he

occupied one small part of the damaged brain that he shared with number

one, a chamber in the center, from which he had direct communication

with the outside world.  Although number two's thoughts had to be

filtered through number one's part of the brain, so they ended up

sounding different from Thomas number one's thoughts; therefore the

world could not know that number two was in there, thin and feeling and

fully alive-except through the evidence of picture poems, the essence of

which survived even after being filtered through Thomas number one.

"You've got such a talent," Bobby said, and he meant it almost envied

it.

Thomas blushed and lowered his eyes.  He rose and quickly shuffled to

the softly humming refrigerator that stood by the door to the bathroom.

Meals were served in the communal dining room, where snacks and drinks

were provided on request, but patients with sufficient mental capacity

to keep their rooms neat were allowed to have their own refrigerators

stocked with their favorite snacks and drinks, to encourage as much

independence as possible.  He withdrew three cans of Coke.  He gave one

to Bobby, one to Julie.  With the third he returned to the chair at the

worktable, sat down, and asked, "You been catchin' bad guys?"

"Yeah, we're keeping the jails full," Bobby said.

"Tell me."

Julie leaned forward in the armchair, and Thomas scooted his

straight-backed chair closer to her, until their knees touched, and she

recounted the highlights of the events at Decodyne last night.  She made

Bobby more heroic than he'd really been, and she played down her own

involvement a little not only out of modesty but in order not to

frighten Thomas with too clear a picture of the danger in which she had

gotten herself.  Thomas was tough in his own way; if he hadn't been he

would have curled up on his bed long ago, facing into the corner, and

never gotten up again.  But he was not tough enough to endure the loss

of Julie.  He would be devastated even to imagine that she was

vulnerable.  So she made her daredevil driving and the shoot-out sound

funny, exciting but not really dangerous.  Her revised version of events

entertained Bobby nearly as much as it did Thomas.

After a while, as usual, Thomas became overwhelmed by what Julie was

telling him, and the tale grew more confusing than entertaining.

"I'm full up," he said, which meant he was still trying to process

everything he had been told, and didn't have room for any more just now.

He was fascinated by the world outside Cielo Vista, and he often longed

to be a part of it, but at the same time he found it too loud and bright

and colorful to be handled in more than small doses.

Bobby got one of the older scrapbooks from the shelves and sat on the

bed, reading picture poems.

Thomas and Julie sat in their chairs, Cokes put aside, knees to knees,

leaning forward and holding hands, sometimes looking at each other,

sometimes not, just being together, close.  Julie needed that as much as

Thomas did.

Julie's mother had been killed when Julie was twelve.  Her father had

died eight years later, two years before Bobby and Julie had been

married.  She'd been only twenty at the time, working as a waitress to

put herself through college and to pay her half of the rent on a studio

apartment she shared with another student.  Her parents had never been

rich, and though they had kept Thomas at home, the expense of looking

after him had depleted what little savings they'd ever had.  When her

dad died, Julie had been unable to afford an apartment for her and

Thomas, to say nothing of the time required to help him cope in a

civilian environment, so she'd been forced to commit him to a state

institution for mentally disabled children.  Though Thomas never held it

against her, she viewed the commitment as a betrayal of him.

She had intended to get a degree in criminology, but she dropped out of

school during her third year and applied to the sheriffs' academy.  She

had worked as a deputy for fourteen months by the time Bobby met and

married her; she had been living on peanuts, her life-style hardly

better than that of a bag lady, saving most of her salary in hope of

putting together a nest egg that would allow her to buy a small house

someday take Thomas in with her.  Shortly after they were married when

Dakota Investigations became Dakota & and Dakota, they brought Thomas to

live with them.  But they worked irregular hours, and although some

victims of Down's syndrome were capable of living to a degree on their

own, Thomas needed someone nearby at all times.  The cost of three daily

shift qualified companions was even more than the cost of his care at a

private institution like Cielo Vista; but they would have borne it if

they could have found enough reliable help.

When it became impossible to conduct their business, have a life of

their own, and take care of Thomas, too, they brought him to Cielo

Vista.  It was as comfortable a care institution that ever existed, but

Julie viewed it was her second betrayal of her brother.  That he was

happy at Cielo Vista, even thrived it did not lighten her burden of

guilt.

One part of The Dream, an important part, was to have time and financial

resources to bring Thomas home again.

Bobby looked up from the scrapbook just as Julie asked, "Thomas, think

you'd like to go out with us for a while?

Thomas and Julie were still holding hands, and Bobby his

brother-in-law's grip tighten at the suggestion of an excursion.

"We could just go for a drive," Julie said.

"Down to the Walk on the shore.  Get an ice cream cone.  What do you

say?"

Thomas looked nervously at the nearest window, who framed a portion of

clear blue sky, where white sea gulls oddly swooped and capered.

"It's bad out."

"Just a little windy, honey."

"Don't mean the wind."

"We'll have fun."

"It's bad out," he repeated.  He chewed on his lower lip.  At times he

was eager to venture out into the world, but other times he withdrew

from the prospect as if the air outside Cielo Vista was purest poison.

Thomas could never be argued or cajoled out of that agoraphobic mood,

and Julie knew better than to push the issue.

"Maybe next time," she said.

"Maybe," Thomas said, looking at the floor.

"But feel really bad.  I...  sort of feel it...  the badness...  cold

over my skin."

For a while Bobby and Julie tried various subjects, but Thomas was

talked out.  He said nothing, did not make eye contact, and gave no

indication that he even heard them.

They sat together in silence, then, until after a few minutes Thomas

said, "Don't go yet."

"We're not going," Bobby assured him.

"Just 'cause I can't talk...  don't mean I want you gone."

"We know that, kiddo," Julie said.

"I...  need you."

"I need you too," Julie said.  She lifted one of her brother's

thick-fingered hands and kissed his knuckles.

AFter BUYING an electric razor at a drug store Frank Pollard shaved and

washed as best he could in a service station restroom.  He stopped at a

shopping mall and bought a suitcase, underwear, socks, a couple of

shirts, another pair of jeans, and incidentals.  In the mall parking

lot, with the stolen Chevy rocking slightly in the gusting wind, he

packed the other purchases in the suitcase.  Then he drove to a motel in

Irvine, where he checked in under the name of George Ferris, using one

of the sets of ID he possessed, making a cash deposit because he lacked

a credit card.  He had cash in advance.

He could have stayed in the Laguna area; but he sensed that he should

not remain in one place too long.  Maybe his wariness was based on hard

experience.  Or maybe he had been on the run for so long that he had

become a creature of motion could never again be truly comfortable at

rest.

The motel room was large, clean, and tastefully decorated The designer

had been swept up in the southwest craze: white washed wood, rattan side

chairs with cushions upholstered peach and pale-blue patterns,

seafoam-green drapes.  Only mottled-brown carpet, evidently chosen for

its ability to conceal stains and wear, spoiled the effect; by contrast,

the light hued furnishings seemed not merely to stand on the dark carpet

but to float above it, creating spatial illusions that were

disconcerting, even slightly eerie.

For most of the afternoon Frank sat on the bed, using a pile of pillows

as a back rest.  The television was on, but he didn't watch it. Instead,

he probed at the black hole of his past.  Hard as he tried, he could

still not recall anything of his life prior to waking in the alleyway

the previous night.  Some strange a exceedingly malevolent shape loomed

at the edge of recollection, however, and he wondered uneasily if

forgetfulness actually might be a blessing.

He needed help.  Given the cash in the flight bag and his two sets of

ID, he suspected that he would be unwise to seek assistance from the

authorities.  He withdrew the Yellow Pages from one of the night stands

and studied the listings for private investigators.  But a PI called to

mind old Humphrey Bogart movies and seemed like an anachronism in this

modern age.  How could a guy in a trench coat and a snap-brimmed fedora

help him recover his memory?

Eventually, with the wind singing melodies at the window, Frank

stretched out to get some of the sleep he had missed last night.

A few hours later, just an hour before dusk, he woke suddenly,

whimpering, gasping for breath.  His heart pounded furiously.

When he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, he saw that

his hands were wet and scarlet.  His shirt and jeans were smeared with

blood.  Some, though surely not all of it, was his own blood, for both

of his hands bore deep, oozing scratches.  His face stung, and in the

bathroom, the mirror revealed two long scratches on his right cheek, one

on his left cheek, and a fourth on his chin.

He could not understand how this could have happened in his sleep.  If

he had torn at himself in some bizarre dream frenzy-and he could recall

no dream-or if someone else had clawed him while he slept, he would have

awakened at once.  Which meant that he had been awake when it had

happened, then had stretched out on the bed again and gone back to

sleep-and had forgotten the incident, just as he had forgotten his life

prior to that alleyway last night.

He returned in panic to the bedroom and looked on the other side of the

bed, then in the closet.  He was not sure what he was looking for. Maybe

a dead body.  He found nothing.

The very thought of killing anyone made him sick.  He knew he did not

have the capacity to kill, except perhaps in self defense.  So who had

scratched his face and hands?  Whose blood was on him?

In the bathroom again, he stripped out of his stained clothes and rolled

them into a tight bundle.  He washed his face and hands.  He had a

styptic pencil along with other shaving gear; he used that to stop the

scratches from bleeding.

When he met his own eyes in the mirror, they were haunted that he had to

look away.

Frank dressed in fresh clothes and snatched the car keys from the

dresser.  He was afraid of what he might find in the Chevy parked At the

door, as he disengaged the dead bolt, he realized that neither the frame

nor the door itself was smeared with blood.  If he had left during the

afternoon and returned, bleeding from his hands, he would not have had

the presence of mind to wipe the door clean before climbing into bed.

Anyway, he had seen no bloody washcloth or tissues with which a cleanup

might have been accomplished.

Outside, the sky was clear; the westerly sun was bright.  the motel's

palm trees shivered in a cool wind.

The concrete walkway outside his room was not spotted with blood.  The

interior of the car was free of blood.  No blood marked the dirty rubber

mat in the trunk, either.

He stood by the open trunk, blinking at the sun-wash motel and parking

lot around him.  Three doors down, a man and woman in their twenties

were unloading luggage from their black Pontiac.  Another couple and

their grade-school-a daughter were hurrying along the covered walkway,

apparently heading toward the motel restaurant.  Frank realized that he

could not have gone out and committed murder and turned, blood-soaked

and in broad daylight, without being seen.

In his room again, he went to the bed and studied the rumpled sheets.

They were crimson-spotted, but not a fraction saturated as they would

have been if the attack-whatever nature-had happened there.  Of course,

with all the blood, it might have spilled mostly on the front of his

shirt and jeans.  But he still couldn't believe that he had clawed

himself in his sleep-one hand ripping at the other, both hands tearing

at his face-without waking.

Besides, he had been scratched by someone with sharp fingernails.  His

own nails were blunt, bitten down to the quick.

SOUTH OF Cielo Vista Care Home, between Corona Del Mar and Laguna, Bobby

tucked the Samurai into a corner of a parking lot at a public beach.  He

and Julie walked down to the shore.

The sea was marbled blue and green, with thin veins of gray.  The water

was dark in the troughs, lighter and more colorful where the waves rose

and were half pierced by the rays of the fat, low sun.  In serried ranks

the breakers moved toward the strand, big but not huge, wearing caps of

foam that the wind snatched from them.

Surfers in black wet suits paddled their boards out toward where the

swell rose, seeking a last ride before twilight.  Others, also in wet

suits, sat around a couple of big coolers, drinking hot beverages from

thermos bottles or Coors from the can.  The day was too cool for

sunbathing, and except for the surfers, the beach was deserted.

Bobby and Julie walked south until they found a low knoll, far enough

back from the water to escape the spray.  They sat on the stiff grass

that flourished in patches in the sandy soil.

When at last she spoke, Julie said,

"A place like this, with a view like this.  Not a big place."

"Doesn't have to be.  A living room, one bedroom for us and one for

Thomas, maybe a cozy little den lined with books."

"We don't even need a dining room, but I'd like a big kitchen."

"Yeah.  A kitchen you can really live in."  She sighed.

"Music, books, real home-cooked meals instead of junk food grabbed on

the fly, lots of time to sit on the porch and enjoy the view-and the

three of us together."

That was the rest of The Dream: a place by the sea and by otherwise

living simply-enough financial security to retire twenty years early.

One of the things that had drawn Bobby to Julie-and Julie to him-was

their shared awareness of the shortness of life.  Everyone knew that

life was too short, of course, but most people pushed that thought out

of mind, living as if there were endless tomorrows.  If most people

weren't able to deceive themselves about death, they could not have

cared so passionately about the outcome of a ball game, the plot of a

soap opera, the blatherings of politicians, or a thousand other things

that actually meant nothing when considered against the inevitable fall

of the endless night that finally came to everyone.  They could not have

endured to waste a minute standing in a supermarket line and would not

have suffered hours in the company of bores or fools.  Maybe a world lay

beyond this on maybe even Heaven, but you couldn't count on it; you

could count only on darkness.  Self-deception in this case was a

blessing.  Neither Bobby nor Julie was a gloom-monger.  She knew how to

enjoy life as well as anyone, and so did he, even if neither of them

could buy the fragile illusion of immortality than served most people as

a defense against the unthinkable.  This awareness expressed itself not

in anxiety or depression, but in a strong resolve not to spend their

lives in a hurly-burly meaningless activity, to find a way to finance

long stretches time together in their own serene little tide pool.

As her chestnut hair streamed in the wind, Julie squinted at the far

horizon, which was filling up with honey-gold light as the sinking sun

drizzled toward it.

"What frightens Thomas about being out in the world is people, too many

people.  But he'd be happy in a little house by the sea, a quiet stretch

of coast, few people.

"I'm sure he would."

"It'll happen," Bobby assured her.

"By the time we build the agency big enough to sell, the southern coast

will be too expensive.  But north of Santa Barbara is pretty."

"It's a long coast," Bobby said, putting an arm around her.

"We'll still be able to find a place in the south.  And we'll have time

to enjoy it.  We're not going to live forever, but we're young.  Our

numbers aren't going to come up for years an years yet."  But he

remembered the premonition that had shivered through him in bed that

morning, after they had made love, the feeling that something malevolent

was out there in the windswept world, coming to take Julie away from

him.

The sun had touched the horizon and begun to melt into it.  The golden

light deepened swiftly to orange and then to bloody red.  The grass and

tall weeds behind them rustled in the wind, and Bobby looked over his

shoulder at the spirals of airborne sand that swirled across the slope

between the beach and the parking lot, like pale spirits that had fled a

graveyard with the coming of twilight.  From the east a wall of night

was toppling over the world.  The air had grown downright cold.

CANDY SLEPT all day in the front bedroom that had once been his

mother's, breathing her special scent.  Two or three times a week, he

carefully shook a few drops of her favorite perfume-Channel Number

Five-onto a white, lace-trimmed handkerchief, which he kept on the

dresser beside her silver comb-and-brush set, so each breath he took in

the room reminded him of her.  Occasionally he half woke from slumber to

readjust the pillows or pull the covers more tightly around him, and the

trace of perfume always lulled him as if it were a tranquilizer; each

time he happily drifted back into his dreams.

He slept in sweatpants and a T-shirt, because he had a hard time finding

pajamas large enough and because he was too modest to sleep in the nude

or even in his underwear.  Being unclothed embarrassed Candy, even when

no one was around to see him.

All of that long Thursday afternoon, hard winter sun reeled the world

outside, but little got past the flower-patterned shades and

rose-colored drapes that guarded the two window The few times he woke

and blinked at the shadows, Candy saw only the pearl-gray glimmer of the

dresser mirror and glint from the silver-framed photographs on the night

stand Drugged by sleep and by the freshly applied perfume on the

handkerchief, he could easily imagine that his beloved mother was in her

rocking chair, watching over him, and he felt safe.  He came fully awake

shortly before sunset and lay for a while with his hands folded behind

his head, staring up at the underside of the canopy that arched over the

four-poster; he could not see it, but he knew it was there, and in his

mind could conjure up a vivid image of the fabric's rosebud patter.  For

a while he thought about his mother, about the best time of his life,

now all gone, and then he thought about the girl, the boy, and the woman

he had killed last night.  He tried to recall the taste of their blood,

but that memory was not as intense as those involving his mother.

After a while he switched on a bedside lamp and looked around at the

comfortably familiar room: rosebud wallpaper; rosebud bedspread; rosebud

blinds; rose-colored drapes and carpets; dark mahogany bed, dresser, and

highboy.  Two afghans-one green like the leaves of a rose, one the shade

of the petals-were draped over the arms of the rocking chair.

He went into the adjoining bathroom, locked and tested the door.  The

only light came from the fluorescent panels in the soffit, over the

sink, for he had long ago lathered black paint on the small high window.

He studied his face in the mirror for a moment because he liked the way

he looked.  He could see his mother in his face.  He had her blond hair,

so pale it was almost white, and her sea-blue eyes.  His face was all

hard planes and strong features, with none of her beauty or gentleness,

though his full mouth was as generous as hers.

As he undressed, he avoided looking down at himself.  He was proud of

his powerful shoulders and arms, his broad chest, and his muscular legs,

but even catching a glimpse of the sex thing made him feel dirty and

mildly ill.  He sat on the toilet to make water, so he wouldn't have to

touch himself.  During his shower, when he soaped his crotch, he first

pulled on a mitten that he had sewn from a pair of washcloths, so the

flesh of his hand would not have to touch the wicked flesh below.

When he had dried off and dressed-athletic socks, running shoes, dark

gray cords, black shirt-he hesitantly left the reliable shelter of his

mother's old room.  Night had fallen, and the upstairs hall was poorly

lit by two low-wattage bulbs in a ceiling fixture that was coated with

gray dust and missing half its pendant crystals.  To his left was the

head of the staircase.  To his right were his sisters' room, his old

room, and the other bath, the doors to which stood open; no lights were

on back there.  The oak floor creaked, and the threadbare runner did

little to soften his footsteps.  He sometimes thought he should give the

rest of the house a thorough cleaning, maybe even spring for some new

carpeting and fresh paint; however, though he kept his mother's room

spotless and in good repair, he was not motivated to spend time or money

on the rest of the house, and his sisters had little interest in-or

talent for homemaking.

A flurry of soft footfalls alerted him to the approach of the cats, and

he stopped short of the stairs, afraid of treading on one of their paws

or tails as they poured into the upstairs hallway.  A moment later they

streamed over the top step and swarmed around him: twenty-six of them,

if his most recent count was not out of date.  Eleven were black,

several more were chocolate-brown or tobacco-brown or charcoal-gray, two

were deep gold, and only one was white.  Violet and Verbina, his

sisters, preferred dark cats, the darker the better.

The animals milled around him, walking over his shoes, rubbing against

his legs, curling their tails around his calve Among them were two

Angoras, an Abyssinian, a tall Manx, a Maltese, and a tortoise shell,

but most were mongrel cats of no easily distinguished lineage.  Some had

green some yellow, some silver-gray, some blue, and they all regarded

him with great interest.  Not one of them purred or mowed; their

inspection was conducted in absolute silence.

Candy did not particularly like cats, but he tolerated them not only

because they belonged to his sisters but because, in a way, they were

virtually an extension of Violet and Verbina To have hurt them, to have

spoken harshly to them, would have been the same as striking out at his

sisters, which he could never do because his mother, on her death bed,

had admonished him to provide for the girls and protect them.

In less than a minute the cats had fulfilled their mission and almost as

one, turned from him.  With much swishing of tail and flexing of feline

muscles and rippling of fur, they flowed like a single beast to the head

of the stairs and down.

By the time he reached the first step, they were at the dining room

turning, slipping out of sight.  He descended to the low hall, and the

cats were gone.  He passed the lightless and must smelling parlor.  The

odor of mildew drifted out of the stud where shelves were filled with

the moldering romance novels that his mother had liked so much, and when

he pass through the dimly lit dining room, litter crunched under his

shoes.

Violet and Verbina were in the kitchen.  They were identical twins. They

were equally blond, with the same fair and flawless skin, with the same

china-blue eyes, smooth brows, high cheekbones, straight noses with

delicately carved nostrils, lips that were naturally red without

lipstick, and small even teeth as bone-white as those of their cats.

Candy tried to like his sisters, and failed.  For his mother's sake he

could not dislike them, so he remained neutral, sharing the house with

them but not as a real family might share it.  They were too thin, he

thought, fragile-looking, almost frail, and too pale, like creatures

that infrequently saw the sun which in fact seldom warmed them, since

they rarely went outside.  Their slim hands were well manicured, for

they groomed themselves as constantly as if they, too, were cats; but,

to Candy, their fingers seemed excessively long, unnaturally flexible

and nimble.  Their mother had been robust, with strong features and good

color, and Candy often wondered how such a vital woman could have

spawned this pallid pair.

The twins had piled up cotton blankets, six thick, in one corner of the

big kitchen, to make a large area where the cats could lie comfortably,

though the padding was actually for Violet and Verbina, so they could

sit on the floor among the cats for hours at a time.  When Candy entered

the room, they were on the blankets, with cats all around them and in

their laps.  Violet was filing Verbina's fingernails with an emery

board.  Neither of them looked up, though of course they had already

greeted him through the cats.  Verbina had never spoken a word within

Candy's hearing, not in her entire twenty-five years-the twins were four

years younger than he was,-but he was not sure whether she was unable to

talk, merely unwilling to talk, or shy of talking only when around him.

Violet was nearly as silent as her sister, but she did speak when

necessary; apparently, at the moment, she had nothing that needed to be

said.

He stood by the refrigerator, watching them as they huddled over

Verbina's pale right hand, grooming it, and he supposed that he was

unfair in his judgment of them.  Other men might find them attractive in

a strange way.  Though, to him, their limbs seemed too thin, other men

might see them as supple and erotic, like the legs of dancers and the

arms of acrobats.  Their skin was clear as milk, and their breasts were

full.  Because he was blessedly free of any interest in sex, he was not

qualified to judge their appeal.

They habitually wore as little as possible, as little as he would

tolerate before ordering them to put on more clothes.  They kept the

house excessively warm in winter, and more often dressed-as now-in

T-shirts and short shorts or panties barefoot and bare-limbed.  Only his

mother's room, which was now his, was kept cooler, because he had closed

the vents there.  Without his presence to demand a degree of modesty

they would have roamed the house in the nude.

Lazily, lazily, Violet filed Verbina's thumbnail, and they both stared

at it was intently as if the meaning of life was to read in the curve of

the half-moon or the arc of the nail itself.  Candy raided the

refrigerator, removing a chunk of canned ham, a package of Swiss cheese,

mustard, pickles, and a quart of milk.  He got bread from one of the

cupboards and sat on a rail back chair at the age-yellowed table.

The table, chairs, cabinets, and woodwork had once been glossy white,

but they had not been painted since before his mother died.  They were

yellow-white now, gray-white in the seams and corners, crackle-finished

by time.  The dais patterned wallpaper was soiled and, in a couple of

places, peeling along the seams, and the chintz curtains hung limp

covered with grease and dust.

Candy made and consumed two thick ham-and-cheese sandwiches.  He gulped

the milk straight from the carton.

Suddenly all twenty-six cats, which had been sprawling languidly around

the twins, sprang up simultaneously, proceeded to the pet door in the

bottom of the larger kitchen door, and went outside in orderly fashion.

Time to make their toilet, evidently.

Violet and Verbina didn't want the house smelling of litter boxes.

Candy closed his eyes and took a long swallow of milk.

He would have preferred it at room temperature or even slightly warm. It

tasted vaguely like blood, though not as pleasant pungent; it would have

been more like blood if it had not been chilled.

Within a couple of minutes the cats returned.  Now Verbina was lying on

her back, with her head propped on a pillow, eyes closed, lips moving as

if talking to herself, though no sound issued from her.  She extended

her other slender hand so his sister could meticulously file those nails

too.  Her long legs were spread, and Candy could see between her smooth

thighs.  She was wearing only a T-shirt and flimsy peach-colored panties

that defined rather than concealed the cleft of her womanhood.  The

silent cats swarmed to her, draped themselves over her, more concerned

about propriety than she was, and they regarded Candy accusatory, as if

they knew that he'd been staring.

He lowered his eyes and studied the crumbs on the table.

Violet said, "Frankie was here."

At first he was more surprised by the fact that she had spoken than by

what she had said.  Then the meaning of those three words reverberated

through him as if he were a brass gong struck by a mallet.  He stood up

so abruptly that he knocked over his chair.

"He was here?  In the house?"

Neither the cats nor Verbina twitched at the crash of the chair or the

sharpness of his voice.  They lay somnolent, indifferent.

"Outside," Violet said, still sitting on the floor beside her reclining

sister, working on the other twin's nails.  She had a low, almost

whispery voice.

"Watching the house from the Eugenia hedge."

Candy glanced at the night beyond the windows.

"When?"

"Around four o'clock."

"Why didn't you wake me?"

"He wasn't here long.  He's never here long.  A minute or two, then he

goes.  He's afraid."

"You saw him?"

"I knew he was there."

"You didn't try to stop him from leaving?"

"How could I?"

She sounded irritable now, but her voice was no less seductive than it

had been.

"The cats went after him, though."

"Did they hurt him?"

"A little.  Not bad.  But he killed Samantha."

"Who?"

"Our poor little pussy.  Samantha."

Candy did not know the cats' names.  They had always seemed to be not

just a pack of cats but a single creature, most often moving as one,

apparently thinking as one.

"He killed Samantha.  Smashed her head against one of the stone

pilasters at the end of the walk."  At last Violet looked up from her

sister's hand.  Her eyes seemed to be a paler blue than before, icy.

"I want you to hurt him, Candy.  I want you to hurt him real bad, the

way he hurt our cat.  I don't care if he is our brother-"

"He isn't our brother any more, not after what he did Candy said

furiously.

"I want you to do to him what he did to our poor Samantha I want you to

smash him, Candy, I want you to crush his head crack his skull open

until his brains ooze out."  She continued to speak softly, but he was

riveted by her words.  Sometimes, like now, when her voice was even more

sensuous than us it seemed not merely to play upon his ears but to

slither inside his head, where it lay gently on his brain, like a mist,

a

"I want you to pound him, hit him and tear him until he's just

splintered bones and ruptured guts, and I want you to rip his eyes.  I

want him to be sorry he hurt Samantha."  Candy shook himself.

"If I get my hands on him, I'll kill him, all right, but not because of

what he did to your cat.

cause of what he did to our mother.  Don't you remember what he did to

her?  How can you worry about getting revenge on a cat when we still

haven't made him pay for our mother, after seven long years?"  She

looked stricken, turned her face from him, and fell silent.

The cats flowed off Verbina's recumbent form.

Violet stretched out half atop her sister, half beside her.

and put her head on Verbina's breasts.  Their bare legs were twined.

Rising part of the way out of her trance like state, Verbina stroked her

sister's silken hair.

The cats returned and cuddled against both twins where there was a warm

hollow to welcome them.

"Frank was here," Candy said aloud but largely to himself and his hands

curled into tight fists.

A fury grew in him, like a small turning wheel of wind out on the sea

but soon to whirl itself into a hurricane.  However, rage was an emotion

he dared not indulge; he must control himself.  A storm of rage would

water the seeds of his need.  His mother would approve of killing Frank,

for Frank had betrayed the family; his death would benefit the family.

But if Candy let his anger at his brother swell into a rage, then was

unable to find Frank, he would have to kill someone else because the

need would be too great to deny.  His mother, in Heaven, would be

ashamed of him, and for a while she would turn her face from him and

deny that she had ever given birth to him.  Looking up at the ceiling,

toward the unseen sky and the place at God's court where his mother

dwelled, Candy said,

"I'll be okay.  I won't lose control.  I won't."  He turned from his

sisters and the cats, and he went outside to see if any trace of Frank

remained near the Eugenia hedge or at the pilaster where he'd killed

Samantha.

BOBBY AND Julie ate dinner at Ozzie's, in Orange then shifted to the

adjoining bar.  The music was provided Eddie Day, who had a smooth,

supple voice; he played contemporary stuff but also tunes from the

fifties and early sixties.

It wasn't Big Band, but some early rock-and-roll had a swing beat.  They

could swing to numbers like "Dream Love, rumba to "La Bamba," and

cha-cha to any disco that was put into Eddie's repertoire, so they had a

good time.

Whenever possible, Julie liked to go dancing after she visited Thomas at

Cielo Vista.  In the thrall of the music, keeping time to the beat,

focused on the patterns of the dance, she was able to put everything

else out of her mind-even guilt, even grief.  Nothing else freed her so

completely.  Bobby liked to dance too, especially swing.  Tuck in, throw

out, change places, pull push, do a tight whip, tuck in again, throw

out, trade places with both hands linked, back to basic position...

Music soothed, but dance had the power to fill the heart with joy a to

numb those parts of it that were bruised.

During the musicians' break, Bobby and Julie sipped beer at a table near

the edge of the parquet dance floor.  They talked about everything

except Thomas, and eventually they got around to The Dream-specifically,

how to furnish the seaside bungalow if they ever bought it.  Though they

would not spend a fortune on furniture, they agreed that they could

indulge themselves with two pieces from the swing era: maybe a bronze

and marble Art Deco cabinet by Emile-Jacques Ruhlman and definitely a

Wurlitzer jukebox.

"The model 950," Julie said.

"It was gorgeous.  Bubble tub Leaping gazelles on the front panels."

"Fewer than four thousand were made.  Hitler's fault.  Wurlitzer

retooled for war production.  The model 500 is pretty too -or the 700."

"Nice, but they're not the 950."

"Not as expensive as the 950, either."

"You're counting pennies when we're talking ultimate beauty?"  He said,

"Ultimate beauty is the Wurlitzer 950?"

"That's right.  What else?"

"To me, you're the ultimate beauty."

"Sweet," she said.

"But I still want the 950."

"To you, aren't I the ultimate beauty?"

He batted his eyelashes.

"To me, you're just a difficult man who won't let me have my Wurlitzer

950," she said, enjoying the game.

"What about a Seeburg?  A Packard Player-moor?  Okay.  A Rock-ola?"

"Rock-ola made some beautiful boxes," she agreed.

"We'll buy one of those and the Wurlitzer 950."

"You'll spend our money like a drunken sailor."

"I was born to be rich.  Stork got confused.  Didn't deliver me to the

Rockefellers."

"Wouldn't you like to get your hands on that stork now?"

"Got him years ago.  Cooked him, ate him for Christmas dinner.  He was

delicious, but I'd still rather be a Rockefeller."

"Happy?"  Bobby asked.

"Delirious.  And it's not just the beer.  I don't know why, but tonight

I feel better than I've felt in ages.  I think we're going to get where

we want to go, Bobby.  I think we're going to retire early and live a

long happy life by the sea."

His smile faded as she talked.  Now he was frowning.  She said, "What's

wrong with you, Sourpuss?"

"Nothing."

"Don't kid me.  You've been a little strange all day.  You've tried to

hide it, but something's on your mind."

He sipped his beer.  Then: "Well, you've got this good feeling that

everything's going to be fine, but I've got a bad feeling."

"You?  Mr. Blue Skies?"  He was still frowning.

"Maybe you should confine yourself to office work for a while, stay off

the firing line."

"Why?"

"My bad feeling."

"Which is?"  "That I'm going to lose you."

"Just try."

WITH ITS invisible baton, the wind conducted a chorus of whispery voices

in the hedgerow.  The dense Eugenias formed a seven-foot-high wall

around three sides of the two-acre property, and they would have been

higher than the house itself if Candy had not used power trimmers to

chop off the tops of them a couple of times each year.

He opened the waist-high, wrought-iron gate between the two stone

pilasters, and stepped out onto the graveled shoulder of the county

road.  To his left, the two-lane blacktop wound up into the hills for

another couple of miles.  To his right, it dropped down toward the

distant coast, past houses on lots that were more parsimoniously

proportioned the nearer they were to the shore, until in town they were

only a tenth as big as the Pollard place.  As the land descended

westward, lights were clustered in ever greater concentration-then

stopped abruptly, several miles away, as if crowding against a black

wall; that wall was the night sky and the lightless expanse of the deep,

cold sea.

Candy moved along the high hedge, until he sensed that he had reached

the place where Frank had stood.  He held up both big hands, letting the

wind-fluttered leaves tremble against his palms, as if the foliage might

impart to him some psychic residue of his brother's brief visit.

Nothing.

Parting the branches, he peered through the gap at the house, which

looked larger at night than it really was, as if it had eighteen or

twenty rooms instead of ten.  The front windows were dark; along the

side, toward the back, where the light was filtered through greasy

chintz curtains, a kitchen window was filled with a yellow glow.  But

for that one light, the house might have appeared abandoned.  Some of

the Victorian gingerbread had warped and broken away from the eaves. The

porch roof was sagging, and a few railing balusters were ken, and the

front steps were swaybacked.  Even by the mere light of the low crescent

moon, he could see the house needed painting; bare wood, like glimpses

of dark bone, showed many places, and the remaining paint was either

peeling translucent as an albino's skin.

Candy tried to put himself in Frank's mind, to imagine Frank kept

returning.  Frank was afraid of Candy, and he had reason to be.  He was

afraid of his sisters, too, and of all memories that the house held for

him, so he should have stayed away.  But he crept back with frequency,

in search of something-perhaps something that even he did not understand

Frustrated, Candy let the branches fall together, retraced his steps

along the hedge, and stopped at one gate post, then other, searching for

the spot where Frank had fended off cats and smashed Samantha's skull.

Though far milder than it had been earlier, the wind nevertheless had

dried blood that had stained the stones, and darkness hid the residue

Still, Candy was sure he could find the killing place.  He gently

touched the pilaster high and low, on all four faces, if he expected a

portion of it to be hot enough to sear his hand.  But though he

patiently traced the outlines of the rough stones and the mortar seams,

too much time had passed; even his exceptional talents could not extract

his brother's lingering and He hurried along the cracked and canted

walkway, out the chilly night and into the stiflingly warm house again,

i the kitchen, where his sisters were sitting on the blankets the cats'

corner.  Verbina was behind Violet, a comb in hand and a brush in the

other, grooming her sister's flat hair.

Candy said, "Where's Samantha?"

Tilting her head, looking up at him perplexedly, Violet said, "I told

you.  Dead."

"Where's the body?"

"Here," Violet said, making a sweeping gesture with hands to indicate

the quiescent felines sprawled and curled around her.

"Which one?"  Candy asked.  Half of the creatures were still that any of

them might have been the dead one.

"All," Violet said.

"They're all Samantha now."  Candy had been afraid of that.  Each time

one of them died, the twins drew the rest of the pack into a circle,

placed the corpse at the center, and without speaking commanded the

living to partake of the dead.

"Damn," Candy said.

"Samantha still lives, she's still a part of us," Violet said.  Her

voice was as low and whispery as before, but dreamier than usual.

"None of our pussies ever really leaves us.  Part of him...  or her...

stays in each of us...  and we're all stronger because of that, stronger

and purer, and always together, always and forever."

Candy did not ask if his sisters had shared in the feast, for he already

knew the answer.  Violet licked the corner of her mouth, as if

remembering the taste, and her moist lips glistened; a moment later

Verbina's tongue slid across her lips too.

Sometimes Candy felt as if the twins were members of an entirely

different species from him, for he could seldom fathom their attitudes

and behavior.  And when they looked at him Verbina, in perpetual

silence-their faces and eyes revealed nothing of their thoughts or

feelings; they were as inscrutable as the cats.

He only dimly grasped the twins' bond with the cats.  It was their

blessed mother's gift to them just as his many talents were his mother's

generous bequest to him, so he did not question the rightness or

wholesomeness of it.

Still, he wanted to hit Violet because she hadn't saved the body for

him.  She had known Frank had touched it, that it could be of use to

Candy, but she had not saved it until he'd awakened, had not come to

wake him early.  He wanted to smash her, but she was his sister, and he

couldn't hurt his sisters; he had to provide for them, protect them. His

mother was watching.

"The parts that couldn't be eaten?"  he asked.

Violet gestured toward the kitchen door.

He switched on the outside light and stepped onto the back porch.  Small

knobs of bone and vertebrae were scattered like queerly shaped dice on

the unpainted floorboards.  Only two sides of the porch were open; the

house angled around the other two flanks of it, and in the niche where

the house walls met, Candy found a piece of Samantha's tail and scraps

of fur, jammed there by the night wind.  The half-crushed skull was on

the top step.  He snatched it up and moved down on to unmown lawn.

The wind, which had been declining since late afternoon suddenly stopped

altogether.  The cold air would have carried the faintest sound a great

distance; but the night was hushed.  Usually Candy could touch an object

and see who had handled it before him.  Sometimes he could even see

where some of those people had gone after putting the object down, and

when he went looking for them, they were always to be found where his

clairvoyance had led him.  Frank had killed the cat, and Candy hoped

that contact with the remains would spark an inner vision that would put

him on his brother's trail again.

Every speck of flesh had been stripped from Samantha's broken pate, and

its contents had been emptied as well.  Pick clean, licked smooth, dried

by the wind, it might have been a portion of a fossil from a distant

age.  Candy's mind was fill not with images of Frank but of the other

cats and Verbina and Violet, and finally he threw down the damaged skull

in disgust.

His frustration sharpened his anger.  He felt the need rising in him. He

dared not let the need bloom...  but resisting was infinitely harder

than resisting the charms of women and other sins.  He hated Frank.  He

hated him so much, so deep he had hated him so constantly for seven

years, that he couldn't even bear the thought that he had slept through

an opportunity to destroy him.

Need....

He dropped to his knees on the weedy lawn.  He fisted his hands and

hunched his shoulders and clenched his teeth, trying to make a rock of

himself, an unmovable mass that would not be swayed one inch by the most

urgent need, not one hair width by even the most dire necessity, the

most demanding hunger, the most passionate craving.  He prayed to his

mother to give him strength.  The wind began to pick up again, an he

believed it was a devil wind that would blow him toward temptation, so

he fell forward on the ground and dug his fingers into the yielding

earth, and he repeated his mother's name-Roselle-whispered her name

furiously into the grass and dirt, again and again, desperate to quell

the mention of his dark need.  Then he wept.  Then he got up.  And went

hunting.

FRANK WENT to a theater and sat through a movie but was unable to

concentrate on the story.  He ate dinner at El Torito, though he didn't

really taste the food; he just pushed down the enchiladas and rice as if

feeding fuel to a furnace.  For a couple of hours he drove aimlessly

back and forth across the middle and southern reaches of Orange County,

staying on the move only because, for the time being, he felt safer when

in motion.  Finally he returned to the motel.

He kept probing at the dark wall in his mind, behind which his entire

life was concealed.  Diligently, he sought the tiniest chink through

which he might glimpse a memory.  If he could find one crack, he was

sure that the entire facade of amnesia would come tumbling down.  But

the barrier was smooth and flawless.

When he switched off the lights, he could not sleep.

The Santa Anas had abated.  He could not blame his insomnia on the noisy

winds.

Although the amount of blood on the sheets had been minimal and though

it had dried since he'd awakened from his nap earlier in the day, he

decided that the thought of lying in bloodstained bedclothes was

preventing him from nodding off.  He snapped on a lamp, stripped the

bed, turned up the heat, stretched out in the darkness again, and tried

to sleep without covers.

No good.

He told himself that his amnesia-and the resultant loneliness and sense

of isolation-was keeping him awake.  Although there was some truth in

that, he knew that he was kidding himself.

The real reason he could not sleep was fear.  Fear of where he might go

while sleepwalking.  Fear of what he might do.  Fear of what he might

find in his hands when he woke up.

DEREK SLEPT.  In the other bed.  Snoring so Thomas couldn't sleep.  He

got up and stood by the window looking out.  The moon was gone.  The

dark was very big.

He didn't like the night.  It scared him.  He liked sunshine and flowers

all bright, and grass looking green, and blue all over so you felt like

there was a lid on the world to keep everything down here on the ground

and in place.  At night the colors were gone, and the world was empty,

like somebody took the lid off and let in a lot of nothingness, and

looked up at all that nothingness and you felt you might just float away

like the colors, float up and away and out of the world, and then in the

morning when they put the lid back on, you wouldn't be here, you'd be

out there somewhere, and you could never get back in again.  Never.

He put his fingertips against the window.  The glass was cold.  He

wished he could sleep away the night.  Usually he slept okay.  Not

tonight.

He was worried about Julie.  He always worried about her a little.  A

brother was supposed to worry.  But this wasn't little worry.  This was

a lot.

It started just that morning.  A funny feeling.  Not funny ha.  Funny

strange.  Funny scary.  Something real bad's going to happen to Julie,

the feeling said.  Thomas got so upset, tried to warn her.  He made a

warning to her.  They said the pictures and voices and music on the TV

were sent through the air, which he first thought was a lie, that they

were making fun of his being dumb, expecting him to believe anything,

but then Julie said it was true, so sometimes he tried to turn his

thoughts to her, because if you could send pictures and voices through

the air, thoughts ought to be easy.  Be careful, Julie, he thought. Look

out, be careful something bad's going to happen.

Usually, when he felt things about someone, that someone was Julie.  He

knew when she was happy.  Or sad.  When she was sick, he sometimes

curled up on his bed and put his hands on his own belly.  He always knew

when she was coming to visit.

He felt things about Bobby too.  Not at first.  When Julie first brought

Bobby around, Thomas felt nothing.  But slowly he felt more.  Until now

he felt almost as much about Bobby as about Julie.

He felt things about some other people too.  Like Derek.  Like Gina,

another Down's kid at The Home.  And like a couple of the aides, one of

the visiting nurses.  But he didn't feel half as much about them as he

did about Bobby and Julie.  He figured that maybe the more he loved

somebody, the bigger he felt things-knew things-about them.

Sometimes when Julie was worried about him, Thomas wanted real bad to

tell her that he knew how she felt, and that he was all right.  Because

just knowing he -understood would make her happier.  But he didn't have

the words.  He couldn't explain how or why he sometimes felt other

people's feelings.  And he didn't want to try to tell them about it

because he was afraid of looking dumb.

He was dumb.  He knew that.  He wasn't as dumb as Derek, who was very

nice, good to room with, but who was real slow.  They sometimes said

"slow" instead of "dumb" when they talked in front of you.  Julie never

did.  Bobby never did.  But some people said "slow" and thought you

didn't get it.  He got it.  They had bigger words, too, and he really

didn't understand those, but he sure understood "slow."  He didn't want

to be dumb, nobody gave him a choice, and sometimes he thought a message

to God, asking God to make him not dumb any more, but either God wanted

him to stay dumb always and forever but why?  or God just didn't get the

messages.

Julie didn't get the messages either.  Thomas always knew when he got

through to someone with a thought.  He never got to Julie.

But he could sometimes get through to Bobby, which was funny.  Not ha-ha

funny.  Strange funny.  Interesting funny.  When Thomas sent a thought

to Julie, Bobby sometimes got it instead.  Like this morning.  When he'd

sent a warning to Julie -Something bad is going to happen, Julie,

something real bad is coming -Bobby had picked it up.  Maybe because

Thomas and Bobby both loved Julie.  Thomas didn't know.  He couldn't

feel sure- But it sure happened.  Bobby tuned in.

Now Thomas stood at the window, in his pajamas, and looked out at the

scary night, and he felt the Bad Thing over there, felt it like a ripple

in his blood, like a tingle in his body The Bad Thing was far away, not

anywhere near Julie, but coming.

Today, during Julie's visit, Thomas wanted to tell her about the Bad

Thing coming.  But he couldn't find a way to say and make sense, and he

was scared of sounding dumb.  Julie and Bobby knew he was dumb, sure,

but he hated to sound dumb in front of them, to remind them how dumb he

was.  Every time he almost started to tell her about the Bad Thing he

just forgot how to use words.  He had the words in his mind, all lined

up in a row, ready to say, but then suddenly they were mixed up, and he

couldn't make them get back in the right order, so he couldn't say the

words because they'd be just words without meaning anything, and he'd

look really, real dumb.

Besides, he didn't know what to tell her the Bad Thing was He thought

maybe it was a person, a real terrible person over there, going to do

something to Julie, but it didn't exactly feel like a person.  Partly a

person, but something else.  Something that made Thomas feel cold not

just on his outside but on his inside, too, like standing in a winter

wind and eating ice cream at the same time.

He shivered.

He didn't want to get these ugly feelings about whatever out there, but

he couldn't just go back to bed and tune out either, because the more he

felt about the far-away Bad Thing the better he could warn Julie and

Bobby when the thing wasn't so far away any more.

Behind him, Derek murmured in a dream.

The Home was real quiet.  All the dumb people were deep asleep.  Except

Thomas.  Sometimes he liked to be awake when everyone else wasn't.

Sometimes that made him feel smarter than all of them put together,

seeing things they couldn't see and knowing things they couldn't know

because they were asleep and he wasn't.

He stared at the nothingness of night.

He put his forehead against the glass.

For Julie's sake, he reached.  Into the nothingness.  Toward the

far-away.

He opened himself.  To the feelings.  To the ripple-tingle.

A big ugly-nasty hit him.  Like a wave.  It came out of the night and

hit him, and he stumbled back from the window and fell on his butt

beside the bed, and then he couldn't feel the Bad Thing at all, it was

gone, but what he had felt was so big and so ugly that his heart was

pounding and he could hardly breathe, and right away he thought to

Bobby: Run, go, get away, save Julie, the Bad Thing's coming, the Bad

Thing, run, run.

THE DREAM was filled with the music of Glenn Miller's "Moonlight

Serenade," though like everything in dreams, the song was indefinably

different from the real tune.  Bobby was in a house that was at once

familiar yet total strange, and somehow he knew it was the seaside

bungalow to which he and Julie were going to retire young.  He drifted

into the living room, over a dark Persian carpet, comfortable-looking

upholstered chairs, a huge old chesterfield with rounded back and thick

cushions, a rusty looking carpet with bronze panels, an Art Deco lamp,

and overflowing bookshelves.  The music was coming from outside, so he

was out there.  He enjoyed the easy transitions of the dream, moving

through a door without opening it, crossing a wide porch a descending

wooden stairs without ever quite lifting a foot.  The sea rumbled to one

side, and the phosphorescent foam of breakers glowed faintly in the

night.  Under a palm tree, in the sand, with a scattering of shells

around it, stood a Wurlitzer 950, ablaze with gold and red light, bubble

tubes percolating gazelles perpetually leaping, figures of Pan

perpetually pipin record-changing mechanism gleaming like real silver,

and large black platter spinning on the turntable.  Bobby felt as

"Moonlight Serenade" would go on forever, which would have been fine

with him, because he had never been more mellow more at peace, and he

sensed that Julie had come out of the house behind him, that she was

waiting on the damp sand near the water's edge, and that she wanted to

dance with him, as he turned, and there she was, exotically illuminated

by the Wurlitzer, and he took a step toward her "Run, go, get away, save

Julie, the Bad Thing's coming, Bad Thing, run, run!

The indigo ocean suddenly leapt as if under the lash of a storm, and

spume exploded into the night air.

Hurricane winds shook the palms.

The Bad Thing!  Run!  Run!

The world tilted.  Bobby stumbled toward Julie.  The sea surged up

around her.  It wanted her; it was going to seize her; it was water with

a will, a thinking sea with a malevolent consciousness gleaming darkly

in its depths.

The Bad Thing!

The Glenn Miller tune speeded up, whirling at double time.

The Bad Thing!

The soft, romantic light from the Wurlitzer flamed brighter, stung his

eyes, yet did not drive back the night.  It was radiating light as if

the door to Hell had opened, but the darkness around them only

intensified, yielding nothing to that supernatural blaze.

THE BAD THING!  THE BAD THING!

The world tilted again.  Heaved and rolled.

Bobby staggered across the carnival-ride beach, toward Julie, who seemed

unable to move.  She was being swallowed by the churning oil-black sea.

THE BAD THING THE BAD THING THE BAD THING!

With the hard crack of riven stone, the sky split above them, but no

lightning stabbed out of that crumbling vault.

Geysers of sand erupted around Bobby.  Inky water exploded out of sudden

gaping holes in the beach.

He looked back.  The bungalow was gone.  The sea rose on all sides.  The

beach was dissolving under his feet.

Screaming, Julie disappeared under the water.

BADTHINGBADTHINGBADTHINGBADTHING

A twenty-foot wave loomed over Bobby.  It broke.  He was swept away.  He

tried to swim.  The flesh on his arms and hands bubbled and blistered

and began to peel off, revealing glints of ice-white bone.  The midnight

seawater was an acid.  His head went under.  He gasped, broke the

surface, but the corrosive sea had already kissed away his lips, and he

felt his gums receding from his teeth, and his tongue turned to rancid

mush in the salty rush of caustic brine that he had swallowed.  Even the

spray-filled air was erosive, eating away his lungs in an instant, so

when he tried to breathe he could not.  He went down, flailing at the

waves with arms and hands that were only bone, caught in an undertow,

sucked into everlasting darkness, dissolution, oblivion.

BAD THING!

Bobby sat straight up in bed.

He was screaming, but no cry issued from him.  When he realized he had

been dreaming, he stopped trying to scream and finally a low and

miserable sound escaped him.

He had thrown off the sheets.  He sat on the edge of the bed feet on the

floor, both hands on the mattress, steadying himself as if he was still

on that heaving beach or struggling to swim in those roiling tides.

The green numbers of the projection clock glowed fain on the ceiling:

2:43.

For a while the drum-loud thud of his own heart filled him with sound

from within, and he was deaf to the outer warmth But after a few seconds

he heard Julie breathing rhythmically, and he was surprised that he had

not awaken her.  Evidently he had not been thrashing in his sleep.

The panic that infused the dream had not entirely left him His anxiety

began to swell again, partly because the room was lightless as that

devouring sea.  Afraid of waking Julie did not switch on the bedside

lamp.

As soon as he was able to stand, he got up and circled the bed in the

perfect blackness.  The bathroom was on her side but a clear path was

provided, and he found his way as he had on countless other nights,

without difficulty, guided by both experience and instinct.

He eased the door shut behind him and switched on the lights.  For a

moment the fluorescent brilliance prevented him from looking into the

glary surface of the mirror above the double sinks.  When at last he

regarded his reflection, and that his flesh had not been eaten away. The

dream had been frighteningly vivid, unlike anything he'd known before;

and in some strange way it had been even more real than waking like with

intense colors and sounds that pulsed through his slumbering mind with

the full glare dazzle of light along the filament of an incandescent

bulb.  Though aware that it had been a dream, he had half feared that

the nightmare ocean had I its corrosive mark on him even after he woke.

Shuddering, he leaned against the counter.  He turned on the cold water,

bent forward, and splashed his face.  Dripping, he looked at his

reflection again and met his eyes.  He whispered to himself.

"What the hell was that?"  CANDY PROWLED.

The eastern end of the Pollard family's two-acre property dropped into a

canyon.  The walls were steep, composed mostly of dry crumbling soil

veined in places by pink and gray shale Only the expansive root systems

of the hardy, desert vegetation-chapparal, thick clumps of bunchgrass,

pampas grass scattered mesquite-kept the slopes from eroding extensively

in every heavy rain.  A few eucalyptuses, laurels, and melaleucas grew

on the walls of the canyon, and where the floor was broad enough,

melaleucas and California live oaks sank roots deep into the earth along

the runoff channel.  That channel only a dry stream bed now, but during

a heavy rain it over flowed.

Fleet and silent in spite of his size, Candy followed the canyon

eastward, moving upslope, until he came to a junction wit another

declivity that was too narrow to be called a canyon There, he turned

north.  The land continued to climb, though not as steeply as before.

Sheer walls soared on both sides of him, and in places the passage was

nearly pinched off, narrowing to only a couple of feet.  Brittle

tumbleweeds, blown into the ravine by the wind, had collected in mounds

at some those choke points, and they scratched Candy as he pushed

through them.

Without even a fragment moon, the night was unusually dark at the bottom

of that fissure in the land, but he seldom stumbled and never hesitated.

His gifts did not include super human vision; he was as blinded by

lightlessness as anyone However, even in the blackest night, he knew

when an obstacle lay before him, sensed the contours of the land so well

that he could proceed with surefooted confidence.  He did not know how

this sixth sense served him, and he did nothing to encourage it; he

simply had an uncanny awareness of his relationship with his

surroundings, knew his place at all times, much as the best high-wire

walkers, though blindfolded, could proceed with self-assurance along a

taut line above the upturned faces of a circus crowd.

This was another gift from his mother.

All of her children were gifted.  But Candy's talents exceeded those of

Violet, Verbina, and Frank.

The narrow passage opened into another canyon, and Candy turned east

again, along a rocky runoff channel, hurrying now as his need grew.

Though ever more widely separated, houses were still perched high above,

on the canyon rim; their bright windows were too far away to illuminate

the ground before him, but now and then he glanced up longingly because

within those homes was the blood he needed.

God had given Candy a taste for blood, made him a predator, and

therefore God was responsible for whatever Candy did; his mother had

explained all of that long ago.  God wanted him to be selective in his

killing; but when Candy was unable to restrain himself, the ultimate

blame was God's, for He had instilled the blood lust in Candy but had

not provided him with the strength to control it.

Like that of all predators, Candy's mission was to kill the sick and the

weak from the herd.  In his case, morally degenerate members of the

human herd were the intended prey: thieves, liars, cheats, adulterers.

Unfortunately he did not always recognize sinners when he met them.

Fulfilling his mission had been far easier when his mother had been

alive, for she had no trouble spotting the blighted souls for him.

Tonight he would try as best he could to confine his killing to wild

animals.  Slaughtering people-especially close to home-was chancy; it

might bring him under the eye of the police.  He could risk killing

locals only when they had crossed the family in some way and simply

could not be allowed to live.

If he was unable to satisfy his need with animals, he would go

somewhere, anywhere, and kill people.  His mother, up there in Heaven,

would be angry with him and disappointed by his lack of control, but God

would not be able to blame him.  After all, he was only what God had

made him.

With the lights of the last house well behind him, he stopped in a grove

of melaieucas.  The day's strong winds had blown out of the high hills,

down through the canyons, and out sea; currently the air seemed utterly

still.  Drooping from the branches of the melaleucas, and every I

blade-sleek leaf was motionless.

His eyes had adapted to the darkness.  The trees were silent in the dim

starlight, and their cascading trailers contributed to an illusion that

he was surrounded by a silent waterfall frozen in a paperweight

blizzard.  He could even make out ragged scrolls of bark that curled

away from the trunks limbs in the perpetual peeling process that lent a

unique be to the species.

He could not see any prey.

He could hear no furtive movement of wildlife in the brush However, he

knew that many small creatures, filled warm blood, were huddled nearby

in burrows, in secreting drifts of old leaves, and in the sheltered

niches of rocks.

The very thought of them made him half mad with hunger.

He held his arms out in front of him, palms facing away from him,

fingers spread.  Blue light, the shade of pale sapphire, as the glow of

a quarter-moon, perhaps a second in duration pulsed from his hands.  The

leaves trembled, and the sparse bunchgrass stirred, then all was still

as darkness reclaimed canyon floor.

Again, blue light shone forth from his hands, as if they were hooded

lanterns from which the shutters had been brightly lifted.  This time

the light was twice as bright as before, a deep blue, and it lasted

perhaps two seconds.  The leaves rustled, a few of the drooping trailers

swayed, and the grass shivered for thirty or forty feet in front of him.

Disturbed by those queer vibrations, something scurried toward Candy,

started past him.  With that special sense of surroundings that did not

rely on sight or sound or smell, reached to his left and snatched at the

unseen darting creature His reflexes were as uncanny as anything else

about him, he seized his prey.  A field mouse.  For an instant it froze

in horror.  Then it squirmed in his grasp, but he held fast to it.

His power had no effect on living things.  He could not use it on prey

with the telekinetic energy that radiated from his 0 palms.  He could

not draw them forth or call them to him, frighten them out of hiding. He

could have shattered on the melaieucas or sent geysers of dirt and

stones into the air, but no matter how hard he strained, he could not

have stirred one hair on the mouse by using just his mind.  He didn't

know why he was hampered by that limitation.  Violet and Verbina, whose

gifts were not half as impressive as his, seemed to have power only over

living things, smaller animals like the cats.  Plants bent to Candy's

will, of course, and sometimes insects, but nothing with a mind, not

even something with a mind as weak as that of a mouse.

Kneeling under the silvery trees, he was swaddled in gloom so deep that

he could see nothing of the mouse except its dimly gleaming eyes.  He

brought the fist-wrapped creature to his mouth.

It made a thing, terrified sound, more of a peep than a squeal.

He bit off its head, spat it out, and fastened his lips upon the torn

neck.  The blood was sweet, but there was too little of it.

He cast the dead rodent aside and raised his arms again, palms out,

fingers spread.  This time the splash of spectral light was an intense,

electric, sapphire blue.  Although it was of no longer duration than

before, its effect was startlingly greater.  A half dozen waves of

vibrations, each a fraction of a second apart, slammed up the inclined

floor of the canyon.  The tall trees shook, and the hundreds of drooping

trailers lashed the air, and the leaves thrashed with a sound like

swarms of bees.  Pebbles and smaller stones were flung up from the

ground, and loose rocks rattled against one another.  Every blade of

bunchgrass stood up stiff and straight, like hair on a frightened man's

nape, and a few clumps tore out of the soil and tumbled away into the

night, along with showers of dead leaves, as if a wind had captured

them.  But no wind disturbed the night-only the brief burst of sapphire

light and the powerful vibrations that accompanied it.

Wildlife erupted from concealment, and some of the animals streamed

toward him, heading down the canyon.  He had learned long ago that they

never recognized his scent as that of a human being.  They were as

likely to flee toward him as away from him.  Either he had no scent that

they could detect...  or they smelled something wild in him, something

more like themselves than like a human being, and in their panic they

did not realize that he was a predator.

They were visible, at best, as shapeless dark forms, streaming past him,

like shadows flung off by a spinning lamp.  But also sensed them with

his psychic gift.  Coyotes loped by, a panicked raccoon brushed against

his leg; he did not reach out for those, because he wanted to avoid

being badly clawed or bitten.  At least a double score of mice streamed

wit reach, as well, but he wanted something more full of life, he

with-blood.

He snatched at what he thought was a squirrel, missed, a moment later

seized a rabbit by its hind legs.  It shrieked thrashed with its less

formidable forepaws, but he got hold of those, too, not only

immobilizing the creature but paralyzed it with fear.

He held it up to his face.

Its fur had a dusty, musky smell.

Its red eyes glistened with terror.

He could hear its thunderous heart.

He bit into its throat.  The fur, hide, and muscle resisted teeth, but

blood flowed.

The rabbit twitched, not in an attempt to escape but a to express its

resignation to its fate; they were slow spas strangely sensuous, as if

the creature almost welcomed death.  Over the years Candy had seen this

behavior in countless animals, especially in rabbits, and he always

thrilled to it, it gave him a heady sense of power, made him feel as one

the fox and the wolf.

The spasms ceased, and the rabbit went limp in his hand Though it was

still alive, it had acknowledged the immanence of death and had entered

a trance like state in which it felt no pain.  This seemed to be a grace

that God bestowed small prey.

Candy bit into its throat again, harder this time, deeper,bit again,

deeper still, and the life of the rabbit spurted bubbled into his greedy

mouth.

Far away in another canyon, a coyote howled.  It was answered by others

in its pack.  A chorus of eerie voices rose fell and rose again, as if

the coyotes were aware that they were not the only hunters in the night,

as if they smelled the kill.

When he had supped, Candy cast the drained corpse aside.  His need was

still great.  He would have to break open blood reservoirs within more

rabbits or squirrels before his thirst was slaked.

He got to his feet and headed farther up into the canyon, where the

wildlife had not been disturbed by his first use of the power, where

creatures of many kinds waited in their burrows and hidey-holes to be

harvested.  The night was deep and bountiful.

MAYBE IT was just Monday morning blues.  May it was the bruised sky and

the promise of rain that formed her mood.  Or maybe she was tense and

sour because the violent events at Decodyne were only four days in the

past and the fore still too fresh.  But for some reason, Julie did not

want take on this Frank Pollard's case.  Or any other new case, that

matter.  They had a few ongoing security contracts with firms they had

served for years, and she wanted to stick to the comfortable, familiar

business.  Most of the work they did was about as risky as going to the

supermarket for a quart of milk but danger was a potential of the job,

and the degree of danger in each new case was unknown.  If a frail,

elderly lady had come to them that Monday morning, seeking help in

finding a lost cat, Julie probably would have regarded her as a menace a

par with an ax-wielding psychopath.  She was edgy.  After a if luck had

not been with them last week, Bobby would no be four days dead Sitting

forward in her chair, leaning over her sturdy met and-Formica desk, arms

crossed on the green-felt blotter, Julie studied Pollard.  He could not

meet her eyes, and that evasiveness aroused her suspicion in spite of

his harmless -even his appearance.

He looked as if he ought to have a Vegas comedian's nam Shecky, Buddy,

something like that.  He was about thirty yea old, Jive ten, maybe a

hundred and eighty pounds, which him was thirty pounds too much;

however, it was his face that was most suited for a career in comedy.

Except for a coup of curious scratches that were mostly healed, it was a

pleasant mug: open, kind, round enough to be jolly, deeply dimple A

permanent flush tinted his cheeks, as if he had been standing in an

arctic wind for most of his life.  His nose was reddish too, apparently

not from too great a fondness for booze, but from having been broken a

few times; it was lumpish enough to be amusing, but not sufficiently

squashed to make him look like a thug.

Shoulders slumped, he sat in one of the two leather-arm chrome chairs in

front of Julie's desk.  His voice was soft and pleasant, almost musical.

"I need help.  I don't know where else to go for it."  In spite of his

comedic looks, his manner was bleak.  Though it was mellifluous, his

voice was heavy with despair and weariness.  With one hand he

periodically wiped his face, as if pulling off cobwebs, then peered at

his hand with puzzlement each time it came away empty.

The backs of his hands were marked with scabbed-over scratches, too, a

couple of which were slightly swollen and inflamed.

"But frankly," he said,

"seeking help from private detectives seems ridiculous, as if this isn't

real life but a TV show."

"I've got heartburn, so it's real life, all right," Bobby said.  He was

standing at one of the big sixth-floor windows that faced out toward the

mist-obscured sea and down on the nearby buildings of Fashion Island,

the Newport Beach shopping center adjacent to the office tower in which

Dakota & Dakota leased a seven-room suite.  He turned from the view,

leaned against the sill, and extracted a roll of Rolaids from the pocket

of his jacket.

"TV detectives never suffer heartburn, dandruff, or the heartbreak of

psoriasis."

"Mr. Pollard," Julie said,

"I'm sure Mr. Karaghiosis has explained to you that strictly speaking we

aren't private detectives."

"Yes."

"We're security consultants.  We primarily work with corporations and

private institutions.  We have eleven employees with sophisticated

skills and years of security experience, which is a lot different from

the one-man PI fantasies on TV.  We don't shadow men's wives to see if

they're being unfaithful, and we don't do divorce work or any of the

other things that people usually come to private detectives for."

"Mr. Karaghiosis explained that to me," Pollard said, looking down at

his hands, which were clenched on his thighs.

From the sofa to the left of the desk, Clint Karaghiosis said,

"Frank told me his story, and I really think you ought to h why he needs

us."  Julie noted that Clint had used the would-be client's first name,

which he had never done before during six years with Dakota & Dakota.

Clint was solidly built-five foot eight, hundred and sixty pounds.  He

looked as though he had on been an inanimate assemblage of chunks of

granite and stone marble, flint and field stone, slate and iron and

lodesto which some alchemist had transmuted into living flesh.

broad countenance, though handsome enough, also looked if it had been

chiseled from rock.  In a search for a sign of weariness in his face,

one could say only that, though strong, so features were not as strong

as others.  He had a rocklike personality too: steady, reliable,

imperturbable.  Few people i pressed Clint, and fewer still pierced his

reserve and elicit more than a polite, businesslike response from him.

Hint of the client's first name seemed to be a subtle expression of

sympathy for Pollard and a vote of confidence in the truthfulness of

whatever tale the man had to tell.

"If Clint thinks this is something for us, that's good enough for me,"

Bobby said.

"What's your problem, Frank?"  Julie was not impressed that Bobby had

used the client's first name so immediately, casually.  Bobby liked

everyone he met at least until they emphatically proved themselves

unworthy of being liked.  In fact, you had to stab him in the back

repeatedly, virtually giggling with malice, before he would finally a

regretfully consider the possibility that maybe he shouldn't like you.

Sometimes she thought she had married a big puppy that was pretending to

be human.

Before Pollard could begin, Julie said,

"One thing, first.

we decide to accept your case-and I stress the if-we are cheap."

"That's no problem," Pollard said.  He lifted a leather flight bag from

the floor at his feet.  It was one of two he'd brought with him.  He put

it on his lap and unzippered it.  He withdrew a couple of packs of

currency and put them on the desk.  Twenties and hundreds.

As Julie took the money to inspect it, Bobby pushed away from the

windowsill and went to Pollard's side.  He look down into the flight bag

and said,

"It's crammed full."

"One hundred and forty thousand dollars," Pollard said Upon quick

inspection, the money on the desk did not appear to be counterfeit.

Julie pushed it aside and said,

"Mr. Pollard, are you in the habit of carrying so much cash?"

"I don't know," Pollard said.

"You don't know?"

"I don't know," he repeated miserably.

"He literally doesn't know,"

Clint said.

"Hear him out."  In a voice at once subdued yet heavy with emotion,

Pollard said,

"You've got to help me find out where I go at night.  What in God's name

am I doing when I should be sleeping?"

"Hey, this sounds interesting," Bobby said, sitting down on one corner

of Julie's desk.

Bobby's boyish enthusiasm made Julie nervous.  He might commit them to

Pollard before they knew enough to be sure that it was wise to take the

case.  She also didn't like him sitting on her desk.  It just didn't

seem businesslike.  She felt that it gave the prospective client an

impression of amateurism.

From the sofa, Clint said,

"Should I start the tape?"

"Definitely,"

Bobby said.

Clint was holding a compact, battery-powered tape recorder.  He flicked

the switch and set the recorder on the coffee table in front of the

sofa, with the built-in microphone aimed at Pollard, Julie, and Bobby.

The slightly chubby, round-faced man looked up at them.  The rings of

bluish skin around his eyes, the watery redness of the eyes themselves,

and the paleness of his lips belied any image of robust health to which

his ruddy cheeks might have lent credence.  A hesitant smile flickered

across his mouth.  He met Julie's eyes for no more than a second, looked

down at his hands again.  He seemed frightened, beaten, altogether

pitiable.  In spite of herself she felt a pang of sympathy for him.

As Pollard began to speak, Julie sighed and slumped back in her chair.

Two minutes later, she was leaning forward again, listening intently to

Pollard's soft voice.  She did not want to be fascinated, but she was.

Even phlegmatic Clint Karaghiosis, hearing the story for the second

time, was obviously captivated by it.

If Pollard was not a liar or a raving lunatic-and most likely he was

both-then he was caught up in events of an almost supernatural nature.

Julie did not believe in the SUPERNATURAL.

She tried to remain skeptical, but Pollard's demeanor and dent

conviction persuaded her against her will.

Bobby began making holy-jeez-gosh-wow sounds and slurping the desk in

astonishment at the revelation of each twist in the tale.  When the

client- No. Pollard.  Not

"the client."  He wasn't their client yet.  Pollard.  When Pollard told

them about waking in a motel room Thursday afternoon, blood on his

hands, Bobby blurted,

"We'll take the case!"

"Bobby, wait," Julie said.

"We haven't heard everything Mr. Pollard came here to tell us.  We

shouldn't-"

"Yeah, Frank," Bobby said,

"what the hell happened the Julie said, "What I mean is, we have to hear

his whole story before we can possibly know whether or not we can help

him

"Oh, we can help him, all right," Bobby said.

"We-"

"Bobby," she said firmly,

"could I see you alone for a moment?"  She got up, crossed the office,

opened the door to adjoining bathroom, and turned on the light in there.

Bobby said,

"Be right back, Frank."  He followed Julie i the bathroom, closing the

door behind them.

She switched on the ceiling exhaust fan to help muffle the voices, and

spoke in a whisper.

"What's wrong with you?

"Well, I have flat feet, no arches at all, and I've got that mole in the

middle of my back."

"You're impossible."

"Flat feet and a mole are too many faults for you to hand You're a hard

woman."  The room was small.  They were standing between the sink and

the toilet, almost nose to nose.  He kissed her forehead

"Bobby, for God's sake, you just told Pollard we'll take case.  Maybe we

won't."

"Why wouldn't we?  It's fascinating."

"For one thing, he sounds like a nut."

"No, he doesn't."

"He says some strange power caused that car to disintegrate blew out

streetlights.  Strange flute music, mysterious blue lights...  This

guy's been reading the National Enquirer too long."

"But that's just it.  A true nut would already be able to plain what

happened to him.  He'd claim he'd met God or Magicians.  This guy is

baffled, looking for answers.  That strikes as a sane response."

"Besides, we're in business, Bobby.  Business.  Not for fun.

For money.  We're not a couple of damned hobbyists."

"He's got money.  You saw it."

"What if it's hot money?"

"Frank's no thief."

"You know him less than an hour and you're sure he's no thief'?  You're

so trusting, Bobby."

"Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment.  How can you do the kind of work you do, and be

so trusting?"  He grinned.

"I trusted you, and that turned out okay."  She refused to be charmed.

"He says he doesn't know where he got the money, and just for the sake

of the argument, let's say we buy that part of the story.  And let's

also say you're right about him not being a thief.  So maybe he's a drug

dealer.  Or something else.  There's a thousand ways it could be hot

money without being stolen.  And if we find out that it's hot, we can't

keep what he pays us.  We'll have to turn it over to the cops.  We'll

have wasted our time and energy.  Besides...  it's going to be messy."

"Why do you say that?"  he asked.

"Why do I say that?  He just told you about waking up in a motel room

with blood all over his hands!"

"Keep your voice down.  You might hurt his feelings."

"God forbid!"

"Remember, there was no body.  It must've been his own blood."

Frustrated, she said, "How do we know there was no body?

Because he says there wasn't?  He might be such a nut case that he

wouldn't even notice the body if he stepped in its steaming bowels and

stumbled over its decapitated head."

"What a vivid image."  "Bobby, he says maybe he clawed at himself, but

that's not very damned likely.  Probably some poor woman, some innocent

girl, maybe even a child, a helpless schoolgirl, was attacked by that

man, dragged into his car, raped and beaten and raped again, forced to

perform every humiliating act a perverse mind could imagine, then driven

to some lonely desert canyon, maybe tortured with needles and knives and

God knows what, then clubbed to death, and pitched naked into a dry

wash, where coyotes are even now chewing on the softer parts of with

flies crawling in and out of her open mouth."

"Julie, you're forgetting something."

"What?"

"I'm the one with the overactive imagination."  She laughed.  She

couldn't help it.  She wanted to thump skull hard enough to knock some

sense into him, but laughed instead and shook her head.

He kissed her cheek, then reached for the doorknob.

She put her hand on his.

"Promise we won't take the case until we've heard his whole story and

have time to think about it."

"All right."  They returned to the office.

Beyond the windows, the sky resembled a sheet of steel that had been

scorched black in places, with a few scattered incrustations of

mustard-yellow corrosion.  Rain had not begun to fall, but the air

seemed tense in expectation of it.

The only lights in the room were two brass lamps on tables that flanked

the sofa, and a silk-shaded brass floorlamp in the corner.  The overhead

fluorescence were not on, because both hated the glare and believed that

an office should be as cozy lighted as a den in a private home.  Julie

thought it should look and feel like an office.  But she humored Bobby

and usually left the fluorescence off.  Now as the oncoming storm

darkened the day, she wanted to switch on the overhead and chase away

the shadows that had begun to gather in the corners untouched by the

amber glow of the lamps.

Frank Pollard was still in his chair, staring at the framed posters of

Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Uncle Scrooge that adorned the walls.

They were another burden under who Julie labored.  She was a fan of

Warner Brothers cartoons, because they had a harder edge than Disney's

creations, and owned videotape collections of them, plus a couple of

additional cells of Daffy Duck, but she kept that stuff at home.  Bobby

brought the Disney cartoon characters into the office because (he said)

they relaxed him, made him feel good, and helped him think.  No clients

ever questioned their professionalism merely because of the

unconventional artwork on the walls, but she still worried about what

they might think.

She went behind her desk again, and again Bobby perched on it.

After winking at Julie, Bobby said, "Frank, I was premature in accepting

the case.  We really can't make that decision until we've heard your

whole story."

"Sure," Frank said, looking quickly at Bobby, at Julie, then down at his

scratched hands, which were now clutching the open flight bag.

"That's perfectly understandable."

"Of course it is," Julie said.

Clint switched on the tape recorder again.

Exchanging the flight bag on his lap for the one on the floor, Pollard

said, "I should give you these."

He unzippered the second satchel and withdrew a plastic bag that

contained a small portion of the handsful of black sand he'd been

clutching when he had awakened after his brief sleep Thursday morning.

He also withdrew the bloody shirt he had been wearing when he had arisen

from his even shorter nap later that same day.

"I saved them because...  well, they seemed like evidence.  Clues. Maybe

they'll help you figure out what's going on, what I've done."

Bobby accepted the shirt and the sand, examined them briefly, then put

them on the desk beside him.

Julie noted that the shirt had been thoroughly saturated with blood, not

merely spotted.  Now the dry brownish stains made the material stiffer.

"So you were in the motel Thursday afternoon," Bobby prompted.

Pollard nodded.

"Nothing much happened that night.  I went to a movie, couldn't get

interested in it.  Drove around a while.  I was tired, real tired, in

spite of the nap, but I couldn't sleep at all.  I was afraid to sleep.

Next morning I moved to another motel."

"When did you finally sleep again?"  Julie asked.

"The next evening."

"Friday evening that was?"

"Yeah.  I tried to stay awake with lots of coffee.  Sat at the counter

in the little restaurant attached to the motel, and drank coffee until I

started to float off the stool.  Stomach got so acidic, I had to stop.

Went back to my room.  Every time I started nodding off, I went out for

a walk.  But it was pointless.  I couldn't stay awake forever.  I was

coming apart at the seams.

I Had to get some rest.  So I went to bed shortly past eight in the

evening, fell asleep instantly, and didn't wake up until half past five

in the morning."

"Saturday morning."

"Yeah."

"And everything was okay?"  Bobby asked.

"At least there was no blood.  But there was something else They waited.

Pollard licked his lips, nodded as if confirming to himself his

willingness to continue.

"See, I'd gone to bed in my boxer shorts...  but when I woke up I was

fully clothed."

"So you were sleepwalking, and you dressed in your sleep.  Julie said.

"But the clothes I was wearing weren't any I'd ever seen before."

Julie blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"They weren't the clothes I was wearing when I came to that alleyway two

nights before, and they weren't the clothes I bought at the mall on

Thursday morning."

"Whose clothes were they?"  Bobby asked.

"Oh, they must be mine," Pollard said, "because they fit too well to

belong to anyone else.  They fit perfectly.  Even the shoes fit

perfectly.  I couldn't have lifted that outfit from some one else and

been lucky enough to have it all fit so well."

Bobby slipped off the desk and began to pace.

"So what are you saying?  That you left that motel in your underwear,

went out to some store, bought clothes, and nobody objected to your

modesty or even questioned you about it?"

Shaking his head, Pollard said, "I don't know."

Clint Karaghiosis said, "He could've dressed in his room while

sleepwalking, then went out, bought other clothes changed into them."

"But why would he do that?"  Julie asked.

Clint shrugged.

"I'm just offering a possible explanation

"Mr. Pollard," Bobby said, "why would you have done something like

that?"

"I don't know."

Pollard had used those three words so oft that he was wearing them out;

each time he repeated them his voice seemed softer and fuzzier than

before.

"I don't think I did.  It doesn't feel right-as an explanation, I mean.

besides I didn't fall asleep in the motel until after eight o'clock.  I

probably couldn't have gotten up again, gone out, and bought the clothes

before the stores closed."

"Some places are open until ten o'clock," Clint said.

"There was a narrow window of opportunity," Bobby agreed.

"I don't think I would've broken into a store after hours," Pollard

said.  "Or stolen the clothes.  I don't think I'm a thief."

"We know you're not a thief," Bobby said.

"We don't know any such thing," Julie said sharply.

Bobby and Clint looked at her, but Pollard continued to stare at his

hands, too shy or confused to defend himself.

She felt like a bully for having questioned his honesty.  Which was

nuts.  They knew nothing about him.  Hell, if he was telling the truth,

he knew nothing about himself.

Julie said, "Listen, whether he bought or stole the clothes is not the

point here.  I can't accept it either.  At least not with our current

scenario.  It's just too outrageous-the man going to a mall or K-Mart or

someplace in his underwear, outfitting himself, while he's sleepwalking.

Could he do all that and not wake up-and appear to be awake to other

people?  I don't think so.  I don't know anything about sleepwalking,

but if we research it, I don't think we'll find such a thing is

possible."

"Of course, it wasn't just the clothes," Clint said.

"No, not just the clothes," Pollard said.

"When I woke up, there was a large paper bag on the bed beside me, like

one of those you get at a supermarket if you don't want plastic.  I

looked inside, and it was full of...  money.  More cash."

"How much?"  Bobby asked.

"I don't know.  A lot."

"You didn't count it?"

"It's back at the motel where I'm staying now, the new place.  I keep

moving.  I feel safer that way.  Anyway, you can count it later if you

want.  I tried to count it, but I've lost my ability to do even simple

arithmetic.  Yeah, that sounds screwy, but it's what happened.  Couldn't

add the numbers.  I keep trying but...  numbers just don't mean much to

me any more."  He lowered his head, put his face in his hands.

"First I lost my memory.  Now I'm losing essential skills, like math.  I

feel as if...  as if I'm coming apart...  dissolving...  until there's

going to be none of me left, just a body, no mind at all...  gone."

"That won't happen, Frank," Bobby said.

"We won't quit.  We'll find out who you are and what all this means."

"Bobby," Julie said warningly.

"Hmmm?"  He smiled obtusely.

She got up from her desk and went into the bathroom.

"Ah, Jeez."  Bobby followed her, closed the door, and turned on the fan.

"Julie, we have to help the poor guy."

"The man is obviously experiencing psychotic fugues.

doing these things in a blacked-out condition.  He gets them in the

middle of the night, yeah, but he's not sleepwalking.

awake, alert, but in a fugue state.  He could steal, kill-and remember

any of it."

"Julie, I'll bet you that was his own blood on his hands.

maybe having blackouts, fugues, whatever you want to call them, but he's

not a killer.  How much you want to bet?

"And you still say he's not a thief.?  On a regular basis he wakes up

with a bagful of money, doesn't know where he got it, but he's not a

thief.?  You think maybe he counterfeits during these amnesiac spells?

No, I'm sure you think he's nice to be a counterfeiter."

"Listen," he said,

"we've got to go with gut feelings sometimes, and my gut feeling is that

Frank is a good guy.  Clint thinks he's a good guy."

"Greeks are notoriously gregarious.  They like every one.

"You telling me Clint is your typical Greek social animal?  Are we

talking about the same Clint?  Last name-Karaghiosis ?  Guy who looks as

if he was cast from concrete, and about as stoic as a cigar store

Indian?"

The light in the bathroom was too bright.  It bounced off the mirror,

white sink, white walls, and white ceramic tile.  Thanks to the glare

and Bobby's good-natured if not iron-willed did nothing to help Pollard,

Julie was getting a headache.

She closed her eyes.

"Pollard's pathetic," she admitted.

"Want to go back in there and hear him out?"

"All right.  But, dammit, don't tell him we'll help him until we've

heard everything.  All right?"

They returned to the office.

The sky no longer looked like cold, scorched metal.  It was darker than

before, and churning, molten.  Though only a mildest breeze stirred at

ground level, stronger winds were at work in the higher altitudes, for

dense black thunderheads were being hurled inland from the sea.

Like metal filings drawn to magnets, shadows had piled up in some

corners.  Julie reached for the switch to snap on the overhead

fluorescence.  Then she saw Bobby looking around with obvious pleasure

at the softly lustrous, burnished brass surfaces of the lamps, at the

way the polished oak end tables and coffee table glimmered in the fall

of warm buttery light, and she left the switch unflicked.

She sat behind her desk again.  Bobby perched on the edge of it, legs

dangling.

Clint clicked on the tape recorder, and Julie said,

"Frank...

Mr. Pollard, before you continue your story, I'd like you to answer a

few important questions for me.  In spite of the bloody hands, and the

scratches, you believe you're incapable of hurting anyone?"

"Yeah.  Except maybe in self-defense."

"And you don't think you're a thief'?"

"No. I can't..., I don't see myself as a thief, no."

"Then why haven't you gone to the police for help?"

He was silent.  He clutched the open flight bag on his lap and peered

into it, as if Julie was speaking to him from its interior.

She said, "Because if you really feel certain you're an innocent man in

all regards, the police are best equipped to help you find out who you

are and who's pursuing you.  You know what I think?  I think you're not

as certain of your innocence as you pretend.  You know how to hot-wire a

car, and although any man with reasonable knowledge of automobiles could

perform that trick, it's at least an indication of criminal experience.

And then there's the money, all that money, bags full of it.  You don't

remember committing any crimes, but in your heart you're convinced you

have, so you're afraid to go to the COPS."

"That's part of it," he acknowledged.

She said, "You do understand, I hope, that if we take your case, and if

we turn up evidence that you've committed a criminal act, we'll have to

convey that information to the police."

"Of course.  But I figure if I went to the cops first, they wouldn't

even look for the truth.  They'd make up their minds that I was guilty

of something even before I finished telling my story."

"And of course we wouldn't do that," Bobby said, turning his head to

favor Julie with a meaningful look.

Pollard said, "Instead of helping me, they'd look around some recent

crimes to pin on me."

"The police don't work that way," Julie assured him.

"Of course they do," Bobby said mischievously.

He slid the desk and began to pace back and forth from the Uncle Scrooge

poster to one of Mickey Mouse.

"Haven't we seen 'e do that a thousand times on TV shows?  Haven't we

all read Hammett and Chandler?"  "Mr. Pollard," Julie said,

"I was a police officer once-' "Proves my point," Bobby said.

"Frank, if you'd gone to the cops, you'd no doubt already have been

booked, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a thousand years."

"There's a more important reason I can't go to the cops That would be

like going public.  Maybe the press would hear about me, and be real

eager to do a story about this poor guy with amnesia and bags of cash.

Then he would know where to find me.  I can't risk that."

Bobby said, "Who is 'he,' Frank?"

"The man who was chasing me the other night."

"The way you said it, I thought you'd remembered his name, had a

specific person in mind."

"No. I don't know who he is.  I'm not even entirely sure who he is.  But

I know he'll come for me again if he learns where I am.  So I've got to

keep my head down."

From the sofa, Clint said, "I better flip the tape over."

They waited while he popped the cassette out of the recorder.

Although it was only three o'clock, the day was in the grip of a false

twilight indistinguishable from the real one.  The breeze at ground

level was striving to match the wind that drove the clouds at higher

altitudes; a thick fog poured in from the west, exhibiting none of the

lazy motion with which fog usually advanced, swirling and churning, a

molten flux that seemed to be trying to solder the earth to the thunder

heads above.

When Clint had the recorder going again, Julie said, "Frank is that the

end of it?  When you woke Saturday morning, were you wearing new

clothes, with the paper bag full of money on the bed beside you?"

"No. Not then."

He raised his head, but he didn't look at her.  He stared past her at

the dreary day beyond the windows, though he seemed to be gazing at

something much farther away than Newport Beach.

"Maybe it's never going to end."  From the second flight bag out of

which he had earlier withdrawn the bloody shirt and the sample of black

sand, he produced a one-pint mason jar of the type used to store

homecanned fruits and vegetables, with a sturdy, hinged glass lid that

clamped on a rubber gasket.  The jar was filled with what appeared to be

rough, uncut, dully gleaming gems.  Some were more polished than others;

they sparkled, flared.

Frank released the lid, tipped the jar, and poured some of the contents

onto the imitation blond-wood Formica desktop.

Julie leaned forward.

Bobby stepped in for a closer look.

The less irregular gems were round, oval, teardrop, or lozenge-shaped;

some aspects of each stone were smoothly curved, and some were naturally

beveled with lots of sharp edges.  Other gems were lumpy, jagged,

pocked.  Several were as large as fat grapes, others as small as peas.

They were all red, though they varied in their degree of coloration.

They vigorously refracted the light, a pool of scarlet glitter on the

pale surface of the desk; the gems marshaled the diffuse glow of the

lamps through their prisms, and cast shimmering spears of crimson toward

the ceiling and one wall, where the acoustic tiles and Sheetrock

appeared to be marked by luminous wounds.

"Rubies?"  Bobby asked.

"They don't look quite like rubies," Julie said.

"What are they, Frank?"

"I don't know.  They might not even be valuable."

"Where'd you get them?"

"Saturday night I couldn't sleep much at all.  Just minutes at a time. I

kept tossing and turning, popping awake again as soon as I dozed off.

Afraid to sleep.  And I didn't nap Sunday afternoon.  But by yesterday

evening, I was so exhausted, I couldn't keep my eyes open any more.  I

slept in my clothes, and when I got up this morning, my pants pockets

were filled with these things."

Julie plucked one of the more polished stones from the pile and held it

to her right eye, looking through it toward the nearest lamp.  Even in

its raw state, the gem's color and clarity were exceptional.  They

might, as Frank implied, be only semiprecious, but she suspected that

they were, in fact, of considerable value.

Bobby said, "Why're you keeping them in a mason jar?"

"Because I had to go buy one anyway to keep this, stuff.

From the flight bag he produced a larger, quart-size jar and placed it

on the desk.

Julie turned to look at it and was so startled that she dropped the gem

she had been examining.  An insect, nearly as large as her hand, lay in

that glass container.  Though it had a tough shell like a

beetle-midnight black with blood-red markings around the entire rim-the

thing within that carapace more closely resembled a spider than a

beetle.  It had the sturdy, hairy legs of a tarantula.

"What the hell?"

Bobby grimaced.  He was mildly entromophobic.  When he encountered any

insect more formidable than a housefly, he called upon Julie to capture

or kill it, while he watched from a distance.

"Is it alive?"  Julie asked.

"Not now," Frank said.

Two forearms, like miniature lobster claws, extended from under the

front of the thing's shell, one on each side of the head, though they

differed from the appendages of a lobster in that the pincers were far

more highly articulated than those of any common crustacean.  They

somewhat resembled a hand with four curved, chitinous segments, each

jointed at the back, the edges were wickedly serrated.

"If that thing got hold of your finger," Bobby said, "It could snip it

off.  You say it was alive, Frank?"

"When I woke up this morning, it was crawling on my chest.

"Good God!"  Bobby paled visibly.

"It was sluggish."

"Yeah?  Well, it sure looks quick as a damned cockroach

"I think it was dying already," Frank said.

"I screamed brushed it off.  It just lay there on its back, on the

floor, kicking kinda feebly for a few seconds, then it was still.  I

stripped the case off one of the bed pillows, scooped the thing into it,

knotted the top so it wouldn't crawl away if it was still alive.  Then I

discovered the gems in my pockets, so I bought two mason jars, one for

the bug, and it hasn't moved since I put it in there, so I figure it's

dead.  You ever see anything like it?"

"No," Julie said.

"Thank God, no," Bobby agreed.  He was not leaning over the jar for a

closer look, as Julie was.  In fact he had taken a step back from the

desk, as if he thought the creepy-crawler might be able, in a wink, to

cut its way through the glass.

Julie picked up the jar and turned it so she could look at the bug

face-on.  Its satin-black head was almost as big as a plum and half

hidden under the carapace.  Multifaceted, muddy yellow eyes were set

high on the sides of the face, and under each of them was what appeared

to be another eye, a third smaller than the one above it and

reddish-blue.  Queer patterns of tiny holes, half a dozen thumblike

extrusions, and three clusters of silky-looking hairs marked the

otherwise smooth, shiny surface of that hideous countenance.  Its small

mouth, open now, was a circular orifice in which she saw what appeared

to be rings of tiny but sharp teeth.

Staring at the occupant of the jar, Frank said, "Whatever the hell I'm

mixed up in, it's a bad thing.  It's a real bad thing, and I'm afraid."

Bobby twitched.  In a thoughtful voice, speaking more to himself than to

them, Bobby said, "Bad thing.

Putting the jar down, Julie said, "Frank, we'll take the case."

"All right!"  Clint said, and switched off the recorder.

Turning away from the desk, heading toward the bathroom, Bobby said,

"Julie, I need to see you alone for a moment."

For the third time they stepped into the bathroom together, closed the

door behind them, and switched on the fan.

Bobby's face was grayish, like a highly detailed portrait done in

pencil; even his freckles were colorless.  His customarily merry blue

eyes were not merry now.

He said, "Are you crazy?  You told him we'll take the case."

Julie blinked in surprise.

"Isn't that what you wanted?"

"No."

"Ah. Then I guess I heard you wrong.  Must be too much wax in my ears.

Solid as cement."

"He's probably a lunatic, dangerous."

"I'd better go to a doctor, have my ears professionally cleaned."

"This wild story he's made up is just-"

She held up one hand, halting him in mid-sentence-

"It's real, Bobby.  He didn't imagine that bug.  What is that thing I've

never even seen pictures of anything like it."

"What about the money?  He must've stolen it."

"Frank's no thief."

"What-did God tell you that?  Because there's no other way you could

know.  You only met Pollard little more than an hour ago."

"You're right," she said.

"God told me.  And I always listen to God because if you don't listen to

Him, then He's likely to visit a plague of teeming locusts on you or

maybe set your house on fire with a lightning bolt.  Listen, Frank's so

lost, adrift, I feel sorry for him.  Okay?"

He stared at her, chewing on his pale lower lip for a moment then

finally said, "We work good together because we complement each other.

You're strong where I'm weak, and I'm strong where you're weak.  In many

ways we're not at all alike but we belong together because we fit like

pieces of a puzzle.

"What's your point?"

"One way we're different but complementary is our motivation.  This line

of work suits me because I get a kick out of helping people whore in

trouble through no fault of their own.  I like to see good triumph.

Sounds like a comic-book hero, but it's the way I feel.  You, on the

other hand, are primarily motivated by a desire to stomp the bad guys.

Yeah, sure, I like to see the bad guys all crumpled and whimpering, too,

but it is not as important to me as it is to you.  And, of course,

you're happy to help innocent people, but with you that's second to the

stomping and crushing.  Probably because you're still working out your

rage over the murder of your mother."

"Bobby, if I want psychoanalysis, I'll get it in a room when the primary

piece of furniture is a couch-not a toilet."

Her mother had been taken hostage in a bank holdup when Julie was

twelve.  The two perpetrators had been high on amphetamines and low on

common sense and compassion.  Before it was all over, five of the six

hostages were dead, and Julie's mother was not the lucky one.

Turning to the mirror, Bobby looked at her reflection, as if he was

uncomfortable meeting her eyes directly.

"My point is-suddenly you're acting like me, and that's no good, that

destroys our balance, disrupts the harmony of this relationship, and

it's the harmony that has always kept us alive, successful and alive.

You want to take this case because you're fascinated, it excites your

imagination, and because you'd like to help Frank, he's so pitiful.

Where's your usual outrage?  I'll tell you where it is.  You don't have

any because, at this moment anyway, there's no one to elicit it, no bad

guy.  Okay, there's the guy he says chased him that night, but we don't

even know if he's real or just a figment of Frank's fantasy.  Without an

obvious bad guy to focus your anger, I should have to drag you into this

every step of the way, and that's what I was doing, but now you're doing

the dragging, and that worries me.  It doesn't feel right."

She let him ramble on, with their gazes locked in the mirror, and when

at last he finished, she said, "No, that's not your point."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, everything you just said is smoke.  What's really bothering

you, Robert?"

His reflection tried to stare down her reflection.

She smiled.

"Come on.  Tell me.  We never keep secrets."

Bobby-in-the-mirror looked like some bad imitation of the real Bobby

Dakota.  The real Bobby, her Bobby, was full of fun and life and energy.

Bobby-in-the-mirror was gray-faced, almost grim; his vitality had been

sapped by worry.

"Robert?"  she prodded.

"You remember last Thursday when we woke?"  he said.  "The Santa Anas

were blowing.  We made love."

"I remember."

"And right after we'd made love...  I had the strange, terrible feeling

that I was going to lose you, that something out there in the wind

was...  coming to get you."

"You told me about it later that night, at Ozzie's, when we were talking

about jukeboxes.  But the windstorm ended, and nothing got me.  Here I

am."

"That same night, Thursday night, I had a nightmare, the most vivid damn

dream you can imagine."  He told her about the little house on the

beach, the jukebox standing in the san the thunderous inner voice-THE

BAD THING IS COMING, THE BAD THING, BAD THING!-and about the corrosive

sea that had swallowed both of them, dissolving the flesh and dragging

their bones into lightless depths.

"It rock me.  You can't conceive of how real it seemed.  Sounds crazy

but...  that dream was almost more real than real life.  I woke up,

scared as bad as I've ever been.  You were sleeping, and I didn't wake

you.  Didn't tell you about it later because I didn't see the point of

worrying you and because -..  well, it seemed childish to put much stock

in a dream.  I haven't had the nigh mare again.  But since then-Friday,

Saturday, yesterday I've had moments when a strange anxiety sort of

shivered through me, and I think maybe some bad thing is coming to get

you.  And now, out there in the office, Frank said he's mixed up in a

bad thing, a real bad thing, that's heavy, and right away I made the

connection.  Julie, maybe this guy is the bad thing I dreamed about.

Maybe we shouldn't take it.

She stared at Bobby-in-the-mirror for a moment, wondering how to

reassure him.  Finally she decided that, because the roles had reversed,

she should deal with him as Bobby would deal with her in a similar

situation.  Bobby would not resolve to logic and reason-which were her

tools-but would charm and humor her out of a funk.

Instead of responding directly to his concerns, she said, long as we're

getting things off our chests, you know who bothers me?  The way you sit

on my desk sometimes while we're talking to a prospective client.  With

some clients, it might make sense for me to sit on the desk, wearing a

short skirt, showing some leg, 'cause I have good legs, even if I say so

myself But you never wear skirts, short or otherwise, and you don't have

the gams for it, anyway."

"Who's talking about desks?"

"I am," she said, turning away from the mirror and looking at him

directly.

"We leased a seven-room suite instead of an eight-room to save money,

and by the time the rest of the staff was settled had only one office

for ourselves, which seemed ok because There's plenty of room in there

for two desks, but you say you don't want one.  Desks are too formal for

you.  All you need is a couch to lie on while making calls, you say, yet

when clients come in, you sit on my desk."

"Julie-"

"Formica is a hard, nearly impervious surface, but sooner or later

you'll have spent so much time sitting on my desk, it'll be marked by a

permanent imprint of your ass -."

Because she wouldn't look at the mirror, he had to turn away from it,

too, and face her.

"Didn't you hear what I said about the dream?"

"Now, don't get me wrong.  You've got a cute ass, Bobby, but I don't

want the imprint on my desktop.  Pencils will keep rolling into the

depression.  Dust will collect in it."

"What's going on here?"

"I want to warn you that I'm thinking of having the top of my desk

wired, so I can electrify it with a flick of a switch.  You sit on it

then, and you'll know what a fly feels like when it settles on one of

those electronic bug zappers."

"You're being difficult, Julie.  Why're you being difficult?"

"Frustration.  I haven't gotten to stomp or crush any bad guys lately.

Makes me irritable."

He said, "Hey, wait a minute.  You're not being difficult."

"Of course I'm not."

"You're being me!"

"Exactly."  She kissed his right cheek and patted his left.  "Now, let's

go back out there and take the case."

She opened the door and stepped out of the bathroom.

With some amusement, Bobby said, "I'll be damned," and followed her into

the office.

Frank Pollard was talking quietly with Clint, but he fell silent and

looked up hopefully as they entered.

Shadows clung to the corners like monks to their cloisters, and for some

reason the amber glow from the three lamps reminded her of the

scintillant and mysterious light of serried votive candles in a church.

The puddle of scarlet gems still glimmered on the desk.

The bug was still in a death crouch in the mason jar.

"Did Clint explain our fee schedule?"  she asked Pollard.

"Yes."

"Okay.  In addition, we'll need ten thousand dollars as advance against

expenses."

Outside, lightning scarred the bellies of the clouds.  bruised sky

ruptured, and cold rain spattered against the windows.

VIOLET HAD been awake for more than an hour, and during most of that

time she had been a hawk, swooping high on the wind, darting down now

and then to make a swift kill.  The open sky was nearly as real to her

as it was to the bird that she had invaded.  She glided on thermal

currents, the air offering little resistance to the sleek fore edges of

her wings, with only the lowering gray clouds above, and the whole

huddled world below.

She was also aware of the shadowy bedroom in which her body and a

portion of her mind remained.  Violet and Verbina usually slept during

the day, for to sleep away the night was to waste the best of times.

They shared a room on the second floor, one king-size bed, never more

than an arm's reach from each other, though usually entwined.  That

Monday afternoon, Verbina was still asleep, naked, on her belly, with

her head turned away from her sister, occasionally mumbling wordlessly

into her pillow.  Her warm flank pressed against Violet.  Even while

Violet was with the hawk, she was aware of her twin's body heat, smooth

skin, slow rhythmic breathing, sleepy murmurings, and distinct scent.

She smelled the dust in the room, too, and the stale odor of the long

unwashed sheets and the cats, of course.

She not only smelled the cats, which slept upon the bed and the

surrounding floor or lay lazily licking themselves, but lived in each of

them.  While a part of her consciousness remained in her own pale flesh

and a part soared with the feathered predator, other aspects of her held

tenancy in each of the cats, twenty-five of them now that poor Samantha

was gone.  Simultaneously Violet experienced the world through her own

senses, through those of the hawk, and through the fifty eyes and

twenty-five noses and fifty ears and hundred paws and twenty-five

tongues of the pack.  She could smell her own odor not merely through

her own nose but through the of all the cats: the faint soapy residue of

last night's bath pleasantly lingering with the tang of lemon-scented

shampoo; that always followed sleep; halitosis ripe with the ghosts of

the raw eggs and onions and raw liver that she eaten that morning before

going to bed with the rising sun.  Each remember of the pack had a

sharper ol factory sense she didn't, and each perceived her scent

differently from what she did; they found her natural fragrance strange

yet intriguing and familiar.

She could smell, see, hear, and feel herself through their senses, as

well, for she was always inextricably linked with Verbina.  At will, she

could swiftly enter or disengage from minds of other lifeforms, but

Verbina was the only other person with whom she could join in that way.

It was a permanence which they had shared since birth.  She could never

disengage from her twin.  Likewise, she could control the minds of

animals as well as inhabit them, but she was not able to control her

sister.  Their link was not that of master and puppet, but special and

sacred.

All of her life, Violet had lived at the confluence of rivers of

sensation, bathed in great churning currents of and scent and sight and

taste and touch, experiencing the world not only through her own senses

but those of surrogates.  For part of her childhood, she had been so

overwhelmed by sensory input that she could not cope; had turned inward,

to her secret world of rich, varied, and found experience, until she had

learned to control the quenching flood, harnessing it instead of being

swept away.  Only had she chosen to relate to the people around her,

absolutism, and she had not learned to talk until she was six years old.

She had never risen out of those deep, fast current extraordinary

sensation to stand on the comparatively dry of life on which other

people existed, but at least she learned to interact with her mother,

Candy, and others to a limited degree.

Verbina had never coped half as well as Violet, and probably never

would.  Having chosen a life almost exclusively by sensation, she

exhibited little or no concern for the development of her intellect. She

had never learned to talk, showed only the vaguest interest in anyone

but her sister, and immersed herself with joyous abandonment in the

ocean of sensory stimuli that surged around her.  Running as a squirrel,

flying as a hawk or gull, rutting as a cat, loping and killing as a

coyote, drinking cool water from a stream through the mouth of a raccoon

or field mouse, entering the mind of a bitch in heat as other dogs

mounted her, simultaneously sharing the terror of the cornered rabbit

and the savage excitement of the predatory fox, Verbina enjoyed a

breadth of life that no one else but Violet could ever know.  And she

preferred the constant thrill of immersion in the wildness of the world

to the comparatively mundane existence of other people.

Now, although Verbina still slept, a part of her was with Violet in the

soaring hawk, for even sleep did not necessitate the complete

disconnection of their links to other minds.  The continuous sensory

input of the lesser species was not only the primary fabric from which

their lives were cut, but the stuff of which their dreams were formed,

as well.

Under storm clouds that grew darker by the minute, the hawk glided high

over the canyon behind the Pollard property.  It was hunting.

Far below, among pieces of dried and broken tumbleweed, between spiny

clumps of gorse, a fat mouse broke cover.  It scurried along the canyon

floor, alert for signs of enemies at ground level but oblivious to the

feathered death that observed it from far above.

Instinctively aware that the mouse could hear the flapping of wings from

a great distance and would scramble into the nearest haven at the first

sound of them, the hawk silently tucked its wings back, half folding

them against its body, and dived steeply, angling toward the rodent.

Though she had shared this experience countless times before, Violet

held her breath as they plummeted twelve hundred feet, dropping past

ground level and farther down into the ravine; and though she actually

was safely on her back in bed, her stomach seemed to turn within her,

and a primal terror swelled within her breast even as she let out a

thing squeal of pleasurable excitement.

On the bed beside Violet, her sister also softly cried out.

On the canyon floor the mouse froze, sensing onrushing doom but not

certain from which quarter it was coming.

The hawk deployed its wings as foils at the last moment abruptly the

true substance of the air became apparent a provided a welcome braking

resistance.  Letting its hind quarters precede it, extending its legs,

opening its claws, the hawk seized the mouse even as the creature

reacted to the sudden spread of wings and tried to flee.

Though remaining with the hawk, Violet entered the mind of the mouse an

instant before the predator had taken it.  She felt the icy satisfaction

of the hunter and the hot fear of the prey.  From the perspective of the

hawk, she felt the flesh puncture and split under the sharp and powerful

assault of her talons, and from the perspective of the mouse she was

wracked by searing pain and was aware of a dread rupturing within.  The

bird peered down at the squealing rodent in its grasp, and shivered with

a wild sense of dominant and power, with a realization that hunger would

again sated.  It loosed a caw of triumph that echoed along the canyon.

Feeling small and helpless in the grip of its winged assailant in the

thrall of excruciating fear so intense as to be strong akin to the most

exquisite of sensory pleasures, the mouse looked up into the steely,

merciless eyes and ceased to struggle, went limp, resigned itself to

death.  It saw the fierce beak descending, was aware of being rended,

but no longer felt pain only numb resignation, then a brief moment of

shattering pain then nothing, nothing.  The hawk tipped back its head

and bloody ribbons and warm knots of flesh fall down its gull.  On the

bed Violet turned on her side to face her sister.  Having been shaken

from sleep by the power of the experience with the hawk, Verbina came

into Violet's arms.  Naked, pelvis pelvis, belly to belly, breasts to

breasts, the twins held each other and shuddered uncontrollably.  Violet

gasped against Verbina's tender throat, and through her link with

Verbina's mind, she felt that hot flood of her own breath and the warmth

it brought to her sister's skin.  They made wordless sounds a clung to

each other, and their frantic breathing did not beg to subside until the

hawk tore the last red sliver of nourishing meat from the mouse's hide

and, with a flurry of wings, threw itself into the sky again.

Below was the Pollard property: the Eugenia hedge; the grey blued,

slate-roofed, weathered-looking house; the twenty-year-' old Buick that

had belonged to their mother and that Candy sometimes drove; clusters of

primrose burning with red and yellow and purple blooms in a narrow and

untended flower bed that extended the length of the decrepit back porch.

Violet also saw Candy far below, at the northeast corner of the

sprawling property.

Still holding fast to her sister, gracing Verbina's throat and cheek and

temple with a lace of gentle kisses, Violet simultaneously directed the

hawk to circle above her brother.  Through the bird, she watched him as

he stood, head bowed, at their mother's grave, mourning her as he had

mourned her every day, without exception, since her death those many

years ago.

Violet did not mourn.  Her mother had been as much a stranger to her as

anyone in the world, and she had felt nothing special at the woman's

passing.  Indeed, because Candy was gifted, too, Violet felt closer to

him than she had to her mother, which was not saying much because she

did not really know him or care a great deal about him.  How could she

be close to anyone if she could not enter his mind and live with him,

through him?  That incredible intimacy was what welded her to Verbina,

and it marked the myriad relationships she enjoyed with all the fowl and

fauna that populated nature's world.  She simply did not know how to

relate to anyone without that intense, innermost connection, and if she

could not love, she could not mourn.

Far below the wheeling hawk, Candy dropped to his knees beside the

grave.

MONDAY AFTERNOON.  Thomas sat at his work table.  Making a picture poem.

Derek helped.  Or thought he did.  He sorted through some magazine

clippings.  He chose pictures, gave them to Thomas.  If the picture was

right, Thomas trimmed it, pasted it on the page.  Most of the time it

wasn't right, so he put it waside and asked for another picture and

another until he gave him something he could use.

He didn't tell Derek the awful truth.  The awful truth that he wanted to

make the poem by himself.  But he could hurt Derek's feelings.  Derek

was hurt enough.  Being dumb really hurt, and Derek was dumber than

Thomas.  Though Derek was dumber-looking, too, which was more hurtful.

His forehead sloped more than Thomas's.  His nose was flatter, his head

had a squashy shape.  Awful truth.

Later, tired of making the picture poem, Thomas and Derek went to the

wreck room, and that was where it happen Derek got hurt.  He got hurt so

much he cried.  A girl did it.  Mary.  In the wreck room.

Some people were playing a game of marbles in one corner.  Some were

watching TV.  Thomas and Derek were sitting on a couch near some

windows, Being Sociable when any came around.  The aides always wanted

people at The home to Be Sociable.  It was good for you to Be Sociable.

When one came around to Be Sociable with them, Thomas and Derek were

watching hummingbirds at a feeder that hung outside windows.

Hummingbirds didn't really hum, but they zip around and were a lot of

fun to watch.  Mary, who was at The Home, didn't zip around and wasn't

fun to watch, she hummed a lot.  No, she buzzed.  Buzz, buzz, buzz, all

the time.

Mary knew about eye cues.  She said they really mattered, eye cues, and

maybe they did, though Thomas had never heard of them and didn't

understand what they were, but then a lot of things he didn't understand

were important.  He knew what eyes were, of course.  He knew a cue was a

stick you hit balls with because they had a pool table right there in

the wreck room, near where he and Derek were sitting, though nobody used

it much.  He figured it would be a bad thing, real bad, if you stuck

yourself in the eye with a cue, but this Mary said eye cues were good

and she had a big one for a Down's kid.

"I'm a high-end moron," she said, real happy with herself, you could

tell.

Thomas didn't know what a moron was, but he couldn't see a high-end to

Mary anywhere, she was fat and mostly droopy all over.

"You're probably a moron, too, Thomas, but you ain't high-end like me.

I'm almost normal, and you ain't as close to normal as me."  All this

only confused Thomas.

It confused Derek even more, you could tell, and in his thick and

sometimes hard to understand voice, Derek said, "Me?  No moron."

He shook his head.

"Cowboy."  He smiled.

"Cowboy."  Mary laughed at him.

"You ain't no cowboy or ever going to be.  What you are is you're an

imbecile."  They had to ask her to say it a few times before they got

it, but even then they didn't really get it.  They could say it but

didn't know what it was any more than they knew what one of these eye

cues looked like.

"You've got your normal people," Mary said,

"then morons under them, then imbeciles, whore dumber than morons, and

then you got idiots, whore dumber than even imbeciles.  Me, I'm a

high-end moron, and I ain't going to be here forever, I'm going to be

good, behave, work hard to be normal, and someday go back to the halfway

house."

"Halfway where?"  Derek asked, which was what Thomas wondered too.

Mary laughed at him.

"Halfway to being normal, which is more than you'll ever be, you poor

damn imbecile."  This time Derek realized she was looking down on him,

making fun, and he tried not to cry, but he did.  He got red in the face

and cried, and Mary grinned sort of wild, she was all puffed up,

excited, like she'd won some big prize.  She'd said a bad word-damn-and

should be ashamed, but she wasn't, you could tell.  She said the other

word again, which Thomas now saw was a bad word, too,

"imbecile," and she kept saying it, until poor Derek got up and ran, and

even then she shout it after him.

Thomas went back to their room, looking for Derek, but Derek was in the

closet with the door shut, bawling.  Some of the aides came, and they

talked to Derek real nice, but he didn't want to come out of the closet.

They had to talk to him a long time to get him to come out of there, but

even then couldn't stop him from crying, and so after a while they had

to Give him Something.  Once in a while when you were sick, like with

the flu, the aides asked you to Take Something, which meant pill of one

shape or another, one color or another, big or little But when they had

to Give You Something, it always was a needle, which was a bad thing.

They never had to Give Something to Thomas because he was always good.

But sometimes Derek wasn't nice as he was, got to feeling so bad about

himself that he couldn't stop crying, and sometimes he hit himself, just

hit himself in the face, until he broke himself open and got blood on

himself, and even then he wouldn't stop, so they had to give Him

Something For His Own Good.  Derek never hit anyone else, he was nice,

but For His Own Good he sometimes had to be made to relax or sometimes

even made to sleep, which was what happened the day Mary the high-end

moron called him an imbecile.

After Derek was made to sleep, one of the aides sat beside Thomas at the

worktable.  It was Cathy.  Thomas liked Cathy.  She was older than Julie

but not as old as somebody's mother.  She was pretty.  Not as pretty as

Julie but pretty, with a nice voice and eyes you weren't afraid to look

into.  She took one of Thomas's hands in both of hers, and she asked if

he was okay.  He said he was, but he really wasn't, and she knew it.

They talked a while.  That helped.  Being Sociable.

She told him about Mary, so he'd understand, and that helped too.

"She's so frustrated, Thomas.  She was out their in the world for a

while, at a halfway house, and she even had a part-time job, making a

little money of her own.  She was trying so hard, but it didn't work,

she had too many problems so she had to be institutionalized again.  I

think she regrets what she did to Derek.  She's just so disappointed

that she needed to feel superior to someone."

"I am...  It was...  It was out there in the world once," Thomas said.

"I know you were, honey."

"With my dad.  Then with my sister.  And Bobby."

"Did you like it out there?"

"Some of it...  scared me.  But when I was with Julie and Bobby...  I

liked that part.".

On his bed, Derek was snoring now.

The afternoon was half gone.  The sky was getting ugly stormy.  The room

had shadows everywhere.  Only the desk lamp was on.  Cathy's face looked

pretty in the lampglow.  Her skin was like peach-colored satin.  He knew

what satin was like.  Julie once had a dress of satin.

For a while he and Cathy were quiet.

Then he said, "Sometimes it's hard."

She put her hand on his head.  Smoothed his hair.

"Yeah, I know, Thomas.  I know."  She was so nice.  He didn't know why

he started to cry when she was so nice, but he did.  Maybe it was

because she was so nice.

Cathy scooted her chair closer to his.  He leaned against her.  She put

her arms around him.  He cried and cried.  Not hard terrible crying like

Derek.  Soft.  But he couldn't stop.  He tried not to cry because crying

made him feel dumb, and he hated feeling dumb.

Through his tears, he said, "I hate feeling dumb."

"You're not dumb, honey."

"Yeah, I am.  Hate it.  But I can't be nothing else.  I try not to think

about being dumb, but you can't not think about it when it's what you

are, and when other people aren't, and they go out in the world every

day and they live, but you don't go out in the world and don't even want

to but, oh, you want to, even when you say you don't."  That was a lot

for him to say, and he was surprised that he had said it all, surprised

but also frustrated because he wanted so bad to tell her how it felt,

being dumb, being afraid of going out in the world, and he'd failed,

hadn't been able to find the right words, so the feeling was still all

bottled up in him.

"Time.  There's lots of time, see, when you're dumb and can't go out in

the world, lots of time to fill up, but then there really ain't enough

time, not enough for learning how to be not afraid of things, and I've

got to learn how not to be afraid so I can go back and be with Julie a

Bobby, which I want to do real bad, before all the time runs out.

There's too big amounts of time and not enough, and that sounds dumb,

don't it?"

"No, Thomas.  It doesn't sound dumb."

He didn't move out of her arms.  He wanted to be hugged.

Cathy said, "You know, sometimes life is hard for everyone Even for

smart people.  Even for the smartest of them all."

With one hand he wiped at his damp eyes.

"It is?  Sometimes is it hard for you?"

"Sometimes.  But I believe there's a God, Thomas, and that he put us

here for a reason, and that every hardship we have to face is a test,

and that we're better for enduring them."

He raised his head to look at her.  Such nice eyes.  Good eyes.  They

were eyes that loved you.  Like Julie's eyes or Bobby's.

Thomas said, "God made me dumb to test me?"

"You're not dumb, Thomas.  Not in some ways.  I don't like to hear you

call yourself dumb.  You're not as smart as some but that's not your

fault.  You're different, that's all.  Being..  different is your

hardship, and you're coping with it well."

"I am?"

"Beautifully.  Look at you.  You're not bitter.  You're not sullen.  You

reach out to people."  "Being Sociable."

She smiled, pulled a tissue from the box of Kleenex on the worktable,

and wiped the tears from his face.

"Of all the smart people in the world, Thomas, not any one of them

handles hard ship better than you do, and most not as well."

He knew she meant what she said, and her words made him happy, even if

he didn't quite believe life was ever hard for smart people.

She stayed a while.  Made sure he was okay.  Then she made sure Derek

was still snoring.

Thomas sat at the worktable.  Tried to make more poems.

After a while he went to the window.  Rain was coming dow now.  It

trickled on the glass.  The afternoon was almost gone.  Night was soon

coming down on top of the rain.

He put his hands against the glass.  He stared into the rain into the

gray day, into the nothingness of the night that was slowly sneaking up

on them.

The Bad Thing was still out there.  He could feel it.  A man but not a

man.  Something more than a man.  Very bad.  Ugly-nasty.  He'd felt it

for days, but he hadn't sent a warning to Bobby since last week because

the Bad Thing wasn't coming any closer.  It was far away, right now

Julie was safe, and if he sent too many warnings to Bobby, then Bobby

would stop paying attention to them, and when the Bad Thing finally

showed up, Bobby wouldn't believe in it any more, and then it would get

to Julie because Bobby wouldn't be paying attention.

What Thomas most feared was that the Bad Thing would take Julie to the

Bad Place.  Their mother went to the Bad Place when Thomas was two years

old, so he'd never known her.  Then their dad went to the Bad Place

later, leaving Thomas with just Julie.

He didn't mean Hell.  He knew about Heaven and Hell.  Heaven was God's.

The devil owned Hell.  If there was a Heaven, he was sure his mom and

dad went there.  You wanted to go up to Heaven if you could.  Things

were better there.  In Hell, the aides weren't nice.

But, to Thomas, the Bad Place wasn't just Hell.  it was Death.  Hell was

a bad place, but Death was the Bad Place.  Death was a word you couldn't

picture.  Death meant everything stopped, went away, all your time ran

out, over, done, kaput.  How could you picture that?  A thing wasn't

real if you couldn't picture it.  He couldn't see Death, couldn't get a

picture of it in his head, not if he thought about it the way other

people seemed to think about it.  He was just too dumb, so he had to

picture it in his head as a place.  They said Death came to take you,

and it had come to take his father one night, his heart had attacked

him, but if it came to take you, then it had to take you to some place.

And that was the Bad Place.  It's where you were taken and never allowed

to come back.  Thomas didn't know what happened to a person there. Maybe

nothing nasty.  Except you weren't allowed to come back and see people

you loved, which made it nasty enough, no matter if the food was good

over there.  Maybe some people went on to Heaven, some to Hell, but you

couldn't come back from either one, so both were part of the Bad Place,

just different rooms.  And he wasn't sure Heaven and Hell were real,

maybe all there was in the Bad Place was darkness and!"  and so much

empty space that when you went over there you couldn't even find the

people who'd gone ahead of you.

That scared him most of all.  Not just losing Julie to the Place, but

not being able to find her when he went over there himself.

He was already afraid of the night.  All that big empty place off the

world.  So if just the night itself was so scary, Bad Place would be

lots worse.  It was sure to be bigger to the night, and daylight never

came in the Bad Place.

Outside, the sky got darker.

Wind blew the palms.

Rain ran down the glass.

The Bad Thing was far away.

But it would come closer.  Soon.

CANDY WAs having one of those days when he could not accept that his

mother was dead.  Every time he crossed a threshold or turned a corner,

he expected to see her.  He thought he heard her rocking in the parlor,

humming softly to herself as she knitted a new afghan, but when he went

in there to look, the rocking chair was filmed with dust and draped with

a shawl of cobwebs.  Once, he hurried into the kitchen, expecting to

find her in a brightly flowered house dress overlaid with a

ruffle-trimmed white apron, dropping neat spoonsful of cookie batter on

baking sheets or perhaps mixing a cake, but, of course, she was not

there.  In a moment of acute emotional turmoil, Candy raced upstairs,

certain that he would find his mother in bed, but when he burst into her

room, he remembered that it was his room now, and that she was gone.

Eventually, to jar himself out of that strange and troubling mood, he

went into the backyard and stood by her lonely grave in the northeast

corner of the large property.  He had buried her there, seven years ago,

under a solemn winter sky similar to the one that currently hid the sun,

with a hawk circling above just as one circled now.  He had dug her

grave, wrapped her in sheets scented with Channel No. 5, and lowered her

into the ground secretly, because interment on private property, was not

designated as a grave site, was against the law.  If he had allowed her

to be buried elsewhere, he would have had to go live there with her, for

he could not have endured being separated from her mortal remains for

any great length of time.

Candy dropped to his knees.

Over the years the original mound of earth had settled, until her grave

was marked by a shallow concavity.  The grass was sparser there, the

blades coarse, wiry, different from the rest of the lawn, though he did

not know why; even in the months following her burial, the grass above

her had not flourished No headstone memorialized her passing; although

the back yard was sheltered by the high hedge, he could not risk

calling] attention to her illegal resting place.

Staring at the ground before him, Candy wondered if a stone would help

him accept her death.  If every day he could see her name and the date

of her death deeply cut into a sliver of marble, that sight should

slowly but permanently engrave his loss upon his heart, sparing him days

like this, when he was disturbed by a queer forgetfulness and by a hope

that could never be fulfilled.

He stretched out on the grave, his head turned to one side with an ear

against the earth, as if he half expected to hear her speaking to him

from her subterranean bed.  Pressing his back hard into the unyielding

ground, he longed to feel the vitality that she had once radiated, the

singular energy that had flowed from her like heat from the open door of

a furnace, but he was nothing.  Though his mother had been a special

woman, Candy knew it was absurd to expect her corpse, after seven years

radiate even a ghost of the love that she had lavished upon when she was

alive; nevertheless, he was grievously disappointed when not even the

faintest aura shimmered up through the dirt from her sacred bones.

Hot tears burned in his eyes, and he tried to hold them back But a faint

rumble of thunder passed through the sky, an few fat droplets of rain

began to fall, and neither the storm his tears could be restrained.

She lay only five or six feet beneath him, and he was overcome by an

urge to claw his way down to her.  He knew flesh would have

deteriorated, that he would find only bow cradled in a vile muck of

unthinkable origin, but he was to hold her and be held, even if he had

to arrange her skeleton arms around himself in a staged embrace.  He

actually rip at the grass and tore up a few handsful of topsoil.  Soon,

however, he was wracked by powerful sobs that swiftly exhausted him and

left him too weak to struggle with reality any way She was dead.

Gone.

Forever.

As the cold rain fell in greater volume, pounding on Candy's back, it

seemed to leech his hot grief from him and fill him instead, with icy

hatred.  Frank had killed their mother; he must pay for that crime with

his own life.  Lying on a muddy grave and weeping like a child would not

bring Candy one step closer to vengeance.  Finally he got up and stood

with his hands fisted at his sides, letting the storm sluice some of the

mud and grief from him.

He promised his mother that he would be more relentless and diligent in

his pursuit of her killer.  The next time he got a lead on Frank, he

would not lose him.

Looking up at the cloud-choked and streaming sky, addressing his mother

in Heaven, he said,

"I'll find Frankie, kill him, crush him, I will.  I'll smash his skull

open and cut his hateful brain into pieces and flush it down a toilet."

The rain seemed to penetrate him, driving a chill deep into his marrow,

and he shuddered.

"If I find anyone who lifted a hand to help him, I'll cut their hands

off.  I'll tear out the eyes of anyone who looked at Frankie with

sympathy.  I swear I will.  And I'll cut out the tongues of any bastards

who spoke kind words to him."  Suddenly the rain fell with greater force

than before, hammering the grass flat, crackling through the leaves of a

nearby oak, stirring a chorus of whispers from the Eugenias.  It snapped

against his face, making him squint, but he did not lower his eyes from

Heaven.

"If he's found anyone to care about, anyone at all, I'll take them away

from him like he took you from me.  I'll break them open, get the blood

out of them, and throw them away like garbage."  He had made these same

promises many times during the past seven years, but he made them now

with no less passion than he had before.

"Like garbage," he repeated through clenched teeth.

His need for vengeance was no less fierce now than it had been on the

day of her murder seven years ago.  His hatred of Frank was, if

anything, harder and sharper than ever.

"Like garbage.

" An ax of lightning cleaved the conclusive sky.  Briefly a long, jagged

laceration gaped open in the dark clouds, which for a moment seemed to

him not like clouds at all but like the infinitely strange and throbbing

body of some godlike being, and through the lightning-rent flesh he

thought he glimpsed the shining mystery beyond.

Clint DREADED the rainy season in southern California.  Most of the year

was dry, and in the on-again-off-again drought of the past decade, some

winters were marked by a few storms.  When rain finally fell, the

natives seemed to have forgotten how to drive in it.  As gutters

overflowed, the street clogged with traffic.  The freeways were worse;

they looked like infinitely long car washes in which the conveyors had

broken down.

While the gray light slowly faded out of that Monday afternoon, he drove

first to Palomar Laboratories in Costa Mesa.  It was a large,

single-story concrete-block building one block west of Bristol Avenue.

Their medical-lab division an any blood samples, Pap smears, and

biopsies, among other things but they also performed industrial- and

geological-samples analyses of all kinds.

He parked his Chevy in the adjoining lot.  Carrying a plastic bag from

Von's supermarket, he sloshed through the deep ditches, head bent

against the driving rain, and went into the small reception lounge,

dripping copiously.

An attractive young blonde sat on a stool behind the counter at the

reception window.  She was wearing a white uniform and a purple

cardigan.  She said, "You should have an umbrella."

Clint nodded, put the supermarket bag on the counter, and began to untie

the knot in the straps, to open it.

"At least a raincoat," she said.

From an inside jacket pocket, he withdrew a Dakota & & Dakota & card,

passed it to her.

"Is this who you want billed?"  she asked.

"Yeah."

"Have you used our service before?"

"Yeah."

"You have an account?"

"Yeah."

"I haven't seen you in here before."

"No."

"My name's Lisa.  I've only been here about a week.  Never had a private

eye come in before, least since I've started."

From the large white sack he withdrew three smaller, clear, Ziploc bags

and lined them up side by side.

"You got a name?"  she asked, cocking her head, smiling at him.

"Clint."

"You go around without an umbrella or raincoat in this weather, Clint,

you'll catch your death, even as sturdy as you look."

"First, the shirt," Clint said, pushing that bag forward.

"We want the bloodstains analyzed.  Not just typed.  We want the whole

nine yards.  A complete genetic workup too.  Take samples from four

different parts of the shirt, because there might be more than one

person's blood on it.  If so, do a workup on both."

Lisa frowned at Clint, then at the shirt in the bag.  She began filling

out an analysis order.

"Same program on this one," he said, pushing forward the second bag.  It

contained a folded sheet of Dakota & Dakota stationery that was mottled

with several spots of blood.  Back at the office, Julie had sterilized a

pin in a match flame, stuck Frank Pollard's thumb, and squeezed the

crimson samples onto the paper.

"We want to know if any of the blood on the shirt matches what's on this

stationery."

The third bag contained the black sand.

"Is this a biological substance?"  Lisa asked.

"I don't know.  Looks like sand."

"Because if it's a biological substance, it should go to our medical

division, but if it's not biological it should go to the industrial

lab."

"Send a little to both.  And put a rush on it."

"Costs more."

"Whatever."

As she filled out the third form, she said, "There's a few beaches "in

Hawaii with black sand, you ever been there?"

.'No.

"Kaimu.  That's the name of one of the black beaches.  Comes from a

volcano, somehow.  The sand, I mean."

"You like beaches?"

"Yeah."  She looked up, her pen poised over the form, and gave a big

smile.  Her lips were full.  Her teeth were very white.  "love the

beach.  Nothing I like better than putting on a bathing suit and soaking

up some sun, really just baking in the sun, I don't care what they say

about a tan being bad for you.  I'm short anyway, you know?  Might as

well look good while we're here.  Besides, being in the sun makes me

feel...  oh, not exactly, because I don't mean it saps my energy, just

that it makes me feel full of energy, but a lazy energy, so the way a

lioness walks-you know?-strong-looking but The sun makes me feel like a

lioness."

He said nothing.

She said, "It's erotic, the sun.  I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

You lay out in the sun enough, on a nice beach, all your inhibitions

sort of melt away."  He just stared at her.

After she finished filling out the analysis orders, gave him copies, and

attached each order to the correct sample, said, "Listen, Clint, we're

living in a modern world, figuring He didn't know what she meant.

She said, "We're all liberated these days, am I right?  a girl finds a

guy attractive, she doesn't have to wait for to make the move."

Oh, Clint thought.

Leaning back on her stool, maybe to let him see how her full breasts

filled out her white uniform blouse, she smiled said, "Would you be

interested in a dinner, movie?"

"No."

Her smile froze.

"Sorry," he said.

He folded the copies of the work orders and put them in his jacket

pocket from which earlier he had withdrawn a business card.

She was glaring at him, and he realized he'd hurt her feelings.

Searching for something to say, all he could come up with was, "I'm

gay."

She blinked and shook her head as if recovering from a stunning blow.

Like sun piercing clouds, her smile broke through the gloom on her face.

"Had to be to resist this package, I guess."

"Sorry."

"Hey, it's not your fault.  We are what we are, huh?"

He went into the rain again.  It was getting colder.  The sky looked

like the ruins of a burned-out building to which the fire department had

arrived too late:

wet ashes, dripping cinders.

AS NIGHT fell on that rainy Monday, Bobby Dakota stood at the hospital

window and said, "Not much of a view, Frank.  Unless you're keen on

parking lots."

He turned and surveyed the small, white room.  Hospitals always gave him

the creeps, but he did not express his true feeling to Frank.

"The decor sure won't be featured in Architectural Digest anytime soon,

but it's comfy enough.  You've got TV, nurses, and three meals a day in

bed.  I noticed that some of the nurses are real lookers, too, but

please try to keep your hands off the nuns, okay?"

Frank was paler than ever.  The dark circles around his eyes had grown

like spreading inkblots.  He not only looked like he belonged in a

hospital but as if he had been there already.  He used the power

controls to tilt the bed up.

"Are these tests really necessary?"

"Your amnesia might have a physical cause," said Julie.  "You heard

Doctor Freeborn.  They'll look for cerebral abscesses, neoplasms, cysts,

clots, all kinds of things."

"I'm not sure about this Freeborn," Frank said.

Sanford Freeborn was Bobby and Julie's friend, as well as their

physician.  A few years ago years ago they had helped him get his

brother out of deep trouble.

"Why?  What's wrong with Sandy?"

Frank said, "I don't know him."

"You don't know anybody," Bobby said.

"That's your line.  Remember?  You're an amnesiac."

After accepting Frank as a client, they had taken him directly to Sandy

Freeborn's office for a preliminary examination.  All Sandy knew was

that Frank could remember nothing but his name.  They had not told him

about the bags of money the blood, black sand, red gems, the weird

insect, or any of the rest of it.  Sandy didn't ask why Frank had come

to them instead of the police or why they had accepted a case so far

outside their usual purview; one of the things that made him a good

friend was his reliable discretion.

Nervously adjusting the sheets, Frank said, "You think a private room is

really necessary?"

Julie nodded.

"You also want us to find out what you do at night, where you go, which

means monitoring you, tight security."

"A private room's expensive," Frank said.

"You can afford the finest care," Bobby said.

"The money in those bags might not be mine."

Bobby shrugged.

"Then you'll have to work off your hospital bill-change a few hundred

beds, empty a few thousand bedpans, perform some brain surgery free of

charge.  You might be a brain surgeon.  Who knows?  With amnesia, it's

just as likely you've forgotten that you're a surgeon as that you're a

used-car salesman.  Worth a try.  Get a bone saw, cut off the top of

some guy's head, have a peek in there, see if anything looks familiar."

Leaning against the bed rail, Julie said, "When you're not in radiology

or some other department, undergoing tests, we'll have a man with you,

watching over you.  Tonight it's Hal."

Hal Yamataka had already taken his station.  He was to one side of the

bed, between Frank and the door, in a position to watch both his charge

and, if Frank was in the mood, the wall-mounted television.  Hal

resembled a Japanese version of Clint Karaghiosis : about five foot

seven or eight, broad in the shoulders and chest, as solid-looking as if

he had been built by a mason who knew how to fit stones tight together

and hide the mortar.

In case nothing worth watching was on television and his charge proved

to be a lousy conversationalist, he had brought a John D. MacDonald

novel.

Looking at the rain-washed window, Frank said, "I guess I'm just...

scared."

"No need to be scared," Bobby said.

"Hal's not as dangerous as he looks.  He's never killed anyone he

liked."

"Only once," Hal said.

Bobby said, "You once killed someone you liked?  Over what?"

"He asked to borrow my comb."

"There you go, Frank," Bobby said.

"Just don't ask to his comb, and you're safe."

Frank was in no mood to be kidded.  "I can't stop thinking about waking

up with blood on my hands.  I'm afraid I've already hurt someone.  I

don't want to hurt anyone.

"Oh, you can't hurt Hal," Bobby said.  "He's an imputable-oriental."

"Inscrutable," Hal said.

"I'm an inscrutable oriental."

"I don't want to hear about your sex problems, Hal.

"Anyway, if you didn't eat so much sushi and didn't have raw breath,

you'd get screwed as often as anyone."

Reaching over the bed railing, Julie took one of Frank's hands.

He smiled weakly.

"Your husband always like this, Mrs.  Dakota?"

"Call me Julie.  Do you mean, does he always act like a wise ass or a

child?  Not always, but most of the time, I'm afraid."

"You hear that, Hal?"  Bobby said.

"Women and amtracs-they have no sense of humor."

To Frank, Julie said, "My husband believes everything in life should be

fun, even car accidents, even funerals-"

"Even dental hygiene," Bobby said.

"-and he'd probably be making jokes about fallout in the middle of a

nuclear war.  That's just the way he is.  He could be cured-"

"She's tried," Bobby said.

"She sent me to a happiness detox center.  They promised to knock some

gloom into me, but they Couldn't."

"You'll be safe here," Julie said, squeezing Frank's hand before letting

go of it.  "Hal will look after you."

THE ENTOMOLOGIST's house was in the Turtle Rock development in Irvine,

within easy driving distance of the university.  Low, black,

mushroom-shaped Malibu lamps threw circles of light on the rain-puddled

walkway that led to the softly gleaming oak doors.

Carrying one of Frank Pollard's leather flight bags, Clint stepped onto

the small covered porch and rang the bell.

A man spoke to him through an intercom set just below the bell push.

"Who is it, please?"

"Dr. Dyson Manfred?  I'm Clint Karaghiosis.  From Dakota and Dakota."

Half a minute later, Manfred opened the door.  He was at least ten

inches taller than Clint, six feet five or six, and thin.  He was

wearing black slacks, a white shirt, and a green necktie; the top button

of the shirt was undone, and the tie hung loose.

"Good God, man, you're soaked."

"Just damp."

Manfred moved back, opening the door wide, and Clint stepped into the

tile-floored foyer.

As he closed the door, Manfred said, "Ought to have a raincoat or

umbrella on a night like this."

"It's invigorating."

"What is?"

"Bad weather," Clint said.

Manfred looked at him as if he was strange, but in Clint's view it was

Manfred himself who was strange.  The guy was too thin, all bones.  He

could not fill his clothes; his trousers hung shapelessly on his knobby

hips, and his shoulders poked at the fabric of his shirt as if only

bare, sharp bones lay under there.  Angular and graceless, he looked as

if he had been assembled from a pile of dry sticks by an apprentice god.

His face was long and narrow, with a high brow and a lantern and his

well-tanned, leathery skin seemed to be stretched tight over his

cheekbones that it might split.  He had peculiar amber eyes that

regarded Clint with an expression of curiosity no doubt familiar to the

thousands of bugs he had picked to specimen boards.

Manfred's gaze traveled down Clint to the floor,water was puddling

around his running shoes.

"Sorry," Clint said.

"It'll dry.  I was in my study.  Come along."

Glancing into the living room, to his right, Clint noted flowerless

wallpaper, a thick Chinese rug, too many overstuffed chairs and sofas,

antique English furniture, wine-red velvet drapes, and tables cluttered

with bibles that glimmered the lamplight.  It was a very Victorian room,

not in harm with the California lines and layout of the house itself.

He followed the entomologist past the living room, down a short hall to

the study.  Manfred had a singular, stilting Tall and sticklike as he

was, with shoulders hunched and thrust forward slightly, he seemed as

unevolved and prehistoric as a praying mantis.

Clint had expected a university professor's study to be crammed full of

books, but only forty or fifty volumes shelved in one case to the left

of the desk.  There were cabinets with wide, shallow drawers that

probably were filled with creepy-crawlies, and on the walls were insects

in special boxes, framed under glass.

When he saw Clint staring at one collection in particular Manfred said,

"Cockroaches.  Beautiful creatures."

Clint did not reply.

borrow"The simplicity of their design and function, I mean."

He would find them beautiful in appearance, of course."  Clint couldn't

shake the feeling that the bugs were not really alive.

Manfred said, "What do you think of that big fellow in the corner of the

collection?"

"He's big, sir."

"Madagascar hissing roach.  The scientific name's Grod or

rhinaportentosa.  That one's over eight and a half centimeters long,

about three and a half inches.  Absolutely beautiful isn't he?"

Clint said nothing.

Settling into the chair behind his desk, Manfred somehow folded his long

bony arms and legs into that compact space, the way a large spider could

scrunch itself into a tiny ball.

Clint did not sit down.  Having put in a long day, he was eager to go

home.

Manfred said, "I received a call from the university chancellor.  He

asked me to cooperate with your Mr. Dakota in any way I could."

UCI-the University of California at Irvine-had long been striving to

become one of the country's premier universities.  The current

chancellor and the one before him had sought to attain that status by

offering enormous salaries and generous fringe benefits to world-class

professors and researchers at other institutions.  Before committing

substantial resources in the form of a well-upholstered job offer,

however, the university hired Dakota & Dakota to conduct a background

investigation on the prospective faculty remember.  Even a brilliant

physicist or biologist could have too great a thirst for whiskey, a nose

for cocaine, or an unfortunate attraction to underage girls.  UCI wanted

to buy brainpower, respectability, and academic glory, not scandal;

Dakota & Dakota served them well.

Manfred propped his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his

fingers, which were so long that they looked as if they must have at

least one extra knuckle each.

"What's the problem?"  he asked.

Clint opened the leather flight bag and removed the quartsize,

wide-mouth mason jar.  He put it on the entomologist's desk.

The bug in the jar was at least twice as big as the Madagascar hissing

roach on the wall.

For a moment Dr. Dyson Manfred seemed to have been quick-frozen.  He

didn't move a finger; his eyes didn't blink.  He stared intently at the

creature in the jar.  At last he said,

"What is this-a hoax?"

"It's real."

Manfred leaned forward, hunching over the desk and lowering his head

until his nose almost touched the thick glass behind which the insect

crouched.

"Alive?"

"Dead."

"Where did you find this-not here in southern California?"

"Yes."

"Impossible."

"What is it?"  Clint asked.

Manfred looked up at him, scowling.

"I've never seen anything like it.  And if I haven't seen anything like

it, neither has anyone else.  It's of the phylum Arthropodan I'm

sure,includes such things as spiders and scorpions, but whether can be

classed an insect, I can't say, not until I've exam it.  If it is an

insect, it's of a new species.  Where, exactly, you find it, and why on

earth would it be of interest to private detectives?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but I can't tell you anything about it.  I have to

protect the client's privacy."

Manfred carefully turned the jar around in his hands, staring at the

resident from every side.

"Just incredible.  I must admit."  He looked up, and his amber eyes were

no longer cool appraising, but gleaming with excitement.

"I must have specimen."

"Well, I intended to leave it with you for examination Clint said.

"But as to whether you can have permanent possession-"

"Yes.  Permanent."

"That's up to my boss and the client.  Meanwhile we need to know what it

is, where it comes from, everything you can tell us about it."

With exaggerated care, as if handling the finest crystal instead of

ordinary glass, Manfred put the jar on the blotter.

make a complete photographic and videotape record of specimen from every

angle and in extreme close-up.  Then be necessary to dissect it, though

that'll be done with utmost care, I assure you."

"Whatever."

"Mr. Karaghiosis, you seem terribly blase about this.

you fully understand what I've said?  This would appear to be an

entirely new species, which would be extraordinary.

cause how could any such species, producing individual this size, be

overlooked for so long?  This is going to be big in the world of

entomology, Mr. Karaghiosis, very big indeed.  Clint looked at the bug

in the bottle.

He said, "Yeah, I figured."

FROM THE hospital, Bobby and Julie drove a company Toyota into the

county's western flatlands to Garden Grove, looking for 884 Serape Way,

the address on the driver's license that Frank held in the name of

George Farris.

Julie peered through the rain-dappled side windows and forward between

the thumping windshield wipers, checking house numbers.

The street was lined with bright sodium-vapor lamps and thirty-year-old,

single-story homes.  They had been built in two basic, boxy models, but

an illusion of individuality was provided by a variety of trim.  This

one was stucco with brick accents.  That one was stucco with

cedar-shingle panels-or Bouquet Canyon stone or desert bark or volcanic

rock.

California was not all Beverly Hills, Bel Air, and Newport Beach, not

all mansions and seaside villas, which was the television image.

Economies of home design had made the California dream accessible to the

waves of immigrants that for decades had flooded in from back east, and

now from farther shores-as was evident from Vietnamese- and Korean

language bumper stickers on some cars parked along Serape.

"Next block," Julie said.

"My side."

Some people said such neighborhoods were a blot on the land, but to

Bobby they were the essence of democracy.  He had been raised on a

street like Serape Way, north in Anaheim instead of Garden Grove, and it

had never seemed ugly.  He remembered playing with other kids on long

summer evenings, when the sun set with orange and crimson flares, and

the feathery silhouettes of the backlit palms were as black as ink

drawings against the sky; at twilight the air sometimes smelled of star

jasmine and echoed with the cry of a lingering sea gull far to the west.

He remembered what it meant to be a kid with a bicycle in California-the

vistas for exploration, the great possibilities for adventure; every

street of stucco homes, seeing for the first time and from the seat of a

Schwinn, had seem exotic.

Two coral trees dominated the yard at 884 Serape.  The white blooms of

the azalea bushes were softly radiant in the bleak night.

Tinted by the sodium-vapor streetlamps, the falling raid looked like

molten gold.  But as Bobby hurried along the wall way behind Julie, the

rain was almost as cold as sleet on his face and hands.  He was wearing

a warmly lined, nylon jacket with a hood, but he shivered.

Julie rang the doorbell.  The porch light came on, and Bob sensed

someone looking them over through the fisheye lens in the front door. He

pushed back his hood and smiled.

The door opened on a security chain, and an Asian man peered out.  He

was in his forties, short, slender, with black hair fading to gray at

the temples.

"Yes?"

Julie showed him her private investigator's license and explained that

they were looking for someone named George Farris.

"Police?"  The man frowned.

"Nothing wrong, no need police."

"No, see, we're private investigators," Bobby explained.

The man's eyes narrowed.  He looked as if he would close the door in

their faces, but abruptly he brightened, smile

"Oh, you're PI!  Like on TV."  He took the chain off the door and let

them in.

Actually he didn't just let them in, he welcomed them as if they were

honored guests.  Within three minutes flat, they learned his name was

Tuong Tran Phan (the order of his nam having been rearranged to

accommodate the western custom of putting the surname last), that he and

his wife, Chinh, were among the boat people who fled Vietnam two years

after the fall of Saigon, that they had worked in laundries and dry

cleaners, and eventually opened two dry-cleaning stores of their own.

Tuong insisted on taking their coats.  Chinh-a petit woman with delicate

features, dressed in baggy black slacks and a yellow silk blouse-said

she would provide refreshment even though Bobby explained that only a

few minutes of their time was required.

Bobby knew first-generation Vietnamese-Americans were sometimes

suspicious of policemen, even to the extent of being reluctant to call

for help when they were victims of crime.  The South Vietnamese police

often had been corrupt, and the North Vietnamese overlords, who seized

the South after the U.S.  withdrawal, had been murderous.  Even after

fifteen years or longer in the States, many Vietnamese remained at least

somewhat distrustful of all authorities.

In the case of Tuong and Chinh Phan, however, that suspicion did not

extend to private investigators.  Evidently they had seen so many heroic

television gumshoes, they believed all PIs were champions of the

underdog, knights with blazing.3 8s instead of lances.  In their roles

as liberators of the oppressed, Bobby and Julie were conducted, with

some ceremony, to the sofa, which was the newest and best piece of

furniture in the living room.

The Phans marshaled their exceptionally good-looking children in the

living room for introductions: thirteen-year-old Rocky, ten-year-old

Sylvester, twelve-year-old Sissy, and six year-old Meryl.  They were

obviously born-and-raised Americans, except that they were refreshingly

more courteous and well-mannered than many of their contemporaries. When

introductions had been made, the kids returned to the kitchen, where

they had been doing their schoolwork.

In spite of their polite protestations, Bobby and Julie were swiftly

served coffee laced with condensed milk and exquisite little Vietnamese

pastries.  The Phans had coffee as well.

Tuong and Chinh sat in worn armchairs that were visibly less comfortable

than the sofa.  Most of their furniture was in simple contemporary

styles and neutral colors.  A small Buddhist shrine stood in one corner;

fresh fruit lay on the red altar, and several sticks of incense bristled

from ceramic holders.  Only one stick was lit, and a pale-blue ribbon of

fragrant smoke curled upward.  The only other Asian elements were

blacklacquered tables.

"We're looking for a man who might once have lived at this address,"

Julie said, selecting one of the petits fours from the tray on which

Mrs.  Phan had served them.

"His name's George Farris."

"Yes.  He lived here," Tuong said, and his wife nodded.

Bobby was surprised.  He had been certain that the Farris name and the

address had been randomly matched by a document forger, that Frank had

never lived here.  Frank had been equally certain that Pollard, not

Farris, was his real name.

"You bought this house from George Farris?"  Julie asked Tuong said,

"No, he was dead."

"Dead?"  Bobby asked.

"Five or six years ago," Tuong said.

"Terrible cancer."  Then Frank Pollard wasn't Farris and hadn't lived

here.  The ID was entirely fake.

"We bought house just a few months ago from widow, Tuong said.  His

English was good, though occasionally dropped the article before the

noun.

"No, what I mean to say-from widow's estate."  Julie said,

"So Mrs.  Farris is dead too."  Tuong turned to his wife, and a

meaningful look passed between them.  He said,

"It is very sad.  Where do such men come from?"  Julie said,

"What man are you speaking of, Mr. Phan?"

"The one who killed Mrs.  Farris, her brother, two daughters." Something

seemed to slither and coil in Bobby's stomach He instinctively liked

Frank Pollard and was certain of his innocence, but suddenly a worm of

doubt bored into the fin polished apple of his conviction. Could it be

just a coincidence that Frank was carrying the ID of a man whose family

had been slaughtered-or was Frank responsible?'He was chewing a bite of

cream-filled pastry, and though it was tasty, he had trouble swallowing

it.

"It was late July," Chinh said.

"During the heat wave which you may remember."  She blew on her coffee

to cool it.  Bobby noticed that most of the time Chinh spoke perfect

English, and he suspected that her occasional infelicities of language

were conscious mistakes that she inserted in order to seem more

well-spoken than her husband and, a subtle and thoroughly Asian

courtesy.

"We buy house last October."

"They never catch the killer," Tuong Phan said.

"Do they have a description of him?"  Julie asked.

"I don't think so."  Reluctantly Bobby glanced at Julie.  She appeared

to be shaken as he was, but she did not give him an I-told-you-so look.

She said, "How were they murdered?  Shot?  Strangled?"

"Knife, I think.  Come.  I show you where bodies were found."  The house

had three bedrooms and two bathrooms, but one bath was being remodeled.

The tile had been torn off the walls, floor, and counter.  The cabinets

were being rebuilt with quality oak.

Julie followed Tuong into the bathroom, and Bobby stayed at the doorway

with Mrs.  Phan.

The rattle-hiss of the rain echoed down through the ceiling vent.

Tuong said, "Body of youngest Farris daughter was here, on the floor.

She was thirteen.  Terrible thing.  Much blood.  The grout between tiles

was permanently stained, all had to come out."  He led them into the

bedroom his daughters shared.  Twin beds, nightstands, and two small

desks left little room for anything else.  But Sissy and Meryl had

squeezed in a lot of books.

Tuong Phan said, "Mrs.  Farris's brother, staying with her for a week,

was killed here.  In his bed.  Blood was on walls, carpet."

"We saw the house before it was listed with a real-estate agent, before

the carpet was replaced and the walls repainted," Chinh Phan said.

"This room was the worst.  It gave me bad dreams for a while."  They

proceeded to the sparely furnished master bedroom: a queen-size bed,

nightstands, two ginger-jar lamps, but no bureau or chest of drawers.

The clothes that would not fit in the closet were arranged along one

wall, in cardboard storage boxes with clear plastic lids.

Their frugality struck Bobby as similar to his and Julie's.  Perhaps

they, too, had a dream for which they were working and saving.

Tuong said, "Mrs.  Farris was found in this room, in her bed.  Terrible

things were done to her.  She was bitten, but they never wrote about

that in newspapers."

"Bitten?"  Julie asked.

"By what?"

"Probably by killer.  On the face, throat...  other places."

"if they didn't write about it in the papers," Bobby said, "how do you

know about the bites?"

"Neighbor who found bodies still lives next door.  She say that both

older daughter and Mrs.  Farris were bitten."  Mrs.  Phan said,

"She's not the kind to imagine such things.

"Where was the second daughter found?"  Julie asked.

"Please follow me."

Tuong led them back the way they had come, through the living room and

dining room, into the kitchen.

The four Phan children were sitting around a breakfast table.  Three of

them were diligently reading textbooks and taking notes.  No television

or radio provided distraction, and they appeared to be enjoying their

studies.  Even Meryl, who was a first-grader and probably had no

homework to speak of, was reading a children's book.

Bobby noticed two colorful charts posted on the wall of the

refrigerator.  The first displayed each kid's grades an major test

results since the start of the school year in September.  The other was

a list of household chores for which each child was responsible.

Throughout the country, universities were in a bind, because an

inordinately large percentage of the best applicants for ad mission were

of Asian extraction.  Blacks and Hispanics complained about being aced

out by another minority, and white shouted reverse racism when denied

admission in favor of an Asian student.  Some attributed

Asian-Americans' suggested conspiracy, but Bobby saw the simple

explanation for their achievements everywhere in the Phan house: They

tried harder.  They embraced the ideals upon which the country had been

based-including hard work, honesty, goal-oriented instead of denial, and

the freedom to be whatever one wanted to be.  Ironically, their great

success was partly due to the fact that many born Americans had become

cynical about those same ideals.

The kitchen was open to a family room that was furnished as humbly as

the rest of the house.

Tuong said, "Oldest Farris girl found here by sofa.  Seven teen.

"Very pretty girl," Chinh said sadly.

"She, like mother, was bitten.  So our neighbor says."

Julie said, "What about the other victims, the youngest daughter and

Mrs.  Farris's brother-were they bitten too?"

"Don't know," Tuong said.

"The neighbor didn't see their bodies," Chinh said.

They were silent for a moment, looking at the floor where the dead girl

had been found, as if the enormity of this crime was such that the stain

of it should somehow have reappeared on this brand-new carpet.

Rain droned on the roof.

Bobby said, "Doesn't it sometimes bother you to live here?

Not because murders took place in these rooms, but because the killer

was never found.  Don't you worry about him coming back some night?"

Chinh nodded.

Tuong said, "Everywhere is danger.  Life itself is danger.  Less risky

never being born."  A faint smile flickered across his face and was

gone.  "Leaving Vietnam in tiny boat was more dangerous than this."

Glancing at the table in the adjoining kitchen, Bobby saw the four kids

still deeply involved with their studies.  The prospect of a murderer

returning to the scene of this crime did not faze them.

"In addition to dry-cleaning," Chinh said, "we remodel houses, sell

them.  This is fourth.  We will live here maybe another year, remodeling

room by room, then sell, take a profit."  Tuong said, "Because of

murders, some people would not consider moving here after the Farrises.

But danger is also opportunity."  "When we finish with the house," Chinh

said, "it won't just be remodeled.  It will be clean, spiritually clean.

Do you understand?  The innocence of the house will be restored.  We

will have chased out the evil that the killer brought here, and we'll

have left our own spiritual imprint on these rooms."  Nodding, Tuong

said, "That is a satisfaction."

Removing the forged driver's license from his pocket, Bobby held it so

his fingers covered the name and address, leaving the photograph

visible.

"Do you recognize this man?"

"No," Tuong said, and Chinh agreed.

As Bobby put the license away, Julie said, "Do you know what George

Farris looked like?"

"No," Tuong said.  "As I told you, he died of cancer, many years before

his family was killed."

"I thought maybe you'd seen a photo of him here in the house, before the

Farrises' belongings were removed."

"No. Sorry."

Bobby said, "You mentioned earlier that you didn't buy the house through

a realtor.  You worked with the estates"

"Yes.  Mrs.  Farris's other brother inherited everything."

"Do you happen to have his name and address?"  Bob asked.  "I think

we'll need to talk to him."

DINNERTIME CAME.

Derek woke up.  He was groggy but hungry too.  He leaned on Thomas when

they walked to the dining room.  Food got eaten.  Spaghetti.  Meatballs.

Salad.  Good bread.  Chocolate cake.  Cold milk.

Back in their room, they watched TV.  Derek fell asleep again.  It was a

bad night on TV.  Thomas sighed with disgust.  After an hour or so, he

stopped the set.  None of the shows was smart enough to care about. They

were too stupid-silly even for a moron, which Mary said he was. Maybe

imbeciles would like them.  Probably not.

He used the bathroom.  Brushed his teeth.  Washed his face.  He didn't

look in the mirror.  He didn't like mirrors because they showed him what

he was.

After changing into pajamas, he got in bed and made the lamp go dark,

even though it was only eight-thirty.  He turned on his side, with his

head propped on two pillows, and studied the night sky framed by the

nearest window.  No stars.  Clouds.  Rain.  He liked rain.  When a storm

came down, it was like a lid on the night, and you didn't feel like you

might float up in all that darkness and just disappear.

He listened to the rain.  It whispered.  It cried tears on the window.

Far away, the Bad Thing was loose.  Ugly-nasty waves spread out from it

the way ripples spread across a pond when you dropped a stone in the

water.  The Bad Thing was like a big stone dropped into the night, a

thing that didn't belong in this world, and with a little effort Thomas

could sense the waves from it breaking over him.

He reached out.  Felt it.  A throbbing thing.  Cold and full of anger.

Mean.  He wanted to get closer.  learn what it was.

He tried throwing questions at it.  What are you?  Where you?  What do

you want?  Why are you going to hurt Julie?"

Suddenly, like a big magnet, the Bad Thing began to pull him.  He'd

never felt anything like that before.  When he turned his thoughts to

Bobby or Julie, they didn't grab him pull at him the way this Bad Thing

did.

A part of his mind seemed to unravel like a ball of string and the loose

end sailed through the window and way up the night, through the

darkness, until it found the Bad Thing.

Suddenly Thomas was very close to the Bad Thing, too close.  It was all

around him, big ugly and so strange that Thomas felt like he'd dropped

into a swimming pool full of ice and razor blades.  He didn't know if it

was a man, couldn't see shape, only feel it; it might be pretty on the

outside, but inside it was throbbing and dark and deep nasty.  He could

see what the Bad Thing was eating.  The food was was still alive and

squealing.  Thomas was scared big, and right away he tried to back away,

but for a moment the ugly mind held him tight, an he could get away only

by picturing the mind-string rewinding itself onto the ball.

When the mind-string was all wound up again, Thomas turned away from the

window, onto his stomach.  He was breathing real fast.  He listened to

his heart boom.

He had a sick-making taste in his mouth.  The same taste he got

sometimes when he bit his tongue, not meaning to, the same taste as when

the dentist yanked one of his teeth without meaning to.  Blood.

Sick and scared, he sat up in bed and made the lamp!"  on right away. He

took a tissue from the box on the night stand He spit into it and looked

to see if there was blood.  There wasn't.  Just spit.

He tried again.  No blood.

He knew what that meant.  He'd been too close to the Thing.  Maybe even

inside the bad thing, just for a blink.

ugly taste in his mouth was the same taste the Bad Thing tasted, tearing

with its teeth at some living, squirming thing.  Thomas didn't have

blood in his mouth, he just had mental blood in his mouth.  But that was

bad enough; this time wasn't at all like biting his tongue or getting a

tooth yank because this time what he tasted wasn't his own blood.

Though enough warmth was in the room, he started shivering and couldn't

stop.

CANDY PROWLED the canyons, in the grip of urgent need, grabbing wild

animals out of burrows and nests.  He was kneeling in the mud beside a

huge oak, pummeled by rain, sucking blood from the ravished throat of a

rabbit, when he felt someone place a hand atop his head.

He threw down the rabbit and sprang to his feet, turning around as he

did so.  Nobody was there.  Two of his sisters' blackest cats were

twenty feet behind him, visible only because their eyes were luminous in

the gloom; they had been following him since he'd left the house.

Otherwise he was alone.

For a second or two, he still felt the hand on his head, though no hand

was there.  Then the queer sensation passed.

He studied the shadows on all sides and listened to the rain snapping

through the oak leaves.

Finally, shrugging off the episode, driven by his fierce need, he

proceeded farther east, moving upslope.  A two-foot-wide stream had

formed on the canyon floor, six or eight inches deep, not large enough

to hamper his progress.

The drenched cats followed.  He did not want them with him, but he knew

from experience that he would not be able to chase them away.  They did

not always accompany him, but when they chose to follow in his tracks,

they could not be dissuaded.

After he had gone about a hundred yards, he dropped to his knees again,

held his hands in front of him, and allowed the power to erupt once

more.  Shimmering sapphire light swept through the night.  Brush shook,

trees stirred, and rocks clattered against one another.  In the wake of

the light, clouds of dust flew up, ghostly silver columns that rippled

like wind stirred shrouds, then vanished into the darkness.

A bevy of animals burst from cover, and some raced toward Candy.  He

snatched at a rabbit, missed, but seized a squirrel.  It tried to bite

him, but he swung it hard by one leg, bashing its head against the muddy

ground, stunning it.

VIOLET WAS with Verbina in the kitchen.  They were sitting on the

layered blankets with twenty-three of their twenty cats.

Parts of her mind-and parts of her sister's-were in theirs and Lamia,

the black cats through which they were accompanying their brother.

Watching Candy seize and destroy his prey, Cinders and Lamia were

excited, and Violet was excited too.  Electrified.

The wet January night was deep, illumined only by the brilliant light

from the communities to the west, which was fleeted off the bellies of

the low clouds.  In that wildem Candy was the wildest creature of them

all, a fierce and powerful and merciless predator who crept swiftly and

silently through the rugged canyons, taking what he needed and wanted.

He was so strong and limber that he appeared to fill up the canyon, over

rocks and fallen timber, around prickly brush, as if he were not a man

of flesh and blood, but the pled moonshadow of some flying creature

soaring high above the earth.

When Candy seized the squirrel and bashed its head against the ground,

Violet divided the part of her mind that was Lamia and Cinders, and also

entered the squirrel.  It stunned by the blow.  It struggled feebly and

looked at Candy with unalloyed terror.

Candy's big, strong hands were on the squirrel, but it seemed to Violet

that they were on her, as well, moving over her bare legs, hips, belly,

and breasts.

Candy snapped its spine against his bent knee.

Violet shuddered.  Verbina whimpered and clung to her sister.

The squirrel no longer had any feeling in its extremities.  With a low

growl, Candy bit the animal's throat.  He tore at its hide, chewing open

the blood-rich vessels.

Violet felt the hot blood spurting out of the squirrel, Candy's mouth

fastened hungrily to the wound.  It almost seemed as though no surrogate

lay between them, as if his lips were pressed firmly to Violet's throat

and as if her own blood was flooding into his mouth.  She wished that

she could be in Candy's mind and be on both the giving and receiving end

tasting the blood, but she could only meld with animals.

She no longer had the strength to sit up.  She settled back onto the

blankets, only half aware that she was softly chanting a monotonous

litany:

"Yea, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Verbina rolled atop her sister.

Around them the cats tumbled together in a roiling mass of fur and tails

and whiskered faces.

THOMAS TRIED again.  For Julie's sake.  He reached out toward the cold,

glowing mind of the Bad Thing.  Right away the Bad Thing drew him toward

it.  He let his mind unwind like a big ball of string.  It pierced the

window, zoomed into the night, made contact.

He sent questions: What are you?  Where are you?  What do you want?  Why

are you going to hurt Julie?

JUST AS CANDY threw aside the dead squirrel and got to his feet, he felt

the hand on his head again.  He twitched, turned, and flailed at the

darkness with both fists.

No one was behind him.

With radiant amber eyes, the two cats watched him from about twenty feet

away, dark blots on the pale silt.  All the wildlife in the immediate

vicinity had fled.  If someone was spying on him, the intruder was

concealed in the brush farther back along the canyon or in a niche on

one of the canyon walls, certainly not near enough to have touched him.

Besides, he still felt the hand.  He rubbed at the top of his head, half

expecting to find leaves stuck in his wet hair.  Nothing.

But the pressure of a hand remained, even increased, and was so well

defined that he could feel the outlines of four fingers, a thumb, and

the curve of a palm against his skull.

What...  where...  what...  why...  ?

Those words echoed inside his head.  No voice had broken through the

drizzling sounds of the rain.

What...  where...  what...  why...  ?

Candy turned in a full circle, angry and confused.

A crawling sensation arose in his head, different from any thing he had

ever known before.  As if something was moving in his brain.

"Who are you?"  he said aloud.

What...  where...  what...  why...  ?

"Who are you?"

THE BAD THING was a man.  Thomas knew that now.  An inside man and

something else, too, but still at least part man.

The Bad Thing's mind was like a whirlpool, blacker black, swirling real

fast, sucking Thomas down, down, was to gobble him alive.  He tried to

break loose.  Swimming Wasn't easy.  The Bad Thing was going to pull him

into the Bad Place, and he'd never be able to come back.  He thought he

was a gonner.  But his fear of the Bad Place, of going to loose Julie

and Bobby would never find him and where he'd be a was so big he finally

tore free and rewound himself into the room at Cielo Vista.

He slid down on the mattress and drew the covers over his head, so he

couldn't see the night beyond the window, and nothing out there in the

night could see him.

WALTER HAVALOW, Mrs.  George Farris's surviving brother and their to her

modest estate, lived in a richer neighborhood than the Phans, but he was

poorer in courtesy and good manners.  His English two-story house in

Villa Park had beveled-glass windows filled with a light that Julie

found warm and beckoning, but Havalow stood in the doorway and did not

invite them inside even after he had studied their PI license and

returned it to her.

"What do you want?"

Havalow was tall, potbellied, with thinning blond hair and a thick

mustache that was part blond and part red.  His penetrating hazel eyes

marked him as a man of intelligence, but they were cold, watchful, and

calculating-the eyes of a Mafia accountant.

"As I explained," Julie said, "the Phans told us you could help.  We

need a photograph of your late brother-in-law, George Farris."

"Why?"

"Well, as I said, there's a man going around pretending to be Mr.

Farris, and he's a player in a case we're working on."

"Can't be my brother-in-law.  He's dead."

"Yes, we know.  But this imposter's ID is very good, and it would help

us to have a photo of the real George Farris.  I'm sorry I can't tell

you anything more.  I'd be violating our client's privacy."

Havalow turned away and closed the door in their faces.

Bobby looked at Julie and said, "Mr. Congeniality."

Julie rang the bell again.

After a moment, Havalow opened the door.

"What?"

"I know we arrived unannounced," Julie said, struggling to remain

cordial, "and I apologize for the intrusion, but your-"

"I was just going to get the picture," he said impatiently.

"I'd have it in hand by now if you hadn't rung the bell."

as he turned away from them and closed the door a second time.

"Is it our body odor?"  Bobby wondered.

"What a jerk."

"You think he's really coming back?"

"He doesn't, I'll break the door down."

Behind them, rain dripped off the overhang that sheltered the last ten

feet of the walkway, and water gurgled hollowly through a downspout-cold

sounds.

Havalow returned with a shoe box full of snapshots.

time is valuable.  If you want my cooperation, you'll keep it in mind."

Julie resisted her worst instincts.  Rudeness irritated the hell out of

her.  She fantasized knocking the box out of his grasp and seizing one

of his hands, and bending the index finger as far back as it would go,

thus straining the digital nerve of his hand while simultaneously

pinching the radial nerves on the back, forcing him to kneel.  Then

driven a fist into the underside of his chin, a swift chop to the side

of his neck, a well-placed kick to his soft, protruding belly.  Havalow

rummaged through the box and extracted a photograph of a man and a woman

sitting at a redwood table with a picnic on a sunny day.

"That's George and Irene."

Even in the yellowish light of the porch lamp, Julie could see that

George Farris had been a rangy man with a long rough face, the exact

physical opposite of Frank Pollard.

"Why would someone be claiming he's George?"  Havlow asked.

"We're dealing with a possible criminal who uses multiple fake IDs,"

Julie said.

"George Farris is just one of his identities.  No doubt your

brother-in-law's name was probably selected at random by the document

forger this guy used.  They sometimes use the names and addresses of the

deceased.

Havalow frowned.

"You think it's possible this man George's name is the same guy who

killed Irene, my brother-in-law and my two nieces?"

"No," Julie said immediately.

"We're not dealing with a killer here.  Just a confidence man, a

swindler."

"Besides," Bobby said, "no killer would link himself to murders he'd

committed by getting ID in the name of his victim's husband."

Making eye contact with Julie, clearly trying to determine how much they

were snowing him, Havalow said, "This guy your client?"

"No," Julie lied.

"He ripped off our client, and we've been hired to track him down, so he

can be forced to make restitution."

Bobby said, "Can we borrow this photo, sir?"

Havalow hesitated.  He was still making eye contact with Julie.

Bobby handed Havalow a Dakota & Dakota business card.

"We'll get the picture back to you.  There's our address, phone number.

I understand your reluctance to part with a family photo, especially

since your sister and brother-in-law are no longer alive, but if-"

Apparently deciding that they were not lying, Havalow said, "Hell, take

it.  I'm not sentimental about George.  Never could stand him.  Always

thought my sister was a fool for marrying him."

"Thank you," Bobby said.

"We-"

Havalow stepped back and closed the door.

Julie rang the bell.

Bobby said, "Please don't kill him."

Scowling with impatience, Havalow opened the door.

Stepping between Julie and Havalow, Bobby held out the forged driver's

license bearing George Farris's name and Frank's picture.

"One more thing, sir, and we'll get out of your hair."

"I live to a very tight schedule," Havalow said.

"Have you seen this man before?"

Irritated, Havalow took the driver's license and inspected it.

"Doughy face, bland features.  There're a million like him within a

hundred miles of here-wouldn't you say?"

"And you've never seen him?"

"Are you slow-witted?  Do I have to put it in short, simple sentences?

No. I have never seen him."

Retrieving the license, Bobby said, "Thanks for your time and-"

Havalow closed the door.  Hard.

Julie reached for the bell.

Bobby stayed her hand.

"We've got everything we came for."

"I want-"

"I know what you want," Bobby said, "but torturing a man to death is

against the law in California."

He hustled her away from the house, into the rain.

In the car again, she said, "That rude, self-important bastard!"

Bobby started the engine and switched on the windshield wipers.

"We'll stop at the mall, buy you one of those GI teddy bears, paint

Havalow's name on it, let you tear the guts out of it.  Okay?"

"Who the hell does he think he is?"

While Julie glowered back at the house, Bobby drove off from it.

"He's Walter Havalow, babe, and he's got to be himself until he dies,

which is a worse punishment than anything you could do to him."  A few

minutes later, when they were out of Villa Park Bobby drove into the lot

at a Ralph's supermarket and tuck the Toyota into a parking space.  He

doused the headlights switched off the wipers, but left the engine

running so they would have heat.

Only a few cars were in front of the market.  Puddles as large as

swimming pools reflected the store lights.

Bobby said, "What've we learned?"

"That we loathe Walter Havalow."

"Yes, but what have we learned that's germane to the case.  Is it just a

coincidence that Frank's been using George Farris name and Farris's

family was slaughtered?"

"I don't believe in coincidence."

"Neither do I. But I still don't think Frank is a killer."

"Neither do I, though anything's possible.  But what I said to Havalow

was true-surely Frank wouldn't kill are Farris and everyone else in the

house, then carry around false ID that links him to them."

Rain began to fall harder than before, drumming noisily on the Toyota.

The heavy curtain of water blurred the super market.

Bobby said, "You want to know what I think?  I think Frank was using

Farris's name, and whoever's after him found out about it."

"Mr. Blue Light, you mean.  The guy who supposedly can make a car fall

apart around you and magically induce street lights to blow out."

"Yeah, him," Bobby said.

"If he exists."

"Mr. Blue Light discovered Frank was using the Farris name, and went to

that address, hoping to find him.  But Frank had never been there.  It

was just a name and address his document forger picked at random.  So

when Mr. Blue didn't find Frank, he killed everyone in the house, maybe

because he thought they were lying to him and hiding Frank, or maybe

just because he was in a rage."

"He'd have known how to deal with Havalow."

"So you think I'm right, I'm on to something?"  She thought about it.

"Could be."  He grinned at her.

"Isn't it fun being a detective?"

"Fun?"  she said incredulously.

"Well, I meant 'interesting."'

"We're either representing a man who killed four people, or we're

representing a man who's been targeted by a brutal murderer, and that

strikes you as fun?"

"Not as much fun as sex, but more fun than bowling."

"Bobby, sometimes you make me nuts.  But I love you."

He took her literally.

"If we're going to pursue the investigation, I'm damned well going to

enjoy it was much as I can.  But I'll drop the case in a minute if you

want."

"Why?  Because of your dream?  Because of the Bad Thing?"  She shook her

head.

"No. We start letting a weird dream spook us, pretty soon anything will

spook us.  We'll lose our confidence, and you can't do this kind of work

without confidence."

Even in the dim backsplash from the dashboard lights, she could see the

anxiety in his eyes.

Finally he said, "Yeah, that's what I knew you'd say.  So let's get to

the bottom of it was fast as we can.  According to his other driver's

license, he's James Roman, and he lives in El Toro."

"It's almost eight-thirty."

"We can be there, find the house...  maybe forty-five minutes.  That's

not too late."

"All right."  Instead of putting the car in gear, he slid his seat back

and stripped out of his down-lined, nylon jacket.

"Unlock the glove box and give me my gun.  From now on I'm wearing it

everywhere."

Each of them had a license to carry a concealed weapon.  Julie struggled

out of her own jacket, then retrieved two shoulder holsters from under

her seat.  She took both revolvers from the glove box: two snub-nosed

Smith & Wesson.38 Chief Specials, reliable and compact guns that could

be carried inconspicuously beneath ordinary clothing with little or no

help from a tailor.

THE HOUSE was gone.  If anyone named James Roman h lived there, he had

new lodgings now.  A bare concrete slab in the middle of the lot,

surrounded by grass, shrubbery, and several trees, as if the structure

had been snared from above by intergalactic moving men and neatly

spirited away.

Bobby parked in the driveway, and they got out of the Toyota to have a

closer look at the property.  Even in the slashing rain, a nearby street

lamp cast enough light to reveal that the lawn was trampled, gouged by

tires, and bare in spots; it was also littered with splinters of wood,

pale bits of Sheet rock crumbled stucco, and a few fragments of glass

that sparkled darkly.

The strongest clue to the fate of the house was to be found in the

condition of the shrubbery and trees.  Those bushes closest to the slab

were all either dead or badly damaged, and closer inspection appeared to

be scorched.  The nearest tree was leafless, and its stark black limbs

lent an anachronistic feeling of Halloween to the drizzly January night.

"Fire," Julie said.

"Then they tore down what was left."

"Let's talk to a neighbor."

The empty lot was flanked by houses.  But lights glowed on at the house

on the north side.

The man who answered the doorbell was about fifty-five, six feet two,

solidly built, with gray hair and a neatly trimmed grey mustache.  His

name was Park Hampstead, and he had the air of a retired military man.

He invited them in, with the proviso that they leave their sodden shoes

on the front porch.  In the socks, they followed him to a breakfast nook

off the kitchen, where the yellow vinyl dinette upholstery was safe from

their damp clothing; even so, Hampstead made them wait while he draped

thick peach-colored beach towels over two of the chairs.

"Sorry," he said, "but I'm something of a fuss-budget."

The house had bleached-oak floors and modern furniture, and Bobby

noticed that it was spotless in every corner.

"Thirty years in the Marine Corps left me with an abiding respect for

routine, order, and neatness," Hampstead explained.

"In fact, when Sharon died three years ago-she was my wife-I think maybe

I got a little crazy about neatness.  The first six or eight months

after her funeral, I cleaned the place top to bottom at least twice a

week, because as long as I was cleaning, my heart didn't hurt so bad.

Spent a fortune on Windex, paper towels, Fantastic, and sweeper bags.

Let me tell you, no military pension can support the industrial habit I

developed!  I got over that stage.  I'm still a fuss-budget but not

obsessed with neatness."

He had just brewed a fresh pot of coffee, so he poured for them as well.

The cups, saucers, and spoons were all spotless.

Hampstead provided each of them with two crisply folded paper napkins,

then sat across the table from them.

"Sure," he said, after they raised the issue,

"I knew Jim Roman.  Good neighbor.  He was a chopper jockey out of the

El Toro Air Base.  That was my last station before retirement.  Jim was

a hell of a nice guy, the kind who'd give you the shirt off his back,

then ask if you needed money to buy a matching tie."

"Was?"  Julie asked.

"He die in the fire?"  Bobby asked, remembering the scorched shrubbery

and soot-blackened concrete slab next door.

Hampstead frowned.

"No. He died about six months after Sharon.  Make it...  two and a half

years ago.  His chopper crashed on maneuvers.  He was only forty-one,

eleven years younger than me.  Left a wife, Maralee.  A

fourteen-year-old daughter named Valerie.  Twelve-year-old son, Mike.

Real nice kids.  Terrible thing.  They were a close family, and Jim's

accident devastated them.  They had some relatives back in Nebraska, but

no one they could really turn to."  Hampstead stared past Bobby, at the

softly humming refrigerator, and eyes swam out of focus.

"So I tried to step in, help out, advise Maralee on finances, give a

shoulder to lean on and an ear to listen when the kids needed that. Took

''em to Disneyland and Knott's from time to time, you know, that sort of

thing.

Maralee told me lots of times what a godsend I was, but it was really me

who needed them more than the other way around because doing things for

them was what finally began to turn my mind off from losing Sharon."

Julie said, "So the fire happened more recently?"

Hampstead did not respond.  He got up, went to the sink opened the

cupboard door below, returned with a spray bottle of Windex and a dish

towel, and began to wipe the refrigerator door, which already appeared

to be as clean as the antiseptic surfaces in a hospital surgery.

"Valerie and Mike were their kids.  After a year or so it almost got to

seem like they were my kids, the ones me and Sharon never had.  Maralee

cried for Jim a long time, almost two years, before she began to

remember she was a woman in her prime.  Maybe what started to happen

between her and me would've upset Jim, but I don't think so; I think

he'd have been happy for us, even if I am eleven years older than her."

When he finished wiping the refrigerator, Hampstead inspected the door

from the side, at an angle to the light, apparently searching for a

fingerprint or smudge.  As if he had just heard the question that Julie

had asked a minute ago, Hampsted said,

"The fire was two months ago.  I woke up in the middle of the night,

heard sirens, saw an orange glow at the window, got up, looked out.  -

-."

He turned away from the refrigerator, studied the kitchen for a moment,

then went to the nearest tile-topped counter began to spritz and wipe

that gleaming surface.

Julie looked at Bobby.  He shook his head.  Neither of them said

anything.

After a moment Hampstead continued:

"Got over to the house just ahead of the firemen.  Went in through the

front door.  Made it into the foyer, then to the foot of the steps,

couldn't get up to the bedroom, the heat was too intense, the smoke.  I

called their names, nobody answered.  If I'd heard an answer maybe I

would've found the strength to go up there somehow in spite of the

flames.  I guess I must've blacked out for a few seconds and been

carried out by firemen, 'cause I woke up on the front lawn, coughing,

choking, a paramedic bent over me, giving me oxygen."

"All three of them died?"  Bobby asked.

"Yeah," Hampstead said.

"What caused the fire?"

"I'm not sure they ever figured that out.  I might've heard something

about a short in the wiring, but I'm not sure.  I think they even

suspected arson for a while, but that never led anywhere.  Doesn't much

matter, does it?"

"Why not?"

"Whatever caused it, they're all three dead."

Park"I'm sorry," Bobby said softly.

"Their lot's been sold.  Construction starts on a new house sometime

this spring.  More coffee?"

"No, thank you," Julie said.

Hampstead surveyed the kitchen, then moved to the stainless-steel range

hood, which he began to clean in spite of the fact that it was spotless.

"I apologize for the mess.  Don't know how the place gets like this when

it's just me living here.  Sometimes I think there must be gremlins

sneaking behind my back, messing things up to torment me."

"No need for gremlins," Julie said.

"Life itself gives us all the torment we can handle."

Hampstead turned away from the range hood.  For the first time since he

had gotten up from the table and begun his cleaning ritual, he made eye

contact with them.

"No gremlins," he agreed.

"Nothing as simple and easy to handle as gremlins."

He was a big man and obviously tough from years of military training and

discipline, but the shimmering, watery evidence of grief brimmed in his

eyes, and at the moment he seemed as lost and helpless as a child.

+ IN THE CAR again, staring through the rain-spattered windshield at the

vacant lot where the Roman house had once stood, Bobby said,

"Frank finds out that Mr. Blue Light knows about the Farris ID, so he

gets new ID in the name of James Roman.  But Mr. Blue eventually learns

about that, too, and he goes looking for Frank at the Roman address,

where he discovers only the widow and the kids.  He kills them, same as

he killed the Farris family, but this time he sets fire to the house to

cover the crime.  that the way it looks to you?"

"Could be," Julie said.

"He burns the bodies because he bites them, like Park told us, and the

bite marks help the police to tie his crimes together, so he wants to

throw the cops off the trail."  Julie said,

"Then why doesn't he burn them every time "Because that would be just as

much of a giveaway as bite marks.  Sometimes he burns the bodies,

sometimes he doesn't, and maybe sometimes he disposes of them so they

are never even found."  They were both silent for a moment.  Then she

said, we're dealing with a mass murderer, a serial killer, who's a

raving psychotic."

"Or a vampire," Bobby said.

"Why's he after Frank?"

"I don't know.  Maybe Frank once tried to drive a wooden stake through

his heart."

"Not funny."

"I agree," Bobby said.

"Right now, nothing seems funny."

FRom DYSON Manfred's house full of insect specimens in Irvine, Clint

Karaghiosis drove through the chilly rain to his own house in Placentia.

It was a homey two-bedroom bungalow with a rolled-shingle roof, a deep

front porch in the California Craftsman style, and French windows full

of warm amber light.  By the time he got there, the car heater had

pretty much dried his rain-soaked clothes.

Felina was in the kitchen when Clint entered by way of the connecting

door from the garage.  She hugged him, kissed him, held fast to him for

a moment, as if surprised to see him alive again.

She believed that his job was fraught with danger every day, though he

had often explained that he did mostly boring legwork.  He chased facts

instead of culprits, pursued a trail of paper rather than blood.

He understood his wife's concern, however, because he worried

unreasonably about her too.  For one thing, she was an attractive woman

with black hair, an olive complexion, and startlingly beautiful gray

eyes; in this age of lenient judges, with a surfeit of merciless

sociopaths on the streets, a good looking woman was regarded by some as

fair game.  Furthermore, though the office where Felina worked as a data

processor was only three blocks from their house, an easy walk even in

bad weather, Clint nevertheless worried about the danger she faced at

the busiest of the intersections that she had to cross; in an emergency,

a warning cry or blaring horn would not alert her to onrushing death.

He could not let her know how much he worried, for she was justly proud

that she was so independent in spite of her deafness.  He did not want

to diminish her self-respect by indicating in any way that he was not

entirely confident of her ability to deal with every rotten tomato that

fate threw at her.

he daily reminded himself that she had lived twenty-nine years without

coming to serious harm, and he resisted the urge to be overly

protective.

While Clint washed his hands at the sink, Felina set the kitchen table

for a late dinner.  An enormous pot of homemade vegetable soup was

heating on the stove, and together they ladled out two large bowls of

it.  He got a shaker of Parmesan cheese from the refrigerator, and she

unwrapped a loaf of crusty Italian bread.

He was hungry, and the soup was excellent-thick with vegetables and

chunks of lean beef-but by the time Felina finished her first bowlful,

Clint had eaten less than half of it because he repeatedly paused to

talk to her.  She could not read his lips well when he tried to converse

and eat at the same time and for the moment his hunger was less

compelling than need to tell her about his day.  She refilled her bowl

and freshed his.

Beyond the walls of his own small home, he was only slightly more

talkative than a stone, but in Felina's company he was as loquacious as

a talk-show host.  He didn't just prattle, either but settled with

surprising ease into the role of a polished comedian.  He had learned

how to deliver an anecdote in a way as to sharpen its impact and

maximize Felina's response for he loved to elicit a laugh from her or

watch her eyes with surprise.  In all of Clint's life, she was the first

person whose opinion of him truly mattered, and he wanted her to think

of him as smart, clever, witty, and fun.

Early in their relationship he had wondered if her deafness had anything

to do with his ability to open up to her.  Ever since birth, she had

never heard the spoken word and therefore had not learned to speak

clearly.  She responded to Clint-and would later tell him about her own

day-by way of sign language, which he had studied in order to understand

nimble-fingered speech.  Initially he had thought that the m

encouragement to intimacy was her disability, which ensured that his

innermost feelings and secrets, once revealed to her would go no

further; a conversation with Felina was anyway as private as a

conversation with himself.  In time, however he finally understood that

he opened up to her in spite of deafness, not because of it, and that he

wanted her to understand him.

his every thought and experience-and to share hers in return-simply

because he loved her.

When he told Felina how Bobby and Julie had adjourned to the bathroom

for three private chats during Frank Pollard's appointment, she laughed

delightedly.  He loved that sound; it was so warm and singularly

melodious, as if the great joy in life that she could not express in

spoken words was entirely channeled into her laughter.

"They're some pair, the Dakotas," he said.

"When you first meet them, they seem so dissimilar in some ways, you

figure they can't possibly work well together.  But then you get to know

them, you see how they fit like two pieces of a puzzle, and you realize

they've got a nearly perfect relationship."  Felina put down her soup

spoon and signed: So do we.

"We sure do."

"We fit better than puzzle pieces.  We fit like a plug and socket."

"We sure do," he agreed, smiling.  Then he picked up on the sly sexual

connotation of what she'd said, and he laughed.

"You're a filthy-minded wench, aren't you?"  She grinned and nodded.

"Plug and socket, huh?"  Big plug, tight socket, good fit.

"Later on, I'll check your wiring."  I am in desperate need of a

first-rate electrician.  But tell me more about this new client.

Thunder cracked and clattered across the night outside, and a sudden

gust of wind rattled the rain against the window.  The sounds of the

storm made the warm and aromatic kitchen even more inviting by

comparison.  Clint sighed with contentment, then was touched by a brief

sadness when he realized that the deeply satisfying sense of shelter,

induced by the sounds of thunder and rain, was a specific pleasure that

Felina could never experience or share with him.

From his pants pocket he withdrew one of the red gems that Frank Pollard

had brought to the office.

"I borrowed this one 'cause I wanted you to see it.  The guy had a

jarful of them."  She pinched the grape-sized stone between thumb and

index finger and held it up to the light.  Beautiful, she signed with

her free hand.  She put the gem beside her soup bowl, on the cream-white

Formica surface of the kitchen table.  Is it very valuable?

"We don't know yet," he said.

"We'll get an opinion from a gemologist tomorrow."  I think it's

valuable.

"When you take it back to them make sure there's no hole in your pocket.

I have a hunch YOU'D have to work a long time to pay for it if You lost

it.

The stone took in the kitchen light, bounced it from prism to prism, and

cast it back with a bright tint, painting Felina's face with luminous

crimson spots and smears.  She seem to be spattered with blood.

A queer foreboding overtook Clint.

She signed, What are you frowning about?

He didn't know what to say.  His uneasiness was out of proportion to the

cause of it.  A cold prickling sweat swiftly progressed from the base of

his spine all the way to the back of his neck as if dominoes of ice were

falling in a row.  He reached out moved the gem a few inches, so the

blood-red reflections on the wall beside Felina instead of on her face.

By ONE-THIRTY in the morning, Hal Yamataka was thoroughly hooked by the

John D. MacDonald novel, The Last One Left The room's only chair wasn't

the most comfort :it.

able seat he'd ever parked his butt in, and the antiseptic smell of the

hospital always made him a bit queasy, and the chili rellenos he'd eaten

for dinner were still coming back on him, but the book was so involving

that eventually he forgot all of those minor discomforts.

He even forgot Frank Pollard for a while, until he heard a brief hiss,

like air escaping under pressure, and felt a sudden draft.  He looked

away from the book, expecting to see Pollard sitting up in the bed or

trying to get out of it, but Pollard was not there.

Startled, Hal sprang up, dropping the book.

The bed was empty.  Pollard had been there all night, asleep for the

last hour, but now he was gone.  The place was not brightly lighted

because the fluorescence behind the bed were turned off, but the shadows

beyond the reading lamp were too shallow to conceal a man.  The sheets

were not tossed aside but were draped neatly across the mattress, and

both of the side railings were locked in place, as if Frank Pollard had

evaporated like a figure carved from Dry Ice.

Hal was certain that he would have heard Pollard lower one of the

railings, get out of bed, then lift the railing into place again. Surely

he would have heard Pollard climbing over it too.

The window was closed.  Rain washed down the glass, glimmering with

silvery reflections of the room's light.  They were on the sixth floor,

and Pollard could not escape by the window, yet Hal checked it, noting

that it was not merely closed but locked.

Stepping to the door of the adjoining bathroom, he said, "Frank?"

When no one answered, he entered.  The bath was deserted.

Only the narrow closet remained as a viable hiding place.  Hal opened it

and found two hangers that held the clothes Pollard had been wearing

when he'd checked into the hospital.  The man's shoes were there, too,

with his socks neatly rolled and tucked into them.

"He can't have gotten past me and into the hall," Hal said as if giving

voice to that contention would magically make true.

He pulled open the heavy door and rushed into the corridor.  No one was

in sight in either direction.

He turned to the left, hurried to the emergency exit at the end of the

hall, and opened the door.  Standing on the sixth floor landing, he

listened for footsteps rising or descending and heard none, peered over

the iron railing, down into the well then up.  He was alone.

Retracing his steps, he returned to Pollard's room an glanced inside at

the empty bed.  Still disheveled, he proceeded to the junction of

corridors, where he turned right an went to the glass-walled nurses'

station.

None of the five night-shift nurses had seen Pollard on the move.  Since

the elevators were directly opposite the nurse station, where Pollard

would have had to wait in full view of the people on duty, it seemed

unlikely that he had left the hospital by that route,

"I thought you were watching over him," said Grace Fugham, the

gray-haired supervisor of the sixth-floor night staff.  Her solid build,

indomitable manner, and life-worn but kin face would have made her

perfect for the female lead if Hollywood ever started remaking the old

Two Gun Annie or Ma an Pa Kettle movies.

"Wasn't that your job?"

"I never left the room, but-"

"Then how did he get past you?"

"I don't know," Hal said, chagrined.

"But the important thing is...  he's suffering from partial amnesia,

somewhat con fused.  He might wander off anywhere, out of the hospital,

God knows where.  I can't figure how he got past me, but we have to find

him."  Mrs.  Fulgham and a younger nurse named Janet Soto, helped make a

swift and quiet inspection of all the rooms along Pollard's corridor.

Hal accompanied Nurse Fulgham.  As they were checking out 604, where two

elderly men snored softly, he heard eerie music, barely audible.  As he

turned, seeking the source, the notes faded away.

If Nurse Fulgham heard the music, she did not remark on it.  A moment

later in the next room, 606, when those strains a rose once more,

marginally louder than before, she whispered,

"What is that?"

To Hal it sounded like a flute.  The unseen flautist produced no

discernible melody, but the flow of notes was haunting nonetheless.

They reentered the hall as the music stopped again, and just as a draft

swept along the corridor.

"Someone's left a window open-or probably a stairway door," the nurse

said quietly but pointedly:

"Not me," Hal assured her.

Janet Soto stepped out of the room across the hall just as the blustery

draft abruptly died.  She frowned at them, shrugged, then headed toward

the next room on her side.

The flute warbled softly.  The draft struck up again, stronger than

before, and beneath the astringent odors of the hospital, Hal thought he

detected a faint scent of smoke.

Leaving Grace Fulgham to her search, Hal hurried toward the far end of

the corridor.  He intended to check the door at the head of the

emergency stairs, to make sure that he hadn't left it open.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the door to Pollard's room beginning

to swing shut, and he realized that the draft must be coming from in

there.  He pushed through the door before it could close, and saw Frank

sitting up in bed, looking confused and frightened.

The draft and flute had given way to stillness, silence.

"Where did you go?"  Hal asked, approaching the bed.

"Fireflies," Pollard said, apparently dazed.  His hair was spiked and

tangled, and his round face was pale.

"Fireflies?"

"Fireflies in a windstorm," Pollard said.

Then he vanished.  One second he was sitting in bed, as real and solid

as anyone Hal had ever known, and the next second he was gone as

inexplicably and neatly as a ghost abandoning a haunt.  A brief hiss,

like air escaping from a punctured tire accompanied his departure.

Hal swayed as if he had been stricken.  For a moment his heart seemed to

seize up, and he was paralyzed by surprise when Nurse Fulgham stepped

into the doorway.

"No sign of him in any of the rooms off this corridor.  He might've gone

up to another floor-don't you think?"

"Uh...."

"Before we check out the rest of this level, maybe I'd better call

security and get them moving on a search of the entire hospital.  Mr.

Yamataka?"  Hal glanced at her, then back at the empty bed.

"Uh.

yeah.  Yeah, that's a good idea.  He might wander off to.

God knows where."  Nurse Fulgham hurried away.

Weak-kneed, Hal went to the door, closed it, put his back against it,

and stared at the bed across the room.  After a while he said,

"Are you there, Frank?"  He received no answer.  He had not expected

one.  Frank Pollard had not turned invisible; he had gone somewhere,

some how.

Not sure as to why he was less wonder struck than frightened of what he

had seen, Hal hesitantly crossed the room to the bed.  He gingerly

touched the stainless-steel railing, as if he thought that Pollard's

vanishing act had tapped some elemental force leaving a deadly residual

current in the bed.  But no spark crackled under his fingertips; the

metal was cool and smooth He waited, wondering how soon Pollard would

reappear wondering if he ought to call Bobby now or wait until Pollard

materialized, wondering if the man would materialize again disappear

forever.

For the first time in memory, Hal Yamataka was gripped by indecision; he

was ordinarily quick to think and quick to act, but he had never come

face to face with the supernatural before.

The only thing he knew for sure was that he must not allow Fulgham or

anyone on the floor, or anyone else in the hospital to find out what had

really happened.

Pollard was caught up in a phenomenon, afraid that word of it would

spread quickly from the hospital staff to the press.  Protecting a

client's privacy was always of Dakota & Dakota's prime objectives, but

in this case it was even more important than usual.  Bobby and Julie had

said that someone was hunting for Pollard, evidently with violent

intentions; therefore, keeping the press out of the case might be

essential if the client was to survive.

The door opened, and Hal jumped as if he'd been stuck with a hatpin.

In the doorway stood Grace Fulgham, looking as if she had just either

guided a tugboat through stormy seas or chopped and carried a couple of

cords of firewood that Pa had been too lazy to deal with.

"Security's putting a man at every exit to stop him if he tries to

leave, and we're mobilizing the nursing staff on each floor to look for

him.  Do you intend to join the search?"

"Uh, well, I've got to call the office, my boss.

"If we find him, where will we find you?"

"Here.  Right here.  I'll be here, making some calls."  She nodded and

went away.  The door eased shut after her.

A privacy curtain hung from a ceiling track that described an arc around

three sides of the bed.  It was bunched against the wall, but Hal

Yamataka drew it to the foot of the bed, blocking the view from the

doorway, in case Pollard materialized just as someone stepped in from

the corridor.

His hands were shaking, so he jammed them in his pockets.

Then he took his left hand out to look at his wristwatch: 1:48.

Pollard had been missing for perhaps eighteen minutes, except, of

course, for the few seconds during which he had flickered into existence

and talked about fireflies in a windstorm.  Hal decided to wait until

two o'clock to call Bobby and Julie.

He stood at the foot of the bed, clutching the railing with one hand,

listening to the night wind crying at the window and the rain snapping

against the glass.  The minutes crawled past like snails on an incline,

but at least the wait gave him time to calm down and think about how he

would tell Bobby what had happened.

As the hands on his watch lined up at two o'clock, he went the rest of

the way around the bed and was reaching for the phone on the nightstand

when he heard the eerie ululation of a distant flute.  The half-drawn

bed-curtain fluttered in a sudden draft.

He returned to the foot of the bed and looked past the end of the

curtain to the hallway door.  It was closed.  That was the source of the

draft.

The flute died.  The air in the room grew still, leaden.

Abruptly the curtain shivered and rippled, gently rattling the bearings

in the overhead track, and a cool breeze swept around the room, ruffling

his hair.  The music rose again.

With the door shut and the window closed tight, the only possible source

of the draft was the ventilation grille in the wall above the

nightstand.  But when Hal stood on his toes and raised his right hand in

front of that outlet, he felt nothing coming from it.  The chilly

currents of air appeared to have sprung up within the room itself.

He turned in a circle, moved this way and that, trying to get a fix on

the flute.  Actually, it didn't sound like a flute.  He listened

closely; it was more like a fluctuation of wind whistling through a lot

of pipes at the same time, big ones and little ones threading together

many vague but separate sounds that loosely sounded like keening that

was simultaneously eerie and, mournful yet somehow...  threatening.  It

faded, returned a third time.  To his surprise and bewilderment,

tuneless notes seemed to be issuing from the empty air around the bed.

Hal wondered if anyone else in the hospital could hear the flute this

time.  Probably not.  Though the music was louder now than when it had

begun, it remained faint; in fact, if he had been asleep, the mysterious

serenade would not have been loud enough to wake him.

Before Hal's eyes, the air over the bed shimmered.  For a moment he

could not breathe, as if the room had become a temporary vacuum chamber.

He felt his ears pop the same way they did during a too-rapid altitude

change.

The strange warbling and the draft died together, and Frank Pollard

reappeared as abruptly as he had vanished.  He was lying on his side,

with his knees drawn up in the fetal position.  For a few seconds he was

disoriented; when he realized who he was, he clutched the bed railing

and pulled himself into a sitting position.  The skin around his eyes

was puffy and dark but otherwise he was dreadfully pale.  His face had a

grey sheen to it, as if it wasn't perspiration pouring from him clear

beads of oil.  His blue cotton pajamas were rumpled, darkly mottled with

sweat, and caked with dirt in places.

He said,

"Stop me."

"What the hell's going on here?"  Hal asked, his voice cracking.

"Out of control."

"Where did you go?"

"For God's sake, help me."  Pollard was still clutching the bed rail

with his right hand, but he reached entreatingly toward Hal with his

left.

"Please, please..."  Stepping closer to the bed, Hal reached out -and

Pollard vanished, this time not only with a hissing sound, as before,

but with a shriek and sharp crack of tortured metal.  The

stainless-steel railing, which he had been gripping so fiercely, had

torn loose of the bed and vanished with him.

Hal Yamataka stared in astonishment at the hinges to which the

adjustable railing had been fixed.  They were twisted and torn, as if

made of cardboard.  A force of incredible power had pulled Pollard out

of that room, snapping quarter-inch steel.

Staring at his own outstretched hand, Hal wondered what would have

happened to him if he had been gripping Pollard.  Would he have

disappeared with the man?  To where?  Not someplace he would want to be:

he was sure of that.

Or maybe only part of him would have gone with Pollard.  Maybe he would

have come apart at a joint, just as the bed railing had done.  Maybe his

arm would have ripped out of his shoulder socket with a crack almost as

sharp as that with which the steel hinges had separated, and maybe he

would have been left screaming in pain, with blood squirting from

snapped vessels.

He snatched his hand back, as if afraid Pollard might suddenly reappear

and seize it.

As he rounded the bed to the phone, he thought that his legs were going

to fail him.  His hands were shaking so badly, he almost dropped the

receiver and had difficulty dialing the Dakotas' home number.

BOBBY AND Julie left for the hospital at 2:45.

The night looked deeper than usual; street lamps and headlights did not

fully penetrate the gloom.  Shatters of rain fell with force, they

appeared to bounce off the blacktop streets, as if they were hard

fragments of a disintegrating vault that had come through the night

above.

Julie drove because Bobby was only three-quarters awake His eyes were

heavy, and he couldn't stop yawning, and thoughts were fuzzy at the

edges.  They had gone to bed three hours before Hal Yamataka had

awakened them.  If Julie had to get by on only that much sleep, she

could do it, Bobby needed at least six-preferably eight-hours in order

to function well.

That was a minor difference between them, no big deal.

because of several such minor differences, Bobby suspected that Julie

was tougher overall than he was, even if he could whip her ten times out

of ten in an arm-wrestling competition.  He chuckled softly.

She said, "What?"

She braked for a traffic light as it phased to red.  Its blood image was

reflected in distorted patterns by the black, murky like surface of the

rain-slick street.

"I'm crazy to give you an advantage by admitting this, I was thinking

that in some ways you're tougher than me."

She said, "That's no revelation.  I've always known I'm tougher."

"Oh, yeah?  If we arm wrestle, I'll whip you every time

"How sad."  She shook her head.

"Do you really think beating up someone smaller than you, and a woman to

boot, makes you a macho man?"

"I could beat up a lot of women bigger than me," Bobby assured her.

"And if they're old enough, I could take them on two or three or four at

a time.  In fact, you throw half a dozen big grandmothers at me, and

I'll take them all on with one hand tied behind my back!"

The traffic light turned green, and she drove on.

"I'm talking big grandmothers," he said.

"Not frail little old ladies.  Big, fat, solid grandmothers, six at a

time."

"That is impressive."

"Damn right.  Though it'd help if I had a tire iron."

She laughed, and he grinned.

But they could not forget where they were going or why, and their smiles

faded to a pair of matching frowns.  They drove in silence.  The thump

of the windshield wipers, which ought to have lulled Bobby to sleep,

kept him awake instead.

Finally Julie said, "You think Frank actually vanished in front of Hal's

eyes, the way he says?"

"I've never known Hal to lie or give in to hysteria."

"Me neither."

She turned left at the next corner.  A few blocks ahead, beyond

billowing curtains of rain, the lights of the hospital appeared to pulse

and flicker and stream like an iridescent liquid, which made it look

every bit was miragelike as a phantom oasis shimmering behind veils of

heat rising from desert sands.

WHEN THEY entered the room, Hal was standing at the foot of the bed,

which was largely concealed by the privacy curtain.  He looked like a

guy who had not only seen a ghost, but had embraced it and kissed it on

its cold, damp, putrescent lips.

"Thank God, you're here."  He looked past them, into the hall.

"The head nurse wants to call the cops, file a missing person-"

"We've dealt with that," Bobby said.

"Dr. Freeborn talked to her by phone, and we've signed a release

absolving the hospital."

"Good."  Gesturing toward the open door, Hal said, "We'll want to keep

this as private as we can."

After closing the door, Julie joined them at the foot of the bed.

Bobby noted the missing railing and broken hinges.

"What's this?"

Hal swallowed hard.  "He was holding the railing when he vanished... and

it went with him.  I didn't mention it on the phone, 'cause I figured

you already thought I was nuts, this would confirm it."

"Tell us now," Julie said quietly.

They were all talking softly, for otherwise Nurse Fulgham was certain to

stop by and remind them that most of the patients on the floor were

sleeping.

When Hal finished his story, Bobby said, "The flute, the peculiar

breeze...  that's what Frank told us he heard shortly after he regained

consciousness that night in the alleyway, somehow he knew it meant

someone was coming."  Some of the dirt that Hal had observed on Frank's

pajamas after his second reappearance, was on the bed sheets.  Julie

plucked up a pinch of it.

"Not dirt exactly."  Bobby examined the grains on her fingertips.

"Black sand."

To Hal, Julie said, "Frank hasn't reappeared since he left with the

railing?"

"No."

"And when was that?"

"A couple of minutes after two o'clock.  Maybe two-oh-t two-oh-three,

something like that."

"About an hour and twenty minutes ago," Bobby said.

They stood in silence, staring at the mountings from which the bed

railing had been torn.

Outside, a squall of wind that rained against the window with sufficient

force to make it so like out-of-season Halloween pranksters pitching

hands full of dried corn.

Finally Bobby looked at Julie.

"What do we do now?"  She blinked.

"Don't ask me.  This is the first case I've worked on that involves

witchcraft."

"Witchcraft?"  Hal said nervously.

"Just a figure of speech," Julie assured him.

Maybe, Bobby thought.  He said, "We've got to assume he'll come back

before morning, perhaps a couple of times, sooner or later he'll stay

put.  This must be what happens every night when he sleeps; this is the

traveling he doesn't remember when he wakes up."

"Traveling," Julie said.  Under the circumstances, that ordinary word

seemed as exotic and full of mystery as any in the language.

CAREFUL NOT to wake the patients, they borrowed two additional chairs

from other rooms along the corridor.  Hal sat tensely just inside the

closed door of room 638, in a position to prevent any of the hospital

staff from walking in unimpeded.  Julie sat at the foot of the bed, and

Bobby stationed himself at the side of it nearest the window, where the

railing was still in place.

They waited.

From her chair, Julie only had to turn her head slightly to look across

the room at Hal.  When she glanced the other way she could see Bobby.

But because of the privacy curtain that was drawn along the side of the

bed with the missing railing, Hal and Bobby were not in each other's

line of sight.

She wondered if Hal would have been astonished to see how quickly Bobby

went to sleep.  Hal was still pumped up by what had happened, and Julie,

only having heard about Frank's sorcerous disappearance second-hand, was

nonetheless eagerly nervously-anticipating the chance to witness the

same bit of magic herself.  Bobby was a man of considerable imaginative

powers, with a childlike sense of wonder, so he was probably more

excited about these events than either she or Hal was; furthermore,

because of his premonition of trouble, he suspected that the case was

going to be full of surprises, some nasty, and these events no doubt

alarmed him.  Yet he could slump against the inadequately padded arm of

his chair, let his chin drop against his chest, and doze off.  He would

never be felled by stress.  At times his sense of proportion, his

ability to put anything in a manageable perspective, seemed superhuman.

When Bobby McFerrin's song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" had been a hit a

couple of years ago, she had not been surprised that her own Bobby had

been enamored of it; the tune was essentially his personal anthem.

Apparently by an act of will, he could readily achieve serenity, and she

admired that.

By 4:40, when Bobby had been slumbering contentedly for nearly an hour,

she watched him doze with admiration that rapidly escalated to unhealthy

envy.  She had the urge to give his chair a kick, toppling him out of

it.  She restrained herself only because she suspected that he would

merely yawn, up on his side, and sleep even more comfortably on the

floor at which point her envy would become so all-consuming she would

simply have to kill him where he lay.  She imagined herself in court: I

know murder is wrong, Judge, but he was just too laid-back to live.

A cascade of soft, almost melancholy notes fell out of the air in front

of her.

"The flute!"  Hal said, leaving his chair with the suddeness of a

popcorn kernel bursting off a heated pan.

Simultaneously, a breath of cool air stirred through the room, without

apparent source.

Getting to her feet, Julie whispered,

"Bobby!"  She shook him by the shoulder, and he came awake just as the

music faded and the air turned crypt-still.

Bobby rubbed his eyes with his palms, and yawned.

"What's wrong?"

Even as he spoke, the haunting music swelled again, but louder than

before.  Not music, actually, just noise.  Hal was right: listening

closely, you could also tell it was a flute.

She stepped toward the bed.

Hal had left his station by the door.  He put a hand on her shoulder,

halting her.

"Be careful."  Frank had reported three-maybe four-separate trips of the

faux flute, and as many agitations of the air, before Blue Light had

appeared on his trail that night in Anaheim and Hal had noticed that

three episodes had preceded each of Frank's own reappearances.  However,

those accompanying phenomena evidently could not be expected in an exact

pattern, for when the second rivulet of unharmonious finished spilling

out of the wether, the air immediately above the bed shimmered, as if a

double handful of pale tarnished sand had been swept up and set aflutter

in rising currents of air and suddenly Frank Pollard winked into

existence atop rumpled sheets.

Julie's ears popped.

"Holy cow!"  Bobby said, which was just what Julie would have expected

him to say.

She, on the other hand, was unable to speak.

Gasping, Frank Pollard sat up in bed.  His face was bloodless.  Around

his rheumy eyes, the skin looked bruised.  Sour perspiration glistened

on his face and beaded in his beard stubble.

He was holding a pillowcase half filled with something.  The end was

twisted and held shut with a length of cord.  He let go of it, and it

fell off the side of the bed where the railing was missing, striking the

floor with a soft plop.

When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and strange.

"Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital, Frank," Bobby said.

"It's all right.  You're where you belong now."

"Hospital...  " Frank said, savoring the word as if he had just heard

it-and was now pronouncing it-for the first time.  He looked around,

obviously bewildered; he still didn't know where he was.

"Don't let me slip-" He vanished mid-sentence.  A brief hiss accompanied

his abrupt departure, as if the air in the room was escaping through a

puncture in the skin of reality.

"Damn!"  Julie said.

"Where were his pajamas?"  Hal said.

"What?"

"He was wearing shoes, khaki pants, a shirt and sweater," Hal said,

"but the last time I saw him, a couple of hours ago, he still had on his

pajamas."  At the far end of the room, the door began to open but bumped

against Hal's empty chair.  Nurse Fulgham poked her head through the

gap.  She looked down at the chair, then across the room at Hal and

Julie, then at Bobby, who stepped to the foot of the bed to peer past

his two associates and the half-drawn privacy curtain.

Their astonishment at Frank's vanishing act must have been ill

concealed, for the woman frowned and said,

"What's wrong?"

Julie quickly crossed the room as Grace Fulgham slid the chair aside and

opened the door all the way.

"Everything's fine.  We just spoke by phone with our man heading up the

search, and he says they've found someone who saw Mr. Pollard earlier

tonight.  We know which way he was heading, so now it's only a matter of

time until we find him."

"We didn't expect you'd be here so long," Fulgham said frowning past

Julie at the curtained bed.

Even through the heavy door, maybe she had heard the faint warble of the

flute that wasn't a flute.

"Well," Julie said, "this is the easiest place from which to coordinate

the search."  By standing just inside the door, with Hal's empty chair

between them, Julie was trying to block the nurse's advance with out

appearing to do so.  If Fulgham got past the curtain, she might notice

the missing railing, the black sand in the bed, a the pillowcase that

was filled with God-knew-what.  Questions about any of those things

might be difficult to answer convincingly, and if the nurse remained in

the room too long, she might be there when Frank returned.

Julie said, "I'm sure we haven't disturbed any of the other patients.

We've been very quiet."

"No, no," Nurse Fulgham said,

"you haven't disturbed any one.  We just wondered if you might like some

coffee to help keep you awake."

"Oh."

Julie turned to look at Hal and Bobby.

"Coffee?'

"No,"

the two men said simultaneously.  Then, speaking over each other, Hal

said, "No, thank you,"

and Bobby said, "Very kind of you."

"I'm wide awake," Julie said, frantic to be rid of the nurse but trying

to sound casual,

"and Hal doesn't drink coffee, and Bobby, my husband, can't handle

caffeine because of prostrate problems."  I'm babbling, she thought.

"Anyway, we'll be leaving soon now, I'm sure."

"Well," the nurse said, "if you change your mind.

After Fulgham left, letting the door close behind her, Bobby whispered,

"Prostate trouble?"

Julie said, "Too much caffeine causes prostate trouble Seemed like a

convincing detail to explain why, with everything going on, you didn't

want coffee."

"But I don't have a prostate problem.  Makes me sound like an old fart."

"I have it," Hal said.

"And I'm not an old fart."

"What is this?"  Julie said.

"We're all babbling."  She pushed the chair in front of the door and

returned to the bed, where she picked up the pillowcase-bag that Frank

Pollard had brought from...  from where ever he had been

"Careful," Bobby said.

"Last time Frank mentioned a pillowcase, it was the one he trapped that

insect in."  Julie gingerly set the bag on a chair and watched it

closely.

"Doesn't seem to be anything squirming around in it."  She started to

untie the knotted cord from the neck of the sack.

Grimacing, Bobby said, "If you let out something big as a house cat,

with a lot of legs and feelers, I'm going straight to a divorce lawyer."

The cord slipped free.  She pulled open the pillowcase, and looked

inside.

"Oh, God."  Bobby took a couple of steps backward.

"No, not that," she assured him.

"No bugs.  Just more cash."  She reached into the sack and withdrew a

couple of bundles of hundred-dollar bills.

"If it's all hundreds, there could be as much as a quarter of a million

in here."

"What's Frank doing?"  Bobby wondered.

"Laundering money for the mob in the Twilight Zone?"  Hollow, lonely,

tuneless piping pierced the air again, and like a needle pulling thread,

the sound brought with it a draft that rustled the curtain.

Shivering, Julie turned to look at the bed.

The flowerlike notes faded with the draft, then soon rose again, faded,

rose, and faded a fourth time as Frank Pollard reappeared.  He was on

his side, arms against his chest, hands fisted, grimacing, his eyes

squeezed shut, as if he were preparing himself to receive the killing

blow of an ax.

Julie stepped toward the bed, and again Hal stopped her.

Frank sucked in a deep breath, shuddered, made a low anguished mewling,

opened his eyes-and vanished.  Within two or three seconds, he appeared

yet again, still shuddering.  But immediately he vanished, reappeared,

vanished, reappeared, vanished, as if he were an image flickering on a

television set with poor signal reception.  At last he stuck fast to the

fabric of reality and lay on the bed, moaning.

After rolling off his side, onto his back, he gazed at the ceiling.  He

raised his fists from his chest, uncurled them, and stared at his hands,

baffled, as if he had never seen fingers before.

"Frank?"  Julie said.  He did not respond to her.  With his fingertips

he explored the contours of his face, as if a Braille reading of his

features would recall to him the forgotten specifics of his appearance.

Julie's heart was racing, and every muscle in her body felt as if it had

been twisted up as tight as an overwound clock spring.  She was not

afraid, really.  It was not a tension engineered by fear but by the

sheer strangeness of what had happened.

"Frank, are you okay?"

Blinking through the interstices of his fingers, he said, "O It's you,

Mrs.  Dakota.  Yeah...  Dakota.  What's happened Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital now," Bobby said.

"Listen, the important question isn't where you are, but where the hell

had you been?"

"Been?  Well...  what do you mean?"  Frank tried to sit up in bed, but

he seemed to temporarily lack the strength to get off his back.

Picking up the bed controls, Bobby elevated the upper half of the

mattress.

"You weren't in this room during most of the last few hours.  It's

almost five in the morning, and you've been jumping in and out of here

like...  like...  like a crew remember of the Starship Enterprise who

keeps beaming back up to the mothership!"

"Enterprise?  Beaming up?  What're you talking about?"

Bobby looked at Julie.  "Whoever this guy is, wherever he comes from, we

now know for sure that he's been living past the edge of modern culture,

on the fringe.  You ever know a modern American who hasn't at least

heard of Star Trek?

To Bobby, Julie said, "Thanks for your analysis, Mr. Spock."

"Mr. Spock?"  Frank said.

"See!"  Bobby said.

"We can question Frank later," Julie said.

"He's confuse right now, anyway.  We've got to get him out of here.  If

the nurse comes back and sees him, how do we explain his reappearance?

Is she really going to believe he wandered back into the hospital, past

security and the nursing staff, up six floors with nobody spotting him?"

"Yeah," Hal said,

"and though he seems to be back good, what if he pops away again, in

front of her eyes?"

"Okay, so we'll get him out of bed and sneak him dow those stairs at the

end of the hall," Julie said,

"out to the car.

As they talked about him, Frank turned his head back and forth,

following the conversation.  He appeared to be watching a tennis match

for the first time, unable to comprehend the rules of the game.

Bobby said, "Once we've gotten him out of here, we can tell Fulgham he's

been found just a few blocks away and that we're meeting with him to

determine whether he wants-or even needs-to be returned to the hospital.

He's our client, after all, not our ward, and we have to respect his

wishes."

Without having to wait for tests to be conducted, they now knew that

Frank was not suffering strictly from physical ailments like cerebral

abscesses, clots, aneurysms, cysts, or neoplasms.  His amnesia did not

spring from brain tumors, but from something far stranger and more

exotic than that.  No malignancy, regardless of how singular its nature,

would invest its victim with the power to step into the fourth dimension

or to wherever Frank was stepping when he vanished.

"Hal," Julie said, "get Frank's other clothes from the closet, bundle

them up, and stuff them in the pillowcase with the money."

"Will do."

"Bobby, help me get Frank out of bed, see if he can stand on his own

feet.  He looks awful weak."  The remaining bed railing stuck for a

moment when Bobby tried to lower it, but he struggled with it because

they could not take Frank out of bed on the other side without drawing

back the privacy curtain and exposing him to anyone who might push open

the door.

"You could've done me a big favor and packed this rail off to Oz with

the other one," Bobby told Frank, and Frank said,

"Oz?"

When the railing finally folded down, out of the way, Julie found that

she was hesitant to touch Frank, for fear of what might happen to her-or

parts of her-if he pulled another disappearing act.  She had seen the

shattered hinges of the bed railing; she was also keenly aware that

Frank had not brought the railing back with him, but had abandoned it in

the other world or wherever to which he traveled.

Bobby hesitated, too, but overcame his apprehension, grabbing the man's

legs and swinging them over the edge of the bed, taking hold of his arm

and helping him into a sitting position, In some ways she might be

tougher than Bobby, but when it came to encounters with the unknown, he

was clearly moor flexible and quick to adapt than she was.

Finally she quelled her fear, and together she and Bobby assisted Frank

off the bed and onto his feet.  His legs buckle under him, and they had

to support him.  He complained of weakness and dizziness.

Stuffing the other set of clothes in the pillowcase, Hal said "if we

have to, Bobby and I can carry him."

"I'm sorry to be so much trouble," Frank said.

To Julie, he had never sounded or looked more pathetic, an she felt a

flush of guilt about her reluctance to touch him.

Flanking Frank, their arms around him to provide support Julie and Bobby

walked him back and forth, past the rain washed window, giving him a

chance to recover the use of his legs.  Gradually his strength and

balance returned.

"But my pants keep trying to fall down," Frank said.

They propped him against the bed, and he leaned on Julie while Bobby

lifted the blue cotton sweater to see if they be needed to be cinched in

one notch.  The tongue end of the bell was weakened by scores of small

holes, as if industrious insect had been boring at it.  But what insects

ate leather?  When Bobby touched the tarnished brass buckle, it crumbled

a though it was made of flaky pastry dough.

Gaping at the glittering crumbs of metal on his finger Bobby said,

"Where do you shop for clothes, Frank?  In dumpster?"

In spite of Bobby's light tone, Julie knew he was unnerve What substance

or circumstances could so profoundly alter the composition of brass?

When he brushed his fingers against the bed sheets to wipe off the

curious residue, she flinched, not expecting his flesh to have been

contaminated by the contact with the brass, and to crumble as the buckle

had done.

AFTER CINCHING Frank's pants with the belt that he had worn when he'd

checked into the hospital, Hal helped Bobby slip their client out of the

room.  With Julie scouting the way, they went quickly and quietly along

the hall and through the fire door at the head of the emergency stairs.

Frank's skin remained cold to the touch, and he was still clammy with

perspiration; but the effort brought a flush to his cheeks, which made

him look less like a walking corpse.

Julie hurried to the bottom of the stairwell to see what lay beyond the

lower door.  With the thump and scrape of their footsteps echoing

hollowly off the bare concrete walls, the three men went down four

flights without much difficulty.  At the fourth-floor landing, however,

they had to pause to let Frank catch his breath.

"Are you always this weak when you wake up and don't remember where

you've been?"  Bobby asked.

Frank shook his head.  His words issued in a thing wheeze: "No. -Always

frightened...  tired, but not as bad...  as this.  I feel like...

whatever I'm doing...  wherever I'm going...  it's taking a bigger and

bigger toll.  I'm not...  not going to survive...  a lot more of this."

As Frank was talking, Bobby noticed something peculiar about the man's

blue cotton sweater.  The pattern of the cable knit was wildly irregular

in places, as if the knitting machine had briefly gone berserk.  And on

the back, near his right shoulder blade, a patch of fibers was missing;

the hole was the size of a block of four postage stamps, though with

irregular rather than straight edges.  But it wasn't just a hole.  A

piece of what appeared to be khaki filled the gap, not merely sewn on

but woven tightly into the surrounding cotton yarn, as if at the garment

factory itself.  Khaki of the same shade and hard finish as the pants

that Frank was wearing.

A shiver of dread pierced Bobby, although he was not sure why.  His

subconscious mind seemed to understand how the patch had come to be and

what it meant, and grasped some hideous consequence not yet fulfilled,

while his conscious mind was baffled.

He saw that Hal, on the other side of Frank, had noticed the patch, too,

and was frowning.

Julie ascended the stairs while Bobby was staring in puzzlement at the

khaki swatch.

"We're in luck," she said.

"There're two doors at the bottom.  One leads into a hallway off the

lobby, where we'd probably run into a security man, even though they

aren't looking for Frank any more.  But the other door leads into the

parking garage, the same level our car's on.  How you doing, Frank?  You

going to be okay?"

"Getting my...  second wind," he said less wheezingly than before.

"Look at this," Bobby said, calling Julie's attention to the khaki woven

into the blue cotton sweater.

While Julie studied the peculiar patch, Bobby let go of Frank and, on a

hunch, stooped down to examine the legs of his client's pants.  He found

a corresponding irregularity: blue cotton yarn from the sweater was

woven into the slacks.  It was now one spot of the same size and shape

as that in the sweater, near a series of three smaller holes near the

cuff on the right leg however, he was sure that more accurate

measurements would confirm what he knew from a quick look-that the tot

amount of blue yarn in those three holes would just about fill the hole

in the shoulder of the sweater.

"What's wrong?"  Frank asked.

Bobby didn't respond but took hold of the somewhat baggy leg of the

pants and pulled it taut, so he could get a better look at the three

patches.  Actually,

"patches" was an inaccurate word because these abnormalities in the

fabric did not look like repairs; they were too well blended with the

material around them to be handwork.

Julie squatted beside him and said, "First, we've got to get Frank out

of here, back to the office."

"Yeah, but this is real strange," Bobby said, indicating the

irregularities in the pants.

"Strange and...  important some how."

"What's wrong?"  Frank repeated.

"Where'd you get these clothes?"  Bobby asked him.

"Well...  I don't know."

Julie pointed to the white athletic sock on Frank's right foot and Bobby

saw at once what had caught her attention: several blue threads,

precisely the color of the sweater.  They were now loose, clinging to

the sock.  They were woven into the very fabric of it.

Then he noticed Frank's left shoe.  It was a dark brown hiking shoe, but

a few thing, squiggly white lines marred the leather on the toe.  When

he studied them closely, he saw that the line appeared to be coming

sparse threads like those in the athletic socks scraping at them with

one fingernail, he discovered they were not stuck to the shoe, but were

an integral part of the surface of the leather.

The missing yarn of the sweater had somehow become a part of both the

khaki pants and one of the socks; the displaced threads of the sock had

become part of the shoe on the other foot.

"What's wrong?"  Frank repeated, more fearfully than before.

Bobby hesitated to look up, expecting to see that the filaments of

displaced shoe leather were embedded in Frank's face, and that the

displaced flesh was magically entwined with the cable knit of the

sweater.  He stood and forced himself to confront his client.

Aside from the dark and puffy rings around is eyes, the sickly pallor

relieved only by the flush on his upper cheeks, and the fear and

confusion that gave him a tormented look, nothing was wrong with his

face.  No leather ornamentation.  No khaki stitched into his lips.  No

filaments of blue yarn or plastic shoelace tips or button fragments

bristling from his eyeballs.

Silently castigating himself for his overactive imagination, Bobby

patted Frank's shoulder.

"It's okay.  It's all right.  We'll figure it out later.  Come on, let's

get you out of here."

IN THE embrace of darkness, enwrapped by the scent of Channel No. five

under the very blankets and sheets that had once warmed his mother and

that he had so carefully served, Candy dozed and awakened repeatedly

with a fear though he could not remember any nightmares.

Between periods of fitful sleep, he dwelt on the incident at the canyon,

earlier that night, when he had been hunting and had felt an unseen

presence put a hand on his head.  He'd never before experienced anything

like that.  He was disturbed by the encounter, unsure whether it was

threatening or benign, anxious to understand it.

He first wondered if it had been his mother's angelicence, hovering

above him.  But he quickly dismissed that explanation.  If his mother

had stepped through the veil between this world and the next, he would

have recognized her spirit, singular aura of love, warmth, and

compassion.  He would have fallen to his knees under the weight of her

ghostly hand wept with joy at her visitation.

Briefly he had considered that one or both of his inscrutable sisters

possessed a heretofore unrevealed talent for psychic contact and reached

out to him for unknown reasons.  They had, somehow like they controlled

their cats and appeared to have equal influence over other small

animals.  Maybe they!"  enter human minds as well.  He didn't want that

pale, cold pair invading his privacy.  At times he looked at them and

thought of snakes-sinuous albino snakes, silent and filled-with desires

as alien as any that motivated reptiles.

possibility that they could intrude into his mind was chill even if they

could not control him.

But between bouts of sleep, he abandoned that idea.  If Violet and

Verbina possessed such abilities, they would have enslaved him long ago,

as thoroughly as they had enslaved the cats.  They would have forced him

to do degrading, obscene things; they did not possess his self-control

in matters of the flesh and would live, if they could, in constant

violation of God's most fundamental commandments.

He could not understand why his mother had sworn him to keep and protect

them, any more than he could understand how she could love them.  Of

course her compassion for those miscreant offspring was only one more

example of her saintly nature.  Forgiveness and understanding flowed

from her like clear, cool water from an artesian well.

For a while he dozed.  When he woke with a start again, he turned on his

side and watched the faint light of dawn appear along the edges of the

drawn blinds.

He considered the possibility that the presence in the canyon had been

his brother Frank.  But that was also unlikely.  If Frank had possessed

telepathic abilities, he would have found a way to employ them to

destroy Candy a long, long time ago.  Frank was less talented than his

sisters and much less talented than his brother Candy.

Then who had approached him twice in the canyon, insistently pressing

into his mind?  Who sent the disconnected words that echoed in his head:

What...  where...  what...

why...  what...  where...  what...  why...  ?

Last night, he'd tried to get a mental grip on the presence.  When it

hastily withdrew from him, he had tried to let part of his consciousness

soar up into the night with it, but he had been unable to sustain a

pursuit on that psychic plane.  He sensed, however, that he might be

able to develop that ability.

If the unwelcome presence ever returned, he would try to knot a filament

of his mind to it and trace it to its source.  In his twenty-nine years,

his own siblings were the only people he had encountered with what might

be called psychic abilities.  If someone out there in the world was also

gifted, he must learn who it was.  Such a person, not born of his

sainted mother, was a rival, a threat, an enemy.

Though the sun beyond the blinded windows had not fully risen, he knew

that he would not be able to doze again.  He threw back the covers,

crossed the dark and furniture-crowded room with the assurance of a

blind man in a familiar place, and went into the adjoining bath.  After

locking the door, he undressed without glancing in the mirror.  He peed

force without looking down at his hateful organ.  When he showered he

soaped and rinsed the sex thing only with the washcloth mitten that he'd

made and that protected his innocent from being corrupted by the

monstrous, wicked flesh.

FROM THE hospital in Orange, they went directly to their offices in

Newport Beach.  They had a lot of work to do on Frank's behalf, and his

worsening plight evoked in them a greater sense of urgency than ever.

Frank strode with Hal, and Julie followed in order to be able to offer

assistance if unforeseen developments occurred during the trip.  The

entire case seemed to be a series of unforeseen developments.

By the time they reached their deserted offices-the Dakota & Dakota

staff would not arrive for a couple of hours yet-the sun was fully risen

behind the clouds in the east.  A thing strip of blue sky, like a crack

under the door of the storm, was visible over the ocean to the west.  As

the four of them passed through the reception lounge into their inner

sanctum, the rain halted abruptly, as if a godly hand had turned a

celestial lever; the water on the big windows stopped flowing in

shimmering sheets, and coalesced into hundreds of small beads that

glimmered with a mercury-gray sheen in the cloud-dulled morning light.

Bobby indicated the bulging pillowcase that Hal was carrying.

"Take Frank into the bathroom, help him change into the clothes he was

wearing when we checked him into the hospital.  Then we'll have a real

close look at the clothes he's wearing now."  Frank had recovered his

balance and most of his strength.  He did not need Hal's assistance. But

Julie knew Bobby wouldn't let Frank go anywhere unchaperoned from now

on.  They needed to keep an eye on him constantly, in order not to miss

any clues that might lead to an explanation of his sudden vanishments

and reappearances.

Before attending to Frank, Hal removed the rumpled clothes from the

pillowcase.  He left the rest of its contents on Julie's desk.

"Coffee?"  Bobby asked.

"Desperately," Julie said.

He went out to the pantry that opened off the lounge, to stir up one of

their two Mr. Coffee machines.

Sitting at her desk, Julie emptied the pillowcase.  It contained thirty

bundles of hundred-dollar bills in packs bound by rubber bands.  She

fanned the edges of the bills in ten bundles to ascertain if lower

denominations were included; they were all hundreds.  She chose two

packets at random and counted them.  Each contained one hundred bills.

Ten thousand in each.

By the time Bobby returned with mugs, spoons, cream, sugar, a pot of hot

coffee, all on a tray, Julie had concluded that it was the largest of

Frank's three hauls to date.

"Three hundred K," she said, as Bobby put the tray on the desk.

He whistled softly.

"What's that bring the total to?"

"With this, we'll be holding six hundred thousand for him

"Soon have to get a bigger office safe."

HAL YAMATAKA put Frank's other set of clothes on the coffee table.

"Something's wrong with the zipper in the pants.  I don't mean just that

it doesn't work, which it doesn't.  I mean, something's very wrong with

it."

Hal, Frank, and Julie pulled up chairs around the low glass topped

table, and drank strong black coffee while Bobby sat on the couch and

carefully inspected the garments.  In addition to the oddities he had

noticed at the hospital, he discovered that most of the teeth in the

pants zipper were metal, as it should have been, while about forty

others, interspersed at random, appeared to be hard black rubber; in

fact, the slide jammed on a couple of the rubber ones.

Bobby stared in puzzlement at the anomalous zipper, slowly moving a

finger up and down one of the notched tracks,he was suddenly struck by

inspiration.  He picked up one of the shoes Frank had been wearing and

examined the heel.

It looked perfectly normal, but in the heel of the second shoe thirty or

forty tiny, brass-bright bits of metal were embedded in the rubber,

flush with the surface of it.

"Anybody have a pen knife?"  Bobby asked.

Hal withdrew one from his pocket.

Bobby used it to pry loose a couple of the shiny rectangles, which

appeared to have been set in the rubber when it was still molten. Zipper

teeth.  They fell onto the glass table: tink...  tink.  At a glance he

estimated that the amount of rubber displaced by those teeth was equal

to what he had found in the zipper.

Sitting around IN the Dakotas' Disney-embellished office, Frank Pollard

was overwhelmed by a weariness that was cartoonish in its extremity, the

degree of utter exhaustion sufficient to render Donald Duck so limp that

he might slip off a chair and pour onto the floor in a puddle of mallard

flesh and feathers.  It had been seeping into him day by day, hour by

hour, since he had awakened in that alleyway last week; but now it

suddenly poured through him as if a dike had broken.  This surging flood

of weariness had a density not of water but of liquid lead, and he felt

enormously heavy; he could lift a foot or move a limb only with effort,

and even keeping his head up was a strain on his neck.  Virtually every

joint in his body ached dully, even his elbow and wrist and finger

joints, but especially his knees, hips, and shoulders.  He felt

feverish, not acutely ill, but as if his strength had been steadily

sapped by a low-grade viral infection from which he had been suffering

his entire life.  Weariness had not dulled his senses; on the contrary,

it abraded his nerve endings as surely as a fine-grade sandpaper might

have done.  Loud sounds made him cringe, bright light made him squint in

pain, and he was exquisitely sensitive to heat and cold and the textures

of everything he touched.

His exhaustion seemed only in part a result of his inability to sleep

more than a couple of hours a night.  If Hal Yamataka and the Dakotas

could be believed-and Frank saw no reason for them to lie to him-he

performed an incredible vanishing act several times during the night,

though upon returning to his bed and staying put there, he could recall

nothing of what he had done.  Whatever the cause of those

disappearances, no matter where he had gone or how or why, the very act

of vanishing seemed likely to require an expenditure of energy surely as

walking or running or lifting heavy weights or any other physical act;

therefore, perhaps his weakness and profound weariness were largely the

result of his mysterious journeys.

Bobby Dakota had pried only a couple of the brass teeth from the heel of

the shoe.  After studying them for a moment he put down the penknife,

leaned back against the sofa, and looked thoughtfully at the gloomy but

rainless sky beyond the office's big windows.  They were all silent,

waiting to hear what had been deduced from the condition of those

clothes and shoes Even exhausted, preoccupied with his own fears, and

only a one-day association with the Dakotas, Frank realized that Bobby

was the more imaginative and mentally nimble the two.  Julie was

probably smarter than her husband; but was also a more methodical

thinker than he was, far less likely than he was to make sudden leaps of

logic to arrive at insight deductions and imaginative solutions.  Julie

would more likely be right than Bobby was, but on those occasions when

they resolved a client's problems quickly, the resolution would be

attributable to Bobby.  They made a good pair, and Frank was relying on

their complementary natures to help him.

Turning to Frank again, Bobby said, "What if, somehow you can teleport

yourself, send yourself from here to there in a wink?"

"But that's...  magic," Frank said.

"I don't believe magic."

"Oh, I do," Bobby said.

"Not witches and spells and genies in bottles, but I believe in the

possibility of fantastic thing The very fact that the world exists, that

we're alive, that we can laugh and sing and feel the sun on our skin...

that seems like a kind of magic to me."

"Teleport myself.?  If I can.  I don't know I can.  Even if I have to

fall asleep first.  Which means teleportation must be a function of my

subconscious mind, essentially involuntary."

"You weren't asleep when you reappeared in the hospital room or any of

the other times you vanished," Hal stared.

"Maybe the first time, but not later.  Your eyes were open.

spoke to me."

"But I don't remember it," Frank said frustratedly-

"I remember going to sleep, then suddenly I was lying awake in bed, in a

lot of distress, confused, and you were all there."

Julie sighed.  "Teleportation.  How can that be possible?"

"You saw it."  Bobby shrugged.  He picked up his coffee and took a sip,

more relaxed than anyone in the room, as though having a client with an

astonishing psychic power was, if not an ordinary occurrence, at least a

situation that all of them should have realized was simply inevitable,

given enough years in the private security business.

"I saw him disappear," Julie agreed,

"but I'm not sure that proves he...  teleported."

"When he disappeared," Bobby said, "he went somewhere.  Right?"

"Well...  yes.

"And going from one place to another, instantaneously, as an act of

sheer willpower...  as far as I'm concerned, that's teleportation."

"But how?"  Julie asked.

Bobby shrugged again.  "Right now, it doesn't matter how.

Just accept the assumption of teleportation as a place to start."

"As a theory," Hal said.

"Okay," Julie agreed.

"Theoretically, let's assume Frank can teleport himself."

To Frank, who was sealed off from his own experience by amnesia, that

was like assuming iron was lighter than air in order to allow an

argument for the possibility of steel-plated blimps.  But he was willing

to go along with it.

Bobby said, "Good, all right, then that assumption explains the

condition of these clothes."

"How?"  Frank asked.

"It'll take a while to get to the clothes.  Stay with me.  First,

consider that maybe teleporting yourself requires that the atoms of your

body temporarily disassociate themselves from one another, then come

together again an instant later at another place.  Same thing goes for

the clothes you're wearing and for anything on which you've got a firm

grip, like the bed railing."

"Like the teleportation pod in that movie," Hal said.

"The Fly.

"Yeah," Bobby said, clearly getting excited now.  He put down his coffee

and slid forward on the edge of the sofa, gesticulating as he spoke.

"Sort of like that.  Except the power to this is maybe all in Frank's

mind, not in a futuristic machine He just sort of thinks himself

somewhere else, disassembles himself in a fraction of a second-poof!-and

reassembles him self at his destination.  Of course, I'm also assuming

the remains intact even during the time the body is dispersed

disconnected atoms, because it would have to be the sheer power of the

mind that transports those billions of particles and keeps them together

like a shepherd collie herding she then welds them to one another again

in the right configurations at the far end."

Though his weariness was sufficient to have resulted from an impossibly

complex and strenuous task like the one Bobby had just described, Frank

was unconvinced.

"Well, gee, I don't know....  This isn't something you go to school to

learn about doesn't have a course in teleportation.  So it's...

Instinct?  Even supposing I instinctively know how to break body down

into a stream of atomic particles and send it some where else, then put

it together again...  how can any human mind, even the greatest genius

ever born, be powerful enough to keep track of those billions of

particles and get them all exactly as they belong?  It'd take a hundred

geniuses, a thousand years, and I'm not even one.  I'm no dummy, but I'm

no brighter than the average guy."

"You've answered your own question," Bobby said.

don't need superhuman intelligence for this, 'cause teleportation isn't

primarily a function of intelligence.  It's not instinct either.  It's

just...  well, an ability programmed into your genetic makeup like

vision or hearing

or the sense of smell.  Think of it this way.  You look at things with

your eyes.  Your eyes are composed of billions of separate points of

color and light and shade and texture, yet your eyes instantly order

those billions of bits of input into a coherent scene.  You don't have

to think about seeing.  You just see, automatic.  You understand what I

meant about magic?  This is almost magical.  With teleportation, there's

probably a mechanism you have to pull-like wishing yourself to

elsewhere-but thereafter the process is pretty much automatic; the mind

makes it happen the way it makes instantaneous sense of all the data

coming in through your eyes." Frank closed his eyes tight and

concentrated on wishing himself into the reception lounge.  When he

opened his eyes and was still in the inner office, he said, "It doesn't

work.  It's not that easy.  I can't do it at will."

Hal said, "Bobby, are you saying all of us have this ability, and only

Frank has figured out how to use it?"

"No, no.  This is probably a scrap of genetic material unique to Frank,

maybe even a talent that sprung from genetic damage-"

They were all silent, absorbing what Bobby had conjectured.

Outside, the layer of clouds was cracking, peeling, and the old blue

paint of the sky was showing through in more places every minute.  But

the brightening day did not lift Frank's spirits.

Finally Hal Yamataka indicated the pile of garments on the coffee table.

"How does all this explain the condition of those clothes?"

Bobby picked up the blue cotton sweater and held it so they could see

the khaki swatch on the back.

"Okay, let's suppose the mind can automatically shepherd all the

molecules of its own body through the teleportation process without a

single error.  It can also deal with other things Frank wants to take

with him, like his clothes-"

"And bags full of money," Julie said.

"But why the bed railing?"  Hal asked.

"No reason for him to want to take that with him."

To Frank, Bobby said, "You can't remember it now, but you clearly knew

what was happening while you were caught up in that series of

teleportations.  You were trying to stop, you asked Hal to help you

stop, and you seized the railing to stop yourself, to anchor yourself to

the hospital room.  You were concentrating on your grip on that railing,

so when you went, you took it with you.  As for the clothes getting

scrambled the way they are...  Maybe your mind concentrates first on

getting your body back together in the proper order because error-free

physical re-creation is crucial to your survival, but then sometimes you

might not have the energy left to do as good a job on secondary things

like clothes."

"Well," Frank said, "I can't remember prior to last week, but this is

the first time anything like this has happened since then, even though

I've apparently been...  traveling more nights than not.  Then again,

even if my clothes have come through okay, I seem to be getting more

weary, weaker, and more confused day by day....  He did not have to

finish the thought, because the worry in their eyes and faces made clear

their understanding.  If he was teleporting, and if it was a strenuous

act that bled him strength that could not be restored by rest, he was

gradually going to get less meticulous about the reconstitution of

clothes and whatever other items he tried to carry with him But more

important-he might begin to have difficulty reinstituting his body, as

well.  He might return from one of his late-night rambles and find

fragments of his sweater woven into the back of his hand, and the skin

replaced by that piece of cotton might turn up as a pale patch in the

dark leather of his shoe and the displaced leather from the shoe might

appear as integral part of his tongue...  or as strands of alien cells

twist through his brain tissue.  Fear, never far away and circling like

a shark in the dept of Frank's mind, abruptly shot to the surface,

called forth the worry and pity that he saw in the faces of those on who

he was depending for salvation.  He closed his eyes, but it was a rotten

idea because he had a vision of his own face when he shut out theirs,

his face as it might look after a disastrous reconstitution at the end

of a future telekinetic journey: eyes or ten misplaced teeth sprouting

from his right eye socket;evicted eye staring lidlessly from the middle

of the cheek below; his nose smeared in hideous lumps of flesh and

gristle across the side of his face.  In the vision he opened his

misshapen mouth, perhaps to scream, and within his sight were two

fingers and a portion of his hand, rooted where the tongue should had

been.

He opened his eyes as a low cry of terror and misery escaped him.

He was shuddering.  He couldn't stop.

HAVING FRESHENED everyone's coffee and, at Bobby's suggestion, having

laced Frank's mug with bourbon in spite of the early hour, Hal went to

the nook off the reception lounge to brew another pot.

After Frank had been fortified with a few sips of the spiked coffee,

Julie showed the photograph to him and watched his reaction carefully.

"You recognize either of the people in this?"

"No. They're strangers to me."

"The man," Bobby said, "is George Farris.  The real George Farris.  We

got the picture from his brother-in-law."

Frank studied the photograph with renewed interest.  "Maybe I knew him,

and that's why I borrowed his name but I can't recall ever seeing him

before."

"He's dead," Julie said, and thought that Frank's surprise was genuine.

She explained how Farris had died, years ago...  and then how his family

had been slaughtered far more recently.  She told him about James Roman,

too, and how Roman's family died in a fire in November.

With what appeared to be sincere dismay and confusion, Frank said, "Why

all these deaths?  Is it coincidence?"

Julie leaned forward.  "We think Mr. Blue killed them /."

"Who?"

"Mr. Blue Light.  The man you said pursued you that night in Anaheim,

the man you think is hunting you for some reason.  We believe he

discovered you were traveling under the names Farris and Roman, so he

went to the addresses he got for them, and when he didn't find you

there, he killed everyone, either while trying to squeeze information

out of them or...  just for the hell of it."

Frank looked stricken.  His pale face grew even paler, as if it were an

image doing a slow fade on a movie screen.  The bleak look in his eyes

intensified.  "If I hadn't been using that fake ID, he never would've

gone to those people.  It's because of me they died."

Feeling sorry for the guy, ashamed of the suspicion that had driven her

to approach the issue in this manner, Julie said, "Don't let it eat you,

Frank.  Most likely, the paper artist who forged your documents took the

names at random from a list of recent deaths.  If he'd used another

approach, the Farris and Roman families would never have come to Mr.

Blue's attention.  But it's not your fault the forger used the quick and

lazy method."

Frank shook his head, tried to speak, could not.

"You can't blame yourself," Hal said from the doorway, where he had

evidently been standing long enough to have gotten the gist of the

photo's importance.  He seemed genuinely distressed to see Frank so

anguished.  Like Clint, Hal had been won over by Frank's gentle voice,

self-effacing manner, and cherubic demeanor.

Frank cleared his throat, and finally the words broke out.  "No, no,

it's on me, my God, all those people dead because of me."

IN DAKOTA & DAKOTA'S computer center, Bobby and Frank sat in two

spring-backed, typist chairs with rubber wheels, Bobby switched on one

of the three state-of-the-art IBM each of which was outlinked to the

world through its modern and phone line.  Though bright enough to work

by, overhead lights it was soft and diffuse to prevent glare on terminal

screens, and the room's one window was covered with blackout drapes for

the same reason.

Like policemen in the silicon age, modern private detectives and

security consultants relied on the computer to make the work easier and

to compile a breadth and depth of information that could never be

acquired by the old-fashioned gum methods of Sam Spade and Philip

Marlowe.  Pounding pavement, interviewing witnesses and potential

suspects, conducting surveillances were still aspects of their job of

course, but without the computer they would be as ineffective as a

blacksmith trying to fix a flat tire with a hammer and nail and other

tools of his trade.  As the twentieth century progressed through its

last decade, private investigators who were ignorant of the microchip

revolution existed only in television dramas and the curiously dated

world of most PI novels.  Lee Chen, who had designed and now operated

their data-gathering system, would not arrive in the office until around

nine o'clock.  Bobby did not want to wait the hour to start putting the

computer to work on "Frank's case!"  He was not a primo hacker, as Lee

was, but he knew all the hardware, had the ability to learn new software

quickly and was almost as comfortable tracking down information in

cyberspace as he was poring through file age-yellowed newspapers.

Using Lee's code book, which he removed from a locked desk drawer, Bobby

first entered a Social Security Administration data network that

contained files to which broad public access was legal.  Other files in

the same system were restricted and supposedly inaccessible behind walls

of security codes required by various right-to-privacy laws.

From the open files, he inquired as to the number of men named Frank

Pollard in the Administration's records, and within seconds the response

appeared on the screen: counting variations of Frank, such as Franklin

and Frankie and Franco-plus names like Francis, for which Frank might be

a diminutive-there were six hundred and nine Frank Pollards in

possession of Social Security numbers.

"Bobby," Frank said anxiously,

"does that stuff on the screen make sense to you?  Are those words, real

words, or jumbled letters?"

"Huh?  Of course they're words."

"Not to me.  They don't look like anything to me.  Gibberish."  Bobby

picked up a copy of Byte magazine that was lying between two of the

computers, opened it to an article, and said,

"Read that."  Frank accepted the magazine, stared at it, flipped ahead a

couple of pages, then a couple more.  His hands began to shake.  The

magazine rattled in his grip.

"I can't.  Jesus, I've lost that too.  Yesterday, I lost the ability to

do math, and now I can't read any more, and I get more confused, foggy

in the head, and I ache in every joint, every muscle.  This

teleporting's wearing me down, killing me.  I'm falling apart, Bobby,

mentally and physically, faster all the time."

"It's going to be all right," Bobby said, though his confidence was

largely feigned.  He was pretty sure they would get to the bottom of

this, would learn who Frank was and where he went at night and how and

why; however, he could see that Frank was declining fast, and he would

not have bet money that they'd find all the answers while Frank was

still alive, sane, and able to benefit from their discoveries.

Nevertheless, he put his hand on Frank's shoulder and gave it a gentle

reassuring squeeze.

"Hang in there, buddy.  Everything's going to be okay.  I really think

it is.  I really do."  Frank took a deep breath and nodded.  Turning to

the display terminal again, feeling guilty about the lie he'd just told,

Bobby said,

"You remember how old you are, Frank?

"No."

"You look about thirty-two, thirty-three."

"I feel older."

Softly whistling Duke Ellington's "Satin Doll," Bobby thought a moment,

then asked the SSA computer to eliminate those Frank Pollards younger

than twenty-eight and older than thirty-eight.  That left seventy-two of

them.

"Frank, do you think you've ever lived anywhere else are you a

dyed-in-the-wool Californian?"

"I don't know."

"Let's assume you're a son of the sunshine state."  He asked the SSA

computer to whittle down the remaining Frank Pollards to those who

applied for their Social security numbers while living in California

(fifteen), then to whose current addresses on file were in California

(six).

The public-access portion of the Social Security Administrations data

network was forbidden by law to reveal Social security numbers to casual

researchers.  Bobby referred to instructions in Lee Chen's code book and

entered the restricted files through a complicated series of maneuvers

that circumvented SSA security.

He was unhappy about breaking the law, but it was the way of high-tech

life that you never got the maximum benefit your data-gathering system

if you played strictly by the rules.  Computers were instruments of

freedom, and government were to one degree or another instruments of

repression; two and could not always exist in harmony.

He obtained the six numbers and addresses for the Frank Pollards living

in California.

"Now what?"  Frank wondered.

"Now," Bobby said, "I'll use these numbers and addresses to cross

reference with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, all of the

armed forces, state police, major city police, other government agencies

to get descriptions of these Frank Pollards.  As we learn their height,

weight, hair color of their eyes, race...  we'll gradually eliminate

them one by one.  Better yet, if one of them is you, and if you've

served in the military or been arrested for a crime, we might even be

able to turn up a picture of you in one of those and confirm your

identity with a photo match."  StarTING AT the desk, cadicorner from

each other, Julie and Hal removed the rubber bands from more than half

of the packets of cash.  They sorted through the hundred-dollar bills,

trying to determine if some of them had consecutive serial numbers that

might indicate they were stolen from a bank, savings and loan, or other

institution.

Suddenly Hal looked up and said,

"Why do those flowerlike sounds and drafts precede Frank when he

teleports himself?"

"Who knows?"  Julie said.  "Maybe it's displaced air following him down

some tunnel in another dimension, from the place he left to the place

he's going."

"I was just thinking....  If this Mr. Blue is real, and if he's

searching for Frank, and if Frank heard those flutes and felt those

gusts in that alleyway...  then Mr. Blue is also able to teleport."

"Yeah.  So?"

"So Frank's not unique.  Whatever he is, there's another one like him.

Maybe even more than one."

"Here's something else to think about," Julie said.  "If Mr. Blue can

teleport himself, and if he finds out where Frank is, we won't be able

to defend a hiding place from him.  He'll be able to pop up among us.

And what if he arrived with a submachine gun, spraying bullets as he

materialized?"  After a moment of silence, Hal said, "You know,

gardening has always seemed like a pleasant profession.  You need a

lawnmower, a weed whacker, a few simple tools.  There's not much

overhead, and you hardly ever get shot at."

BOBBY FOLLOWED Frank into the office, where Julie and Hal were examining

the money.  Putting a sheet of paper on the desk, he said,

"Move over, Sherlock Holmes.  The world now has a greater detective."

Julie angled the page so she and Hal could read it together.  It was a

laser-printed copy of the information that Frank had filed with the

California Department of Motor Vehicles when he had last applied for an

extension of his driver's license.

"The physical statistics match," she said.

"Is your first name really Francis and your middle name Ezekiel?"

Frank nodded.

"I didn't remember until I saw it.  But it is me, all right.  Ezekiel."

Tapping the printout, she said,

"This address in El Encanto Heights-does it ring a bell?"

"No. I can't even tell you where El Encanto is."

"It's adjacent to Santa Barbara," Julie said.

"So Bobby tells me.  But I don't remember being their Except..."

"What?"  Frank went to the window and looked out toward the distant sea,

above which the sky was now entirely blue.  A few early gulls swooped in

arcs so huge and smoothly that their exuberance was thrilling to watch.

Clearly, Frank was neither thrilled by the birds nor charmed by the

view.

Finally, still facing the window, he said, "I don't recall being in El

Encanto Heights...  except that every time I hear the name, my stomach

sort of sinks, you know, like I'm on a roller coaster that's just taken

a plunge.  And when I try to think about El Encanto, strain to remember

it, my heart pounds, and my mouth goes dry, and it's a little harder to

get my breath So I think I must be repressing any memories I have of the

place, maybe because something happened to me there, some thing bad...

something I'm too scared to remember."

Bobby said, "His driver's license expired seven years ago and according

to the DMV's records, he never tried to renew it.  In fact, sometime

this year he'd have been weeded out even from their dead files, so we

were lucky to find this before they expunged it."  He laid two more

printouts on the desk.

"Move over, Holmes and Sam Spade."

"What're these?"

"Arrest reports.  Frank was stopped for a traffic violation once in San

Francisco a little more than six years ago.  The second time was on

Highway 101, north of Ventura, five years ago.  He didn't have a valid

driver's license either time and, because of his odd behavior, he was

taken into custody."  The photographs that were a part of both arrest

reports showed a slightly younger, even pudgier man who was without a

doubt their current client.

Bobby pushed aside some of the money and sat on the edge of her desk.

"He escaped from jail both times, so they're looking for him even after

all these years, though probably not too hard, since he wasn't arrested

for a major crime."

Frank said, "I draw a blank on that too."

"Neither report indicates how he escaped," Bobby said,

"but I suspect he didn't saw his way through the bars or dig a tunnel or

whittle a gun out of a bar of soap or use any of the long accepted,

traditional methods of jailbreak.  Oh, no, not our Frank."

"He teleported," Hal guessed.

"Vanished when no one was looking."

"I'd bet on it," Bobby agreed.

"And after that he began to carry false ID good enough to satisfy any

cop who pulled him over."  Looking at the papers before her, Julie said,

"Well, Frank, at least we know this is your real name, and we've nailed

down a real address for you up there in Santa Barbara County, not just

another motel room."

"We're beginning to make headway" Bobby said,

"Move over, Holmes, Spade, and Miss Marple."  Unable to embrace their

optimism, Frank returned to the chair in which he'd been sitting

earlier.

"Headway.  But not enough.  And not fast enough."  He leaned forward

with his arms on his thighs, hands clasped between his spread knees, and

stared morosely at the floor.

"Something unpleasant just occurred to me.  What if I'm not only making

mistakes with my clothes when I reconstitute myself'.?  What if I've

already begun to make mistakes with my own biology too?  Nothing major.

Nothing visible.  Hundreds or thousands of tiny mistakes on a cellular

level.  That would explain why I feel so lousy, so tired and sore.  And

if my brain tissue isn't coming back together right...  that would

explain why I'm confused, fuzzy-headed, unable to read or do math."

Julie looked at Hal, at Bobby, and knew that both men wanted to allay

Frank's fear but were unable to do so because the scenario that he had

outlined was not only possible but likely.

Frank said, "The brass buckle looked perfectly normal until Bobby

touched it...  then it turned to dust."

ALL NIGHT long, when sleep made Thomas's head empty, ugly dreams filled

it up.  Dreams of eating small little things.  Dreams of drinking blood.

Dreams of being the Bad Thing.

He finished sleeping all of a sudden, sitting up in bed, trying to

scream but unable to find any sounds in himself.  For a while he sat

there, shaking, being afraid, breathing so hard that his chest ached.

The sun was back, and the night was gone away, and that made him feel

better.  Getting out of bed, he stepped into slippers.  His pajamas were

cold with sweat.  He shivered.

He pulled on a robe.  He went to the window, looked out and liking the

blue sky very much.  Leftover rain made the grey lawn look soggy, the

sidewalks darker than usual, and the dirt in the flowerbeds almost

black, and in the puddles you could see the blue sky again like a face

in a mirror.  He liked all that, too, because the whole world looked

clean and new all the rain had emptied out of the sky.

He wondered if the Bad Thing was still far away, or close but he didn't

reach out to it.  Because last night it tried to hurt him.  Because it

was so strong he almost couldn't get away from it.  And because even

when he did get away, it tried to follow him.  He'd felt it hanging on,

coming back across the night with him, and he'd shaken it off real quick

like, but maybe next time he wouldn't be so lucky, and maybe it would

come all the way right into his room with him, not just its mind but the

Bad Thing itself.  He didn't understand how that could happen, somehow

he knew it might.  And if the Bad Thing came to his Home, being awake

would be like being asleep with a nightmare filling up your head.

Terrible things would happen, and there would be no hope.

Turning away from the window, starting toward the closed door to the

bathroom, Thomas glanced at Derek's bed and saw Derek dead.  He was on

his back.  His face was bashed, bruised, swollen.  His eyes were open

big, you could see them shine in the light from the window and the low

light from the lamp beside the bed.  His mouth was open, too, like he

was shouting, but all the sound was out of him like air out of a popped

balloon, and he would not have any more sound in him ever again, you

could tell.  Blood was let out of him, too, lots of it, and a pair of

scissors were stuck in his belly, deep in, with not much more than the

handles showing, the same scissors Thomas used to clip pictures from

magazines for his poems.

He felt a big twist of pain in his heart, like maybe somebody was

sticking scissors in him too.  But it wasn't hurt-pain so much as what

he called "feel-pain," because it was losing Derek that he was feeling,

not real hurt.  It was as bad as real hurt, though, because Derek was

his friend, he liked Derek.  He was scared, too, because he somehow knew

the Bad thing had let the life out of Derek, the Bad Thing was here at

The Home.  Then he realized this could happen just the way things

sometimes happened in TV stories, with the cops coming and believing

that Thomas killed Derek, blaming Thomas, and everyone hating Thomas for

what he'd done, but he hadn't done it, and all the while the Bad Thing

was still loose to do more killing, maybe even doing to Julie what it'd

done to Derek.

The hurt, the fear for himself, the fear for Julie-all of it was too

much.  Thomas gripped the footboard of his own bed and closed his eyes

and tried to get air into himself.  It wouldn't come.  His chest was

tight.  Then the air came in, and so did an ugly-nasty smell, which in a

while he realized was the stink of Derek's blood, so he gagged and

almost puked.

He knew he had to Get Control of Himself.  The aides didn't like it when

you Lost Control of Yourself, so they Gave You Something For Your Own

Good.  He'd never Lost Control before and didn't want to lose it now.

He tried not to smell the blood.  Took long deep breaths.  Made himself

open his eyes to look at the dead body.  He figured looking at it the

second time wouldn't be as bad as the first.  He knew it was going to be

there this time, so it wouldn't be such a big surprise.

The surprise was-the body was gone.

Thomas closed his eyes, put one hand to his face, looked again between

spread fingers.  The body still wasn't there.

He started shaking because what he thought, first, was that this was

like some other TV stories he'd seen where nasty-dead bodies were

walking around like live bodies, rotting and getting wormy, with bones

showing in places, killing people for no reason and even sometimes

eating them.  He wasn't much for one of those stories.  He sure didn't

want to be in one.  He was so scared he almost sent to Bobby-Dead

people, look out, look out, dead people hungry and mean and walking

around-but stopped himself when he saw there wasn't blood on Derek's

blankets and sheets.  The bed wasn't rumpled, their.  Neatly made.  No

walking dead person was quick enough to get out of bed, change sheets

and blankets, make everything right just in the few little seconds while

Thomas's eyes were closed.  Then he heard the shower pouring down on the

floor of the stall in the bathroom, and he heard Derek singing the way

he always did when he washed himself.  For just a moment, in his head,

Thomas had a picture of a dead person taking a shower, trying to be

neat, but rotten chunks were falling off with the dirt, showing more

bones, clogging the drain.  Then he realized Derek was never really

dead, Thomas hadn't really seen a body on the bed.  What he'd seen was

something he'd learned from TV stories-he'd seen a vision.  A Psychic

vision.  He was a sidekick.

Derek hadn't been killed.  What Thomas saw, just for a moment, was Derek

being dead tomorrow or some other day a tomorrow.  It might be something

that would happen no matter what Thomas did to stop it, or it might be

something would happen only if he let it happen, but at least it was

something that already happened.

He let go of the footboard and went to his worktable.

His legs were shaky.  He was glad to sit down.  He opened the drawer of

the cabinet that stood beside the table.  He saw scissors in there,

where they should be, with his colored pen and pens and paper clips and

Scotch tape and stapler-an half-eaten Hershey's bar in an open wrapper,

which shouldn't be in there because it would Draw Bugs.  He took the

candy out of the drawer and stuffed it in a pocket of his robe,

reminding himself to put it in the refrigerator later.

For a while he stared at the scissors, listened to Derek in the shower,

and thought how the scissors were jammed in Derek's belly, letting all

the music and other sounds out of him forever, sending him to the Bad

Place.  Finally he touched the black plastic handles.  They felt all

right, so he touched the metal blades, but that was bad, real bad, as if

leftover lightning from a storm was in the blades and jumped into him

when he touched them.  Sizzling, crackling white light flashed through

him.  He snatched his hand back.  His fingers tingled.  He closed the

drawer and hurried back to bed and sat there with the covers pulled

around his shoulders the way TV Indians wrapped themselves in blankets

when they sat at TV campfires.

The shower stopped.  So did the singing.  After a while Derek came out

of the bathroom, followed by a cloud of damp, soapy smelling air.  He

was dressed for the day.  His wet hair was combed back from his

forehead.

He was not a rotting dead person.  He was all alive, every part of him,

at least every part you could see, and no bones poked out anywhere.

"Good morning," Derek said, the words slurred and muffled by his crooked

mouth and too-big tongue.  He smiled.

"Good morning."

"You sleep good?"

"Yeah," Thomas said.

"Breakfast soon."

"Yeah."

"Maybe sticky buns."

"Maybe."  "I like sticky buns."

"Derek?"  'Huh?"

"If I ever tell you.

Derek waited, smiling.

Thomas thought out what he wanted to say, then continued:

"If I ever tell you the Bad Thing's coming, and I tell you to run, don't

just stand around like a dumb person.  You just run.

" Derek stared at him, thinking about it, still smiling, then after a

while he said, "Sure, okay."

"Promise?"

"Promise.  But what's a bad thing?"

"I don't know really, for sure, but I'll feel it when it's coming, I

think, and tell you, and you'll run."

"Where?"

"Anywhere.  Down the hall.  Find some aides, stay with them."

"Sure.  You better wash.  Breakfast soon.  Maybe sticky buns."

Thomas unwrapped himself from the blanket and got out of bed.  He

stepped into his slippers again and walked to the bathroom.

Just as Thomas was opening the bathroom door, Derek said.

"You mean at breakfast?"  Thomas turned.

"Huh?"

"You mean a bad thing might come at breakfast?"

"Might," Thomas said.

"Could it be...  poached eggs?"

"Huh?"

"The bad thing-could it be poached eggs?  I don't like poached eggs, all

slimy, yuck, that'd be real bad, not good all like cereal and bananas

and sticky buns."

"No, no," Thomas said.

"The bad thing isn't poached egg It's a person, some funny-weird person.

I'll feel it when it's coming, and tell you, and you'll run."

"Oh. Yeah, sure.  A person."

Thomas went into the bathroom, closed the door.  He didn't have much

beard.  He had an electric razor, but he only used it a couple-few times

a month, and today he didn't need it.

He brushed his teeth, though.  And he peed.  He made the water start in

the shower.  Only then did he let himself laugh, because enough time had

passed so Derek wouldn't even wonder why Thomas was laughing at him.

Poached eggs!

Though Thomas usually didn't like seeing himself, see how lumpy and

wrong and dumb his face was, he peeked into the steam-streaked mirror.

One time long ago, past when he could remember, he'd been laughing when

he'd happened to see himself in a mirror, and for once-surprise-he

hadn't felt so bad about how he looked.  When he laughed he looked like

a normal person.  Just pretending to laugh didn't make him look more

normal, it had to be real laughing, and a smile didn't do it, either,

because a smile wasn't enough of a laugh to change his face.  In fact, a

smile could sometimes look sad, he couldn't stand seeing himself at all.

Poached eggs.

Thomas shook his head, and when his laughter finished he turned from the

mirror.

To Derek the most worst bad thing he could think of was poached eggs and

no sticky buns, which was very funny ha-ha.  You try to tell Derek about

walking dead people and scissors sticking out of bellies and something

that eats little live animals, and old Derek would look at you and smile

and nod and not get it at all.

For as long as he could remember, Thomas had wished he was a normal

person, not dumb, and many times he thanked God for at least making him

not as dumb as poor Derek.  But now he half wished he was dumber, so he

could get those ugly nasty vision-pictures out of his mind, so he could

forget about Derek going to die and the Bad Thing coming and Julie being

in danger, so he'd have nothing to worry about except poached eggs,

which wouldn't be much of a worry at all, since he sort of liked poached

eggs.

WHEN Clint Karaghiosis arrived at Dakota & Dakota shortly before nine

o'clock, Bobby took him by the shoulder, turned him around, and went

back to the elevator with him.

"You drive, and I'll fill you in on what's happened during the night.  I

know you've got other cases to tend to, the Pollard thing is getting

hotter by the minute."

"Where're we going?"

"First, Palomar Labs.  They called.  Test results are in."

a few clouds remained in the sky, and they were far off toward the

mountains, moving away like the billow sails of great galleons on an

eastward journey.  It was a quintessential southern California day:

blue, pleasantly warm, everything green and fresh, and rush-hour traffic

so hideously snarled that it could transform an ordinary citizen into a

foaming-at-the-mouth sociopath with a yearning to pull a trigger of a

semiautomatic weapon.

Clint avoided freeways, but even surface streets were clogged.  By the

time Bobby recounted everything that transpired since they had seen each

other yesterday afternoon they were still ten minutes from Palomar in

spite of the questions occasionally asked by Clint's amazement-subdued

like a o reactions, but amazement none the less at the discovery that

Frank was evidently able to teleport himself.

Finally Bobby changed the subject because talking too Clint about

psychic phenomena to a phlegmatic guy like Clint made him feel like an

airhead, as if he had lost his grip on reality.  While they inched along

Bristol Avenue, he said,

"I can remember when you could go anywhere in Orange County and never

get caught in traffic."

"Not so long ago."

"I remember when you didn't have to sign a developer's waiting list to

buy a house.  Demand wasn't five times the supply."

"Yeah."

"And I remember when orange groves were all over Orange County."

"Me too."

Bobby sighed.  "Hell, listen to me, like an old geezer, babbling about

the good old days.  Pretty soon, I'll be talking about how nice it was

when there were still dinosaurs around."

"Dreams," Clint said.  "Everyone's got a dream, and the one more people

have than any other is the California dream, so they never stop coming,

even though so many have come now that the dream isn't really quite

attainable any more, not the original dream that started it all.  Of

course, maybe a dream should be unattainable, or at least at the outer

limits of your reach.  If it's too easy, it's meaningless."

Bobby was surprised by the long burst of words from Clint, but more

surprised to hear the man talking about something as intangible as

dreams.

"You're already a Californian, so what's your dream?"  After a brief

hesitation, Clint said,

"That Felina will be able to hear someday.  There're so many medical

advancements these days, new discoveries and treatments and techniques

all the time."

As Clint turned left off Bristol, onto the side street where Palomar

Laboratories stood, Bobby decided that was a good dream, a damned fine

dream, maybe even better than his and Julie's dream about buying time

and getting a chance to bring Thomas out of Cielo Vista and into a

remade family.

They parked in the lot beside the huge concrete-block building in which

Palomar Laboratories was housed.  As they were walking toward the front

door, Clint said, "Oh, by the way, the receptionist here thinks I'm gay,

which is fine with me."

"What?"

Clint went inside without saying more, and Bobby followed him to the

reception window.  An attractive blonde sat at the counter.

"Hi, Lisa," Clint said.

"Hi!"  She punctuated her response by cracking her chewing gum.

"Dakota and Dakota."

"I remember," she said.

"Your stuff's ready.  I'll get it." She glanced at Bobby and smiled, and

he smiled, too, although her expression seemed a little peculiar to him.

When she returned with two large, sealed manila envelopes-one labeled

SAMPLES, the other ANALYSES-she handed the second one to Bobby.  They

stepped to one side of the lounge, away from the counter.

Bobby tore open the envelope and skimmed the document inside.

"Cat's blood."

"You serious?"

"Yeah.  When Frank woke up in that motel, he was cover with cat's

blood."

"I knew he was no killer."

Bobby said, "The cat may have an opinion about that."

"The other stuff is?"

"Well...  bunch of technical terms here...  but what it comes down to is

that it's what it looks like.  Black sand."

Stepping back to the reception counter, Clint said, "You remember we

talked about a black-sand beach in Hawaii

"Kaimu," she said.  "It's a dynamite place."

"Yeah, Kaimu.  Is it the only one?"

"Black-sand beach, you mean?  No. There's Punaluu, which is a real sweet

place too.  Those are on the big island.  I agree there must be more on

the other islands, 'cause there's volcanoes all over the place, aren't

there?"

Bobby joined them at the counter.  "What do volcanoes had to do with

it?"

Lisa took her chewing gum out of her mouth and put it waside on a piece

of paper.  "Well, the way I heard it, really hot lava flows into the

sea, and when it meets the water, there're huge explosions, which throw

off zillions and zillions of the really teeny-tiny beads of black glass,

and then over a long period of time the waves rub all the beads together

until they ground down into sand."

"They have these beaches anywhere but Hawaii?"  Bobby wondered.

She shrugged.  "Probably.  Clint, is this fella your...  friend?"

"Yeah," Clint said.

"I mean, you know, your good friend?"

"Yeah," Clint said, without looking at Bobby.

Lisa winked at Bobby.  "Listen, you make Clint take you to Kaimu, 'cause

I'll tell you something-it's really terrific to go out on a black beach

at night, make love under the stars, because it's soft, for one thing,

but mainly because black sand doesn't reflect moonlight like regular

sand.  It seems like you're floating in space, darkness all around, it

really sharpens your senses,.if you know what I mean."

"Sounds terrific," Clint said.

"Take care, Lisa."  He headed for the door.

As Bobby turned to follow Clint, Lisa said, "You make him take you to

Kaimu, you hear?  You'll have a good time."

Outside, Bobby said, "Clint, you've got some explaining to do."

"Didn't you hear her?  These little beads of black glass-"

"That's not what I'm talking about.  Hey, look at you, you're grinning.

I don't think I've ever seen you grinning.  I don't think I like you

grinning."

BY NINE o'clock, Lee Chen had arrived at the office, opened a bottle of

orange-flavored seltzer, and settled into the computer room a midst his

beloved hardware, where Julie was waiting for him.

He was five six, slender but wiry,a warm brass complexion and jet-black

hair that bristled in a modified punk style.  He wore red tennis shoes

and socks, black cotton pants with a white belt, a black and

charcoal-grey shirt with a subtle leaf pattern, and a black jacket with

narrow lapels and big shoulder pads.  He was the most stylishly dressed

employee at Dakota & Dakota, even compared to Cassie H ley, their

receptionist, who was an unashamed clotheshor.

While Lee sat in front of his computers, sipping seltzer, Julie filled

him in on what had happened at the hospital and showed him the printouts

of the information Bobby had acquired earlier that morning.

Frank Pollard sat with them, in the chair, where Julie could keep an eye

on him.  Throughout the conversation, Lee exhibited no surprise at what

he was being told, as if his computers had bestowed on him such enormous

restrain and resignation nothing-not even a man capable of

teleportation-could surprise him.  Julie knew that Lee, well as everyone

else in the Dakota & Dakota family, would never leak a word of any

client's business to anyone; but didn't know how much of his supercooled

demeanor was real and how much was a conscious image that he put on

every moment with his ultra-voguish clothes.

Though his unshakable nonchalance might be partially feigned, his talent

for computers was unquestionably real.

When Julie had finished her condensed version of recent events, Lee

said, "Okay, what do you need from me now?"

There was no doubt on either his part or hers that eventually he could

provide whatever she required.

She gave him a steno pad.  Double rows of currency serial numbers filled

the first ten pages.

"Those are random samplings of the bills in each of the bags of cash

we're holding for Frank.  Can you find out if it's hot money-stolen,

maybe an extortion or ransom payment?"

Lee quickly paged through the lists.

"No consecutive numbers?  That makes it harder.  Usually cops don't have

a record of the serial numbers of stolen money unless it was brand-new

bills, which are still bound in packets, consecutively numbered, right

off the press."

"Most of this cash is fairly well circulated."

"There's an outside chance it might still be from a ransom or extortion

payoff, like you said.  The cops would've taken down all the numbers

before they let the victim make the drop, just in case the perp made a

clean getaway.  It looks bleak, but I'll try.  What else?"

Julie said, "An entire family in Garden Grove, last name Farris, was

murdered last year."

"Because of me," Frank said.

Lee propped his elbows on the arms of his chair, leaned back, and

steepled his fingers.  He looked like a wise Zen master who had been

forced to don the clothes of an avant-garde artist after getting the

wrong suitcase at the airport.

"No one really dies, Mr. Pollard.  They just go on from here.  Grief is

good, but guilt is pointless."

Though she knew too few computer fanatics to be certain, Julie suspected

that not many found a way to combine the hard realities of science and

technology with religion.  But in fact, Lee had arrived at a belief in

God through his work with computers and his interest in modern physics.

He once explained to her why a profound understanding of the

dimensionless space inside a computer network, combined with a modern

physicist's view of the universe, led inevitably to faith in a Creator,

but she hadn't followed a thing he'd said.

She gave Lee Chen the dates and details of the Farris and Roman murders.

"We think they were all killed by the same man.  I haven't got a clue to

his real name, so I call him Mr. Blue.  Considering the savagery of the

murders, we suspect he's a serial killer with a long list of victims. If

we're right, the murders have been so widely spread or Mr. Blue has

covered his tracks so well that the press has never made the connections

between the crimes."

"Otherwise," Frank said, "they'd have sensationalized it on their front

pages.  Especially if this guy regularly bites his victims."

"But since most police agencies are computer-linked these days," Julie

said, "they might've made the connections across jurisdictions, saw what

the press didn't.  There might be one more quiet, ongoing investigations

between local, state, and federal authorities.  We need to know if any

police in California-or the FBI nationally-are on to Mr. Blue, and we

need to know anything they've learned about him, no matter how trivial."

Lee smiled.  In the middle of his brass-hued face, his teeth were like

pegs of highly polished ivory.

"That means going through public-access files in their computers.  I'll

have to breech their security, one agency after another, all the way

into the FBI."

"Difficult?"

"Very.  But I'm not without experience."  He pushed his jacket sleeves

farther up on his arms, flexed his fingers, and turned to the terminal

keyboard as if he were a concert pianist about to interpret Mozart.  He

hesitated and glanced sideways at Julie.

"I'll work into their systems indirectly to discourage tracebacks.  I

won't damage any data or breach national security, so I probably won't

even be noticed.  But if someone spys me snooping and puts a tracer on

me that I don't see or can't shake, they might pull your PI license for

this."

"I'll sacrifice myself, and take the blame.  Bobby's license won't be

pulled, too, so the agency won't go down.  How long will this take?"

"Four or five hours, maybe more, maybe a lot more.  Can somebody bring

me lunch at noon?  I'd rather eat here and take a break."

"Sure.  What would you like?"

"Big Mac, double order of fries, vanilla shake."

Julie grimaced.

"How come a high-tech guy like you never heard of cholesterol?"

"Heard of it.  Don't care.  If we never really die, cholesterol can't

kill me.  It can only move me out of this life a little sooner."

ARCHER VAN CORVAIRE cracked open the Levolor blind and peered through

the thick bulletproof glass in the front door of his Newport Beach shop.

He squinted suspiciously at Bobby and Clint, though he knew and expected

them.  At last he unlocked the door and let them in.

Van Corvaire was about fifty-five but invested a lot of time and money

in the maintenance of a youthful appearance.  To thwart time, he'd

undergone dermabrasion, face-lifts, and liposuction; to improve on

nature, he'd had a nose job, cheek implants, and chin restructuring.  He

wore a toupee of such exquisite craftsmanship, it would have passed for

his own dyed-black hair-except that he sabotaged the illusion by

insisting on not merely a replacement but a lush, unnatural pompadour.

If he ever got into a swimming pool wearing that toupee, it would look

like the conning tower of a submarine.

After reengaging both dead bolts, he turned to Bobby.

"I never do business in the morning.  I take only afternoon

appointments."

"We appreciate the exception you've made for us," Bobby said.

Van Corvaire sighed elaborately.

"Well, what is it?"

"I have a stone I'd like you to appraise for me."  He squinted, which

wasn't appealing, since his eyes were already as narrow as those of a

ferret.  Before his name change thirty years ago, he'd been Jim Bob

Spleener, and a friend would have told him that when he squinted

suspiciously he looked very much like a Spleener and not at all like a

van Corvaire.

"An appraisal?  That's all you want?"

He led them through the small but plush salesroom: handtextured plaster

ceiling; bleached suede walls; whitewashed oak floors; custom area

carpet by Patterson, Flynn & Martin in shades of peach, pale blue and

sandstone; a modern white sofa flanked by pickled-finish, buriwood

tables by Bau; elegant rattan chairs encircling a round table with a

glass thick enough to survive a blow from a sledgehammer.

one small merchandise display case stood off to the left.  Corvaire's

business was conducted entirely by appointment, his jewelry was custom

designed for the very rich and tasteful people who would find it

necessary to buy hundred-thousand dollar necklaces to wear to a

thousand-dollar-a-plate char dinner, and never grasp the irony.

The back wall was mirrored, and van Corvaire watched him self with

obvious pleasure all the way across the room.  He hardly took his eyes

off his reflection until he passed through the door into the workroom.

Bobby wondered if the guy ever got so entranced by his image that he

walked smack into it.  He didn't like Jim van Corvaire, but the

narcissistic creep's knowledge of gems and jewelry was often useful.

Years ago, when Dakota & Dakota Investigations was julie Dakota

Investigations, without the ampersand and the red dancy (better never

put it that way around Julie, who wouldn't appreciate the clever

wordplay but would make him eat redundancy.  Bobby had helped van

Corvaire recover a fortune in unmounted diamonds stolen by a lover.  Old

Bob desperately wanted his gems but didn't want the woman sent to

prison, so he went to Bobby instead of to the police That was the only

soft spot Bobby had ever seen in van vaire; in the intervening years the

jeweler no doubt had grown a callus over it too.

Bobby fished one of the marble-size red stones from his pocket.  He saw

the jeweler's eyes widen.

With Clint standing to one side of him, with Bobby behind him and

looking over his shoulder, van Corvaire sat on a high stool at a

workbench and examined the rough-cut stone through a loupe.  Then he put

it on the lighted glass table with a microscope and studied it with that

more powerful instrument.

"Well?"  Bobby asked.

The jeweler did not respond.  He rose, elbowing them out of the way, and

went to another stool, farther along the work bench.  There, he used one

scale to weigh the stone and another to determine if its specific

gravity matched that of any known gems.

Finally, he moved to a third stool that was positioned in front of a

vise.  From a drawer he withdrew a ring box in which three large, cut

gems lay on a square of blue velvet.

"Junk diamonds," he said.

"They look nice to me," Bobby said.

"Too many flaws."

He selected one of those stones and fixed it in the vise with a couple

of turns of the crank.  Gripping the red beauty in a small pair of

pliers, he used one of its sharper edges to attempt to score the

polished facet of the diamond in the vise, pressing with considerable

effort.  Then he put the pliers and red gem aside, picked up another

jeweler's loupe, leaned forward, and studied the junk diamond.

"A faint scratch," he said.  "Diamond cuts diamond."

He held the red stone between thumb and forefinger, staring at it with

obvious fascination-and greed.

"Where did you get this?"

"Can't tell you," Bobby said.

"So it's just a red diamond?"

"Just?  The red diamond may be the rarest most precious stone in the

world!  You must let me market it for you.  I have clients who'd pay

anything to have this as the centerstone of a necklace or pendant. It'll

probably be too big for a ring even after a final cut.  It's huge!"

"What's it worth?"  Clint asked.

"Impossible to say until it's finish-cut.  Millions, certainly."

"Millions?"  Bobby said doubtfully.

"It's big but not that big."  Van Corvaire finally tore his gaze from

the stone and looked up at Bobby.

"You don't understand.  Until now, there were only seven known red

diamonds in the world.  This is the eighth.  And when it's cut and

polished, it'll be one of the two largest.  This comes as close to

priceless as anything gets."

OUTSIDE Archer van Corvaire's small shop, where heavy traffic roared

past on Pacific Coast Highway, with disco-frenetic flares of sunlight

flashing off the chrome and glass, it was hard to believe that the

tranquility of Newport Harbor and its burden of beautiful yachts were

just beyond the building far side of the street.  In a sudden moment of

enlightenment Bobby realized that his entire life (and perhaps nearly

every one else's) was like this street at this precise point in time:

all busy and noise, glare and movement, a desperate rush to break out of

the herd, to achieve something and transcend the whirl of commerce,

thereby giving respite for reflection a shot at serenity-when all the

time serenity was only a step away, on the far side of the street, just

out of sight.

That realization contributed to a heretofore subtle feeling that the

Pollard case was somehow a trap-or, more accurately, a squirrel cage

that spun faster and faster even as he scampered frantically to get a

footing on its rotating floor.

Bobby stood for a few seconds by the open door of the car, feeling

ensnared, caged.  At that moment he was not sure why, even with the

obvious dangers, he had been so eager to take on Frank's problems and

put all that he cared about at risk.  He knew that the reasons he had

quoted to Julie and to himself-sympathy for Frank, curiosity, the

excitement of a wildly different kind of job-were merely justifications,

not reasons, and his true motivation was something he did not yet

understand.  Unnerved, he got in the car and pulled the door shut as

Clint started the engine.

"Bobby, how many red diamonds would you say are in that mason jar?  A

hundred?"

"More.  A couple hundred."

"Worth what-hundreds of millions?"

"Maybe a billion or more."

They stared at each other, and for a while neither of them spoke.  It

wasn't that no words were adequate to the situation instead, there was

too much to say and no easy way to determine where to begin.

At last Bobby said, "But you couldn't convert the stones into cash, not

quickly anyway.  You'd have to dribble them onto the market over a lot

of years to prevent a sudden dilution of their rarity and value, but

also to avoid causing a sensation by drawing unwanted attention, and

maybe having to answer some unanswerable questions."

"After they've mined diamonds for hundreds of years, over the world, and

only found seven red ones...  where in the hell did Frank come up with a

jarful?"

Bobby shook his head and said nothing.

Clint reached into his pants pocket and withdrew one of the diamonds,

smaller than the specimen that Bobby had brought for Archer van

Corvaire's appraisal.

"I took this home to show it to Felina.  I was going to return it to the

jar when I got to the office, but you hustled me out before I had a

chance.  Now that I know what it is, I don't want it in my possession a

minute longer."

Bobby took the stone and put it in his pocket with the larger diamond.

"Thank you, Clint."

DR.  DYSON MANFRED'S study, in his house in Turtle Rock, was the most

uncomfortable place Bobby had ever been.  He had been happier last week,

flattened on the floor of his van, trying to avoid being chopped to bits

by automatic weapons fire than he was among Manfred's collection of

many-legged, carapaced, antenna-bristled, mandibled, and thoroughly

repulsive exotic bugs.

Repeatedly, in his peripheral vision, Bobby saw something move in one of

the many glass-covered boxes on the wall, but every time he turned to

ascertain which hideous creature was about to slip out from under the

frame, his fear proved unfounded.  All of the nightmarish specimens were

pinned and motionless, lined up neatly beside one another, none missing.

He also would have sworn that he heard things skittering and slithering

inside the shallow drawers of the many cases that he knew contained more

insects, but he supposed that those sounds were every bit was imaginary

as the phantom movement glimpsed from the corners of his eyes.

Though he knew Clint to be a born stoic, Bobby was impressed by the

apparent ease with which the guy endured the creepy-crawly decor.  This

was an employee he must never lose.  He decided on the spot to give

Clint a significant raise in salary before the day was out.

Bobby found Dr. Manfred nearly as disquieting as his collection.  The

tall, thing, long-limbed entomologist seemed to be the offspring of a

professional basketball player and one of those African stick insects

that you saw in nature films and hoped never to encounter in real life.

Manfred stood behind his desk, his chair pushed out of the way, and they

stood in front of it.  Their attention was direct upon a two-foot-long,

one-foot-wide, white-enamel, inch-lab tray which occupied the center of

the desktop and over which was draped a small white towel.

"I have had no sleep since Mr. Karaghiosis brought this me last night,"

Manfred said,

"and I won't sleep much tonight either, just turning over all the

remaining questions in mind.  This dissection was the most fascinating

of my care and I doubt that I'll ever again experience anything in my I

to equal it."  The intensity with which Manfred spoke-and the

implication that

neither good food nor good sex, neither a beautiful sunset nor a fine

wine, could be a fraction as satisfying as ins dismemberment-gave Bobby

a queasy stomach.

He glanced at the fourth man in the room, if only to divide his

attention briefly from their bugophile host.  The guy in his late

forties, as round as Manfred was angular, as pi as Manfred was pale,

with red-gold hair, blue eyes, and freckles.  He sat on a chair in the

corner, straining the seams of gray jogging suit, with his hands fisted

on his heavy thigh looking like a good Boston Irish fellow who had been

trying to eat his way into a career as a Sumo wrestler.  The

entomologist hadn't introduced or even referred to the well-padded

server.  Bobby figured that introductions would be made who Manfred was

ready.  He decided not to force the issue-if on because the round man

silently regarded them with a mixture of wonder, suspicion, fear, and

intense curiosity that encouraged Bobby to believe they would not be

pleased to hear who he had to tell them when, at last, he spoke.

With long-fingered, spidery hands-which Bobby might have sprayed with

Raid if he'd had any-Dyson Manfred moved the towel from the white-enamel

tray, revealing the mains of Frank's insect.  The head, a couple of the

legs,of the highly articulated pincers, and a few other unidentified

parts had been cut off and put aside.  Each grisly piece rest on a soft

pad of what appeared to be cotton cloth, almost a jeweler might present

a fine gem on velvet to a prospective buyer.  Bobby stared at the

plum-size head with its small reddish-blue eye, then at its two large

muddy-yellow eyes that were too similar in color to Dyson Manfred's.  He

shivered.  T main part of the bug was in the middle of the tray, on its

back.  The exposed underside had been slit open, the outer layers of

tissue removed or folded back, and the inner workings revealed.

Using the gleaming point of a slender scalpel, which he handled with

grace and precision, the entomologist began by showing them the

respiratory, ingestive, digestive, and excretory systems of the bug.

Manfred kept referring to the

"great art" of the biological design, but Bobby saw nothing that equaled

a painting by Matisse; in fact, the guts of the thing were even more

repellent than its exterior.  One term-"polishing chamber"-struck him as

odd, but when he asked for a further explanation, Manfred only said,

"in time, in time," and went on with his lecture.

When the entomologist finished, Bobby said,

"Okay, we know how the thing ticks, so what does that tell us about it

that we might want to know?  For instance, where does it come from?"

Manfred stared at him, unresponding.

Bobby said,

"The South American jungles?"  Manfred's peculiar amber eyes were hard

to read, and his silence puzzling.

"Africa?"  Bobby said.  The entomologist's stare was beginning to make

him twitchier than he already was.

"Mr. Dakota,"

Manfred said finally,

"you're asking the wrong question.  Let me ask the interesting ones for

you.  What does this creature eat?  Well, to put it in the simplest

terms that any layman can understand-it eats a broad spectrum of

minerals, rock, and soil.  What does it ex-"

"It eats dirt?"  Clint asked.

"That's an even simpler way to express it," Manfred said.

"Not precise, mind you, but simpler.  We don't yet understand how it

breaks down those substances or how it obtains energy from them.  There

are aspects of its biology that we can see perfectly clearly but that

still remain mysterious."

"I thought insects ate plants or each other or...  dead meat," Bobby

said.

"They do," the entomologist confirmed.

"This thing is not an insect or any other class of the phylum

Arthropodan for that matter."

"Sure looks like an insect to me," Bobby said, glancing dow at the

partly dismantled bug and grimacing involuntarily.

"No," Manfred said,

"this is a creature that evidently e through soil and stone, capable of

ingesting that material i chunks as large as fat grapes.  And the next

question is, that's what it eats, what does it excrete?" And the answer,

M Dakota, is that it excretes diamonds."  Bobby jerked as if the

entomologist had hit him.

He glanced at Clint, who looked as surprised as Bobby t The Pollard case

had induced several changes in the y and now it had robbed him of his

poker face.

In a tone of voice that suggested Manfred was playing the for fools,

Clint said,

"You're telling us it turns dirt into diamonds?"

"No, no," Manfred said.

"It methodically eats through vein of diamond-bearing carbon and other

material, until it find the gems.  Then it swallows them in their

encrusted jackets minerals, digests those minerals, passes the rough

diamond into the polishing chamber, where any remaining extraneous

mortar is worn away by vigorous contact with these hundreds of fine,

wirelike bristles that line the chamber."  With the scalpel he pointed

to the feature of the bug that he had just describe

"Then it squirts the raw diamond out the other end."  The entomologist

opened the center drawer of his desk,moved a white handkerchief,

unfolded it, and revealed three red diamonds, all considerably smaller

than the one Bobby had taken to van Corvaire, but probably worth

hundreds of thou sands, maybe millions, apiece.

"I found these at various points in the creature's system.

The largest of the three was still partially encased in a mottled

brown-black-gray mineral crust.

"They're diamonds?"  Bobby said, playing ignorant.

"I've never seen red diamonds."

"Neither had I. So I went to another professor, a geologist who happens

to be a gemologist as well, got him out of be at midnight to show these

to him."  Bobby glanced at the would-be Irish Sumo wrestler, but the man

did not rise from his chair or speak, so he evidently was not the

geologist.

Manfred explained what Bobby and Clint already knew that these scarlet

diamonds were among the rarest on things earth-while they pretended that

it was all news to them.

"This discovery strengthened my suspicions about the creature, so I went

straight to Dr. Gavenall's house and woke him shortly before two o'clock

this morning.  He threw on sweats and sneakers, and we came right back

here, and we've been here ever since, working this out together, unable

to believe our own eyes."  At last the round man rose and stepped to the

side of the desk.

"Roger Gavenall," Manfred said, by way of introduction.

"Roger is a geneticist, a specialist in recombinant DNA, and widely

known for his creative projections of microscopy genetic engineering

that might conceivably progress from current knowledge."

"Sorry," Bobby said,

"I lost you at 'Roger is..." We'll need some more of that layman's

language, I'm afraid."

"I'm a geneticist and futurist," Gavenall said.  His voice was

unexpectedly melodic, like that of a television game-show host.

"Most genetic engineering, for the foreseeable future, will take place

on a microscopic scale-creating new and useful bacteria, repairing

flawed genes in the cells of human beings to correct inherited

weaknesses and prevent inherited disease.  But eventually we'll be able

to create whole new species of animals and insects, macroscopic

engineering-useful things like voracious mosquito eaters that will

eliminate the need to spray Malathion in tropical regions like Florida.

Cows that are maybe half the size of today's cows and a lot more

metabolically efficient, so they require less food, yet produce twice as

much milk."  Bobby wanted to suggest that Gavenall consider combining

the two biological inventions to produce a small cow that ate only

enormous quantities of mosquitoes and produced three times as much milk.

But he kept his mouth shut, certain that neither of the scientists would

appreciate his humor.  Anyway, he had to admit that his compulsion to

make a joke of this was an attempt to deal with his own deep-seated fear

of the everincreasing weirdness of the Pollard case.

"This thing," Gavenall said, indicating the deconstructed bug in the lab

tray,

"isn't anything that nature created.  It's clearly an engineered life

form, so astonishingly task-specific in every aspect of its biology that

it's essentially a biological chine.  A diamond scavenger."  Using a

pair of forceps and the scalpel, Dyson Man gently turned over the insect

that wasn't an insect, so he could see its midnight-black shell rimmed

with red markings.  Bobby thought he heard whispery movement in many pa

of the study, and he wished Manfred would let some sun into the room.

The windows were covered with interior shutters, and the slats were

tightly shut.  Bugs liked darkness and shadows, and the lamps here

seemed insufficiently bright to dissuade them from scurrying out of the

shallow draw over Bobby's shoes, up his socks, and under the legs of

pants.

Hanging his pendulous belly over the desk, indicating crimson edging on

the carapace, Gavenall said,

"On a few Dyson and I shared, we showed a representation of this pattern

to an associate in the mathematics department, and he confirmed that

it's an obvious binary code."

"Like the universal product code that's on everything you buy at the

grocery store," the entomologist explained.

Clint said,

"You mean the red marks are the bug's number?"

"Yes."

"Like...  well, like a license plate?"

"More or less," Manfred said.

"We haven't taken a chip the red material for analysis yet, but we

suspect it'll prove be a ceramic material, painted onto the shell or

spray-bonded in some fashion."  Gavenall said,

"Somewhere there are a lot of these thing industriously digging for

diamonds, red diamonds, all of them carries a coded serial number that

identifies it whomever created it and set it to work."  Bobby grappled

with that concept for a moment, trying find a way to see it was a part

of the world in which he lived but it simply did not fit.  "Okay, Dr.

Gavenall, you're able envision engineered creatures like this-"

"I couldn't have envisioned this," Gavenall said adamant

"It never would've occurred to me.  I could only recognize it for what

it was, for what it must be."

"All right, but nevertheless you recognized what it must which is

something neither Clint nor I could've done.  Sotell me-who could make

something like this damned thing Manfred and Gavenall exchanged a

meaningful look and were both silent for a long moment, as if they knew

the answer to his question but were reluctant to reveal it.  Finally,

lowering his game-show-host voice to an even more mellifluous note,

Gavenall said,

"The genetic knowledge and engineering skill required to produce this

thing do not yet exist.  We're not even close to being able to...  to

...  not even close.

" Bobby said,

"How long until science advances far enough to make this thing

possible?"

"No way of arriving at a precise answer," Manfred said.

"Guess."

"Decades?"  Gavenall said.

"A century?  Who knows?"  Clint said,

"Wait a minute.  What're you telling us?  That this thing comes from the

future, that it came through some...

some time warp from the next century?"

"Either that," Gavenall said,

"or...  it doesn't come from this world at all."  Stunned, Bobby looked

down at the bug with no less revulsion but with considerably more wonder

and respect than he'd had a moment ago.

"You really think this might be a biological machine created by people

from another world?  An alien artifact?"  Manfred worked his mouth but

produced no sound, as if rendered speechless by the prospect of what he

was about to say.

"Yes," Gavenall said,

"an alien artifact.  Seems more likely to me than the possibility that

it came tumbling back to us through some hole in time."  Even as

Gavenall spoke, Dyson Manfred continued to work his mouth in a

frustrated attempt to break the silence that gripped him, and his

lantern jaw gave him the look of a praying mantis masticating a grisly

lunch.  When words at last issued from him, they came in a rush:

"We want you to understand, we will not, flatly will not, return this

specimen.  We'd be derelict as scientists to allow this incredible thing

to reside in the hands of laymen, we must preserve and protect it, and

we will, even if we have to do so by force."  A flush of defiance lent a

glow of health to the entomologist's pale, angular face for the first

time since Bobby had met him.

"Even if by force," he repeated.

Bobby had no doubt that he and Clint could beat the crap out of the

human stick bug and his rotund colleague, but the was no reason to do

so.  He didn't care if they kept the thing in the lab tray-as long as

they agreed to some ground rules about how and when they would go public

with it.

All he wanted right now was to get out of that bughouse into warm

sunlight and fresh air.  The whispery sounds from the specimen drawers,

though certainly imaginary, grew louder and more frenzied by the minute.

His entomophobia would soon kick him off the ledge of reason and send

him screaming from the room; he wondered if his anxiety was a parent or

if he was sufficiently self-controlled to conceal it.

felt a bead of sweat slip down his left temple, and had the answer.

"Let's be absolutely frank," Gavenall said.

"It's not only obligation to science that requires us to maintain

possession of this specimen.  Revelation of this find will make us,

academically and financially.  Neither one of us is a slouch in his

field but this will catapult us to the top, the very top, and we're

willing to do whatever is necessary to protect our interests here His

blue eyes had narrowed, and his open Irish face had closed up into a

hard mask of determination.

"I'm not saying I'd k to keep that specimen...  but I'm not saying I

wouldn't, their."  Bobby sighed.

"I've done a lot of research for UCI into backgrounds of prospective

faculty members, so I know the academic world can be as competitive and

vicious and dirty dirtier-than either politics or show business.  I'm

not going to fight you on this.  But we've got to reach an agreement

about when you can go public with it.  I don't want you doing anything

that would bring my client to the attention of the press until we've

resolved his case and are sure he's...  out of danger.

"And when will that be?"  Manfred asked.

Bobby shrugged.

"A day or two.  Maybe a week.  I doubt it drag on much longer than

that."  The entomologist and geneticist beamed at each other, obviously

delighted.  Manfred said,

"That's no problem at all.  We need much longer than that to finish

studying the specimen and preparing our first paper for publication, and

devise a straight way to deal with both the scientific community and the

media." Bobby imagined that he heard one of the shallow drawers sliding

open in the case behind him, forced outward by the weight of a vile

torrent of giant, squirming Madagascar roaches.

"But I'll take the three diamonds with me," he said.

"They're quite valuable, and they belong to my client."  Manfred and

Gavenall hesitated, made a token protest, but quickly agreed.  Clint

took the stones and rewrapped them in the handkerchief.  The scientists'

capitulation convinced Bobby there had been more than three diamonds in

the bug, probably at least five, leaving them with two stones to support

their thesis regarding the bug's origins and purpose.

"We'll want to meet your client, interview him," Gavenall said.

"That's up to him," Bobby said.

"It's essential.  We must interview him."

"That's his decision," Bobby said.

"You've gotten rid of what you wanted.  Eventually he may agree, and

then you'll have everything you're after.  But don't push it now."  The

round man nodded.

"Fair enough.  But tell me...  where did he find the thing?"

"He doesn't remember.  He has amnesia."  The drawer behind him was open

now.  He could hear the shells of the huge roaches clicking and scraping

together as they poured out of confinement and down the front of the

cabinet, swarming toward him.

"We really have to go," he said.

"We don't have another minute to spare."  He left the study quickly,

trying not to look as if he was bolting for his life.

Clint followed him, as did the two scientists, and at the front door,

Manfred said,

"I'm going to sound as if I ought to be writing stories for some

sensational tabloid, but if this is an alien artifact that came into

your client's hands, do you think he could've gotten it inside a...

well, a spaceship?  Those people who claim to have been abducted and

forced to undergo examinations aboard spaceships...  they always seem to

go through a period of amnesia first, before learning the truth '

"

"Those people are crackpots or frauds," Gavenall said sharply.

"We can't let ourselves be associated with that sort of thing."  He

frowned, and the frown deepened into a scowl, and he said,

"Unless in this case it's true."  Looking back at them from the stoop,

grateful to be outside, Bobby said, "Maybe it is.  I'm at a point where

I'll believe any thing till it's disproved.  But I'll tell you this...

my feel is that whatever is happening to my client is something a

stranger than alien abduction."

"A lot," Clint agreed.

Without further elaboration, they went down the front was way to the

car.  Bobby opened his door and stood for a moment reluctant to get into

Clint's Chevy.  The mild breeze wash down the Irvine hills felt so clean

after the stale air in M fred's study.

He put one hand in his pocket, felt the three red diamond and said

softly,

"Bug shit."  When he finally got into the car and slammed the door,

barely resisted the urge to reach under his shirt to determine if the

things he still felt crawling on him were real.

Manfred and Gavenall stood on the front stoop, watching Bobby and Clint,

as if half expecting their car to tip back its rear bumper and shoot

straight into the sky to rendezvous with some great glowing craft out of

a Spielberg movie.

Clint drove two blocks, turned at the corner, and pulled the curb as

soon as they were out of sight.

"Bobby, where the hell did Frank get that thing?"  Bobby could only

answer him with another question:

"H many different places does he go when he teleports?

money, the red diamonds and the bug, the black sand-a how far away are

some of those places?  Really far away?'

"And who is he?"

Clint asked.

"Frank Pollard from El Encanto Heights."

"But I mean, who is that?"  Clint thumped one fist again the steering

wheel.

"Who the hell is Frank Pollard from El canto?"

"I think what you really want to know is not who he is.  More important

...  what is he?"  By SURPRISE Bobby came to visit.

Lunch was eaten before Bobby came.  Dessert was still in Thomas's mind.

Not the taste of it.  The memory.  Vanilla ice cream, fresh

strawberries.  The way dessert made you feel.

He was alone in his room, sitting in his armchair, thinking about making

a picture poem that would have the feeling of eating ice cream and

strawberries, not the taste but the good feeling, so some day when you

didn't have any ice cream or strawberries, you could just look at the

poem and get that same good feeling even without eating anything.  Of

course, you couldn't use pictures of ice cream or strawberries in the

poem, because that wouldn't be a poem, that would be only saying how

good ice cream and strawberries made you feel.  A poem didn't just say,

it showed you and made you feel.

Then Bobby came through the door, and Thomas was so happy he forgot the

poem, and they hugged.  Somebody was with Bobby, but it wasn't Julie, so

Thomas was disappointed.  He was embarrassed, too, because it turned out

he'd met the person with Bobby a couple times before, over the years,

but he didn't remember him right away, which made him feel dumb.  It was

Clint.  Thomas said the name to himself, over and over, so maybe he'd

remember next time: Clint, Clint, Clint, Clint, Clint.

"Julie couldn't come," Bobby said,

"she's babysitting a client."  Thomas wondered why a baby would ever

need a private eye, but he didn't ask.  In TV only grownups needed

private eyes, which were called private eyes because they looked out for

you, though he wasn't sure why they were called private.  He also

wondered how a baby could pay for a private eye, because he knew eyes

like Bobby and Julie worked for money like everyone else, but babies

didn't work, they were too little to do anything.  So where'd this one

get the money to Bobby and Julie?  He hoped they didn't get cheated out

of their money, they worked hard for it.

Bobby said,

"She told me to tell you she loves you even more than she did yesterday,

and she'll love you even more torn row."  They hugged again because this

time Thomas was giving hug to Bobby for Julie.

Clint asked if he could see the latest scrapbook of poe He took it

across the room and sat in Derek's armchair, who was okay because Derek

wasn't in it, he was in the wreck room Bobby moved the chair from the

worktable, putting it close to the armchair that belonged to Thomas.  He

sat, and talked about what a big blue day it was and how nice the

flowers looked where they were all bright outside Thomas's room.

For a while they talked about lots of things, and Bobby funny-except

when they talked about Julie, he changed.

was worried for Julie, you could tell.  When he talked about her, he was

like a good picture poem-he didn't say his words but he showed it and

made you feel it.

Thomas was already worried for Julie, so Bobby's worry made him feel

even worse, made him scared for her.

"We've got our hands full with the current case," Bob said,

"so neither one of us might be able to visit again this weekend or the

first of the week."

"Okay, sure," Thomas said, and a big coldness rushed from somewhere and

filled him up.  Each time Bobby mentioned the new case, the one with the

baby, his picture of worry was even easier to read.

Thomas wondered if this was the case where they were going to meet up

with the Bad Thing.  He was pretty sure it was.

thought he should tell Bobby about the Bad Thing, but couldn't find a

way.  No matter how he told it, he'd sound I the dumbest dumb person who

ever lived at The Home.  It better to wait until the danger was coming a

lot nearer,TV to Bobby a real hard warning that'd scare him into looking

out for the Bad Thing and shooting it when he saw it.  Bob would pay

attention to a sent warning because he would know where it came from,

that it came from just a dumb person.

And Bobby could shoot, too, all private eyes could shoot because most

days it was bad out there in the world, and you knew you were going to

meet up with somebody who was going to shoot at you first or try to run

you down with a car or stab you or strangle you or, once in a while, try

to throw you off a building, or even Try To Make It Look Like Suicide,

and since most good guys didn't carry guns around with them, private

eyes who watched over them had to be good shooters.

After a while Bobby had to go.  Not to the bathroom but back to work. So

they hugged again.  And then Bobby and Clint were gone, and Thomas was

alone.

He went to the window.  Looked out.  The day was good, better than

night.  But even with the sun pushing most darkness out past the edge of

the world, and even with the rest of the darkness hiding from the sun

behind trees and buildings, there was badness in the day.  The Bad Thing

hadn't gone out past the edge of the world with the night.  It was still

there, somewhere in the day, you could tell.

Last night, when he got too close to the Bad Thing and it tried to grab

him, he was so afraid, he pulled away quick like.  He had a feeling the

Bad Thing was trying to find out who he was and where he was, and then

was going to come to The Home and eat him like it ate the little

animals.  So he pretty much made up his mind not to get real close to it

again, stay far away, but now he couldn't do that because of Julie and

the baby.  If Bobby, who never worried, was so worried for Julie, then

Thomas needed to be even more worried for her than he was.  And if Julie

and Bobby thought the baby should be watched over, then Thomas had to

worry about the baby, too, because what was important to Julie was

important to him.

He reached out into the day.

It was there.  Far away yet.

He didn't get close.

He was scared.

But for Julie, for Bobby, for the baby, he'd have to stop being scared,

get closer, and be sure he knew all the time where the Bad Thing was and

whether it was coming this way.

JACKIE JAxx did not arrive at the offices of Dakota & Dakota until ten

past four that Tuesday afternoon full hour after Bobby and Clint

returned, and to Julie's annoyance he spent half an hour creating an

atmosphere that found conducive to his work.  He felt the room was too

bright so he closed the blinds on the large windows, though the

approaching winter twilight and an incoming bank of clouds the Pacific

had already robbed the day of much of its light.  He tried different

arrangements with the three brass lam each of which was equipped with a

three-way bulb, giving what seemed an infinite number of combinations;

he finally one of them at seventy watts, one at thirty, and one off

completely.  He asked Frank to move from the sofa to one of chairs,

decided that wasn't going to work, moved Julie's chair out from behind

the desk and put him in that, then ranged four other chairs in a

semicircle in front of it.

Julie suspected that Jackie could have worked effectively with the

blinds open and all of the lamps on.  He was a former, however, even

when off the stage, and he could resist being theatrical.

In recent years magicians had forsaken fake shows like The Great

Blackwell and Harry Houdini in favor of names that at least seemed like

real ones, but Jackie was a throw back.  Just as Houdini's real name was

Erich Weiss, Jackie had been baptized David Carver.  Because he

preferred comic magic, he had avoided mysterious-sounding names.

because, since puberty, he had yearned to be part of the night club and

Vegas scene, he had chosen a new identity that, him and those in his

social circle, sounded like Nevada royal While other kids thought about

being teachers, doctors, realestate salesmen or auto mechanics, young

Davey Carver dreamed of being someone like Jackie Jaxx; now, God help

him, he was living his dream.

Although he was currently between a one-week engagement in Reno and a

stint as the opening act for Sammy Davis in Vegas, Jackie showed up not

in blue jeans or an ordinary suit, but in an outfit he could have worn

during performances: a black leisure suit with emerald-green piping on

the lapels and cuffs of the jacket, a matching green shirt, and black

patentleather shoes.  He was thirty-six years old, five feet eight,

thing, cancerously tanned, with hair that he dyed ink-black and teeth

that were unnaturally,ferociously white, thanks to the modern miracle of

dental bonding.

Three years ago Dakota & Dakota had been hired by the Las Vegas hotel

with which Jackie had a long-term contract, and charged with the sticky

task of uncovering the identity of a blackmailer who was trying to

extort most of the magician's income.  The case had many unexpected

twists and turns, but by the time they reached the end, the thing that

most surprised Julie was that she had gotten over her initial distaste

for the magician and had come to sort of like him.  Sort of.

Finally Jackie settled on the chair directly in front of Frank.

"Julie, you and Clint sit to my right.  Bobby, to my left, please."

Julie saw no good reason why she couldn't sit in whichever of the three

chairs she chose, but she played along.

Half of Jackie's Vegas act involved the hypnotizing and comic

exploitation of audience members.  His knowledge of hypnotic technique

was so extensive, and his understanding of the functioning of the mind

in a trance state was so profound, that he was frequently invited to

participate in medical conferences with physicians, psychologists, and

psychiatrists who were exploring practical uses of hypnosis.  Perhaps

they could have persuaded a psychiatrist to help them pierce Frank's

amnesia with hypnotic regression therapy.  But it was doubtful that any

doctor was as qualified for the task as Jackie Jaxx.

Besides, no matter what fantastic things Jackie learned about Frank, he

could be counted on to keep his mouth shut.  He owed a lot to Bobby and

Julie, and in spite of his faults, he was a man who paid his debts and

had at least a vestigial sense of loyalty that was rare in the me-me-me

culture of show business.

In the moody amber light of the two brass lamps, with the world

darkening rapidly beyond the drawn blinds, Jack smooth and

well-projected voice, full of low rounded tones an occasional dramatic

vibrato, commanded not just Frank's attention but everyone else's as

well.  He used a beveledrop crystal on a gold chain to focus Frank's

attention, a suggesting that the others look at Frank's face rather than

the bauble, to avoid unwanted entrancement.

"Frank, please watch the light winking in the crystal, a soft and lovely

light fluttering from one facet to another, facet to another, a very

warm and appealing light, was fluttering.  - -."  After a while, lulled

somewhat herself by Jackie's calculated patter, Julie noticed Frank's

eyes glaze over.

Beside her, Clint switched on the small tape recorder he had used when

Frank had told them his story yesterday afternoon.

Still twisting the chain back and forth between his thumb and forefinger

to make the crystal spin on the end of it, Jack said,

"All right, Frank, you are now slipping into a very relaxed state, a

deeply relaxed state, where you will hear my voice, no other, and will

respond only to my voice, other...."  When he had conveyed Frank into a

deep trance and finished giving him instructions related to the

interrogation ahead, Jackie told him to close his eyes.  Frank obliged.

Jackie put the crystal down.  He said,

"What is your nam "Frank Pollard."

"Where do you live?"

"I don't know."

Having been briefed on the phone by Julie earlier in the day, aware of

the information they were seeking from their client Jackie said,

"Have you ever lived in El Encanto?"  A hesitation.  Then:

"Yes."  Frank's voice was strangely flat.  His face was so haggard

deathly pale that he seemed almost like an exhumed corpse that had been

sorcerously revitalized for the purpose of serving as a bridge between

the members of a sayonce and those whom they wished to speak in the land

of the dead.

"Do you recall your address in El Encanto?"

"No."

"Was your address 1458 Pacific Hill Road?"  I. 'i A frown flickered

across Frank's face and was gone almost as soon as it came.

"Yes.  That's what...  Bobby found...

with the computer."

"But do you actually remember that place?"

"No."  Jackie adjusted his Rolex watch, then used both hands to smooth

back his thick, black hair.

"When did you live in El Encanto, Frank?"

"I don't know."

"You must tell me the truth."

"Yeah."

"You cannot lie to me, Frank, or hide anything from me.

That is impossible in your current state.  When did you live there?"

"I don't know."

"Did you live there alone?"

"I don't know."

"Do you remember being in the hospital last night, Frank)"

"Yeah."

"And you...  disappeared?"  :'They say I did."  'Where did you disappear

to, Frank?"  Silence.

"Frank, where did you disappear to?"

"I...  I'm afraid."

"Why?"

"I...  don't know.  I can't think."

"Frank, do you remember waking up in your car last Thursday morning,

parked along a street in Laguna Beach?"

"Yeah.

"Your hands were full of black sand."

"Yeah."  Frank wiped his hands on his thighs, as if he could feel the

black grains clinging to his sweaty palms.

"Where did you get that sand, Frank?"

"I don't know."

"Take your time.  Think about it."

"I don't know."

"Do you remember checking into a motel later...

napping...  then waking up with blood all over yourself.?"

"I remember,"

Frank said, and he shuddered.

"Where did that blood come from, Frank?"

"I don't know," he said miserably.

,It was cat blood, Frank.  Did you know it was cat blood?"

"No."  His eyelids fluttered, but he did not open his eyes.  "I just cat

blood?  Really?"

"Do you remember encountering a cat that day?"

"No."  Clearly, a more aggressive technique would be require get the

answers they needed.  Jackie began to talk Frank!"  ward in time,

gradually regressing him to his admission to hospital yesterday evening,

-then farther back toward the moment when he had awakened in that

Anaheim alleyway in the early hours of Thursday morning, knowing nothing

but his name Beyond that point might lie his memory, if he could be

induced to step through the veil of amnesia and recover his past.

Julie leaned slightly forward in her chair and looked Jackie Jaxx,

wondering how Bobby was enjoying the show.

figured the spinning crystal and other hocus-pocus would peal to his

boyish spirit of adventure, and that he would smiling and bright-eyed.

Instead he was somber.  His teeth must have been clenched for his jaw

muscles bulged.  He had told her what they learned at Dyson Manfred's

house, and she had been as astonished and shaken as he and Clint.  But

that didn't seem to explain his mood.  Maybe he was still unnerved by

the memory of bugs in the entomologist's study.  Or maybe he continued

to be troubled by that dream he'd had last week: the bad Thing is

coming, the bad thing...

She had dismissed his dream as unimportant.  Now she wondered if it had

been genuinely prophetic.  After all the mess that Frank had brought

into their lives, she was willing to give credence to such things as

omens, visions, prescient dreams.

The bad thing is coming, the bad thing...

Maybe the bad thing was Mr. Blue.

Jackie regressed Frank to the alleyway, to the very morning when he had

first awakened in a strange place, disoriented confused.

"Now go back further, Frank, just a little further back just a few more

seconds, and a few more, back, back, beyond the total darkness in your

mind, beyond that black in your mind...."  Since the questioning had

begun, Frank had appeared to dwindle in Julie's desk chair, as if made

of wax and subjected to a flame.  He had grown paler, too, if that was

possible, as white as candle paraffin.  But now, as he was forced

backward through the darkness in his mind, toward the light of memory on

the other side, he sat up straighter, put his hands on the arms of the

chair and clutched the vinyl almost tightly enough to cause the

upholstery to split.  He seemed to be growing, returning to his former

size, as if he had drunk one of the magic elixirs that Alice had

consumed in her adventures at the far end of the rabbit hole.

"Where are you now?"  Jackie asked.

Frank's eyes twitched beneath his closed lids.  An inarticulate,

strangled sound issued from him.

"Uh...  uh...

"Where are you now?"  Jackie insisted gently but firmly.

"Fireflies," Frank said shakily.

"Fireflies in a windstorm!"  He began to breathe rapidly, raggedly, as

if he were having trouble drawing air into his lungs.

"What do you mean by that, Frank?"

"Fireflies.

"Where are you, Frank?"

"Everywhere.  Nowhere."

"We don't have fireflies in southern California, Frank, so you must be

somewhere else.  Think, Frank.  Look around yourself now and tell me

where you are."

"Nowhere."  Jackie made a few more attempts to get Frank to describe his

surroundings and be more specific as to the nature of the fireflies, all

to no avail.

"Move him on from there," Bobby said.

"Farther back."  Julie glanced at the recorder in Clint's hand and saw

the spools turning behind the plastic window in the tapedeck.

With his melodic and vibrant voice, in seductively rhythmic cadences,

Jackie ordered Frank to regress past the firefly speckled darkness.

Suddenly Frank said,

"What am I doing here?"  He was not referring to the offices of Dakota &

Dakota, but to the place that Jackie Jaxx had drawn him to in his

memory.

"Why here?"

"Where are you, Frank?"

"The house.  What in the hell am I doing here, why did I come here? This

is crazy, I shouldn't be here."

"Whose house is it, Frank?"  Bobby asked.

Because he had been instructed to hear only the hypnotists voice, Frank

did not respond until Jackie repeated the question.  Then:

"Her house.  It's her house.  She's dead, of course, been dead seven

years, but it's still her house, always will, the bitch will haunt the

place, you can't destroy that kind of evil, not entirely, part of it

lingers in the rooms where she lived, in everything she touched."

"Who was she, Frank?",Mother."  -Your mother?  What was her name?"

"Roselle.  Roselle Pollard."

"This is the house on Pacific Hill Road?"

"Yeah.  Look at it, my God, what a place, what a dark place what a bad

place.  Can't people see what a bad place it is?  can't they see that

something terrible lives in there?"

He was crying.  Tears glimmered in his eyes, then streamed down his

cheeks.  Anguish twisted his voice.

"Can't they see what's in their what lives there, what hides there and

breeds in that bad place?  Are people blind?  Or do they just not want

to see?"

Julie was riveted by Frank's tortured voice and by the agony that had

wrenched his face into an approximation of the pain countenance of a

lost and frightened child.  But she turned away from him and peered past

the hypnotist to see if Bobby had reacted to the words

"bad place."  He was looking at her.  The expression of distress that

darkened his blue eyes was proof enough that the reference had not

escaped him.

At the other end of the room, carrying a sheaf of printout Lee Chen

entered from the reception lounge.  He closed the door quietly.  Julie

put a finger to her lips, then motioned him to the sofa.

Jackie spoke soothingly to Frank, trying to allay the fear that had

electrified him.

Suddenly Frank let out a sharp cry of fear.  He sounded more like a

frightened animal than like a man.  He sat up even straighter.  He was

trembling.  He opened his eyes, but obviously did not see anything in

the room; he was still in a trance

"Oh, my God, he's coming, he's coming now, the twins must've told him

I'm here, he's coming!"

Frank's unalloyed terror was so pure and intense that some of it was

communicated to Julie.  Her heartbeat speeded up, and she began to

breathe more rapidly, shallowly.

Trying to keep his subject relaxed enough to be cooperative, Jackie

said,

"Calm down, Frank.  Relax and be calm.  Nobody can hurt you.  Nothing

unpleasant will happen.  Be calm, relaxed, calm.

Frank shook his head.

"No. No, he's coming, he's coming, he's going to get me this time.

Dammit, why did I come back here?  Why did I come back and give him a

chance at me?"

"Relax now-"

"He's there!"  Frank tried to rise to his feet, seemed unable to find

the strength, and dug his fingers even deeper into the vinyl padding on

the arms of the chair.

"He's right there, and he sees me, he sees me."

Bobby said, "Who is he, Frank?"

and Jackie repeated the question.

"Candy.  It's Candy!"

When he was asked again for the name of this person he feared, he

repeated:

"Candy."

"His name is Candy?"

"He sees me!"

In a more forceful and commanding voice than before, Jackie said,

"You will relax, Frank.  You will be calm and relaxed."  But Frank only

grew more agitated.  He had broken into a sweat.  Fixed on something in

a far place and time, his eyes were wild.  His terror seemed to be

sweeping him into a heartbursting panic.

"I don't have much control of him," Jackie said worriedly.

"I'm going to have to bring him out of it."

Bobby slid forward to the edge of his chair.

"No, not yet' In a minute but not yet.  Ask him about this Candy.  Who

is the guy?"

Jackie repeated the question.

Frank said, "He's death."

Frowning, Jackie said, "That's not a clear answer, Frank."

"He's death walking, he's death living, he's my brother, her child, her

favorite child, her spawn, and I hate him, he wants to kill me, here he

comes!"  With a wretched bleat of terror, Frank started to push up from

the chair.

Jackie ordered him to stay where he was.

Frank sat down reluctantly, but his terror only grew, cause he could

still see Candy coming toward him.

Jackie tried to bring him out of that place in the past, toward the

present, and out of his trance, but to no avail.

"Got to get away now, now, now, " Frank said desperately.

Julie was frightened for him.  She'd never seen anyone more pathetic or

vulnerable.  He was drenched in sweat, shivering violently.  His hair

had fallen over his forehead, into his eyes, but it did not interfere

with the vision of terror that had been called up from his past.  He

clutched the arms of the chair so fiercely that a fingernail on his

right hand finally punctured the vinyl upholstery.

"I've got to get out of here," Frank repeated urgently.

Jackie told him to stay put.

"No, I've got to get away from him!"

To Bobby, Jackie Jaxx said, "This has never happened to me, I've lost

control of him.  Jesus, look at him, I'm afraid the guy's going to have

a heart attack."

"Come on, Jackie, you've got to help him," Bobby said sharply.  He got

off his chair, squatted beside Frank, putt his hand on Frank's in a

gesture of comfort and reassurance.

"Bobby, don't," Clint said, standing up so fast that he dropped the tape

recorder he'd been balancing on his thigh.

Bobby didn't respond to Clint, for he was too focused on Frank, who

seemed to be shaking himself to pieces in front of them.  The guy was

like a boiler with a jammed release valve filled to the bursting point

not with steam pressure but manic terror.  Bobby was trying to calm him,

where Jackie failed.

For an instant Julie didn't understand what had made Clint shoot to his

feet, But she realized that Bobby had seen some thing the rest of them

had missed: fresh blood on Frank's right hand.  Bobby hadn't put his

hand over Frank's merely to comfort; he was trying, as gently as

possible, to loosen Frank's grip on the arm of the chair, because Frank

had torn open the vinyl and cut himself, perhaps repeatedly, on an

exposed tack or upholstery tack.

"He's coming, got to get away!"

Frank let go of the chair and grabbed Bobby's hand, and got to his feet,

pulling Bobby with him.

Suddenly Julie understood what Clint feared, and she stood up so fast

that she knocked her chair over.

"Bobby, no!"

Thrown into a panic by the vision of his murderous brother, Frank

screamed.  With a hiss like steam escaping from a locomotive engine, he

vanished.  And took Bobby with him.

FIREFLIES IN a windstorm.

Bobby seemed to be floating in space, for he had no sense of his body's

position, couldn't tell if he was lying or sitting or standing, right

side up or upside down, as if weightless in an immense void.  He had no

sense of smell or taste.  He could hear nothing.  He could feel neither

heat nor cold nor texture nor weight.  The only thing he could see was

limitless blackness that seemed to stretch to the ends of the

universe-and millions upon millions of tiny fireflies, ephemeral as

sparks, that swarmed around him.  Actually, he was not sure he saw them

at all, because he was not aware of having eyes with which to look at

them; it was more as if he was...  aware of them, through any of the

usual senses but through some inner sight of the mind's eye.

At first he panicked.  The extreme sensory deprivation convinced him

that he was paralyzed, without feeling an inch of skin, felled by a

massive cerebral hemorrhage, and blinded and trapped forever in a

damaged brain that had severed all its connections to the outside world.

Then he became aware that he was in motion, not drifting in the

blackness as he had first thought, but speeding through it, rocketing at

a tremendous, frightening speed.  He became aware of being drawn forward

as if he were a bit of lint flying toward some vacuum cleaner of cosmic

power, and all around him the fireflies swirled and tumbled.  It was

like being on amusement park ride so huge and fast that only God could

have designed it for His own pleasure, though there was Pleasure

whatsoever in it for Bobby as he roller-coaster through the pitch

blackness, trying to scream.

He hit the forest floor on his feet, swayed, and almost slammed against

Frank, in front of whom he was standing.  Frank still had a painfully

tight grip on his hand.

Bobby was desperate for air.  His chest ached; his lungs seemed to have

shriveled up.  He sucked in a deep breath, another, exhaling

explosively.

He saw the blood, which was on both of their hands now.  An image of

torn upholstery flashed through his mind.  Jackie Jaxx.  Bobby

remembered.

When Bobby tried to pull loose of his client, Frank held him fast and

said,

"Not here.  No, I can't risk this.  Too dangerous.  Why am I here?"

Steeped in the scent of pines, Bobby surveyed the surrounding primeval

forest, which was thick with shadows as dusk introduced night to the

world.  The air was frigid, and the bristling boughs of the giant

evergreens drooped under a weight of snow, but he saw nothing

frightening in that scene.

Then he realized that Frank was staring past him.  He turned to discover

they were on the edge of the forest.  A snow-covered meadow sloped up

gently behind them.  At the top was a log cabin, not a rustic shack but

an elaborate structure that clearly showed the input of an architect, a

vacation retreat for someone with plenty of disposable income.  A mantle

of snow was draped over the main roof, another over the porch roof, each

decorated with a fringe of icicles that glittered in the last beams of

cold sunlight.  No lights glowed at the windows.  No smoke curled up

from any of the three chimneys.  The place appeared to be deserted.

"He knows about this," Frank said, still panicked.

"I bought it under another name, but he found out about it, and he came

here, almost killed me here, and he's probably keeping tabs on it,

checking in regularly, hoping to catch me again."  Bobby was numbed less

by the subzero cold than by the realization that he had teleported out

of their office and onto this slope in the Sierras or some other

mountains.  He finally found his voice and said,

"Frank, what-" Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

He hit the floor rolling, slammed into a coffee table, and felt Frank

let go of his hand.  The table crashed over, spilling a vase and other

decorative-and breakable-items onto a hard floor.

He'd sustained a solid knock to the head.  When he pushed himself onto

his knees and tried to stand, he was too dizzy to get up.  Frank was

already on his feet, looking around, breathing hard.

"San Diego.  This was my apartment once.  He found out about it.  Had to

get out fast."  When Frank reached down to help Bobby get up, Bobby

unthinkingly accepted his hand, the uninjured one.

"Someone else lives here now," Frank said.

"Must be working, we're lucky."  Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

Bobby found himself standing at a rusted iron gate between two stone

pilasters, looking at a Victorian-style house wit sagging porch roof,

broken balusters, and swaybacked steps.  The sidewalk was cracked and

canted, and weeds flourished in an unmown lawn.  In the gloaming it

looked like every kids conception of a seriously haunted house, and he

suspected it would look even worse in broad daylight.

Frank gasped.

"Jesus, no, not here!"  Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

Papers fluttered to the floor from a massive mahogany desk as if a wind

had swept through the room, though the air was still now.  They were in

a book-lined study with French windows.  An old man had risen from a

wing-backed leather chair.  He was wearing gray flannel slacks, a white

shirt, a blue cardigan, and a look of surprise.

Frank said, "Doc," and with his free hand reached toward the startled

elder.

Darkness.

Bobby had figured out that all was lightless and featureless because,

for the moment, he did not exist as a coherent entity; he had no eyes,

no ears, no nerve endings with which to feel.  But understanding brought

no diminishment of his fears.

Fireflies.

The millions of tiny, whirling points of light were probably the atomic

particles of which his flesh was constructed, being shepherded along

sheerly by the power of Frank's mind.

Velocity.

They were teleporting, and the process was probably just about

instantaneous, requiring only microseconds from physical dissolution to

reconstitution, though subjectively it seemed longer.

The decrepit house again.  It must be the place in the hills north of

Santa Barbara.  They were upslope from the gate, along the Eugenia hedge

that encircled the property.

Frank let out a low cry of terror the instant that he saw where he was.

Bobby was afraid of running into Candy just as much as Frank was, but

also afraid of Frank, and of teleporting.

Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

This time they didn't materialize with the balance and stability of

their arrival in the old man's study or at the peeling house with the

rusted gate, but with the clumsiness of their intrusion into that

apartment in San Diego.  Bobby stumbled a few steps up a slope, still in

Frank's grip as firmly as if they had been handcuffed, and they both

fell to their knees on the plush, well cropped grass.

Frantically Bobby tried to wrench loose of Frank.  But Frank held fast

with superhuman strength and pointed to a gravestone only a few feet in

front of them.  Bobby looked around and saw that they were alone in a

cemetery, where massive coral trees and palms loomed eerily in the

purple-gray twilight.

"He was our neighbor," Frank said.

Gasping for breath, unable to speak, still twisting his hand in an

attempt to escape Frank's iron grip, Bobby saw the name NORBERT JAMES

KOLREEN in the granite headstone.

"She had him killed," Frank said,

"had her precious Candy kill him just because she felt he'd been rude to

her.  Rude to her!  The crazy bitch."

Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

The book-lined study.  The old man in the doorway now, looking into the

room at them.

Bobby felt as if he had been on a corkscrewing roller coaster for hours,

turning upside down at high speed, again and again until he couldn't be

sure any more if he was actually moving or standing still while the rest

of the world spun and loo around him.

"I shouldn't have come here, Dr. Fogarty," Frank said unsteadily.  Blood

dripped off his injured hand, spotting a pale green section of the

Chinese carpet.

"Candy might've seen us at the house, might be trying to follow.  Don't

want to lead him to YOU."

Fogarty said, "Frank, wait-",

Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

They were in the backyard of the decaying house, thirty or forty feet

from steps and a porch that were as dilapidated as those at the front of

the place.  Lights shone in the first-floor windows.

"I want to go, I want to be out of here," Frank said.

Bobby expected to teleport at once, and steeled himself against it, but

nothing happened.

"I want out of here," Frank said again.

When they did pop from that place to another, Frank cursed in

frustration.  Suddenly the kitchen door opened, and a woman stepped into

sight.  She stopped on the threshold and stared at them.

The fading, muddy purple twilight barely exposed her, and the light from

the kitchen silhouetted her but did not reveal any details of her face.

Whether it was a trick of the strange illumination or an accurate

revelation of her form, Bobby couldn't know, but when starkly outlined,

she presented a powerful erotic picture: sylphlike, gracefully thing yet

clearly and feminine, a smoky phantom that seemed either thinly clad

nude, and that issued a call of desire without making a sound.

There was a powerful lubricity in this mysterious woman which made her

the equal of any siren that had ever induced sail to run their ships

onto hull-gouging rocks.

"My sister Violet," Frank said with obvious dread and disgust.

Bobby noticed movement, around her feet, a swarming of shadows.  They

poured down the steps, onto the lawn, and he saw they were cats.  Their

eyes were iridescent in the gloom.  He was gripping Frank every bit was

hard as Frank was gripping him, for now he feared release as much as he

had previously feared continued captivity.

"Frank, get us out of here."

"I can't.  I don't have control of this, of myself."

There were a dozen cats, two dozen, still more.  As they rushed off the

porch and across the first few yards of unmown grass, they were silent.

Then, simultaneously, they cried out, as if they were a single creature.

Their wail of anger and hunger instantly cured Bobby of his nausea and

made his stomach quiver, instead, with terror.

"Frank!"

He wished he hadn't taken off his shoulder holster back at the office.

His gun was back there on Julie's desk, of no use to him, but as he

glimpsed the bared teeth of the oncoming horde, he figured the revolver

wouldn't stop them anyway, at least not enough of them.

The nearest of the cats leaped.

JULIE WAS standing by her office chair, where it had been moved into the

center of the room for the session of hypnotic therapy.  She was unable

to step away from it because she had last seen Bobby when he had been

next to that chair, and it was where she felt closest to him.

"How long now?"

Clint was standing at her side.  He looked at his watch.

"Less than six minutes."

Jackie Jaxx was in the bathroom, splashing his face with cold water.

Still on the sofa with a sheaf of printouts, Lee Chen was not as relaxed

as he had been six and a half minutes ago.  His Zen calm had been

shattered.  He was holding those papers in both hands, as if afraid they

would vanish from his grasp, and his eyes were as wide now as they had

been the moment that Bobby and Frank disappeared.

Julie was lightheaded with fear, but she was determined not to lose

control of herself.  Though there seemed to be nothing that she could do

to help Bobby, an opportunity for action might arise when she least

expected it, and she wanted to be calm and ready.

"Last night, Hal said that Frank returned the first time about eighteen

minutes after he'd left."  Clint nodded.

"Then we've twelve minutes to go."

"After his second disappearance, he didn't return for hours."

"Listen," Clint said,

"if they don't show up here again in twelve minutes or an hour or three

hours, that doesn't me anything terrible has happened to Bobby.  It's

not going to be the same every time."

"I know.  What I'm more worried about is...  the damn railing."  Clint

said nothing.

Unable to keep her voice even, she said,

"Frank never did bring it back.  What happened to it?"

"He'll bring Bobby back," Clint said.

"He won't let Bobby out there...  wherever he goes."  She wished she

felt confident about that.

DARKNESS.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

Rain poured straight down in warm torrents, as if Bobby and Frank had

materialized under a waterfall.  It pasted their clothes to them in an

instant.  There was no wind whatsoever as if the tremendous weight and

ferocity of the rainfall had drowned the wind as it would a fire; the

air was steamy-humid They had traveled far enough around the globe to

have left twilight behind; the sun was up there somewhere behind steely

plating of gray clouds.

They were on their sides this time, facing each other like inebriates

who had been arm wrestling and had fallen drunkenly off their stools

onto the floor of the barroom, where they still lay with their hands

locked in competition.  They were in a bar, however, but in lush

tropical foliage: ferns; dark grey plants with rubbery, deeply

granulated foliage; ground hugging succulent vines with leaves as plump

as gum candy and berries the same shade as the flesh of a Mandarin

orange.

Bobby pulled away from Frank, and this time his client let him go

without a struggle.  He scrambled to his feet and push through the

slick, spongy, clinging flora.

He didn't know where he was going and didn't care.  He just had to put a

little space between himself and Frank, distance himself from the danger

that Frank now represented to him.  He was overwhelmed by what had

happened, overloaded with new experiences that he needed to consider and

to which he had to adapt before he could go on.

Within half a dozen steps he broke out of the tropical brush and onto a

dark expanse of land, the nature of which at first eluded him.  The rain

came down not in droplets and not in sheets, but in roaring, silver-gray

cascades that dramatically reduced visibility; it swept his hair over

his eyes, too, which didn't help.  He supposed some people, sitting by

windows in dry rooms, might even have seen beauty in the storm, but

there was just too damned much rain, a flood; it met the earth and the

greenery with a cacophonous roar that threatened to deafen him.  The

rain not only exhausted him but made him wildly and irrationally angry,

as if he was being pelted not by rain but by spittle, great gobs of

phlegm spit, and as if the roar was actually the combined voices of

thousands of onlookers showering him with insults and other abuse.  He

stumbled forward through the peculiarly mushy soil-not muddy, but

mushy-looking for someone to blame for the rain, someone to shout at and

shake and maybe even punch.  In six or eight steps, however, he saw the

breakers rolling ashore in a tumult of white foam, and he knew he was

standing on a black-sand beach.  That realization stopped him cold.

"Frank!"  he shouted, and when he turned to look back the way he had

come, he saw that Frank was following him, a few steps behind and

round-backed, as if he were an old man unable to stand up to the force

of the rain, or as if his spine had been warped by all the moisture.

"Frank, dammit, where are we?"

Frank stopped, unbent his back slightly, lifted his head, and blinked

stupidly.

"What?"

Raising his voice even further, Bobby shouted above the tumult: "Where

are we!"

Pointing to Bobby's left, Frank indicated an enigmatic, rain shrouded

structure that stood like the ancient shrine of a long dead religion,

perhaps a hundred feet farther down the black beach.

"Lifeguard station!"  He pointed the other direction, up the beach,

indicating a large wooden building considerably farther from them but

less mysterious because its size made it easier to see.

"Restaurant.  One of the most popular on the island."

"What island?"

"The big island."

"What big island?"

"Hawaii.  We're standing on Punaluu Beach."

"This was where Clint was supposed to take me," Bobby said.  He laughed,

but it was a strange, wild laugh that spooked him, so he stopped.

Frank said, "The house I bought and abandoned is over there."  He

indicated the direction from which they had come.

"Overlooking a golf course.  I loved the place.  I was happy there for

eight months.  Then he found me.  Bobby, we have to get out of here."

Frank took a few steps toward Bobby, out of the mushy mire and onto that

section of the beach where the sand was compacted.

"That's far enough," Bobby ordered when Frank was six or eight feet from

him.

"Don't come any closer."

"Bobby, we have to go now, right away.  I can't teleport correctly when

I want.  That'll happen when it happens, but at least we have to get

away from this part of the island.  He knows I lived here.  He's

familiar with this area.  And he may be following us."

The fiery anger in Bobby was not quenched by the rain; grew hotter than

ever.

"You lying bastard."

"It's true, really," Frank said, obviously surprised by Bobby's

vehemence.

They were close enough to converse wit out shouting now, but Frank still

spoke louder than usual to be heard over the crackle-hiss-patter-rumble

of the deluge

"Candy came here after me, and he was worse than I'd ever seen him, more

horrible, more evil.  He came into my house with a baby, an infant he'd

picked up somewhere, only a month old, he'd probably killed its parents.

He bit into that poor baby's throat, Bobby, then laughed and offered me

its blood, taunted me with it.  He drinks blood, you know, she taught

him to drink blood, and he relishes it now, thrives on it.  And when I

wouldn't join him at the baby's throat, he threw it waside the way you'd

discard an empty beer can, and he came for me but I...  traveled.

"I didn't mean you were lying about him."

A wave broke closer to shore than the others, washing around Bobby's

feet and leaving short-lived, lacelike traceries of foam on the black

sand.

"I mean you lied to us about your amnesia.  You remember everything. You

know exactly who you are."

"No, no."  Frank shook his head and made negating gestures with his

hands.

"I didn't know.  It was a blank.  And maybe it'll be a blank again when

I stop traveling and stay put someplace."

"Lying shit!"  Bobby said.

He stooped, scooped up handsful of wet black sand and threw it at Frank

in a blind fury, two more sopping handsful, then two more.  He began to

realize that he was behaving like a child throwing a tantrum.

Frank flinched from the wet sand but waited patiently for Bobby to stop.

"This isn't like you," he said, when at last Bobby relented.

"To hell with you."

"Your rage is all out of proportion to anything you imagine I've done to

you."  Bobby knew that was true.  As he wiped his wet sand covered hands

on his shirt and tried to catch his breath, he began to understand that

he was not angry at Frank but at what Frank represented to him.  Chaos.

Teleportation was a fun house ride in which the monsters and dangers

were not illusory, in which the constant threat of death was to be taken

seriously, in which there were no rules, no verities that could be

relied upon, where up was down and in was out.  Chaos.  They had ridden

the back of a bull named Chaos, and Bobby had been flat-out terrified.

"You okay?"  Frank asked.

Bobby nodded.

More than fear was involved.  On a level deeper than intellect or even

instinct, perhaps as deep as the soul itself, Bobby had been offended by

that chaos.  Until now he had not realized what a powerful need he had

for stability and order.  He'd always thought of himself as a free

spirit who thrived on change and the unexpected.  But now he saw that he

had limits and that, in fact, beneath the devil-may-care attitude he

sometimes struck, beat the steady heart of a stability-loving

traditionalist.  He suddenly understood that his passion for swing music

had roots of which he'd never been aware: the elegant and complex

rhythms and melodies of big-band jazz appealed to his bebop surface and

to the secret seeker of order who dwelt in his heart.

No wonder he liked Disney cartoons, in which Donald might run wild and

Mickey might get in a tangled mess Pluto, but in which order triumphed

in the end.  Not for the chaotic universe of Warner Brothers' Looney

Tune which reason and logic seldom won more than a tempo victory.

"Sorry, Frank," he said at last.

"Give me a second.  This isn't the place for it, but I'm having an

epiphany."

"Listen, Bobby, please, I'm telling the truth.  Evidently I remember

everything when I travel.  The very fact of traveling tears down the

wall blocking my memory, but as soon as I begin traveling, the wall goes

up again.  It's part of the degeneration I'm undergoing, I guess.  Or

maybe it's just a desperate attempt to forget what's happened to me in

the past, what's happening now, and what will sure as hell happen to me

in the days to come."

Though no wind had risen, some of the breakers were large now, washing

deep onto the beach.  They battered the bottoms of Bobby's legs and, on

retreating, buried his feet in coal.

Struggling to explain himself, Frank said, "See, traveling isn't easy

for me, like it is for Candy.  He can control where he wants to go, and

when.  He can travel just by deciding to do it, virtually by wishing

himself someplace, like you suggested I might be able to do.  But I

can't.  My talent for portation isn't really a talent, it's a curse."

His voice was shaky.

"I didn't even know I could do it until seven years ago, the day that

bitch died.  All of us who came from her are cursed, we can't escape it.

I thought I could escape by killing her, but that didn't release me."

After the events of the past hour, Bobby thought nothing could surprise

him, but he was startled by the confession Frank had made.  This

pathetic, sad-eyed, dimpled, comic-fat pudgy man seemed an unlikely

perpetrator of matricide.

killed your own mother?"

"Never mind about her.  We haven't time for her."

Frank looked back toward the brush out of which they had come and both

ways along the beach, but they were still alone in the downpour.

"If you'd known her, if you'd suffered under her hand," Frank said, his

voice shaking with anger, "if you had known the atrocities she's capable

of, you'd have picked up an ax and chopped at her too."

"You took an ax and gave your mother forty whacks?"  That crazy sound

burst from Bobby again, a laugh as wet as the rain but not as warm, and

again he was spooked by himself

"I discovered I could teleport when Candy had me backed into a corner,

going to kill me for having killed her.  And that's the only time I can

travel-when it's a matter of survival."

"Nobody was threatening you last night in the hospital."

"Well, see, when I start traveling in my sleep, I think maybe I'm trying

to escape from Candy in a dream, which triggers teleportation. Traveling

always wakes me, but then I can't stop, I keep popping from place to

place, sometimes staying a few seconds, sometimes an hour or more, and

it's beyond my control, like I'm being bounced around inside a goddamn

cosmic pinball machine.  It exhausts me.  It's killing me.  You can see

how it's killing me."

Frank's earnest persistence and the numbing, relentless roar of the rain

had washed away Bobby's rage.  He was still somewhat afraid of Frank, of

the potential for chaos that Frank represented, but he was no longer

angry.

"Years ago," Frank said, "dreams started me traveling maybe one night a

month, but gradually the frequency increased, until the last few weeks

it happens almost every time I go to sleep.  And when we finally wind up

in your office or wherever this episode is going to come to an end,

you'll remember everything that's happened to us, but I won't.  And not

only because I want to forget, but because what you suspected is

true-I'm not always putting myself back together without mistakes."

"Your mental confusion, loss of intellectual skills, amnesia-they're

symptoms of those mistakes."

"Yeah.  I'm sure there's sloppy reconstruction and cell damage every

time I travel, nothing dramatic in any one trip, but the effect is

incremental...  and accelerating.  Sooner or later it's going to go

critical, and I'll either die or experience some weird biological

meltdown.  Coming to you for help was pointless, no matter how good you

are at what you do, because nobody can help me.  Nobody-

Bobby had already reached that conclusion, but he was still curious.

"What is it with your family, Frank?  Your brother has the power to make

that car disintegrate around you, then A power to blow out those street

lamps, and he can teleport.

what was that business with the cats?"

"My sisters, the twins, they have this thing with animals."

"How come all of you possess these...  abilities?  Who your mother, your

father?"

"We don't have time for that now, Bobby.  Later.  I'll try and explain

later."

He held out his cut hand, which had even stopped bleeding or was sluiced

free of blood by the rain could pop out of here any moment, and you'd be

stranded."

"No thanks," Bobby said, shunning his client's hand.

" me an old fuddy-duddy, but I'd prefer an airliner."  He pa his hip

pocket.

"Got my wallet, credit cards.  I can be back in Orange County tomorrow,

and I don't have to take a chance that I'll arrive there with my left

ear where my nose should be."

"But Candy's probably going to follow us, Bobby.  If you're here when he

shows up, he'll kill you,"

Bobby turned to his right and started to walk toward the distant

restaurant.

"I'm not afraid of anyone named Candy."

"You better be," Frank said, grabbing his arm and halting him.

Jerking away as if making contact with his client was tantamount to

contracting the bubonic plague, Bobby said, could he follow us anyway?"

When Frank worriedly surveyed the beach again, Bobby realized that

because of the pounding rain and the underly crash of the surf, they

might not hear the telltale flute sounds that would warn them of Candy's

imminent arrival.

Frank said, "Sometimes, when he touches something recently touched, he

sees an image of you in his mind, sometimes he can see where you went

after you put the object down, and he can follow you."

"But I didn't touch anything back there at the house."

"You stood on the back lawn."

"So?"

"If he can find the place where the grass is trampled, where we stood,

he might be able to put his fingers to the ground and see us, see this

place, and come after us."

"For God's sake, Frank, you make this guy sound super natural."

"He's the next thing to it."

Bobby almost said he would take his chances with brother Candy,

regardless of his godlike powers.  Then he remembered what the Phans had

told him about the savage murders of the Farris family.  He also

remembered the Roman family, their brutalized bodies torched to cover

the ragged gashes that Candy's teeth had torn in their throats.  He

recalled what Frank had said about Candy offering him the fresh blood of

a living baby, factored in the unmitigated terror in Frank's eyes at

that very moment, and thought of the inexplicable prophetic dream he'd

had about the "bad thing."  At last he said, "All right, okay, if he

shows up, and if you're able to pop out of here before he kills us both,

then I'd be better off with you.  I'll take your hand, but only until we

walk up to that restaurant, call a cab, and are on our way to the

airport."  He gripped Frank's hand reluctantly.

"As soon as we're out of this area, I let go."

"All right.  Good enough," Frank said.

Squinting as the rain battered their faces, they headed toward the

restaurant.  The structure, which stood perhaps a hundred and fifty

yards away, appeared to be made of gray, weathered wood and lots of

glass.  Bobby thought he saw dim lights in the place, but he could not

be sure; the large windows were no doubt tinted, which filtered out what

fraction of the lampglow was not already hidden by the veils of rain.

Every third or fourth incoming wave was now much larger than the others,

reached farther onto the beach, and sloshed around their legs with

enough force to unbalance them.  They moved toward the higher end of the

strand, away from the breakers, but the sand was far softer there; it

sucked at their shoes and made progress more laborious.

Bobby thought of Lisa, the blond receptionist at Palomar Labs.  He

pictured her coming along the beach right now, taking a crazy-romantic

walk in the warm rain with some guy who'd brought her to the islands,

pictured her face when she saw him strolling the black-sand beach

hand-in-hand with another man, cheating on Clint.

This time his laughter didn't have a scary edge.

Frank said, "What?"

Before Bobby could even start to explain, he saw that someone actually

was heading in their general direction through the obscuring rain.  It

was a dark figure, not Lisa, a man, and he was only about thirty yards

away.

He hadn't been there a moment ago.

"It's him," Frank said.

Even at a distance the guy looked big.  He spotted them turned directly

toward them.

Bobby said, "Get us out of here, Frank."

"I can't do it on demand.  You know that."

"Then let's run," he urged, and he tried to pull Frank down the beach,

toward the abandoned lifeguard tower and what lay beyond.

But after floundering a few steps through the sand, Frank stopped and

said, "No, I can't, I'm worn out.  I'm going to have to pray that I pop

out of here in time."  He looked worse than worn out.  He looked half

dead.

Bobby turned toward Candy again, and saw the brother slogging through

the soft, wet sand much faster than they had managed but still with some

difficulty.

"Why don't he just teleport from there to here in a flash, overwhelm

us?"

Frank's horror at the sight of his oncoming nemesis was complete in that

he didn't appear capable of speech.  Yet words came with the shallow

breaths that rasped out of his mouth.

"Short hops, under a few hundred feet, aren't possible.  Do you know

why."  Maybe if the trip was too short, the mind had a fraction of a

second less than the minimum time required to deconstruct and fully

reconstruct the body.  It didn't matter what the son was.  Even if he

couldn't teleport across the remain stretch of sand, Candy was going to

reach them in seconds.  He was only thirty feet away and closing, a

massive juggernaut of a man, with a neck thick enough to support a car

balanced on his head, and arms that would give him an advantage in a

wrestling match with a four-ton industrial robot.  His blond hair was

almost white.  His face was broad and sharp-featured and hard-and as

cruel as the face of one of those psychotic young boys who liked to set

ants on fire with matches and test the effects of their full-strength on

neighborhood

Charging through the storm, kicking up gouts of wet black sand with each

step, he looked less like a man than a demon with a fierce hunger for

human souls.

Holding fast to his client's hand, Bobby said, "Frank, for God's sake,

let's get out of here."

When Candy was close enough for Bobby to see blue eyes as wild and

vicious as those of a rattlesnake on Benzedrine, he let out a wordless

roar of triumph.  He flung himself at them.

Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

Pale morning light filtered from a clear sky into the narrow

pass-through between two rotting, ramshackle buildings so crusted in the

filth of ages that it was impossible to determine what material had been

used to construct their walls.  Bobby and Frank were standing in

knee-deep garbage that had been tossed out of the windows of the

two-story structures and left to decompose into a reeking sludge that

steamed like a compost pile.  Their magical arrival had startled a

colony of roaches that scuttled away from them, and caused swarms of fat

black flies to leap up from their breakfast.  Several sleek rats sat up

on their haunches to see what had arrived among them, but they were too

bold to be scared off.

The tenements on both sides had some windows completely open to the

outside, some covered with what looked like oiled paper, none with

glass.  Though no people were in sight, from the rooms within the aged

walls came voices: laughter here; an angry exchange there; chanting, as

of a mantra, softly drifting down from the second floor of the building

on the right.  It was all in a foreign tongue with which Bobby was not

familiar, though he suspected they might be in India, perhaps Bombay or

Calcutta.

Because of the ineluctable stench, which by comparison made the stink of

a slaughterhouse seem like a new perfume by Calvin Klein, and because of

the insistently buzzing flies that exhibited great interest in an open

mouth and nostrils, Bobby was unable to get his breath.  He choked, put

his free hand over his mouth, still could not breathe, and knew he was

going to faint face first into the vile, steaming muck.

Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

In a place of stillness and silence, shafts of afternoon sunshine

pierced mimosa branches and dappled the ground with golden light.  They

stood on a red oriental footbridge over a koi pond in a Japanese garden,

where sculpted bonsai and other meticulously tended plants were

positioned among carefully raked beds of pebbles.

"Oh, yes," Frank said with a mixture of wonder and pleasure and relief.

"I lived here, too, for a while."  They were alone in the garden.  Bobby

realized that Frank always materialized in sheltered places where he was

unlikely to be seen in the act, or in circumstances-such as the middle

of a cloudburst-that almost ensured even a public place like a beach

would be conveniently deserted.  Evidently, in addition to the

unimaginably demanding task of deconstruction-rather than

reconstruction, his mind was also capable of scouting the way ahead and

choosing a discreet point of arrival.

Frank said,

"I was the longest-residing guest they'd ever had.  It's a traditional

Japanese inn on the outskirts of Kyoto."  Bobby became aware that they

were both totally dry.  their clothes were wrinkled, in need of an

ironing, but when Frank had deconstructed them in Hawaii, he had not

teleported the molecules of water that had saturated their clothes.

"They were so kind here," Frank said,

"respectful of my privacy, yet so attentive and kind."  He sounded

wistful and eternally weary, as if he would have liked to have stopped

traveling right there, even if stopping meant dying at the hand of his

brother.

Bobby was relieved to see that Frank also had not brought with them any

of the slime from the narrow alley in Calcutta or wherever.  Their shoes

and pants were clean.

Then he noticed something on the toe of his right shoe.

He bent forward to look at it.

"I wish we could stay here," Frank said.

"Forever."

One of the roaches from that filth-choked alley was now part of Bobby's

footwear.

One of the biggest advantages being self-employed was freedom from

neckties and uncomfortable shoes, so he was wearing, as usual, a pair of

soft Rock port Supersports, and the roach was not merely stuck on the

putty-colored leather but bristling from it and melded with it.

The roach was not squirming, obviously dead, but it was the or at least

part of it was, some bits of it apparently having been left behind.

"But we've got to keep moving," Frank said, oblivious to the roach.

"He's trying to follow us.  We have to lose him by Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

They were on a high place, a rocky trail, with an incredible panorama

below them.

"Mount Fuji," Frank said, not as if he had known where they were going

but as if pleasantly surprised to be there,

"About halfway up."  Bobby was not interested in the exotic view or

concerned about the chill in the air.  He was entirely preoccupied by

the discovery that the roach was no longer a part of the toe of his

shoe.

"The Japanese once thought Fuji was sacred.  I guess they still do, or

some of them do.  And you can see why.  It's magnificent."

"Frank, what happened to the roach?"

"What roach?"

"There was a roach welded into the leather of this shoe.  I saw it back

there in the garden.  You evidently brought it along from that

disgusting alleyway.  Where is it now?"

"I don't know."

"Did you just drop its atoms along the way?"  'I don't know."  'Or are

its atoms still with me but somewhere else?"

"Bobby, I just don't know."

In Bobby's mind was an image of his own heart, hidden within the dark

cavity of his chest, beating with the mystery of all hearts but with a

new secret all its own-the bristling legs and shiny carapace of a roach

embedded in the muscle tissue that formed the walls of the atrium or a

ventricle.

An insect might be inside of him, and even if the thing was dead, its

presence within was intolerable.  An attack of entomophobia hit him with

the equivalent force of a hammer blow to the gut, knocking the wind out

of him, sending undulate waves of nausea through him.  He struggled to

breathe, at the same time striving not to vomit on the sacred ground of

Mount Fuji.

Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

They hit more violently this time, as if they had materialized in midair

and had fallen a few feet onto the ground.  They didn't manage to hold

on to each other, and they didn't land on their feet, either.  Separated

from Frank, Bobby rolled dow a gentle incline, over small objects that

clattered and clicked under him and poked painfully into his flesh. When

he tumble to a halt, gasping and frightened, he was face down on gray

soil almost as powdery as ashes.  Scattered around him, sparkling

brightly against that ashen backdrop, were hundreds if not thousands of

red diamonds in the rough.

Raising his head, he saw that the diamond miners were the in unnerving

numbers: a score of huge insects just like the ones they had taken to

Dyson Manfred.  Caught, as he was, in whirlpool of panic, Bobby believed

that every one of those bugs was fixated on him, all those multifaceted

eyes turned toward him, all those tarantula legs churning through the

powder gray soil in his direction.

He felt something crawling on his back, knew what it must be, and rolled

over, pinning the thing between him and the ground.  He felt it

squirming frantically beneath him.  Propel by repulsion, he was suddenly

on his feet, without quite remembering how he had gotten up.  The bug

was still clinging to the back of his shirt; he could feel its weight,

its quick-foot advance from the small of his back to his neck.  He

reached behind, tore it off himself, cried out in disgust as it kicked

against his hand, and pitched it was far away as he could.

He heard himself breathing hard and making queer little sounds of fear

and desperation.  He didn't like what he heard but he was unable to

silence himself.

A foul taste filled his mouth.  He figured he had ingested some of the

powdery soil.  He spat, but his spittle looked clear and he realized

that the air itself was what he tasted.  The warm air was thick, not

humid exactly but thick, like nothing he had experienced before.  And in

addition to the bitter taste, it had a distinctly different but equally

unpleasant smell, like some milk with a whiff of sulfur.

Turning around, surveying the terrain, he realized that he was standing

in a shallow bowl in the land, about four feet deep at its lowest point,

and about a hundred feet in diameter.  The sloped walls were marked by

evenly spaced holes, a double layer of them, and more of the

biologically engineered insects were squirming into some of those bores,

out of others, no doubt seeking-and returning with-diamonds.

Because it was only four feet deep, he could see above the rim of the

bowl.  Across the huge, barren, and slightly sloped plain in which this

depression was set, he saw what appeared to be scores of similar

features, like age-smoothed meteor craters, though they were so evenly

spaced that they had to be unnatural.  He was in the middle of a giant

mining operation.

Kicking at an insect that had crept too close to him, Bobby turned to

look at the last quarter of his surroundings.  Frank was there, at the

far side of the crater, on his hands and knees.  Bobby was relieved by

the sight of him, but he was definitely not relieved by what he saw in

the sky beyond Frank.

The moon was visible in broad daylight, but it was not like the gossamer

ghost moon that sometimes could be seen in a clear sky.  It was a

mottled gray-yellow sphere six times normal size, looming ominously over

the land, as if about to collide with the larger world around which it

should have been revolving at a respectable distance.

But that was not the worst.  A huge and strangely shaped aircraft hung

silently at perhaps an altitude of four or five hundred feet, so alien

in every aspect that it brought home to Bobby the understanding that had

thus far eluded him.  He was not on his own world any longer.

"Julie," he said, because suddenly he realized how terribly far from her

he had traveled.

At the far side of the crater, as he was getting to his feet, Frank

Pollard vanished.

AS DAY dimmed and darkness came, Thomas stood at the window or sat in

his chair or stretched out on his bed sometimes reaching toward the Bad

Thing to be sure it was coming closer.  Bobby was worried when he

visited, so was Thomas worried too.  A lump of fear kept rising in his

throat, but he kept swallowing it because he had to be brave and protect

Julie.

He didn't get as close to the Bad Thing as last night.  N close enough

to let it grab him with its mind.  Not close enough to let it follow him

when he quick-like reeled his own mind string back to The Home.  But

close.  A lot closer than Thomas liked.

Every time he pushed at the Bad Thing to make sure it was still there,

up north someplace, where it belonged, he knew the Bad Thing felt him

snooping.  That spooked Thomas.  The Bad Thing knew he was snooping

around, but didn't do anything and sometimes Thomas felt maybe the Bad

Thing was waiting like a toad.

Once, in the garden behind The Home, Thomas watched a toad sit real

still for a long time, while a bright yellow butterfly fluttered pretty

and quick, bounced from leaf to leaf, flower to flower back and forth,

round and round, close to the toad, then so close, then closer than

ever, then way out of reach, then closer again, like it was teasing the

toad, but the toad didn't move, not an inch, like maybe it was a fake

toad or just a stone that looked like a toad.  So the butterfly felt

safe, or maybe just liked the game too much, and it came even closer.

When The toad's tongue shot out like one of those roll-up tootes they'd

let the dumb people have one New Year's Eve, and caught the butterfly,

and the green toad ate the yellow butterfly, every bit, and that was the

end of the game.

If the Bad Thing was playing a toad, Thomas was going to be real careful

not to be a butterfly.

Then, just when Thomas figured he should start washing himself and

changing clothes for supper, just when he was going to pull back from

the Bad Thing, it went somewhere.  He felt it go, bang, there one second

and far away the next, slipping past where he could keep a watch on it,

out across the world, going the same place where the sun was taking the

last of the daylight.  He couldn't figure how it could go so fast,

unless maybe it was on a jet plane having good food and a fine whine,

smiling at pretty girls in uniforms who put little pillows behind the

Bad Thing's seat and gave it magazines and smiled back at it so nice and

so much you expected them to kiss it like everybody was always kissing

on daytime TV.  Okay, yeah, probably a jet plane.

Thomas tried some more to find the Bad Thing.  Then, by the time the day

was all gone and night all there, he gave up.  He got off his bed and

got ready for supper, hoping maybe the Bad Thing was gone away and never

coming back, hoping Julie was safe forever now, and hoping there was

chocolate cake for dessert.

BOBBY CHARGED across the floor of the diamond-strewn crater, kicking at

the bugs in his way.  As he ran he told himself that his eyes had

deceived him and that his mind was playing nasty tricks, that Frank had

not actually teleported out of there without him.  But when he arrived

at the spot where Frank had been, he found only a couple of footprints

in the powdery soil.

A shadow fell across him, and he looked up as the alien craft drifted in

blimplike silence over the crater, coming to a full stop directly above

him, still about five hundred feet overhead.  It was nothing like

starships in the movies, neither organic looking nor a flying

chandelier.  It was lozenge shaped, at least five hundred feet long, and

perhaps two hundred feet in diameter.  Immense.  On the ends, sides, and

top, it bristled with hundreds if not thousands of pointed black metal

spines, big as church spires, which made it look a little like a

mechanical porcupine in a permanent defensive posture.  The underside,

which Bobby could see best of all, was smooth, black, and featureless,

lacking not only the massive spines but markings, remotesors, portholes,

airlocks, and all the other apparatus one might expect.

Bobby did not know if the ship's repositioning was coincidental or

whether he was under observation.  If he was being watched, he didn't

want to think about the nature of the creatures that might be peering

down at him, and he sure as hell didn't want to consider what their

intentions toward him might be.  For every movie that featured an

adorable alien with the power to turn kids' bicycles into airborne

vehicles, that were ten others in which the aliens were ravenous flesh

eat with dispositions so vicious as to make any New York he waiter think

twice about being rude, and Bobby was certain that this was one thing

Hollywood had gotten right.  It was hostile universe out there, and

dealing with his fellow human beings was

scary enough for him; he didn't need to make contact with a whole new

race that had devised countless new ways of its own.

Besides, his capacity for terror was already filled to the brim running

over; he could contain no more.  He was abandon on a distant world,

where the air-he began to suspect-might contain only enough oxygen and

other required gases to keep him alive only for a short while, insects

the size of kittens crawling all around him, and there was a possibility

that much smaller dead insects was actually fused with the tinicals of

one of his internal organs, and a psychotic blond giant super human

powers and a taste for blood was on his trail-and the odds were billions

to one that he would ever see Julie again or kiss her, or touch her, or

see her smile.

A series of tremendous, throbbing vibrations issued from the ship and

shook the ground around Bobby.  His teeth chattered and he nearly fell.

He looked for somewhere to hide.  There was nothing in the crater to

afford concealment, and nowhere to run on the plain beyond.

The vibrations stopped.

Even in the deep shadows thrown by the ship, Bobby noticed a horde of

identical insects begin to scuttle out of the bore holes in the crater

walls, one after the other.  They had been called forth.

Though no apparent openings appeared in the belly of the ship, a score

or more of low-energy lasers-some yellow, some white, some blue, some

red-began to play over the floor of the crater.  Each beam was the

diameter of a silver dollar, and each moved independently of the others.

Like spotlights, they repeatedly swept the crater and everything in it,

sometimes moving parallel to one another, sometimes crisscrossing one

another, in a display that further disoriented Bobby and gave him the

feeling that he was caught in the middle of a silent fireworks show.

He remembered what Manfred and Gavenall had told him about the crimson

decorations along the rim of the bug's shell, and he saw that the white

lasers were focusing only on the insects, busily scanning the markings

around each carapace.  Their owners were taking roll call.  He saw a

white beam fidget over the broken corpus of one of the bugs he had

kicked, and after a moment a red beam joined it to study the carcass.

Then the red beam jumped to Bobby, and a couple of other beams of

different hue also found him, as if he was a can of peas being

identified and added to someone's grocery bill at a supermarket

checkout.

The floor of the crater was teeming with insects now, so many that Bobby

could see neither the gray soil nor the litter of excreted diamonds over

which they clambered.  He told himself that they were not really bugs;

they were just biological machines, engineered by the same race that had

built the ship hanging over him.  But that didn't help much because they

still looked more like bugs than like machines.  They had been designed

to mine diamonds; they were not attracted to him whatsoever; but their

disinterest did not make him feel better, because his phobia guaranteed

that he was interested in them.  His shadow-chilled skin prickled with

gooseflesh.  Short circuiting nerve endings sputtered with false reports

of things crawling on him, so he felt as if bugs swarmed over him from

head to foot.  They were actually creeping over his shoes, but none of

them tried to scurry up his legs; he was grateful, because he was sure

he would go mad if they began to climb him.

He used his hand as a visor over his eyes, to avoid being dazzled by the

lasers that were playing on him.  He saw something gleaming in the

scanner beams only a few feet away: a curved section of what appeared to

be hollow steel tubing.  It was sticking out of the powdery soil, partly

buried, further concealed by the bugs that scurried and jittered around

it.  Nevertheless, at first sight Bobby knew what it was, and he was

overcome with a horrible sinking feeling.  He shuffled forward, trying

to crush any of the insects because, for all he knew, the penalty for

the additional destruction of property might be instant incineration.

When he could reach the glinting curve metal, he seized it and pulled it

loose of the soft earth.  It was the missing railing from the hospital

bed.

"HOW LONG?"  Julie demanded.

"Twenty-one minutes," Clint said.

They still stood near the chair where Frank had been sitting and beside

which Bobby had been stooping.

Lee Chen had gotten off the sofa, so Jackie Jaxx could sit down.  The

magician-hypnotist had draped a damp washcloth over his forehead.  Every

couple of minutes he protested.  He could not really make people

disappear, though no one had accused him of being responsible for what

had happened to Frank and Bobby.

Having retrieved a bottle of Scotch, glasses, and ice from the office

wet bar, Lee Chen was pouring six stiff drinks,for each person in the

room, as well as for Frank and Bobby

"If you don't need a drink to steady your nerves now," he said, "you'll

need one to celebrate when they come back safe."  He had already downed

one Scotch himself.  The drink he poured now would be his second.  This

was the first time in his life he had drunk hard liquor-or needed it.

"How long?"  Julie demanded.

"Twenty-two minutes," Clint said.

And I'm still sane, she thought wonderingly.  Bobby, you, come back to

me.  Don't you leave me alone forever.  How am I going to dance alone?

How am I going to live alone?  How am I going to live?

BOBBY DROPPED the bed railing, and the lasers winked leaving him in the

shadow of the spiny ship, which seem darker than before the beams

appeared.  As he looked up to see what would happen next, another light

issued from the underside of the craft, too pale to make him squint.

This one was precisely the diameter of the crater.  In that queer,

pearly glow, the insects began to rise off the ground, as if they were

weightless.  At first only ten or twenty floated upward, but then twenty

more and a hundred after that, rising as lazily and effortlessly as so

many bits of dandelion fluff, turning slowly, their tarantula legs

motionless, the eerie light gone out of their eyes, as if they had been

switched off.  In a minute or two, the floor of the crater was

depopulated of insects, and the horde was being drawn up effortlessly in

that sepulchral silence that accompanied all of the craft's maneuvers

except for the base vibrations that had called the insect miners from

their bores.

Then the silence was broken by a flowerlike warble.

"Frank!"  Bobby cried in relief, and turned as a gust of vile smelling

wind washed over him.

As the cold, hollow piping echoed across the crater again, there was a

subtle change in the hue of the light that issued from the ship above.

Now the thousands of red diamonds rose from the ash-gray soil in which

they lay and followed the insects upward, gleaming dully here and

brightly there, so many of them that it seemed as if Bobby was standing

in a rain of blood.

Another whirl of evil-scented wind cast up a cloud of the ashy soil,

reducing visibility, and Bobby turned in eager expectation of Frank's

arrival.  Until he remembered that it might not be Frank but the

brother.

The piping came a third time, and the subsequent puff of wind carried

the dust away from him, so he saw Frank arrive less than ten feet from

him.

"Thank God!"  As Bobby stepped forward, the pearly light underwent a

second subtle change.  Reaching for Frank's hand, he felt himself

suddenly weightless.  When he looked down he saw his feet drift off the

floor of the crater.

Frank grabbed at his outstretched hand and seized it.

Nothing had ever felt better to Bobby than Frank's firm grip, and for a

moment he felt safe.  Then he became aware that Frank had risen from the

ground too.  They were both being drawn upward in the wake of the

insects and diamonds, toward the belly of the alien vessel, toward

God-only-knew what nightmare inside.

Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

They were on Punaluu beach again, and the rain was coming down harder

than before.

"Where the hell was that last place?"  Bobby demanded holding fast to

his client.

"I don't know," Frank said.

"It scares the hell out of me.  it's so weird, but sometimes I seem to

be...  drawn there.  He hated Frank for having taken him there; he loved

him for having returned for him.  When he shouted above the roar of the

surf, neither love nor hate was in his voice, which was just borderline.

"I thought you could only travel to places you've been

"Not necessarily.  Anyway, I've been there before."

"But how did you get there the first time, it's another world.  It can't

have been familiar to you-right, Frank?"

"I don't know.  I just don't understand any of it, Bobby turned to stand

face to face with Frank, and Bobby took notice of how much the man's

appearance had deteriorated they had teleported from the Dakota & Dakota

offices in New port Beach.  Although the storm once more had soaked them

to the skin in seconds and left his clothes hanging on him shapelessly,

it wasn't just the rain that made him look disheveled, beaten, and

sickly.  His eyes were more sunken than the whites of them were yellow,

as if he had contracted a disease, and the flesh around them was so

darkly bruised they appeared to as painted fake shiners with black shoe

polish.  His skin was paler than pale, a deathly pale and his lips were

bluish, as though his circulatory system was failing.  Bobby felt guilty

about having shouted at him, put his free hand on Frank's shoulder and

told him how sorry, that it was all right, that they were still fighting

on the same side of this war, and that everything would turn out fine-as

long as Frank didn't take them back to that place again.  Frank said,

"Sometimes it's like I'm almost in touch with the minds of those people,

creatures, whatever they are in that ship."  They were leaning on each

other now, for to forehead, seeking mutual support in their exhaustion.

"Maybe I've got another gift I'm not aware of, like for all of my life I

wasn't aware of being able to teleport until Candy backed me into a

corner and tried to kill me.  Maybe I'm telepathic.  Maybe the

wavelength my telepathy functions on is the major wavelength of that

race's brain activity.  Maybe I feel them out there, even across

billions of light-years of space.  Maybe that's why I feel as if I'm

being drawn to them, called to them."

Pulling back a few inches from Frank, Bobby looked into his tortured

eyes for a long moment.  Then he smiled and pinched Frank's cheek, and

said, "You devil, you've really done a lot of thinking about this,

haven't you, really put the old noodle to work on it, huh?"  Frank

smiled.

Bobby laughed.

Then they were both laughing, holding each other up by leaning into each

other, the way teepee poles held one another up, and a part of their

laugh was healthy, a release of tension, but part of it was that mad

laughter that had troubled Bobby earlier.  Clinging to his client, he

said, "Frank, your life is chaos, you're living in chaos, and you can't

go on like this.  It's going to destroy you."

"I know."

"You've got to find a way to stop it."

"There is no way."

"You've got to try, buddy, you've got to try.  Nobody can handle this. I

couldn't live like this for one day, and you've done it for seven

years!"

"No. It wasn't this bad most of that time.  It's just lately, the last

few months, it's accelerated."

"A few months," Bobby said wonderingly.

"Hell, if we don't give your brother the slip soon and get back to the

office and step off this merry-go-round in the next few minutes, I swear

to God I'm going to crack.  Frank, I need order, order and stability,

familiarity.  I need to know that what I do today will determine where I

am and who I am and what I have to show for it tomorrow.  Nice orderly

progression, Frank, cause and effect, logic and reason."  Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

"HOW LONG?"

"Twenty-seven...  almost twenty-eight minutes."

"Where the hell are they?"

"Julie," Clint said, "I think you ought to sit down.  You're shaking

like a leaf, your color's not good."

"I'm all right."  Lee Chen handed her a glass of Scotch.  "Have a

drink."

"No."

"It might help," Clint said.

She grabbed the glass from Lee, drained it in a couple of long swallows,

and shoved it back into his hand.

"I'll get you another," he said.

"Thanks."  From the sofa, Jackie Jaxx said,

"Listen, is anyone going to sue me over this?"  Julie no longer sort of

liked the hypnotist.  She loathed as much as she had loathed him when

they had first met in Vegas and taken on his case.  She wanted to go

kick his head in.  Though she knew the urge to kick him was irrational,

he really had not been the cause of Bobby's disappearance, but she

wanted to kick him anyway.  That was the impulsive side of her, the

quick-to-anger side of which she was not proud.

she couldn't always control it, because it was part of her genetic

makeup or, as Bobby suspected, a predilection to violent response that

had begun to form in her on the day, in her childhood, when a

drug-crazed sociopath had brutally killed her mother.  Either way, she

knew Bobby was sometimes dismayed by that dark side of her, much as he

loved everything else she made a bargain with both Bobby and God:

Listen, Bobby wherever you are-and you listen, too, God-if this just...

well, if I can just have my Bobby back with me, I won't be that way any

more, I won't want to kick in Jackie's head or anyone else's head,

either, I'll turn over a new leaf I will, just let Bobby come back to me

safe and sound

THEY WERE on a beach again, but this one had white that was slightly

phosphorescent in the early darkness.

Sand disappeared into a medium-thick fog in both directions.  No rain

was falling, and the air was not as warm as it had been at Punaluu.

Bobby shivered in the chill, moist air.

"Where are we?"

"I'm not sure," Frank said,

"but I think we're probably on the Monterey Peninsula somewhere."  A car

passed on a highway a hundred yards behind them.

"That's probably Seventeen-Mile Drive.  You know it?  The road from

Carmel through Pebble Beach-"

"I know it."

"I love the peninsula, Big Sur to the south," Frank said.

"It's another one of the places I was happy...  for a while."  Their

voices were strangely muffled by the mist.  Bobby liked the solid ground

beneath his feet, and the thought that he was not only on his own planet

but in his own country and in his own state; but he would have preferred

a place with more concrete details, where fog did not obscure the

landscape.  The white blindness of fog was another form of chaos, and he

had had more than enough disorder to last him for the rest of his life.

Frank said,

"Oh, and by the way, back there in Hawaii a minute ago, you were worried

about giving Candy the slip, but you don't need to be concerned.  We

lost him several stops ago in Kyoto, or maybe on the slopes of Mount

Fuji."

"For God's sake, if we don't have to worry about leading him back to the

office, let's go home."

"Bobby, I don't have-"

"Any control.  Yeah, I know, I heard, it's no big secret.  But I'll tell

you something-you've got control on some level, way down deep in the

subconscious, more control than you think you have."

"No. I

"Yes.  Because you came back to that crater for me," Bobby said.  "You

told me you hate the place, that it's more frightening than anywhere

you've ever been, but you came back and got me.  You didn't leave me

there with the bed railing."

"Pure chance that I came back."

"I don't think so."  Darkness.

Fireflies.

Velocity.

THEY MADE the soft, pretty bing-bong signal come out of the wall,

because that was how they told all the people in Home it was just ten

minutes before supper was going to be eaten.

Derek was already out the door by the time Thomas got up from his chair.

Derek liked food.  Everyone liked food of course.  But Derek liked food

enough for three people.

Thomas got to the doorway, and Derek was already down the hall, walking

fast in that funny way he did, almost to the Dining Room.  Thomas looked

back at the window.

Night was at the window.

He didn't like seeing night at the window, which was why he usually kept

the drapes closed after the light went out in the world.  But after he

got himself ready for supper, he tried to find the Bad Thing out there,

and it helped a little to see the night when he was trying to send a

mind-string to it.

The Bad Thing was still so far away it couldn't be felt.

he wanted to try once more before going to eat food and be Sociable.  He

reached out through the window, up into the dark, spinning the

mind-string toward where the Bad Thing used to be-and it was back.  He

felt it right away, knew it was him, too, and he remembered the green

toad eating the beautiful yellow flutterby, and he pulled back into his

room faster than a toad tongue could snap out and catch him.

He didn't know if he should be happy or scared that it was back.  When

it was gone away, Thomas was happy, because maybe it was going to be

gone away a long time, but he didn't know exactly where it was.

He was also a little scared because when it was gone away, he was ok.

But it was back.

He waited in the doorway a while.

Then he went to eat food.  There was roast chicken.  There was frenched

fries.  There was carrots and peas.  There was cold slaw.  There was

Homemade bread, and people said there was going to be some chocolate

cake and ice cream for dessert though the people that said it was dumb

people, so he couldn't be sure.  It all looked good, and it smelled

good, it even tasted good.  But Thomas kept thinking about how flutterby

might've tasted to the toad, and he couldn't eat much of anything.

BOUNCING like two balls in tandem, they traveled to an empty lot in Las

Vegas, where a cool desert wind spun a tumbleweed past them and where

Frank said he had once lived in a house that was now demolished; moving

to that cabin at the top of a snowy mountain meadow, where they had

first teleported after leaving the office; to the graveyard in Santa

Barbara; to the top of an Aztec ziggurat in the lush Mexican jungles,

where the humid night air was full of buzzing mosquitoes and the cries

of unknown beasts, and where Bobby almost fell down the terraced side of

the pyramidal structure before he realized how high they were and how

precariously perched; to the offices of Dakota & Dakota They were

popping around so quickly, remaining in each place such a brief time-in

fact, briefer with each stop-that for a moment he stood in a corner of

his own office, blinking stupidly, before he realized where he was and

what he had to do.  He tore his hand away from Frank, and he said,

"Stop it now, stop here."  But Frank vanished even as Bobby spoke.

Julie was all over him an instant later, hugging him so tightly that she

hurt his ribs.  He hugged her, too, and kissed her a long time before

coming up for air.  Her hair smelled clean, and her skin smelled sweeter

than he remembered.  Her eyes were brighter than memory allowed, and

more beautiful.

Though by nature he was not much of a toucher, Clint put a hand on

Bobby's shoulder.

"God, it's good to see you, good to have you back."  There was even a

catch in his voice.

"Had us worried there for a while."  Lee Chen handed him a glass of

Scotch on the rocks.

"Don't do that again, okay?"

"Don't plan to," Bobby said.

No longer the smooth and self-assured performer, Jackie Jaxx had had

enough for one night.

"Listen, Bobby, I'm sure that whatever you have to tell us is

fascinating, and you're bound to come back with a lot of wonderful

anecdotes, wherever you went, but I for one don't want to hear about

it."

"wonderful anecdotes?"  Bobby said.

Jackie shook his head.

"Don't want to hear ''em.  Sorry.

my fault, not yours.  I like show biz 'cause it's a narrow you know?  A

thing little slice of the real world, but exciting 'cause it's all

bright colors and loud music.  You don't have to think in show biz, you

can just be.  I just want to be, you know Perform, hang out, have fun. I

got opinions, sure, colorful loud opinions about everything, showbiz

opinions, but I don't know a damn thing, and I don't want to know a damn

thing.  I sure as hell don't want to know about what happened here

tonight, 'cause it's the kind of thing that turns your upside down,

makes you curious, makes you think, and pretty soon you're no longer

happy with all the things that made you happy before."  He raised both

hands, as if to stall an argument, and said,

"I'm outta here," and a moment later he was.

At first, as he told the others what had happened to them, Bobby walked

slowly around the room, marveling at ordinary items, finding wonder in

the mundane, relishing the solace of things.  He put his hand on Julie's

desk, and it seemed to him that nothing in the world was more wondrous

than the Formica-all those molecules of man-made chemicals lined up in

perfect, stable order.  The framed prints of Disney characters, the

inexpensive furniture, the half-empty bottle of Scotch, the flourishing

pathos plant on a stand by the windows-all of those things were suddenly

precious to him He had been traveling only thirty-nine minutes.  He took

almost as long to tell them a condensed version.  He had popped out of

the office at 4:47 and returned at 5:26, but he'd had enough

traveling-via teleportation or otherwise-to last him the rest of his

life.

On the sofa, with Julie and Clint and Lee gathered around Bobby said,

"I want to stay right here in California.  I do need to see Paris. Don't

need London.  Not any more.  I want to stay where I have my favorite

chair, sleep every night in a bed that's familiar-"

"Damn right you will," Julie interjected.

-drive my little yellow Samurai, open a medicine cab where the Anacin

and toothpaste and mouthwash and sty pencil and Bactine and Band-Aids

are exactly where they ought to be.

By 6:15 Frank had not reappeared.  During Bobby's account of his

adventures, no one mentioned Frank's second disappearance or wondered

aloud when he would return.  But all of them kept glancing at the chair

from which he had vanished initially and at the corner of the room from

which he had dematerialized the second time.

"How long do we wait here for him?"  Julie finally asked.

"I don't know," Bobby said.

"But I have a feeling...  a real bad feeling...  that maybe Frank's not

going to regain control of himself this time, that he's just going to

keep popping from one place to another, faster and faster, until sooner

or later he's unable to put himself back together again."

WHEN HE came straight from Japan into the kitchen of his mother's house,

Candy was seething with anger and when he saw the cats on the table,

where he ate his meals his anger grew into a full-blown rage.  Violet

was sitting in a chair at the table; her ever-silent sister was in

another chair beside her, hanging on her.  Cats lay under their chairs

all around their feet, and five of the biggest were on the table, eating

bits of ham that Violet fed them.

"What're you doing?"  he demanded.

Without a word Violet did not acknowledge him with a glance.  Her gaze

was locked with that of a dark gray mong that was sitting as erect as a

statue of an Egyptian temple priestess patiently nibbling at a few small

bits of meat offered on a pale palm.

"I'm talking to you," he said sharply, but she did not respond.

He was sick of her silences, weary to death of her infinite strangeness.

If not for the promise that he had made to mother, he would have torn

Violet open right there and fed on her.  Too many years had passed since

he had tasted the ambrosia in his sainted mother's veins, and he had

often thought that the blood in Violet and Verbina was, in a way, the

same blood that had flowed in Roselle.  He wondered-and some times

dreamed-of how his sisters' blood might feel upon his tongue, how it

might taste.

Looming over her, staring down as she continued to commune with the gray

cat, he said,

"This is where I eat, damn you!"  Violet still said nothing, and Candy

struck her hand, knocking the remaining bits of ham helter-skelter.  He

swept the plate of ham off the table, as well, and took tremendous

satisfaction in the sound of it shattering on the floor.

The five cats on the table were not the least startled by his fury, and

the greater number on the floor remained unfazed by the ping and clatter

of china fragments.

At last Violet turned her head, tilted it back, and looked up at Candy.

Simultaneously with their mistress, the cats on the table turned their

heads to look haughtily at him, too, as if they wished him to understand

what a singular honor they were bestowing upon him simply by granting

him their attention.

That same attitude was apparent in the disdain in Violet's eyes and in

the faint smirk that curled the edges of her ripe mouth.  More than once

he had found her direct gaze withering, and he had turned away from her,

rattled and confused.  Certain that he was her superior in every way, he

was perplexed by her unfailing ability to defeat him or force him into a

hasty retreat with just a look.

But this time would be different.  He had never been as furious as he

was at that moment, not even seven years ago when he had found his

mother's bloody, sundered body and had learned the ax had been wielded

by Frank.  He was angrier now because that old rage had never subsided;

it had fed on itself all these years, and on the humiliation of

repeatedly failing to get his hands on Frank when the opportunities to

do so arose.  Now it was a midnight-black bile that coursed in his veins

and bathed the muscles of his heart and nourished the cells of his brain

where visions of vengeance were spawned in profusion.

Refusing to be cowed by her stare, he seized her thin arm and jerked her

violently to her feet.

Verbina made a soft, woeful sound upon her separation from her sister,

as if they were Siamese twins, for God's sake, as if tissue had been

torn, bones split.

Shoving his face close to Violet's, he sprayed her with spittle as he

spoke:

"Our mother had one cat, just one, she liked things clean and neat, she

wouldn't approve of this mess, this stinking brood of yours."

"Who cares," Violet said in a tone of voice that was at once

disinterested and mocking.

"She's dead."  Grabbing her by both arms, he lifted her off her feet.

The chair behind her fell over as he swung her away from it.  He slammed

her up against the pantry door so hard that the sound was like an

explosion, rattling the loose kitchen windows and some dirty silverware

on a nearby Counter.  He had the satisfaction of seeing her face contort

with pain and her eyes roll back in her head as she nearly passed out

from the blow.  If he had smashed her against the door any harder, her

spine might have cracked.  He dug his fingers cruelly into the pale

flesh of her upper arms, pulled her away from the door, and slammed her

into it again, though not as hard as before, just making the point that

it might have been as hard, that it could be as hard the next time if

she displeased him.

Her head had fallen forward, for she was teetering on the edge of

consciousness.  Effortlessly, he held her against the door, with her

feet eight inches off the floor, as if she weigh nothing at all, thereby

forcing her to consider his incredible strength.  He waited for her to

come around.

She was having difficulty getting her breath, and when at last she

stopped gasping and raised her head to face him, he expected to see a

different Violet.  He had never struck her before.  A fateful line had

been crossed, one over which he never expected to trespass.  With his

promise to his mother in which he had kept his sisters safe from the

often dangerous world out side, provided them with food, kept them warm

in cold weather and cool in the heat, dry when it rained, but year by

year he had performed his brotherly duties with growing frustration,

appalled by their increasingly shameless and mysterious behavior.  Now

he realized that disciplining them was a natural part of protecting

them; up in Heaven, his mother had probably despaired over his never

realizing the need for discipline.  Thanks to his rage, he had stumbled

upon enlightenment.

It felt good to hurt Violet a little, just enough to bring her to her

senses and to prevent her from spiraling fur-their into the dense and

animal sensuality to which she had surrendered herself.  He knew he was

right to punish her.  He waited eagerly for her to lift her head and

face him, for he knew that they had entered a new relationship and that

the awareness of the profound changes would be evident in her eyes.

At last, breathing somewhat normally, she raised her head and met

Candy's gaze.  To his surprise, none of his own enlightenment had been

visited upon his sister.  Her white-blond hair had fallen across her

face, and she stared through it, like a jungle animal peering through

its wind-tossed mane.  In her icy blue eyes, he perceived something

stranger and more primitive than anything he had seen there before.  A

gleeful wildness.  Indefinable hungers.  Need.  Though she had been hurt

when he had thrown her against the pantry door, a smile played on her

full lips again.  She opened her mouth, and he felt her hot breath

against his face as she said,

"You're strong.  Even the cats like the feel of your strong hands on me

...  and so does Verbina."  He became aware of her long bare legs.  The

flimsiness of her panties.  The way her red T-shirt had pulled up to

expose her flat belly.  The swell of her full breasts, which seemed even

fuller than they were because of the leanness of the rest of her.  The

sharp outlines of her nipples against the material of the shirt.  The

smoothness of her skin.  Her smell.

Revulsion burst through him like pus from a secret inner abscess, and he

let go of her.  Turning, he saw that the cats were looking at him.

Worse, they were still lying where they had been when he had pulled

Violet from her chair, as if they had not been frightened by his outrage

even briefly.  He knew their equanimity meant that Violet had not been

frightened, either, and that her erotic response to his fury-and her

mocking smile-was not in the least feigned.

Verbina was slumped in her chair, her head bowed, for she was no more

able to look at him directly now than she had ever been.  But she was

grinning, and her left hand was between her legs, her long fingers

tracing lazy circles on the thing material of her panties, under which

lay the dark cleft of her sex.  He needed no more proof that some of

Violet's sick desire had communicated itself to Verbina, and he turned

away from her too.

He tried to leave the room quickly, but without looking as if he was

fleeing from them.

In his scented bedroom, safely among his mother's belongings, Candy

locked the door.  He was not sure why he felt safer with the lock

engaged, though he was certain it was not because he feared his sisters.

There was nothing about them to fear.  They were to be pitied.

For a while he sat in Roselle's rocker, remembering the times, as a

child, when he'd curled in her lap and contentedly sucked blood from a

self-inflicted wound in her thumb or in the meaty part of her palm.

Once, she had made a half-inch incision in one of her breasts and took

him to her bosom while he drank her blood from the same place where

other mothers gave, and other children received, milk of maternity.

He had been five years old that night when, in this very chair, he

tasted the blood of her breast.  Frank, seven years old then, had been

asleep in the room at the end of the hall, and the twins, who'd only

recently reached their birthday, were asleep in a crib in the room

across from mother's.  Being alone with her when all the others slept

how unique and treasured that made him feel, especially since she was

sharing with him the rich liquid of her arteries veins, which she never

offered to his siblings; it was a sacred communion, dispensed and

received, that remained their secret.

He recalled being in something of a swoon that night, merely because of

the heavy taste of her rich blood and unbounded love that was

represented by the gift of it, but cause of the metronomic rocking of

the chair and the lul rhythms of her voice.  As he sucked, she smoothed

the hair away from his brow and spoke to him of God's intimacies for the

world.  She explained, as she had done many times before, that God

condoned the use of violence when it was committed in the defense of

those who were good and righteous.  She told him how God had created men

who thrived on blood so they might be used as the earthly instruments of

God's revengements on behalf of the righteous.  Theirs was a righteous

love, she said, and God had sent Candy to them to be their Protector.

None of this was new.  But though his mother had spoken of these things

many times during their secret communions, Candy never grew tired of

hearing them again.  Candy often relished in the retelling of a favorite

story.  And as.  certain particularly magical tales, this story somehow

did become more familiar with retelling but curiously more righteous and

appealing.

That night in his sixth year, however, the story took a turn.  The time

had come, his mother said, for him to accept the truly amazing talents

he had been given, and embark on the mission for which God had created

him.  He had begun to exhibit his phenomenal talents when he was three,

the age at which Frank's far more meager gifts had become evident.  His

telekinetic abilities-primarily his talent for telekinetic

transportation of his own body-particularly enchanted Roselle, and she

quickly saw the potential.  They would never want for money as long as

he could teleport at night into places where cash and valuables were

locked away: bank vaults; the jewelry-rich, walk-in safes in Beverly

Hills mansions.  And if he could materialize within the homes of the

Pollard family's enemies, while they slept, vengeance could be taken

without fear of discovery or reprisal.

"There's a man named Salfont," his mother cooed to him as he took his

nourishment from her wounded breast.

"He's a lawyer, one of those jackals who prey on upstanding folks,

nothing good about him at all, not that one.  He handled my father's

estate-that your dear grandpa, little Candy-probated the will, charged

too much, way too much, he was greedy.  They're all greedy, those

lawyers."  The quiet, gentle tone in which she spoke was at odds with

the anger she was expressing, but that contradiction added to the sweet,

hypnotic quality of her message.

"I've tried for years to get part of the fee returned to me, like I

deserve.  I've gone to other lawyers, but they all say his fee was

reasonable, they all stick up for each other, they're alike, peas in a

pod, rotten little peas in rotten little pods.  Took him to court, but

judges are nothing except lawyers in black robes, they make me sick, the

greedy lot of them.  I've worried at this for years, little Candy, can't

get it out of my mind.  That Donald Salfont, living in his big house in

Montecito, overcharging people, overcharging me, he ought to have to pay

for that.  Don't you think so, little Candy?  Don't you think he ought

to pay?"

He was five years old and not yet big for his age, as he would be from

the time he was nine or ten.  Even if he could teleport into Salfont's

bedroom, the advantage of surprise might not be sufficient to ensure

success.  If either Salfont or his wife happened to be awake when Candy

arrived, or if the first slash of the knife failed to kill the lawyer

and brought him awake in a defensive panic, Candy would not be able to

overpower him.  He wouldn't be in danger of getting caught or harmed,

for he could teleport home in a wink; but he would risk being

recognized.  Police would believe a man like Salfont, even as regarded

such a fantastic accusation as murder lodged against a five-year-old

boy.  They would visit the Pollard place, as questions, poking around,

and God knew what they might or come to suspect.

"So you can't kill him, though he deserves it," Roselle pered as she

rocked her favorite child.  She stared down intently into his eyes as he

looked up from her exposed breast.

"Instead what you have to do is take something from him as revenge for

the money he took from me, something precious to them.  There's a new

baby in the Salfont house.  I read about it in the paper a few months

ago, a little girl baby they called Reb Elizabeth.  What kind of name is

that for a girl, I ask you.  Sounds highfalutin' to me, the kind of name

a fancy lawyer and his wife would give a baby 'cause they think them and

theirs are better than other people.  Elizabeth is a queen's name, and

you just look up what Rebekah is in the Bible, see if you don't think

they think way too much of themselves and their little Rebekah...  she's

almost six months now, they've had her long enough to miss her when

she's gone, miss her bad.  I'll drive you past their house tomorrow, my

precious little Candy let you see where it is, and tomorrow night you'll

go there visit the Lord's vengeance on them, my vengeance. They'll think

a rat got into the room, or something of the sort, and they'll blame

themselves until the day they're dead too."

The throat of Rebekah Salfont had been tender, her blood salty.  Candy

enjoyed the adventure of it, the thrill of being in the house of

strangers without their permission or knowledge Killing the girl while

grownups slept in the adjoining room unaware, filled him with a sense of

power.  He was just a kid, yet he slipped past their defenses and struck

a blow for mother, which in a way made him the man of the Pollard house.

That heady feeling added an element of glory to the excitement of the

kill.

His mother's requests for vengeance were thereafter irrevocable.

For the first few years of his mission, infants and very young children

were his only prey.  Sometimes, in order not to create a pattern to the

police, he did not bite them but disposed of them in other ways, and

occasionally he took hold of them teleported out of the house with them,

so no body was found.

An so, if Roselle's enemies had all been from in and around Santa

Barbara, the pattern could not have been hidden.  But often she required

vengeance against people in far places, about whom she read in

newspapers and magazines.

He remembered, in particular, a family in New York State, who won

millions of dollars in the lottery.  His mother had felt that their good

fortune had been at the expense of the Pollard family, and that they

were too greedy to be permitted to live.  Candy had been fourteen at the

time, and he had not understood his mother's reasoning-but he had not

questioned it, either.  She was the only source of truth to him, and the

thought of disobedience had never crossed his mind.  He had killed all

five members of that family in New York, then burned their house to the

ground with their bodies in it.

His mother's thirst for vengeance followed a predictable cycle.

Immediately after Candy killed someone for her, she was happy, filled

with plans for the future; she would bake special treats for him and

sing melodically while she worked in the kitchen, and she would begin a

new quilt or an elaborate needlepoint project.  But over the next four

weeks her happiness would dim like a light bulb on a rheostat, and

almost one month to the day after the killing, having lost interest in

baking and crafts, she would begin to talk about other people who had

wronged her and, by extension, the Pollard family.  Within two to four

more weeks, she would have settled on a target, and Candy would be

dispatched to fulfill his mission.  Consequently, he killed on only six

or seven occasions each year.

That frequency satisfied Roselle, but the older Candy got, the less it

satisfied him.  He had not merely acquired a thirst for blood but a

craving that occasionally overwhelmed him.  The thrill of the hunt also

intoxicated him, and he longed for it was an alcoholic longed for the

bottle.  Not least of all, the mindless hostility of the world toward

his blessed mother motivated him to kill more often.  Sometimes it

seemed that virtually everyone was against her, scheming to harm her

physically or to take money that was rightfully hers.  She had no dearth

of enemies.  He remembered days when fear oppressed her; then at her

direction all the blinds and drapes were drawn, the doors locked and

sometimes even barricaded with chairs and other furniture, against the

onslaught of adversaries who never came but who might have.  On those

bad days she became despondent and told him that so many people were out

to hurt her that even he could not protect her forever.  When he begged

her to turn him loose, she refused and only said,

"It's useless."  Then, as now, he tried to supplement the approved

murders with his forays into the canyons in search of small animals But

those blood feasts, rich as they sometimes were, never quenched his

thirst as thoroughly as when the vessel was human.

Saddened by too many memories, Candy rose from the rocking chair and

nervously paced the room.  The blinds were drawn as he glanced with

increasing interest at the night beyond the window.

After failing to catch Frank and the stranger who had telaported into

the backyard with him, after the confrontation with Violet had taken

that unexpected turn and left him filled with undissipated rage, he was

smoldering, hot to kill, but in need of a target.  With no enemy of the

family in sight, he would have to slaughter either innocent people or

the small creature that lived in the canyons.  The problem was-he

dreaded evoking his sainted mother's disappointment, up there in heaven

yet he had no appetite for the blood of timid beasts.

His frustration and need built by the minute.  He knew he was going to

do something he would later regret, something that would make Roselle

turn her face from him for a time Then, just when he felt he might

explode, he was saved by the intrusion of a genuine enemy.

A hand touched the back of his head.

He whirled around, feeling the hand withdraw as he turned.  It had been

a phantom hand.  No one was there.

But he knew it was the same presence that he had sensed in the canyon

last night.  Someone out there, not of the Pollard family, had psychic

ability of his own, and the very fact that Roselle was not his mother

made him an enemy to be found and eliminated.  The same person had

visited Candy several times earlier in the afternoon, reaching out

tentatively, probing at him but not making full contact.

Candy returned to the rocking chair.  If a real enemy is going to put in

an appearance, it would be worth waiting for him.

A few minutes later, he felt the touch again.  Light, hesitant, quickly

withdrawn.

He smiled.  He started rocking.  He even hummed softly- one of his

mother's favorite songs.

Banking the coals of rage eventually made them burn brighter.  By the

time the shy visitor grew bolder, the fire would be white hot, and the

flames would consume him.

AT TEN minutes to seven, the doorbell rang.  Felina Karaghiosis did not

hear it, of course.  But each room of the house had a small red signal

lamp in one corner or another, and she could not miss the flashing light

that was activated by the bell.

She went into the foyer and looked through the sidelight next to the

front door.  When she saw Alice Kasper, a neighbor from three doors down

the street, she switched off the dead bolt, removed the security chain

from its slot, and let her in.

"Hi, kid.  How ya doing'?"

I like your hair, Felina signed.

"Do ya really?  Just got it cut, and the girl said that I was the same

old same old, or did I want to catch up with the time and I thought what

the hell.  I'm not too old to be sexy, ya think?"

Alice was only thirty-three, five years older than Felina.  She had

exchanged her trademark blond curls for a more mode cut that would

require a new source of income just to pay for all the makeup she was

going to use, but she looked great.

Come in.  Want a drink?

"I'd love a drink, kid, and right now I could use six of ''em but I

gotta say no.  My in-laws came over, and we're about thinking about

either playing cards with ''em or shooting ''em.  It depends on their

attitude." Of all the people Felina knew in her day-to-day life, Alice

was the only one, other than Clint, who understood sign language.  Given

the fact that most people harbored a prejudice against the deaf, to

which they could not admit but on what they acted, Alice was her only

girlfriend. But Felina was happy and would have given up their

friendship if Mark Kasper-Alicson, for whom she had learned sign

language-had not been born deaf

"Why I came over, we got a call from Clint, asking me to tell ya he's

not on his way home yet, but he expects to get here soon."

"So late?"

"maybe by eight.  "Since when does he work so late?"

"They've got a big case.  That always means some overtime.

"ya it's

"He's going to take ya out to dinner, and says it's been an incredible

day.  I guess that's about the case, huh?  Must be fascinating, married

to a detective.  And he's sweet, too.  You're lucky, kid."

"Yes.  But so is he.

Alice laughed.

"Right on!  And if he comes home this late another night, don't settle

for dinner.  Make him buy ya diamonds."

Felina thought of the red gem he had brought home yesterday, and she

wished she could tell Alice about it.  But Dakota & Dakota business,

especially concerning an ongoing case in which the client was in

jeopardy, was as sacred in their house as the privacies of the marriage

bed.

"Saturday, our place, six-thirty?  Jack'll cook up a mess of his chili,

and we'll play pinochle and eat chili and drink beer and fart till we

pass out.  Okay?"

"Yes."

"And tell Clint, it's okay-we won't expect him to talk."

Felina laughed, then signed: He's getting better.

"That's 'cause you're civilizing him, kid."

They hugged again, and Alice left.

Felina closed the door, looked at her wristwatch, and saw that it was

seven o'clock.  She had only an hour to get ready for dinner, and she

wanted to look especially good for Clint, not because this was a special

occasion, but because she always wanted to look good for him.  She

headed for the bedroom, then realized that only the automatic lock was

engaged on the front door.  She returned to the foyer, twisted the thumb

screw that slid the dead bolt home, and slipped the security chain in

place.

Clint worried about her too much.  If he came home and found that she

hadn't remembered the dead bolt, he'd age a year in a minute, right

before her eyes.

so AFTER BEING off duty all day, Hal Yamataka responded to a call from

Clint and came to the offices at 6: Tuesday night, to stand a watch in

case Frank returned after the rest of them had left.  Clint met him in

the reception lounge and briefed him there over a cup of coffee.  He had

to be brought up to date on what had happened during his absence and

after he heard what had gone down, he again wistfully considered a

career in gardening.

Nearly everyone in his family either had a gardening business or owned a

little nursery, and all of them did well, most of them better than what

Hal made working for Dakota & Dakota, some of them a great deal better.

His folks, his three brothers, and various well-meaning uncles tried

repeatedly to persuade him that he should work for them or come into

business with them, but he resisted.  It was not that he had anything

against running a nursery, selling gardening supplies, land scape

planning, tree pruning, or even gardening itself But southern California

was not the place.

the term "Japanese gardener" was a cliche not a career, and he couldn't

abide the thought of being a kind of stereotype.

He had been a heavy reader of adventure and suspense novels all his

life, and he yearned to be a character like one of those he read about,

especially a character worthy of being a lead in a John D. MacDonald

novel, because John D's lead characters were as rich in insight as they

were in courage, even as sensitive as they were tough.  In his heart Hal

knew that work at Dakota & Dakota was usually as mundane as the day

grind of a gardener, and that the opportunities for heroism in the

security industry were far fewer than they appeared to to outsiders. But

selling a bag of mulch or a can of Specticide or a flat of marigolds,

you couldn't kid yourself that you were a romantic figure or had any

chance of being one.  And, after all, self-image was often the better

part of reality.

"If Frank shows up here," Hal said,

"what do I do with him?"

"Pack him in a car and take him to Bobby and Julie."

"You mean their house?"

"No. Santa Barbara.  They're driving up there tonight, staying at the

Red Lion Inn, so tomorrow they can start digging into the Pollard

family's background."

Frowning, Hal leaned forward on the reception-lounge sofa.

"Thought you said they don't figure ever to see Frank again."

"Bobby says he thinks Frank is coming apart, won't last through this

latest series of travels.  That's just his feeling."

"So then who's their client?"

"Until he fires them, Frank is."

"Sounds iffy to me.  Be straight with me, Clint.  What's really got them

so committed to this one, especially considering how crazy-dangerous it

seems to get, hour by hour?"

"They like Frank.  I like Frank."

"I said be straight."  Clint sighed.

"Damned if I know.  Bobby came back here spooked out of his mind.  But

he won't let go of it.  You'd think they'd pull in their homes, at least

until Frank shows up again if he does.  This brother of his, this Candy,

he sounds like the devil himself, too much for anyone to handle. Bobby

and Julie are stubborn sometimes, but they're not stupid, and I'd expect

them to let go of this, now that they've seen it's a job big enough for

God, not a private detective.  But here we are."

BOBBY AND JULIE huddled with Lee Chen at the desk, while he shared with

them the information he had thus far obtained.

"The money might be stolen, but it's spendable," Lee said.

"I can't find those serial numbers on any currency hot sheets federal,

state, or local."

Bobby had already thought of several sources from which Frank might have

obtained the six hundred thousand now in the office safe.

"Find a business with a high cash flow, where they don't always get to a

bank with the receipts at the end of the day, and you've got a potential

target.  Say it's a super market, stays open till midnight, and it's not

a good idea for a manager to tote a lot of cash to a bank for automatic

deposit.  so there's a safe in the market.  After the place closes, you

trans port inside, if you're Frank, and use whatever other power you

have to open that safe, put the day's receipts in a grocery bag, and

vanish.  You're not going to find big chunks of cash, a couple hundred

thousand at a time, but you hit three or for markets in an hour, and

you've got your haul."

Evidently Julie had been pondering the same question, she said,

"Casinos.  They all have accounting rooms you!"  find on the blueprints,

the ones the IRS gets into with a little effort.  But they've got hidden

rooms, too, where the skim goes Like big walk-in safes.  Fort Knox would

envy them.  You use whatever minor psychic abilities you have to figure

the location of one of those hidden rooms, teleport in when it's

deserted and just take what you want."

"Frank lived in Vegas for a while,"

Bobby said.  "Remember I told you about the vacant lot he took me to,

where he'd had ù a house."

"He wouldn't be limited to Vegas," Julie said.

"Reno, Tahoe, Atlantic City, the Caribbean, Macao, France, England,

Monte Carlo-anywhere there's big-time gambling."  This talk of easy

access to unlimited amounts of cash excited Bobby, though he was not

sure why.  After all, it was Frank who could teleport, not him, and he

was ninety-five-percent sure they were never going to see Frank again.

Spreading a sheaf of printouts across the desktop, Lee Chen said,

"The money's the least interesting thing.  You remember you wanted me to

find out if the cops are on to Mr. Blue

"Candy," Bobby said.

"We have a name for him now."  Lee scowled.

"I liked Mr. Blue better.  It had more style."

Entering the room, Hal Yamataka said, "I don't think you can trust the

style judgment of a guy who wears red sneakers and yellow socks."

Lee shook his head.  "We Chinese spend thousands of years working up an

intimidating image for all Asians, so we can keep these hapless

Westerners off balance, and you people in Japan blow it all by making

those Godzilla movies.  You can't be inscrutable and make Godzilla

movies."

"Yeah?  You show me anybody who understands a Godzilla movie after the

first one."

They made an interesting pair, these two: one slender, modish, with

delicate features, an enthusiastic child of the silicon age; the other

squat, broad, with a face as blunt as a hammer, a guy who was about as

high-tech as a rock.

But to Bobby the most interesting thing was that, until this moment, he

had never thought about the fact that a disproportionately large

percentage of Dakota & Dakota's small staff was Asian-American.  There

were two more-Nguyen Tuan Phu and Jamie Quang, both Vietnamese.  Four

out of eleven people.  Though he and Hal once in a while made East-West

jokes, Bobby never thought of Lee and Hal and Nguyen and Jamie as

composing any subset of employees; they were just themselves, as

different from one another as apples are different from pears and

oranges and peaches.  But Bobby realized that this predilection for

Asian-American co-workers revealed something about himself, something

more than just an obvious and admirable racial blindness, but he could

not figure out what it was.

Hal said,

"And nothing gets more inscrutable than the whole concept of Mother.  By

the way, Bobby, Clint's gone home to comfort Felina.  We should all be

so lucky."

"Lee was telling us about Mr. Blue," Julie said.

"Candy,"

Bobby said.

Indicating the data he had extracted from various police records

nationwide, Lee said,

"Most police agencies began to be computerized and interlinked only

about nine years ago-in any sophisticated way, that is.  So that's all

the further back a lot of electronically accessible files go.  But

during that time, there have been seventy-eight brutal murders, in nine

states, that have enough similarities to raise the possibility of a

single perp- Just the possibility, mind you.  But FBI got interested

enough last year to put a three-man team on it, one in the office and

two in the field, to coordinate local and stat& investigations."

"Three men?"  Hal said.

"Doesn't sound like high priority."

"The Bureau's always been overextended," Julie said.

"And over the last thirty years, since it's been unfashionable for

judges to hand out long criminal sentences, the bad guys outnumber them

worse than ever.  Three men, full time-that's a serious commitment at

this stage."  Extracting a printout from the pile on the desk, Lee

summarized the essential data on it.

"All of the killings have the points in common.  First-the victims were

all bitten, most the throat, but virtually no part of the body is sacred

to the guy.  Second-many of them were beaten, suffered head injuries.

But loss of blood, from the bites-usually the jugular vein and carotid

artery in the throat-was a substantial contributing factor to the death

in virtually every instance, regardless of other injuries."

"On top of everything else, the guy's a vampire?"  Hal asked Taking the

question seriously-as, indeed, they had to consider every possibility in

this bizarre case, regardless of how outlandish it seemed-Julie 'said,

"Not a vampire in the supernatural sense.  From what we've learned, the

Pollard family for some reason generously gifted.  You know that

magician on TV, The Amazing Randier, who offers to pay a hundred

thousand bucks to anyone who proves they have psychic power.  This

Pollard clan would bankrupt his ass.  But that doesn't mean there's

anything SUPERNATURAL about them.  They're demons, or possessed, or the

children of the devil-nothing like that."

"It's just some extra bit of genetic material," Bobby said

"Exactly.  If Candy acts like a vampire, biting people in the throat,

that's just a manifestation of psychological illness, Julie said.

"It doesn't mean he's one of the living dead."  Bobby vividly remembered

the blond giant charging him and Frank on the rain swept black beach at

Punaluu.  The ground was as formidable as a locomotive.  If Bobby had a

choice going up against either Candy Pollard or Dracula, he'd choose the

undead Count.  Nothing as simple as a clove of garlic, a crucifix, or a

well-placed wooden stake would effectively deter Frank's brother.

Lee said,

"Another similarity.  In those instances where victims didn't leave

doors or windows unlocked, there was no indication of how the killer

gained entrance.  And in man instances police found doors dead-bolted

from the inside, windows locked from the inside, as if the murderer had

gone down the chimney when he was done," Seventy-eight," Julie said, and

shivered.

Lee dropped the paper onto the desk.

"They figure there're more, maybe a lot more, because sometimes this guy

has a tempted to cover his trail-the bite marks-by further mutilating or

even burning the bodies.  Though the cops weren't fooled in these cases,

you can figure they were fooled in others.  So the count's higher than

seventy-eight, and that's just the last nine years."  e," Julie said,

and Bobby seconded that.

"Good job, Lee "I'm not done yet," Lee said.

"I'm going to order in a pizza, do some more digging."

"You've been here more than ten hours today," Bobby said.

"That's already above and beyond the call.  Got to have down time, Lee."

"If you believe, as I do, that time is subjective, then you've got an

infinite supply.  Later, at home, I'll stretch a few hours into a couple

of weeks and return tomorrow quite rested."  Hal Yamataka shook his head

and sighed.

"Hate to admit it, Lee, but you're damned good at this mysterious

oriental crap."  Lee smiled enigmatically.

"Thank you."

After BOBBY and Julie went home to pack an OVERNIGHT bag for the trip to

Santa Barbara, and after Lee returned to the computer room, Hal settled

on the sofa in the bosses' office, slipped off his shoes, and put his

feet up on the coffee table.  He still had the paperback of The Last One

Left, which he'd read twice before, and which he had started to reread

last night in the hospital.  If Bobby was right when he said they might

never see Frank again, Hal was in for an uneventful evening and would

probably get half the book read.

Maybe his happiness at Dakota & Dakota had nothing to do with the

prospect of excitement, avoiding a stereotypical job as a gardener, and

having the admittedly slim chance to be a hero.  Maybe the thing that

most affected his career decision was the realization that he simply

could not ow a lawn or trim a hedge or plant fifty flats of flowers and

read a book at the same time.

DEREK SAT in his chair.  Pointed the raygun at the TV and made it be on.

He said,

"You don't want to watch news?"

"No," Thomas said.  He was on his bed, propped up with pillows, looking

at the night being dark outside the window

"Good.  Me neither."  Derek pushed buttons on the raygun A new picture

came on the screen.

"You don't want to wat a game show?"

"No."  All Thomas wanted to do WaS snoop on the Bad Thing.

"Good."  Derek pushed buttons, and the invisible rays from the screen

show a new picture.

"You don't want to watch Three Stooges pretending to be funny?"

"No."

"What you want to watch?"

"Don't matter.  Whatever you want to watch."

"Really?"

"Whatever you want to watch," Thomas repeated.

"Gee, that's nice."  He made lots of pictures on the screen until he

found a space movie where spacemen in space suits were poking around in

some spooky place.  Derek made happy sigh and said,

"This is good.  I like their hats."

"Helmets," Thomas said.

"Space helmets."

"I wish I had a hat like that."  When he reached out into the big dark

again, Thomas decided not to picture a mind-string unraveling toward the

Bad Thing.  Instead he Pictured a raygun, shooting some invisible rays.

Boy, did that work better!  Wham, he was right there wit the Bad Thing

in a flash, and he felt it stronger, too, so strong he got scared and

clicked off the raygun and got all of himself back into his room with

the rest of himself right away.

"They got telephones in their hats," Derek said.

"See they're talking through their hats."  On the TV, the spacemen were

in an even spookier place poking around, which was one of the things

spacemen did most, even though something ugly-nasty was usually in those

spooky places just waiting for them.  Spacemen never learned.  Thomas

looked away from the screen.

At the window.

The dark.

Bobby was scared for Julie.  Bobby knew stuff Thomas didn't know.  If

Bobby was scared for Julie, Thomas had to be brave and do What Was

Right.

The raygun idea worked such a lot better it scared him, but he figured

it was really good because he could easier snoop on the Bad Thing.  He

could get to the Bad Thing faster and get away from it faster, too, so

he could snoop on it more often and not be scared about it maybe

grabbing the mind-string and coming back to The Home with him.  Grabbing

an invisible raygun ray was harder, even for a thing as fast and smart

and mean as the Bad Thing.

So he pictured pushing buttons on a raygun again, and a part of him went

through the dark-wham!-and to the Bad Thing right away.  He felt how mad

the Bad Thing was, madder than ever, and thinking lots of thoughts about

blood that made Thomas half sick.  Thomas wanted to come right back to

The Home.  The Bad Thing felt him, you could tell.  He didn't like the

Bad Thing feeling him, knowing he was there with it, but he stayed just

a couple clock ticks longer, trying to see any thoughts about Julie in

all those thoughts about blood.  If the Bad Thing had thoughts about

Julie, Thomas would TV a warning right away to Bobby.  He was happy he

couldn't find Julie in the Bad Thing's mind, and he quick raygunned back

to The Home.

"Where you think I could get a hat like that?"  Derek asked.

"Helmet."

"Even has a light on it, see?"  Rising up a little from his pillows,

Thomas said,

"You know what kind of a story this is?"  Derek shook his head.

"What kind of story?"

"It's the kind where any second something ugly-nasty jumps up and sucks

off a spaceman's face or maybe crawls in his mouth and down his belly

and makes a nest in there."  Derek made a disgusted face.

"Yuck.  I don't like that kind of stories."

"I know," Thomas said.

"That's why I warned you."  While Derek made a lot of different pictures

come on the screen, one quick after the other, to get far away from the

spaceman who was going to get his face sucked off, Thomas tried to think

how long he should wait before he snooped on the Bad Thing again.  Bobby

was real worried, you could tell, even if he tried to hide it, and Bobby

was not a Dumb Person, so it was a good idea to check on the Bad Thing

pretty regular, in case maybe it all of a sudden thought about Julie and

got up and went after her.

"You want to watch this?"  Derek asked.

On the screen was a picture of this guy in a hockey uniform with a big

knife in his hand, going quiet-like across a room where a girl was

asleep in a bed.

"Better raygun up another picture," Thomas said.

BECAUSE THE rush hour was past, because Julie knew all the best

shortcuts, but mainly because she was not in a moo be cautious or

respect the traffic laws, they made great time from the office to their

home on the east end of Orange.

On the way Bobby told her about the Calcutta roach that had been part of

his shoe when he and Frank had arrived that red bridge in the garden in

Kyoto.

"But when we pop to Mount Fuji, my shoe was okay, the roach was gone."

She slowed at an intersection, but she was the only traffic in sight, so

she didn't obey the four-way stop.

"Why didn't tell me about this at the office?"

"Wasn't time for every detail."

"What do you think happened to the roach?"

"I don't know.  That's what bothers me."  They were on Newport Avenue,

just past Crawford Cany Sodium-vapor street lamps cast a queer light on

the road Atop the steep hills to the left, several huge English and

French houses, blazing like giant luxury liners, looked wildly out of

place, partly because the insanely high value such upscale real estate

ensured the construction of immense houses out of proportion to the tiny

lots they stood on, partly because Tudor and French architectural styles

clashed with the semitropical landscape.  It was all part of the Cali

nia circus, some of which he hated, most of which he loved.  Those

houses never bothered him before, and given the serious problems he and

Julie faced, he couldn't figure why they bothered him now.  Maybe he was

so jumpy that even these misharmonies reminded him of the chaos that had

almost engulfed him during his travels with Frank.

He said,

"Do you have to drive so fast)"

"Yes," she said curtly.

"I want to get home, get packed, to Santa Barbara, learn what we can

about the Pollard family, get finished with this whole damn creepy

case."

"If you feel that way, why don't we just drop it here?  Frank comes

back, we give him his money, his jar of red diamonds, tell him we're

sorry, we think he's a prince of a guy, but we're out of it."

"We can't," she said.

He chewed on his lower lip, then said,

"I know.  But I can't figure why we're compelled to hang in there with

this one."  They crested the hill and speeded north, past the entrance

to Rocking Horse Ridge.  Their own development was only a couple of

streets ahead, on the left.  As she finally began to brake for the turn,

she glanced at him and said,

"You really don't know why we can't bug out of it?"

"No. You saying you do?"

"I know."

"Tell me."

"You'll figure it out eventually."

"Don't be mysterious.  That's not like you."  She swung the company

Toyota into their development, then onto their street.

"I tell you what I think, it'll upset you.  You'll deny it, we'll argue,

and I don't want to argue with you."

"Why will we argue?"  She pulled into their driveway, put the car in

park, switched off the lights and engine, and turned to him.  Her eyes

shone in the dark.

"When you understand why we can't let go, you won't like what it says

about us, and you'll argue that I'm wrong, that we're just a couple of

sweet kids, really.  You like to see us as a couple of sweet kids, savvy

but basically innocent at the same time, like a young Jimmy Stewart and

Donna Reed.  I really love you for that, for being such a dreamer about

the world and us, and it'll hurt me when you want to argue."  He almost

started to argue with her about whether he would argue with her.  Then

he stared at her for a moment and finally said,

"I've had this feeling that I'm not facing up to something, that when

this is all over and I realize why I was so determined to see this

through to the end, my motivations won't be as noble as I think they are

now.  It's a weird damn feeling.  As if I don't really know myself."

"Maybe we spend all our lives learning to know ourselves.

And maybe we never really will completely."  She kissed him lightly,

quickly, and got out of the car.

As he followed her up the sidewalk to the front door, glanced at the

sky.  The clarity of the day had been short-lived A pall of clouds

concealed the moon and stars.  The sky very dark, and he was gripped by

the curious certainty great and terrible weight was falling toward them,

bright against the black heavens and therefore invisible, but falling

fast, faster....

CANDY KEPT a choke hold on his fury, which reacted its leash.  strained

like an attack dog trying to!"  He rocked and rocked, and gradually the

shy visitor grew bolder.  Repeatedly he felt the invisible hand on his

head.  Initially it lay upon him as lightly as an empty silk glove, and

it stayed only briefly before flitting away.  But as he pretended to be

disinterested in both the hand and the person to whom it belonged, the

visitor grew more daring, the hand heavier and less nervous.

Though Candy made no effort to probe at the mind of the intruder, for

fear of scaring him away, some of the stranger's thoughts came to him

nonetheless.  He did not think the visitor was aware that images and

words from his own mind were slipping into Candy's; they were just

leaking out of him as if they were trickles of water seeping from

pin-size holes in a rusty bucket.

The name

"Julie" came several times.  And once an image floated along with the

name-an attractive woman with brown hair and dark eyes.  Candy wasn't

sure if it was the visitor's face or the face of someone the visitor

knew even if it was the face of anyone who really existed.  There were

aspects that made it seem unreal: a pale light radiated from it, and the

features were so kind and serene that it looked like the holy

countenance of a saint in an illustrated Bible.

The word

"flutterby" leaked out of the visitor's mind more than once, sometimes

with other words, like

"remember the flutterby" or "don't be a flutterby."  And each time that

word flitted through his mind, the visitor quickly withdrew.

But he kept coming back.  Because Candy did nothing to make him feel

unwelcome.

Candy rocked and rocked.  The chair made a soft sound creak...  creak...

creak...  creak.

He waited.

He kept an open mind.

...  creak...  creak...  creak...

Twice the name

"Bobby" seeped from the visitor's mind and the second time a fuzzy image

of a face was linked to another very kind face.  It was idealized, like

Julie's face.  Recognition stirred in Candy, but Bobby's visage was not

as clear or detailed as Julie's, and Candy did not want to concentrate

on it because the visitor might notice his interest and be frightened

off.

During his long and patient courtship of the shy introvert many other

words and images came to Candy, but he didn't know what to make of them:

-men in spacesuits

"Bad Thing"-a guy in a hockey mask-"The Home"-"Dumb People"-a bathrobe,

a half-eaten Hershey's bar, and a sudden frantic thought: Draw Bugs, no

good, Draw Bugs, got to Be Not More than ten minutes passed without

contact, and Can started to worry that the intruder had gone away for

good.  But suddenly he was back.  This time the contact was strong, more

intimate than ever.

When Candy sensed that the visitor was more confident, knew the time had

come to act.  He pictured his mind as a steel trap, the visitor as an

inquisitive mouse, and he pictured a trap springing, the bar pinning the

visitor to the kill plate.

Shocked, the visitor tried to pull away.  Candy held him a pushed across

the telepathic bridge between them, trying storm his adversary's mind to

find out who he was, where was, and what he wanted.

Candy had no telepathic power of his own, nothing to equal; even the

weak telepathic gifts of the intruder; he had never re anyone's mind

before, and he did not know how to go about it.  As it turned out, he

did not need to do anything except stop himself and receive what the

visitor gave him.  Thomas was name, and he was terrified of Candy, of

having Done Some thing Really Dumb, and of putting Julie in danger; that

kind of terrors shattered his mental defenses and caused him to disgorge

a flood of information.

in fact, there was too much information for Candy to make sense of it, a

babble of words and images.  He tried desperately to sort through it for

clues to Thomas's identity and location.

Dumb People, Cielo Vista, The Home, everybody here has bad eye cues,

Care Home, good food, TV The Best Place For Us, Cielo Vista, the aides

are nice, we watch the humming birds, the world is bad out there, too

bad for us out there, Cielo Vista Care Home...

With some astonishment, Candy realized that the visitor was someone with

a subnormal intellect-he even picked up the term

"Down's syndrome"-and he was afraid that he was not going to be able to

sort enough meaningful thoughts from the babble to get a fix on Thomas's

location.  Depending on the size of his IQ, Thomas might not know where

Cielo Vista Care Home was, even though he apparently lived there.

Then a series of images spun out of Thomas's mind, a well linked chain

of serial memories that still caused him some emotional pain: the trip

to Cielo Vista in a car with Julie and Bobby, on the day they first

checked him into the place.  This was different from most of Thomas's

other thoughts and memories, in that it was richly detailed and so

clearly retained that it unreeled like a length of motion-picture film,

giving Candy all he needed to know.  He saw the highways over which they

had driven that day, saw the route markers flashing past the car window,

saw every landmark at every turn, all of which Thomas had struggled

mightily to memorize because all through the trip he kept thinking, if I

don't like it there, if people are mean there, if it's too scary there,

if it's too much being alone there, I got to know how I find the way

back to Bobby and Julie anytime I want, remember this, remember all of

this, turn there at the I, right there at the 7-11, don't forget that

7-11, and now go past those three palm trees.  What if they don't come

visit me?  No, that's a bad thing to think, they love me, they said they

would come.  But what if they don't?  Look there, remember that house,

you go past that house, remember that house with the blue roof Candy got

it all, as precisely a fix as he could have obtained from a geographer

who would have spoken precisely in degrees and minutes of longitude and

latitude.  It was more than he needed to know to make use of his gift.

He opened the trap and let Thomas go.

He got up from the rocker.

He pictured Cielo Vista Care Home as it appeared so exquisitely detailed

in Thomas's memory.

He pictured Thomas's room on the first floor of the no wing, at the

northwest corner.

Darkness, billions of hot sparks spinning in the void, velocity.

BECAUSE JULIE was in a let's-move-and-get-it-done mood they had stopped

at the house only fifteen minutes, long enough to throw toiletries and a

change of clothes in an over night bag.  At McDonald's, on Chapman

Avenue in Orange she swung by the drive-through window and got dinner to

on the way: Big Macs, fries, diet colas.  Before they reach the Costa

Mesa Freeway, while Bobby was still divvying the extra packets of

mustard and opening the containers that held the Big Macs, Julie had

clipped the radar detector to the rear view mirror, plugged it in the

Toyota's cigarette lighter and switched it on.  Bobby had never before

eaten fast food high speed, but he figured they averaged eighty-five

miles hour north on the Costa Mesa to the Riverside Freeway to the

Orange Freeway north, and he was still finishing french fries when they

were only a couple of exits away from the Foothill Freeway east of Los

Angeles.  Though the rush hour was well past and the traffic unusually

light, maintaining that pace required a lot of lane changing and nerve.

He said,

"We keep this up, I'll never have a chance to from the cholesterol in

this Big Mac."

"Lee says cholesterol doesn't kill us."

"Is that what he says?"

"He says we live forever, and all cholesterol can do is move us out of

this life a little sooner.  Same thing must be true I slip up and roll

this sucker a few times."

"I don't think that'll happen," he said.

"You're the best driver I've ever seen."

"Thank You, Bobby.  You're the best passenger."

"The only thing I wonder.

"Yeah?"

"If we don't really die, just move on, and I don't have to worry about

anything-why the hell did I bother to get diet colas?"  THOMAS ROLLED

off the bed, onto his feet.

"Derek, go, get out, he's coming!"  Derek was watching a horse talking

on TV, and he didn't hear Thomas.

The TV was in the room's middle, between the beds, and by the time

Thomas got there and grabbed Derek to make him listen, a funny sound was

all around them, not funny ha-ha but funny weird, like somebody

whistling but not whistling.  There was wind, too, a couple of puffs,

not warm or cold either, but it made Thomas shiver when it blew on him.

Pulling Derek off his chair, Thomas said,

"Bad Thing's coming, you get out, you go, like I said before, now!"

Derek just made a dumb face at him, then smiled, like- he figured Thomas

was pretending to be funny the way the Three Stooges pretended.  He'd

forgot all about the promise he made Thomas.  He'd thought the Bad Thing

was going to be poached eggs for breakfast, and when poached eggs never

showed up on his plate, he figured he was safe, but now he wasn't safe

and didn't know it.

More funny-weird whistling.  More wind.

Giving Derek a shove, making him get started for the door, Thomas

shouted,

"Run!"  The whistling stopped, the wind stopped, and all of a sudden

from nowhere the Bad Thing was there.  Between them and the open door.

It was a man, like Thomas already knew it was, but it was more than just

a man.  It was darkness poured in the shape of a man, like a piece of

the night itself that came in through the window, and not just because

it wore a black T-shirt and black pants but because it was all deep dark

inside, you could tell.

Right away Derek was afraid.  Nobody needed to tell him this was a Bad

Thing, not now when he could see it with his own eyes.  But he didn't

see it was too late to run, and he went straight at the Bad Thing, like

maybe he could push past it, which must have been what he was figuring

because Derek wasn't dumb enough to figure he could knock it do it was

so big.

The Bad Thing grabbed him and lifted him before he any chance to get

around it, lifted him right up off the floor like he didn't weigh any

more than a pillow.  Derek scream and the Bad Thing slammed him against

the wall so hard scream stopped, and pictures of Derek's mom and dad a

brother fell off the wall, not the one where Derek got slam but another

wall all the way around the room from him a over his bed.

The Bad Thing was so fast.  That was the worst thing about it, how awful

fast it was.  It slammed Derek against the wall.  Derek's mouth fell

open but no more sound came from him the Bad Thing slammed him again,

right away, harder, thou the first time was hard enough for anybody, and

Derek's e went funny.  The Bad Thing took him away from the wall a

slammed him down on the worktable.  The table kind of shuttered like it

would fall apart, but it didn't.  Derek's head over the table edge,

hanging down, so Thomas was looking his face, upside-down eyes blinking

fast, upside-down more open real wide but no sound coming out.  He

looked up from Derek's face, looked right across Derek's body at the Bad

Thing, which was looking at him and grinning, like all this was a joke,

funny ha-ha, which it wasn't, no way.  Then it picked up the scissors on

the edge of the worktable, the ones Thomas used to make his picture

poems, the ones that almost fell on the floor when it slammed Derek on

the table.  It made the scissors go into Derek and bring the blood out

of him, into Derek who wouldn't hurt no one himself, except

himself,wouldn't know how to hurt anyone.  And the Bad Thing get the

scissors go in again and bring more blood out of another place in Derek,

and in again, and again.  Then blood was coming Out of just four places

on Derek's chest and belly who the scissors had been made to go in, but

out of his mouth a nose too.  The Bad Thing lifted Derek off the table,

the scissors still sticking out of his front, and threw him like he was

just a Pillow.  No, like he was a garbage bag, threw him like the

Sanitation Men threw the garbage bags onto their Sanitation Truck. Derek

landed on his bed, on his back on bed, with the scissors still in him,

and didn't move and

gone to the Bad Place, you could tell.  And the worst thing was it all

happened so fast, faster than Thomas could think what to do to stop it.

Footsteps in the hall, people running.

Thomas yelled for help.  the doorway.  Pete saw Pete, one of the aides,

showed up in Derek on the bed, scissors in him, blood coming out

everywhere, and he got afraid, you could see him get it.  He turned to

the Bad Thing and said,

"Who-" The Bad Thing grabbed him by the neck, and Pete made a sound like

something was stuck in his throat.  He put both his hands on the Bad

Thing's arm, which seemed bigger than Pete's two arms together, but he

couldn't make the Bad Thing let go.  The Bad Thing lifted him by his

neck, making his chin turn up and his head bend back, and then took hold

of him by the belt, too, and pitched him back out the door, into the

hall.  Pete hit a nurse who came running up just then, and they both

went down on the floor out there in the hall, all tangled up, her

screaming.

All of this in a few clock ticks.  So fast.

The Bad Thing made the door shut with a bang, saw you couldn't lock it,

then did the funniest thing of all, funny-weird, funny-scary.  He held

both his hands out at the door, and this blue light came from his hands

the way not-blue came from a flashlight.  Sparks flew from hinges and

around the knob and all around the door edges.  Everything metal smoked

and turned all soft, like butter when you put it on mashed potatoes.  It

was a Fire Door.  They said you had to keep your door closed if you ever

saw fire in the hall, not try to run in the hall, but keep your door

closed and stay put.  They called it a Fire Door because fire couldn't

get through it, they said, and Thomas always wondered why they didn't

call it a Fire Can't Get Through It Door, but he never asked.  The thing

was, a Fire Door was all metal, so it couldn't burn, but no* it melted

around the edges, and so did the metal frame, they melted together, it

didn't look like you could ever get through that door again.

People started pounding on the door from out there in the hall, tried to

make it open, couldn't, and shouted for Thomas and Derek.  Thomas knew

some voices and who they belonged to, and he wanted to yell for them to

help quick because he was in trouble, but he couldn't make a sound any

better.  Poor Derek.

The Bad Thing made the blue light stop.  Then it turned looked at

Thomas.  It smiled at him.  It didn't have a nice smile it said,

"Thomas?"

Thomas was surprised he could stand up, he was so scared He was against

the wall by the window, and he thought maybe making the lock open on the

window and push it and get out, which he knew how to do because of

Emerge Drills.  But he knew he wasn't fast enough, no way, because the

Bad Thing was the fastest he ever saw.

it took a step toward him, and another step.

"Are Thomas?"  For a while he still couldn't find the way to make sound

He could just move his mouth and sort of pretend to make sounds.  Then

while he was doing that, he figured maybe if told a lie and said he

wasn't Thomas, the Bad Thing won't believe him and just go away.  So

when all of a sudden he could make sounds, and then words, he said,

"No. I...  no...

Thomas.  He's gone out in the world now, he's got a big cue, he's a

high-end moron, so they moved him out in world."  The Bad Thing laughed.

It was a laugh that had no future in it, the worst Thomas ever heard.

The Bad Thing said,

" the hell are you, Thomas?  Where do you come from?  H come a dummy

like you can do something I can't?"  Thomas didn't answer.  He didn't

know what to say.

wished the people in the hall would stop pounding on the door and find

some other way to get in, because pounding was working.  Maybe they

could call the cops and tell them to bring the Jaws of Life, yeah, the

Jaws of Life, like you saw them on the TV news when a person was in a

wrecked car couldn't get out.  They could use the Jaws of Life to pull

the door the way they pulled at smashed-up cars to get people out of

them.  He hoped the cops wouldn't say, we're sorry we can only open car

doors with the Jaws of Life, we can open Care Home doors, because then

he was finished for"You going to answer me, Thomas?"  the Bad Thing ask

Derek's TV chair got turned around in the fight, and it was between

Thomas and the Bad Thing.  The Bad Thing held one hand out at the chair,

just one, and the blue light whoosh!  and the chair blew up in

splinters, like all the toothpicks in the world.  Thomas threw his hands

over his face just fast enough so no splinters went in his eyes.  Some

went in the backs of his hands and even in his cheeks and chin, and he

could feet some of them in his shirt, poking his belly, but he didn't

feel any hurt because he was so busy feeling scared.

He took his hands from his eyes right away, because he had to see where

the Bad Thing was.  Where it was was right on top of him, with soft bits

of the chair insides floating in the air in front of its face.

"Thomas?"  it said, and it put one of its big hands on the front of

Thomas's neck the way it did Pete a while ago.

Thomas heard words coming from himself, and he couldn't believe he was

making them, but he was.  Then when he forgot what he said to the Bad

Thing, he couldn't believe he said it, but he did:

"You're not Being Sociable."  The Bad Thing grabbed him by the belt and

kept hold of him by the neck and lifted him off the floor and pulled him

away from the wall, then slammed him into the wall, the same way it did

Derek, and, oh, it hurt worse than Thomas ever before hurt in his life.

THE INTERIOR garage door had a dead bolt but no security chain.

Pocketing his keys, Clint entered the kitchen at ten minutes past eight

and saw Felina sitting at the table, reading a magazine while she waited

for him.

She looked up and smiled, and his heart thumped faster about her, just

like in every sappy love story ever written.

the sigh He wondered how this could have happened to him.  He had been

so self-contained before Felina.  He had been proud of the fact that he

needed no one for intellectual stimulation or emotional support, and

that he was therefore not vulnerable to the pains and disappointments of

human relationships.  Then he had met her.  When he caught his breath,

he had been as vulnerable as anyone-and glad of it.

She looked terrific in a simple blue dress with a red belt and matching

red shoes.  She was so strong yet so gentle, so tough yet so fragile.

He went to her, and for a while they stood by the refrigerator 7tor,

next to the sink, holding each other and kissing, neither of them

speaking in either of the ways they could.  Clint thought they would

have been happy, just then, even if!"  of them had been deaf and mute,

capable of neither lip reading nor sign language, because at that moment

what made them happy was the very fact of being together, which no would

could adequately express anyway.

Finally he said,

"What a day!  Can't wait to tell you all about it.  Let me clean up real

quick, change clothes.  We'll be of here by eight-thirty, go over to

Caprabello's, get a corner booth, some wine, some pasta, some garlic

bread-" Some heartburn.

He laughed because it was true.  They both loved Caprablo's, but the

food was spicy.  They always suffered for the indulgence.

He kissed her again, and she sat down with her magazine and he went

through the dining room and down the hall the bathroom.  While he let

the water run in the sink to it hot, he plugged in his electric razor

and began to shave, grinning at himself in the mirror because he was

such a damn lucky guy.

THE BAD THING, was right in his face, snarling at him, I of questions,

too many for Thomas to think about and answer even if he was sitting in

a chair quiet and happy, instead lifted ofF the floor and held against

the wall with his whole body hurting so bad he had to cry.  He kept

saying,

"I'm full up, I, full up."  Always when he said that, people stopped

asking him things or telling him things, they let him take time to make

his head clear.  But the Bad Thing was not like other people.  It didn't

care if his head was clear, it just wanted answers.  W was Thomas?  Who

was his mother?  Who was his father Where did he come from?  Who was

Julie?  Who was Bobby Where was Julie?  Where was Bobby?

Then the Bad Thing said,

"Hell, you're just a dummy.  Y don't know the answers, do You?  You're

just as stupid as are stupid-looking."  It Pulled Thomas away from the

wall, held him off the floor with one hand on his neck, so Thomas

couldn't breathe good Thomas in the face, hard, and Thomas didn't want

It slapped to keep crying, but he couldn't stop, he hurt and was scared.

"Why do they let people like you live?"  the Bad Thing asked.

It let go of Thomas, and Thomas dropped on the floor.  The Bad Thing

looked down at him in a mean way that made Thomas angry almost as much

as it made him scared.  Which was funny-weird, because he almost never

was angry.  And this was the first time he was ever angry and scared

both at the same time.  But the Bad Thing was looking at him like he was

just a bug or some dirt on the floor that had to be made clean.

"Why don't they kill you people at birth?  What're you good for?  Why

don't they kill you at birth and chop you up and make dog food out of

you?"  Thomas had memories of how people, out there in the world, looked

at him that way or said mean things, and how Julie always Told Them OfF.

She said Thomas didn't have to be nice to people like that, said he

could tell them they were Being Rude.  Now Thomas was angry like he had

Every Right To Be, and even if Julie never told him he could be angry

about these things, he probably would be angry anyway, because some

things you just knew were right or wrong.

The Bad Thing kicked him in the leg, and was going to kick him again,

you could tell, but a noise was made at the window.  Some of the aides

were at the window.  They broke a little square of glass and reached

through, wanting to find the lock.

When the glass made a breaking sound, the Bad Thing turned from Thomas

and held its hands up at the window, like it was asking the aides to

stop wanting in.  But Thomas knew what it was going to do was make the

blue light.

Thomas wanted to warn the aides, but be figured nobody would hear him or

listen to him until it was too late.  So while the Bad Thing's back was

turned, he crawled across the floor, away from the Bad Thing, even if

crawling hurt, even if he had to go through spots of Derek's blood, all

wet, and it made him sick on top of being angry and scared.

Blue light.  Very bright.

Something exploded.

He beard glass falling and worse, like maybe not just the whole window

blew out on the aides but part of the wall too.

People screamed.  Most of the screams cut off quick-like, but one of

them went on, it was real bad, like somebody out in dark past the

blown-up window was made to hurt even worst than Thomas.

Thomas didn't look back because he was all the way around the side of

Derek's bed now, where he couldn't see the wind anyway from where he was

on the floor.  And, besides, he knew what he wanted now, where he wanted

to go, and he had get there before the Bad Thing got interested in him

again Quick-like, he crawled to the top end of the bed and look up and

saw Derek's arm hanging over the side, blood running down under his

shirtsleeve and across his hand and drip-d dripping off his fingers.  He

didn't want to touch a dead person not even a dead person he liked.  But

this was what he had do, and he was used to having to do all sorts of

things wished he didn't-that was what life was like.  So he grabbed the

edge of the bed and pulled himself up as fast as he could trying not to

feel the bad hurt in his back and in his kicking leg, because feeling it

would make him stiff and slow.  Deryk was right there, eyes open, mouth

open, blood-wet, so sad, scary, on top of the pictures of his folks that

fell off the table still dead, off for always and ever to the Bad Place.

Thomas grabbed the scissors sticking out of Derek, pulled them loo

telling himself it was okay because Derek couldn't feel an thing now, or

ever.

"You!"  the Bad Thing said, Thomas turned to see where the Bad Thing

was, and when it was was right behind him, all the way around the bed,

coming at him.  So he shoved the scissors at it, hard as he could and

the Bad Thing's face made a surprised look.  The scissors went in the

front of the Bad Thing's shoulder.  The Bad Thing looked even more

surprised.  The blood came.

Letting go of the scissors, Thomas said,

"For Derek," Thomas said, "for me.', He wasn't sure what would happen,

but he figured that making the blood come would hurt the Bad Thing and

maybe it dead, like it made Derek dead.  Across the room where the

window wasn't any more and where part of there wasn't any more, some

smoke coming from the broken end of things.  He figured he was going to

run over there and through the hole, even if the night was out there on

the other side.

But he never figured on what did happen, because the Bad Thing acted

like the scissors weren't even in it, like blood wasn't being let loose

from it, and it grabbed him and lifted him up again.  It slammed him

into Derek's dresser, which was a lot more hurt than the wall because

the dresser was made with knobs and edges the wall didn't have.

He heard something crack in him, heard something tear.  But the funny

thing was, he wasn't crying any more and didn't want to cry any more,

like he'd used up all the tears in himself The Bad Thing put its face

close to Thomas's face, so their eyes were only a couple inches apart.

He didn't like looking in the Bad Thing's eyes.  They were scary.  They

were blue, but it was like they were really dark, like under the blue

was a lot of stuff as black as the night out past the gone window.

But the other funny thing was, he wasn't as scared as he was a while

ago, like he'd used up all his being scared just like he'd used up his

tears.  He looked in the Bad Thing's eyes, and he saw all that big dark,

darkness.  The dark that came over the world each day when the sun went

away, and he knew it was wanting to make him dead, going to make him

dead, and that was okay.  He was not so afraid of being made dead as he

always thought he would be.  It was still a Bad Place, death, and he

wished he didn't have to go there, but he had a funny-nice feeling about

the Bad Place all of a sudden, a feeling that maybe it wouldn't be so

lonely over there as he always figured it was, not even as lonely as it

was on this side.  He felt maybe someone was over there who loved him,

someone who loved him more than even Julie loved him, even more than

their dad used to love him, someone who was all bright, no dark at all,

so bright you could only look at Him sideways.

The Bad Thing held Thomas against the dresser with one hand, and with

its other hand it pulled the scissors out of itself.

Then it put the scissors in Thomas.

This light started to fill up Thomas, this light that loved him, and he

knew he was going away.  He hoped when he was all gone, Julie would know

how brave he was right at the end, how he stopped crying and stopped

being scared and fought back.  And then all of a sudden he remembered he

hadn't sent a warning to Bobby that the Bad Thing might be coming for

them, too, and he started to do that.

-the scissors went in again Then he all of a sudden knew something even

more important he had to do.  He had to let Julie know that the Bad

Place was not so bad, after all, there was a light over there that love

you, you could tell.  She needed to know about it because deep down she

really didn't believe it.  She figured it was all dark and lonely the

way Thomas once figured it was, so she counted each clock tick and

worried about all she had to do before he time ran out, all she had to

learn and see and feel and get, a she had to do for Thomas and for Bobby

so they'd be ok if Something Happened To Her.

-and the scissors went in again And she was happy with Bobby, but she

was never going to be real happy until she knew she didn't have to be so

angry about everything ending in a big dark.  She was so nice it was

hard to figure she was angry inside, but she was.  Thomas only figured

it out now, as the light was filling him up, figured out how terrible

angry Julie was.  She was angry that all the hard work and all the hope

and all the dreams and all the trying and doing and loving didn't matter

in the end because you were sooner or later made dead forever.

-the scissors If she knew about the light, she could stop being angry

deep down.  So Thomas sent that, too, along with a warning, an with

three last words to her and to Bobby, words of his own all three things

at once, hoping they wouldn't get mixed up: The Bad Thing's coming, look

out, the Bad Thing, there ù light that loves you, the Bad Thing, I love

you too, and there ù light, there's a light, THE BAD THING'S COMING AT

8:15 they were on the Foothill Freeway, rocketing toward the junction

with the Ventura Freeway, which they would follow across the San

Fernando Valley almost to the ocean before turning north toward Oxnard,

Ventura, and eventually Santa Barbara.  Julie knew she should slow down,

but she couldn't.  Speed relieved her tension a little; if she stayed

even close to the fiftY-five-mile-an-hour limit, she was pretty sure

that she would start to scream before they were past Burbank.

A Benny Goodman tape was on the stereo.  The exuberant melodies and

syncopated rhythms seemed in time and sympathy with the headlong rush of

the car; and if they had been in a movie, Goodman's sounds would have

been perfect background music to the tenebrous panorama of

light-speckled night hills through which they passed from city to city,

suburb to suburb.

She knew why she was so tense.  In a way she could never have

anticipated, The Dream was within their grasp they could lose everything

as they reached for it.  Everything.  Hope.

Each other.  Their lives.

Sitting in the seat beside her, Bobby trusted her so implicitly that he

could doze at more than eighty miles an hour, even though he knew that

she, too, had slept only three hours last night.  From time to time she

glanced at him, just because it felt good to have him there.

He did not yet understand why they were going north to check out the

Pollard family, stretching their obligation to the client beyond reason,

but his bafflement sprang from the fact that he was nearly as good a man

as he appeared to be.  He sometimes bent the rules and broke the laws on

behalf of their clients, but he was more scrupulous in his personal life

than anyone Julie had ever known.  She had been with him once when a

newspaper-vending machine gave him a copy of the Sunday Los Angeles

Times, then malfunctioned and returned three of his four quarters to

him, whereupon he had repaid all three into the coin slot, even though

that same machine had malfunctioned to his disadvantage on other

occasions over the years and was into him for a couple of bucks.

"Yeah, well," he'd said, blushing when she had laughed at his

goody-goody deed,

"maybe the machine can be crooked and still live with itself, but I

can't."  Julie could have told him that they were hanging with the

Pollard case because they saw a once-in-a-lifetime shot at really big

bucks, the Main Chance for which every hustler in the world was looking

and which most of them would never find.

Frank had shown them all that cash the From the moment of flight bag and

told them about the second cache back at the motel, they were locked in

like rats in a maze, drawn forward by the smell of cheese, even though

each of them had taken a turn at protesting any interest in the game.

When Frank came back to that hospital room from God-knew_where, with

another three hundred thousand, neither she nor Bobby even 7 I raised

the issue of illegality, though it was by that time longer possible to

pretend that Frank was entirely an innocent By then the smell of cheese

was too strong to be resisted a all.  They were plunging ahead because

they saw the chance to use Frank to cash out of the rat race and buy

into The Dream sooner than they had expected.  They were willing to use

dirty money and questionable means to get to their desire end, more

willing than they could admit to each other, though Julie supposed it

could be said in their favor that they were not yet so greedy that they

could simply steal the money an the diamonds from Frank and abandon him

to the mercy of his psychotic brother; or maybe even their sense of duty

t their client was a lie now, a virtue they could point to late when

they tried to justify, to themselves, their other less-than noble acts

and impulses.

She could have told him all that, but she didn't, because she did not

want to argue with him.  She had to let him figure i out at his own

pace, accept it in his own way.  If she tried to tell him before he was

able to understand it, he'd deny what she said.  Even if he admitted to

a fraction of the truth, he' trot out an argument about the rightness of

The Dream, the basic morality of it, and use that to justify the means

to the end.  But she didn't think a noble end could remain purely noble

if arrived at by immoral means.  And though she could not turn away from

this Main Chance, she worried that when they achieved The Dream it would

be sullied, not what it might have been.

Yet she drove on.  Fast.  Because speed relieved some of he fear and

tension.  It numbed caution too.  And without caution she was less

likely to retreat from the dangerous confrontation with the Pollard

family that seemed inevitable if they were to seize the opportunity to

obtain immense and liberating wealth They were in a clearing in traffic,

with nothing close behind them and trailing the nearest forward car by

about a quarter of a mile, when Bobby cried out and sat up in his seat

as i warning her of an imminent collision.  He jerked forward, pulling

the shoulder harness taut, and put his hands on his head as though

stricken by a sudden migraine.

Frightened, she let up on the accelerator, lightly tapped the brake

pedal, and said,

"Bobby, what is it?"  In a voice coarsened by fear and sharpened by

urgency speaking above the music of Benny Goodman, he said,

"Bathing, the Bad Thing, look out, there's a light, there's a light that

loves you-" CANDY LOOKED down at the bloody body at his feet and knew

that he should not have killed Thomas.  Instead, he should have taken

him away to a private place and tortured the answers out of him even if

it took hours for the dummy to remember everything Candy needed to know.

It could even have been fun.

But he was in a rage greater than any he had ever known, and he was less

in control of himself than at any time in his life since the day he had

found his mother's dead body.  He wanted vengeance not only for his

mother but for himself and for everyone in the world who ever deserved

revenge and never got it.  God had made him an instrument of revenge,

and now Candy longed desperately to fulfill his purpose as he had never

fulfilled it before.  He yearned not merely to tear open the throat and

drink the blood of one sinner, but of a great multitude of sinners.  If

ever his rage was to be dissipated, he needed not only to drink blood

but to become drunk on it, bathe in it, wade through rivers of it, stand

on land saturated with it.  He wanted his mother to free him from all

the rules that had restricted his rage before, wanted God to turn him

loose.

He heard sirens in the distance, and knew that he must go soon.

Hot pain throbbed in his shoulder, where the scissors had parted muscle

and scraped bone, but he would deal with that when he traveled.  In

reconstituting himself, he could easily remake his flesh whole and

healthy.

Stalking through the debris that littered the floor, he looked for

something that might give him a clue to the whereabouts of either the

Julie or the Bobby of whom Thomas had spoken.  They might know who

Thomas had been and why he had possessed a gift that not even Candy's

blessed mother had been able to impart.

He touched various objects and pieces of furniture, but all he could

extract from them were images of Thomas and Derek and some of the aides

and nurses who took care of them.  Then he saw a scrapbook lying open on

the floor, beside the table on which he had butchered Derek.  The open

pages were of all kinds of pictures that had been pasted in lines and

peculiar patterns.  He picked the book up and leafed through wondering

what it was, and when he tried to see the face the last person who had

handled it, he was rewarded with someone other than a dummy or a nurse.

A hard-looking man.  Not as tall as Candy but almost solid.

The sirens were less than a mile away now, louder by second.

Candy let his right hand glide over the cover of the scrapebook, seeking

...  seeking...

Sometimes he could sense only a little, sometimes a lot.  T time he had

to be successful, or this room was going to be dead end in his search

for the meaning of the dummy's pow Seeking...

He received a name.  Clint.

Clint had sat in Derek's chair sometime during the afternoon, paging

through this odd collection Of pictures.

When he tried to see where Clint had gone, after leaving the room, he

saw a Chevy that Clint was driving on the freeway then a place called

Dakota & Dakota.  Then the Chevy again on a freeway at night, and then a

small house in a place call Placentia.

The approaching sirens were very close now, probably coming up the

driveway into the Cielo Vista parking lot.

Candy threw the book down.  He was ready to go.

He had only one more thing to do before he teleported When he had

discovered that Thomas was a dummy, and who he had realized that Cielo

Vista was a place full of them, had been angered and offended by the

home's existence.

He held his hands two feet apart, palm facing palm.  Sky-blue light

glowed between them.

He remembered how neighbors and other people had talked about his

sisters-and also about him when, as a boy, he had been kept out of

school because of his problems.  Violet an Verbina looked and acted

mentally deficient, and they probably did not care if people called them

retards.  Ignorant people labeled him retarded, too, because they

thought he was excused from school for being as learning disabled and

strange as his sisters.  (Only Frank attended classes like a normal

child.) The light began to coalesce into a ball.  As more power poured

out of his hands and into the ball, it acquired a deeper shade of blue

and seemed to take on substance, as if it were a solid object floating

in the air.

Candy had been bright, with no learning disabilities at all.  His mother

taught him to read, write, and do math; so he got angry when he

overheard people say he was a deadhead.  He had been excused from school

for other reasons, of course, mainly because of the sex thing.  When he

got older and bigger, nobody called him retarded or made jokes about

him, at least not within his hearing.

The sapphire-blue sphere looked almost as solid as a genuine sapphire,

but as big as a basketball.  It was nearly ready.

Having been unjustly tagged with the retarded label, Candy had not grown

up with sympathy for the genuinely disabled, but with an intense

loathing for them that he hoped would make it clear to even ignorant

people that he definitely was not-and never had been-one of them.  To

think such a thing of him-or of his sisters, for that matter-was an

insult to his sainted mother, who was incapable of bringing a moron into

the world.

He cut off the flow of power and took his hands away from the sphere.

For a moment he stared at it, smiling, thinking about what it would do

to this offensive place.

Through the missing window and the partially shattered walls, the wail

of the sirens became deafening, then suddenly subsided from a

high-pitched shriek to a low growl that spiraled toward silence.

"Help's here, Thomas," he said, and laughed.

He put one hand against the sap hire sphere and gave it a shove.  It

shot across the room as if it were a ballistic missile fired from its

silo.  It smashed through the wall behind Derek's bed, leaving a ragged

hole as big as anything a cannonball could have made, through the wall

beyond that, and through every additional wall that stood before it,

spewing flames as it went, setting fire to everything along its path.

Candy heard people screaming and a hard explosion, as he did a fadeout

on his way to the house in Placentia.

BOBBY STOOD at the side of the freeway, holding on to the open car door,

gasping for breath.  He had been sure he was going to throw up, but the

urge had passed.

"Are you all right?"  Julie asked anxiously.

"I...  think so.  Traffic shot past.  Each vehicle was trailed by a wake

of wind and a roar that gave Bobby the peculiar feeling that he a Julie

and the Toyota were still moving, doing eighty-five with him holding on

to the open door and her with a hand on his shoulder, magically keeping

their balance and avoiding road burn as they dragged their feet along

the pavement, with body driving.

The dream had seriously unsettled and disoriented him.

"Not a dream, really," he told her.  He continued to keep his head down,

peering at loose gravel on the shoulder of the highway, half expecting a

return of the cramping nausea.

"Not like the dream I had before, about us a the jukebox and the ocean

of acid."

"But about 'the bad thing' again."

"Yeah.  You couldn't call it a dream, though, because it just this..  -

this burst of words, inside my head."

"From where?"

"I don't know."  He dared to lift his head, and though a whirl of

dizziness swept through him, the nausea did not return.

He said,

"'Bad thing...  look out...  there's a light that loves You.  - -." I

can't remember it all.  It was so strong, so hard like somebody shouting

at me through a bullhorn that pressed against my ear.  Except that's not

right, either, because I didn't really hear the words, they were just

there, in my head But they felt loud, if that makes any sense.  And

there were images, like in a dream.  Instead there were these feelings,

as strong as they were confused.  Fear and joy, anger and forgiveness...

and right at the end of it, this strange sense of peace that I...  can't

describe."  A Peterbilt thundered toward them, towing the biggest

trailer the law allowed.  Sweeping out of the night behind its blazing

headlights, it looked like a leviathan swimming up from a deep marine

trench, all raw power and cold rage, with a hunger that could never be

satisfied.  For some reason, as it boomed past them, Bobby thought of

the man he had seen on the beach at Punaluu, and he shuddered.

Julie said,

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?"  He nodded.

"A little dizzy.  That's all."

"What now?"  He looked at her.

"What else?  We go on to Santa Barbara.

El Encanto Heights, bring this thing to an end...  somehow."  CANDY

ARRIVED in the archway between a living room and dining room.  No one

was in either place.

He heard a buzzing sound farther back in the house, and after a moment

he identified it was an electric razor.  It stopped.  Then he heard

water running in a sink, and the drone of a bath room exhaust fan.

He intended to head straight for the hall and the bath, take the man by

surprise.  But he heard a rustle of paper from the opposite direction.

He crossed the dining room and stepped into the kitchen doorway.  It was

smaller than the kitchen in his mother's house, but it was as spotlessly

clean and orderly as his mother's kitchen had not been since her death.

A woman in a blue dress was sitting at the table, her back to him.  She

was leaning over a magazine, turning the pages one after the other, as

if looking for something of interest to read.

Candy possessed a far greater control of his telekinetic talents than

Frank enjoyed, and in particular could teleport more efficiently and

swiftly than Frank, creating less air displacement and less noise from

molecular resistance.  Nevertheless he was surprised that she had not

gotten up to investigate, the sounds he had made during arrival had been

only one room away from her and, surely, odd enough to prick her!"

curiosity.

She turned a few more pages, then leaned forward to where He could not

see much of her from behind.  Her hair thick, lustrous, and so black it

seemed to have been spun from the same loom as the night.  Her shoulders

and back were muscular.  Her legs, which were both to one side of the

chair crossed at the ankles, were shapely.  If he had been a man with

any interest in sex, he Supposed he would have been excited by the curve

of her calves.

Wondering what she looked like-and suddenly overwhelmed by a need to

know how her blood would taste stepped out of the open doorway and took

three steps to her.  He made no effort to be silent, but she did not

look up.

The first she became aware of him was when he seized a handful of her

hair and dragged her, kicking and flailing, out of the chair.

He turned her around and was instantly excited by her.

He was indifferent to her shapely legs, the flare of her hips, trimness

of her waist, the fullness of her breasts.  Though beautiful, it was not

even her face that electrified him.  Something else.  A quality in her

gray eyes.  Call it vitality.  She was more alive than most people,

vibrant.

She did not scream but let out a low grunt of fear or an then struck him

furiously with both fists.  She pounded his chest, battered his face.

Vitality!  Yes, this one was full of life, bursting with life, her

vitality thrilled him far more than any bounty of sexual charms.

He could still hear the distant splash of water, the rattle-h of the

bathroom exhaust fan, and he was confident that he could take her

without drawing the attention of the man long as he could prevent her

from screaming.  He struck her on the side of the head with his fist,

hammered her before she could scream.  She slumped against him, not

unconscious dazed.

Shaking with the anticipation of pleasure, Candy placed her on her back,

on the table, with her legs trailing over the edge He spread her legs

and leaned between them, but not to commit rape, nothing as disgusting

as that.  As he lowered his face toward hers, she first blinked at him

in confusion, still rattlebrained from the blows she had taken.  Then

her eyes began to clear.  He saw horrified comprehension return to her,

and he went quickly for her throat, bit deep, and found the blood, which

was clean and sweet, intoxicating.

She thrashed beneath him.

She was so alive.  So wonderfully alive.  For a while.

WHEN THE deliveryman brought the pizza, Lee Chen took it into Bobby and

Julie's office and offered some to Hal.

Putting his book aside but not taking his stockinged feet off the coffee

table, Hal said,

"You know what that stuff does to your arteries?"  :'Why's everyone so

concerned about my arteries today?"

'You're such a nice young man.  We'd hate to see you dead before you're

thirty.  Besides, we'd always wonder what clothes you might've worn

next, if you'd lived."

"Not anything like what you're wearing, I assure you."  Hal leaned over

and looked in the box that Lee held down to him.

"Looks pretty good.  Rule of thumb-any pizza they'll bring to you,

they're selling service instead of good food.  But this doesn't look bad

at all, you can actually tell where the pizza ends and the cardboard

begins."  Lee tore the lid off the box, put it on the coffee table, and

put two slices of pizza on that makeshift plate.

"There."

"You're not going to give me half',."

"What about the cholesterol?"

"Hell, cholesterol's just a little animal fat, it isn't arsenic."  WHEN

THE woman's strong heart stopped beating, Candy pulled back from her.

Though blood still seeped from her ravaged throat, he did not touch

another drop of it.  The thought of drinking from a corpse sickened him.

He remembered his sisters' cats, eating their own each time one of the

pack died, and he grimaced.

Even as he raised his wet lips from her throat, he heard the door open

farther back in the house.  Footsteps approached.  Candy quickly circled

the table, putting it and the woman between himself and the doorway to

the dining room From the vision induced by the dummy's scrapbook of

pictures, Candy knew that Clint would not be as easy to kill as most

people were.  He preferred to put a little distance between them, give

himself time to size up his opponent rather than take the guy by

surprise.

Clint appeared in the doorway.  Except for his outfit slacks, navy-blue

blazer, maroon V-neck, white shirt looked the same as the psychic

impression he had left on the book.  He had pumped a lot of iron in his

time.  His hair thick, black, and combed straight back from his

forehead.

He had a face like carved granite, and a hard look in his eyes Excited

by the recent kill, by the taste of blood still in his mouth, Candy

watched the man with interest, wondering what would happen next.  There

were all sorts of ways it could and not one of them would be dull.

Clint did not react as Candy expected.  He did not show surprise when he

saw the woman sprawled dead upon the table he did not seem horrified,

shattered by the loss of her, or raged.  Something major changed in his

stony face, though below the surface, like tectonic plates shifting

under the earth's crust.

Finally he met Candy's gaze, and said,

"You."  The note of recognition in that single word was unsettling For a

moment.  Candy could think of no way this man could know him-then he

remembered Thomas.

The possibility that Thomas had told this man-and perhaps others-about

Candy was most frightening to Candy since his mother's death.  His

service in God's army of avengers was a deeply private matter, a secret

should not have been spread beyond the Pollard family.

mother had warned him that it was all right to be proud doing God's

work, but that his pride would lead him to a if he boasted of his divine

favor to others.

"Satan," she told him, "constantly seeks the names of lieutenants in

Garrny-which is what you are-and when he finds them, destroys them with

worms that eat them alive from wit worms fat as snakes, and he rains

fire on them too.  If you can't keep the secret, you'll die and go to

Hell for your big mouth."

"Candy," Clint said.

The use of his name erased whatever doubt remained that the secret had

been passed outside the family and that Candy was in deep trouble,

though he had not broken the code of silence himself.

He imagined that even now Satan, in some dark and steaming place, had

tilted his head and said,

"Who?  Who did you say?  What was his name?  Candy?  Candy who?"  As

furious as he was frightened, Candy started around the kitchen table,

wondering if Clint had learned about him from Thomas.  He was determined

to break the man, make him talk before killing him.

In a move as unexpected as his rock-calm acceptance of the woman's

murder, Clint reached inside his jacket, withdrew a revolver, and fired

two shots.

He might have fired more than two, but those were the only ones Candy

heard.  The first round hit him in the stomach, the second in the chest,

pitching him backward.  Fortunately he sustained no damage to his head

or heart.  If his brain tissue had been scrambled, disturbing the

mysterious and fragile connection between brain and mind, leaving his

mind trapped within his ruined brain before he had a chance to separate

the two, he would not have possessed the mental ability to teleport,

leaving him vulnerable to a coup de grace.  And if his heart had been

stopped instantaneously by a well-placed bullet, before he could

dematerialize, he would have fallen down dead where he'd stood.  Those

were the only wounds that might finish him.  He was many things, but he

was not immortal; so he was grateful to God for letting him get out of

that kitchen and back to his mother's house alive.

THE VENTURA FREEWAY.  Julie drove fast, though not as fast as she had

earlier.  On the tapedeck: Artie Shaw's "Night mare."  Bobby brooded,

staring through the side window at the nightscape.  He could not stop

thinking about the blare of words that had seared through him, loud as a

bomb blast and bright as a blast-furnace fire.  He had come to terms

with the dream that had frightened him last week; everyone had bad

dreams.  Though exceptionally vivid, almost more real than real life,

there had been nothing uncanny about it-or so he had convinced himself.

But this was different.  He could believe that these urgent, lava-hot

words had erupted from some subconscious.  A dream, with complex

Freudian message couched in elaborate scenes and symbols-yes, that was

understandable; after all, the subconscious dealt in euphemisms a

metaphors.  But this wordburst had been blunt, direct, like telegraph

delivered on a wire plugged directly into his cerebral cortex.

When he wasn't brooding, Bobby was fidgeting.  Because Thomas.  For some

reason, the longer he dwelt on the blaze of words the more Thomas

slipped into his thoughts.  He could see connection between the two, so

he tried to put Thomas out of his mind and concentrate on turning up an

explanation for thee experience.  But Thomas gently, insistently

returned, again and again.  After a while Bobby got the uneasy feeling

there was a link between the wordburst and Thomas, though he had no

ghost of an idea what it might be.

Worse, as the miles rolled up on the odometer and they reached the

western end of the valley, Bobby began to understand that Thomas was in

danger.  And because of me and Julie Bobby thought.

Danger from whom, from what?

The biggest danger that Bobby and Julie faced, right now was Candy

Pollard.  But even that jeopardy lay in the future for Candy didn't know

about them yet; he was not aware that they were working on Frank's

behalf, and he might never become aware of it, depending on how things

went in Santa Barbara and El Encanto Heights.  Yes, he had seen Bobby on

the beach at Punaluu, with Frank, but he had no way of knowing who Bobby

was.  Ultimately, even if Candy became aware Dakota & Dakota's

association with Frank, there was no way that Thomas could be drawn into

the affair; Thomas was other, separate part of their lives.  Right?

"Something wrong?"  Julie said as she pulled the Toyota to the left, to

pass a big rig hauling Coors.

He could see nothing to be gained by telling her that Thomas might be in

danger.  She would be upset, worried.  And for what?  He was just

letting his vivid imagination run away with him.  Thomas was perfectly

safe down there in Cielo Vista.

"Bobby, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Why're you fidgeting?"

"Prostate trouble."

CHANNEL No. 5, a softly glowing lamp, cozy rose-patterned fabrics and

wallpaper...

He laughed with relief when he materialized in the bedroom, the bullets

left behind in that kitchen in Placentia, over a hundred miles away. His

wounds had knitted up as if they had never existed.  He had lost perhaps

an ounce of blood and a few flecks of tissue, because one of the bullets

had passed through him and out his back, carrying that material with it

before he'd transported himself beyond the revolver's range. Everything

else was as it should be, however, and his flesh did not harbor even the

memory of pain.

He stood in front of the dresser for half a minute, breathing deeply of

the perfume that wafted up from the saturated handkerchief.  The scent

gave him courage and reminded him of the abiding need to make them pay

for his mother's murder, all of them, not just Frank but the whole

world, which had conspired against her.

He looked at his face in the mirror.  The gray-eyed woman's blood was no

longer on his chin and lips; he had left it behind him, as he might

leave water behind when teleporting out of a rainstorm.  But the taste

of it was still in his mouth.  And his reflection was without a doubt

that of vengeance personified.

Depending on the element of surprise and his ability to target his point

of arrival precisely now that he was familiar with the kitchen, he

returned to Clint's house.  He intended to enter at the dining-room

doorway, immediately behind the man, directly opposite the point from

which he had dematerialized.

Either the experience of being shot had shaken him more than he

realized, or the rage jittering through him had passed the critical

point at which it interfered with his concentration.  Whatever the

reason, he did not arrive where he intended, but by the door to the

garage, one-quarter instead of halfway around the room from his last

position, to the right of Clint and not near enough to rush him and

seize the gun before it could be fired.

Except Clint was not present.  And the woman's body had been removed

from the table.  Only the blood remained as proof that she perished

there.

Candy could not have been gone more than a minute-time he had spent in

his mother's room, plus a couple of seconds in transit each way.  He

expected to return to find Clint bent over the corpse, either grieving

or checking desperately for a pulse.  But as soon as he realized Candy

was gone, the man must have taken the body in his arms and...  And who

He must have fled the house, of course, hoping against hope that a faint

thread of life remained unbroken in the worn getting her out of the way

in case Candy returned.

Cursing softly-then immediately begging his mother's and God's

forgiveness for his foul language-Candy tried the door into the garage.

It was locked.  If he had left by that exit, Clint wouldn't have paused

to lock up behind himself.

He hurried out of the kitchen, through the dining room,ward the foyer of

the living room, to check out the front lawn and the street.  But he

heard a noise from deeper in the house and halted before he reached the

front door.  He changed direction, cautiously following the hallway back

to the bedroom A light was on in one of those rooms.  He eased to the

door and risked a glance inside.

Clint had just put the woman on the queen-size bed.  Candy watched, the

man pulled her skirt down over her legs.  He still had the revolver in

one hand.

For the Second time in less than an hour, Candy heard faint away sirens

swelling in the night.  The neighbors probably had heard the gunfire and

called the police.

Clint saw him in the doorway but did not bring up the question.  He did

not say anything, either, and the expression on his stone face remained

unchanged.  He seemed like a deaf-mute.  the strangeness of the man's

demeanor made Candy nervous and uncertain.

He thought there was a pretty good chance that Clint had emptied the gun

at him in the kitchen, even though he had telaPorted out of there with

the impact of the second slug.  Most likely, he had fired every round

reflexively, his trigger finger ruled by rage or fear or whatever he was

feeling.  He could not have carried the woman into the bedroom and

reloaded the gun, too, in the minute or so that Candy had been gone,

which meant Candy might be in no danger if he just walked up to the guy

and took the weapon away from him.

But he stayed in the doorway.  Either of those two shots could have been

dead-center in his heart.  The power within him was great, but he could

not exercise it quickly enough to vaporize an oncoming bullet.

instead of dealing with Candy in any fashion, the man turned away from

him, walked around the foot of the bed to the other side, and stretched

out beside the woman.

"What the hell?"  Candy said aloud.

Clint took hold of her dead hand.  His other hand held the.38 revolver.

He turned his head on the pillow to look toward her, and his eyes

glistened with what might have been unshed tears.  He put the muzzle of

the gun under his chin, and annihilated himself.

Candy was so stunned that he was unable to move for a moment or think

what to do next.  He was jolted out of his paralysis by the ululant

sirens, and realized that the trail from Thomas to Bobby and Julie,

whoever they were, might end here if he did not discover what link the

dead man on the bed shared with them.  If he ever hoped to learn who

Thomas had been, how Clint had known his name, or how many others knew

of him, if he wanted to learn how much danger he was in and how he might

slide out of it, he couldn't waste this opportunity.

He hurried to the bed, rolled the dead man onto his side, and withdrew

the wallet from his pants pocket.  He flipped it open and saw the

private investigator's license.  Opposite it, in another plastic window,

was a business card for Dakota & Dakota.

Candy remembered a vague image of the Dakota & Dakota offices, which had

come to him in Thomas's room when he had obtained a vision of Clint from

the scrapbook.  There was an address on the card.  And below the name

Clint Karaghiosis, in smaller type, were the names Robert and Julia

Dakota.

Outside, the sirens had died.  Someone was pounding on the front door.

Two voices shouted,

"Police!"  Candy threw the wallet aside and took the gun out of the dead

man's hand.  He broke open the cylinder.  It was a five shot weapon, and

all of the chambers were filled with expended cartridges.  Clint had

fired four rounds in the kitchen, but even in his moment of vengeful

fury, he had possessed enough control to save the last bullet for

himself.

"Just because of a woman?"  Candy said uncomprehendingly, as if the dead

man might answer him.

"Because he couldn't get sex from her any more now?  Why does sex matter

so much?  Couldn't you get sex from another woman?  Why was sex with

this one so important, you didn't want to live without it?"  They were

still pounding on the door.  Someone spoke through a bullhorn, but Candy

didn't pay attention to what was being said.

He dropped the gun and wiped his hand on his pants, cause he suddenly

felt unclean.  The dead man had handled it, and the dead man seemed to

have been obsessed with one question, the world was a cesspool of lust

and bauchery, and Candy was glad that God and his mother had spared him

from the sick desires that seemed to infect nearly everyone else.

He left that house of sinners.

SLUMPED ON the sofa, Hal Yamataka had a slice of pizza in one hand and

the MacDonald novel in the other, when he heard the hollow flowerlike

warble.  He dropped both to his feet.

the book and the food, and shot

"Frank?"  The half-open door swung slowly inward, not because it was

being pushed open by anyone but because a sudden draft, sweeping in from

the reception lounge, was strong enough to move it.

"Frank?"  Hal repeated.

As he crossed the room, the sound faded and the draft died.  But by the

time he reached the doorway, the unmelodiclar could teleport more

efficiently and swiftly than Frank, creating less air displacement and

less noise from molecular resistance.  Nevertheless he was surprised

that she had not gotten up to investigate, the sounds he had made during

arrival had been only one room away from her and, surely, odd enough to

prick her!" curiosity.

She turned a few more pages, then leaned forward to where He could not

see much of her from behind.  Her hair thick, lustrous, and so black it

seemed to have been spun from the same loom as the night.  Her shoulders

and back were muscular.  Her legs, which were both to one side of the

chair crossed at the ankles, were shapely.  If he had been a man with

any interest in sex, he Supposed he would have been excited by the curve

of her calves.

Wondering what she looked like-and suddenly overwhelmed by a need to

know how her blood would taste stepped out of the open doorway and took

three steps to her.  He made no effort to be silent, but she did not

look up.

The first she became aware of him was when he seized a handful of her

hair and dragged her, kicking and flailing, out of the chair.

He turned her around and was instantly excited by her.

He was indifferent to her shapely legs, the flare of her hips, trimness

of her waist, the fullness of her breasts.  Though beautiful, it was not

even her face that electrified him.  Something else.  A quality in her

gray eyes.  Call it vitality.  She was more alive than most people,

vibrant.

She did not scream but let out a low grunt of fear or an then struck him

furiously with both fists.  She pounded his chest, battered his face.

Vitality!  Yes, this one was full of life, bursting with life, her

vitality thrilled him far more than any bounty of sexual charms.

He could still hear the distant splash of water, the rattle-h of the

bathroom exhaust fan, and he was confident that he could take her

without drawing the attention of the man long as he could prevent her

from screaming.  He struck her on the side of the head with his fist,

hammered her before she could scream.  She slumped against him, not

unconscious dazed.

Shaking with the anticipation of pleasure, Candy placed her on her back,

on the table, with her legs trailing over the edge He spread her legs

and leaned between them, but not to commit rape, nothing as disgusting

as that.  As he lowered his face toward hers, she first blinked at him

in confusion, still rattlebrained from the blows she had taken.  Then

her eyes began to clear.  He saw horrified comprehension return to her,

and he went quickly for her throat, bit deep, and found the blood, which

was clean and sweet, intoxicating.

She thrashed beneath him.

She was so alive.  So wonderfully alive.  For a while.

WHEN THE deliveryman brought the pizza, Lee Chen took it into Bobby and

Julie's office and offered some to Hal.

Putting his book aside but not taking his stockinged feet off the coffee

table, Hal said,

"You know what that stuff does to your arteries?"  :'Why's everyone so

concerned about my arteries today?"

'You're such a nice young man.  We'd hate to see you dead before you're

thirty.  Besides, we'd always wonder what clothes you might've worn

next, if you'd lived."

"Not anything like what you're wearing, I assure you."  Hal leaned over

and looked in the box that Lee held down to him.

"Looks pretty good.  Rule of thumb-any pizza they'll bring to you,

they're selling service instead of good food.  But this doesn't look bad

at all, you can actually tell where the pizza ends and the cardboard

begins."  Lee tore the lid off the box, put it on the coffee table, and

put two slices of pizza on that makeshift plate.

"There."

"You're not going to give me half',."

"What about the cholesterol?"

"Hell, cholesterol's just a little animal fat, it isn't arsenic."  WHEN

THE woman's strong heart stopped beating, Candy pulled back from her.

Though blood still seeped from her ravaged throat, he did not touch

another drop of it.  The thought of drinking from a corpse sickened him.

He remembered his sisters' cats, eating their own each time one of the

pack died, and he grimaced.

Even as he raised his wet lips from her throat, he heard the door open

farther back in the house.  Footsteps approached.  Candy quickly circled

the table, putting it and the woman between himself and the doorway to

the dining room From the vision induced by the dummy's scrapbook of

pictures, Candy knew that Clint would not be as easy to kill as most

people were.  He preferred to put a little distance between them, give

himself time to size up his opponent rather than take the guy by

surprise.

Clint appeared in the doorway.  Except for his outfit slacks, navy-blue

blazer, maroon V-neck, white shirt looked the same as the psychic

impression he had left on the book.  He had pumped a lot of iron in his

time.  His hair thick, black, and combed straight back from his

forehead.

He had a face like carved granite, and a hard look in his eyes Excited

by the recent kill, by the taste of blood still in his mouth, Candy

watched the man with interest, wondering what would happen next.  There

were all sorts of ways it could and not one of them would be dull.

Clint did not react as Candy expected.  He did not show surprise when he

saw the woman sprawled dead upon the table he did not seem horrified,

shattered by the loss of her, or raged.  Something major changed in his

stony face, though below the surface, like tectonic plates shifting

under the earth's crust.

Finally he met Candy's gaze, and said,

"You."  The note of recognition in that single word was unsettling For a

moment.  Candy could think of no way this man could know him-then he

remembered Thomas.

The possibility that Thomas had told this man-and perhaps others-about

Candy was most frightening to Candy since his mother's death.  His

service in God's army of avengers was a deeply private matter, a secret

should not have been spread beyond the Pollard family.

mother had warned him that it was all right to be proud doing God's

work, but that his pride would lead him to a if he boasted of his divine

favor to others.

"Satan," she told him, "constantly seeks the names of lieutenants in

Garrny-which is what you are-and when he finds them, destroys them with

worms that eat them alive from wit worms fat as snakes, and he rains

fire on them too.  If you can't keep the secret, you'll die and go to

Hell for your big mouth."

"Candy," Clint said.

The use of his name erased whatever doubt remained that the secret had

been passed outside the family and that Candy was in deep trouble,

though he had not broken the code of silence himself.

He imagined that even now Satan, in some dark and steaming place, had

tilted his head and said,

"Who?  Who did you say?  What was his name?  Candy?  Candy who?"  As

furious as he was frightened, Candy started around the kitchen table,

wondering if Clint had learned about him from Thomas.  He was determined

to break the man, make him talk before killing him.

In a move as unexpected as his rock-calm acceptance of the woman's

murder, Clint reached inside his jacket, withdrew a revolver, and fired

two shots.

He might have fired more than two, but those were the only ones Candy

heard.  The first round hit him in the stomach, the second in the chest,

pitching him backward.  Fortunately he sustained no damage to his head

or heart.  If his brain tissue had been scrambled, disturbing the

mysterious and fragile connection between brain and mind, leaving his

mind trapped within his ruined brain before he had a chance to separate

the two, he would not have possessed the mental ability to teleport,

leaving him vulnerable to a coup de grace.  And if his heart had been

stopped instantaneously by a well-placed bullet, before he could

dematerialize, he would have fallen down dead where he'd stood.  Those

were the only wounds that might finish him.  He was many things, but he

was not immortal; so he was grateful to God for letting him get out of

that kitchen and back to his mother's house alive.

THE VENTURA FREEWAY.  Julie drove fast, though not as fast as she had

earlier.  On the tapedeck: Artie Shaw's "Night mare."  Bobby brooded,

staring through the side window at the nightscape.  He could not stop

thinking about the blare of words that had seared through him, loud as a

bomb blast and bright as a blast-furnace fire.  He had come to terms

with the dream that had frightened him last week; everyone had bad

dreams.  Thouflown from him, but it had been too short to attract

notice.  The explosion of the glass and the tinny clanging of the blinds

had been loud enough, but the action had been over before anyone could

have located the source of the sound.

A four-lane street encircled the Fashion Island shopping center and also

served the office towers that, like this one, stood on the outer rim.

Apparently, however, no cars had been on it when the man had fallen.

Now two appeared to the left, one behind the other.  Both passed without

slowing.  A row of shrubberies, between the sidewalk and the street,

prevented motorists from seeing the corpse where it lay.  The

office-tower ring of the sprawling complex was clearly not an area that

attracted pedestrians at night, so the dead man might remain

undiscovered until morning.

He looked across the street, at the restaurants and stores that were on

this flank of the mall, five or six hundred yards away.  A few people on

foot, shrunken by distance, moved between the parked cars and the

entrances to the businesses.  No one appeared to have seen anything-and

in fact it would not have been that easy to spot a darkly dressed man

plunging past a mostly dark building, aloft and visible for only seconds

before gravity finished him.

Candy cleared his throat, wincing in pain, and spat toward the dead man

below.

He tasted blood.  This time it was his own.

Turning away from the window, he surveyed the office, wondering where he

would find the answers he sought.  If he could locate Bobby and Julie

Dakota, they might be able to explain Thomas's telepathy and more

important, they might be able to deliver Frank into his hands.

AFTER TWICE responding to an alarm from the radar did and avoiding two

speed traps in the west valley, Julie cranked the Toyota back up to

eighty-five, and they dusted L.A.

off their heels.

A few raindrops spattered the windshield, but the spring rain did not

last.  She switched the wipers off moments after turning them on.

"Santa Barbara in maybe an hour," she said,

"as long cop with a sense of duty doesn't come along."  The back of her

neck ached, and she was deeply weary, she didn't want to trade places

with Bobby; she didn't have the patience to be a passenger tonight.  Her

eyes were sore not heavy; she could not possibly have slept.  The events

of the day had murdered sleep, and alertness was assured by thinking

about what might lie ahead, not just on the highway behind them but in

El Encanto Heights.

Ever since he'd been awakened by what he called the "wordburst," Bobby

had been moody.  She could tell he was worried about something, but he

didn't seem to want to talk about it yet.

After a while, in an obvious attempt to take his mind off wordburst and

whatever gloomy ruminations it had inspired he tried to strike up a

conversation about something different.  He lowered the volume on the

stereo, thereby trating the intended effect of Glenn Miller's "American

trol," and said, "You ever stop to think, four out of our eleven

employees are Asian-Americans?"  She didn't glance away from the road.

"So?"

"So why is that, do you think?"

"Because we hire only first-rate people, and it so happens that four of

the first-rate people who wanted to work for us were Chinese, Japanese,

and Vietnamese."

"That's part of it."

"Just part?"  she said.  "So what's the other part?  You think maybe the

wicked FuManchu turned a mind-control ray us from his secret fortress in

the Tibetan mountains and made us hire ''em?"

"That's part of it too," he said.  "But another part of it is I'm

attracted to the Asian personality.  Or to what people think of when

they think of the Asian personality: intelligence, a high degree of

self-discipline, neatness, a strong sense of tradition and order."

"Those are pretty much traits of everyone who works for us, not just

Jamie, Nguyen, Hal, and Lee.

"I know.  But what makes me so comfortable with Asian Americans is that

I buy into the stereotype of them, I feel everything will go along in an

orderly, stable fashion when I'm working with them, and I need to buy

into the stereotype because...  well, I'm not the kind of guy I've

always thought I was.  You ready to hear something shocking?"

"Always," Julie said.

OFTEN, WHEN Lee Chen was laboring in the computer room, he popped a CD

in his Sony Discman and listened to music through earphones.  He always

kept the door closed to avoid distraction, and no doubt some of his

fellow employees thought he was somewhat antisocial; however, when he

was engaged in the penetration of a complex and well-protected data

network, like the array of police systems he was still plundering, he

needed to concentrate.  Occasionally music distracted him as much as

anything, depending on his mood, but most of the time it was conducive

to his work.  The minimalist New Age piano solos of George Winston were

sometimes just the thing, but more often he needed rock-'n'-roll.

Tonight it was Huey Lewis and The News: "Hip to Be Square" and "The

Power of Love,"

"The Heart of Rock & Roll" and "You Crack Me Up."  Focused intently on

the terminal screen (his window on the mesmerizing world of cyberspace),

with

"Bad Is Bad" pouring into his ears through the headset, he might not

have heard a thing if, in the world outside, God had peeled back the sky

and announced the imminent destruction of the human race.

A COOL DRAFT circulated through the room from the broken window, but

growing frustration generated a compensate heat in Candy.  He moved

slowly around the spacious handling various objects, touching the

furniture, trying to get a vision that would reveal the whereabouts of

Frank.  Thus far he'd had no luck.

He could have pored through the contents of the desk drawers and filing

cabinets, but that would have taken hours,he didn't know where they

might have filed the information he was seeking.  He also realized he

might not recognize right stuff when he found it, for it might be in a

folder ore lope bearing a case name or code that was meaningless to And

though his mother had taught him to read and write, though he had been a

voracious reader just like her-until lost interest in books upon her

death-teaching himself subjects as well as any university could have

done, he never less trusted what his special gifts could reveal to him

more than anything he might find on paper, Besides, he had already

stepped into the lounge, obtain the Dakotas' home address and phone

number, and called to see if they were there.  An answering machine had

picked on the third ring, and he had left no message.  He didn't want to

know where the Dakotas lived, where they might up in time; he needed to

know where they were now, this minute, because he was in a fever to get

at them and wring ans from them.

He picked up a third Scotch-and-soda glass.  They were over the room.

The psychic residue on the tumbler gave an instant, vivid image of a man

named Jackie Jaxx, and pitched it waside in anger.  It bounced off the

sofa, onto the carpet, without shattering.

This Jaxx person left a colorful and noisy psychic impress everywhere in

his wake, the way a dog with poor bladder control would mark each step

on his route with a dribble of stiing urine.  Candy sensed that Jaxx was

currently with a large number of people, at a party in Newport Beach,

and he sensed that trying to find Frank or the Dakotas through i would

be wasted effort.  Even so, if Jaxx had been alone easily taken, Candy

would have gone straight to him slaughtered him, just because the guy's

lingering aura was brassy and annoying.

Either he had not yet found an object that one of the Dakotas had

touched long enough to leave an imprint, or neither of them was the type

who left a rich, lingering psychic residue in his wake.  For reasons

Candy could not fathom, some people were harder to trace than others.

He had always found tracing Frank to be of medium difficulty, but

tonight catching that scent was harder than usual.  Repeatedly he sensed

that Frank had been in the room, but at first he could locate nothing in

which the aura of his brother was coagulated.

Next he turned to the four chairs, beginning with the largest.  When he

skimmed his sensitive fingertips lightly over the upholstery, he

quivered with excitement, for he knew at once that Frank had sat there

recently.  A small tear marred the vinyl on one arm, and when Candy put

his thumb upon the rent, particularly vivid visions of Frank assaulted

him.

Too many visions.  He was rewarded with a whole series of place images,

where Frank had traveled after rising from the chair: the High Sierras;

the apartment in San Diego in which he had lived briefly four years ago;

the rusted front gate of their mother's house on Pacific Hill Road; a

graveyard; a book-lined study in which he'd stayed such a short time

that Candy could get only the vaguest impression of it; Punaluu Beach,

where Candy had nearly caught him....  There were so many images, from

so many travels, layered one atop another, that he could not clearly see

the later stops.

Disgusted, he pushed the chair out of his way and turned to the coffee

table, where two more tumblers stood.  Both contained melted ice and

Scotch.  He picked one up and, had a vision of Julie Dakota.

WHILE JULIE drove toward Santa Barbara as if they were competing in time

trials for the Indianapolis 500, Bobby told her the shocking thing: that

he was not, at heart, the laid-back guy he appeared to be on the

surface; that during his hectic travels with Frank-especially during the

moments when he had been reduced to a disembodied mind and a frantic

whirl of disconnected atoms-he'd discovered within himself a rich vein

of love for stability and order that ran deeper than he could ever have

imagined, a motherlode of stick-in-the-mudness; than delight in swing

music arose more from an appreciation the meticulosity of its structures

than from the dizzyingcal freedom embodied in jazz; that he was not half

the spirited man he'd thought he was...  and far more of a conservative

embracer of tradition that he would have hoped.

"In short," he said,

"all this time when you thought were married to an easy-going

young-James-Gamer you've actually been wed to an any-age-Charles-Bronson

type.

"

"I can live with you anyway, Charlie."

"This is serious.  Sort of I've tipped into my late thirties, no child.

I should've known this about myself a long time a

"You!"  I id."

"Huh?'

"You love order, reason, logic-that's why you got in line.of work where

you could right wrongs, help the innoc punish the bad.  That's why you

share The Dream withso we can get our little family in order, step out

of the!"  of the world as it is these days and buy into some peace

quiet.  That's why you won't let me have the Wurlitzer 95 those bubble

tubes and leaping gazelles are just a little too otic for you."  He was

silent a moment, surprised by her answer.

The lightless vastness of the sea lay to the west.

He said,

"Maybe you're right.  Maybe I've always knew what I am, deep down.  But

then isn't it unnerving that fooled myself with my own act for so long?"

"You haven't.  You're easy-going and a bit of Charles Bronson, which is

a good thing.  Otherwise we probably could communicate at all, since

I've got more Bronson in meanyone but Bronson."

"God, that's true!"

he said, and they both laughed.

The Toyota's speed had declined to under seventy.  She it UP to eighty

and said,

"BObby...  what's really onmind?"

"Thomas."  She glanced at him.

"What about Thomas?"

"Since that wordburst, I can't shake the feeling he's in danger."

"What did that have to do with him?"

"I don't know.  But I'd feel better if we could find a phone and put in

a call to Cielo Vista.  Just to be...  sure."  She let their speed fall

dramatically.  Within three miles they exited the freeway and pulled

into a service station.  There was a full-service lane.  While the

attendant washed their windows, checked the oil, and filled the tank

with premium unleaded, they went inside and used the pay phone.

It was a modern electronic version allowing everything from coin to

credit calls, on the wall next to a rack of snack crackers, candy bars,

and packages of beer nuts.  A condom machine was there, too, right out

in the open, thanks to the social chaos wrought by AIDS.  Using their

AT&T credit card, Bobby called Cielo Vista Care Home in Newport.

It didn't ring or give a busy signal.  He heard an odd series of

electronic sounds, then a recording informed him that the number he had

dialed was temporarily out of service as a result of unspecified line

problems.  The droning voice suggested that he try later.

He dialed the operator, who tried the same number, with the same

results.  She said,

"I'm sorry, sir.  Please call your party later."

"What line problems could they be having?"

"I wouldn't know, sir, but I'm sure service'll be restored soon."  He

had tilted the phone away from his ear, so Julie could lean in and hear

both sides of the exchange.  When he hung UP, he looked at her.  "Let's

go back.  I got this hunch Thomas needs us."

"Go back?  We're little more than half an hour from Santa Barbara now.

Much further to go home."

"He may need us.  It's not a strong hunch, I admit, but it's persistent

and...  weird."

"If he needs help urgently," she said,

"then we'd never get to him in time, anyway.  And if it's not so urgent,

it'll be okay if we go on to Santa Barbara, call again from the motel.

If he's sick or been hurt or something, the extra driving from here to

Santa Barbara and back will only add about an hour."

"Well...

"He's my brother, Bobby.  I care about him as much as you do, and I say

it'll be all right.  I love you, but you've never shown enough talent as

a psychic to make me hysterical a this."  He nodded.

"You're right.  I'm just...  jumpy.  My knees haven't settled down since

all that traveling with Frank."  Back on the highway, a few thing

tendrils of fog were creep in from the sea.  Sprinkles of rain fell

again, then stopped a less than a minute.  The heaviness of the air, and

an indefina but undeniable quality of oppressiveness in the utterly blue

night sky, portended a major storm.

When they had gone a couple of miles, Bobby said, should've called Hal

at the office.  While he's sitting around there waiting for Frank, he

could use some of our contactsthe phone company, the cops, make sure

everything's jake Cielo Vista."

"If the lines are still out when you make the call from motel," Julie

said,

"then you can bother Hal about it."  FROM THE weak psychic residue on

the drinking glass, Can received an image of Julie Dakota that was

recognizablysame face that had seeped from Thomas's mind earlier

inevening-except that it was not as idealized as it had been Thomas's

memory.  With his sixth sense he saw that she had gone home from the

office, to the address he had obtained earlier from the secret's

Rolodex. She hadthere a she ry bee time, then had gone somewhere in a

car with another pers most likely the man named Bobby.  He could see no

more, a he wished that the traces she left behind had been as stro as

those of Jaxx.

He put down the tumbler and decided to go to her hou Though she and

Bobby were not there now, he might be a to find an object that would,

like the liquor glass, lead him a other step or two along their trail.

If he found nothing, could return here and continue his search, assuming

the police had not arrived in response to the discovery of the dead m

outside.

mw LEE SWITCHED off the computer, then cut off the CD player too-Huey

Lewis and The News were in the middle of

"Walking On a Thin Line"-and removed the earphones.

Happy after a long and productive session in the land of silicon and

gallium arsenide, he stood, stretched, yawned, and checked his watch.  A

little after nine.  He'd been at work for twelve hours.

He should have wanted nothing more than to flop in bed and sleep half a

day.  But he figured he'd zip back to his condo, which was ten minutes

from the office, freshen up, and catch some nightlife.  Last week he'd

found a new club, Nuclear Grin, where the music was loud and hard-edgd,

the drinks unwatered, the crowd's politics unconsciously libertarian,

and the women hot.  He wanted to dance a little, drink a little, and

find someone who wanted to screw her brains out.

In this age of new diseases, sex was risky; it sometimes seemed that

drinking from the same glass as someone else was suicidal.  But after a

day in the painstakingly logical microchip universe, you had to get a

little wild, take some risks, dance on the edge of chaos, to get some

balance in your life.

Then he remembered how Frank and Bobby had vanished in front of his

eyes.  He wondered if maybe he hadn't already had enough wildness for

one day.

He picked up the latest printouts.  It was more stuff that he had

gleaned from police records, regarding the decidedly weird behavior of

Mr Blue, who would never need to get a little wild for balance, since he

was already chaos walking around in shoes.  Lee opened the door,

switcfied off the lights, went down the hall and through another door

into the lounge, intending to leave the printouts on Julie's desk and

say goodnight to Hal before splitting.

When he walked into Bobby and Julie's office, it looked like the

National Wrestling Federation had sanctioned a match there between tag

teams of three-hundred-pound hulks.  Furniture was overturned, and

Scotch glasses, some of them broken, were scattered over the floor.

Julie's desk was aslant and askew: tilting on one shattered leg; the top

no longer was properly aligned with the base, as if someone had gone at

it with prybars and hammers.

"Hal?"  No answer.

He gingerly pushed open the door to the adjoining bat

"Hal?"  The bathroom was deserted.

He went to the broken window.  A few small shards of gi still clung to

the frame.  Caught the light.  Jagged.

With one hand against the wall, Lee Chen carefully lea out.  He looked

down.  In a much different tone of voice, he"Hal?" CANDY MATERIALIZED in

the foyer of the Dakotas' house which was dark and silent.  He stood

quietly for a mom head cocked, until he was confident that he was alone.

His throat was healed.  He was whole again, and excited the prospects of

the night.

He began the search from there, putting his hand on doorknob in hope of

finding some of the residue that,lacking physical substance,

nevertheless provided the nourishment for his visions.  He felt nothing,

no doubt partly because the Dakotas had touched it only briefly upon

entering and parting the house.

Of course, a person could handle a hundred items, leaving psychic images

of himself on only one of them, then touch same hundred an hour later

and contaminate every onehis aura.  The reason for that was as

mysterious, to Candy, was so many people's interest in sex.  He remained

as grate to his mother for this talent as he was for all the others,

tracking his prey with psychometry was not always an or infallible

process.

The Dakotas, living room and dining room were unfurnished, which gave

him little to work with, although for so reason the emptiness made him

feel comfortable and at home That response puzzled him.  The rooms in

his mother's house were all furnished-as much with mold and fungus and!"

these days as with chairs, sofas, tables, and lamps; but hedenly

realized that, like the Dakotas, he lived in such a small Percentage of

the house that most of its chambers might as well have been bare,

carpetless, and sealed off.

The Dakotas' kitchen and family room were furnished a obviously lived

in.  Though it was unlikely that they had us the family room during

their brief stop between the office and wherever they had gone from

here, he hoped they might have lingered in the kitchen for a bite of

food or a drink.  But the handles of the cabinets, microwave, oven, and

refrigerator provided him with no images whatsoever.

On his way to the second floor, Candy climbed the steps slowly, letting

his left hand slide searchingly along the oak balustrade.  At several

points along the way, he was rewarded by psychic images that, while

brief and not clear, encouraged him, and led him to believe that he

would find what he needed in their bedroom or bath.

INSTEAD OF immediately dialing 911 to reportmurder of Hal Yamataka, Lee

ran first to the reception and, as he had been trained, removed a small

brown notebo from the back of the bottom drawer on the right side.  For

benefit of employees, like Lee, who did not often get into field and

seldom interfaced directly with the county's many lice agencies but

might one day need to deal with them in emergency, Bobby had composed a

list of some of the office detectives, and administrators who were most

profession reasonable, and reliable in every majorjurisdiction.  The bro

notebook contained a second list of cops to avoid: thosehad an

instinctive dislike for anyone in the private investigation and security

business; those who were just pains in ass in general; and those who

were always on the lookout a little green grease to lubricate the wheels

of justice.  It a testament to the high quality of the county's law

enforcem that the first list was much longer than the second.

According to Bobby and Julie, it was preferable to try manage the

introduction of the police into a situation that quired them, even going

so far as to try to select one of detectives who would show up at the

scene-if it was a scene that needed detectives.  Relying on the luck of

the draw dispatcher's whim was considered unwise.

Lee wondered if he should even call the cops.  He had doubt who had

killed Hal.  Mr. Blue.  Candy.  But also he knew that Bobby would not

want to reveal more about Frank a the case than was truly necessary; the

agency-client privile was not as legally airtight as that of

lawyer-client or doct patient, but it was important too.  Since Julie

and Bobby on the road and temporarily unreachable, Lee could get

guidance on what and how much to say to the police.

But he couldn't let a dead body lie in front of the building, hoping

nobody would notice!  Especially not when the victim was a man he had

known and liked.

Call the cops, then.  But play dumb.

Consulting the notebook, Lee dialed the Newport Beach Police and asked

for Detective Harry Ladshroke, but Ladshroke was off duty.  So was

Detective Janet Heisinger.  Detective Kyle Ostov was available, however,

and when he came on the line he sounded reassuringly big and competent;

his voice was a mellow baritone, and he spoke crisply.

Lee identified himself, aware that his own voice was higher than usual,

almost squeaky, and that he was speaking too fast.

"There's been a...  well, a murder."  Before hee could go on, Ostov

said,

"Jesus, you mean Bobby and Julie know already?  I just found out myself.

It was pushed on to me to tell them, and I was just sitting here, trying

to figure how best to break the news.  I had my hand on the phone, going

to call them, when you rang through.  How're they taking it?"  Confused,

Lee said,

"I don't think they know.  I mean, it must have happened just a few

minutes ago."

"A little longer than that," Ostov said.

"When did you guys find out?  I just looked, and there weren't any

patrol cars, nothing."  Finally the shakes hit him.

"God, I was talking to him not that long ago, took him some pizza, and

now he's splattered all over the concrete six floors down."  Ostov was

silent.  Then:

"What murder you talking about, ?"

"Hal Yamataka.  There must've been a fight here, and then-" He stopped,

blinked, and said,.'What murder are you talking about?"

"Thomas," Ostov said.

Heed felt sick.  He had only met Thomas once, but he knew that Julie and

Bobby were devoted to him.

Ostov said,

"Thomas and his roommate.  And maybe more in the fire if they didn't get

them all out of the building in time."  The computer that Lee had been

born with was not functioning as smoothly as the ones made by IBM in his

office, and he needed a moment to grasp the implications of the

information that he and Ostov had exchanged.  "They've got to be

conected, don't they?",Ild bet on it.  You know of anybody who has a gru

against Julie and Bobby?"  Lee looked around the reception lounge,

thought about other deserted rooms at Dakota & Dakota, the lonely offing

on the rest of the sixth floor, and the unpeopled levels bel the sixth.

He thought of Candy, too, all those people bitten torn, the giant Bobby

had seen on Punaluu Beach, the way guy could zap himself from place to

place.  He began to very much alone.

"Detective Ostov, could you get some peo here really fast?"

"I've entered the call on the computer while I've been ting to you,"

Ostov said.

"A couple of units are on the now."  WITH HIS fingertips, Candy traced

lazy circles on the su of the dresser, then explored the contours of

each brass hang on the drawers.  He touched the light switch on the wall

the switches on both bedside lamps.  He let his hands glidedoorframes on

the off-chance that one of his intended p might have paused and leaned

there while in conversation, amined the handles on the mirrored closet

doors, and cares each number and switchpad on the remote-control device

the TV, hoping that they had clicked on the set even dur the short time

they had been home.

Nothing.

Because he needed to be calm and methodical in his sea if he were to

succeed, Candy had to repress his rage and frustration.  But his anger

grew even as he struggled to contain and in him the thirst of anger was

always a thirst for blo that wine of vengeance.  Only blood would slake

his thi quench his fury, and allow him an interlude of relative peace By

the time he moved from the Dakotas' bedroom into adjoining bath, Candy

was possessed of a need for blood alm as undeniable and critical as his

need for air.  Looking at mirror, he did not see himself for a moment,

as if he cast reflection; he saw only red blood, as if the mirror were a

p hole on one of the lower decks of a ship in Hell, on a cr through a

sea of gore.  When that illusion faded and he saw his own face, he

quickly looked away.

He clenched his jaws, struggled even harder to control himself, and

touched the hot-water faucet, searching, seeking....

THE MOTEL Room in Santa Barbara was spacious, quiet, clean, and

furnished without the jarring clash of colors and patterns that seemed

de rigueur in most American motels-but it was not a place in which Julie

would have chosen to receive the terrible news that came to her there.

The blow seemed greater, the ache in the heart more piercing, for having

to be home in a strange and impersonal place.

She really had thought that Bobby was letting his imagination run away

with him again, that Thomas was perfectly fine.  Because the phone was

on the nightstand, he sat on the, edge of the bed to make the call, and

Julie watched him and listened from a chair only a few feet away.  When

he got that recording again, explaining that the Cielo Vista number was

temporarily out of service due to line problems, she was vaguely uneasy

but still sure that all was well with her brother.

However, when he called the office in Newport to talk with Hal, got Lee

Chen instead, and spent the first minute or so listening in shocked

silence, responding with a cryptic word or two, she knew this was to be

a night that cleaved her life, and that the years to come inevitably

would be darker than the years she had lived on the other side of that

cleft.  As he began to ask questions of Lee, Bobby avoided looking at

Julie, which confirmed her intuition and made her heart pound faster.

When at last he glanced at her, she had to look away from the sadness in

his eyes.  His questions to Lee were clipped, and she couldn't ascertain

much from them.  Maybe she didn't want to.

Finally the call seemed to be drawing to an end.

"No, you've done well, Lee.  Keep handling it just the way you have

been.  What?  Thank you, Lee.  No, we'll be all right.  We'll be okay,

Lee.  One way or another, we'll be okay."  When Bobby hung up, he sat

for a moment, staring at his hands, which he clasped between his knees.

Julie did not ask him what had happened, as if what Lee had told him was

not yet fact, as if her question was a dar magic and as if the

unrevealed tragedy would not become re until she asked about it.

Bobby got off the bed and knelt on the floor in front of her chair.  He

took both of her hands in his and gently kissed the She knew then that

the news was as bad as it could get.

Softly he said,

"Thomas is dead."  She had steeled herself for that news, but the words

cut deep

"I'm sorry, Julie.  God, I'm so sorry.  And it doesn't end there."  He

told her about Hal.

"And just a couple minutes before he talked to me, Lee received a call

about Clint and Felina Both dead."  The horror was too much to

assimilate.  Julie had liked an respected Hal, Clint, and Felina

enormously, and her admiration for the deaf woman's courage and

self-sufficiency washounded.  It was unfair that she could not mourn

each of the individually; they deserved that much.  She also felt that

she was somehow betraying them because her sorrow at their deaths was

only a pale reflection of the grief she felt at the lose of Thomas,

though that was, of course, the only way it could be.

Her breath caught in her throat, and when it flew free, i was not just

an exhalation but a sob.  That was no good.  Sh could not allow herself

to break down.  At no point in her life had she needed to be as strong

as she needed to be now; the murders committed in Orange County tonight

were the fir in a domino-fall of death that would take down her and

Bobby too, if misery dulled their edge.

While Bobby continued to kneel before her and reveal moor details-Derek

was dead, too, and perhaps others at Ciel Vista-she gripped his hands

tightly, inexpressibly gratefulhave him for an anchor in this

turbulence.  Her vision was blurry, but she held back the tears with a

sheer effort of will though she dared not make eye contact with Bobby

just seeing that would be the end of her self-control.

When he finished, she said,

"It was Frank's brother,course,"

and was dismayed by the way her voice quavered.

"Almost certainly," Bobby said.

"But how did he find out Frank was our client?"

"I don't know.  He saw me on the beach at Punaluu-"

"Yeah, but didn't follow you.  He has no way of knowin who you were. And

for God's sake, how did he find out about Thomas?"

"There's some crucial bit of information missing, so we can't understand

the pattern."

"What's the bastard after?"  she said.  Now her voice was marked by

nearly as much anger as grief, and that was good.

"He's hunting Frank," Bobby said.

"For seven years Frank was a loner, and that made him harder to find.

Now Frank has friends, and that gives Candy more ways to search for

him."

"I as good as killed Thomas when I took the case," she said.

"You didn't want to take it.  I had to talk you into it."

"I talked you into it, you wanted to back out."

"If there's guilt, we share it, but there isn't any.  We took on a new

client, that's all, and everything...  just happened."  Julie nodded and

finally met his eyes.  Although his voice had remained steady, tears

slid down his cheeks.  Preoccupied with her own grief, she had forgotten

that the friends lost were his as well as hers, and that he had come to

love Thomas nearly as much as she did.  She had to look away from him

again.

"Are you okay?"  he asked.

"For now, I have to be.  Later, I want to talk about Thomas, how brave

he was about being different, how he never complained, how sweet he was.

I want to talk about all of it, you and me, and I don't want us to

forget.  Nobody's ever going to build a monument to Thomas, he wasn't

famous, he was, just a little guy who never did anything great except be

the best person he knew how, and the only monument he's ever going to

have is our memories.  So we'll keep him alive,-won't we?"

"Yes."

"We'll keep him alive...  until we're gone.  But that's for later, when

there's time.  Now we have to keep ourselves alive, because that son of

a bitch will be coming for us, won't he?"

"I think he will," Bobby said.

He rose from his knees and pulled her up from the chair.

He was wearing his dark brown Ultraseude jacket with the shoulder

holster under it.  She'd taken off her corduroy blazer and her holster;

she put both of them on again.  The weight of the revolver, against her

left side, felt good.  She hoped she'd have a chance to use it.

Her vision had cleared; her eyes were dry.  She said,

"One' thing for sure-no more dreams for me.  What good is it, haing

dreams, when they never come true?"

"Sometimes they do."

"No. They never came true for my mom or dad.  Never cam true for Thomas,

did they?  Ask Clint and Felina if their dream came true, see what they

say.  You ask George Farris's family if they think being slaughtered by

a maniac was the fulfillme of their dreams."

"Ask the Phans," Bobby said quietly.

"They were boat people on the South China Sea, with hardly any food and

little money, and now they own dry-cleaning shops and remod

two-hundred-thousand-dollar houses for resale, and they have those

terrific kids."

"Sooner or later, they'll get it in the neck too," she said, unsettled

by the bitterness in her voice and the black despair that churned like a

whirlpool within her, threatening to swallo her up.  But she could not

stop the churning.

"Ask Park Ham stead, down there in El Toro, whether he and his wife were

thrilled when she developed terminal cancer, and ask him how his dream

about him and Maralee Roman worked after he finally got over the death

of his wife.  Nasty bugger name Candy got in the way of that one.  Ask

all the poor suckers lyin in the hospital with cerebral hemorrhages,

cancer.  Ask those who get Alzheimer's in their fifties, just when their

goide years are supposed to start.  Ask the little kids in wheelchair

from muscular dystrophy, and ask all the parents of those other kids

down there in Cielo Vista how Down's syndrom fits in with their dreams.

Ask-" She cut herself off.  She was losing control, and she could not

afford to do so tonight.

She said,

"Come on, let's go."

"Where?"

"First, we find the house where that bitch raised him.  Cruis by, get

the lay of it.  Maybe just seeing it will give us ideas.'

"I've seen it."

"I haven't."

"All right."  From a nightstand drawer he removed a tele phone directory

for Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Hop Ranch, El Encanto Heights, and

other surrounding communi ties.  He brought it with him to the door.

She said,

"What do you want th he asked.

"For now, I have to be.  Later, I want to talk about Thomas, how brave

he was about being different, how he never complained, how sweet he was.

I want to talk about all of it, you and me, and I don't want us to

forget.  Nobody's ever going to build a monument to Thomas, he wasn't

famous, he was, just a little guy who never did anything great except be

the best person he knew how, and the only monument he's ever going to

have is our memories.  So we'll keep him alive,-won't we?"

"Yes."

"We'll keep him alive...  until we're gone.  But that's for later, when

there's time.  Now we have to keep ourselves alive, because that son of

a bitch will be coming for us, won't he?"

"I think he will," Bobby said.

He rose from his knees and pulled her up from the chair.

He was wearing his dark brown Ultraseude jacket with the shoulder

holster under it.  She'd taken off her corduroy blazer and her holster;

she put both of them on again.  The weight of the revolver, against her

left side, felt good.  She hoped she'd have a chance to use it.

Her vision had cleared; her eyes were dry.  She said,

"One' thing for sure-no more dreams for me.  What good is it, haing

dreams, when they never come true?"

"Sometimes they do."

"No. They never came true for my mom or dad.  Never cam true for Thomas,

did they?  Ask Clint and Felina if their dream came true, see what they

say.  You ask George Farris's family if they think being slaughtered by

a maniac was the fulfillme of their dreams."

"Ask the Phans," Bobby said quietly.

"They were boat people on the South China Sea, with hardly any food and

little money, and now they own dry-cleaning shops and remod

two-hundred-thousand-dollar houses for resale, and they have those

terrific kids."

"Sooner or later, they'll get it in the neck too," she said, unsettled

by the bitterness in her voice and the black despair that churned like a

whirlpool within her, threatening to swallo her up.  But she could not

stop the churning.

"Ask Park Ham stead, down there in El Toro, whether he and his wife were

thrilled when she developed terminal cancer, and ask him how his dream

about him and Maralee Roman worked after he finally got over the death

of his wife.  Nasty bugger name Candy got in the way of that one.  Ask

all the poor suckers lyin in the hospital with cerebral hemorrhages,

cancer.  Ask those who get Alzheimer's in their fifties, just when their

goide years are supposed to start.  Ask the little kids in wheelchair

from muscular dystrophy, and ask all the parents of those other kids

down there in Cielo Vista how Down's syndrom fits in with their dreams.

Ask-" She cut herself off.  She was losing control, and she could not

afford to do so tonight.

She said,

"Come on, let's go."

"Where?"

"First, we find the house where that bitch raised him.  Cruis by, get

the lay of it.  Maybe just seeing it will give us ideas.'

"I've seen it."

"I haven't."

"All right."  From a nightstand drawer he removed a tele phone directory

for Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Hop Ranch, El Encanto Heights, and

other surrounding communi ties.  He brought it with him to the door.

She said,

"What do you want that for?"

"We'll need it later.  I'll explain in the car."  Sprinkles of rain were

falling again.  The Toyota's engine was still so hot from the drive

north that in spite of the cool night air, steam rose from its hood as

the beads of rainwater evaporated.  Far away a brief, low peal of

thunder rolled across the sky.  Thomas was dead.

HE RECEIVED images as faint and distorted as reflections on the

wind-rippled surface of a pond.  They came repeatedly as he touched the

faucets, the rim of the sink, the mirror, the medicine cabinet and its

contents, the light switch, the controls for the shower.  But none of

his visions was detailed, and none provided a clue as to where the

Dakotas had gone.

Twice he was jolted by vivid images, but they were related to disgusting

sexual episodes between the Dakotas.  A tube of vaginal lubricant and a

box of Kleenex were contaminated with older psychic residue that had

inexplicably lingered beyond its time, making him privy to sinful

practices that he had no desire to witness.  He quickly snatched his

hands away from those surfaces and waited for his nausea to pass.  He

was incensed that the need to track Frank through these decadent people

had forced him into a situation where his senses had been so brutally

affronted.

Infuriated by his lack of success and by the unclean contact with images

of their sin (which he seemed unable to expel from his mind), he decided

that he must burn the evil out of this house in the name of God.  Burn

it out.  Incinerate'it.  So that maybe his mind would be cleansed again

as well.

He stepped out of the bathroom, raised his hands, and sent an immensely

destructive wave of power across the bedroom.  The wooden headboard of

the big bed disintegrated, flames leaped from the quilted spread and

blankets, the nightstands flew apart, and every drawer in the dresser

shot out and dumped its contents on the floor, where they instantly

caught fire.  The drapes were consumed as if made from magicians'

flashpaper, and the two windows in the far wall burst, letting in a

draft that fanned the blaze.

Candy often wished the mysterious light that came from him could affect

people and animals, rather than just inanim things, plants, and a few

insects.  There were times when would have gone into a city and melted

the flesh from the bow of ten thousand sinners in a single night, a

hundred thousand it didn't matter which city, they were all festering

sewers iniquity, populated by depraved masses who worshipede and

practice( every repu sive degeneracy.  He had never seen anyone in any

of them, not a single person, who seemed to have to live in God's grace.

He would have made them run screaing in terror, would have tracked them

down in their sec places, would have splintered their bones with his

power, had mered their flesh to pulp, made their heads explode, and to

off the offensive sex things that preoccupied them.  If he had been that

gifted, he would not have shown them any ofmercy with which their

Creator always treated them, so they would have realized, then, how

grateful and obedient they should have been to their God, who always so

patiently tolerated even their worst transgressions.

Only God and Candy's mother had such unlimited compunsion.  He did not

share it.

The smoke alarm went off in the hall.  He walked out the pointed a

finger at it, and blew it to bits.

This part of his gift seemed more powerful tonight than ever.  He was a

great engine of destruction.

The Lord must be rewarding his purity by increasing power.

He thanked God that his own saintly mother had never scended into the

pits of depravity in which so much of hum ity swam.  No man had ever

touched her that way, so children were born without the stain of

original sin.  He knew this to be true, for she had told him-and had

shown himit was.

He descended to the first floor and set the living-room carpet on fire

with a bolt from his left hand.

Frank and the twins had never appreciated the immacul aspect of their

conceptions, and in fact had thrown away incomparable state of grace to

embrace sin and do the devi work.  Candy would never make that mistake.

Overhead he heard the roar of flames, the crash of a partition.  In the

morning, when the sun revealed a smolderingof blackened rubble, the

remains of this nest of corruption would be a testament to the ultimate

perdition of all sinners.

Candy felt cleansed.  The psychic images of the Dakotas' fevered

degeneracy had been expunged from his mind.

He returned to the offices of Dakota & Dakota to continue his search for

them.

BOBBY DROVE, for he didn't think Julie ought to be behind the wheel any

more tonight.  She had been awake for more than nineteen hours, not a

marathon all-nighter yet, but she was exhausted; and her bottled-up

grief over Thomas's death could not help but cloud her judgment and dull

her reflexes.  At least he had napped a couple of times since Hal's call

from the hospital had awakened them last night.

He crossed most of Santa Barbara and entered Goleta before bothering to

look for a service station where they could ask for directions to

Pacific Hill Road.

At his request, Julie opened the telephone directory on her lap, and

with the assistance of a small flashlight taken from the glove

compartment, she looked under the Fs for Fogarty.  He didn't know the

first name, but he was only interested in a male Fogarty who carried the

title of doctor.

"He might not live in this area," Bobby said,

"but I have a hunch he does."

"Who is he?"

"When Frank and I were traveling, we stopped in this guy's study,

twice."  He told her about both brief visits.

"How come you didn't mention him before?"

"At the office, when I told you what happened to me, where Frank and I

had gone, I had to condense some of it, and this Fogarty seemed

comparatively uninteresting, so I left him out.  But the longer I've had

time to think about it, the more it seems to me that he might be a key

player in this.  See, Frank popped us out of there so fast because he

seemed especially reluctant to endanger Fogarty by leading Candy to him.

If Frank's especially concerned about the man, then we ought to have a

talk with him."  She hunched over the directory, studying it closely.

"Fogarty, James.  Fogarty, Jennifer.  Fogarty, Kevin..

What if he's not a medical doctor and doesn't use the title MD or if

'Doc' is a nickname, we're in trouble.  Even if he is a medical doctor,

don't bother looking in the Yellow Pages under 'physicians,' because

this guy is up in years, got to be retire

"Here!"  she said.

"Fogarty, Dr. Lawrence J."

"There's an address?",Yes."  She tore the page out of the book.

"Great.  As soon as you've seen the infamous Pollard pla we'll pay

Fogarty a visit."  Though Bobby had visited the house three times, he

traveled there with Frank, and he had not known the pre location of 1458

Pacific Hill Road any more than he known exactly what flank of Mount

Fuji that trail had ascended.  They found it easily, however, by

following the directions they received from a long-haired guy with a

handle mustache at a Union 76 station.

Though the houses along Pacific Hill Road enjoyed an Encanto Heights

address, they were actually neither insuburb nor in Goleta-which

separated El Encanto from Santa Barbara-but in a narrow band of county

land that lay tween the two and that led east into a wilderness preserve

mesquite, chapparal, desert brush, and pockets of Califor live oaks and

other hardy trees.

The Pollard house was near the end of Pacific Hill, on edge of developed

land, with few neighbors.  Orientedsouthwest, it overlooked the charmed

Pacific-facing commu ties so beautifully sited on the terraced hills

below.  At ni the view was spectacular-a sea of lights leading to a real

cloaked in darkness-and no doubt the immediate neighb hood remained

rural and free of expensive new houseshecause of development

restrictions related to the proxim of the preserve.

Bobby recognized the Pollard place at once.  The headlig revealed little

more than the Eugenia hedge and the rusted ir gate between two tall

stone pilasters.  He slowed as theyby it.  The ground floor was dark. In

one upstairs room a light was on; a pale glow leaked around the edges of

a drawn bli Leaning over to look past Bobby, Julie said,

"Can't much."

"There isn't much to see.  It's a crumbling pile."  They drove over a

quarter of a mile to the end of the road turned, and went back.  Coming

downhill, the house was on Julie's side, and she insisted he slow to a

crawl, to allow her more time to study it.

As they eased past the gate, Bobby saw a light on at the back of the

house, too, on the first floor.  He couldn't actually see a lighted

window, just the glow that fell through it and painted a pale, frosty

rectangle on the side yard.

"It's all hidden in shadows,"

Julie said at last, turning to look back at the property as it fell

behind them.

"But I can see enough to know that it's a bad place."

"Very," Bobby said.

VIOLET LAY on her back on the bed in her dark robe with her sister,

warmed by the cats, which were draped over them and huddled around them.

Verbina lay on her right side, cuddled against Violet, one hand on

Violet's breasts, her lips against Violet's bare shoulder, her warm

breath spilling across Violet's smooth skin.

They were not settling down to sleep.  Neither of them cared to sleep at

night, for that was the wild time, when a greater number and variety of

nature's hunters were on the prowl and life was more exciting.  At that

moment they were not merely in each other and in all of the cats that

shared the bed with them, but in a hungry owl that soared the night,

scanning the earth for mice that weren't wise enough to fear the gloom

and remain in burrows.  No creature had night vision as sharp as the

owl, and its claws and beak were even sharper.

Violet shivered in anticipation of the moment when a mouse or other

small creature would be seen below, slipping through tall grass that it

believed offered concealment.  From past experience she knew the terror

and pain of the prey, the savage glee of the hunter, and she yearned now

to experience both again, simultaneously.

At her side Verbina murmured dreamily.

Swooping high, gliding, spiraling down, swooping up again, the owl had

not yet seen its dinner when the car came up the hill and slowed almost

to a stop in front of the Pollard house.  It drew Violet's attention, of

course, and through her the attention of the owl, but she lost interest

when the car speeded again and drove on.  Seconds later, however, her

interest renewed when it returned and coasted almost to a stop,more, at

the front gate.

She directed the owl to circle the vehicle at a height of a sixty feet.

Then she sent it out ahead of the car and brought it even lower, to

about twenty feet, before guiding it around again to approach the

curious motorist head-on.

From an altitude of only twenty feet, the vision of the hawk was more

than acute enough to see the driver and the passenger in the front seat.

There was a woman Violet had never seen before-but the driver was

familiar.  A moment later she realized that he was the man who had

appeared with Frank in the back yard, at twilight that very same day!

Frank had killed their precious Samantha, for which Frank must die, and

now here was a man who knew Frank,might lead them to Frank, and on the

bed around Violet,other cats stirred and made low growling sounds as her

passion for vengeance was transmitted to them.  A tailless Manx a a

black mongrel leaped from the bed, raced through the open bedroom door,

down the steps, into the kitchen, out the door, around the house, and

into the street.  The car was moving away, gaining speed, heading

downhill, and Violet wanted to pursue it not only by air but on foot, to

ensure that she would not lose track of it.

CANDY ARRIVED in the reception lounge at Dakota & Dakota Cool

cross-drafts circulated from the broken window in the next room and two

open doors in this one, setting up oppose currents.  The faint sounds

announcing his arrival had evidently been masked by the bursts of static

and harsh voices coming from the portable police radios that the cops

had clipped to their belts.  One policeman stood in the entrance Julie

and Bobby's private office, and the other was at the door to the

sixth-floor corridor.  Each of them was talking someone out of sight,

and both had their backs turned Candy, which Candy knew was a sign that

God was still looking out for him.

Though he was angered by this obstacle to his search the Dakotas, he got

out of there at once, materializing in bedroom, nearly a hundred and

fifty miles to the north.  He needed time to think if there was some way

that he could pick up their trail again, a place where they had been

tonight-besides their office and their house-at which he could seek more

visions of them.

WHEN they backtracked to the Union 76 station, the longhaired,

mustachioed man who had given them directions to Pacific Hill Road was

able to tell them how to find the street on which Fogarty lived.  He

even knew the man.

"Nice old guy.  Stops by here for gas now and then."  :,Is he a medical

doctor?"

Bobby asked.

'Used to be.  Been retired quite a while."  Shortly after ten o'clock,

Bobby parked at the curb in front of Lawrence Fogarty's house.  It was a

quaint Spanish two story with the style of French windows that had been

featured in the study to which Bobby and Frank had twice traveled, and

lights were on throughout the first floor.  The glass in the many panes

was beveled, at least on the front of the house, and the lamplight

inside was warmly refracted by those cut edges.  When Bobby and Julie

got out of the car, he smelled woodsmoke, and saw a homey white curl

rising from a chimney into the still, cool, humid pre-storm air.  In the

odd and vaguely purple, crepuscular glow of a nearby street lamp, a few

pink flowers were visible on the azaleas, but the bushes were not as

laden with early blooms as those farther south in Orange County.  An

ancient tree with a multiple trunk and enormous branches loomed over

more than half the house, so it seemed like a wonderfully cozy and

sheltered haven in some Spanish version of a Hobbity fantasy world.

As they followed the front walkway, something dashed between two low

Malibu lights, crossed their path, and startled Julie.  It stopped on

the lawn after passing them, and studied them with radiant green eyes.

"Just a cat," Bobby said.

Usually he liked cats, but when he saw this one, he shivered.

It moved again, vanishing into shadows and shrubs at the side of the

house.

What spooked him was not this particular creature, but the memory of the

feline horde at the Pollard house, which raced to attack him and Frank,

in eerie silence initially then with the shrill single-voiced squeal of

a banshee regime and with a most uncatlike unanimity of purpose.  On the

prowl alone, swift and curious, this cat was quite ordinary, posses only

of the mystery and haughtiness common to every remember of his species.

At the end of the walk, three front steps led up to an archway, through

which they entered a small veranda.

Julie rang the bell, which was soft and musical, and no one answered

after half a minute, she rang it again.

As the second set of chimes faded, the stillness was disturb by the

rustle of feathered wings, as some night bird settled on the veranda

roof above them.

When Julie was about to reach for the bell push again, porch light came

on, and Bobby sensed they were being scrutinized through the security

lens.  After a moment the door opened, and Dr. Fogarty stood before them

in an outfall light from the hall behind him.

He looked the same as Bobby remembered him, and he recognized Bobby as

well.

"Come in," he said, stepping aside to admit them.

"I half expected you.  Come in-not that an you is welcome."

"IN THE library," Fogarty said, leading them back through the hall to a

room on the left.

The library, where Frank had taken him during their travels, was the

place Bobby had referred to as the study when he had described it to

Julie.  As the exterior of the house had a Hobbity-fantasy coziness in

spite of its Spanish style, so this room seemed exactly the sort of

place where one imagined that Tolkien, on many a long Oxford evening,

had taken pen to paper to create the adventures of Frodo.  That warm and

welcoming space was gently illuminated by a brass floor lamp and a

stained-glass table lamp that was either a genuine Tiffany or an

excellent imitation.  Books lined the walls under a deeply coffered

ceiling, and a thick Chinese carpet dark green and beige around the

border, mostly pale green in the middlegraced a dark tongue-and-groove

oak floor.  The water-clear finish on the large mahogany desk had a deep

luster; oil the green felt blotter, the elements of a gold-plated,

bone-handled desk set-including a letter opener, magnifying glass, and

scissors-were lined up neatly behind a gold fountain pen in a square

marble holder.  The Queen Anne sofa was upholstered in a tapestry that

perfectly complemented the carpet, and when Bobby turned to look at the

wing-backed chair where he'd first seen Fogarty earlier in the day-he

twitched with astonishment at the sight of Frank.

"Something's happened to him," Fogarty said, pointing to Frank.  He was

unaware of Bobby's and Julie's surprise, apparently operating under the

assumption that they had come to his house specifically because they had

known they would find Frank there.

Frank's physical appearance had deteriorated since Bobby had last seen

him at 5:26 that afternoon, in the office in Newport Beach.  If his eyes

had been sunken then, they were as dark as pits now; the dark rings

around them had widened, too, some of the blackness seemed to have

leeched out of the bruises to impart a deathly gray tint to the rest of

his face.

previous pallor had looked healthy by comparison.

The worst thing about him, however, was the blank expression with which

he regarded them.  No recognition lit his eyes he seemed to be staring

through them.  His facial muscles were slack.  His mouth hung open about

an inch, as if he had star to speak a long time ago but had not yet

managed to remember the first word of what he had wanted to say.  At

Cielo Vista Care Home, Bobby had seen only a few patients with face

empty as this, but they had been among the most severely retarded,

several steps-down the ladder from Thomas.

"How long has he been here?"  Bobby asked, moving tow Frank.

Julie seized his arm and held him back.

"Don't!"

"He arrived shortly before seven o'clock," Fogarty said So Frank had

traveled for nearly another hour and a after he had returned Bobby to

the office.

Fogarty said,

"He's been here over three hours, and I do know what the blazing hell

I'm supposed to do with him.  N and then he comes around a little bit,

looks at you when talk to him, even responds more or less to what you

say.  Though sometimes he's positively garrulous, runs on and on, won't

swear your questions but sure wants to talk at a person, couldn't shut

him up with a two-by-four.  He's told me a lot about you, for instance,

more than I care to know."  frowned and shook his head.

"You two may be crazy enough to get involved in this nightmare, but I'm

not, and I resent being dragged into it."  At first glance, the

impression that Dr. Lawrence, Foga made was that of a kindly grandfather

who, in his day, been the type of devoted and selfless physician who

became revered by his community, known and beloved by one and He was

still wearing the slippers, gray slacks, white shirt, a blue cardigan in

which Bobby had first seen him earlier, a the image was completed by a

pair of half-lens reading glasses over which he regarded them.  With his

thick white hair, eyes, and gentle rounded features, he would have made

an effective Santa Claus if he had been fifty or sixty pounds heavier

But on a second and closer look, his blue eyes were steely, not warm.

His rounded features were too soft, and revealed not gentility so much

as lack of character, as though they had been acquired through a

lifetime of self-indulgence.  His wide mouth would have given kindly old

Doc Fogarty a winning smile, but its generous dimension served equally

well to lend the look of a predator to the real Doc Fogarty.

"So Frank's told you about us," Bobby said.

"But we don't know anything about you, and I think we need to."  Fogarty

scowled.

"Better that you don't know about me.

Better by far for me.  Just get him out of here, take him away."

"You want us to take Frank off your hands," Julie said coldly,

"then you've got to tell us who you are, how you fit into this, what you

know about it."  Meeting Julie's gaze, then Bobby's, the old man said,

"He's not been here in five years.  Today, when he came with you,

Dakota, I was shocked, I'd thRoselle's father.  Supposedly her father

was so itinerant who knocked up her mother, but I always knew it was a

lie.  Her father was Yarnell Pollard, her mother's brother Roselle was a

child of rape and incest."  A look of distress must have crossed Bobby's

face or Julie for Fogarty let out another bark of cold laughter, clearly

amused by their sympathetic response.

The old physician said,

"Oh, that's nothing.  That's the least of it."

THE TALLLESS MANX- Zitha by name-took up sentry duty in the concealment

of an azalea shrub near the front door.

The old Spanish house had exterior window ledges, and the second cat-as

black as midnight, and named Darkless-sprang to another one in search of

the room to which the old man had taken the younger man and woman.

Darkle put his nose to the glass.  A set of interior shutters inhibited

snooping, but the wide louvres were only half closed, and Darkle was

able to see several cross-sections of the room by raising or lowering

his head.

Hearing Frank's name spoken, the cat stiffened, because Violet had

stiffened in her bed high on Pacific Hill.

The old man was there, among the books, and the couple as well.  When

everyone sat down, Darkle had to lower his head to peer between another

pair of tilted louvres.  Then he saw that Frank was not only one of the

subjects of their conversation but actually present in a high-backed

chair that stood at just enough of an angle to the window to reveal part

of his face, and one hand lying limply on the wide, maroon-leather arm.

LEANING OVER his desk and smiling humorlessly as he talked, Doc Fogarty

resembled a troll that had crawled out from its lair beneath a bridge,

not content to wait for unsuspecting children to pass by, prepared to

forage for his grisly dinner.

Bobby reminded himself not to let his imagination run away with him.  He

needed to keep an unbiased perspective on Fogarty, in order to determine

the truthfulness and value of what the old man had to tell them.  Their

lives might depend on it.

"The house was built in the thirties by Deeter and Elizabeth Pollard.

He'd made some money in Hollywood, producing a bunch of cheap Westerns,

other junk.  Not a fortune, but enough that he was fairly sure he could

give up films and Los Angeles, which he hated, move up here, get into

some small businesses, and do all right for the rest of his life.  They

had two children.  Yarnell was fifteen when they came here in 1938, and

Cynthia was only six years old.  In forty-five, when Deeter and

Elizabeth were killed in a car crash-hit head-on by drunk driving a

truck full of cabbages down from the Saint Ynez valley, if you can

believe it-Yarnell became the head of the house at the age of

twenty-two, and the legal guard of his thirteen-year-old sister."  Julie

said,

"And...  forced himself on her, you said?"  Fogarty nodded.

"I'm sure of it.  Because over the next year Cynthia became withdrawn,

weepy.  People attributed it to death of her folks, but it was Yarnell

using her, I think.

just because he wanted the sex-though she was a pretty little thing, and

you could hardly fault his taste-but because being man of the house

appealed to him, he liked authority.  And was the type who wasn't happy

until his authority was absolute, his dominance complete."  Bobby was

horrified by the words

"You could hardly fault his taste" and what they implied about the depth

of the abyss in which Fogarty lived.

Oblivious of the disgust with which his visitors were regarding him,

Fogarty continued:

"Yarnell was strong-willed, re less, caused his folks a lot of heartache

before they died, kinds of heartache but mostly related to drugs.  He

was an acid head before they had a name for it, before they even had LSD

Peyote, mescaline...  all of the natural hallucinogens you can distill

from certain cactuses, mushrooms and other fun Wasn't the drug culture

back then that we have now, but!"  was around.  He got into

hallucinogens through a relations he had with a character actor who

appeared in a lot of his father's movies, got started when he was

fifteen, and I tellall this because my theory is it's the key to

everything youneed to know."

"The fact that Yarnell was an acidhead," Julie said.

"That the key?"

"That and the fact he impregnated his own sister.  The cheicals probably

did genetic damage, and a lot of it, by the time he was twenty-two. They

usually do.  in his case somestrange genetic damage. Then, when you add

in the factthe gene pool was very limited, being as Cynthia was his

sister You might expect there's a high chance the offspring will be a

freak of some kind."  Frank made a low sound, then sighed.  They all

looked at him, but he was still detached.  Thou his eyes blinked rapidly

for a moment, they did not come back into focus. Saliva still drooled

from the right corner of his mouth; a string of it hung from his chin.

Though Bobby felt that he should get some Kleenex and blot Frank's face,

he restrained himself, largely because he was afraid of Julie's

reaction.

"So about a year after their parents died, Yarnell and Cynthia came to

me, and she was pregnant," Fogarty said.

"They had this story about some itinerant farmworker raping her, but it

didn't ring true, and I pretty much figured out the real story just

watching how they were with each other.  She'd tried to conceal the

pregnancy by wearing loose clothes and by staying in the house entirely

during her last few months, and I never could understand that behavior;

it was as if they thought the problem would just go away one day.  By

the time they came to me, abortion was out of the question.  Hell, she

was in the early stages of labor."  The longer he listened to Fogarty,

the more it seemed to Bobby that the air in the library was foul and

growing fouler, thick with a humidity as sour as sweat.

"Claiming that he wanted to protect Cynthia as much as possible from

public scorn, Yarnell offered me a pretty fat fee if I'd keep her out of

the hospital and deliver the baby right in my office, which was a little

risky, in case there were complications.  But I needed the money, and if

anything went really wrong, there were ways to cover it.  I had this

nurse at the time who could assist me-Norma, she was pretty flexible

about things."  great, Bobby thought.  The sociopathic physician had

Just found himself a sociopathic nurse, a couple who would be right in

the social swing of things among the medical staff at Dachau or

Auschwitz.

Julie put a hand on Bobby's knee and squeezed, as if the contact

reassured her that she was not listening to a mad doctor in a dream.

"What came out of that girl'

"You should have seen it, Fogarty said.

"A freak it was, just as you'd expect."

"Wait a minute," Julie said.

"I thought you said the baby was Roselle.  Frank's mother."

"It was," Fogarty said.

"And she was such a spectacular little freak that she'd have been worth

a fortune to any carnival or sideshow willing to risk the anger of the

law to exhibit he He paused, enjoying their anticipation.

"She was an hermap rodite.

For a moment the word meant nothing to Bobby, and then he said,

"You don't mean-she had both sexes, male and male?"

"Oh, but that's exactly what I mean."  Fogarty bounced frorp his chair

and began to pace, suddenly energized by conversation.

"Hermaphroditism is an extremely rare birth defect in humans, it's an

amazing thing to have the opportunity to deliver one.  You have traverse

hermaphroditism, wherehave the external organs of one sex and the

internal ofother, lateral hermaphroditism...  several other types.  But

one thing is...  Roselle was the rarest of all, she possessed the

complete internal and external organs of both sexes."  He pluck a thick

medical reference book from one of the shelves a handed it to Julie.

"Check page one forty-six for photos ofkind of thing I'm talking about."

Julie handed the volume to Bobby so fast it seemed as ifthought it was a

snake.

Bobby, in turn, put it beside himself on the sofa, unopen The last thing

he needed, with his imagination, was the ass tance of clinical

photographs.

His hands and feet had gone cold, as though the blood had rushed from

his extremities to his head, to nourish his bra which was spinning

furiously.  He wished that he couldthinking about what Fogarty was

telling them.  It was gro But the worst thing about it was, judging by

the physicia strange smile, Bobby sensed that what they had heard thus

was all just the bread on this horror sandwich; the meatyet to come.

Pacing again, Fogarty said,

"Her vagina was about who you'd expect, the male equipment somewhat

displaced.  Urination was through the male part, but the female appeared

rep ductively complete."

"I think we get the picture," Julie said.

"We don't need the technical details."  Fogarty came to them, stood

looking down at them, and eyes were as bright and lively as if he were

recounting a chaing medical anecdote that had bewitched legions of

delight companions at dinner parties over the years.

"No, no,z x must understand what she was, if you're going to understand

all that happened next."  THOUGH HER OWN Mlnd was split into many

parts-sharing the bodies of Verbina, all the cats, and the owl on

Fogarty's porch roof-Violet was most acutely aware of what she was

receiving through the senses of Darkle, as he perched upon the

windowsill outside the study.  With the cat's sharp hearing, Violet

missed not a word of the conversation, in spite of the intervening pane

of glass.  She was enthralled.

She seldom paused to think about her mother, although Roselle was still

in this old house in so many ways.  She seldom thought about any human

being, for that matter, except herself and her twin sister-less often

Candy and Frank-because she had so little in common with other people.

Her life was with the wild things.  In them emotions were so much more

pnmitive and intense, pleasure so much more easily found and enjoyed

without guilt.  She hadn't really known her mother or been close to her;

and Violet would not have been close, even if her mother had been

willing to share affection with anyone but Candy.

But now Violet was riveted by what Fogarty was telling them, not because

it was news to her (which it was), but because anything that had

affected Roselle's life this completely also had profound effects on

Violet's life.  And of the countless attitudes and perceptions that

Violet had absorbed from the myriad wild creatures whose minds and

bodies she shared, a fascination with self was perhaps paramount.  She

had an animal's narcissistic preoccupatior.  with grooming, with her own

wants and needs.  From her prnt of view, nothing in the world was of

interest unless it served her, satisfied her, or affected the

possibility of her future happiness.

Dimly she realized that she should find her brother and tell him that

Frank was less than two miles away from them.  Not long ago she had

heard the wind-music of Candy's return.

FOGARTY TURNED away from Bobby and Julie and circled behind his desk

again, where he walked along the bookshelf snapping his finger against

the spines of the volumes to punctuate his story.

As the physician spoke of this family that had seened genetic

catastrophe, Julie could not help but think how Thomas's affliction had

been visited upon him though his parents had lived healthy and normal

lives.

played as cruelly with the innocent as with the guilty.

I think Ya 'When he saw the baby's abnormability he would have killed it

and thrown it out with the garbage at least put it in the hands of an

institution.  But she wouldn't part with it, she said it was her child,

deformed or not, and she named it Roselle, after her dead grandmother. I

suspect she wanted to keep it largely because she saw how it repulsed

him, and she wanted to have Roselle around as a reminder to him of the

consequences of what he forced her to do."

"Couldn't surgery have been used to make her unable to have another?"

Bobby asked.

"Easier today.  Harder then."  Fogarty had stopped at the desk, where he

had removed a bottle of Wild Turkey and a glass from one of the side

drawers.  He poured a few ounces of bourbon for himself and recap the

bottle without offering them a drink.  That was fine with Julie.  Though

Fogarty's house was spotless, she wouldn't have felt clean after

drinking or eating anything in it.

After taking a swallow of the warm bourbon, neat, Fogarty said,

"Besides, wouldn't want to remove one set of organs to discover that, as

the child grew older, it proved to look and act more like the sex you

denied it than like the one it was born with.  Secondary sex

characteristics are visible in infants of course, but not as easily

read-certainly not in 1946.  Anyway Cynthia wouldn't have authorized

surgery.  Remember I said-she probably welcomed the child's deformity

weapon against her brother."

"You could have stepped between them and the bar BObby said.

"You could've brought the child's plight to attention of the public

health authorities."

"Why on earth would I want to do that?  For the psychological well-being

of the child, you mean?  Don't be naive."  He drank some more bourbon.

"I was paid well to make the delivery and keep my mouth shut about it,

and that was fine by me.  They took her home, stuck to their story about

the itinerant rapist.

Julie said, "The baby...  Roselle...  she had no serious medical

problems?"

"None," Fogarty said.

"Other than this abnormality, she was as healthy as a horse.  Her mental

skills and her body developed right on schedule, like any child, and

before long it became obvious that, to all outward appearances, she was

going to look like a woman.  As she grew even older, you could see she'd

never be an attractive filly, mind you, more on the sturdy side than a

fashion model, thick legs and all that, but quite feminine enough."

Frank remained vacant-eyed and detached, but a muscle in his left cheek

twitched twice.

The bourbon apparently relaxed the physician, for he sat behind his desk

again, leaned forward, and clasped his hands around the glass.

"In 1959, when Roselle was thirteen, Cynthia died.  Killed herself,

actually.  Blew her brains out.  The following year, about seven months

after his sister's suicide, Yarnell came to the office with his

daughter-that is, with Roselle.  He never called her his daughter,

maintaining the fiction that she was only his bastard niece.  Anyway,

Roselle was pregnant at fourteen, same age at which Cynthia had given

birth to her."

"Good God!"  Bobby said.

The shocks kept piling one atop another with such speed that Julie was

almost ready to grab the whiskey bottle off the desk, drink straight

from it, and never mind that it was Fogarty's booze.

Enjoying their reactions, Fogarty sipped the bourbon and gave them time

to absorb the shock.

Julie said,

"Yarnell raped the daughter he had fathered by his own sister?"

Fogarty waited a little longer, savoring the moment.  Then: "No, no.  He

found the girl repellent, and I'm confident he wouldn't have touched

her.  I'm sure what Roselle told me was the truth."  He sipped more

bourbon.

"Cynthia had developed quite a religious streak between the time she

gave birth to Roselle and the day she killed herself, and she had passed

on that passion for God to Roselle.  The girl knew the Bible backward

and forward.  So Roselle came in here, pregnant.  Said she'd decided she

should have a child.  Said God had made her cial-that's what she called

hermaphroditism, specie bmause she was to be a pure vessel by which

blessed child could be brought into the world.  Therefore she had colled

the semen from her male half and mechanically inserted it in her female

half."  Bobby shot up from the sofa as if one of its springs had stuck

him, and he grabbed the bottle of Wild Turkey from the desk.

"You have another glass?"

Fogarty pointed to a bar cabinet in the corner, which Julie had not

noticed before.  Bobby opened the double doors, revealing not only more

glasses but additional fifths of Wild Turkey Evidently the physician

kept a bottle in his desk drawerso he would not have to walk across the

room for it.  Bobby poured two glasses full, with no ice, and brought

one back to Julie.

To Fogarty, she said,

"Of course, I never thought Ros was barren.  She did bear children, we

know that.  But I sumed you meant the male part of her was sterile."

"Fertile as a male and as a female.  She couldn't actually join herself

to herself, so to speak.  So she resorted to,artificial semination, as I

said."

Late that afternoon, in the office in Newport, when he had tried to

explain how traveling with Frank was like a sled ride off the edge of

the world, Julie had not really understood why he was so unnerved by the

experience.  Now she thought she had an inkling of what he had meant,

for the of the Pollard family's relationships and sexual identities. Her

skin crawled and filled her with a dark suspicion that nat was even

stranger and more hospitable to anarchy than had feared.

"Yarnell wanted me to abort the fetus, and abortion was fairly lucrative

sideline in those days, though illegal and kept hushed.  But the girl

had hidden her pregnancy from him for seven months, as he and Cynthia

had tried to hide a pregnancy fourteen years earlier.  It was much too

late for an abortion then.  The girl would've died, from hemorrhaging.

Besides, I would no more have aborted that fetus than I'd have shot

myself in the foot.  Imagine the degree of inbreeding involved here:

hermaphroditic child of brother-sister incest impregnates herself.  Her

child's mother is also its father.  Its grandmother is also its

great-aunt, and its grandfather is its great-uncle!  One tight genetic

line-and genes damaged by Yarnell's use of hallucinogenics, remember.

Virtually a guarantee of a freak of one kind or another, and I wouldn't

have missed it for the world."  Julie took a long swallow of the

bourbon.  It tasted sour and stung her throat.  She didn't care.  She

needed it.

"I'd become a doctor because the pay was good," Fogarty said.

"Later, when I gravitated toward illegal abortions, the pay was better,

and it became my main business.  Not much danger, either, because I knew

what I was doing, and I could buy off an authority now and then if I had

to.  When you're getting those fat fees, you don't have to schedule many

office visits, you can have a lot of free time, money and leisure, the

best of both worlds.  But having settled for a career like that, what I

never figured was that I'd encounter anything as medically interesting,

as fascinating, as entertaining as this Pollard mess."  The only

consideration that caused Julie to refrain from going across the room

and kicking the crap out of the old man was not his age but the fact

that he would leave the story unfinished and some vital piece of

information unrevealed.

"But the birth of Roselle's first child wasn't the event I'd thought it

would be," Fogarty said.

"In spite of the odds, the baby she produced was healthy and, from all

indications, perfectly normal.  That was 1960, and the baby was Frank."

In the wingback chair, Frank whimpered softly but remained in his

semicomatose condition.

STILL LISTENING to Doc Fogarty through Darkle, Violet sat up and swung

her bare legs over the edge of the bed, dispossessing some of the cats

from their resting places, and eliciting a murmur of protest from

Verbina, who was seldom content to share just a mental link with her

sister and needed the reassurance of physical contact.  With cats

swarming at her feet, seeing through their eyes as well as her own and

therefore not blinded by the darkness, Violet started toward the open

door to the lightless upstairs hall.

Then she remembered that she was nude, and she went back for panties and

a T-shirt.

She wasn't afraid of Candy's disapproval or of Candy himself.  In fact,

she would welcome his violent attentions, for it would be the ultimate

game of hunter and prey, hawk mouse, brother and sister.  Candy was the

only wild creature into whose mind she couldn't intrude; though wild, he

was human and beyond the reach of her powers.  If he tore out Verbina's

throat, then her blood would get into him, and into her throat, and she

would become a part of him in the only manner she ever could.  Likewise,

that was the only way he could get into her: by biting his way in, by

chewing into her, the only way.

On any other night, she would have called to him and let him see her

nude, with the hope that her shamelessness would at last provoke him to

violence.  But she could not pursue her fondest desire right now, not

when Frank was nearby and unpunished for what he had done to their poor

puss, mantha When she had dressed, she returned to the hall, moved all

through it in the gloom-still in complete touch with Darkle and Zi and

the wild world-and stopped before the door to mother's room, into which

Candy had moved upon her death.  A thing line of light showed along the

sill.

"Candy," she said.

"Candy, are you there?"

LIKE A MEMORY from wars past or a presentiment of a war to come, a

searing flash of lightning and a shattering crash of thunder shook the

night.  The window in the study vibrated.  It was the first thunder

Bobby had heard since the faint and distant peal when they had come out

of the motel, nearly an hour and a half ago.  In spite of the thunder in

the sky, rain was not yet falling.  But though the storm was

slow-moving, it was almost upon them.  The pyrotech of a storm was an

ideal backdrop to Fogarty's tale.

"I was disappointed in Frank," Fogarty said, taking an old bottle of

bourbon from his capacious desk drawer and filling his glass.

"No fun at all.  So normal.  But two years later she was pregnant again!

This time the delivery was every as entertaining as I'd expected Frank's

to be.  A baby boy again and she called him James.  Her second virgin

birth, she said, and she didn't mind at all that he was as much of a

mess as she was.  She said that was just proof that he, too, was favored

by God and brought into the world without a need to wallow in the

depravity of sex.  I knew then that she was as mad as a hatter."  Bobby

knew he had to remain sober, and he was aware of the danger of too much

bourbon after a night of too little sleep.  But he had a hunch that he

was burning it off as fast as he drank it, at least for now.  He took

another sip before he said,

"You're not telling us that beefy hulk is hermaphroditic too?"

"Oh, no," Fogarty said.

"Worse than that."  CANDY OPENED the door.

"What do you want?"

"He's here, in town, right now," she said.

His eyes widened.

"You mean Frank?"

"Yes."

"WORSE," Bobby said numbly.

He got up from the sofa long enough to put his glass on the desk.  It

was still three-quarters full, but he suddenly decided that even bourbon

would not be an effective tranquilizer in this case.

Julie seemed to reach the same conclusion, and put her glass aside too.

"James-or Candy, if you wish-was born with four testes instead of two,

but with no male organ.  Now, at birth, male infants all carry their

testes safely in their abdominal cavity, and the testes descend later,

during infant maturation.  But Candy's never descended and never could,

because there was no scrotum for them to descend into.  And for another

thing, there's a strange excrescence of bone that would prevent their

descent.  So they've remained within his abdominal cavity.  But I would

guess they've functioned well, busily producing quite large amounts of

testosterone, which is related to development of musculature and partly

explains his formidable size."

"So he's incapable of having sex," Bobby said.

"With his testicles undescended and no organ for copulation, I'd say

he's got a shot at being the most chaste man ever lived."  Bobby had

come to loathe the old man's laugh.

"But four gonads, he's producing a flood of testosterone, and does more

than help build muscles-doesn't it?"  Fogarty nodded.

"To put it in the language of a med journal: excess testosterone, over

an extended period of time alters normal brain function, sometimes

radically, and it's causative factor of socially unacceptable levels of

aggressi To put it in layman's language: this guy is seriously stoked

sexual tension he can't possibly release, he's rechanneledenergy into

other outlets, mainly acts of incredible viole and he's as dangerous as

any monster any moviemaker dreamed up."  ALTHOUGH SHE HAD released the

owl as the storm drewViolet still inhabited Darkle and Zitha, taking

their fear a from them when the lightning flared and the thunder boo

Even as she stood before Candy, at the door to his room, was listening

to Fogarty tell the Dakotas about her brother's deformity.  She knew

about it already, of course, for within family their mother had referred

to it was God's sign that Candy was the most special of all of them.

Likewise, and in some way Violet had been aware that this deformity was

related to great wildness in Candy, the thing that made him so po fully

attractive.

Now she stood before him, wanting to touch his huge a feel the sculpted

muscles, but she restrained herself.

"He' Fogarty's house."  That surprised him.

"Mother said Fogarty was an instrument of God.  He brought us into the

world, four virgin bi Why would he harbor Frank?  Frank's on the dark

side no

"That's where he is," Violet said.

"And a couple.  His na BobbY.  Hers is Julie."

"Dakota," he whispered.

"

At Fogarty's.  Make him pay for Samantha, Candy.  Bring him back here

after you've killed him, and let us feed him the cats.  He hated the

cats, and he'll hate being part offorever."  JULIE'S TEMPER, not always

easily controlled, was dangerously near the flashpoint.  As lightning

shocked the night outside and thunder again protested, she counseled

herself about the necessity for diplomacy.

Nevertheless, she said,

"You've known all these years that Candy is a vicious killer, and you've

done nothing to alert anyone to the danger?"

"Why should I?"  Fogarty asked.

"Haven't you ever heard of social responsibility?"

"It's a nice phrase, but meaningless."

"People have been brutally murdered because you let that man-"

"People will always and forever be brutally murdered.  His shit buried

millions.  Stalin, tory is full of brutal murder.  Hitler murdered many

millions more.  Mao Tse-tung, more millions than anyone.  They're all

considered monsters now, but they had their admirers in their time,

didn't they?  And there're people even now who'll tell you Hitler and

Stalin only did what they had i to do, that Mao was just keeping the

public order, disposing of ruffians.  So many people admire those

murderers who are bold about it and who cloak their bloodlust in noble

causes like brotherhood and political reform and justice-and social

responsibility.  We're all meat, just meat, and in our hearts we know

it, so we secretly applaud the men bold enough to treat us as what we

are.  Meat."  By now she knew that he was a sociopath, with no

conscience, no capacity for love, and no ability to empathize with other

people.  Not all of them were street hoodiumr even high-class, high-tech

thieves like Tom Rasmussen, who had tried to kill Bobby last week.  Some

got to be doctorsr lawyers, TV ministers, politicians.  None of them

could be reasoned with, for they had no normal human feelings.

He said,

"Why should I tell anyone about Candy Pollard?

I'm safe from him because his mother always called me God's instrument,

told her wretched spawn I was to be respected.  It's none of my

business.  He's covered his mother's murder to avoid having the police

tramping through the house, told people she moved to a nice oceanside

condo near San Diego.  I don't think anybody believes that crazy bitch

would suddenly lighten up and become a beach bunny, but nobody questio

it because nobody wants to get involved.  Everybody feels it' none of

their business.  Same with me.  Whatever outrage Candy adds to the

world's pain are negligible.  At least, give his peculiar psychology and

physiology, his outrages will be more imaginative than most.

"Besides, when Candy was about eight, Roselle came to thank me for

bringing her four into the world, and for keepin my own counsel, so that

Satan was unaware of their blessed presence on earth.  That's exactly

how she put it!  And as token of her appreciation, she gave me a

suitcase full of mone enough to make early retirement possible.  I

couldn't figur where she'd gotten it.  The money that Deeter and

Elizabeth piled up in the thirties had long ago dwindled away.  So she

to explain that she'd never want for cash.  That was the firs told me a

little bit about Candy's ability, not much, but enough time I realized

there was a genetic boon tied to the genetic did saster."  Fogarty

raised his glass of bourbon in a toast that they did not return.  "To

God's mysterious ways."  LIKE THE ARCHANGEL come to declare the end of

the worl in the Book of the Apocalypse, Candy arrived just as the

heavens sundered and the rain began to fall in earnest, althoug this was

not black rain as would be the deluge of Armageddon nor was it a storm

of fire.  Not yet. Not yet.

He materialized in the darkness between two widely space street lamps,

almost a block from the doctor's house, to be sur that the soft trumpets

that unfailingly announced his arrive would not be audible to anyone in

Fogarty's library.  As he walked toward the house through the hammering

rain, he believed that his power, provided by God, had now grown s

enormous that nothing could prevent him from takingachieving anything he

desired.

"IN SIXTY-SIX, the twins were born, and physically they were as normal

as Frank," Fogarty said as rain suddenly splattered noisily against the

window.

"No fun in that.  I couldn't believe it, really.  Three out of four of

the kids, perfectly healthy.  I'd been expecting all sorts of cute

twists-harelips at the- very least, misshapen skulls, cleft faces,

withered limbs, or extra heads!"  Bobby took Julie's hand.  He needed

the contact.

He wanted to get out of there.  He felt burnt out.  Hadn't they heard

enough?

But that was the problem: he didn't know what was left to hear, or how

much of it might be crucial to finding a way of dealing with the

Pollards.

"Of course, when Roselle brought me that suitcase full of money, I began

to learn that the children were all freaks, mentally if not physically.

And seven years ago, when Frank killed her, he came to me, as if I owed

him something-understanding, shelter.  He told me more about them than I

wanted to know, too much.  For the next two years, he'd periodically

return here, just appear like a ghost that wanted to haunt me instead of

a place.  But he finally understood there was nothing for him here, and

for five years he stayed out of my life.  Until today, tonight."  In his

wingback chair, Frank moved.  He shifted his body and tipped his head

from the right to the left.  Otherwise, he was no more alert than he had

been since they had entered the room.  The old man had said that Frank

had come around a few times and had been talkative, but it couldn't be

proved by his behavior during the past hour or so.

Julie, who was the closest to Frank, frowned and leaned toward him,

peering at the right side of his head.

"Oh, my God."  She spoke those three words in a bleak tone of voice that

was as effective a refrigerant as anything used in an air conditioner.

With a chill skittering up his spine, Bobby slid along the sofa,

crowding her against the other end, and looked past her at the side of

Frank's head.  Wished he had not.  Tried to look away.  Couldn't.

When Frank's head had been tilted to his right, almost lying against his

shoulder, they had not been able to see that temple.

After leaving Bobby at the office, still out of control, travelin

against his will, Frank evidently had returned to one of those craters

where the engineered insects shit out their diamond His flesh was lumpy

all the way along his temple to his ja and in some places the rough

gemstones that were the caus of the lumpiness poked through, gleaming,

intimately melded with his tissue.  For whatever reason, he had scooped

up handful to bring with him, but when reconstituting himself he had

made a mistake.

Bobby wondered what treasures might be buried in the so gray matter

within Frank's skull.

"I saw that too," Fogarty said.

"And look at the palm his right hand."  Although Julie protested, Bobby

pinched the sleeve Frank's jacket and pulled until he twisted the man's

arm of the chair and revealed his palm.  He had found the partial roac

that had once been welded into his own shoe.  At least it a peared to be

the same one.  It was sprouting from the meat part of Frank's hand,

carapace gleaming, dead eyes staring u toward Frank's index finger.

CANDY CIRCLED the house in the rain, passing a black cat sitting on a

windowsill.  It turned its head to glance at him, then put it face to

the windowpane again.

At the rear of the house, he stepped quietly onto the porch and tried

the back door.  It was locked.

Vague blue light pulsed from his hand as he gripped the knob.  The lock

slipped, the door opened, and he stepped insid JULIE HAD heard and seen

enough, too much.

Eager to get away from Frank, she rose from the sofa an walked to the

desk, where she considered her unfinished bourbon.  But that was no

answer.  She was dreadfully tired, stru gling to repress her grief for

Thomas, striving even hardermake some sense out of the grotesque family

history that F garty had revealed to them.  She did not need the

complicatio of any more bourbon, appealing as it might look there in the

glass.

She said to the old man,

"So what hope do we have of dealing with Candy?"

"None."

"There must be a way."

"No."

"There must be."

"Why?"  "Because he can't be allowed to win."  Fogarty smiled.

"Why not?"

"Because he's the bad guy, dammit!  And we're the good guys.  Not

perfect, maybe, not without flaws, but we're the good guys, all right.

And that's why we have to win, because if we don't, then the whole game

is meaningless."  Fogarty leaned back in his chair.

"My point exactly.  It is all meaningless.  We're not good, and we're

not bad, we're just meat.  We don't have souls, there's no hope of

transcendence for a slab of meat, you wouldn't expect a hamburger to go

to Heaven after someone ate it."  She had never hated anyone as much as

she hated Fogarty at that moment, partly because he was so smug and

hateful, but partly because she recognized, in his arguments, something

perilously close to the things she had said to Bobby in the motel, after

she had learned about Thomas's death.  She had said there was no point

in having dreams, that they never came true, that death was always there

watching even if you were lucky enough to grasp your personal brass

ring.  And loathing life, just because it led sooner or later to death

...  well, that was the same as saying people were nothing but meat.

"We have just pleasure and pain," the old physician said

"so it doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong, who wins or loses."

"What's his weakness?"  she demanded angrily.

"None I can see."  Fogarty seemed pleased by the hopelessness of their

position.  If he had been practicing medicine in the early 1940s, he had

to be nearing eighty, though he looked younger.  He was acutely aware of

how little time remained to him, and was no doubt resentful of anyone

younger; and given his cold perspective on life, their deaths at Candy

Pollard's hands would entertain him.

"No weaknesses at all."  Bobby disagreed, or tried to.

"Some might say that his weakness is his mind, his screwed-up

psychology."  Fogarty shook his head.

"And I'd argue that he's mad strength of his screwed-up psychology. He's

used this business about being the instrument of God's vengeance to

armor him self very effectively from depression and self-doubt and a

thing else that might trip him up."  In the wingback chair, Frank

abruptly sat up straight shook himself as if to cast off his mental

confusion thea dog might shake water from its sodden coat after coming

from the rain.  He said,

"Where...  Why do I...  Is it is it...  is it...  ?",Is it what, Frank?"

Bobby asked.

"Is it happening?"  Frank said.  His eyes seemed slowly be clearing.

"Is it finally happening?",is what finally happening, Frank?"  His voice

was hoarse.

"Death.  Is it finally happening?  Is i CANDY HAD crept quietly through

the house, into the hallway that led to the library.  As he moved toward

the open door the left, he heard voices.  When he recognized one of them

Frank's, he could barely contain himself.

According to Violet, Frank was crippled.  His control of telekinetic

talent had always been erratic, which is why Can had enjoyed some hope

of one day catching him and finishing him before he could travel to a

place of safety.  Perhaps the moment of triumph had arrived.

When he reached the door, he found himself looking at the woman's back.

He could not see her face, but he was sure it would be the same one that

had been suffused in a beautiful glow in Thomas's mind.

Beyond her he glimpsed Frank, and saw Frank's eyes widen at the sight of

him.  If the mother-killer had been too confused to teleport out of

Candy's reach, as Violet had claimed, he was now casting off that

confusion.  He looked if he might pop out of there long before Candy

could lay a had on him.

Candy had intended to throw the library into a turmoil sending a wave of

energy through the doorway ahead of him setting the books on fire and

shattering the lamps, with the purpose of panicking and distracting the

Dakotas and Doc Fogarty, giving him a chance to go straight for Frank.

But now he was forced to change his plans by the sight of his brother

trembling on the edge of dematerialization.

He entered the room in a rush and seized the woman from behind, curling

his right arm around her neck and jerking her head back, so she-and the

two men-would understand at once that he could snap her neck in an

instant, whenever he chose.  Even so, she slashed backward with one

foot, scraping the heel of her shoe down his shin, stomping on his foot,

all of which hurt like hell; it was some martial-art move, and he could

tell by the way she tried to counterbalance his grip and stance that she

had a lot of training in such things.  So he jerked her head back again,

even harder, and flexed his biceps, which pinched her windpipe, hurting

her enough to make her realize that resistance was suicidal.

Fogarty watched from his chair, alarmed but not sufficiently to rise to

his feet, and the hush and came off the sofa with a gun in his hand, Mr.

Quick-Draw Artist, but Candy was not concerned about either of them. His

attention was on Frank, who had risen from his chair and appeared about

to blink out of there, off to Punaluu and Kyoto and a score of other

places.

"Don't do it, Frank!"  he said sharply.

"Don't run away.  It's time we settled, time you paid for what you did

to our mother.  You come to the house, accept God's punishment, and end

it now, tonight.  I'm going there with this bitch.  She tried to help

you, I guess, so maybe you won't want to see her suffer."  The hush and

was going to do something crazy; seeing Julie in Candy's grip had

clearly unhinged him.  He was searching for a shot, a way to get Candy

without getting her, and he might even risk firing at Candy's head,

though Candy was half crouching behind the woman.  Time to get out of

there.

"Come to the house," he told Frank.

"You come into the kitchen, let me end it for you, and I'll let her go.

I swear on our mother's name, I'll let her go.  But if you don't come in

fifteen minutes, I'll put this bitch on the table, and I'll have my

dinner, Frank.  You want me to feed on her after she tried to help you,

Frank?"  Candy thought he heard a gunshot just as he got out of the In

any event, it had been too late.  He rematerialized in the kitchen of

the house on Pacific Hill Road, with Julie still locked in the crook of

his arm.

NO LONGER concerned about the danger of touching Frank, Bobby grabbed

handsful of his jacket and shoved him backward against the wide-louvered

shutters on the library window.

"You heard him, Frank.  Don't run.  Don't run this time, or I'll hang on

to you and never let go, no matter where you take me, I swear to God,

you'll wish you'd put your neck on Candy's platter instead of mine."  He

slammed Frank against the shutters to make his point, and behind him he

heard Lawrence Fogarty's soft, knowing laughter.

Registering the terror and confusion in his client's eyes, Bobby

realized that his threats would not achieve the effect he desired.  In

fact, threats would almost certainly frighten Frank into flight, even if

he wanted to help Julie.  Worse, by stooping to violence as a first

resort, he was treating Frank not as a person but as meat, confirming

the depraved code by which the corrupt old physician had led his entire

life, and that was almost as intolerable as losing Julie.

He let go of Frank.

"I'm sorry.  Listen, I'm sorry, I just got a little crazy."  He studied

the man's eyes, searching for some indication that sufficient

intelligence remained in the damaged brain for the two of them to reach

an understanding.  He saw fear, stark and terrible, and he saw a

loneliness that made him want to cry.  He saw a lost look, too, not

unlike what he had sometimes seen in Thomas's eyes when they had taken

him on an excursion from Cielo Vista,

"out in the world," as he had said.

Aware that perhaps two minutes of Candy's fifteen-minute deadline had

passed, trying to remain calm nonetheless, Bobby took Frank's right

hand, turned it palm up, and forced himself to touch the dead roach that

was now integrated with the man's soft white flesh.  The insect felt

crisp and bristly against his fingers, but he did not permit his disgust

to show.

"Does this hurt, Frank?  This bug mixed up with your cells here, does it

hurt you?"  Frank stared at him, finally shook his head.  No.

Heartened by the establishment of even this much dialo Bobby gently put

his fingertips to Frank's right temple, fee the lumps of precious gems

like unburst boils or cancerous soars.

"Do you hurt here, Frank?  Are you in pain?"

"No," Frank said, and Bobby's heart pounded with excitement at the

escalation to a spoken response.

From a pocket of his jeans, Bobby removed a folded Klein and gently

blotted away the spittle that still glistened Frank's chin.

The man blinked, and his eyes seemed to focus better.

From behind Bobby, still in the leather chair at the!"  perhaps with a

glass of bourbon in his hand, almost cert with that infuriatingly smug

smile plastered on his face, garty said,

"Twelve minutes left."  Bobby ignored the physician.  Maintaining eye

contact his client, his fingertips still on Frank's temple, he said

quickly

"It's been a hard life for you, hasn't it?  You were the no one, the

most normal one, and when you were a kid you all wanted to fit in at

school, didn't you, the way your sisters brother never could.  And it

took you a long time to remember your dream wasn't going to happen, you

weren't goingin, because no matter how normal you were compared to rest

of your family, you'd still come from that goddam house, out of that

cesspool, which made you forever an outsider to other people.  They

might not see the stain on your heart might not know the dark memories

in you, but you saw, you remembered, and you felt yourself unworthy

because the horror that was your family.  Yet you were also an outsider

at home, much too sane to fit in there, too sensitive to the nightmare

of it.  So all your life, you've been alone."

"All my life," Frank said.

"And always will be."  He wasn't going to travel now.  Bobby would have

be it.

"Frank, I can't help you.  No one can.  That's a hardbut I won't lie to

you.  I'm not going to con you or threaten YOU."

Frank said nothing, but maintained eye contact.

"Ten minutes," Fogarty said.

"The only thing I can do for you, Frank, is show you a way to give your

life meaning at last, a way to end it with purpose and dignity, and

maybe find peace in death.  I have an idea, a way that you might be able

to kill Candy and save Julie, and if you can do that, you'll have gone

out a hero.  Will you come with me, Frank, listen to me, and not let

Julie die?"  Frank didn't say yes, but he didn't say no, either.  Bobby

decided to take heart from the lack of a negative response.

"We've got to get moving, Frank.  But don't try teleporting to the

house, because then you'll just lose control again, pop off to hell and

back a hundred times.  We'll go in my car.  We can be there in five

minutes."  Bobby took his client's hand.  He made a point of taking the

one with the roach embedded in it, hoping Frank would remember that he

had a fear of bugs and perceive that his willingness to overrule the

phobia was a testament to his sincerity.

They crossed the room to the door.

Rising from his chair, Fogarty said,

"You're going to your death, you know."  Without glancing back at the

physician, Bobby said,

"Well, seems to me, you went to yours decades ago."  He and Frank walked

out into the rain and were drenched by the time they got into the car.

Behind the wheel, Bobby glanced at his watch.  Less than eight minutes

to go.

He wondered why he accepted Candy's word that the fifteen-minute

deadline would be observed, why he was so sure that the madman had not

already torn out her throat.  Then he remembered something she had said

to him once: Sweetcakes, as long as you're breathing, Tinkerbell will

live.

Gutters overflowed, and a sudden wind wound skeins of rain, like silver

yarn, through his headlights.

As he drove the storm-swept streets and turned east on Pacific Hill

Road, he explained how Frank, through his sacrifice of himself, could

rid the world of Candy and undo his mother's evil the way he had wanted

to undo it-but had failed-when he had taken the ax to her.  It was a

simple concept.  He was able to go over it several times even in the few

minutes had before pulling to a stop at the rusted iron gate.

Frank did not respond to anything that Bobby said.  T was no way to be

sure he understood what he must do if he had even heard a word of it. He

stared straight ah his mouth open an inch or so, and sometimes his head

tic back and forth, back and forth, in time with the windshield wipers,

as if he were watching Jackie Jaxx's crystal pen swinging on its gold

chain.

By the time they got out of the car, went through the garage and

approached the decrepit house, with less than two minutes of the

deadline left, Bobby was reduced to proceeding on faith.

WHEN CANDY brought her into the filthy kitchen, pushed into one of the

chairs at the table, and let go of her, J reached at once for the

revolver in the shoulder holster her corduroy jacket.  He was too fast

for her, however, and it from her hand, breaking two of her fingers in

The pain was excruciating, and that was on top of theness in her neck

and throat from the ruthless treatment he dealt out at Fogarty's, but

she refused to cry or complain.

stead, when he turned away from her to toss the gun o drawer beyond her

reach, she leapt up from the chair sprinted for the door.

He caught her, lifted her off her feet, swung her around, body-slammed

her onto the kitchen table so hard she passed out.  He brought his face

close to hers and said,

"You're going to taste good, like Clint's woman, all that vitality in

veins, all that energy, I want to feel you spurting in mouth."  Her

attempts at resistance and escape had not arisen from courage as much as

from terror, some of which sprang the experience of deconstruction and

reconstitution, which hoped never to have to endure again.  Now her fear

doubled as his lips lowered to within an inch of hers and as his cha

house breath washed over her face.  Unable to look away from his blue

eyes, she thought these were what Satan's eyes would be like, not dark

as sin, not red as the fires of Hell, not craw with maggots, but

gloriously and beautifully blue-and utterly devoid of all mercy and

compassion.

If all the worst of human savagery from time immemorial could be

condensed into one individual, if all of the species' hunger for blood

and violence and raw power could be embodied in one monstrous figure, it

would have looked like Candy Pollard at that moment.  When he finally

pulled back from her, like a coiled serpent grudgingly reconsidering its

decision to strike, and when he dragged her off the table and shoved her

back into the chair, she was cowed, perhaps for the first time in her

life.  She knew that if she exhibited any further resistance, he would

kill her on the spot and feed on her.

Then he said an astonishing thing:

"Later, when I'm done with Frank, you'll tell me where Thomas got his

power."

She was so intimidated by him that she had difficulty finding her voice.

"Power?  What do you mean?"

"He's the only one I've ever encountered, outside our family.  The Bad

Thing, he called me.  And he kept trying to keep tabs on me

telepathically because he knew sooner or later you and I would cross

paths.  How can he have had ahy gifts when he wasn't born of my virgin

mother?  Later, you'll explain that to me."  As she sat, actually too

terrified either to cry or shake, in a storm's-eye calm, cradling her

injured hand in the other, she had to find room in her for a sense of

wonder too.  Thomas?

Psychically gifted?  Could it be true that all the time she worried

about taking care of him, he was to some extent taking care of her?

She heard a strange sound approaching from the front of the house.  A

moment later, at least twenty cats poured into the kitchen through the

hall doorway, tails sweeping over one another.

Among the pack came the Pollard twins, long-legged and barefoot, one in

panties and a red T-shirt, the other in panties and a white T-shirt, as

sinuous as their cats.  They were as pale as spirits, but there was

nothing soft or ineffectual about them.  They were lean and vital,

filled with that tightly coiled energy that you always knew was in a cat

even when it appeared to be lazing in the sun.  They were ethereal in

some ways, yet at the same time earthy and strong, powerfully sensual.

Their I presence in the house must have cranked up the unnatural

tensions in their brother, who was dolibly male in the matter testes but

lacking the crucial valve that would have allow release.

They approached the table.  One of them stared down Julie, while the

other hung on her sister and averted her ey The bold one said,

"Are you Candy's girlfriend?"  Thereunmistakable mockery of her brother

in the question.

--you shut up," Candy said.

"If you're not his girlfriend," the bold one said, in a voice as soft as

rustling silk,

"you could come upstairs with us, have a bed, the cats wouldn't mind,

and I think I'd like you

"Don't you talk like that in your mother's house," Candy said fiercely.

His anger was real, but Julie could see that he was also more than a

little unnerved by his sister.

Both women, even the shy one, virtually radiated wildn as if they might

do anything that occurred to them, regard! of how outrageous, without

compunctions or inhibitions.

Julie was nearly as scared of them as she was of Candy From the front of

the moldering house, echoing ahoveroar of the rain on the roof, came a

knocking.

As one, the cats dashed from the kitchen, down the hall the front door,

and less than a minute later they returned escort to Bobby and Frank.

ENTERING THE KITCHEN, Bobby was overcome with gra tude-to God, even to

Candy-at the sight of Julie alive.  She was haggard, gaunt with fear and

pain, but she had never looked more beautiful to him.

She had never been so subdued, either, or so unsure of herself, and in

spite of the banshee chorus of emotions that roar and shrieked in him,

he found capacity to contain a separ sadness and anger about that.

Though he was still hoping that Frank would come through for him, Bobby

had been prepared to use his revolver if worst came to worst or if an

unexpected advantage presented itself, But as soon as he walked in the

room, the madman said,

" move your gun from your holster and empty the cartridges of it."  As

Bobby had entered, Candy had moved behind the chair in which Julie sat,

and had put one hand on her throat, his fingers hooked like talons.

Inhumanly strong as he was, he could no doubt tear her throat out in a

second or two, even though he lacked real talons.

Bobby withdrew the Smith & Wesson from his shoulder holster, handling it

in such a way as to demonstrate that he had no intention of using it. He

broke out the cylinder, shook the five cartridges onto the floor, and

put the revolver down on a nearby counter.

Candy Pollard's excitement grew visibly second by second, from the

moment Bobby and Frank appeared.  Now he removed his hand from Julie's

throat, stepped away from her, and glared triumphantly at Frank.

As far as Bobby could tell, it was a wasted glare.  Frank was there in

the kitchen with them-but not there.  If he was aware of everything that

was happening and understanding the meaning of it, he was doing a good

job of pretending;otherwise.

Pointing to the floor at his feet, Candy said,

"Come here and kneel, you mother-killer."  The cats fled from the

section of the cracked linoleum which the madman had indicated.

The twins stood hipshot but alert.  Bobby had seen cats feign

indifference in the same way but reveal their actual involvement by the

prick of their ears.  With Violet and Verbina, their true interest was

betrayed by the throbbing of their pulses in their temples and, almost

obscenely, by the erection of their nipples against the fabric of their

T-shirts.

"I said come here and kneel," Candy repeated.

"Or will you really betray the only people who ever lifted a hand to

help you in these last seven years?  Kneel, or I'll kill the Dakotas,

both of them, I'll kill them now.

Candy projected the awesome presence not of a psychotic but of a

genuinely SUPERNATURAL being, as if his name were Legion and forces

beyond human ken worked through him.

Frank moved forward one step, away from Bobby's side.

Another step.

Then he stopped and looked around at the cats, as if something about

them puzzled him.

Bobby could never know if Frank had intended to evoke the bloody

consequences that ensued from his next act, whether his words were

calculated, or whether he was speaking out befuddlement and was as

surprised as anyone by the tune that followed.  Whatever the case, he

frowned at the!"  looked up at the bolder of the twins, and said,

"Ah, is Mother still here, then?  Is she still here in the house with

us?" The shy twin stiffened, but the bold one actually appeared to

relax, as if Frank's question had spared her the trouble deciding on the

right time and place to make the revelat herself.  She turned to Candy

and favored him with thesubtly textured smile Bobby had ever seen: it

was mocking, it was a would-be lover's invitation, as well; it was

tentat with fear, but simultaneously challenging; hot with lust, with

dread; and above all, it was wild, as uncivilized and fe cious as any

expression on the face of any creature that roa any field or forest in

the world.

Her smile was met by Candy with an expression of stark horror and

disbelief that made him appear, briefly and for the first time, almost

human.

"You didn't," he said.

The bold twin's smile broadened.

"After you buried her, dug her up.  She's part of us now, and always

will be, part us, part of the pack."  The cats swished their tails and

stared at Candy.

The cry that erupted from him was less than human, a the speed with

which he reached the bold twin was uncan He drove her against the

refrigerator with his body, crushed her against it, grabbed her by the

face with his right hand and slammed her head against the yellowed

enamel surface, again.  Lifting her bodily, his hands around her narrow

was he tried to throw her as a furious child might cast away a!"  but

cat-quick she wrapped her limber legs around his waist and locked her

ankles behind him, so she was riding him with breasts before his face.

He pounded at her with his fists, she would not let go.  She held on

until the blows stopped raing on her, then loosened her lock on him so

she slid do far enough to bring her pale throat near his mouth.  He

seing the opportunity that she thrust upon him and tore the life of her

with his teeth.

The cats squealed hideously, though not as one creaturetime, and fled

the kitchen by several routes.

To the sound of his anguished screams and her eerily ero cries, Candy

extinguished his sister's life in less than a minute Neither Bobby nor

Julie attempted to intervene, for it was clear that to do so would be

like stepping into the funnel of a tornado, ensuring their death but

leaving the storm undiminished.  Frank only stood in that curious

detachment that was now his only attitude.

Candy turned immediately to the shy twin and destroyed her even more

quickly, as she offered no resistance.

As the psychotic giant dropped the brutalized corpse, Frank at last

obeyed the order he had been given, closed the distance between them,

and surprised his brother by taking his hand.  Then, as Bobby had hoped,

Frank traveled and Candy went with him, not under his own power but as a

sidecar rider, the way Bobby had gone.

After the tumult, the silence was shocking.

Sweating, clearly ill from what she had witnessed, Julie pushed back her

chair.  The wooden legs stuttered on the linoleum.

"No," Bobby said, and quickly came to her, stooped beside her,

encouraging her to sit down.  He took her uninjured hand.

"Wait, not yet, stay out of the way.

The hollow piping.

A blustery whirl of wind.

"Bobby," she said, panicking,

"they're coming back, let's go, i I let's get out of here while we have

the chance."  He held her in the chair.

"Don't look.  I have to look, be sure, make certain Frank understood,

but you don't need to see."  The atonal music trilled again, and the

wind stirred up the scent of the dead women's blood.

"What are you talking about?"  she demanded.

"Close your eyes."  She did not close her eyes, of course, because she

had never been one to look away or run away from anything.

The Pollards reappeared, back from the brief visit they had made in

tandem to someplace as far away as Mount Fuji or as close as Doc

Fogarty's house, more likely to several places.

Recklessly rapid and repeated travel was key to the success of the

trick, just as Bobby had outlined it to Frank in the car.

The brothers were no longer two distinct human beings, for Frank's had

been the guiding consciousness on their Journeys, and his ability to

shepherd them through error-free reconstitution was declining rapidly,

worse with each jaunt.  They were re biologically tangled than any

Siamese twin fused, most of Frank's left arm disappeared into Candy's

right side, as if had reached in there to fish among his brother's

internal o gans- Candy's right leg melted into Frank's left, giving the

only three to stand on.

There were more strangenesses, but that was all Bobby could comprehend

before they vanished again.  Frank needed to keep moving, stay in

control, give Candy no chance to exert hispower, until the scramble was

so complete that proper reco stitution of either of them would be

impossible.

Realizing what was happening, Julie sat perfectly still, her broken hand

curled in her lap, holding fast to Bobby with her good hand.  He knew

she understood, without being told, that Frank was sacrificing himself

for them, and that the least they could do for him was bear witness to

his courage, just as they would keep Thomas and Hal and Clint and Felina

alive memory.

That was one of the most fundamental and sacred duti good friends and

family performed for one another: they tended the flame of memory, so no

one's death meant an imm diate vanishment from the world; in some sense

the deceas would live on after their passing, at least as long as those

w loved them lived.  Such memories were an essential weap against the

chaos of life and death, a way to ensure some con nuity from generation

to generation, an endorsement of ord and of meaning.

Piping, wind: the brothers returned from another series rapid

deconstructions and reconstitutions, and now they were essentially one

creature of cataclysmic biology.  The body large, well over seven feet

tall, broad and hulking, for it inco porated the mass of both of them.

The single head had a nigh mare face: Frank's brown eyes were badly

misaligned; slanted mouth gaped between them where a nose should had

been; and a second mouth pocked the left cheek.  Two torture screaming

voices filled the kitchen.  Another face was set inchest, mouthiess but

with two eye sockets, in one of which I an unblinking eye as blue as

Candy's; the other socketfilled with bristling teeth.

The slouching beast vanished, then returned once moor after less than a

minute.  This time it was an undifferentiated mass of tissue, dark in

some places and hideously pink in others, prickled with bone fragments,

tufted with sparse clumps of hair, marbled with veins that pulsed to

different beats.  Along the way, Frank had no doubt visited that

alleyway in Calcutta or someplace like it, for he had conveyed with him

dozens of roaches, not just one, and rats as well; they were

incorporated into the tissue everywhere that Bobby looked, further

ensuring that Candy's flesh was too diffused and polluted ever to be

properly reconstituted.  The monstrous and obviously dysfunctional

assemblage fell to the floor, flopped and shuddered, and finally lay

still.  Some of the rodents and insects continued to quiver and writhe,

trying to get free; inextricably bonded to the dead mass, they also

would soon perish.

THE HOUSE was simple, on a section of the coast that was not yet

fashionable.  The back porch faced the sea and wooden steps led down to

a scrubby yard that ended the beach.  There were twelve palm trees.

The living room was furnished with a couple of chairs, a low seat, a

coffee table, and a Wurlitzer 950 stocked with records from the big-band

era.  The floor was bleached oak, tight made, and sometimes they pushed

the furniture to the wall rolled up the area rug, punched up some

numbers on the juke and danced together, just the two of them.

That was mostly in the evenings.

In the mornings, if they didn't make love, they poured through recipe

books in the kitchen and whipped up bak goods together, or just sat with

coffee by the window, watched the sea, and talked.

They had books, two decks of cards, an interest in the bir and animals

that lived along the shore, memories both good and bad, and each other.

Always, each other.

Sometimes they talked about Thomas and wondered what gift he'd possessed

and had kept secret all his life.  She said made you humble to think of

it, made you realize everyone and everything was more complex and

mysterious than you could know.

To get the police off their backs, they had admitted workin on a case

for one Frank Pollard from El Encanto Heights, who believed his brother

James was trying to kill him over a misunderstanding.  They said they

felt James may have been a comPlete psychotic who had killed their

employees and Thomas merely because they had dared to try to settle the

matter between the brothers.  Subsequently, when the Pollard house was

found torched with gasoline, with a confusing arra of skeletal remains

in the aftermath, police pressure was slowly lifted from Dakota &

Dakota.  It was believed that Mr. James Pollard had killed his twin

sisters and his brother, as well, and was currently on the run, armed

and dangerous.

The agency had been sold.  They didn't miss it.  She no longer felt she

could save the world, and he no longer needed to help her save herself.

Money, a few more red diamonds, and negotiation had convinced Dyson

Manfred and Roger Gavenall to invent another source for the biologically

engineered bug when, eventually, they published their work on it.

Without the cooperation of Dakota & Dakota, they would never know the

actual source, anyway.

In the finished attic of the beach house, they kept the boxes and bags

of cash they had brought back from Pacific Hill Road.  Candy and his

mother had tried to compensate for the chaos of their lives by storing

up millions in a second-floor bedroom, just as Bobby and Julie had

suspected before they had ever gotten to El Encanto Heights.  Only a

small portion of the Pollards' treasure was now in the beach-house

attic, but it was more than two people could spend; the rest had been

burned, along with everything else, when they'd torched the house on

Pacific Hill Road.

In time he came to accept the fact that he could be a good man and still

sometimes have dark thoughts or selfish motives.  She said this was

maturity, and that it wasn't such a bad thing to live outside of

Disneyland by the time you reached middle age.

She said she'd like a dog.

He said fine, if they could agree on a breed.

She said you clean up its poop.

He said you clean up its poop, I'll take care of the petting and Frisbee

throwing.

She said she had been wrong that night in Santa Barbara when, in her

despair, she had claimed no dreams ever came true.  They came true all

the time.  The problem was, you sometimes had your sights set on a

particular dream and missed all the others that turned out your way:

like finding him, she said, and being loved.

One day she told him she was going to have a baby.  He held her close

for a long time before he could find the words to ex press his

happiness.  They dressed to go out for champagne dinner at the Ritz,

then decided they would rather celebrate at home, on the porch,

overlooking the sea, listening to Tommy Dorsey recordings.

They built sandcastles.  Huge ones.  They sat on the porch and watched

the incoming tide wreck their.  constructions.

Sometimes they talked about the wordburst he had recei in the car on the

freeway, from Thomas at the momentdeath.  They wondered about the words

"there is a light loves you," and dared to consider dreaming the biggest

dream of all-that people never really die.

They got a black Labrador.

They named him Sookie, just because it sounded silly.

Some nights she was afraid.  Occasionally, so was he.

They had each other.  And time.