Bone Deep

23

Luv parked his car in the Stop and Shop lot and walked from the supermarket to a Mobile station a few hundred yards away. He had called Denise and told her that his car had broken down and asked her to pick him up at the service station. It was a large, busy station with a ministore inside and two telephones in the lot. Luv's presence there for a few minutes should occasion no notice, but he was still uneasy about the exposure. It wasn't likely that anyone would recognize him there; he was in Ridgefield, a good distance from his home, but accidents did happen. He was even less sanguine about being seen riding with Denise in her car-he had come to rely on the tinted glass of the Caprice, it had been like moving about invisibly-but using his other car was out of the question. He would ride with Denise to and from their motel, have her return him to the station, then walk back to the supermarket to reclaim his car so that Denise did not see it. The entire episode would be a compromise, but Luv was confident that he would be safe. He had eluded Becker, he could certainly avoid detection by some random passerby. It would be necessary to acquire another Luvmobile in the future, but for right now, he would improvise. Denise arrived full of solicitude. "You've been having such terrible luck," she said. "What do they say is wrong with the car?"

"They think it's the timer belt," he said. "They said it would be ready by the time I got back."

"And just after you had it fixed," she said.

"Um," said Luv, trying to remember what he had told her about his absence the last time.

"I was so worried about you that night," she said. "I had a premonition-now don't laugh, I can sense these things sometimes. I had a clear feeling, very strong, even before you didn't show up, that something was wrong. I even told my daughter before I left the house that I had this funny feeling about the evening."

"You were right."

"And then when you didn't show up, the feeling got stronger and stronger. I knew someone was hurt."

"You knew that specifically?"

"I'm very sensitive in that way. I'm not always right, but usually I'm very accurate. But here's the funny thingI didn't think that it was you who was hurt. I knew you were involved in some kind of incident, or accident, but I wasn't really worried that you were hurt." Luv watched the oncoming traffic, studying faces to see if he recognized any. There were many more people who knew him than he would know personally, of course, but it was only the ones he could identify who might take it upon themselves to tell his wife where they had seen him. What he feared more than anything else was the flicker of recognition in someone else's eye.

"And then you told me that you'd hit the deer and of course I understood immediately," Denise said.

"I felt I had to stay with it," Luv said. "I couldn't just leave it there. I knew you'd be concerned, but I was certain you would understand."

"Of course, of course. You did what you had to do. I admire you for it.":,Well…" 'Most people would just keep driving."

"I couldn't bear the thought that it was suffering," said Luv. "I hate to think of anything suffering."

"You're so good, you're such a good man."

Luv touched her arm.

"Isn't it funny that I knew it had something to do with death?" she asked.

"You're an amazing woman," he said. As casually as he could, Luv twisted around to check out the cars behind him. He did not think he was being followed, it was simply old habit.

"I tried to call you," said Denise.

"What?" He was suddenly sharply alert, trying to hide his concern.

"I know I shouldn't have, but I was worried. I wouldn't have said anything, don't worry. If your wife answered, I was just going to hang up right away. If you answered, I thought I would just whisper that I loved you and then hang up. I just wanted to hear your voice to know that you were all right. That would have been okay, wouldn't it?"

"I don't think it's a good idea to call me," he said carefully. "My wife, she's so- It would take so little to make such trouble. She would take it out on the kids, of course. The children would suffer. Even if she just suspected. She's so paranoid. Even a wrong number could set her off, anything at all could set her off. I couldn't bear it if she turned on the children again. It would be so dangerous, for everybody."

"I wouldn't have actually said anything, I just miss you so much."

"I know, I know," he said sympathetically. "I miss you too." And he did, in his own way. He missed them all when he was not with them-in brief, sporadic burst seven though he might yearn to be away from them when they were in his presence.

"Sometimes I just say your name aloud, I miss you so much." She turned away from him shyly. He stroked the back of her hand where it rested on the steering wheel, longing for the sight of the motel. Sex would be particularly good tonight, he knew, because it was going to be her last time and he would take especially long. She had reached the dangerous point, she was too much in love with him, too needy, too demanding. She no longer considered his company an adventure, it was fast becoming a right. He could not have women trying to call him, even if there was no chance of her ever getting his phone number-she didn't even know his right name. The effort alone was a signal to end it. He would fuck her tonight like she'd never been fucked in her life, and then… who knew what then? It was partly up to his demon but, as he had learned in the woods with the black man, it was now also partly up to him.

"Why do you have an unlisted phone?" Denise asked, turning into the motel parking lot. "I couldn't find you in any town around here."

"We had crank calls," he said. When she turned off the ignition he lifted her hand to his face and kissed her palm, then licked slowly between her fingers. It was going to be a wonderful night, the uncertainty about the ending was so exciting.

The Cap'n had been at his very best. He had made love to her as worshipfully as if she were a goddess fallen to ground and this were to be her last act among mortals before returning to heaven, a feast of earthly, human delights that must last her an eternity, and he had allowed himself to come only when Denise had half whimpered, half laughed for mercy: "No more. God, no more." Then he allowed her to rest for a moment before reaching for ecstasy himself, reaching it with her crying out "Yes, yes!" while incredibly soaring to orgasm one final time herself.

They lay in the dark, Denise maundering on about something, Luv paying only enough attention to be alert for danger, until he felt the demon begin to claw to the surface inside him. He put his hand on her hip, lowered his mouth to her breast.

"You are incredible," she said, in awe. "I really don't think I can."

"There's something I want you to do for me," Luv said. He rolled her onto her stomach. "I need to do it this way. It may seem a little strange, but I want you to trust me. You do trust me, don't you?"

"Of course," she said. "I'll do anything you want."

"I'm going to put my hand on your neck," he said, putting his fingers in the right spot. "And I'm going to slowly squeeze while I make love to you." He slipped into her from behind and smiled when he heard her gasp with pleasure.

Thrusting into her, he began the slow pressure on her neck, then stopped abruptly, his erection withering. "What's wrong?" Denise asked.

"Nothing," Luv said, pulling away from her.

"What is it? You can do it. I trust you."

"I didn't want to hurt you," said Luv.

"You wouldn't hurt me, you would never hurt me, I know that," she said, rubbing his chest.

Luv rose from the bed and hurried to the bathroom, closing the door.

"Are you all right?" she called.

In the tiny bathroom, Luv stared at himself in the mirror, shaken by his own stupidity. He had been about to kill her when he had suddenly remembered that he did not have his car with him, he did not have his equipment. If he took her car he had no adequate way to clean it, no way to dismemher her, no way to transport her. He could not believe he had been guilty of such a lapse of good sense. He prided himself on being smarter than his adversaries and yet he had been about to act as stupidly as any impulse killer. He had very nearly let his emotions get the better of him.

You're a fool, he told himself A careless, humbling fool, and you're beginning to make mistakes. You were nearly caught in the Caprice-because you went back to help! Idiotic. You didn't even know they were onto the Caprice in the first place. It had to have been because of that incident with the moron Metzger in the woods during the aborted burial of Inge's body. A cop came that close, your car was exposed, and you assumed nothing would happen. Stupid. Now this. You are in peril because of your own behavior, he chided himself. It's nothing they've done, it's never anything that cops do, it's only what people leave behind, the clues they give, the traces they're too stupid to hide. As he heard Denise moving on the other side of the door, coming toward the bathroom, his attitude began to change. There was another side to it, he told himself.

"Are you okay?" she asked diffidently. He could tell she had her ear to the door, imagining him in a heap on the floor, collapsed and overfucked.

"I'm fine," he said, turning on the tap to give her a noise to concentrate on. "In fact, I'm great." And he was, he knew he was. He was Cap'n Luv, not some ordinary skirtchasing philanderer. He was the best. And he was not a blood-crazed psychopath, cutting and slashing random victims. Cap'n Luv killed without pain and left no trail, no bodies, no crime. There had been a flood, that was all. A freak of nature. A fucking fluke. And now, even at the height of his anger with himself, he realized that what had just happened with Denise was not a mistake but a great triumph. Luv had been in the grip of his demon, the mania was fully upon him-and he had resisted. He had won. He had shown that he was truly in charge, Luv was in command, not a mania, not some outer force, not some raving bit of subconscious, but Cap'n Luv. Luv was the king, even of himself. He was exultant, for he now knew in a way he had never fully realized before that he was the complete master.

Of himself, of others. Of his destiny. Of the destiny of others. From here on, the world would be what he made of it.

Luv smiled at himself in the mirror, approving heartily, admiring. His smile broadened until he began to laugh, and he watched his reflection as he did so, monitoring himself even at the height of his gaiety.

Denise began to chuckle in sympathy and he suddenly swept open the door, took her in his arms and whirled her around the room, filling the space with his booming laughter. "The best!" he cried. "The best."

"No, you're the best," Denise laughed, her feet off the floor as he twirled her. He did not argue.

AT ONE A.M. Tee's alarm sounded, again hissing static from a station that was never quite tuned in. He rose and made his way toward the door, where he stopped by the foot of the bed, looking at Marge's shape in the gloom. She was on her side, her back turned to him as they lay in bed, one pillow under her head, one over it, and a third clasped to her chest and stomach like a doll. In good times it was a pose that amused Tee but now it was suggestive of pain, as if she clutched the third pillow with the desperate valor of a cancer victim seeking an anodyne. He was her pain, of course, and did not know what to do about it that would not make it worse.

He had denied having an affair, denied it vigorously and vociferously, denied it to the point where he thought any reasonable person would have to believe him, denied it to the point where he nearly believed it himself The only alternative seemed to be to admit it, but he was convinced that that way lay disaster. There was hope in sticking with his claim of innocence, none in confessing to guilt. He had seen men succumb to unwavering suspicion, men on whom Tee and the police had no evidence beyond a bone-deep certainty that they knew what they knew.

Unaware of the genuinely protective nature of the criminal code's presumption of innocence, of the difficult, sometimes impossible task of proving guilt without substantial evidence, they had confessed because Tee or some other inquisitor had simply waved aside excuses and alibis and continued to bear down, to bore in with the hard finger of blame.

Had they held on longer, Tee knew, they would have remained free, but they saw relief in confession, as if the balm of forgiveness would be given them if they but bared their conscience at last. Sniveling and snotty-nosed, they finally gave in. High school boys confessing to acts of vandalism, bleary-eyed drunks admitting to a variety of stupid, larcenous, violent, self-destructive adventures, the occasional true criminal acknowledging his miscreant ambitions.

Tee did not believe that confession was good for the soul. He believed it represented the point of no return. Say you did, and there was no going back to the time when you did not. He would hang on as long as he had to and if necessary lie himself into his grave. Marge had not moved a muscle since he had awakened, and he knew that she was tense and alert. She had lain like that for the past two nights, no tossing and turning like someone trying to sleep, but catatonically stiff, as if she were listening for a pin drop in the outer rooms. Hostility radiated from her rigid body like heat from a stove; Tee was afraid to touch her for fear of pulling back his hand seared to the bone.

"I'm going to call McNeil," he said. "You can listen in if you want to."

She did not stir, did not make a sound, lay there like a corpse in rigor.

"You're welcome to listen to every word," he said. "I'm just going to see if he's home. That's all it is."

It was worse than talking to a wall; one had no expectation of response from a wall.

"I'd make the call from in here, but…" He shrugged, aware that she could not see his gesture. He did not know why he didn't make the call from the bedroom.

"Are you coming? I know you're awake."

She still did not move. Tee gave himself permission to leave, still easing quietly out the door, maintaining her charade that she was asleep.

Ginny's door was closed. Tee considered opening it, giving himself another glimpse of his sleeping angel, something to lighten his heart in the gloom that had prevailed for the past several days. With infinite care he turned her doorknob, and found it locked, a puzzling development. As far as he knew, Ginny did not lock her door, had not done so since a screaming argument with her mother over a year ago. Tee had gone to his daughter to comfort her and found the door secured against him. Enraged at being suddenly sealed off from her, he had threatened to remove the door entirely if it was ever locked again, and to his knowledge, it had not been. In return he had sworn to respect her privacy by always knocking and awaiting a response before entering.

This had presented no problem, since she was always glad to see him, even if she gave him only fleeting attention because of the telephone glued to her ear.

There was no light coming from under the door, no sound emerging from the room. Tee decided that it was not the hour or the occasion to press the issue.

In the kitchen he waited a few moments to hear if Marge was coming, before closing the door and picking up the phone. He let it ring fifteen times before hanging up.

Moving now with a sense of urgency, Tee returned to the bedroom and dressed. Marge did not move at all although he was making no effort to be quiet.

"I'm going out," he said, pulling on his shoes. "McNeil wasn't home."

He looked at the heavy utility belt atop his dresser and debated whether he wanted it-the gun went with the belt. If he had the gun, there was a chance he might use it. After a hesitation he strapped the belt around his waist and left the house.

Metzger sounded startled to receive a call, and Tee wondered ifhe he had been asleep.

"What are you doing up, Chief?"

"I'm looking for McNeil," said Tee. "Have you seen him?"

"Tonight?"

"Yes, tonight. Since you've been on duty."

"No, but I wasn't really looking for him."

"You'd recognize McNeil, wouldn't you, Metzger? You wouldn't have to be looking for him especially in order to see him, would you?"

"No sir. I haven't seen him at all. Have you tried calling him?"

"Give me some credit."

"Yes sir. Do you want me to drive by his house?"

"Do you think he might be in the backyard, studying the moon?"

"The moon?"

"Just let me know if you see him, all right? Don't stop him, don't talk to him, don't follow him, just let me know. Will you do that, Metzger?"

"You bet… How come, sir?"

"Personal reasons, all right? And don't mention to him, or t o anybody else, that I was looking for him, understand?"

"Yes sir."

"Metzger, you do know his private car, don't you? You'll recognize it if you see it."

"Sure thing, you bet, Chief." Tee returned the speaker to the dashboard of his cruiser. It's because we don't pay them enough, he reflected, thinking of Metzger. If we could just get the town to raise their salaries, maybe we could attract better men.

It seemed a futile exercise, trolling the midnight streets of Clamden in search of McNeil. There were 195 miles of road in the town-even assuming he was in the town and not in one of the five other communities that bordered itand yet Tee felt that he had to do something, try something, stir things up. The fine-grained sifting of the FBI was probably efficient in the long run, creating evidence from fibers and sloughed-off flakes of skin, but Tee needed to stop him now. This was his town, the victims were his people, under his custody, and the problem-for Tee-was immediate. The FBI and the state police might compile all of their bits and scraps into an impressive pile of evidence that would ultimately convict, but Tee needed action to stop Johnny first. There were times when he could not understand how Becker could function within such a painstaking organization. His friend was bold and decisive, intuitive and quick. In all things quick, lightning-fast as his own honed reflexes. Tee wondered how he could tolerate the plodding ways of the Bureau.

Becker had seemed greatly distracted for the last several days and would not tell Tee why, but he had lost all sympathy with Tee's theory that McNeil was Johnny Appleseed, or indeed that McNeil merited any further investigation whatever, which made Tee all the more determined to pursue his suspicions-his conviction, reallyon his own.

Despite having scorned Metzger's suggestion, Tee swung by McNeil's house first, going to see… what, he did not know-McNeil coming perhaps, McNeil going, McNeil in any activity.

But there was something at McNeil's house, or rather the absence of something. His car was not there. Tee looked into the garage and saw that the automobile was gone, but the purloined golf trophy was still there, the tip of the golfer's club glinting in the beam of Tee's flashlight. McNeil hadn't moved it, but why should he? He was content that it was secure. Embo Idened, Tee walked around the outside of the house to the bedroom and peered in the window. He could make out a form on the bed but could not identify it. After debating with himself for a moment, he pointed the flashlight and snapped on the beam very briefly.

Mrs. McNeil lay on her back, her mouth open, her limbs splayed across the bed, encroaching on McNeil's side as well as her own. It was hard to tell for sure over the drone of the air conditioner, but Tee thought he heard her snore. He wondered how Mrs. McNeil did it. Marge was awake as soon as he opened his eyelids, much less gone for the night.

He put thoughts of Marge out of his mind and returned to his car and began his long cruise of the night. If McNeil was in his own car now and not the anonymous Caprice, he was vulnerable. Tee might have passed the Caprice any number of times in the past few years, ignoring it where it was parked, scarcely noting it as it drove right past him, a body in the trunk, McNeil laughing to himself behind the tinted windshield. The thought infuriated Tee, but now McNeil had nowhere to hide. If he continued to act as Johnny Appleseed until he replaced the Caprice, he was exposed and Tee would find him, or at least do all he could to try.

Becker had been certain that Johnny would continue his ways, that they meant too much to him to abandon them just because of inconvenience, or even a threat to his security.

From McNeil's house he turned south and worked every street, every cul-de-sac, every private road, patrolling only slowly enough to be sure that he did not miss anything. There were any number of long, hidden driveways that twisted their way through trees and up hills, sometimes forking off to several houses but still unmarked and omitted from the maps. At this time of night it would be simple for Johnny to take his car halfway up such a drive, park it to the side, completely out of sight from either the road or the houses, and walk to his assignation.

Tee investigated the driveways as well. Progress was torturously slow, especially since he was tormented with the thought that the delay in this part of the town was only allowing McNeil to conduct his business somewhere else. But McNeil was out there somewhere, Tee was convinced of that.

It had been many years since he had patrolled the town at this time of night and he was being slowly mesmerized by the unchanging innocence of the drive when his radio crackled to life.

"You still there, ChieP" Metzger asked.

"I'm here."

"I think I've spotted McNeil's car."

"You think you've spotted it?"

"No, I've spotted it. I mean, I'm pretty sure. I don't know his license plate, but it looks like it-"

"Where?" Tee interrupted. "There's this long drivewayjust off of Kettle Creek.. "That's in my neighborhood. I know the one. Is the car there now?"

"Yes sir. Do you want me to-"

"Are you anywhere near it?"

"Well, actually, Chief, I'm parked right beside it."

"Do you see McNeil?"

"No sir."

"Then get away from it, drive away right now. Go to the spot on Hillspoint where we set up the radar trap. Turn off your lights and watch. You can see the entrance to Ketthe Creek from there. If McNeil comes out before I get there, call me and tell me which way he went.

Otherwise, just sit there and watch. If I pass you without pulling up, just stay there. Just keep watching until you hear from me. Clear?"

"Sure, you bet, Chief."

"What are you doing right now, Metzger?"

"Waiting for your instructions."

"I justgave you my instructions. Drive away from his car, now. Go to Hillspoint and wait."

"Right."

"Is your car moving, Metzger?"

There was a slight pause. Tee could imagine Metzger putting his car into gear and pulling back onto the road before answering. "Yes sir," he said.

"I'm on my way," said Tee.

Tee mentally ran through the houses on Kettle Creek that McNeil might possibly be visiting. The road was close to Tee's home; he and Marge had taken Sunday walks there in happier days, indulging in loose fantasies of buying other, grander houses, and together they knew or knew of virtually every homeowner on the road. Tee could think of none who had all pairs. Several of the couples were grandparents, one was a gay couple: two middle-aged men. None of these seemed within Johnny Appleseed's range of interests. The rest of the houses belonged to couples in their thirties and forties, some with preteens and several with adolescents, but none with children young enough to require nannies or mother's helpers or all pairs. The driveway could be just a drop spot for the car, of course. His quarry did not have to be on Kettle Creek. Johnny liked to go through the woods and he could be on a half-dozen other streets in ten minutes via the route through the trees.

Tee drove up the long hill, saw the reflector under Metzger's headlight, sticking out, typically, about eight inches farther than it should. When he came within Metzger's view, the idiot flashed his lights in recognition. Tee denied the impulse to pick up the radio and yell. He drove past the cruiser without glancing at it and turned into Kettle Creek. A shadow raced across the road in front of him and Tee flinched, remembering the deer that he had killed. The shadow was gone almost as soon as he saw it, and he tried to forget about it and concentrate on the problem of McNeil. He slowed as he passed the entrance to the long driveway. There was nothing he could do at the car itself, particularly not while in his cruiser. He would have to park and take to the woods himself, hoping to… The radio crackled again. "Chief? Chief?"

"Go ahead, goddamnit."

"Sorry."

"What is it, Metzger?"

"Somebody just came out of Kettle Creek and ran across the road. "

"McNeil?"

"I couldn't tell. I don't have my headlights on."

"Which way are they going?"

"Up the hill."

Tee reversed the car in a three-point turn and streaked back down Kettle Creek.

"Stay where you are and keep watching for McNeil's car," said Tee, already back at the entrance to the road. Metzger flashed his lights once more. Tee cursed and started up the hill, fast. This time he saw the shadow from behind, caught the shape that cast the shadow for a second before it ducked behind a tree.

Tee kept driving, trying to control his breath. It was a trick of the light, he said. He was seeing things, he told himself.

He topped the hill, turned left until he was out of sight for anyone climbing the rise, and slammed the car into the nearest driveway and doused the lights. Moving clumsily, he cut back on foot at an angle to intersect the person he had overtaken running up the hill. When he reached the spot he wanted he crouched at the base of a tree, panting and praying silently that he was wrong. The noise of the runner came in less than a minute, cutting across lawns, brushing hedges, and taking fences with practiced ease. Tee saw the shadow first, hugely elongated in the moonlight, looking like a monster crossing the town in giant strides, and then the substance, surprisingly petite. His daughter ran gracefully to her bedroom window and hauled herself in without a sound.

She looked as if she had done it hundreds of times. Tee stayed at the base of the tree, not knowing whether to weep or explode.

Metzger flashed his lights again as he saw Tee's cruiser racing down the hill, but this time it was Tee who spoke first on the radio.

"Just stay there," Tee growled. "Do you want backup?" Metzger asked.

"It's just McNeil," Tee said, trying to keep the fury from his voice.

"Why would I need backup?"

"Right you are. What should I do?"

"Just stay there, keep watching the road."

"But McNeil's already left, I told you."

Then stay there until he comes back," Tee said, clicking off the transmitter. He did not want backup. He did not want help. He did not want witnesses. Tee slewed the car around the curve leading into Ketterfield Road, a lengthy stretch through one of the few truly flat areas in Clamden, and caught sight of the taillights in the distance. He slammed the accelerator to the floor and turned on his flashing lights.

McNeil saw the cruiser bearing down on him in his rearview mirror. No siren, he noted. Old Tee wants me to see him but he doesn't want the rest of the town to hear him. Not good. He toyed for a moment with thoughts of trying to outrun the cruiser, then dismissed them as pointless. He kept driving at the same safe speed, stalling for time as he pressed a number on his car phone.

Tee knifed the cruiser in front of McNeil's parked automobile and ran back to it, grabbing the driver's-door handle as if he intended to rip it from its frame.

"Hi there, Tee. You're working late."

Tee hit McNeil in the side of the face with his fist, then pulled him out of the car and pushed him to the ground.

"Whoa," said McNeil. "Take it easy."

"You sonofabitch!" Tee knelt on McNeil's back and struck him in the kidney with his hand. McNeil groaned but did not move. "You dirty filthy sonofabitch."

"You wanna talk?" McNeil said, unable to keep the sarcasm from his tone. "Just ask."

Tee put his hand on McNeil's head and forced his face into the pavement.

"She's fifteen, you asshole! Fifteen years old! I'll arrest you for statutory rape."

"You don't want to put her through that," McNeil said, sneering.

"You think you're safe, don't you? You think no one will turn you in because of that, don't you?" Tee pulled his service automatic from its holster and pressed it against McNeil's ear. McNeil went as silent as stone.

"There's another way to deal with scum," Tee said. He cocked the automatic with an audible click. "Resist me, you sonofabitch," Tee growled. McNeil carefully did not move a muscle except to close his eyes.

"Resist me!" Tee leaned his mouth nearly as close as the pistol, roaring into McNeil's ear, spraying him with saliva.

"Resist me! Move, make one fucking move!"

Tee rapped McNeil on the head with the barrel of the gun, then got to his feet. "Get up and move," he said, his voice now gone icily calm.

"I'm going to kill you anyway, you might as well be on your feet."

McNeil lay still with his eyes closed. A trickle of blood cleared the hairline of his scalp and ran across his cheekbone. "Move," Tee repeated. He drew his foot back and kicked McNeil between the legs.

McNeil gasped and instinctively pulled his legs into the fetal position.

Tee kicked him once more in the groin.

"Get up or I'll neuter you first." He kicked McNeil again. McNeil cried out but continued to lie on the road, eyes pressed tightly closed.

"I'll castrate you if you don't get up."

"Tee, you don't understand," McNeil whispered. "Honest to God, you don't understand."

"I understand that my daughter's fifteen years old, I understand that!"

Tee roared. He knelt beside McNeil again, forcing the man's eyelids open with his fingers. "Look at this! Do you see this?" He placed the barrel of the gun on McNeil's nose. "I want you to see what's going to kill you. Now look at me. Look at me!"

McNeil swiveled his eyes to Tee's face, carefully not moving his body.

"I want you to see who's going to kill you," he said. The gun barrel wavered unsteadily in Tee's hand, shaken by the same rage that contorted his face.

"No, Tee, please," McNeil begged. "I didn't do anything."

"I'm not going to do anything either," said Tee. "The gun will." He stood up and took two steps back from McNeil, thinking clearly enough to realize he did not want to be splattered by McNeil's soft tissue when he shot him. Tee leveled the gun at McNeil's ear. His hand was shaking so badly that he steadied it with the other, falling automatically into the shooter's pose. I want to do it, he thought, I want to do it so badly.

This was not like Mrs. Leigh on the cliff, there was strong motive this time, McNeil deserved to die and Tee could get away with it in practical terms, possibly even legally. But he knew that the desire that filled him had no regard for reason or rationale. He wanted to end McNeil's life as a willful act, separate and complete in itself. He wanted to do it because he wanted to do it.

His finger trembled on the trigger and his ears were filled with a vast roaring, as if all the blood in his body were racing through his brain in a torrent, urging him on. He hesitated, barely aware of the keening sound issuing from McNeil, whose whole face was squeezed and bunched as if drawn together by cords. But Tee did not see McNeil's expression, he was concentrating solely on his target. His finger tautened on the trigger, he felt the slack give way and then the final resistance. One sixteenth of an inch farther, one more ounce of pressure, and the gun would explode in his hand. In the frozen second before the weapon fired, Tee felt as if raw power were attached to his arm, he could sense it throbbing there in his hand like a living thing, power. Power. The power to kill and change a life forever, his life, someone else's life.

The roar of the gun was incredibly loud in the stillness of the night, it seemed to rip the very air apart, to make the ground shake with its sudden ferocity. The fire of the muzzle blast against the blackness struck Tee as if he had stared directly at the sun, and for a moment he was lost, disoriented, as if he himself had been shot. After a moment the report still rang in his ears but his eyes focused once more and he saw McNeil lying at his feet. The hole where the bullet had struck the asphalt was as big as an 0 made with his thumb and forefinger, scraped white gravel of the revealed underbed gleaming dully in the headlights, but it was only when Tee stared at it that he could remember the scream of the bullet ricocheting moments earlier.

McNeil lay as still as death, only the dripping of tears from his cheeks onto the asphalt giving him away.

"Now do you believe you're going to die?" Tee asked. fr "Christ oh Christ oh Christ," McNeil murmured, sounding like a penitent at prayer.

"You believe now, don't you?" But in fact it was Tee who had been convinced by the first shot. Some tension seemed to have passed away in the weapon's blast, the last resistance to what he was going to do. He knew now not only that he wanted to kill McNeil, but that he could kill him. And that he would. All the doubts had fallen away and he was calm as he raised the gun this time. Eager, but in control of himself.

He saw the beam of the headlights of the distant car as they raced toward him, he was aware of the great speed at which they approached, but he knew he had plenty of time, there was no way for anything to outrace the bullet that was aimed this time for McNeil's head.

"I never told anyone about Mrs. Leigh," McNeil said suddenly.

Tee hesitated. "Mrs. Leigh? Mrs. Leigh? You think I'm killing you because of Mrs. Leigh, you half-wit?"

"I never told anyone, I never would."

"Are you trying to trade my daughter for Mrs. Leigh?"

"Someone's coming," McNeil said eagerly, hopefully. They both could hear the blare of the oncoming horn. The headlights were now flashing from high to low beam, and back to high again. Still holding the gun pointed at McNeil, Tee waved the car on, indicating that it should pass.

But the car skidded to a halt within a few feet of Tee and McNeil, and Becker leapt out. "Don't do it, Tee!"

"John?"

"Put the gun away, Tee, you don't need it on him."

Becker was naked except for his shorts. He walked barefooted across the pavement to stand by his friend. The flesh of his legs looked obscenely white in the headlight beam.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"He called me," Becker said, pointing at the man at Tee's feet.

"McNeil? McNeil called you?"

"He said you were going to kill him."

"He was right." Although Tee looked at Becker when he spoke, his two-fisted grip on the pistol continued to point at his intended victim.

"Put it down, Tee. Put the gun away."

"Do you know what he did?"

"Tell me."

"It's a misunderstanding," McNeil whined. "I didn't do anything, Becker, honest to God."

"Shut up," Becker said. "What did he do, Tee?"

"I didn't do anything, I swear to you…"

Becker kicked McNeil in the nose with his heel, then stepped over so that he stood between McNeil and Tee's gun.

"You're in my way, John."

"Tell me what he did."

"Stand aside."

"Just tell me why you're going to kill him."

"He knows."

Careful not to move enough to alarm Tee, McNeil tried to stanch the flow of blood from his nose into his mouth.

"I don't want to hear it from him. I want you to tell me so that I can understand it."

"I… can't talk about it."

"Okay."

"I have very good reasons."

"Have you ever killed anyone, Tee?"

"Not quite."

It might not be something you want to get into." 'Are you going to move, John?"

"Not unless you're going to shoot me. I wouldn't want to get shot just so you could shoot McNeil."

"I'm not going to shoot you. You haven't got any clothes on. You sleep like that, in your underpants?"

"Sure, how do you sleep?"

"In pajamas," Tee said.

"Seriously? In this heat?"

"Shorty pajamas. The bedroom is air-conditioned… What's the worst thing that could happen if I kill him?"

"You could like it."

"No nonsense about turning me in, federal charges, ruining my life, all that shit?"

"For killing McNeil?" Becker asked. "He was resisting arrest, he was armed and dangerous…"

"I'm not armed," McNeil moaned. Becker kicked backward with his heel, catching McNeil in the mouth. "We could arm him," Becker said. "I can testify to all of this, you wouldn't have legal problems. That isn't the point. The point is, what will it do to you? You're my friend, you're the one I care about. I don't want you to start something you might find you like."

I know I would."

"You don't know that, there's no way that you can know ahead of time-it's not like eating chocolate or learning to square-dance. You just might not be cut out for it. Or worse, you might be."

"This doesn't sound like the course in psychological stress management they teach at the state police academy," Tee said, lowering the gun slightly.

"It's not. I save this lecture for my friends."

"You've got more than one friend?"

"Tee, if you shoot this shithead between my legs, I'll be so scared I'll never forgive you."

Tee lowered the gun until it pointed to the ground. "McNeil, you asshole, stop cringing and get into the cruiser, you're under arrest,"

Tee said.

"What for?"

"Calling a federal officer in the middle of the night," Becker said.

"That, too," Tee agreed. "And Christ, what happened to your face?"

"Becker did it," said McNeil, warily eyeing Tee's holstered gun as he lifted a hand to test his bleeding nose and swollen mouth.

"Charge me with brutality, you ungrateful sonofabitch, and you'll find yourself in an empty field in the middle of the night alone with me. And you won't have time to make a phone call because I won't turn on a siren before I show up, I'll just be there, you understand me?"

"I wasn't going to-"

"Get in the car," Tee said. McNeil slid gratefully into the back of the cruiser. "I'm not going to thank you," Tee said to Becker. "I'm not sure you did me a favor."

Tee stood at the open dfiver's door, his elbows on top of the car. His eyes looked wild in the headlights, his manner disconnected from the scene.

"Tee…" Tee began to shake and then was weeping, loudly, hoarsely, breathing in desperate sobs. He dropped his head to his arms atop the car and tried to muffle his cries.

"It's okay," Becker said, patting him ineffectually on the back.

"I don't know what's wrong with me. I've been doing some awfully strange things lately. If I'm not careful I'm going to get myself into some trouble."

"It's okay, Tee," Becker murmured. "Fuck it is. I stood in the reservoir."

"So what?"

"Up to my neck."

"That's all right."

"It's not all right," he sobbed. "I'm the goddamned chief of police!"

He released what little control he had left and began to sob uncontrollably. Spasms racked him, his shoulders heaved and his face fell to his chest. He covered his face with his hands at first, but after a few moments he did not try to hide anything. He wandered away from the car, crying loudly, and Becker followed his friend helplessly, wondering what to do besides offering the occasional pat on the back. At length Tee came to a stop with his head leaning against a tree. "My baby!" he bayed, in one of the few intelligible sounds that Becker heard. "My baby." The chief had drifted fifty yards away from the cruiser and McNeil seized the opportunity to slip out of the car. Down the road, Tee turned abruptly and pulled his automatic from the holster again. Becker ducked instinctively and Tee fired a round in McNeil's direction. After the previous shot and all the bowling, this report did not seem nearly as loud.

McNeil leapt into the back seat of the cruiser headfirst, then squirmed around to close the door behind him, carefully keeping below the level of the seat backs.

"That was justified," Tee said, his gun hanging limply by his side.

A car approached on the road, slowing as it came abreast of them. Becker waved it past irritably, aware of the ludicrous sight he made, directing traffic in his bikini underpants as the chief of police stood beside him, sniffling. The car pulled to the side and Karen got out. Her service revolver was in the shoulder holster outside of her halter top and she looked more angry than alarmed.

"Oh, hi," said Tee, as casualty as if he had just encountered her at the local shopping center.

"Holster the gun, Tee," she said crisply.

Tee did so without hesitation. "I didn't kill him," he said, sniffing.

"Good. Sorry I'm late. I took the time to get dressed." She looked pointedly at Becker.

Metzger arrived with siren screaming and lights flashing.

"I got a report of gunshots," he said, his voice trailing off as he became aware of Becker's attire. "Everything all right?"

"Outstanding," said Becker.

"John, get in a car," Karen said. "Any car."

"I'm going to drive Tee home," said Becker. "Karen, McNeil is hiding in the back of Tee's cruiser. He fell and landed on his face-he may need medical attention, but I doubt it. Would you mind driving him to the station and slapping him in a cell?"

"McNeil's in the car?" said Metzger. He looked around him in bewilderment. "He's arrested?"

"We're putting him there for his own safe-keeping at the moment," said Becker. "I'll pick you up at the station when I get some clothes on, and we can come back for your car."

Karen nodded. Although Becker's superior at the Bureau, she was not so enamored of her power that she felt obliged to assert it in such a situation. If this was any of the Bureau's business in the first place, it had yet to be demonstrated. She took Becker's arm after he had guided Tee to the passenger seat of his car and spoke to him quietly.

"We live in Clamden, John. That doesn't make us members of the police force here."

"Put Metzger in the same car with McNeil and McNeil would be driving inside two minutes. I'll drive to the station, if you don't want to, but I think I'd better stay with Tee a bit longer."

"I don't mind, I just don't know what's going on. What have you and Tee been up to out here in the middle of the night?"