Blossom

"I'll be there, ten, fifteen minutes."

113

VIRGIL AND I walked in together. No cover, no minimum. The bouncer stood in the corner. A heavy-duty piece of work. No bodybuilder poses on this one— hard, rubbery muscles under a thick layer of fat, no bridge to his nose, scar tissue for eyebrows.

We found a table in the corner. Women in lingerie and high heels walked the runway. You bid high enough, you got to buy the cheesy crap right off their bodies, grope around handing it to them. Some stuff never goes out of fashion.

Watching the room, we ordered shots and beers. Virgil drank mine. It took another round before I spotted Matson. Alone at a table right across from the bouncer. I got up, walked over, beer in my hand. He looked up as we approached, hands where he could see them. In case he learned anything from his magazine collection.

The bouncer watched us, indifferent.

We sat down across from him. No bracket, leaving him room to move. My back to the door, Virgil with a clear sight-line over my shoulder.

His eyes were squinty under the bill of his red Budweiser tractor cap.

"Buy you a beer?" I asked him.

"I know you?"

"Burke," I said, holding out my hand. He waited a heartbeat, shook it. "My partner, Virgil."

"What can I do for you boys?"

"I heard you were the man to see around here. If you were interested in certain things."

"What things?" he asked, leaning back in his chair. Liking this.

"Doesn't matter. I'm not looking to buy, I'm looking to sell."

"Sell what?"

"Ordnance."

"We got all the guns we need."

"I'm sure you do. But the way I heard it, you could always use some special stuff."

"Like you said, I don't know you."

I took a metal Sucrets box out of my pocket. Opened it to show him it was empty. Handed him a fresh white handkerchief.

"What's this?"

"Wipe it down. Get it clean as you want. Then I'll leave you a print, okay? You take the box with you. Check it out. See I'm what I say I am, maybe we can do business. I can give you some references too, you want them."

He pursed his lips. Dragged on his cigarette. Took the metal box, wiped it down. Watched as I carefully rolled my thumbprint onto its surface. Wrapped it in the handkerchief, stowed it away in the pocket of his jacket.

"Say I was interested…"

"I'm a full-auto specialist. Anything you want. Even got some long-range stuff. Hand-held, shoulder-operated. Disposable."

"Where could I find you?"

"Right here. Say, in three days? Around this time?"

He nodded. Big man, considering his big deals carefully. The bouncer watched. I could feel the sneer.

114

I DROPPED VIRGIL a quarter mile down the road. Rebecca was parked in her cousin's Chevy a few feet away. Paid no attention to us.

I wheeled the Lincoln around, went back the way I came. The Blazer was still in the parking lot. A white Dodge sedan waited by the side of the road, Lloyd hunched over the wheel, eating a hero sandwich.

115

I PICKED UP some more clothes at the motel. Called Bostick, Glenda. Nothing new. Asked Bostick if I could pick up a few things from him.

Blossom got back around eight. Put a leather portfolio down on the couch, slipped off her shoes. "Let me take a shower, then I'll make you some dinner."

"We could go out."

"I already ate."

116

LATER THAT EVENING, the kitchen table covered with press clips. "What'd he do?" I asked Blossom. "Pull every file in the morgue?"

"He's a nice boy."

"You tell him that?"

Her smile was wicked. "I just thanked him. Politely. The way I was raised. You're my only boy."

I sorted the clips, speed-reading, Blossom at my shoulder. "What are we looking for?"

"First, we throw out what we're not. These, so far." Tapping a stack of body-count dispatches from the front lines they call city streets. Shootings where the gunman was apprehended at the scene. Shootings in the course of another crime. Where the victims were only male. Gang fights. Bars, nightclubs, bowling alleys…all discards.

I kept working. On instinct now. Tossed out anything except white females. Anything outside the past eighteen months— two birth cycles. The thick stack was down to a few clips.

White female, age twenty-four. Reported shot fired at her while she waited at a bus stop at midnight. Police investigated. Nothing more.

White female, age thirty-one. Shot fired into her bathroom window while she was taking a shower after she got home from the night shift. Separated from her husband, history of domestic violence. He was under a court Order of Protection. Working his job at the plant when the shot was fired. Questioned and released.

White female, age seventeen. Girl Scout leader. Shot in the arm while leading a troop of girls through the woods in the late afternoon, learning about nature.

Human nature.

117

I HAD THE contact-address for two of the shootings. The woman whose bathroom window was shattered was listed in the phone book I'd gotten from Bostick's office. I tacked the street maps up on Blossom's kitchen wall.

"You got a Magic Marker?"

"No."

"A crayon, anything?"

She brought me a tube of red lipstick. I dabbed a tiny blood-dot at each address. Stood back to look.

"A triangle," Blossom whispered.

"Doesn't mean anything. Three dots, you're more likely than not to get a triangle."

"Oh."

"It's okay. Look at the dates. The first one was the bus stop, back in the late fall. The Girl Scout, that was in December. Then the woman in her own house, that was the spring. The lovers' lane killings, they were all this summer."

"Why is that important?"

"I don't know if it's important. If they're all his work, it is. See it building…? The first shot, like an experiment. The woman standing there, all bundled up against the cold. Probably only could tell she was a woman by her coat. Then the Girl Scout. All covered up too. But a lot of girls around. Little girls. He may have just stumbled on them. Felt the rage. See, here? The bullet they took out of her? A twenty-two Long Rifle. A plinker's gun. Not a sniper's. Then the woman in her bathroom. Her naked image against the pebbled glass. Maybe he passed there before. Saw her. Watched. Got the signal and came back. The paper doesn't say what kind of bullet they recovered."

"Burke?"

"What?"

"You're scaring me. Your voice. Like you're…him. Like you see what he saw."

118

BLOSSOM'S PHONE RANG at one in the morning. The caller hung up before the answering machine could kick in. Rang again. Same thing.

Again.

I got up, started to dress in the clothes I'd brought with me.

"Where're you going, baby?"

"I'm not going anywhere. I've been right here, right next to you. All night. Never got out of that bed."

"I'm coming with you."

"No you're not."

"Burke…"

"Shut up, little girl. Close your eyes. I'll be back before you open them."

119

THE CHEVY PULLED UP outside Blossom's, headlights off. I climbed in next to Virgil. Saw Lloyd in the back seat.

"What's he doing here?"

"Caught me sneaking out."

"He knows?"

"You know how we are, brother. One of us got something on his plate, we all got it. Sometimes it ain't gravy."

"Lloyd," I told the boy, "you wait in the car. You wait until we come out, understand? A cop comes by, you stay there. You don't panic, don't run. Worst that happens, they'll take you in. Got it?"

"I got it," he said, voice steady. Streetlights picked up the slash of honor across the bridge of his nose.

"Any luck with the Nazi?" I asked Virgil.

"Reba tracked him right to his house. Lives over in Lake Station. Little nothing of a house, he got. Chain link fence, chest high. Got him a dog, though. Big German shepherd, Reba said. Saw him in the yard."

"Let's see if he wants to talk first."

120

THE BUILDING was dark. Virgil pulled around the back into a narrow alley, climbed out with me. Lloyd slid behind the wheel. Virgil opened the trunk, shouldered the duffel bag.

The lock on the back door was a dead bolt. I couldn't see alarm wires anywhere. I felt crude, clumsy. Wished for the Mole.

"Only one way," I whispered to Virgil. "I'm going to smash a window. Then we wait."

If he was disappointed in his master-criminal brother from New York, it didn't reach his face. He nodded okay, walked back toward the car. I found a good-sized chunk of concrete block. Walked over to a ground-floor window and tossed it through.

Nothing.

Back in the car, I told Lloyd to drive slowly across the street, turn off the engine, and wait.

We gave it half an hour, Lloyd fidgeting behind the wheel, Virgil smoking. Watching.

Still nothing.

"I didn't hear a sound when I broke the glass. If there was a silent alarm, the rollers would have been on the scene long ago. Let's do it."

121

I REACHED MY gloved hands inside the window frame through the broken glass, found the latch. Shoved it open. Virgil followed me inside.

The third floor had several computer terminals scattered about. Virgil hooked army blankets over the windows. I used my pencil beam, turned it on one of the terminals. The screen flickered into life.

I took a deep breath. If the machine asked for a password, I was finished.

No.

I followed the prompts, remembering what Blossom had been shown. Found the index for Reported Cases by Year. Figured my target for somewhere between fifteen and thirty years old just to play it safe. Typed 1960— and pressed the Return key.

The screen said Select Sub-Index. I scrolled the cursor down. Stopped at Indicated. Hit the Return again.

A new menu: Outcomes.

I selected: Petition Filed.

New menu. Selected: Adjudicated.

I entered, scanned the new list of choices. Found the one I wanted: Family Reunified— Closed.

I typed quickly through the next series of screens. Used the Sort key. Race = White. Sex = Male. Family Composition = One Child.

Entered. Screen Message: Data Prior to 1972 Not Downloaded. See Central File.

I tapped the Return key again to bypass the message. Hit the Print key.

Nothing.

Hit it again.

Nothing.

Selected Printer Menu. Blinking Message: Printer Is Not Connected.

I turned to see if Virgil was watching. His back was to me, facing the door.

I hit the On switch for the printer. Watched the lights blink as it warmed up. The screen asked me for printer speed. I selected the fastest.

"Gonna make some noise now," I warned Virgil.

He nodded, not moving from his post.

The Print key rattled the machine into life. I went to the window, looked down. The Chevy was still there. Alone.

I stood next to Virgil. "You think he's in there?" the mountain man asked.

"Maybe. Wherever he is, he's not far."

"You sure, now?"

I shrugged. Feeling it more than knowing it, not sure why.

The printer ran on like a machine gun in the darkness, spitting chewed-up lives onto paper.

122

VIRGIL PUSHED LLOYD over, took the wheel. I climbed into the back seat, holding a bundle of fan-folded paper as thick as the phone book.

123

THE BACK DOOR was unlocked. I found my way inside. Blossom was in bed, lying on her side, facing the bedroom door.

"You okay?" she asked, wide awake.

"Sure."

I took off the dark prowler's clothes, put everything I'd worn into a pillowcase, tied it closed.

Blossom didn't ask any questions. Patted the bed. Opened her arms.

124

"YOU WANT SOMETHING to eat? Take a break from that?"

I rolled my neck to loosen the cramping feeling. I was in the easy chair in Blossom's living room. The fan-folded stack of printout was on the coffee table next to me, a yellow legal pad to my right. "What time is it?"

"It's almost one in the afternoon, honey. You've been at it for hours."

I stood up. Followed her docilely into the kitchen. Ate a sandwich I couldn't taste.

"There's so many of them, Blossom. Even narrowing it down, taking the big guesses, there's so many."

She was barefoot, in a pair of pink shorts, a T-shirt with balloons on the front. Looked sixteen. "Tell me," she said.

"Two questions, right? Who he is, where he is. I can find who he is, I could get lucky. Point right to where he is. So I played with it. Patterns, like I told you. So I could see him in my mind."

"What d'you see?"

"He's shooting women. The boys who died, they were just in the line of fire. White women, I figure a white shooter."

"Just like that?"

"There's things I can't explain to you. It's not a black man's crime, sex-sniping."

"Like white women don't throw lye?"

"Don't be cute, girl. This isn't a job for the ACLU. There's a way you just know things. Your mother, she knew men, right?"

"She did."

"Could she explain everything to you… how she knew? There's something way past the red-light district, Blossom. A million miles underground. A white-light district maybe. The white light of the video cameras where they make kids perform for freaks."

"You've been there?"

"Yeah. And now, that's where I hunt."

"I'm sorry. Just tell me, okay. I'll keep my big mouth shut."

"Something happened to this kid. Something so ugly the social workers don't have a name for it. Maybe nobody ever found out about it, but I'm betting they did. Maybe through the back door. Maybe he was torturing little animals and a teacher caught him. Maybe a fire-setter. The way I dope it out, somebody caught wise, but they missed the boat. Missed the reasons. And they took him away for a while. Fixed him up. Gave his parents some counseling. And then they sent him home. Where he still is. Those files, they don't get you inside a kid's head. Or his heart. But I feel like this kid's rooted, you know. Like he never went far. Like he's been out there, brewing. Stewing in freakish juices."

"You're giving me the creeps."

"Something you don't know. Virgil brought me out here not to save Lloyd. To find out the truth. Whatever the truth was, he was going to stand up to it. The reason I know Lloyd didn't do it, it has nothing to do with what the cops know. The reason he didn't do it, he's not the person who could do it."

"Burke…if he's in there…if you're so sure he's in there…why do you look so depressed?"

"There's so many…so many. I can't bring it down too tight. I could miss him if I do. These reports are full of busted-up babies. Burned, beaten, crippled. Sexually abused. And every one of these files, they sent the kid home again. Everything all right again."

"And you're sad because you're not sure he's in there."

"I'm sad because …of what else is. All the success stories."

"You sound so evil when you say that. Like there's a chill in here."

"How should I sound?"

"I hate him too, honey. He killed my sister. But that boy…he has to be so…sick."

It felt like I was being baited. Goaded into something. "You think he needs a psychiatrist?" I asked her.

"Don't you?"

"No."

125

IT WAS TEN o'clock that night before I finished. Counted the files I had set aside. Almost two hundred. I closed my eyes. Went down inside. Where only the devil knew my secrets.

Called his name.

Wesley. The monster who signed his suicide note with a threat— I don't know where I'm going, but they better not send anyone after me.

"Where is he?" I asked the monster.

"Out there."

"Can I find him?"

"He can find you," the monster said, in his dead-machine voice. "Fire works."

I knew. He wasn't talking about the Fourth of July.

126

A HAND on my chest. Foggy voice. A strangled scream. Blossom's face inches from mine, the pink glow gone dark. My fingers locked around her throat. The soft flesh turned to acid— I whipped my hand away.

Later, on the couch, her head in my lap. Cold water dripping onto my thighs from the ice pack she was holding against her throat.

"I never saw anything move so fast. It was like a steel vise…" Her voice was raw, raspy.

"Don't talk."

"Burke…"

"I'm sorry. I was somewhere else. Didn't know it was you."

"It's okay. I thought you were asleep. I just wanted you to come to bed."

"Close your eyes, Blossom. Go to sleep."

She found my hand, separated the fingers like she was counting them. Put my thumb in her mouth, curled onto her side, closed her eyes.

I felt the cold go through me, reaching where the ice pack couldn't touch.

127

VIRGIL AND I spotted the Blazer in the parking lot. Matson was sitting in his spot. Two guys with him. Looked like he did: mean-eyed, blotchy-faced, chinless. The Master Race.

We sat down.

The fashion show went on behind us.

Matson leaned forward. "You got yourself quite a background, friend."

"Satisfied?"

"Yeah. What was it like?"

"What was what like?"

"Africa. I thought of doing that kind of work myself. Merc stuff. Pay's good?"

"Good enough."

"Must be heaven. Killin' niggers and gettin' paid for it too."

One of his boys laughed. I swiveled my head slowly, catching his eyes. Weasel. He stopped laughing, waiting for his cue, not knowing the script.

"You go by Mitchell Sloane?" Matson asked. So he wrote down the Lincoln's license number. Or Revis was more helpful to him than just running my prints.

"I go by a lot of things."

"Yeah. Yeah, I understand. Where'd you hear I was in the market for some hardware?"

"Around. I heard you were a serious man. Had serious business."

He nodded sagely, basking in the praise. "That's the truth. Lots of groups like ours around, but we're the real thing. Everybody knows that. It ain't just the niggers, you know. Maybe it ain't as bad as Jew York yet around here, but we're workin' on it. Got homos in the government, Jew-bastard IRS on our necks, no room for a white man to breathe anymore."

"That's what I sell. Breathing room."

"I got you. You know, a nigger once came in here. Right in the fuckin' door. Like he owned the place. Lickin' his ape lips at the girls. Now that don't happen no more. The word's out. We've been growing. Slow but steady. Have to be real careful, who you let in."

"Yeah, the feds are everywhere."

"Undesirables too. You hear about Patterson's crew, down in Crown Point? They had a guy in there, ranking member and all. Turned out he was a Jew. Patterson's a fuckin' fool— he shouldn't be in a leadership position in the movement."

"How's he supposed to know, who's a Jew?"

"There's ways. We got our eye on them. On some of them. Send 'em a message one of these days."

Virgil watched, bored.

The Nazi's voice droned on.

White Noise.

I cut in at an angle, merging with his rap. Talked his talk. Guns and blood. Freedom for the Race. I let him bargain me into a half dozen Uzis, five grand for the package.

"You use these, the cops'll think it was some nigger dope dealers, right?"

"Yeah!"

"COD."

"Deal. I'll meet you right here on…"

"I look stupid to you, I'm gonna ride around with a truckful of a life sentence?"

"The cops won't bother this place."

"It's not the locals I'm worried about."

"So where, then?"

"Chicago. I got a warehouse in Uptown. You drive in, drive out."

His eyes went crafty with the chance to impress his punks. "No way, partner. Not across a state line."

I pretended to give it some thought. "Okay. It'll take me a few days to get the pieces together from my source. Give me a number, I'll call you. We'll make the exchange on the road. Wherever you say."

"I'll give you our Hot Line. When you call, you get our message. The Race Word. There ain't no beep, but it's an answering machine. When you hear a voice saying White Power! that's the sign-off. Just leave your message after that, I'll get back to you."

"Good enough."

The bouncer's eyes tracked me and Virgil out the door.

128

I HANDED BLOSSOM the pistol. "You better hang on to this, find a safe place for it." Thinking of Revis.

"Okay, boss."

"Be careful with it— it's loaded."

She popped the cylinder, pointed the barrel at the ceiling as the cartridges dropped into her palm. "I know about guns. From the Army. M-16, M-60, grenades…we even practiced with LAWs."

"You were in the Army?"

"Don't look so surprised, baby. They paid for medical school. It was a good deal. And Mama didn't leave us a fortune. Violet and I agreed, we'd save the money for Rose. Pay her way through school."

I held her against me until she stopped trembling.

129

LATER, THE PHONE RANG. Answering machine picked up.

Virgil's voice: "He went to the same place. Alone."

130

TWO HUNDRED NAMES. For the first time, I missed New York. If I was home, if I could tap into my machinery, call in some markers, work the angles, make some trades…I could narrow them down. Find out which of the kids had later died, gone to prison, been institutionalized, moved away. But out here…I was working in the dark.

I needed a match.

131

CALLED BOSTICK. "Can you check some real estate for me?"

"If it's local, sure. Take about an hour."

I gave him Matson's address.

132

IN VIRGIL'S back yard, night falling.

"She checked the place again?"

"Yep. Reba says he lives alone, looks like."

"The house is in his name. Nobody else on the mortgage. He could have a girlfriend living there. Or maybe one of his Nazi pals. We'll play whatever's there."

"He's got that dog, though."

"It's a long shot. We can't wait for him to be somewhere else. Have to go in while he's there, brace him, take a look. He's gonna guess who we are, tell his pal the cop."

Virgil shrugged. "Kids go to bed early. I'll be up, watching TV with Reba. Lloyd too."

"He's dirty anyway. Can't see him going to court. And I'll have a message for him, he does that. Let me do the talking, it comes to that."

"Okay."

"We'll leave Lloyd in the car, like last time."

Virgil nodded. I caught a look on his face. "What's wrong?" I asked him.

He dragged on his smoke. "I don't hold with killing dogs, brother."

"Matson, he's an amateur. Probably thinks the way to make a good watchdog is to starve him. I'll take care of it."

133

"I NEED TO knock out a dog."

Blossom didn't change expression. "What kind of dog? How fast?"

"A shepherd. Figure, eighty, ninety pounds. He needs to go down pretty quick, stay down for at least a half hour."

"Can you use a needle?"

"No. Unless you got a tranquilizer gun lying around."

"Let me look."

She came back with a black medical bag. Opened it on the countertop, starting stacking little vials and bottles in a row. I leaned over her shoulder to watch. Opened a bottle, spilled out some tiny round orange pills. Cupped a handful. Stared down at them. SKF T76 in black letters.

"You know what those are?" she asked.

"Yeah. Thorazine. Fifty milligrams."

"How come…?"

"When I was a kid…before I learned to keep inside myself…they used to give it to me."

"You were in a psychiatric hospital?"

I didn't like the sound of my own laugh. "I was in what they called a training school."

"You still remember…?"

I nodded, remembering it all, saying nothing. It was always dark in there. The gym was fear, the shower room was terror. Nothing clean, nothing private, nothing safe. Some kids ran. They brought them back. Some found another way to go— a swan dive to the concrete, a belt tied around a light fixture. Viciousness was worshiped, icy violence was God. When the rage-dam broke inside me, I didn't know when to stop. Stabbing inmates was okay, but not fighting a guard. So they went to the Thorazine. Chemical handcuffs. They didn't work the same on everyone. This one boy in there with me, the stuff worked on him like an anabolic steroid— he raged against the chemicals inside his body so his life was an isometric exercise. It got so he could crush a man's life with his hands. And that's what he did. Me, all I wanted was to learn to ride the storm.

The prisons were full of men they trained in those training schools. By the time I went down, I was ready.

Blossom was quiet, pawing through her supplies. Then: "Here it is." Holding up a stainless-steel needle, encased in plastic.

"Here's what?"

"Secobarbital sodium. Like Seconal, you know what that is?"

"Sleeping pills."

"Like that, but this is damn near an anesthetic dose. It's in Tubex. One-shot needles, preloaded. Just inject them right into whatever the dog's going to eat."

"Is that enough?"

"There's a grain and a half in each cartridge. I've got four here. Enough for a whole kennel."

"How long would it take to work?"

"Depends. It has to go through the GI tract. He laps it right up, runs around some to get his blood pumping, maybe five, ten minutes."

"Okay. You got any chopped liver around?"

"Chopped liver?"

"Like you get in a deli. Never mind. I'll be back in a little while."

134

TWO MORE DAYS of working with the clips, trying to match an address for any of the "Family Reunified— Closed" cases with something close to one of the shootings.

Nothing.

135

TWO A.M., at the end of Matson's block. Lloyd at the wheel, Virgil and I in the back seat, me on the passenger's side.

"Tell me again," I said to the kid.

"I drove by last night. Like you said. The dog didn't do nothing. So I got out of the car, walked up to the fence. He started barking like all holy hell, snapping at me. I get in, drive away. Wait ten minutes. On my watch. I drive back, he's quiet again. Simmered right down."

"Okay. Put it in gear, cruise by slow. You see anyone, see another car, just keep on going."

Virgil gave him a couple of hard pats on the shoulder and the Chevy rolled forward.

No lights on in the house. The dog's sleek shape loomed in the shadowed front yard. Lloyd slowed to a stop. I got out, the softball-sized glob of hamburger with its chopped-liver core in my gloved hand. The dog hit the fence, snarling. I slapped the meat against the chain link with an open palm, feeling his frenzied gnawing against my glove as I stuffed it through. The dog grunted his rage, clawing at the fence.

I backed away, jumped in the car. No lights went on in the neighboring houses— they'd probably heard all this before.

136

WE GAVE IT fifteen minutes. The dog was lying in the front yard. He didn't stir as we approached. Virgil worked the bolt cutters and the padlocked chain gave way. We were inside. I watched the dog with my pistol. He didn't watch back.

The Nazi had a lock on his back door even I could open. Door chain lasted one snip of the bolt cutters.

We reached inside our navy watch caps, pulled down the pantyhose masks, adjusted our eyes to the gloom. No carpet on the floor, but our rubber-soled shoes didn't send a warning.

Downstairs: a kitchen, dirty dishes in the sink; a living room with a console TV, staircase.

No basement.

Up the stairs, linoleum runner down the middle. Bathroom at the top, door standing open. Another room with file cabinets, desk, telephone with an answering machine next to it.

He was sleeping on his side in the other room, snoring softly. We stepped inside, Virgil across from his face, covering him with my pistol. I took the heavy gym sock filled with hard-packed sand from my jacket pocket, wrapped my fist around the knotted end, swung it back and forth for balance, nodded to Virgil.

Virgil prodded Matson in the chest with the pistol. The Nazi stirred, said "Wha…" and propped himself on one elbow just as I slammed the sock into the top of his head. I spun back for another shot, but he was down.

I handed Virgil the sock, pulled out my flashlight, and went into his office.

It didn't take long. There wasn't much. Stacks of magazines. Guns and girls. Loose piles of hate sheets on cheap newsprint: swastikas, drawings of blacks, Negroid features exaggerated to make them apelike, Christian crosses and devil-lyrics to racist songs. Three rifles on wood pegs stood ready on the wall.

The file cabinets were mostly empty. Except for some personnel folders he must have brought home from his job. One for each freak. Writing on the front in thick black Magic Marker. One folder had two stars. I popped a green plastic garbage bag from my jacket, snapped it open, threw in the files.

One look around before I left. Nothing else worth taking. I found his Magic Marker. Picked a clean piece of wall. Wrote: We Know Where You Live.

I threw the bag over my shoulder, checked on Virgil. He was still holding the gun on Matson's body.

We went past the dog, closed the gate gently. Stepped into the Chevy and Lloyd motored away.

Virgil looked back over his shoulder. "I hope that dog's gonna be all right," he said.

137

IT WAS ON the news in the morning. He hit again. Just on the other side of the dunes. Three couples were parked, a little past midnight. Shots zipped out of the night, puncturing the last car in the row. The girl was dead, the boy wounded, on the critical list.

Nothing about Matson.

138

I CALLED SHERWOOD from the Lincoln. Met him in the Illiana Raceway parking lot. The place was quiet— they only run on Saturdays. If he was wasted from working all night, he didn't show it.

"We're going to shut him down, put him in a box," the big detective said.

"You want to talk to Lloyd? About the shootings last night?" I asked the big man, watching his face.

"No. He's got an alibi for last night, doesn't he?"

I met his eyes. "Probably does. How you gonna shut this freak down?"

"We close the parks. Should of done it before, after the first ones. Have squad cars cruise the lovers' lanes, all the parking spots. Chase the kids away. No parking after dark, period. Stupid fucking kids, you think we wouldn't need to be telling them."

"Hormones."

"Yeah. I ain't that old. But they don't get it, these kids. You ever been in combat?"

"Yeah."

"You think about sex while you were getting shot at?"

"Okay, I get it."

"We got nothing else to do. We must of rousted every ex-con with a sex sheet in the county. Blank. I'm beginning to think, maybe your idea wasn't so fucked up."

I raised my eyebrows.

"Some gun-freak degenerate motherfucker. One of those Nazi-boys. You know, I'd like it to be one of them."

"Me too."

He lit a cigarette. "Notice you haven't been smoking, last couple of times."

"You don't miss much."

"I'm missing something here. Someone."

"I got an idea. Maybe not much of one. Something. You can really shut the parking places down?"

"Oh yeah. Cold fucking turkey."

"I got to take a look at something. I'll call you soon."

139

I WANTED to look at Matson's files, but I'd bolted out of Blossom's house as soon as I'd heard the news. One stop to make first.

The phone picked up in the junkyard.

"Mole," I said, "I need a shark cage."

140

MATSON was one selective Nazi. His files showed nine "actives," seventeen "affiliates," three "candidates," and thirty-four "rejects."

I looked closer. The "actives" were listed by "MOS." Rifleman, Communications, Infiltration. Every military occupation except Intelligence. Between the arcane symbols and the lavish praise for the "warriors," a collection of life's losers lurked, waiting for their flabby Armageddon.

The "affiliates" were members of other groups who occasionally came to meetings or corresponded. About half lived in southern Illinois or Indiana, the others were scattered throughout the country.

"Candidates" turned out to be humans who Matson thought had potential. One human's credential was a news clipping saying he had been arrested for spray-painting filth on a synagogue.

And the "rejects" were a clump of former "candidates" whose hostility wasn't exclusively confined to blacks. One was rejected after he fractured the jaw of one of Matson's boys in a bar. In his black Magic Marker, Matson neatly printed Unsuitable for Service across the file. Most of his other reject-reasons weren't so sweetly phrased: Jew! Suspected Homosexual. Suspected Government Agent.

I went through them again. Carefully.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Blossom came into the kitchen, face glowing from her shower. Dark purplish band across her throat. My fingerprints drew my eyes.

"It's okay, baby. I'll be pretty as a prom queen in a few days." Her voice was a sugar-edged rasp.

"Yeah."

"Yeah! Just stop it, okay? I know what happened, why it happened."

"Blossom…"

"You want a cigarette?"

"What?"

"Your time's up. A week, like we agreed. And you been such a good boy too. Not one drag, huh?"

"How would you know?"

"I can smell it. All over you. On your hands, in your hair. You've got nice thick hair for such an old man."

"It won't be a week until tonight."

"That's okay. You're off the hook. I lost. I know you could do it now. For as long as you wanted."

"I wish I could do this."

She fumbled in her purse, brought out a fresh pack of smokes. My brand. Slit the cellophane with a fingernail, struck a match, got it going. She walked over, pushed her shoulder against me, sat in my lap, her legs dangling over the sides like a kid on a boat. Held the cigarette to my lips. "Maybe this'll help you think."

141

BLOSSOM WOKE ME with a quick tap on my chest, standing her distance. "Supper's ready, honey."

I couldn't taste the food.

142

LATER THAT NIGHT.

"Blossom, can you make a list of all the names from the child abuse stuff? Just the names and dates of birth?"

"Sure."

I went back to the Nazi files, grinding at the paper with my eyes.

Blossom's list was printed in a clean, sharp hand, slightly slanted to the right.

"Can I read you some names, you check to see if any of them are on your list?"

"I should have alphabetized them."

"It's okay, it's short."

I lit a smoke. Too old to be playing long shots. Too black&white for this movie.

Quiet time passed. Name after name. Blank. No match. Rustle of Blossom's papers.

"Luther Swain."

"Burke, I swear I…yes!"

"Give it to me…not the damn list, Blossom, where's the printout?"

"Keep your pants on, boy. I'll get it."

Luther Swain. Only child of Nathaniel and Margaret Swain. Born February 29, 1968. Removed from his home by Social Services November 4, 1976. Department alerted because child had not attended school, parents had not responded to letters. No home telephone. Whip marks from an electrical cord, cigarette burns, severe eye damage from being kept in a dark basement for several months. Father committed to Logansport, the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Child kept in state institution, released to foster care, returned to institution. Finally: Released to mother, August 9, 1979. Family Reunified— Case Closed.

Blossom on her knees, surrounded by a floorful of paper. Watching me.

The Nazi file. Swain, Luther. Answered one of their ads, requested further information. Sent to a PO box in Gary. Called. Matson and two others met him. "Applicant was evasive about personal details. Suspected homosexual. Rejected."

"Is it him?"

"I don't know. He's as close as we got so far. Let's go through the other names, see if there's another match."

No.

143

MIDNIGHT.

"The only address on the Social Services files is more than ten years old. Even the PO box, that's a couple of years dead. No phone listed. Tomorrow, I'll take a look."

"Me too."

"No."

"Burke!"

"Do what I tell you, Blossom."

She leaned over the couch, pearly breasts a soft spill against my face, whispered, "I will. Right now. Like I promised. Let's go to bed. Then you can tell me what to do."

Sure.

144

IN THE BEDROOM. I was lying on my back, two pillows behind my head, smoking. Blossom stood to my left, standing straight as a soldier, thin straps of the blue negligee on her shoulders.

Smiling, her eyes wicked.

"What d'you say, boss?"

"Take that off."

She pulled the straps down. A cloud of wispy blue drifted to her feet.

"Come here." Grinding out the cigarette.

I took her hand, pulled her down to me, kissed her softly. I rolled her onto her back, my face against the dark hollow of her throat. My lips touched a tiny jewel of a nipple. I curled against her, found my place, closed my eyes. She made comfort-sounds against my ear as I drifted away.

145

IT WAS LATE morning when I left. Stopped at the motel. Showered, shaved, put on a dark gray pinstripe suit. Studied the street maps again for a few minutes.

At the center of an intricate web, cross-connected by blood and honor. Virgil, Reba, Lloyd. Virginia and Junior. Blossom and her sister. So much. And, somewhere, a maniac with an axe in his hands, his eye on the hard knots lashing my people together. Me, spinning between the loves. A visitor, welcomed for the gun in my hand.

I passed the Marquette Park Lagoon, turned into a series of dirt roads, watching for the street signs. Past a pizzeria, grocery store, bait shop.

The Lincoln nosed its way into the slough. Termite-haven wood houses with rickety steps up the outside, cloudy plastic sheets covering broken windows. Grungy soot-colored cars dotted the yards. A pickup truck with monster tires, suspension jacked up, Kentucky plates. Satellite dish next to one shack. Barefoot, disinterested children watched.

The sun slanted through the murk— the barren ground defied photosynthesis.

The address was three houses down from where two pieces of barbed-wire-topped fence didn't quite meet. I parked the car, got out. Next door, a thick-bodied beast who looked like he'd been kicked out of a junkyard for antisocial behavior rumbled a greeting, baleful eyes tracking me.

I climbed the steps, knocked. TV sounds from inside. I hit it again.

A scrawny woman opened the door. Pasty skin, lank hair, dull grayish teeth. Somewhere between nineteen and dead.

"What is it?"

"Mrs. Swain?"

"No, I ain't her."

"Well, it's her I need to see. Is she around?"

"Ain't no Mrs. Swain, mister. Not around here."

"Look, it's important that I speak to her. Real important."

"Cain't help you none."

"You sure?" Holding some bills in one hand.

"Mister, Lord knows I'd like some of that money you showin', but I ain't never heard of no Swain people."

"You lived here long?"

Sparkless eyes held mine. "Three years. Three fucking years."

"Did you buy the house then?"

"Buy?" Her laugh was bile-laced mucus. "We rent, mister. Man comes once a month, get his money."

"What's his name?"

"The Man," she said, closing the door in my face.

146

"SUPPOSE I TOLD you there was this kid. Abused kid, really tortured. Burned, locked in a basement for months. Social Services takes him away. His old man goes down to Logansport. Years later, they send him home to his mother. This same kid, he tries to join up with Matson's Nazis. They turn him down, or he spooks, not sure which. You knew about this kid, would you be interested in talking to him? About the killings?"

"I might," Sherwood said. "Should I be?"

"I think so."

"You haven't said enough to get a search warrant."

"If I had his address, maybe I could say enough, a couple of days from now."

"Which means you don t."

"Right."

"Just a name."

"His name, parents' names, date of birth, last known address."

"Which you tried and drew a blank?"

"Yeah."

"Give it to me."

147

I SHARKED AROUND, looking. Blossom at my side, not talking. Knowing I was listening to someone else.

We passed under railroad tracks, past a stone dam. Huge swastika on quarry rocks. Satan Rules!

Kids.

Two more dead days slipped by until the monster led me there. Through the gate of the Paul Douglas Nature Center. Two teardrop-shaped blobs of blacktop joined by a narrow connecting loop like a drooping barbell. Neatly marked parking lines painted in white, slotted between mercury vapor lights suspended high on metal posts. I slid the Lincoln into a space. The park entrance was to my left, past a wooden footbridge. To my right, over Blossom's shoulder, I could see an eight-foot chain link fence, woods behind it.

"Stay here," I told her. "Just stay in the car."

I found a foothold, pulled myself to the top of the fence, dropped down to the other side. Climbed a rise through some underbrush until I got to the top. Abandoned railroad tracks that hadn't seen a train for years, rusting in disgust, connectors broken loose. The other side of the tracks was a copse, black even in daylight. A deep drop-off behind the copse, leading to the streets below. I worked my way down, followed along the edge of the drop-off, feeling my way.

I was at the lakefront in ten minutes. White dunes in the distance. Dunes where the killer had roosted.

I climbed back, emerging out of the copse. Lay down prone on the tracks.

A clear view of the Lincoln. I could see Blossom stretching her slim arms in the front seat. It felt like watching a woman in a window.

Killing ground. Sloping to a perfect pitch for the sniper's song.

I closed my eyes, feeling the sun on my face, darkness at my back. Sucked clean air through my nose, down deep past my stomach. Expanded my chest on the exhale, centering.

Felt for the sniper in my mind. Listened to the child. "I hurt," he said.

Once a child's cry for help. Now a killer's boast.

"He'll be here." Wesley's voice.

148

I WORKED THE ground. No shell casings, no condoms. Not even a beer can. The spot was virgin, waiting for a rapist. I absently pulled some long green reeds from the earth. Climbed into the car, tossed them on the front seat between us.

On the way out, I checked the sign. The Nature Center closed each night at six.

149

"YOU OKAY?"

"That's his spot, Blossom. It's perfect."

She fingered the green stalks. "You know what these are?"

"No."

"This is a scouring rush. Horsetails, we call them. Prospectors used to use them. You crack them open, like this, see? They're hollow. The story is, you could see tiny flecks of gold, where it was leached up out of the ground if there was any underneath."

I wondered if they leached blood.

150

THE NEXT MORNING, the Lincoln circled the Nature Center in tightening loops, pawing the ground before it moved in.

"When are you going to try it?" Blossom.

I lit a cigarette with the dashboard lighter. "I have to get a call first. There's something I need."

The car phone rang. But it was Sherwood, not the Mole.

I let Blossom ride along to the meet with me. Let the cop know what I knew.

Most of it.

151

THE UNMARKED CAR was positioned at the gate to the beach. I pulled in alongside, got out. Blossom followed. Sherwood fell into step with us.

"Good news and bad news. This Luther Swain, he could be the guy. But he's gone. That address you had, it was the last one on record."

"What about his mother?"

Sherwood pulled out a thick slab of a notebook. "According to DPW records, she left about five years ago. The locals terminated her Welfare grant. The kid stayed on in the house until 1986, when he turned eighteen. They offered him some services: outpatient counseling, group therapy. Even said they'd hook him up with SSI Disability. But one day he just up and disappeared."

"You run them on SSI national?"

"Yeah. Zip. If they were getting checks from the government, we'd have located 'em."

"Tax records? Military? Passport?"

"Blank." His look was measured, just short of offended. "We know how to do it, pal, chase the paper. There's no trail. The kid don't even have a driver's license."

"Fuck." Me.

"Detective, did you by any chance pull this boy's medical records?" Blossom.

"Yes, ma'am. They're in the car." His tired eyes tracked her. "If you're thinking the blood banks, it won't fly. He's got type O."

"No, I was thinking…maybe it's not so strange he doesn't have most kinds of ID, but you'd think, a young man, he'd have a driver's license."

"So?"

"Burke, remember that report you read to me? Something about severe damage to his eyes? Maybe that's why he can't get a driver's license."

"I don't know anything about any reports, I said, the words evenly spaced, like rocks dropping into a pond.

"Me neither," said Sherwood. "We had this report of an attempted break-in at the DPW Building, but I figure, it had to be some kids playing a prank. Real rookie move, toss a rock through the glass. Not the kind you'd expect from any big-time New York heist-man."

Blossom's face flushed.

Back at Sherwood's car, we found the records. Blossom translated the big words. "He'll always have trouble with his vision, especially in daylight."

"He couldn't get a driver's license?" Sherwood.

"Not hardly."

"They got no test for buying a gun," the big man said.

152

I TOLD HIM about the Nature Center. We went by to take a look. I showed him what I'd seen. He nodded.

"Wait here."

I saw him talking to a uniformed park ranger. He walked back slow.

"He says they drop the gate every night. Padlock it. Wood gate. Anyone could get through it. Nobody does. Says the kids never park here. They patrol about twice a night. If they'd see someone, they'd chase 'em off. Maybe bust 'em for trespassing, if they were smoking dope."

"He'll work with you?"

"On this? Sure. We shut down the parking spots, like I told you. This one won't get patrols."

"How about if a car was going to park in here. Every night. Would he look the other way? Stay down?"

His eyes were someplace else. "What d'you have in mind?"

"Drawing his fire."

He walked a few feet away, back to me. I let him have his silence, waiting.

Sherwood turned to face me. "You're crazy. Crazy as he is. If this boy's the one you want, he's certifiable. Got him a Get Out of Jail Free card behind his past record. Hell, he was on medication right up to the time he cut loose and disappeared."

"I'm not crazy. I'm waiting for a car. Special car. You'll see. It should be able to handle anything he can throw."

"And what's my piece?"

"You got to be in position before dark. Nice and early. I'll park right where the Lincoln is right now. You can work anywhere from the left."

He scanned the terrain. "I was in 'Nam," he said. Absently, under his breath. "Infantry. It looks like that. I could deploy a dozen men in there. Spotlights, the whole works."

I moved close to him, my voice pitched low. "It has to be a deal, Sherwood. A square deal, both sides. You work from the left, okay? Nothing to the right of that point…see, where the tracks make that kind of peak?"

"Who's gonna be on the right?"

"Someone for me. I'm not gonna testify in court, okay? This works, he throws down on me, opens up, I'm out of here. Turn the key and go. Just make sure you fire across, not down."

"What else?"

"Just your own people. You post this on the bulletin board, Officer Revis takes a look, I could have trouble. The way this is, you and your team, you're staking out the place. On a hunch. You be as surprised as anyone else, a car pulls in."

"You want me to risk my badge?"

"Up to you. All I want, you either stay out of here or come in the way I said. Either way."

"When you gonna start?"

"I'll let you know."

153

AT VIRGIL'S HOUSE that night.

"What've you got that you're sure of?"

He brought down an old lever-action .30-30 carbine, the stock burnished with generations of hand-rubbed oil. "This Winchester was my daddy's. He taught me to use it. Before this all started, I was teaching Lloyd. We was going deer hunting, this winter, him and me."

"There's no paper on this?"

"No. I got me an old thirty-ought-six too. The one I was gonna have Lloyd use."

I lit a smoke.

"You started up again?"

I ignored him. "Lloyd, you sure you want to do this? This isn't some bar fight now."

"Yessir."

"'Cause of all the trouble this guy caused you?"

The boy's fists were clenched, voice vibrating, working for control. "Not him. The other one. The one who…"

"I know," I told him.

154

BLOSSOM WAS IN the kitchen with Rebecca, Virginia monopolizing conversation, Junior sitting quiet.

I thought about all Virgil had. Watching him polish the cut-down barrels of a twelve-gauge with emery paper.

"You could walk away from this," I told him.

"Why didn't you?"

I didn't answer him.

Wesley knew.

"He knows I'm coming," I told my brother.

The mountain man jacked a shell into the chamber of his carbine. It made a sharp, clean sound in the living room. His face was set in lines of bone.

"The bear can't leave the woods just 'cause he knows it's hunting season."

155

LATE THAT NIGHT, in bed.

"Do you know why they do it?"

"They?"

"Perverts, freaks, degenerates…whatever you want to call them." Her face was soft, little-girl questions in her eyes. But I felt the long muscles tense in her thigh, testing. Pushing the buttons, watching the screen.

"What'd your mother call them?" Testing back.

"If they liked to play dress-up, harmless stuff like that…she called them customers. Clients. Somebody wanted to really whale on a woman, really hurt her, he'd know better than to come to my mother's house."

I lit a smoke, buying time. "One way you can tell a country's gone real evil…when the doctors are working the torture chambers. Telling the sadists how much a prisoner can take before he checks out completely. You know what a snuff film is?"

"I heard of them. Just rumors."

"They're no rumors. And they didn't start a couple of years ago. A guy I met in Africa told me the Shah of Iran had video cameras in his torture chambers. Idi Amin too. Why do you think Hitler's freaks kept the cameras rolling? There's always been people who get off on pain. Other people's pain. And people who like to watch."

"Everybody has that in them?"

"No. Hell, no. But some do. And we keep breeding them. Monsters."

"Not criminals?"

"Past criminals. I'm a criminal, Blossom. My buddy Pablo, he's a doctor too. A psychiatrist. I asked him once, what I was. He said I'm a contrabandista. An outlaw, you understand?"

She sat up, hands clasping her knees. "Not like them. And not like us either, huh?"

I thought of Virgil, his family. Who's "us" anymore?

"Right on the borderline," I told her.

156

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, on my way to Virgil's, the car phone made its noise.

"What?"

"Place your bets, I'm on the set."

"Prof?"

"No, fool, it's Jesse Jackson."

"Is the thing ready?"

"Have no fear, your ride is here."

"Here?"

"Time to jump, chump. Boston Street, northbound from Thirty-ninth. Cruise it slow, lights down low. When the honeybees swarm, you found the farm. Ask for Cherry."

157

VIRGIL SAT NEXT to me in the Lincoln, Lloyd in the back seat. "He's really here?"

"Must be. Said to take Boston Street, northbound from Thirty-ninth."

"Boston Street? There's no Boston Street anywhere around here."

"He said to see a hooker. Cherry."

"He's holed up in Cal City maybe?"

"On the stroll, Virgil. A street girl. Where'd they be, close by?"

"Off Broadway, I guess." He dragged on his cigarette, thinking. "Ah, he has to mean Massachusetts Street. Over in Glen Park. Make a left up there."

The sun didn't reach all the way to street level on Massachusetts. Three-story frame houses leaned against each other for comfort. A slow-moving line of cars worked its way up the block. I drifted over to the curb. A flock of girls descended: spandex pants, tube tops, high heels. Working.

I pushed the power window switch, letting them know I was the man to talk to. Ebony woman with long straight hair, lipstick slashed carelessly across her mouth, leaned into the car, unbound breasts slopping against the windowsill. Up close, the hair was a wig.

"I don't do triples, honey. Your friends want to wait their turn, or I can ask a couple of my girlfriends along? Whatever you say, anyway you want to do it."

"I'm looking for Cherry. Wasn't that her that just went by? Girl in a red leather coat?"

"Yeah, catch Cherry wearing somethin' that'd cover her ass. Fat chance, get it?" She blew smoke airily at the night ceiling. "Cherry? Cherry ain't nothin', man. Whatever you heard 'bout her, you can double up for me."

They all sing the same sad song.

"How much is the ride?" I asked her.

"How far you want to drive, honey? Around the world?" And they all use the same lyrics.

"Short time," I said, looking for the quickest way in.

"Twenty-five."

"Bring Cherry to the car, I'll give you twenty."

"I don't see no cash."

"I don't see no Cherry."

They came back together. Cherry was shorter, stockier. Her wig was blonde.

"Hi, honey! You lookin' for me?"

"If you're Cherry."

"That's me, baby. You heard about me, huh?"

"I'm looking for a friend. Your friend. He'd of told you I was coming."

"Oh yeah. He's right…"

"Tell me his name."

"You mean the Prophet, don't ya? Yeah! An ugly white man would come to set me free…Wow! Just like he said."

I handed the other girl a pair of tens. She moved into the line of whores working the other cars. Cherry got into the back seat. Virgil took one whiff, pushed his own window down. Lloyd sat across from her, watching like he'd seen E.T. up close.

Cherry told me where to drive. One block up, a right turn into an alley. ROOMS, the wooden sign said, hanging lopsided over a door to a house that looked older than greed. I followed her inside, Lloyd behind me, Virgil last. Up a flight of stairs. We were the only whites in the joint. We watched their hands, looking for the truth.

Voices from an open door at the end of the hall. A pimp's sandpaper voice on top.

"I don't give a fuck who you say you is or what you say you want, you midget motherfucker. You don't come in here and work no girls. This is my place. Now you get your black ass outta here or I cut a piece of it off!"

We stepped inside. Burly thug with a shaved head, dressed all in white leather right down to his cowboy boots. Holding a straight razor in his hand.

The Prof was seated in a ragged armchair, wrapped in a khaki raincoat tenting around his tiny body. As calm as a man watching a movie— one he'd seen before. The pimp stepped aside as we entered, dropping into a slight crouch.

"Hey, schoolboy," the Prof greeted me. "You got a pistol with you?"

"Sure," I told him, taking it out.

"Good. Now will you please shoot this stupid farmer before he cuts someone?"

"Okay," I replied, cocking the piece.

"Hey, man…"

Virgil moved his coat. The sawed-off shotgun eyed the pimp.

"Oh, man. You remembered!" the Prof said. Like it was his brand of beer. He turned to the pimp. "You see how it is, fool. A knife don't make it right, but a gun can make it fun."

The pimp pocketed his razor, slid toward the door, his eyes filled with wonder. He'd seen guns before…but a tiny black man with a preacher's voice who used hillbillies for enforcers was science fiction. The legend of the Prophet was due for another installment.

We didn't block his path, letting him go. I tracked his face, making sure he knew I'd remember him.

Nobody had to tell him. Don't come back.

158

IN THE LINCOLN, the Prof barked directions like he'd lived in that maze all his life. We parked in a row of garages. Cherry jumped out, opened a padlock. A shocking-purple car with a long, low hood and a black vinyl top stood inside. The Prof handed me a set of keys. We all climbed out.

"This is it?" I asked him.

"You can take that tank to the bank, bro'. It'll stop what he's got. Papers in the glove box."

"I'll meet you back at the house," I told Virgil. "Give me the scattergun, case you get stopped."

He handed it over.

Cherry turned to the Prof. "You not comin'?"

"You go back to the room, beautiful. Wait for me. Stay off the streets tonight." To me: "Give her a yard, pard."

I handed her two fifties. She took it, a reluctant look on her face. "You really comin' back?"

"Woman, have I said one word to you that has not been the truth?" the Prof snapped out at her, switching to his preacher's voice. "Do not confuse me with panderers and pimps, child. What I say shall come to pass, for it is written that children of the night shall forever find each other in the dark."

She turned, started down the alley to a grime-colored building. The Prof watched her walk, shifted back to his cornerboy's voice. "Ain't no fake in that shake, brothers."

She looked back once over her shoulder, waved once, and she was gone.

159

I UNLOCKED the purple car. The inside of the door was covered with a thick slab of clear plastic right up to the windowsill. I dropped into the thinly padded bucket seat, turned the key. The engine crackled into life. I moved the pistol-grip shift lever into Drive and the beast lurched, straining against the brake.

The Lincoln pulled away. I followed.

The car was an old Plymouth Barracuda, a 1970s pony car. The hood went on forever, the trunk was tiny, the back seat just a padded shelf. The roof was lined with the same clear plastic, held up with cotter pins. I nursed the gas gingerly, getting the feel. The windshield was streaky, hard to see through.

At a light on Broadway, a maroon Mustang with a ground-scraper nose sloping down from gigantic rear tires pulled alongside. Revved its engine in the universal challenge. I ignored him. His passenger shouted across: "Is that a real one, man?"

A real what? The light flashed green and the Mustang peeled out. I stomped the gas experimentally and the 'Cuda catapulted forward with a roar, closing the distance in a heartbeat. I backed off quickly, hearing the exhausts pop and bubble. Quickly turned into a side street.

160

INSIDE VIRGIL'S garage, overhead lights on. I walked around the 'Cuda. Saw what had brought out the challenge from the Mustang. On the car's rear deck lid, chrome letters: Hemi.

"Why'd the Mole send me such a rocket ship?" I asked the Prof. "Man said you packing mucho weight, you got to haul the freight." He took me through the car, showing me how it worked. "See how this stuff is hinged against the hood? You just pull the pins and the panels slide right down."

"What is this stuff? Lexan?"

"The Mole said it was like that, only better. Only thing, you can't roll down the windows, they're too thick. Windshield's same stuff. So's the back window."

"It's beautiful, Prof. You know what I need it for?"

"The Mole said it was a shark cage. It ain't what you know, it's what you show."

"I never expected to see you out here."

"What was I gonna do with the ride, Clyde? Ship it UPS? The Mole paid the toll."

"I was going to fly back, bring it over myself."

"No beef, chief. It was a nice day, I felt like a drive."

"Thanks, Prof."

"Way I figure it, schoolboy, you and this hillbilly here, you ain't got a clue between you. What's the plan, man?"

161

DARKNESS SURROUNDED the house, island of light in the living room. I told the Prof everything. Almost everything.

"It could play the way you say, 'home. You park that tank in the spot, the cops stake out the terrain, Virgil covers your back. The freak smokes the car, the cops move in, you take off. Virgil makes sure nobody cheats, right?"

"That's it."

"Where you gonna get the passenger, go parking with you?"

"One of those sex shops. They got them all over the place. Get one of those life-size blow-up dolls. He'll never know the difference."

The Prof lit a smoke, face a mask. "What if he don't show, bro'?"

"He will."

"Who told you?"

I looked in his eyes, not hiding it anymore. "Wesley."

"Yeah, I knew it would be true. The monster's in the ground, but he's still around."

"It's like he talked to me."

"Yeah, you goin' spiritual on me, brother? Talking to spooks? That's okay, if you can pay."

"There never was a better man-hunter, Prof. You know it as well as I do."

"You sayin' he taught you how to do it?"

"Yeah. Some of it."

"Wesley knows. This guy has to die."

"That's not mine. We're going to smoke him out, clear Lloyd once and for all. Then I'm gone."

The Prof looked around the room. Nodded.

"When that evil little baby-killer got on the train, he didn't know it stopped at Dodge City."

162

I DROPPED HIM off where we'd picked up the 'Cuda.

"You got enough cash?"

"I'm going back on the ground, ride the 'Hound. No problem."

"Prof…"

"It's cool, fool. Don't get sloppy on me now."

"Okay."

I took his hand, surprised as always by the power in the little man's grip.

His handsome face was calm, troubadour's voice a separate, living thing in the Indiana night. "Wesley may have showed you some things, schoolboy. But I was your teacher. Wesley, he knew death. Up close and personal. Me, I know life. Stay right on the line, you'll be fine."

163

"YOU LIKE THE blonde or the redhead?" I asked Blossom. The sex shop had a plentiful supply. Black, white, Oriental. Matching pubic hair, "removable for washing," the dandruffy clerk told me. "All three holes, too." The two faces were identically blank.

"I don't like either of them."

"Yeah, okay. I know what you don't like. What I need is some clothes of yours, okay? They need to be dressed when I first pull into the spot."

"It won't work."

"Why not? You think he's gonna get that close a look?"

"Let's see."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's try it. Look for yourself."

"It'll work, don't worry."

"You can't be sure."

"Burke, we won't get another chance. I'll leave it up to you. Just take a look first. Please."

"Get a suitcase," I told her as I pulled the plug on the inflatable dolls.

164

VIRGIL AND LLOYD weren't home. "They went out somewhere," Rebecca told us. "Have some coffee with me— they said they'd be back in an hour or so."

Virginia marched into the kitchen, pulling her brother by one hand. "Mommy, can we get Junior a sailor suit? I saw one on TV before. He'd look so cute in it when he goes back to school."

"Junior, you want a sailor suit?" Rebecca asked him, eyes dancing with joy at her children.

"No!"

"I guess that settles it, Virginia. Your brother's getting old enough to know his own mind."

"He's just stubborn."

"Like his daddy."

"Daddy's not stubborn."

"No, Daddy's perfect, huh?"

"Well, he is."

"How come you're not practicing your piano, sweetheart?" Blossom asked the child.

"She don't hardly touch that thing unless her daddy's around to hear her." Rebecca laughed.

"Mommy!" Virginia gave her a look I didn't think women learned until they were grown.

I went into the living room. Watched a Monster Truck competition on TV. Virginia sat down at the kitchen table with Blossom and her mother, sipped her mostly-milk coffee with them. I lit a cigarette, drifting. Junior came inside, sat down in his father's chair, watched the trucks with me.

165

IT WAS ALMOST ten o'clock when I heard the door. The kids were in bed. Virginia came into the living room in her flannel nightgown, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Virgil picked her up, gave her a kiss, carried her back to bed.

"Got something to show you, brother. Outside."

The 'Cuda was in the garage, lights on. A neat round hole in the driver's door.

"Lloyd and me, we took it up to a spot I know. Off in the woods. I threw down on it from maybe fifty yards. Real close. Put one round into the door, one into the driver's window. From the thirty-ought-six. The bullets never got inside. That thing's a bank vault."

"You don't know the Mole," I told him.

His face was calm. "That's right, I don't. Thought I'd see for myself."

"Okay, it's time. We're set. Tomorrow night."

"What about the other test?" Blossom. Honey-voiced, thread of ice running deep inside.

"What test?" Virgil wanted to know.

"She wants to see what the dummies look like from outside the car. I got them in the Lincoln. I'll just blow one up, we'll take a look."

Blossom stood to the side, watching us, hands on her hips, jaw set. "Not here."

"What difference does it make?"

"Difference enough. Let's take it back, to where Virgil tested it. See what it looks like in the dark."

"This'll be good enough."

"No, it won't."

"Blossom…"

"She's right." Rebecca.

"Reba, you don't know what…"

Rebecca wheeled on Virgil. "What is it I don't know, honey? I don't know what you and Lloyd gonna be doing out there? What if this maniac sees a plastic dummy, figures out it's a trap, starts spraying bullets all over the place? Burke, he's inside this car, safe. What about you?"

Virgil held out his hands, palms up, surrendering. I caught the look between Blossom and Rebecca. Wondered why men ever think they run things.

166

BLOSSOM SAT NEXT to me in the 'Cuda's bucket seat, running her hands over the surfaces, gauging the weight. The coupe's tail slid out a bit as I gunned it around a corner, pavement-ripping power barely under leash.

"He would have just loved this car," she said.

"Who?"

"Chandler."

I watched the Lincoln's taillights through the dull windshield, following Virgil.

167

HE PARKED THE 'Cuda at the end of a dirt road. A few strokes of the foot pump (the one "optional extra" I bought from the sex shop after I passed on a great variety of cheesy negligees and garter belts) and the redhead doll was life-size. I positioned it in the passenger seat. Stepped back onto a rise, settled myself and looked.

The white body was only a dull streak behind the glass. Couldn't tell what it was.

"Look for yourself," I told Blossom, standing aside.

She stood next to me. Nodded.

"Let's get out of here," I said, taking her elbow.

She stood rooted. "Virgil, you got your rifle with you?"

"Yeah."

"Got a scope on it?"

He looked at me. I nodded.

I put the rifle to my shoulder. "Do it right. Play it square." Blossom's voice.

Or Wesley's?

I dropped prone, sighted in. He'd have a night scope of some kind. Infrared or luminous.

I put the cross-hairs on the passenger's window. This time, I didn't just look. I watched.

With his eyes.

The dummy sat stiff— I couldn't feel the heat.

The trap had no cheese.

168

IN THE LINCOLN, on the way back to Blossom's.

"Who else could you get to do it?"

I didn't answer her.

"You want to ask Rebecca?"

"Shut up. You're a smart girl, be smart enough to know when to keep quiet."

169

NO MATTER HOW many times I spun the wheel, it came up double zero— the house edge.

His house.

170

WHEN THE DARKNESS grabbed the ground, I pulled out of Virgil's garage. Blossom sat next to me, a man's white shirt worn outside a pair of blue jeans, her long blonde hair loose and free.

The padlock gave way. I stepped back inside the 'Cuda, drove slowly through the park until I found the spot, the dual exhausts bubbling like a motorboat, leaving a wake of power-sounds. I nosed the purple car into a pool of ink, the orange light from the mercury vapor lamps just brushing the passenger window. Where Blossom sat, profile to the rise where the rusting cross-ties made a perfect sniper's roost.

"What now?" she asked.

"Keep your voice down. I don't know how sound carries out here."

"Okay, honey." She ran her fingers through her hair, leaned back in the seat.

My watch said eleven-fifteen.

"You think he's out there?"

"Not yet."

"How long are we going to wait?"

"Long as it takes."

Waiting inside myself, I knew what the big cop had been thinking, the bargain we'd made. Homicide happens. They call it different things, depending on the uniform you're wearing at the time.

A night bird screamed. Blossom stiffened. "You think…?"

"Probably heard Sherwood and his crew moving around."

"Oh."

171

ONE-THIRTY in the morning.

"Are we going to wait until light?"

"No. Couple of kids parking, they wouldn't do that. If he's watching, he's got to believe. It's got to feel right to him first. The way I see it, he probably stalks all the time. Maybe every night. But he doesn't go off until he sees the signal. Whatever that is."

I rotated my neck on its column, feeling the adhesions crackle as they parted. Too tight.

"Time to go," I told Blossom, lighting a cigarette.

"Burke…?"

"What?"

"How come you…I mean, that's the first cigarette you've had since we parked here."

"I don't know what he can see, but the tip of a cigarette, you can see it for a long distance. That's why soldiers cup them in the field. He wouldn't expect to see a cigarette until it's over."

"What's over?"

"The sex. What he came to kill."

172

I GUNNED THE 'Cuda out of its spot, a young man pumped up on himself. Saying goodbye.

He didn't answer.

173

"IT LOOK REAL to you?" I asked Sherwood later.

"Perfect. From where we were, we could see right into the front seat with the scope. Even without one, you could tell people were in the car."

"You up for a couple more times?"

"Yeah. I got two men with me. Good men. It jumps off, one of the boys'll radio for help while me and my partner move on him."

"Okay. I'm coming back tonight. A little later, closer to midnight."

"Burke…"

I looked at the big man, waiting.

"Last night, someone was there. Couldn't get a movement, but we weren't alone. You know the feeling?"

"Yeah. Jungle feeling."

"One difference, here."

"What?"

"Over in 'Nam, we didn't give Charlie the first bite."

174

"THE CAR is perfect, Mole."

He didn't answer.

"The Prof get back?"

"Yes."

"Good. Tell him everything's okay."

The Mole stayed silent.

"Pansy's all right?"

"Sure."

"Give her a pat for me."

He hung up.

175

INSIDE THE 'CUDA, waiting.

"I spoke to my sister last night. After you fell asleep."

"Violet?"

"Rose. I told her we were going to find the man who killed her. Told Mama too."

I didn't say anything. Watching her fine profile, smelling her smell.

"Burke…our gull, the one we saved?"

"Yeah?"

"He's okay now. I let him go this morning."

Time passed. The sniper didn't come.

176

THE PHONE RANG at Blossom's the next afternoon. Answering machine picked up.

"Blossom? It's Wanda, girl. Get off your big fat butt and pick up the phone."

Blossom snatched the receiver. Pieces of the conversation came through as I dozed. "This better be right, now. You talked to her yourself, Wanda Jean?" Schoolgirl giggles.

I closed my eyes. She was a different person. Again. Another piece of the puzzle. Letting me see her essence the way a strip teaser shows you her body.

Keeping the G-string in place.

A red lacquered fingernail gently scratched my cheek. "Wake up, honey. We got places to go."

177

VIRGIL WAS HOME from work, sitting at the kitchen table drinking a beer, Virginia standing next to him, one hand on his shoulder.

"Where's my hero?" Blossom asked.

"Out in the back, playing catch with Junior."

Blossom went out to get him. I sat down, caught Virgil's eye.

"Virginia…"

"I know. Go practice my piano."

He gave her a kiss. She flounced out.

I told Virgil what Blossom had in mind. He sipped his beer, thinking it through. Nodded.

"Reba!"

She came in from the back of the house, scarf tied around her head, flushed from doing some kind of work.

"What is it, Virgil? Afternoon, Burke."

"We're going out for a bit. We'll get supper out. Be back after dark."

"Okay. Is Lloyd going?"

"Yeah."

"I'll let Virginia watch Junior. Be careful."

178

VIRGIL DROVE THE Lincoln over to Calumet City, me next to him, Blossom and Lloyd in the back seat. Talking low.

"Here it is," she said. A neat white frame house, dark green trim around the windows, driveway along the side.

I knocked on the back door. A panel about half the size of a man's face slid back. Blossom pushed past me. "We've got an appointment," she said. "With Crystal."

The panel slid closed. Door opened. A slim man wearing a black-and-white-striped shirt with red suspenders led us into a formal parlor. Matching love seats, easy chairs, all done up in a light blue pattern, dark blue Oriental rug on the polished hardwood floor.

We took seats. A woman came in, tall, subtle makeup burying her age, black hair done up in a beehive. Blossom got up, put out her hand. "Miz Joyce, I'm Blossom Lynch. My mother was Tessie Mae Lynch, from Weirton, West Virginia. She spoke of you often— I'm pleased to meet you."

The tall woman took her hand, bowed her head slightly, smiled. They walked off together.

Virgil looked around, shrugged.

"What'd you expect, pal?" the man in the striped shirt said. "A red light over the door?"

I laughed. It felt good.

Lloyd looked straight ahead.

Blossom and the madam came back with a curvy young woman, her small face almost buried under a toss of strawberry-blonde curls.

"Lloyd," Blossom said, "this is my friend Crystal. The girl I told you about."

"Pleased to meet you," Lloyd mumbled, his face scarlet.

We sat down in the parlor to wait.

After a while, Lloyd came downstairs, a goofy grin on his face. His chest was too big for his shirt.

179

TEN-THIRTY THAT NIGHT. I sat on the bed, smoking, watching Blossom dress, fresh from her shower. She stepped into a pair of tiny black panties, snapped on a matching bra. Looked at herself in the mirror. Took the bra off, tossed it on the bed. Slipped a soft pink sweater-dress over her head. It came down to mid-thigh. She checked the mirror again. Hiked up the skirt to her waist, pulled a sheer stocking over each leg, fastening each one with an elastic garter. A dab of perfume behind each ear, generous splash of fire-engine-red lipstick. Tied a black scarf around her waist for a belt.

"Those won't do," she said.

"What?"

"Those gangster clothes of yours. We're going parking, you can't wear a suit. Put on a pair of jeans, you can borrow a leather jacket from Virgil."

180

THE INSIDE OF the 'Cuda smelled like Blossom. We talked softly, Blossom bragging about how she'd pulled it off with Lloyd.

"I figure, I owed him that one."

"You see his face? Anything you ever owed him in life, you paid off."

Her smile flashed. She leaned over, kissed me on the cheek.

Swamp darkness. The kind that rises from the ground.

Blossom bounced in her seat. "Come on."

"Come on, what?"

She turned so she was on her knees, leaned across the shift lever into me, tongue stabbing into my mouth, making her sounds. My hands on her back, stroking her.

"Pull it up," she whispered into my mouth.

"What?"

"My skirt, honey. Let go, let him feel it. Let him feel what lovers do. Let him bring his hate— have it out. Come on, baby."

Her skirt slid over the nylon, my thumbs hooking the waistband of her panties, pulling them down to her knees. She reached back, pulled them all the way down, leaving the black silk hooked around one ankle. Then she crawled into my lap, facing me, reaching underneath her for my zipper, her coppery estrogen smell almost choking me. She pulled me free. "This is mine," she hissed. "Give me what's mine," fitting herself over me, her neck arched against my face.

I felt her magnetic wetness. "Come…come…" she whisper-moaned against my face. A machine-gun burst ripped open the night, devil's raindrops splattering against the windshield. Instinct threw her down against me as I frantically tried to turn, get my back between Blossom and the sniper fire.

High harmonic crack of the sniper's assault rifle. Virgil's carbine boomed out an answer. Bullets slammed into the car, rocking it on its tires. Spotlights beamed across the rise, bullhorn crackled:

"Police!"

I shoved Blossom away from me, clawing for my pistol. Found the door handle. "Get outta here. Back to Virgil's. Go!"

And I was out the door, crouched behind the car, pulling up my zipper, pulling it together.

The gunfire stopped. Sounds of men thrashing around in the dark wood. I took off to my right, running hard.

181

I COVERED THE length of the blacktop, crouching low. All the way to the end, watching the night above me, praying for the hunter's moon to show.

Plunged into the woods, over the fence. Grabbed a breath, belly-crawled my way up the rise toward the railroad tracks. Far to my left, the cops were still beating the bushes. I stopped at the top, shallow-breathing, feeling the ground against my cheek.

The guns were quiet. I stood up, worked my way over the tracks to the far side of the woods. I backed against a tree, antenna out.

The distinctive rumble of the 'Cuda's exhaust, growling along in low gear, somewhere behind me.

Something moving. To my right. Clumsy-sloppy, blundering. Fear-booted. I took off, feeling his trail, following the blood spoor.

A sapling branch lashed my face, warning me. I dropped to one knee, listening.

I felt the panic, heard him crashing down the back side of the hill, heading for the slough where he'd been born. Where it started. I stumbled onto a dog path through the brush. A black plastic sniper rifle lay discarded on the path, the night scope a blind eye now.

Sirens to my left, homing in, surrounding.

The only fear I felt was his. Then: a stick figure in camouflage gear, running, arms pumping, hands empty. I leveled the pistol, sighted in.

Wesley's voice: Make Sure.

I lowered the .38, took off after him.

He flew around a corner just as I reached the street. Sprinted up a dirt alley a block from the water, coat flapping behind him. I closed the gap. Did he have a mail-order killing knife strapped to his boot?

Kill-lust driving me at him, not mine.

Wesley's chill in me, patient.

I heard the 'Cuda again, its stump-puller engine throttled down.

A dog yapped fearfully.

My eyes picked up an image of movement. It disappeared. I stood, scanning, the pistol down at my side. The closest shelter was an aluminum house trailer sitting like a bloated mushroom in an overgrown patch of jungle, no lights in the windows. A high-pitched moan rode the air as he charged across my path, right for the trailer, never breaking stride.

He dove inside before I could bring the gun up.

The sirens closed in. The door to the trailer stood open. I flattened my back against the metal, dropped into a crouch, slid inside, head down, eyes up, the stubby pistol held before me like a divining rod.

Freakish wet sounds.

He was crumpled on the floor, holding his crotch, mewling.

"It's over, Luther," I told him, my voice shaking. "All over, now."

The sniper's eyes found me. Dry ice, burning cold. His face was a ravaged skeleton, claw marks on his cheeks from his own hands, clear fluid all over his chin. Wesley called to me. I cocked the pistol.

"Don't do it." Sherwood's voice, behind me.

The thing on the floor spasmed, making noises I never wanted to hear again.

182

THE TRAILER WAS a tiny, humpbacked thing, kitchen against one wall. I passed the closet-sized bathroom, heading for the back. His room. A TV set, twisted coat hanger for rabbit ears. Fast-food cartons, TV dinners. Empty Coke bottles. Rancid smells. Stack of magazines in one corner, as high as my waist. Newspaper all over the floor, like you'd put down for a dog that wasn't housebroken. Sleeping bag with a camouflage-pattern lining. CB radio. Cheap pair of binoculars hanging from a strap on the wall. Neat row of X's drawn above them in red crayon.

Six marks. There wouldn't be eight.

183

WHEN I STEPPED back into the front room, there were three squad cars outside, bubble-gum lights rotating in the windows. Red and white.

A cop in a baseball hat and flak jacket pulled Luther to his feet, making a face at the smell. Snapped the handcuffs behind him. Walked him outside to the waiting cars, now bright with probing spotlights.

"You think…?"

"It doesn't matter." Sherwood cut me off.

We stepped into the night air, watching. Luther was ducking his head to climb into the back of the squad car, the SWAT Team cop right behind him.

I lit a cigarette. A shot rang out, slamming the sniper against the squad car door. Blood flowered on what was left of his face.

"Down!" Sherwood screamed at the cops, hitting the deck. My eyes twisted to the left. A flash of soft pink in the darkness.

I moved away into the night, hearing tires torture rubber as a car took off close by.

Nobody gave chase.

184

I SHOOK HANDS with Lloyd. "Thank you. For everything," he said. He looked older, harder. Softened as Blossom kissed him goodbye.

"You always have a home here, brother." Virgil.

Rebecca stood just to the side. "Look at you men. You don't know how to do anything, do you?" She wrapped her arms around me, hugged me fiercely. Her face was wet against mine.

Virginia watched from the side, her hand on Junior's shoulder.

185

THE LINCOLN took us through the steel city onto the highway. I parked at O'Hare. Carried Blossom's bags inside. We stopped at the gate. She faced me, her hands wrapped in the lapels of my jacket. Turquoise eyes glistened with secrets I'd never know.

"Listen to me, trouble-man. I don't know where I'm going, how long it will take me to get there. Maybe I'll be alone, maybe I'll live in a nice big house with a white picket fence, have a husband and four kids. I don't know. Wherever I'll be, I'll be a doctor. Follow the scent, you know what I smell like. You can always find me.

"Blossom…"

"Just listen to me— I know what's mine. Wherever I end up, I'll tell you one thing, I'm going to have a dog. A big, nasty killer dog who loves only me, protects me with his life. Every night, just before I go to bed, I'm going to let my dog out into the yard. Anybody comes after me, he's going to raise holy hell. You find my house, Burke. Wait until dark. When you come over the fence for me, that dog, he won't bar the way.

She turned and walked, her heels clicking, trailing mystery and promise behind her.

186

THE PLANE DROPPED into La Guardia. I took a cab back to my life.