Into The Fire

After setting fire to Harold Kershaw, Aural decided it was wise to leave town, the better part of a display of independence being the surviving of it. Harold was a vindictive man when he had a score to settle, not to say just plain stone mean when he was in a good mood. Aural decided to scoot on out of Asheville while the score still read plus one in her favor.

She caught the bus to Richmond, paying full price for the ticket-she had taken the prudent measure of emptying Harold's wallet into her pockets before adding it to the conflagration-but got off in Statesville and hitched her way to Elkin. In Elkin she boarded a bus to Galax, Virginia.

Harold was certain to come after her. Aural was afraid of being caught, but she didn't think that Harold had a real chance of actually catching her since sleuthing was not at all in his line of work. In the first place, Harold would be required to ask strangers for information. In her experience, Harold didn't talk all that much or all that well. Certainly not to her. What he excelled at was grunting and opening beer bottles with his teeth-the advent of screw-on caps had done nothing to discourage this propensity-and, when the mood was on him, chewing glass.

He was also good at pissing contests, or so he claimed.

Aural had been forced to witness only a few and declined further invitations to watch. It was one of those pastimes like golf, she figured: fun for the participants, maybe, but of less than nominal interest to spectators. But Harold was so proud of his urinating skills that he contrived to demonstrate them without the excuse of a contest.

His favorite display was to stand in the back of his pickup as it raced through a neighboring village such as Swannanoa and Pee for the entire length of the main street. Aural liked those stunts better than the contests-at least she got to drive.

Once or twice-towards the end of her relationship with Harold-she had tried to bounce him out of the truck bed, but he had surprisingly good balance for a man who was drunk enough to piss his way through town. She had succeeded only in making him wet himself which was hardly lethal.

The one time made him mad and the other time made him laugh.

After spending the night in Galax, Aural engaged the motel owner in an elaborate conversation she knew he was going to remember in the morning as-it did from a pretty Young thing such as herself. Even then, Aural had taken the precaution of leaving her blouse about half unbuttoned to insure she got the man's attention. She let it drop that she was heading for Kentucky, where she had kin. No sooner had she left that dump than she took the first ride for West Virginia she could flag down where she didn't know a soul.

That was enough covering to throw off Harold. Someone who knew what he was doing could prob ably find her, but Harold didn't and he was too dumb to think of hiring a detective. He certainly Wasn't going to go to the police. She knew that setting him alight was Probably against the law in some circles, but to-Harold it would seem more like a breach of faith. A matter to be dealt with personally. His dealings with law had always been on the wrong end of it, and he would not turn to them for help now.

Hitching a ride was no problem not for a woman who looked like Aural. At twenty-eight she looked more like eighteen. She had the type of face that bespoke perpetual innocence with the land Of virginal glow that belied her experience, which, she thought was beginning to tote up had the kind of lithe beauty men liked, a fawn. Aurala had a hand on one denim-clad hip, the other thrust jauntily outwards in a model's pose her whole form seemed to be saying, "Go ahead and try." It was only when the cars and pickups ground to a halt and the drivers got a closer look at the face as pure as a girl's in her white Confirmation dress that confusion set in. Aural played on the confusion for as long as the driv took.

She was not particularly worried about the alleged dangers of hitchhiking. She was an expert at manipulating men, especially men of a certain brutish stripe-which, her experience, included most of them-and if she couldn't keep them in control with her wits, there was always the utill knife secure inside the top of her boot secured by a strip of Velcro. The knife was her idea, a sort of primordial legacy from a long line of McKessons who had never been without a weapon. Aural had had a blade with her since she was ten. The Velcro strip was a refinement she got from Jarrell Robeaux, a Cajun of intemperate inclinations whom she had spent a few months with in Bi loxi. It was the only thing worth keeping that she got from him if you didn't count the little scar just behind her righ ear where he had clipped her with his metallic Stanley Powerlock tape measure.

On route 52 in Welch, West Virginia, Aural caught a ride with a fat man who didn't want to talk but kept his eye turned on her the whole ride as if he had just seen something on television about the dangers of picking up hitchhikers. It didn't take her long to realize that he wasn't being paranoid, he was simply ogling, and with that knowledge Aural relaxed-she was more than comfortable being ogled, she had been ogled by the best of the for years-and took advantage of the silence to reflect on her latest adventure.

It was Harold's boots that had been the death of the relationship, she mused. He had taken to slinging, them at her as a matter of course, almost absently, the way he might pick up a stick and keep tossing it for a dog to retrieve. The insouciance of the gesture bothered Aural.

She didn't particularly mind if her mate slung something her way now and then-she'd never had one who didn't-but it seemed to her the throw ought to at least be done out of anger. She could understand anger, she had hurled the odd object at Harold, too, not always in.self-defense. One time, she remembered, she had flung a soup pot at him; it wasn't exactly full of hot soup at the time, but it wasn't precisely empty, either.

Harold had done nothing particularly egregious to deserve it, as far as Aural could remember. She had simply looked over at him where he sat at the kitchen table, his features blurry with hangover, his belly swelling over his belt with the beginnings of a paunch, his hair sticking out from his head at all angles like he'd been sitting in front of a fan while applying moosse. He was picking his back teeth with his finger and coughing as if about to throw up. He was unwashed, unclean, and generally unsavory, and Aural had had the penetrating insight that her standards had fallen to an unacceptable level. Also, it was hot as hell and so humid they might have been underwater. They were fixing to eat soup because it was all that was in the house and so Aural had let fly with the pot, hoping, perhaps, that it might lead to Harold's self-improvement.

So it was not exactly the fact that he tossed his boots at her so much that towards the end he had taken to slinging them at her head. Her face was her fortune, her mother had always told her, and Aural believed it although she had yet to see a penny from it. Rather than have her fortune damaged by size eleven Dan Perkins, Aural _had taken her incendiary leave.

Harold was the sixth man she had lived with in the last eight years, each one worse than the other, as far as she could tell. The embarrassing part was that no one had forced her to associate with any of them. Aural never lacked for options when it came to the male population.

She had chosen the selection of roughnecks and shit kickers all on her own. It was enough to make her wonder if she actually liked being cuffed and sworn at and kicked around. Not that she didn't usually give as good as she got. Aural would never consider herself abused. She was free to leave at any time, and eventually she always did.

It was more the question of why she was always lying down with swine, as her father would have put it. He used to have a quote he would offer in that line, but then he had a quote for every line of disappointing behavior Aural could come up with. She couldn't remember most of them.

Could it be, she wondered as they pulled into a burg called Bald Nob and the fat man made signs of making his move after all, could it be that she actually liked men who were mean and stupid and no earthly good for her'? Now that was just plain sad.

When the fat man reached for her thigh she caught his I he screamed. He manhanded her and she bent his fingers back until the side of the finger touched his wrist. He used the good hand to swerve to road and slow down just enough for Aural to hop out on the dusty road from the vehicle. She was left standing on the far side of Bald Nob, looking back towards a tent they had passed just moments ago when the fat man Overreached himself. it looked to Aural like a fine place to spend a day.

Nimble as a goat, lithe as green willow, his body not much longer than the coil of rope strapped to his pack, the boy scampered up a rock face with the insouciance of youth, He never thought of danger, had no fear of falling, indeed had only the fuzziest grasp of the concept of mortality as it applied to himself. Standing above on belay, his hands taking in slack, his leg braced to absorb the shock Of any fall, John Becker watched young Jack climb with a mixture of envy and apprehension.

A good climber had no fear-or at least he never thought of it as fearbut he always had a healthy respect for the perils presented by any ascent.

At ten, Jack was simply'too young to recognize the hazard presented by,the unremitting, unbreakable law of gravity.

Jack attained the ledge where Becker stood, virtually springing up on it, his face smiling with accomplishment.

Becker remembered his own labored breathing as when he had hauled himself up after the long pitch. Jack looked fresher than when he had stood at the base of the rock. Galileo had it wrong, Becker thought.

Gravity does pull harder on some bodies than on others.

"Well done," Becker said.

Jack's smile split his face. "It was easy."

"Uh-huh."

Jack turned and looked back down the rock. Becker resisted an instinct to grab him by his belt. "That wasn't very high."

"Yeah, well, we'll work up to Everest gradually. Not till next week at the earliest."

The boy waved at his mother who stood at the base, looking anxiously upwards.

"Your turn," Becker said, wiggling the rope.

Jack laid out the line as he had been taught, took a braced position, then called out, "On belay!" Becker smiled at the seriousness in his attitude.

"Christ, I hope so," his mother muttered to herself.

She stared upwards but could no longer see his face over the ledge.

"Climbing!" she called and took her first foothold on the rock. She could feel the rope tauten subtly, allowing her freedom of movement while still suggesting security.

Behind Jack's back, Becker took his own anchored position, ready to serve as instantaneous backup if the boy should fail.

Karen climbed slowly but steadily, with a workmanlike approach. She had come to climbing only recently, under Becker's tutelage, and although her body was strong and her reflexes as sharp as any other trained FBI agent's, her mind was reluctant to surrender to the arcane pleasure of embracing stone.

The problem with opting to spend your life in a primarily male society, she thought, was proving that you could do it. And proving it and proving it and proving it.

The testing never stopped. As Associate Deputy Director of Kidnapping, she was as high as any woman had ever been in the Bureau, and she had gotten there a lot younger, too. But even so there was the constant nag of having to demonstrate again and again that she deserved to be there, that she could be as macho as any of them if the occasion demanded. And somehow or other, the occasions seemed to be always cropping up. Not that Becker doubted her, she knew that. He had no desire to turn her into a man with softer parts. He liked the femininity of her mind, was as fascinated by it as he seemed to be fascinated by so many things that were not his by nature.

Of all the men she knew, Becker was the only one that she was certain accepted herjust the way she was… Still, here she was, pressing her nose against the stone and racking what few fingernails she could allow herself to cultivate just because Becker's former wife had been a rock climber. Showing off for her man and her son. Why was it, she wondered, not for the first time, that they never felt inclined to knit her a sweater for Christmas to impress her?

Karen's ascent to the ledge was somewhat less impressive than Jack's.

She hoisted herself just high enough to sit, then leaned back, her feet dangling into space.

"Well done," said Becker.

"Pretty good," said Jack. She caught the note of condescension in his tone, but she wasn't sure if the rest of his thought was, for a woman, or for my mom. At ten, her son was already a confirmed sexist, although Becker had assured her he might grow out of it.

"Next vacation we go somewhere I can wear a skirt," she said. Becker sat beside her, snuggling his thigh against hers.

"I promise," he said. "Fair enough, Jack?"

At his silence, both adults turned to look at him. The boy was staring upwards, his attitude suddenly frozen into one of apprehension.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing.

"It's called a chimney," Becker said. "I told you about them."

I 'You didn't say they were so small, " Jack said.

The chimney was actually a vertical seain in the rock, a narrow split a few feet wide that extended upwards as if the stone had been torn by giant hands. The technique of climbing it was for the climber to use his body like a wedge, forcing his legs against one side of the chimney wall, his back against the other, and inching up as if his shoulders and buttocks were hands. Like so much of rockclimbing technique, it required a certain faith in addition to mindless resolve.

Becker had selected this stretch of mountain because although it was tiring it was not dangerous and there was a wide variety of techniques available within a small range.

"Do we have to go inside it?" Jack asked nervously.

Becker studied the boy carefully. "Not if you don't want to-" he started.

"I think you should, Jack," Karen interrupted.

"It's all right to be afraid of something," Becker said to Karen.

"I know it's all right, " Karen said with annoyance.

She was caught again in the conflict between wanting to protect her child and fearing she would injure him by isolating him from all of the risks and challenges that made boys into men. She wondered if single mothers produced the most macho of sons out of a dread of creating weaklings. "But I think he should do it. It's why we came.' "I think he should decide," Becker said patiently. Karen's eyes flashed angrily for a second.

"I think he should do it," she said.

Jack looked back and forth between the two adults.

"Couldn't I just go straight up that way?" Jack asked, pointing out a route that avoided the chimney.

"Sure," said Becker.

"But then you'd never learn how to do that," Karen pointed at the rip in the stone face. "You'll have to learn it sometime."

"Why?"

"Because life is like that, Jack," she said. "It never lets you off easy."

"We're all afraid of something," Becker said softly.

"There's nothing wrong with it."

"You're not afraid of anything," Jack said.

"Sure I am. I'm afraid of lots of things," Becker said.

"Like what?"

"Right now I'm most afraid of climbing that chimney," Becker said.

"Huh-huh."

"Trust me, Jack. I'll break into a sweat the minute I get inside it."

"Then how come you want to do it?"

Becker shrugged. "Do you know what 'counterphobic' is?"

"No."

"It means I'm more afraid of being afraid of something than I am afraid of it." Becker chuckled. "Let me try again. It means I do the things I'm afraid of. I don't want the fear to win."

"Are you really afraid of going into that chimney?"

"Honest to God. I'm scared even thinking about it."

"I'm not," Jack said. He stood and started towards the chimney.

"Nice psychology," Karen said, getting to her feet.

"That wasn't psychology," Becker said, "it was the truth. I'm scared shitless."

Karen looked at him closely. His face was ashen and sweat had broken out on his forehead. Karen started to say something but Becker rose quickly and started after Jack, heading towards the chimney.

Lights out in the cellblock was like sun down in the jungle, time for the predators to emerge and for the vulnerable to hunker in hiding. But unlike the jungle where the hunters moved in stealth and silence, within the cement walls of Springville prison it was the predators who made most of the noise. And there was no place for anyone to hide.

Three cells away, the new punk was being introduced to the pleasures of prison life, and his screams excited the inmates. Cries of support rang out from the length of block as his fellow predators urged on the aggressor.

Some of the habitual victims raised their voices, too, eager to have someone else degraded. And of course a few of the victims had come to love their victimization, some to adore their tormentors. Their response was to coo sympathetically or to eye their cellmates seductively. Not that much seduction was required. The prison population is primarily young, and most of the prisoners already have too much testosterone for their own good or that of society. Sex pervades the prison like the overheated summer humidity, clinging to the skin, freighting the air.

"Get used to it, honey," said a weary voice, offering the only advice applicable to the situation. Once a punk was initiated, there was no turning back, no reversing of roles. For the rest of his term he would remain what he had become.

Cooper lay on his bunk, listening to the uproar, a slow grin building on his lips.

"Hear that, punk?"

The shape on the bunk above him did not stir.

"I'm talking to you," Cooper said. He kicked upwards and slammed his foot into the base of the upper bunk.

"What?"

"Don't pretend you don't hear me," Cooper said.

"You hear me."

"What is it?"

Cooper's grin broadened. He enjoyed it when his punk tried to outsmart him because, in here, in the cell, there was no way anyone could outwit Cooper. In the world, intelligence counted for something. Every two-bit clerk who could subtract well enough to make change for a ten was intimidating to Cooper. They could disrespect him and live because there were too many of them to kill.

Everyone seemed to sense the awkward and clumsy movements of his mind and to dance around him like hyenas around a shackled lion. They were legion and he was just one. There was nothing he could do but let them cheat and bully and mock him. The world belonged to the agile; but here, in this cell, the universe belonged to the strong. Cooper's power was rooted neither in wit nor cunning but in raw strength.

"What is it?" Cooper said in mincing tones, mocking the convict above him. "What is it?"

"Honestly," Swann said. "I don't know what you want!"

Honestly.'

Cooper waited for Swann to respond, then kicked the bunk again.

"Now," he said.

Swann leaned his head over the edge of the bunk. He had the look on his face that Cooper loved to see. The placating look of someone trying to hide his fear while calming a menacing dog.

"I don't feel very well," Swann said.

"Shit," said Cooper dismissively. "I want it now."

"No, truthfully, Cooper. I think I have an infection. It might put you in jeopardy. I wouldn't want that."

Cooper laughed. He recognized the tone even if he didn't grasp all of the substance. It was the same bullshit that they all tried on him in the world, scooting around him with their words, twisting things so he didn't know what to think.

He didn't have to put up with it here.

"Time for your nightlies," Cooper said.

"You know I want to…"

"I know you do."

"Anything you want. Normally. But tonight Cooper grabbed the smaller man by the ear and pulled until he came off the bunk, yelping in pain.

"Old Coop's going ridin'," called out a neighboring inmate who heard Swann's groans.

"Coop's ridin'," Cooper called back happily, delighted to be recognized.

He was a respected man on the block, people spoke to him, called out his name in admiration.

If not the strongest man on the block of strong men, he was close.

Three cells away, the new punk's initiation came to a climax with the exultant scream of his tormentor. Between catcalls from the kibitzers the punk could be heard weeping. If he didn't stop soon, the predator would beat him until he couldn't. Cooper hated weepers, particularly crying women or anyone that reminded him of them.

His punk didn't cry. His punk loved him. Not just because Cooper protected him from the other cons who might want to abuse him. He loved him because he loved him, because Cooper was lovable, because he was a good man, and a stud and a nice guy-or at least in as much as circumstances allowed him to be a nice guy. Niceness was not a highly valued characteristic in the jungle.

Cooper tightened his fingers around Swann's throat, feeling the cords of muscle that held the little man's head to his body. It would be so easy to yank it right off. Just one good tug, Cooper thought. He was strong enough, he could pop it off like he was snapping string. Cooper wondered if Swann would flap around like a chicken, or would he just die, collapsing like a poleaxed steer. Cooper had seen the way cattle died in a slaughterhouse, falling as if a hole had opened beneath them, slaughtered without a twitch. He had never seen a human being die that quickly, there was always some fuss, usually noise, too. But then he'd never seen anyone die because his head was pulled off, either. He tightened his grip on Swann's neck until the punk began to cough.

Cooper felt the throbbing begin.

"You love me, don't you?" he demanded, his voice husky now and low so no one else could hear.

"I love you," said Swann.

Cooper thrust harder, beginning to lose control.

"I love you, too," Cooper said, each word tortured from his frantic breathing, and for the moment he truly did. He wanted to squeeze his punk in his arms although the position did not allow it. He wanted to be wrapped in another person's embrace, to feel the warmth of another body, his beloved's body, against his skin.

Cooper finished with the orgasmic scream of a cat, announcing his dominance as he had learned to do in prison, letting the listeners know of his triumph. Quiet passion was for the prey, not the predators.

He slumped across Swann's back as the last of the tremors shook him, then, as always, was almost immediately filled with guilt. He thrust the punk away from him, pushing him with his foot against the wall.

The punk hit his head and moaned.

"Shut up," Cooper said.

"That hurt."

"You're lucky I don't kill you," Cooper said. "If I didn't have to live with you, I'd kill you."

Swann was silent, a shape in the dark, huddled against the wall. Cooper wanted to kick him again. Like a cowering dog, he thought. Just asking for the boot.

"You know that, don't you?" Cooper asked,

"I know that."

"If I didn't have to live with you, I'd probably pull your head right off. You know I could."

"I know it."

"I killed a faggot once."

"I'm not a faggot, COOP."

"You'd better not be."

"I just do it because I love you."

"God damn if I'd share a cell with a faggot. If I ever find out you are one, I'll kill you anyway, I don't care if I never get out. I'll kill you just like I did the other one."

There was a silence and for a moment Cooper thought it to be mood. It would be a bad night, the punk wasn't difficult, perhaps he really was sick, maybe Cooper had injured him after all. He was always such a little shit when he felt abused and, although Cooper could force him to perate, he didn't do it with the same ego-satisfying of cooper's sincerity. Who knew what went on in his mind, crouching ver there in the shadows? Fucking little clerk, Cooper thought, little snot-nose behind the cash register. Cooper had stuck his.38 into the face of dozens of them, seen their smugness change to fear in a second. Seen the color drain out of their faces as if the gun was a siphon and Coop a vampire.

Little shit-fuck, dirty little shit-fuck, hiding in the dark, sniveling.

Then Swann broke the silence.

"How did you kill him?" Cooper relaxed. The tone of voice was just right, the punk was in the proper mood. He would ask the questions and Cooper could say the things he loved to say. It was the part of the evening he liked best, the part after sex when he talked about himself and the things he had done and the things he was going to do. Cooper had forgotten many of the details, but the punk remembered, he coached Cooper when things slipped his mind. Cooper never felt stupid when telling his stories to Swann.

"I kicked him to death," Cooper said.

"Why?"

"I told you, he was a faggot." 'When did you do this, Coop?":,At night. He come up to the car and said could he do anything for me and I said, yeah, faggot, you can do something for me. You can eat my boot."

"I meant how long ago did you do this?"

"Why didn't you say so?"

"I didn't make myself clear, i'm sorry… Was it just before you came to prison, or longer, or…?"

"It was… uh…"

"Was it five years ago, when you were in Nashville?"

"That's right."

"Did the police know about it?"

"I don't know. I didn't tell them. I don't suppose he did, do you?"

"Was that before you killed the girls, or after?"

"Before."

"How did the girls happen?"

"You like that one, don't you?" Cooper said.

"I like whatever you- like, Coop. Your favorites are my favorites."

"They're all MY favorites. I wouldn't have killed them if I didn't like it, would I?"

"Would you rather tell me about another one? Do you want to talk about the Mexican?"

"Which Mexican? I done more than one Mexican. I done lots of them. I hate Mexicans."

"The one when you were picking oranges?"

"I done lots of Mexicans," Cooper repeated vaguely, trying to remember.

"You said he got in your face because of his wife."

"Oh, yeah." Cooper waited for further reminders.

There had been so many, how could he be expected to recall the details?

That's what the punk was good for.

Cooper told about them when they occurred to him; it Was up to Swann to remember what he said.

"She was coming on to you… She was sticking her ass in your face when she was on a ladder."

Cooper chuckled. "I remember. Wiggling her ass around in my face like it itched."

"And she wanted you to scratch it."

"Wanted me to fuck it, is what she wanted."

"That's what I meant… Did you, Coop?"

"Did I what?"

"Did you fuck her?"

"What do you think?"

"Did you make her scream?"

"I always make them scream,"

"Is that the best part?"

"What?"

"Making them scream? Is that the part you like best?"

"I like seeing their faces when I put the gun in their mouth."

"You don't do that to the women, do you?"

"I wasn't talking about the women."

"Okay."

"Stick to the point," Cooper said. "We're talking about the Mexican."

"I'm sorry. I get confused sometimes," the punk said.

Cooper smiled in the darkness. The shit-fuck clerks were smart only about what they were smart about. They weren't smart about what Coop was smart about. They didn't know shit about the things Cooper knew.

"There's a lot of them to remember," Cooper said magnanimously. "I lose track myself sometimes."

"There are an awful lot of them. You must have done more people than anybody on this block."

"I done more than any come in the whole damned prison, and don't you forget it. I probably done more than anybody anywhere. What's the record?"

"I don't know, Coop. Seventeen, eighteen?"

"Shee-it, that's nothing. Is that all? I must have done thirty. More probably."

"Do the police know about them?"

"Who cares?"

"They're the ones who count, they keep track."

"They do?"

"They're the scorekeepers, sort of. If they don't know, it doesn't count."

"Bullshit. If I done them, they're dead."

"Just a manner of speaking."

"Bullshit."

"You're right, Coop."

"I'm trying to tell you about the Mexican."

"I want to hear about it."

"Then quit confusing me with all this other shit."

"Sorry."

"I could rip your head off if I wanted to, you know."

"I know you could… Did you rip the Mexican's head Off-?"

Cooper chuckled. "Naw… I gutted him. He come at me with his knife-you know all them Mexicans got knives, they're fucking born with them. I stuck my gun in his face and took the knife away and then I gutted him with his own blade. You should have heard him gurgle in Mexican."

"Spanish."

"What?"

"What did you do with the body?"

"I stuck it in a culvert."

"Do you suppose the police have ever found it?"

"I don't know, you little shit. Do police usually go looking in culverts?"

"I don't know that much about the police, Coop."

"You're in here, ain't you? I guess the police know about you, all right, you little dickhead."

"That was different. I made a mistake, I didn't kill anybody."

"You tried though, didn't you? You just couldn't pull it off."

"I didn't try, I was just defending myself. She attacked me, I was just defending myself"

"Assault with a deadly weapon, right? The judge didn't think you was 'defending' yourself. He thought you was trying to kill your landlady with a butcher's cleaver."

"She attacked me, the woman was deranged."

Cooper turned his back to the other man. He didn't understand what "deranged" meant and he was tired of talking about someone other than himself.

"You're so innocent, I guess they ought to let you go, then," Cooper said, trying to think how to get the conversation back to him.

"I know everyone says they're innocent, Coop, but I really am.

"You just couldn't manage it. If you'd killed the bitch the way you should have, maybe you wouldn't be here now, did you ever think of that?

Kill them and who's to testify if they're dead?

"Who's going to report it? Who's going to… You just didn't have the balls for it. And not everyone isn't. I ain't innocent. I just ain't been they're innocent say they don't know the half of what they were caught for what I done I done, nobody does, not even you. But I'm not telling them, let them find out for themselves."

"They'll never find out about you, Coop. You've got a reputation of deviousness all over the county. You must have bodies scattered all over."

"Uh-huh."

"You put the Mexican in the culvert..

"Yeah."

"And what else?"

"What else what?"

"What other bodies did you hide?"

Cooper tried to think. He knew the answer, he just couldn't come up with it right away. That was how his mind worked, it always got there eventually, but sometimes not as fast as others thought it should. Well, fuck them.

"Them girls," he said triumphantly. "I hid them girls."

"Are those the ones you burned to death?"

II Cooper said, laughing.

"Hell, no. I burned them alive,

"That was in Pennsylvania?"

"Yeah… No. Not Pennsylvania. Can't you remember anything, you little fruiter'? It was in West Virginia."

"I'm not a fruit," Swann said.

Cooper was paying no attention. For once the facts sprang clearly to mind. Some memories were fuzzy and some clear and some so vague he didn't know if he dreamed them or lived them, But this time the pictures sprang vividly to mind.

"I did 'em in an old coal mine in West Virginia," he said proudly. "Just outside a town called Hendricks."

"Why a coal mine?"

"I needed somewhere-what do you call it? — someplace alone."

"Secluded."

"that's it."

"Why did you need a secluded place? You never did any other time, did you?"

"Because they were going to make a lot of noise."

"Why didn't you gag them?"

Cooper grinned in the darkness. He knew all the answers this time.

"Because I wanted to hear them."

"How come you did two at a time, Coop?"

"Did I say that? Did I say I did two at a time?"

"I just thought..

"Don't think, you might hurt yourself," Cooper said.

Damn, he knew so much more about this stuff than any goddamned clerk. It was a wonder anybody so stupid was allowed to live. "I did 'em six months apart I planned it good, too. I got together enough food and shit to last me a week. And a couple cartons of cigarettes. And a lantern.

And some candles. It's dark in a mine, you know, you got to have some light."

"You took a week killing them?" Swann was horrified.

"What's wrong with that?"

Swann was silent.

"Anything wrong with a week?"

"No," Swann said quietly. "I wasn't criticizing.

"I could pull your head off if I wanted."

"I wasn't criticizing."

"I hope to shit not. Ask me something else."

"Where did you find them?"

"The girls you took to the abandoned mine."

"It was a coal mine."

"Nobody was using it anymore, were they?"

"Of course not. I told you. It was an old mine."

"Where did you find the girls you took there?"

Cooper brayed. This was the best part. He loved this part because of the reaction it got from Swann. Every time.

I picked them up at church."

He could hear the little punk gasp. Every time. He had never seen such a religious nut. Coope coming next. He heard Swann shuffling off his ass and onto his knees.

"Could we pray now?" Swann asked although it wasn't really a question.

Cooper knew that Swann would pray now no matter what Cooper said or did, short of bashing his head against the wall.

" Sure. Pray," Cooper said. He rose from the bunk and knelt beside Swann, facing the crucifix that was barely visible. Cooper didn't see what harm could be done in humoring the little man now and then. It made him play his part more eagerly if he knew he got his reward at the end.

And, besides, Cooper figured the praying couldn't hurt, especially since it was Mostly about him.

"Dear Lord, Sweet Jesus, Angel of Mercy," Swann intoned, "look down on our beloved brother Cooper and bring the spirit of redemption to his soul. Pierce his hardened heart with your love, Sweet Jesus, and let him know the joy of loving his fellow man — ."

Swann enthused onward and Cooper's focus soon drifted off. Cooper had heard the little punk keep at it for hours at a time, so there wasn't any need for him to try to keep up with it all. He paid little attention to the words of the prayer, they often confused him anyway, but he liked the rhythm, the singsongy way the phrases were d "Darling Lord," as if Swann were calling out to his sweetheart.

The punk cared for him; he really did love him.

Somewhere in the midst of all the blabbing to god, Swann would get around to the fact that Cooper was being re leased soon and would need all the help the darling lord could spare when he reentered the world.

He would ask sweet Jesus to walk hand in hand with old Coop and keep him out of trouble. Cooper liked that image and in his mind sweet Jesus looked a lot like Swann himself, but with a scraggly beard. Swann already had the messianic y hair down to his shoulders and some nights Cooper would remove the rubber band that held it in a ponytail and run his hands through it. There was comfort in the idea of a Christ-like Swann, short and weak but smart in a lot of ways that were valued in the world, walking down some long dirt road with his hand in Cooper's. And, in truth, Cooper had some need for comfort. The prospect of freedom after five years of confinement filled him with trepidation. Not that he would ever admit to such anxiety to Swann or anyone else. If they saw the slightest sign of fear or even uncertainty, they would take it for weakness and swarm all over him, prying and pulling at whatever slightest chink they could find until they ripped him open and fed on his insides. But the fear was real, however well he hid it. In truth, Cooper had never done well in the world. It bewildered him with its complex rules and escalating demands. Even his pleasures had to be circumscribed or the police would be on him. In prison the rules were clear and quickly learned and if you were strong enough and vicious enough, you could make your own.

And here, at least, someone loved him and cared about his welfare.

Cooper put an arm around Swann's shoulders, feeling the knobby bones through the mottled skin. In full light, Swann's torso and legs were covered with freckles. For some reason only his face had been spared the spots. Cooper had learned to love them. His punk leaned his head against the big man's chest and continued to pray.

"Sweet Jesus," Swann implored, "bring your divine love to the heart of Darn ell Cooper the way be has brought love to mine. Let the light of your great goodness shine upon him. Deliver him from the pit. Cause him to dwell no more in the valley of the shadow, darling Lord, but lift him up to your mountaintop of light!"

"Amen," said Cooper, prematurely.

"And sweet Jesus, cleanse his mind of those thoughts which torment him.

Lift from him, Lord, those obscene fantasies that haunt his soul. Raise up his eyes so that they might dwell forever on your sweet goodness and look no more into the abyss Of the evil pit."

Swann shivered and Cooper did not know if he was cold or frightened. He himself was getting excited again.

When the punk got through praying, he was usually very receptive.,Sometimes he thought up new ways to do it.

His punk had a lot of imagination.

Karen had placed the envelope on the kitchen table for him and Becker left it there amid the crumpled napkins and the spilled remainders of Jack's breakfast cereal while he did the dishes and straightened the kitchen. Giving the table a swipe with the sponge, he worked around the letter as if afraid to soil his hands by touching it. Kitchen duty was a chore that Becker had assumed on his own; Karen had never mentioned it, he had never volunteered. On the first few mornings he had spent at her house, she had gotten Jack off to school, then departed for work herself while he was still reading the newspaper at the table.

"Just leave it," she had said, referring to the general litter while bending to give him a kiss. "I'll do it when I get home." Becker had not left it and it did not take long for her to stop urging him to do so.

The same process was at work when he gradually assumed the duties of dinner chef. He cooked the first, few times because it seemed unfair for her to have to launch into meal preparations as soon as she walked in the door. He cooked dinner a few times because he didn't like the frozen entrees and slapjack concoctions that Karen tossed together on her own.

After that he cooked because he realized he liked to, and because no one had ever told him he had to. Now, after living together for a year, Karen Still remembered every so often to say thank you, which Becker considered a surprise bonus. Jack never thought to voice his gratitude without prompting, but then Jack was ten and assumed that service was his due.

With the dishes rinsed and stacked in the dishwasher and the counters and tabletop cleaned and straightened, Becker was forced to regard the letter once more. It was addressed in typescript to "Agent John Becker" in care of "FBI, Washington, D.C." The envelope was plain white, ordinary stationery as unremarkable as the typewriting. With a sigh, Becker lifted the envelope by its edges. Whomever it was from, Becker didn't want to hear from him. FBI agents didn't receive friendly letters addressed to headquarters. They got angry letters, they got pleading letters, they got threatening letters from attorneys insinuating lawsuits, they got paranoid letters from screwballs concerned about UFOS. And, in Becker's case, there were letters from psychopaths.

More than one of the serial killers whom Becker had tracked and apprehended tried to stay in touch with him, as if their relationship had not been severed by incarceration. They wrote to him as if they knew him, as if they shared something in common, some deep affliction of the soul that had empowered Becker to find them-that had allowed them to be caught by one of their own. For these correspondents the twisted growth within their souls that made them the way they were was a source of exultation.

They loved their mania, clutched it gleefully, protected it fanatically.

He could sense their caged but unaltered joy like the cackle of the demented in every line they wrote.

They crooned to him from their prison cells and mental wards like wolves howling for a caged brother to join them. For Becker, his understanding of their dementia was a sickness that he had quit the Bureau in a vain attempt to expunge. If he was no more capable of reforming his soul than they were, at least he could avoid the exercise of his failings. He was like a man with allergies that medicine could not control. Unable to live cleanly in a certain place, Becker had taken himself elsewhere, out of the FBI, away from the antigens that plagued him.

But the crazies would not let him go, they called to him, singing their siren songs of mutuality through the mail, and the Bureau, conscientious good citizen that it was, acted as middleman, running him down with the messages of lunacy.

He slipped a paring knife under the flap and opened the envelope, then turned it over to shake out its contents, still reluctant to come into contact with it. The masthead of The New York Times floated to the table. Scissors had cut away the newspaper's motto, "All the News That was Fit to Print," on one side, and the weather information on the other, leaving intact only the name of the paper and the date immediately underneath. The edition was two years old.

Becker flipped the paper to its other side. There was the name CARTIER in large letters, Part of an advertisement which had been cut away, a portion of a female model's face that was part of an adjoining ad, and the word "News," the second half of "News Summary" having also been excised. Pinching just the tip of the paper, Becker held it up to the light, half expecting to see an "invisible" message scrawled in some lunatic's urine.

What he saw were tiny dots of light bleeding through the paper, poked with caution through the letters of the masthead by a pin. Above the masthead was another series of dots. On the reverse side of the paper, the holes in the masthead fell in the empty space of the illustrations used for the advertisements.

A game player, he thought. Someone wants me to cooperate so he can jerk me off at the same time he does himself.

But despite his annoyance, Becker rummaged through the extra bedroom that they called a family room until he found an old Scrabble set. For each letter in the masthead with a hole in it, Becker selected a lettered square from the Scrabble set and placed it on the table. The who and the w each had two holes, so he added an extra of each letter to his little pile. Taken in Order from the masthead, the letters spelled "hNwwooki." Placing the capitalized n first and following it with a vowel, Becker came up with "Now i howk. " Nothing more intelligible presented itself immediately, so he shuffled the tiles and tried again.

At the first random casting the letters formed the word wowikhno."

With rising exasperation, he reshuffled the letters, then again and yet again, trying to find words that made sense.

After ten minutes of effort his hands froze over the tiles.

His message was on the table before him.

"i know who."

"So you know who," Becker said aloud, his voice sounding strange in the empty house. "Who what? Or who cares?"

The dots that ran above the masthead took a bit longer to decipher. They were neatly, almost meticulously placed, as if they had been ruled off with a caliper. Applying a tape measure, Becker determined that they were precisely one eighth of an inch apart. In some cases two dots ran vertically and in some cases one stood alone. The vertical holes were also precisely one eighth of an inch from those below them. However, they were not systematically aligned with any of the letters in the masthead that ran below them. The dots were a message by themselves:

At first glance they looked to Becker like a broken box kite, and then like an old-fashioned door key. He played with the idea for a moment before deciding that the pattern didn't look much like a key after all.

Leaving the tiles and their message on the table, he paced the kitchen, wondering why he was taking the trouble in the first place.

Whoever had sent him the message had been smart enough, or knew Becker well enough, to make it a puzzle.

He knows my weakness, Becker thought. Or one of them at least. If the message had been straightforward, Becker might well have dismissed it out-of-hand, throwing it out joining this jerkoff in his activity. with the morning's trash. Now here I am, he thought, Disgusted with his correspondent, and with himself for accommodating the faceless ghoul, Becker reached out to crumble the bit of newsprint and its cryptic holes when he stopped, arrested suddenly by the date on the newspaper. There was nothing special about the date itself-, it rang no bells; Becker could recall nothing unusual about the day; but its very presence was strange. The man had cut away everything else from the paper that was irrelevant. Why had he left the date? The obvious answer was that the date was not irrelevant.

"i know who" meant he knew something about someone who did something on that date. And in that newspaper? The New York Times was a large newspaper; where was Becker supposed to find the "who"? The dots had to be a page number. The correspondent wanted Becker to solve this code, after all. He was trying to say something and he wanted to be heard, even if his listener had to work a bit first. He is confident that I will take the trouble, Becker reasoned, so he must be equally confident that I can break the code'. It can't be that much of a mystery. The punctured letters didn't amount to much of a code after all, just enough to avoid a cursory inspection.

Whatever the writer was trying to hide, he wasn't trying so hard that someone of average intelligence couldn't find it, Becker thought. The code was meant to be a puzzle, not a mystery, and puzzles, by their nature, can be solved.

Becker walked the mile and a half to the library, a stroll he took frequently to clarify his thoughts. He had replaced the masthead in its envelope and carried it with him in his pocket, feeling as if he were transporting something smelly and indecent. Traveling the clean, tree-lined sidewalks of Clamden, Connecticut, Becker felt like a dirty old man with pornography in his possession, as out-of place in this verdant patch of suburbia as a flasher in his trench coat.

Don't pursue this, he berated himself Whatever it is, it's no good for you, no matter how little you involve yourself. Alcoholics don't sip wines just to determine the source of the grapes. It's a quagmire, your entire association with that past life. Put a toe in to test the surface and you'll get sucked in again, right up to the neck.

Becker removed the envelope from his pocket and dropped it on the ground, then turned abruptly and walked back home, quickly, as if someone were after him. He had gone only a few hundred yards before he realized he was brushing his hand against his pant leg as if to cleanse it of something clinging to his fingers, like the slime trail of a garden slug.

At home Becker swept the Scrabble tiles into the box with his cupped hand and forearm and replaced the game in the family room. He straightened the kitchen once again, took out his well-worn copy of The Chinese Cookbook by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee and leafed through it in search of a recipe for the evening's meal.

He felt clean, he felt virtuous, like a former addict who has passed up a fix; he had been tested and found strong.

Ten minutes later Becker found the envelope where he had dropped it. He picked it up and continued his walk to the library, where he found a primer on computers and refreshed himself on binary code.

Counting with a base of two rather than civilization's customary ten was simple enough once the method was understood. Becker remembered it from the years when he had devoted himself to computers, but felt it wise to check his calculations against the book.

Assuming the two dots aligned vertically meant 1 and the dots that stood alone represented zero, the number in binary code was: 10011 In the decimal system, the ones and zeros translated to the number 19.

The librarian at the information desk, identified by the brass plate in front of her as June Atchinson, showed Becker how to operate the microfilm machine and where to find the files of film of back copies of The New York Times.

She knew Becker-most people in Clamden knew him or knew of him-but only a few were able to differentiate between the man they saw and the man they had heard about. To June he seemed a pleasant, unfailingly polite and frequent visitor to the library, but when she looked at him it was impossible for her to dismiss the stories she had heard. The FBI agent with too many deaths to his credit-if credit was the right word. A man whose talents were too much like the predilections of those he hunted.

It was all rumor, of course, but it stuck to his image all the stronger because of that. June chided herself for crediting the rumors-she liked to think of herself as a better person than that-but the stories were too persistent to ignore. He was a good-looking man, virile, with the appearance of strength despite middle age, but with nothing about him to suggest a hidden and rapacious bloodlust.

She watched him with open curiosity as he worked the microfilm machine.

Becker was aware of her attention as he was normally aware of most of what went on about him, the habit of watchfulness never having left him, The FBI had taught him a form of reasonable paranoia, and Becker had refined it with an attention to nuance that had made him extraordinarily effective. He was also conscious of his reputation and was glad the real story was not known. The truth was worse than the rumors and was known only by his therapist, and then only in part. Even Becker did not know the whole truth about himself, although he worked at it with a diligence made possible only by his high tolerance for psychic pain.

He found the Times that matched the date on the masthead and turned the knob of. the machine, watching the blurred catalogue of the day's events flash by until he reached page 19.

There were stories about the apple industry and the suicide doctor, but the item sought by Becker leaped at him from a tiny box in the lower left corner, a throwaway story sent over the AP wire and beloved by editors because it was just the right size to fill small holes in the page's layout. The headline read, "Body Found in Coal Mine."

The dateline was Hendricks, West Virginia, and the story told in terse journalistic prose of the discovery of the body of a twenty-year-old woman in a branch shaft of an abandoned mine. The woman had been identified by her dental records as a local girl who had been reported missing nearly three years earlier. No details were given concerning the cause of death, and Becker could imagine that after three years in a mineshaft there would be little soft tissue remaining on which to perform an autopsy. The story went on to say that foul play was suspected-although no reason was given for the conclusion-and that a broader search of the mine was to be undertaken.

Becker lifted his head from the black and white of the microfilm and widened his eyes as if trying to awaken from a sleep. He did not know how long he had been staring at the newspaper article, but his mind had leaped through the machine and into the darkness of the West Virginia mine where a girl's body lay on the gouged and routed floor of rock. He did not see her as she must have been found, a pile of bones encased in rags, but as she must have died, a living person, fearful, panicked, in pain.

In his imagination she had just been killed and Becker was there beside her, feeling the last warmth of her body, her final breath still hanging above her, still distinct amid the chilly ambient air of the mine. The sound of her final cry faded away in the vastness of her grave and over it Becker could hear another, frightening sound. It was her killer's breathing, rapid, excited, orgasmic. Becker could sense the man behind him, looking at the girl over Becker's shoulder, leaning in close, as close as Becker himself, savoring the death. Becker was aware of the man's leering smile, his dancing eyes, his nostrils flared in the effort to suck in the girl's last breath. Without turning to look, Becker knew the light was already fading from the killer's eyes, the climactic feeling passing from his soul. Whatever he had done to her, however long it had taken, however much trouble it had caused him, it had been worth it. The killer had what he wanted and Becker could feel his final trembling sighs of satisfaction ruffle the air them both. The purr of a monster.

Becker returned to the present with a shudder and saw the librarian quickly dipping her eyes back to her own desk. The colors of the day swept back to him, the relaxed quiet of the library replaced the deathly stillness of the mine, the humid cold of underground gave way to the gentle warmth of the building. He was among the living, sitting among the ordinary, surrounded by the comfortably mundane. There were no monsters in the library. Except himself.

The librarian looked at him quizzically, then rose and crossed towards him. Becker realized he had been staring blankly in her direction.

"Everything all right?" she asked.

Becker regarded her quizzically for a moment before he understood that she was referring to his use of the microfilm viewer.

"Oh, yes, fine."

"It's kind of an old system now," she said. "But it still works."

"Is it common?" Becker asked. "I mean, storing The New York Times. Do most libraries do it?"

"I don't know about most," June said. "Certainly a lot of them. It is the newspaper of record in the country, after all. We only go back twenty years, but I'm sure some larger libraries go back much farther.

Was there a particular year you wanted?"

"I was just wondering where I would find a two-year-old copy of the Times, the actual newspaper."

"We keep them, the actual papers that is, until they send out the latest microfilm. That's at least eighteen months. I suppose it could be two years in some libraries if they aren't too quick about getting rid of the old copies.

Space is a problem here, we're just too small until we get our new addition built."

"So some libraries might have them?"

"Oh, surely some would, somewhere. Or of course people save them, individuals, I mean. In attics and garages. I don't know why."

"Sentimental value?" Becker asked ironically.

"I suppose. Or neurosis. There are an awful lot of screwballs around."

"Yes," said Becker. "I know."

"Oh, don't bother with that," she said as Becker started to remove the film from the machine. "I'll take care of that."

When he was safely out the door, June sat down at the microfilm machine and read the page that had caused Becker to blanch and stare as though at an apparition. For a moment, as she had watched him from across the room, he had become so inert, so preternaturally absorbed, that she wondered if something might have happened to him.

When he finally came out of it she had the fleeting impression of a man bursting to the surface of the water, gasping for breath.

There was no trouble finding the story, Becker had turned the focus onto it until it filled most of the screen.

It caused no reaction in her. Just another dreadful story in a world that had become replete with mayhem. And West Virginia seemed so far away from the suburban comforts of Fairfield County, Connecticut. She wondered what it could have to do with Becker. From all she had heard, he was retired. it's none of my business, Becker told himself angrily.

I didn't want-it, didn't ask for it. I am no more responsible for it than the woman who picks up a phone and hears a heavy breather panting in her ear. I am the victim, he thought. I am being defiled by this obscenity sent through the mail. And forwarded to me by the Bureau. They don't want to protect my privacy, of course. What they want is to get me involved. They would like nothing better than for me to get stiffed up by some random lunatic and come back to work to solve a case that would lead to another case and another and another until he was back in their clutches again, their leash around his neck, their special ferret to be sent down into every vile-smelling hole could find in a nation burgeoning with homicidal madmen.

To hell with it, Becker said, to hell with the Bureau, to hell with his correspondent. He put everything back in the manila envelope and tossed it into the pile of old tax returns Karen kept in the closet of the family room. Out of sight, out of mind, he told himself, knowing it wasn't true.

As the Apostolic Choir of the Holy Ghost whipped itself into its nightly frenzy of syncopated devotion, the Reverend Tommy R. Walker peered through the curtain to view his congregation to see how well they were responding to the Apostolic's enthusiasm. To his dismay, they appeared to be the usual collection of deadheads, whiners, and malcontents come to witness a miracle or two and not about to be diverted by a mixed dozen of black-and-maroon-robed overweight men and women singing their tonsils out. They could get that sort of thing at regular church. What they had come for tonight was something out of your ordinary run-of-the-mill preaching and spiritualizing. They had come to see the wonders of the Lord as performed personally and with that special panache that was the trademark of the good reverend himself. They wanted curing, they wanted laying on of hands, they damned well expected to witness the laine walking and the blind seeing again, not to mention the cleansing of souls and soothing of troubled spirits and the odd elimination of tumorous growths and palsied afflictions. They had come to Bald Nob on this particular night anticipating just about every miracle and living proof of the Holy Spirit that man could conjure up from a cooperative divinity, short of finding them all permanent employment.

All of which Reverend Tommy would deliver, of course, because that's what he was good at. Still, it wouldn't hurt his efforts if they got off their hands and enthused a bit ahead of time instead of sitting there, staring at the Apostolics as if all that melodic yelling was nothing more than a collective reaction to seeing a mouse.

Expecting Reverend Tommy to do all the work. As per usual.

Having sized them up in general as the normal bunch of small-town, farm-country, tight-assed pinchpennies, Tommy turned his attention to his congregations in particular, seeking out the diseased and dim-witted whom he would heal that night. Down front, where he had positioned her in one of Tommy's three wheelchairs-he needed more but they were surprisingly expensive-was the lady with the bad shoulder whom he would cause to leap from her wheelchair and walk again. Next to her, looking as if he really needed the wheelchair, sat an elderly man with a portable oxygen tank and tubes feeding into his nose. Tommy figured the man could get along without the oxygen long enough for him to remove the tubes and praise the Lord for a moment or two. They almost always could unless they were in a hospital bed under an oxygen tent. But then the Reverend Tommy R. Walker didn't heal in hospitals.

What Tommy was looking for more specifically were the members of the audience whom he could not cure, that is to say, in whom he could not reliably muster a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. He had pointed out the mean-faced farmer with the fiery rash running down his face and under his shirt. He was the kind of man who would clutch at the Reverend Tommy, strong enough not to be pushed off with Tommy's patented forehead just, angry enough to demand proof of his cure, loud enough to protest when the rash didn't vanish. And an affliction like that was so damnably visible that there was no way to fake its removal. At least Tommy had not yet devised a way to fake it. The farmer would continue to glow strawberry red clear to the back of the tent unless Rae pulled the switch and killed the lights entirely. It was much easier to avoid the man in the first place. Let him be dealt with in the general heal-off when Tommy went down the line, thrusting Satan from foreheads with the speed and impersonality of an athlete administering high fives following a winning play.

The Apostolic Choir groaned their final notes to an unenthusiastic round of applause, the deacon/director taking too many bows, as usual, so that he was still bobbing his head in false modesty several seconds after the crowd had slumped back again into silence. Rae took the stage and began her warm-up, extolling the virtues of Jesus and the Reverend Tommy R.

Walker in more or less equal parts and doing her damndest to lather the people up a bit in anticipation. The problem was, Rae's damndest was no damned good. She was no public speaker, and that was a fact. The Reverend Tommy did not wish to be unchristian about it, but Rae had no more charisma than a dead sheep.

She was good working the audience as they came inher simple country manner put them at ease and her naturally sympathetic response allowed them to confide in her like a friend-but a friend was not what you wanted up onstage. What you wanted up onstage was somebody who could tie a knot in their tails and make them like it, and tail-knotting was not something people took to from a woman who usually reminded them of their plainlooking cousin who was such a good listener. Rae was a hard worker, sincere, loyal as a tick hound but not much smarter and consequently not too demanding in a variety of ways. In a not totally unrelated matter, her breasts had begun to droop unappetizingly. That was a deficit that could be corrected easily enough onstage when she had the benefit of undergarments, but not in the Reverend Tommy's bed, where he liked his women naked and sweating and loud and young. Rae was never very loud, either, come to that.

When Rae reached the part about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead and implying-though never claiming outright-that the Reverend Walker was very nearly up to such a feat himself, a latecomer slipped into the back of the tent. She was wearing faded denims and a man's workshirt and sporting a face that Tommy thought looked like an angel. Or, if there were such things as angels, that's what Tommy thought they ought to look like. At least that's how they should look if they wanted to recruit any male souls.

He would have liked to study her more, but Rae had come to the conclusion of her introduction, straining up on her toes-the only way she knew to indicate total enthusiasm-and the choir was bursting into ecstatic noises and the electric piano was playing and the tambourines were nnging and Tommy checked to be sure his fly was zipped and clutched his golden Bible in his hand and hurled himself through the curtain and onto the stage, shouting praises to the Lord.

The Reverend Tommy was a quick and prolific sweater, a curse during his teenaged years, particularly when in pursuit of girls, but turned nicely into an asset in his Bible-thumping, crowd-working career. An average man could prowl the stage and wave his arms and testify for the Lord for a good long while before he began to perspire, but Tommy would break into a sweat within the first few minutes and it would pour off his face and under his arms and down his back so that his shirt would stick to him and his hair would turn as stringy and lank as if he had just been in the river. He looked, he would sometimes joke, as if he had baptized himself right there onstage without the aid of anybody else's water. The audiences responded to the effect because it made it look as if he was wrestling with the devil in a mighty and powerful way, and they figured that any man with that — much natural internal heat could surely spare some healing warmth for them.

A sallow man, his complexion looked even whiter when contrasted with the coal blackness of his hair and massively bushy eyebrows that met in the middle atop the the bridge of his nose. His hair had always been as black as tar and Tommy took some cosmetic pains to keep it that way now that nature wanted to sprinkle it with gray.

The combination of light and dark was even more pronounced under the dim lights within the tent-it was easier to perform miracles in the gloom than in broad daylight-and at times, to the more devoted and imaginative of his audience, he seemed to be lit by an inner light. Others, if they could have articulated their perceptions, would have said the combination looked more satanic than holy, but who was ungrateful enough to question the source of healing?

Tonight neither sweating nor his complexion nor his tireless thumping and pounding and exhorting and top-of the-register prayer were having the desired effect. The citizens of Bald Nob just weren't sensing the presence of, the holy spirit among them, and Tommy was feeling a bit of panic. Lately, audiences had been getting worse, although he didn't remember any of them being quite this moribund. He blamed the perfidious influence of television. They could find a good shouting and praying and healing just about every week on the tube, and with altogether better production values than Tommy could muster. The television ministers would even heal long distance-all one had to do was huddle up close to that TV set and feel the medicinal touch coming right at them through the airwaves. For a donation of suitable size, the evangelist would even mention the viewer's name and affliction during his broadcast, offering personalized service in the privacy of his own living room but within earshot of millions. That sort of thing made audiences entirely too passive, yet too demanding. There was no substitute for the actual contact with a human hand as offered by the Reverend Tommy R. Walker, but it had become increasingly difficult to convince an audience of that. Tommy would have killed for a chance to go on television himself, of course, but in the meantime, television was killing him.

From the corner of his eye he saw the girl with the angel's face start to move. He had kept track of her during his orating, staring at her as much as he could allow himself while still turning his charms and attentions on the whole crowd. She had seemed from a distance to be smirking at him, but the lights were at their dimmest in the back of the tent and Tommy could not be sure. He was trying to devise a way of meeting her after the show and wiping that smirk off her face at the same time he relieved her of her clothing, and it might well be that his split focus accounted in part for his lack of success with the rest of the audience. Spellbinding required a good deal of attention to the business at hand as well as great energy.

For a second he feared that she was moving towards the exit, but then he realized that she was coming down the aisle towards him. He had not called for the afflicted to come forth yet, and her movement caught the attention of the audience. Now they were looking at her, their interest caught more by the beautiful girl than by his spellbinding, and, damn it, that was just the kind of thing that could make him have to start all over again.

She stopped right at the edge of the stage, standing next to the wheelchair of the lady with the bad shoulder.

"Reverend Tommy," she said.

Tommy tried to ignore her and kept right on preaching as if she didn't exist, weren't there right in front of him, the cynosure of the whole damned crowd of gawking rubes.

"Reverend Tommy," she cried again, this time louder, and with her arms reaching out to him. There was no ignoring her now and, God help him, this time he had heard her voice, the garbled noise of a severe speech impediment. Vocal problems were the worst. You could get a cripple to stand for a second or two and you could sometimes induce a flash of light for the blind if you pushed on the eyeball-or you could make him think you did-but there was no way someone with a cleft palate was going to shout "Praise the lord" in tones that were suddenly round and intelligible. The whole damned audience could hear the afflicted was still afflicted, no matter what the afflicted thought about himself.

"Heal me," the beautiful girl was saying, or at least Tommy guessed that was what she was saying. Even as he was trying to figure a way out of this, Tommy could not help but feel anger that such a lovely woman would be given such a hardship to bear. She was young, looked to be no more than eighteen, with her whole life to face with a mouth that could never pronounce her thoughts.

Tommy looked around for help but Rae was frozen in the wings, as surprised as he was, and the choir, who doubled as security and general calmer-downers as well as the catchers of his healing thrusts, were standing there mesmerized, their tambourines dangling. The deacon was only now beginning to stir, but it would take him far too long to get to the girl and get her out of the way. This creature was just too pretty for the audience to dismiss and forget about. They wanted her by God cured and no nonsense, and Tommy could feel the force of their demand as he crossed to the edge of the stage.

She held her arms up to him as if offering herself to a saint. Tommy started to kneel down to her, hoping to work something out of sight of most of the audience, but she grabbed his arm and pulled herself up onstage, giving him no choice but to make it look as if that was what he wanted. Short of kicking her back into the audience, there was no way out but to deal with her.

"Heal me, Reverend Tommy, I know you can. I know you can," she said, or some such garble. Tommy could hear the audience "awwing" in sympathy with her defect.

The poor young thing, they thought, and so pretty, too.

"I am going to heal you, sister," Tommy said loudly.

She started to make some more noise, but Tommy clamped his hands on her face, closing her jaw to shut her up. She was just as beautiful up close, and even in the midst of his panic Tommy wondered if he couldn't just kiss her back to health right here and now.

The Reverend Tommy was about to say that he was more than willing to heal her once he got to the healing portion of the show when she winked at him.

Startled, Tommy reflexively yelled, "Satan be gone!" and pushed the girl away from him and off — the stage, forgetting in his astonishment that his catchers were not yet in place.

The girl was nimble and landed on her feet but staggered a bit and doubled over as if caught in a seizure of some sort. Her body quivered a bit and for a second TOMMY wondered if he had done her some sort of neurological damage. But it was her fault, scaring him that way. What was she thinking of.?

Amid a great hush, the girl slowly straightened up.

Tommy thought of leaping back into his preaching to cover up whatever devilment came out of her mouth now, but he knew the audience would not forgive him if he did.

She looked up at Tommy, this time half-lifting her arms in a pose reminiscent of the Pope, her eyes gazing worshipfully at him on the stage. Her face was flushed with the spirit in a way that Tommy had not seen in years, and when she spoke, her voice was filled with awe.

"Thank you, Reverend Tommy," she said. Her tones were soft but clear as a diction teacher's, every syllable precise.

"Thank God," said Tommy, half in wonder himself at the transformation.

"Praise be," she agreed, then, in a voice filled with tears but resonating with all the joy the Apostolic Choir strove for but never achieved, "Praise Jesus"'

Tommy stared at her in amazement as the audience erupted.

"His wonders to perform," she cried.

The audience was on its feet, yelling and screaming in appreciation.

"And his servant, Tommy R. Walker!"

Oh, they loved him then, but they loved her even more.

Nothing like seeing perfection restored. Tommy watched her hold them, lift them and shake them. At that moment she could have had their wallets just for the asking and they would have blessed her for taking them. She was the best he had ever seen.

And it was the best night he had had in months.

His punk was crying again, trying to hide it, as if you could hide anything in a cell. He was in his bunk over Cooper's head, weeping and sniffing and answering "nothing" — whenever Cooper asked what was wrong.

Cooper knew what was wrong, though. The punk was crying because Cooper was leaving in the morning.

"You'll be all right," Cooper said, not at all certain that it was true.

Swann's new cellmate might turn out to be someone not as nice as Cooper.

Or, worse, he might turn out to be someone like Swann himself, someone who could offer Swann no protection against the other predators. His punk could turn out to be free meat. Cooper had seen others in that position ripped apart, torn into bits like a piece of steak thrown in among the lions. They wouldn't show him the kind of consideration Cooper had, they wouldn't talk to him and make him feel like a human being the way Cooper had always strived to do.

But it was not just fear for his well-being that made Cooper's punk cry.

It was love, too.

"You'll forget me, won't you?" Swann asked.

"Naw."

"Yes, you will," Swann said bitterly. "You'll forget all about me as soon as you leave, I don't give it a day. You won't ever think about me again.":'Sure I will," said Cooper.

'No, you won't. I know how your mind works."

"I said I would," Cooper said, getting annoyed at the line of the conversation.

"Promise?"

"What?"

"Promise you won't forget me?"

Cooper sighed wearily. The emotional demands of the punk sometimes made it not worth the effort, but tonight he could afford to be magnanimous.

Tomorrow he was getting out of stir. Tomorrow he was going back to the world.

"I promise," Cooper said.

"What do you promise?"

"Whatever you want."

The punk was quiet for a moment and Cooper considered kicking him.

Cooper wasn't through talking yet, but he didn't want to talk about the punk, he wanted to talk about himself. He had his own concerns about his impending release, but he did not know how to bring them up without giving the punk an advantage over him. Even the weakest of them could find a way to exploit a vulnerability, even someone whom Cooper had treated as well as Swann, even now with only hours left to go.

When Swann spoke again it was in his babyish, wheedling tone of voice.

"Can I come down there?" Swann asked.

He didn't really feel like it, but Cooper grunted permission. If the punk only knew how decent Cooper was to him.

Swann slipped into Cooper's bunk and cuddled against the big man.

"Will I ever see you again?',' he asked. He sounded like he was going to start crying again.

"Sure," said Cooper.

"When?"

"Well, not till you get out, because I ain't coming back here.

"I won't be out for three years. If I can live that long without you."

"You'll be fine," Cooper lied. "They know you're my punk. They wouldn't dare mess with old Coop's punk."

Swann didn't bother to refute such arrant nonsense. For all he knew, Cooper believed it.

"I wonder if you'll even remember what I look like after three years."

"I remember everything," Cooper said. "There's nothing wrong with my memory."

"I didn't mean that."

"Ask me anything. Ask me about the Mexican."

"I know you know about the Mexican and the girls and all the rest of them…"

"And the faggot, don't forget."

"I know. I know you'll remember all of that. I'm worried you'll forget about me. Can I write you sometimes?"

"I don't write letters," Cooper said.

"No, I'd write to you. You wouldn't have to answer.

And I could call you, too, if you'd like that."

Cooper was silent.

"I could say things to you," Swann whispered. "I could talk the way you like sometimes."

"All right," Cooper said uncertainly. He was never comfortable on the phone, the other voices got annoyed with him, they wanted him to answer them back too quickly when he needed time to think.

The punk caught the uncertainty in his voice. "Everything's going to be fine," he said. "I know you're a little… " He groped for the right word. "Afraid" was not what Cooper wanted to hear. "… concerned about how it's going to go in the world."

Cooper grunted noncommittally.

"But everything is going to be just fine."

The punk began to stroke Cooper's chest as if he were petting a large beast.

"Just remember, you have two friends that you never had before when you were in the world."

"Who?"

"And you can ask both of them for help and they will always be there for you."

"Who?"

"Jesus, you have Jesus for a friend now, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah."

"You can always ask Jesus for help. You know that, don't you?"

"I know that."

"He will always answer you if you ask him, but it may not always be in a way you understand."

Cooper snorted. Fat lot of good that would do him.

"You said two friends," Cooper demanded.

"And me," the punk said. His hand slipped lower and stroked Cooper on the abdomen.

"Uh-huh."

"You can always ask me for help, you know. You do know that, don't you?

If you're in trouble, or if you're confused, you can always get in touch with me."

"I know," said Cooper, although it had never occurred to him. What good could the punk do while languishing in prison? Chances were he couldn't even help himself.

"I'll give you postcards with a stamp and my address already on them.

You can write a message if you want to, but you don't even have to. If I get the card I'll know you're thinking of me-and I'll pray for you right then. That would be good, wouldn't it?"

Cooper grunted again.

" 'Cause Jesus and I have one thing in common," Swann continued. His fingers were now brushing Cooper's pubic hair. "Do you know what that is?"

Cooper was no longer attending the punk's words. His entire focus was on the other man's hand.

"We both love you," the punk said.

Cooper arched his back, trying to draw Swann's fingers closer. If the punk continued to tease, Cooper would kill him.

"Shall we pray together?" Swann asked, his voice calling.

"After," Cooper said. He pushed the little man lower.

I could snap his head off, Cooper thought as he felt the tension rising in his body. I could squeeze hard enough so his head popped right off like a doll's. Not this time he wouldn't. He'd be caught. But starting tomorrow he could pull off all the heads he could find.

Just before he cried out with release he imagined doing it to dozens of clerks and foremen and schoolteachers, one after the other. He saw their faces, men and women, looking so surprised as their necks broke and their heads rolled away.

Karen arrived home to find neither Becker nor Jack there.

A lamb stew sat on the stove, ready to be reheated for dinner. As was Becker's preference, she could detect the heavy presence of scallions and peppers and the usual concoction of Indian spices. The meal would be delicious and the house would smell for several days afterward of cardamom and coriander. This time a thick mat of dark green permeated the stew, giving it the appearance of something skimmed from atop a stagnant pond. With a fingertip, Karen determined that the algae-like substance was spinach cooked to the point of disintegration, and, yes, delicious. Becker's cooking was a fair model for the man himself, she thought: unusual, exotic, and ultimately very savory. But strange, always a little strange.

Passing through the gap in the backyard hedge, Karen walked across the tiny center of six shops and the branch office of a bank that passed for the commercial hub of Clamden. Three years after moving to Clamden, Karen was still amazed that a town so determinedly semirural could exist within an hour's commute of New York City.

Clamden's small-town flavor and undemanding pace was a tribute to the power of its zoning laws. Heavily if not predominantly peopled by refugees from Manhattan who still made their living there, the town nonetheless acted as if it were sealed off from the rest of America in a time capsule, a happy remnant of the 1950s. There actually were still stay-at-home mothers, Karen marveled. She encountered them at evening meetings for parents at the school when she swept in, always a bit late, always a bit harried, the cloud of concerns from her job still buzzing around her head like a swarm of gnats. They would be there in their slacks and Laura Ashley print dresses, chatting aimly about team suppers for the gymnasts and bake sales at the church while Karen sat uneasily in her business suit, a snub-nosed.38 automatic in her purse, her FBI badge tucked in her vest pocket. It was an incongruity that troubled her at times but to others was strangely soothing. Again, a fair description of her life with John Becker.

She found Becker and Jack on one of the three elementary school playgrounds, kicking a soccer ball in the gathering dusk. Becker's friend Tee, the Clamden police chief, was with them, cheering for Jack and occasionally taking a big-footed swat at the ball himself. As was usually the case, it was Tee's voice that carried above the other two, full of self-mocking bluster and general good spirits. Jack was noisy, too, cheering himself and working hard at a sport that did not come naturally. Becker was mostly silent, parrying Jack's attempts to pass him with the ball, yet still quietly encouraging. He moved with an ease and athletic grace that seemed to be a part of everything he did.

Karen thought of the incident with Jack during their climb. The patience that Becker seemed to demonstrate in everything he did, the careful explanation, the genuine understanding of Jack's fear. And yet the odd tilt of his perspective. The insistence on embracing one's fear.

Karen was delighted that Jack had the influence of a man in his life and Jack adored Becker. She loved him herself, she thought. Or at least she did at times, and maybe a sporadic love was all anyone could hope for short of starry-eyed lunacy. It was better than no love at all, and Karen had decided to settle for it, especially as it was interlaced with a very real physical passion that had shown no signs of diminishing. His touch still made her shiver with anticipation and his kiss weakened her knees… And yet…

Karen slipped back into the shadow of the forest that bordered the playground and continued to watch, unseen… And yet there were those moments, those odd, unsettling moments when Karen was not sure who or what she was living with. Nights when she would be aware of his lying wide awake beside her until daybreak, not tossing and turning in a fight with insomnia, but lying there, poised, as if listening for the sound of something that stalked him in the dark. As if only his constant vigilance kept the beasts away.

In her experience all men wrestled with their particular demons, usually urges to infidelity, or drink, or general Responsibility, but those demons were nothing more than imps compared with the devils that struggled for possession of Becker's soul. He had explained his fears to her, of course, and that had only made them the more frightening because, despite her resistance, she had known what he was talking about, she had recognized some of his demons as her own.

Karen walked back to the house she shared with Becker and waited for her family to return. In her purse she held the instrument that might free Becker's demon and allow it to control him once again. He had made no mention of the previous letter that she had brought to him, but his reaction of silent dread had told her how deeply it had touched him. She recognized the same postmark, the same typewritten address. Whatever it was, it continued.

She thought of keeping the letter from him but knew that it was pointless. If the demon was stirring in Becker's soul, only Becker could deal with it. The letter writer would get to him some way eventually, and Becker would have to wrestle with the devil by himself.

At first Becker ignored the letter, leaving it where Karen had dropped it on the coffee table. They went through the evening as if the envelope did not exist, sitting like excrement in the middle of the living room.

It was only at night, when he heard the slightly labored breath that signaled Karen's deeper sleep, that Becker rose quietly from the bed and returned to the living room. The stationery caught the moonlight from the window and glowed, taunting him to continue to ignore it.

The correspondent's device was the same as the first time, the masthead of The New York Times pricked with pinholes. Sitting in the spare bedroom that doubled as an office for both Karen and Becker, he deciphered the message with the Scrabble tiles.

"i know why."

The code at the top of the page was: — another box kite. Becker wrote down 1011 1, then translated it to the number 23.

There was nothing to do but wait until the next day, when he could look up the relevant page and date at the library, so Becker sat in the den pondering the meaning of the code.

His correspondent had chosen to encrypt his message, but why? Not to keep the contents secret from Becker, that much was obvious. Therefore he must have been concerned about interception when he wrote it or when he mailed it. Was he creating his message in the presence of someone who was involved, someone dangerous? Or was his mail read by someone before being sent?

Becker tried to imagine a sequence in which his correspondent sat in the presence of a witness and poked pinholes in a carefully scissored masthead of a three-year-old copy of The New York Times-without attracting attention. It seemed unlikely. The advantage of course would be that the observer would not easily decipher the message, but would that not make the correspondent's actions all the more suspicious?

A second alternative was that the correspondent was fearful of the message being found-once it was created.

Which would seem to mean that there was no good place to hide it. How much space would be needed to secrete a few square inches of paper? But an addressed envelope might be harder to hide. Which might mean that the corspondent had no quick access to a mailbox. His message might have to sit around for some time before being mailed-if the correspondent was a shut-in, for instance.

Or if the correspondent lived in some remote area far from the nearest mailbox.

Becker studied the postmark again. Decatur, Alabama.

Not exactly the middle of Alaska, but not New York City, either. Alabama was rural enough that mailing a letter could easily be a bit of a problem, and the postmark was never a very accurate indication of where a piece of mail had actually originated. Becker knew that his own mail frequently bore the imprint of a Stamford post office, and Stamford was thirty miles and at least four intervening towns away from Clamden and had an entirely different zip code. Decatur, Alabama, could be the funneling junction for outgoing mail for a surrounding area of hundreds of square miles.

A third possibility was that someone read the correspondent's mail before it went out. Becker had seen Karen do it with Jack's letters to his school pen pals. And she had actually made him make corrections in thank-you letters to grandparents. But then Jack never had a stamp and usually neglected to seal the envelope as well. Becker knew that his correspondent was not a child. He wished that were the case. He wished that he was on the receiving end of a prank, some more sophisticated version of eight-year-olds calling strangers and giggling through their hands as they asked if the hapless adult on the other end of the line had Prince Albert in the can, and if so to please let him out.

What Becker had on the other end of his line was an adult, an intelligent one who was afraid of something, or someone, and trying, probably at some risk to himself, to get help. If he or she was attempting to give Becker information about a long-dead girl who had been found three years ago in an abandoned mine, then the most obvious conclusion was that the correspondent was hiding his actions from someone who had some reason for the information not to come out.

But why me? he wondered. Why not just the FBI in general? Any of the agents could have decoded the message and gotten onto the case immediately. Why select an agent who is no longer active?

He knew the answer without thinking about it. Because he was known. The correspondent had either heard about Becker, or, worse, had encountered him. If he was one of the latter, Becker thought, if he was one of the psychopaths whom Becker had stalked and captured…

He had never caught one easily. They were all too clever to be tracked down by traditional police work, that was why the cases were given to Becker. It was never a case of just finding a fingerprint or a laundry mark or a dropped match book with the name of the bar where the killer worked. Old-fashioned police work was necessary, and it helped, but there was any number of cops and agents who could do it and ultimately it was never enough. Ultimately it was Becker who immersed himself in the case in a way few others could-or would allow themselves to do. He put himself in the killer's skin and sank into the killer's mind, forcing himself to think his thoughts and dream his fevered dreams.

There was nothing mystical about it as many of his colleagues thought.

There was no ESP at work. His therapist understood the way it worked-and the price Becker paid. No one understood a thief better than another thief. An arsonist understood an arsonist. And men who killed because of the incomparable thrill it gave them were best comprehended by…

Becker left the den and walked quietly through the darkened house, pacing and cursing in his mind the intrusion of the correspondent. I was clean, he thought. I was out of it and away. Part of a family. Building a life. Then the tentacle of his own insatiable beast reached out for him, slithering through the cracks of his jerry-built security. He could feel the slimy touch on his leg, tugging him downward even as its coils reached upwards for his throat.

He eased open the door to Jack's room and saw the in the moonlight, one arm thrown above his head as if he slept hanging from a branch. Becker loved to catch the boy unawares, the look of innocence radiating from him. Becker was in awe of the cleanness of Jack's life, the purity and the simplicity. He was a boy, doing boy things, thinking boy thoughts, and feeling only those emotions that a boy of ten should feel. At his age Becker had already been put through the terrors of abuse that had shaped him and brought him to his present crisis. He regarded it as a small miracle that he was able to share Jack's youth, and almost as much as he feared for himself, Becker feared that his own past might in some way taint Jack's future.

In the darkness of the living room, Becker forced himself to sit quietly and to contain his anxieties within his own center. If his was an addiction over which he had attained a certain amount of control, he had done it without the twelve-step self-help groups that existed for every other type of addiction. There were no meetings for people with his affliction. Others who shared his problem were shifting silently through the shadows of the outside world, preying on the innocent. They did not come forth for treatment. Unlike drunks and druggees who might seek counseling when they hit bottom, the creatures in whom Becker specialized yearned for the bottom. It was what they had sought all their lives, and it was there and only there that they and the release that they needed, even as they sank ever farther in the booze. For them there was no limit to how far they could sink, because each successful kill only increased their depravity and furthered their heed. There was no bottom. All that limited them was time. How long could they go on before they were caught? Becker had no doubts that there were many who were never caught, who killed and killed until their own hearts gave out with the sheer excess of joy of it all.

Becker's self-help group could only meet in prison, where he had personally put many of them. Or in a cemetery, where he had put even more. It was after planting his first victim underground that Becker had discovered what he had in common with the men he hunted. He was, he felt, the same as they, except that he had a license to hunt. His victims were loathed by society and he was applauded, but in Becker's mind he was merely performing a kind of socially accepted cannibalism.

The big fish in the pond eating all the smaller ones, he thought with self-disgust.

But there was something else that set him apart from his fellows, of course, besides his FBI badge and official position, and it was the cause of his pain. Unlike them, Becker wanted desperately to stop. He did not believe that an actual cure was possible; he would always be who he was in the deepest recesses of his, soul, and no amount of therapy had convinced him otherwise, but he was convinced that by an exercise of sheer will he could alter his behavior. He could stop.

And he had done so although it took a resignation for the Bureau to accomplish it. They had not accepted his resignation, delegating him instead to a status known in bureaucratese as "inderterminate medical extension," which meant that they could reach out for him when they needed to and not worry about him otherwise. For his part, he was not obliged to respond when they called. But they knew he would. A ferret did not refuse to go down a hole. It was what he had been bred to do. It was where it lived.

At the library the next morning Becker settled in front of the now familiar microfilm screen and quickly located the date and page of the message. Once again the story was at the bottom of the page, nothing more than a bit of filler taken from the AP wire. A second body had been found in the same mine in Hendricks, West Virginia. Another young woman who had been missing for months.

Her remains had been found as a result of the discovery of the body of the first young woman, and officials indicated that they would continue to search the mine.

There was even less information than there had been with the first body, but less was needed. One woman somehow gotten lost and died from exposure.

Not two. Not in different shafts of the tunnel. The second girl had been reported missing three months after the first.

He found something that works, Becker thought. The killer had discovered a method that he liked, a means of abduction, a means of disposal. Why wouldn't he repeat himself If it works, use it.

Serial killers always stumbled a bit at first, learning by trial and error what worked best for them. The first attempts were usually clumsy and less than perfectly satisfying, reliant more upon dumb luck than careful planning.

Many of them were caught in the beginnings of their careers because they didn't know what they were doing yet, they made crucial mistakes before refining their methods.

But those who survived the early times learned quickly and soon mastered their grisly craft.

This one had begun his mastery, Becker realized. The newspaper was two years old, the girls' bodies had not been discovered for three years.

The cave could be stuffed with corpses. Becker could be receiving documentary evidence from his correspondent for weeks-but he knew he would not. His correspondent had said "i know why" this time. He knew who and he knew why and he was eager to tell Becker or he wouldn't take the risk of the coded messages.

Becker took an atlas of the United States from the library shelf and opened it on a table. Decatur, Alabama, was a long way from Hendricks, West Virginia. More than four hundred miles by road. Not that distance made much difference. The letters were arriving years after the fact. A beast could slither a thousand miles in that length of time. And of course he would have had to abandon the coal mine as soon as the first body was found. He would have located a new hole.long since. Another hole in the ground crammed with the decaying remains of someone's daughter.

You do have another hole, don't you, you son of a bitch, Becker thought.

No reason to give up, not while you're enjoying yourself, not while your heart is pumping fast enough to leap through your chest when you do whatever it is you do to them. Only now you've got a witness, don't you.

Someone close to you who knows what you're up to and is almost too scared to stop you. Almost.

For the first time Becker perceived his correspondent not asanother scum dweller trying to entice him into the swamp, but as a friend. A decent human being who knew what he saw and hated it and wanted to stop it.

Despite risk to himself, he was signaling Becker from afar, alerting him to the existence of a man-eater.

Using the length from his fingertip to the first knuckle for a measure, Becker approximated a radius of 30 miles and drew an imaginary circle with Decatur as the center.

He started to write down the names of the towns within the circle but stopped when he noticed Springville. There was no need to look further.

Springville was the location of the Alabama state prison.

Becker leaned back in the chair and studied the ceiling for a moment.

Behind the information desk, June Atchinson watched with interest.

Write again, my friend, Becker thought. Prison is a big place, help me find you. Help me find him.

Aural could sing a lick, too, damned if she couldn't, voice like a Southern angel, just enough twang to put everyone in the audience at ease. She didn't have what could be called a strong voice, but the Reverend Tommy R. Walker's Apostolic Revival didn't require an Ethel Merman.

They had microphones for power, all Aural had to do was hit the notes in that sweet, breathy soprano and electricity would take care of the volume. In Aural's case, it even seemed that less was better. If she was hard to hear, the audience would just lean forward and listen all the harder, like hummingbirds straining for that last taste of nectar.

No one ever strained to hear Rae, that was for sure; they didn't care.

The Reverend Tommy might have been amazed at Aural's command over the audience, at how easily she slipped into Rae's role and delivered an audience to him not only primed but panting for more spiritual uplift if it looked and sounded anything like Aural. It might have astounded him how quickly and easily Aural understood what the business was all about and how to work the crowd until they were so lathered up with a zest for redemption at Tommy's sweaty hands that they fought their way to the front, clashing crutches and all. Even more importantand most becoming in a woman, Tommy thought-was her grasp of the financial side of religious labor. They opened their wallets wider when Aural was around, no question about it-and what kind of a pissant peckerwood back-country farmer could refuse to give generously when the angel Aural was holding the plate, especially now that Tommy had her wearing the black-and-crimson robe during the offering. Might as well plead poverty to Gabriel, whatever the hell he looked like. Archangel or not, he sure didn't have anything over Aural in the looks department, except maybe the wings.

And, as if anything else were needed, she didn't cost much, All she asked for was a widow's mite to live on, and since she lived in one of the trailers with all the rest of the show, that was a mighty small mite at that. The Reverend Tommy could not have been happier-well, there was one little thing that troubled him, but he planned to take care of that soon enough if he could just find the opportunity without Rae sulking around in the background.

But if Tommy was amazed at Aural's skills with an audience, she herself was only mildly surprised at how quickly it had all come back to her after a hiatus of a decade or more. Her father had been a straight evangelist, content to merely get the sinners to their knees, crying tears of relief and redemption, and not striving for actual medical marvels, but the process was much the same. And it was still a rinky-dink operation, doomed to the smallest of communities and remotest of backwaters by the lack of charisma of the man in charge. Her father had never been very good at it, an assessment Aural reached in her early teens, and neither was the Reverend Tommy R. Walker. He could dream of going national on satellite television, but it was a dream he was having for himself; Aural wasn't joining in. There was more to religious healing than prolific sweating and a loud voice, and the sad part was that the Rev didn't know what it was.

"Funny name, Aural," Rae said after Aural had been with the show a week.

Rae had already been eased off the stage and Tommy had relegated her to befriending the audience as they filtered in for the show. Rae didn't mind giving up her spot on the stage, she had never been comfortable doing it in the first place, but she did mind being shoved to the back of Tommy's attentions offstage, and that was clearly what was happening whether the new girl was aware of it or not. And of course she had to be aware it-she was a woman, after all.

"I've heard of 'Oral' like in Oral Roberts, of course," Rae continued.

"But 'Aural' is a new one."

"It's my own," Aural said. "My given name was Aura Lee, like in the song," she said, pronouncing it as one word, Auralee. "I really liked it, so I just kept the part I did like."

Rae smiled. Aural knew the woman was trying to be friendly. They always tried to be friendly when their men were attracted to her, and Aural was always willing to be friends back, but it never worked out in the long run. The men always got in the way and the women ended up hating her even when she had not wanted the men.

Sometimes, she thought, it was because she had not wanted their men.

Most of the time her friendships with other women had been brief and frustratingly truncated.

She could still laugh easily with them and share secrets immediately in the way that women have, but Aural had found in general that it was easier for her to get along with men. At least, with them, she had no unrealistic expectations. Even when they pretended that they just wanted to be friends, Aural knew better. There was something comfortable about the predictability of men, and they were so much easier to manipulate.

Women used their brains too much. Aural had never known another woman who wasn't always trying to figure out how to get what it was she wanted from a man while making him believe it was his idea. Men, in Aural's experience, didn't think with their brains at all, and they sure as hell didn't waste any of their TV time pondering the nature of their relationships. Aural flat-out knew she was smarter than any man she was ever going to meet.

"With all your talent," Rae was continuing, "I'm surprised you didn't ever go into show business. You sing just as good as some of the girls you hear in Nashville."

"Why, thank you, that's sweet," said Aural. "I did think of a career like that one time-when I was younger.

My daddy was particularly excited about it… 'Course my daddy tended to get excited. He was a man who enjoyed enthusiasms. He was fixin' to bring some agents and record people and such to come take a look at me."

"My goodness. How exciting."

"Well, I guess so. I was only sixteen at the time so I just sort of took it for granted-you know, the way kids do. " "Darling, you can't be but two years past sixteen now, Rae said with less than perfect honesty.

"Bless you," said Aural with equal candor. "But I'm way past those teenage years, and thank goodness, too. It seemed to me I was so horny I just itched. Didn't you feel like that, just itching all over and dying to find some young buck to scratch you?"

"I never thought of it quite that way," said Rae demurely. She placed her hand at her throat as if to ward off such thoughts.

"Oh, I did. 'Course the thing about that is it's never very hard to find a man who's willing to help you out.

Fact, it's nearly impossible to find one who ain't."

Rae remained silent. Her experience had not been the same at all.

Platonic friendships seemed to be what men offered her most. Aural continued volubly and Rae realized the young woman had reached a topic that interested her.

"I realize now that at that age a lot of that was just plain old curiosity, you know. I mean, I just flat wanted to know what this sex business was all about. People make a mistake keeping it a secret from little kids, don't you think? That just makes it a mystery, and everybody loves a mystery. Once you've seen a few men with their pants down you realize there ain't going to be no real surprises, they're all pretty much alike except for those who are worse, but by then I guess it's too late to worry about the mystery anymore. You've already got the habit."

"I'm sure you're right," Rae said, secretly lamenting the fact that she didn't have enough experience to be certain if Aural's assessment of men was right or not. But it did have an intuitive correctness to it.

"The thing is, I wish I had some other bad habit instead of men. I'd rather chew tobacco if it was up to me, but I guess we don't get to pick our bad habits, do we?"

Rae wondered how Aural managed to keep a complexion as smooth and pink with all of this worldly experience going on. She herself had a tendency to spot up whenever she needed to look nice, and stress of even the mildest sort caused cold sores on her lip.

"What happened with the record people and all?" Rae asked.

"Oh, yeah. Well, Daddy had them all set to come to one of his shows, and I guess they did, but the night before that I ran off with Earl Hockfuss who was this boy with the cutest strand of hair that fell across his forehead in a certain way that made you just want to cry or scream or grab hold of something soft and squeeze real tight.

When Earl would reach up and push that hair away, I used to tighten up my butt and press my thighs together, you know what I mean, Rae? 'Course, I was only sixteen, remember. I must have thought hair made the man in those days. Probably from hearing Daddy preach about Samson and Delilah or something." Aural laughed. "I was given to easy impressions back then."

"You ran off and got married?"

"No, honey, I just ran off. Earl and me went to a motel in Black Ridge and stayed there for three days until Earl decided he was too sore to continue."

"My goodness."

"I know. But it was educational. At least it was for me.

If old Earl learned anything in them three days, he never let on, except maybe who was the stronger sex when it came to sex. But I learned a lot, most of it disappointing."

Aural grinned in a way that made Rae feel that she ought to blush. "But not all of it, honey. Not all of it."

"What did your daddy do when you ran off?"

"I don't know. I ain't seen him since. He prayed, I imagine, then looked around for someone to beat up on.

That's how I know he missed me. I wasn't there for him to beat up on."

"But he was a minister," Rae said.

"Hon," Aural said, touching Rae's arm. "Hon."

The Reverend Tommy R. Walker found himself alone in his trailer with Aural, a blessing to be savored and consumed. The Apostolics were striking the tent and Rae had taken herself off to town to buy groceries, which usually took quite a while because Rae was an ardent coupon clipper and comparison shopper. Rae could turn a half hour in the supermarket into a half-day excursion, and for once, Tommy R. was grateful for it.

Aural was looking exceptionally good. She had dropped the beatific pose that worked so well onstage, and was showing excitement and agitation.

Tommy assumed it was about him until he realized she was asking for more money.

"You know I'm worth it," she said. "You've doubled your receipts since I been in the show."

"Now… doubled…" Tommy hated money discussions-with employees. It was enough to dampen a man's ardor.

"Easy. I can judge a collection plate good as you, and they just keep getting fuller, don't they? You don't suppose it's because your miracles are getting better, do you?"

"That's why they come, missy. To see the power of the Lord revealed through my hands."

"Them people had glue in their pockets before I showed up. I seen you work alone, remember?"

"That was a bad night. That happens."

"It ain't happened lately, though, has it?"

"Lookit here," said Tommy. "It's not like you wasn't appreciated. Didn't I put your picture on the poster right next to mine?"

"Right under yours."

"Under, over, alongside, what difference does it make?

I'm making you a star, honey, you ought to be grateful.

You got your beautiful face on every telephone pole and shop window in Pikeville."

"I didn't ask to have my picture on no poster. What I'm asking for is a cut of the cash."

"The Apostolics don't get a cut, and they been with me five years, give or take a member. Rae's been with me seven, she don't get a cut."

"I'm not studying Rae. I assume you got your own deal with her."

Tommy rose and crossed the trailer in three steps to stand beside her.

"I got one deal with Rae that could easy be yours," he said, looking down at her. She was such a little thing, once you stood next to her. It was just her pep that made her seem bigger. Tommy greatly admired pep.

As long as it was properly channeled.

"Let's stick to business," she said.

The Reverend Tommy put his arms around her. He was no giant, but she barely came up to his chest. It made a man want to protect her.

"This could be business, if you want to look at it that way," Tommy said. She turned so that her back was to him, but she didn't push him away.

"What kind of business you call this?"

Tommy pressed his groin against her back. His arms slid round her waist.

"The best kind," he said, his voice growing husky.

"I'm talking about money, Reverend. I didn't come in here for no salami."

"That's all part of the service," Tommy said. He thought he felt her push back against him, thought she wiggled her ass just a little bit for him. "I offer salvation and salami at no extra charge."

Aural slipped her hand behind her and touched his fly.

Tommy leaned his face onto the top of her head.

"Shit, Rev, that ain't no salami."

"You guessed."

"That's more like one of them cocktail sausages you eat with a toothpick."

Aural tapped him once sharply with her knuckles and Tommy released her, jumping back.

"You forget who you're talking to," he said, drawing himself up and trying to reclaim his dignity.

"And you don't even know who you're talking to," Aural said. "I ain't one of them starry-eyed little things who comes up to you after a show, her little mind all whirly with the thought of sin, 'Oh, save me, Reverend Tommy, save me,' and you slip 'em salvation standing up against the back of the trailer."

"You ain't, huh? The way I heard it, you been boasting about how you can wear a man out."

"I told Rae that in private," she said, her face suddenly hot with betrayal.

"And that's how she told me," he said. "In private."

Tommy read the emotions on her face and realized he had found a weakness.

"She oughtn't a done you like that," he continued.

"That was a mean thing to do. You didn't deserve that."

"I guess I'll survive it."

"You could get right back at her, you know."

"With you?"

"No better revenge, honey. And I promise you, I know a whole lot more than that teenager with the funny hair.

I can please you good and at the same time you'll be having your revenge."

Aural smiled. For just a second it seemed almost inviting. She looked into his face, where the eyebrow rode across his forehead like a fuzzy black caterpillar. When he squinted his eyes with his seductive look, the caterpillar appeared to crawl.

She wasn't that hard-up, Aural thought, not nearly that hard-up. But the fact that she'd even considered it indicated that she had better find herself a man, quick, while she still was calm enough to do the choosing herself. If it turned out that the man picked you, God knows what you'd end up with.

Tommy put a hand on her cheek. His palm was already sweaty.

"Come on, sweet thing," he said, his voice husky again. "You know you want it."

"But what do I want?" Aural asked, still smiling sweetly.

"Well, suppose we experiment till we get it right?"

Tommy put his other hand on her breast and watched her eyelids quiver.

He knew it. Some of them just had to say no first, that was all. There was nothing like persistence, it beat charm all to hell.

She put one of her hands atop his hand that was on her breast and he felt her fingers delicately intertwining with his own. Her other hand slid down to his zipper and Tommy smiled as she pulled it slowly open.

He liked the languid approach, nothing hurried, she knew what she was doing. He tried to knead her breast but she held that hand firmly so he just relaxed as he felt her fingers groping into his pants. If she wanted to do all the work, that was fine with him.

Her fingers snaked into his shorts and tickled his scrotum. They slipped smoothly around his testicles and squeezed.

Tommy moaned with pleasure.

"Oh, yeah," he said, his eyes closed.

She squeezed. And squeezed. And squeezed.

"Hey." His eyes shot open to see her smiling up at him.

Tommy tried to pull her hand away, but she held on firmly and the pain was worse. Her other hand still gripped his fingers and would not release him. He had no leverage and nothing to work with. Meanwhile, she just kept squeezing harder.

"You're hurting me!"

"Well, sure," she said matter-of-factly. "Funny how something can feel so nice, and then so bad, ain't it? Just too much of a good thing sometimes."

"You're breaking my balls!"

"You can heal them, sugar," she said. She was still smiling. That was the oddest thing to the Reverend Tommy, that she just kept smiling, not maliciously, but with the suggestion of real pleasure.

When he thought sure he'd end up a eunuch if she didn't stop, he hit her.

She reeled back, shaking her head from the force of the blow that had struck her on the forehead. But she released his balls. Tommy cradled his crotch with both hands, keeping an eye on Aural all the time as if he expected her to grab at him again.

But she didn't look aggressive anymore. She didn't look particularly injured, either. What she looked more than anything was gratified. As if she had known all along that he was going to hit her, had expected it, and was glad that he had finally gotten around to it.

The manager told him to wait a minute and Cooper moved off to one side of the counter, eyeing the customers as they got their hamburgers and chicken bits and french fries. Cooper didn't like most of them, he didn't like what he saw in their faces when they glanced at him then looked hurriedly away as if they had just seen something that polite people didn't stare at. He preferred the open gawking of the little kids, the ones too young to care about manners. They usually got their arms jerked for looking at him too long, and sometimes their parents would kneel down beside them and explain things in urgent but instructive tones. Cooper wanted to squash those parents, wanted to step on them right where they knelt and jump up and down.

The manager was a shifty-eyed bastard himself. Cooper had told him he wanted a job and was not afraid of hard work, just the way he had been coached in the class on readjustment to society that they gave in Springville. He had been polite, said please, called the man sir even though he was a scrawny bastard that Cooper could have snapped into pieces with one hand. He had been told to wait and he was waiting but that didn't mean he wasn't aware of what the manager was up to. Cooper saw him say something to one of the employees in the back of the kitchen, saw the employee laugh. How some pimple-faced kid wearing a paper hat thought he could afford to laugh at Cooper was a mystery the big man would like to solve by squeezing pimple-face's head until it popped open.

After making Cooper stand there long enough to show that he was the boss, the manager returned with an application form.

"Just fill this out," the manager said, offering Cooper a pen.

Cooper stared blankly at the paper.

"It's just a formality," the man said. "We can always use someone who's willing to work."

"I'm willing to work," Cooper said. He held the paper back to the man as if the transaction had been completed.:'You still have to fill it out," the manager said.

'I can do dishes," Cooper said.

"Good."

Cooper looked into the open kitchen, seeking the dishwasher or the sink.

"We use mostly disposable dinnerware here," the manager said.

Cooper wondered what he was talking about: dinnerware. Cooper knew how to do dishes, he had been trained to do that in Huntsville, he knew how to work the machines.

"Why don't you just fill it out and return it to me when you're finished. No hurry, take your time."

The manager walked away and Cooper sat at one of the plastic tables, his big legs folding uncomfortably under the surface. He saw the place to put his name and printed it there in block letters. A few more of the questions were easy enough, but some of the rest of them confused him.

They had taught him at Springville how to fill out a form like this but he had forgotten some of it.

He wished that his punk were there. The punk could read like nobody's business.

A male employee swabbed at the table in front of Cooper's with a sponge.

Cooper wrinkled his nose at the scent of the astringent cleanser. He growled menacingly; it was hard enough to concentrate without somebody sticking ammonia in his nose. Cooper glowered at the employee. The man heard the sound and turned to look.

He had the big eyes and swollen head of Down's Syndrome, and his face was wreathed with a beatific smile.

"Hi," the man said sweetly.

Startled by the sweetness, Cooper said "hi" in return, then studied the application form again. A fucking retard could get a job here, Cooper thought. Did they have to fill out a form, too? They couldn't keep him from having a job now, there was no way they could deny him, he could work rings around that guy.

He glanced at the worker again and the man was still smiling, his eyes so happy he looked as if he and Cooper were long-lost friends. I don't know you, Cooper thought.

Don't look at me like you know me, I'll bust your fat head wide open for you.

The employee worked his way across the room, blissfully.inaware of the malice in Cooper's darting looks.

Cooper glanced around for the manager, wondering if the man was aware of the caliber of his employees. Maybe Cooper would have to point it out to him if the manager gave him any static about this bullshit application.

Cooper knew how to work in a kitchen, goddamn it! He wasn't just some table swabber, he had worked in a kitchen that served over a thousand men three meals a day. He could do the work if they'd just let him!

His eyes began to burn and the application swam before him, taunting him with stupid-ass clerk questions and words as tangled as knots. I ain't no goddamned dummy, he thought. Give me a test, something to see can I do the work, not an application for a job. He started to crumple the form in frustration, then stopped, the readjustment counselor's words droning over and over in his ears. "Just remember, none of it is directed at you personally, it's just the way society works. Be patient, take a deep breath, try again. Keep trying. Keep trying."

The readjustment counselor had been a woman with silver hair and a big mole right beside her upper lip.

Sometimes she had reminded Cooper of his mother.

Sometimes he had wanted her to come to his cell and keep explaining things, everything and everything until he understood. Sometimes he thought he might like to kill her.

He wished she were here now to see the kind of shit they tried to make him do in the world. He wished the punk were here so he could help him with the form. The punk had said to call him if he ever needed help.

Cooper thought of doing it now, but then he would have to read the words on the form into the phone and he didn't like the phone in the first place…

Now the form was wrinkled. He thought of asking for a new one so that the manager wouldn't think he didn't take care of things-and maybe a new one would be easier to read, maybe he had been given the wrong one in the first place-but he didn't want the manager to think he was irresponsible… he could say the retard had messed up the paper when he was wiping the tables. He could show the manager how it had happened and in the process he could demonstrate how well he could clean a table himself and then the form wouldn't be necessary at all, and if the retard tried to deny that he had messed up the form, Cooper would mess him up in a way he'd never forget.

He smoothed the paper as best he could, looking around to see if the reetard was watching him, possibly anticipating his ploy. He noticed the girl looking at him, her face lowered to suck milk shake from a straw, — her eyes peering out from under her brows. When he returned her look, daring her to keep staring, she smiled and didn't turn away the way everyone else did. What the hell was her problem? If she didn't stop gawking at him, he would be her problem pretty damned fast.

The bitch stood up and crossed towards him, still sucking on the straw.

She looked about eighteen, old enough to be legal, anyway, and not bad looking but if she didn't stop staring at him, he'd gouge her eyes out.

"How ya doing'?" she asked, releasing the straw at last.

A drop of chocolate shake rode her lower lip. She thrust out the tip of her tongue and licked it away.

"What?" Cooper thought she was referring to the application and he smoothed it again.

"Said 'hi,' " she said. "Forget your glasses?"

"What?"

"I see you're having a little trouble with the form there, I figured you forgot your glasses. Want me to read it to You?"

Before Cooper could figure out what the trick was, she had slipped into the booth opposite him and swiveled the paper to face her.

"It's wrinkled..

"I don't imagine that matters," the girl said. " 'They just want the facts, ma'am."

" She grinned as if she had made a joke and Cooper squinted at her, trying to figure out what she was up to.

"Well, now," she continued, "let's see what they want from you. Name; well, you got that one right. Hello, Darnell Cooper. Are you really thirty-three? You don't look it, you look much younger."

"What are you studying me for?" Cooper asked.

"You're what they call well-preserved, I guess," she said. There was a smile in her voice even when she wasn't smiling. "Now here where it says previous employment… have you ever worked before?"

"Sure."

"… Want to tell me where?"

"The kitchen."

"Well, now, Coop, I think they want more information than that."

Cooper was confused by the use-of his nickname. "You don't know me," he said, almost certain it was true.

"Have you forgotten so soon?" she asked, then laughed. "No, I don't know you, and I'd remember somebody like you, believe me. God, you look strong."

"I'm stronger than just about anybody," Cooper said.

"I believe it. Where'd you get that tattoo?"

"Somewhere."

"I like tattoos."

"Uh-huh."

"I have one, you know."

Cooper was silent. How was he supposed to know that?

"But it's in a place I can't show you until I know you better." She laughed at herself again. "They tell me I'm shameless. Do you think I'm shameless?"

"I don't think about you at all," Cooper said.

"We'll have to get you over that… you're not one of them, are you?"

She flopped her wrist at him.

Cooper stared at her. He could see part of her cleavage.

She had it showing like that so he could reach his hand in there, he knew that. That's why women dressed the way they did, to make it easier for you.

"You're not an old fag, are you? There's an awful lot of that going around these days, and it's always the best-looking ones. Why is that? … They say a lot of body builders are like that… Just my luck…

It's not that I have anything against it, it just seems like such a waste, that's all… Are you?"

"What?"

"They say Stallone is, but I don't believe it. Are you?"

"What?"

"A fag."

Was she asking if he was a faggot? Cooper could not believe it.

"I killed one once," he said, immediately regretting it.

But she didn't seem to mind.

"Well, you look like you could, easy enough."

"I could. I did.",

"I'll bet you did… Are you as strong everywhere as you are with them arms?" She looked like she was blushing all of a sudden, but Cooper couldn't imagine she had suddenly turned shy.

"Yeah," said Cooper.

"Tell you what, why don't I fill this thing out for you… you know, since you lost your glasses. And then you could take me out for a milk shake."

"You just had a milk shake."

She grinned. "You don't miss a trick, do you? Maybe we could find me another one. I'm insatiable."

She put her hand atop his for a moment, still grinning like they were sharing a joke. Cooper grinned back at her and looked at her cleavage.

She took the pen from his fingers.

When she bent over the tabletop to do the form, she showed even more of her breasts.

I could kill you so fast you wouldn't believe it, he thought. I could kill you just like that. Then he remembered the girls in the coal mine.

Or I could kill you real slow. I could take forever.

She seemed to know he was thinking about her because she looked up at him and smiled again.

"I'm fudging things just a little bit," she said. "When I'm finished they'll put you in charge of the place…

'Cause we want to keep a great big hunk like you around town, don't we?"

"Have you ever been in a coal mine?" Cooper asked.

"Darling," she said, "I'll try anything once."

The third letter was different. It didn't exist.

The envelope was the same, addressed to Becker in care of the FBI, and the postmark was still Decatur, Alabama, but Becker opened it to find nothing inside. No letter, no message written in the envelope itself, nothing, not so much as lint.

Had his correspondent simply forgotten to put the clipping from The Times into the envelope? Or was he under sudden pressure and unable to do so for reasons of his own safety? Or had someone taken it out? If the correspondent was dependent on someone else posting his mail, as Becker suspected, then it was possible the man had been caught. And if he had been caught, what had become of him?

Becker held the envelope to the light to see if it was the medium for the message itself. There was no imprint of something having been written without ink. There were no holes in the envelope.

Feeling foolish, Becker lit a match and held the envelope over it to bring out any invisible ink. There was none.

Searching through Jack's room, he came up with a magnifying glass and perused the envelope inside and out.

Again, nothing that he could find. There were vastly more sophisticated ways to hide a message, and to discover it, but Becker was certain his correspondent did not expect him to take the stationery to the FBI lab.

Both messages had been sent to him, not the Bureau. Whatever message there was-, the correspondent expected Becker to find it by himself, and that meant without elaborate scientific help.

And the longer he thought of it, the more convinced Becker became that there was a message there somewhere. If, as he had first suspected, someone had intercepted the message, why mail just the envelope? Why alert the recipient that something had gone wrong? Especially when the recipient of the letter was someone in the FBI? Much safer, and much more likely, that whoever removed the message would have withheld the envelope as well.

Therefore, the message was in the envelope, on the envelope, or the envelope itself and not impossible to decipher because the writer expected Becker to do it.

Closing his eyes, Becker ran his fingers across the surface of the stationery, thinking to find some pattern of bumps, perhaps in the address, a primitive Braille that Becker could comprehend. The envelope was perfectly smooth except for the address and the stamp. He gently rubbed the address again and again. It was rougher than the surrounding paper, which indicated that it had been typed and not laser printed, but if there was any meaning in the roughness, Becker could not detect it.

Perhaps a blind man could, but Becker was not blind and did not have that kind-of touch and the correspondent must have known it.

The only true relief on the front surface of the envelope was at the stamp, where the glue had failed to adhere in one small spot, raising up the perforated edge enough for Becker's fingers to detect it. He studied the stamp itself under Jack's magnifying glass and found nothing unusual.

Feeling like an amateur detective, Becker turned on the flame under the teakettle. Hercule Poirot would not have done it like this, he thought.

Agatha Christie would have found a way for her prissy, abstemious sleuth to have solved it through sheer deduction. But I'm not as smart as old Hercule, he admitted, I usually have to get my hands dirty.

When the kettle whistled, Becker held the envelope over the spout and steamed the stamp until it curled. Underneath the stamp and slightly smudged by the steam was a series of dots, another number in binary code. This time the dots had not been made by a pin, so they could not be detected from the inside of the envelope. They were as small as pinpricks, however, and looked as if they could have been made using a pin as a stylus, but this time with ink. Or a substance substituted for ink.

It'was a reddish brown, the color of iodine, and Becker guessed that it was blood. Perhaps as a touch of melodrama, or perhaps a matter of convenience. It was almost impossible to find a bottle of ink lying around the houseor around the prison-these days, and blood, one's own blood, was always readily available, especially in small amounts and when the writing instrument was a pin. A jab or two in the finger would provide enough to write a number in dots, Becker thought.

The number this time was a longer one. Becker drew a series of boxes and labeled them underneath from right to left, advancing by an order of 2, 4, 8, 16 and so on until the boxes had crossed the page. He placed a dot in each box that corresponded to a mark on the envelope, then toted up his result with a pocket calculator. The number was 15113054.

Karen found him sitting in the den, staring into space.

There was a pizza box on the kitchen table, evidently to serve as dinner, but no plates, no napkins. Becker was certainly not fussy about the niceties of dining, but in the last months he had become increasingly conscientious about the small things and this sudden neglect served Karen as a warning that something was wrong. Not that she needed much warning. She had noted his increasing withdrawal since the arrival of the first letter, and his current fugue left no doubt about his mood.

"The latest letter?"

Becker did not look up at her.

"The final letter," he said.

She moved behind him and rubbed his neck and shoulders. He took the massage like so much stone and she quickly stopped.

"How do you know it's the final one?"

"He won't write again."

"Well, then, good. Now you can forget about it, whatever it is."

"He has summoned me," Becker said sarcastically.

Karen paused, hoping she would not have to pump every single answer from him.

"How do you mean, 'summoned you'?" she asked at last.

"He's told me where he is and who he is and he can't very well come to me."

He continued to stare at a spot on the wall; he had not looked at her since she entered the room.

"So I'll have to go to him."

"What is it, really?" she asked.

"I'm scared," he said.

"Then don't do it."

He chuckled humorlessly.

"If I didn't do things I was afraid of, I wouldn't get much done."

"You've got nothing left to prove, to yourself or to anyone else.

Certainly not to the Bureau."

"Maybe to myself, though… You know what it's like, Karen. You know how seductive it is."

Karen was silent. On a case with Becker she had — killed one person while allowing another to die of self-inflicted wounds. Both had deserved to die-they had killed many times-but it was not the morality of her choices that had bothered Karen. It was her reaction. She had felt, for the first and only time, the savage thrill of killing, the thrill that Becker feared would consume him. Horrified and exhilarated, she had confessed to him that she understood and shared his passion. But she had denied it ever since, keeping her strongest denial was to herself. She had transferred to Kidnapping to decrease her possible exposure to temptation and had been grateful for each promotion that took her higher up the ladder and farther from the dangers of the field.

"Not really," she said. "I know that it troubles you."

He looked at her searchingly for a second. He never pressed her on the subject. Becker knew what he knew but respected her desire to forget. He wished that he could do the same.

"Yes. It 'troubles' me."

"You're out of it, John. Stay out if that's what you want."

"I kept solving the puzzles of the letters, didn't I? I knew it was trouble from the first, but I kept solving them.

Maybe it's what I want to do."

"They're just letters-you didn't solicit them-they aren't forcing you to get involved."

"I know."

"If there's a problem, let the Bureau handle it."

"They are handling it," he said. "With me."

She stopped massaging his shoulders and slipped her chin to his head, her hands to his chest.

"Just don't do it. Stay out of it. It costs you far too much."

"I need to get into a prison to talk to an inmate," he said. "Can you arrange it for me?"

Karen hesitated. "You can visit without any help."

"I need to be alone with him. We can't do it through Plexiglas with cameras on us and a guard standing ten feet away."

"John..

"I don't want Hatcher involved in this. If he is, I won't go near it.

You have the authority to arrange it."

"John-I can't."

"Does Hatcher have a marker on me?" A marker was a directive that Deputy Director Hatcher was to be informed of any Bureau action involving a subject agent.

"You know this is touchy," Karen said.

"Restricted information, right? Okay, I understand. But it wouldn't be restricted if he didn't have a marker on me, would it? You could answer the question then."

"No comment."

"So I am marked, which means I can't do anything without Hatcher being involved, at least as a silent observer, and since I won't do anything if Hatcher is involved, it means I can't do anything. Great. So I'm off the hook. I'm doing nothing."

He stood and took her in his arms. "I got sausage and mushrooms on the pizza. Okay?"

In Washington, the center of American democracy, a city that thrives on secret meetings and private agendas, a clandestine meeting was held between Congressman Quincy Beggs and FBI Associate Director Thurston Hatcher in the Congressional Office Building. There was no pressing need for the meeting to be a secret save for the natural predilections of both men. Both knew there was a time to go public, a time to share the results of their public-spirited efforts with the public itself, and there was a much longer time to keep quiet about their activities lest the public actually come to expect something from them.

There was no point in sharing things with the populace, both men would argue, until there was actually something to share.

Beggs was a short man, going to fat, which spread un attractively across his neck, crowding his collar and bunching up under his chin. It gave him the look of a man who was unused to shirt and tie, a workingman forced into the suit by the demands of his office. In truth, the Congressman was a lawyer by training, a politician by inclination and ambition, and wore a look of perpetual discomfort only because his neck size continued to expand no matter what size collar he wore. If his spreading girth made him appear to be a man of the people, however, Beggs was astute enough to avoid dieting. His very appearance became a prop in his political act, and he was above all else an actor. In fact, Beggs was never more comfortable than when acting a part in front of large groups of people-unless it was now, when he was acting a part in front of an audience of one.

Associate Director Hatcher was a perfect audience.

Having entered the Bureau during the sartorially impious reign of J.

Edgar Hoover, Hatcher never felt fully dressed without a suit and tie and a crease in his pants leg. He would have appeared as out-of-costume in leisure wear as Richard Nixon. The resemblance, many of those under him would say, did not end there. Hatcher's dissembling of sincerity was particularly awkward, an equal in duplicity, his critics said, to the former President's assertions of honesty. One had to be seriously predisposed to the man or have a vested interest in his success-to believe him. It was part of his skill as a director, and manipulator however, that Hatcher was able to predispose those in all who went against him. He offered them what they wanted and presented it with all the deference of a born sycophant.

"It seems possible, Congressman Beggs," Hatcher was saying, tugging at the crease in his blue serge, "just possible, that I may have a lead in finding the man you are after. Pardon me, I misspoke when I said 'I." I meant we, of course. There are many good men and women involved in all of the work of the Bureau."

"Certainly. Excellent people," Beggs agreed.

"I consider myself just part of the organization."

"You're too modest, Mr. Hatcher. There is no need in this office. Your contributions to the Bureau are well known."

"Well, thank you. I confess that I do have a special interest in this case-because, of course, I am deeply aware of how it affects you personally, Congressman."

"When might you expect some results in this line of investigation, Mr.

Hatcher? Not that I mean to influence your management of the case."

"Of course not… If I supervise the matter directly myself-which of course I intend to do-I should think we might expect some substantial results by summer."

"Early summer or late summer?" Beggs asked. His biennial election was in November.

"That's impossible to predict," said Hatcher. "But naturally I will expedite matters as much as possible. In a case this old, there are always difficulties-but then the satisfaction of a solution is that much greater." 'Indeed it would be. I

think I can safely say that the people of my constituency would be very impressed. As would I, Mr. Hatcher. As would I."

Hatcher smiled demurely and tended to his pants.

It was a perfect Washington deal. No whisper was made of promotion for Hatcher, no mention of Beggs' need for a shot in the arm in the coming election. None was necessary, all was understood. Neither man had any personal feeling for the other at all, but they had just become staunch allies.

Hatcher left the Congressional Office Building feeling very pleased with himself. For him, it was a no-lose situation. If he delivered, then Beggs was in his pocket and deeply in his debt. If Hatcher failed to deliver, it was very likely that Beggs would not be reelected and would no longer be of any consequence to Hatcher anyway. He would then have to curry favor with the new member of the Oversight Committee who replaced Beggs, of course, but with the resources of the investigative arm of the Bureau at his disposal, that was never very difficult.

The only problem that remained was Becker. Becker was always a problem, it was in the man's nature, but it was also equally in his nature to be a solution. Hatcher merely needed to tighten a few screws.

"What you mean you burned him? Like at the stake?"

The questioner was the Deacon of the Apostolics. He sat with his choir in the front row of seats in the tent prior to the Reverend Tommy R.

Walker's Miraculous Faith and Healing Revival in a fallow soybean field just outside of Pikeville, Kentucky. Aural sat perched on the stage in front of the choir, her feet dangling over the stage like a schoolgirl on a wall.

"No, he wasn't a witch," she said. "He was just an ordinary son of a bitch."

Rae tittered and Aural gave her a mildly baleful look.

Once again Rae had revealed something Aural told her in presumed confidence. It wasn't the worst habit in the world since nothing Aural had confided was anything she was particularly trying to keep secret, but it did suggest a certain surprising defect in Rae's character. Aural would never have taken her for a blabbermouth. But then maybe she'd never had as interesting a friend as Aural to blab about before.

"You can't burn every son of a bitch," muttered a female member of the choir. There was a note of regret to her voice.

"Ain't no bonfire big enough," chimed in another female. The men seemed discomfited.

"How did he happen to allow you to do this?" the Deacon asked Aural directly.

"I wouldn't say he actually allowed me to do it, Deacon. He was registering his protests, you might say."

Hebron James, the basso profundo of the group, a sur pnsingly small man considering the depth of his voice, looked at'Aural in horror.

"You burned him alive?" he rumbled. "With the poor man pleading for mercy?"."Just 'cause he shucked his boot at you?" the Deacon joined in. "Girl, that ain't Christian."

"Not just 'cause of the boot," Aural said defensively.

"The boot was the last straw, so to say."

One of the women murmured sympathetically.

"Comes a time when you had enough," Aural said.

"Comes a time when you had too damned much."

"Amen," offered the woman, a particularly heavy soprano who had taken Aural's side from the beginning.

"Damn, I don't care what he done," Hebron continued.

"To burn a man alive…"

"You know he deserved it," said the soprano, offering a meaningful glance at the bass. "You know he had it coming to him."

"No man's got that coming to him," Hebron insisted.

"I don't care what he done."

"I know you don't care," the soprano said. "That's pretty clear."

"Man's got his troubles, too," Hebron said, directing himself to his shoes. "Ain't just the women's got problems. Man's got his reasons for what he does."

"Now that's surely true," offered the Deacon. "These things ain't never one-sided. What did you do to provoke him, honey?"

The other women caught their breath in outrage, but Aural only laughed.

"Everything I could," she said.

"About the only way to get the damned fool's attention was something painful upside the head. I had to ring his skull like a bell every now and then just to let him know I was still around."

Rae spoke with the conviction of a woman who had just recently seen a talk show on the subject. "That was an abusive relationship," she declared.

"Ain't they all," said Aural. "Ain't they all."

The crowd waiting outside the tent after the show had grown to almost a quarter of the one that had been inside earlier. Everyone seemed to want to talk personally to the performers, like fans at a rock concert. Many of them were for the Reverend Tommy, of course, eager to touch the hands that had healed so many, but more of them, and an ever increasing number, were for Aural. They clustered around her so thickly she could scarcely move, thrusting things for her to sign, speaking her name, some in whispers, some in chants as if invoking it. The men crowded in for a nearer look, hardly believing that the beauty they had perceived from a distance could withstand closer scrutiny, then lingered, amazed. The women came to see if that sweetness, that aura of holiness and divine selfassurance, could survive removal from the stage, the lighting of the tent, the spirituality of the show. If the girl was truly inclined to sainthood, they wanted to be next to her, and if she was a sham, then all of them, men and women, hoped to be relieved of the unexpected hopes she had given rise to.

Aural disappointed none of them, smiling indefatigably, murmuring words of encouragement and humble thanks.

She signed their autographs, suffered their questions, allowed them to touch her velvet robe and, occasionally, stroke her long hair. She took credit for none of the miracles of the evening, directing them all to the Reverend Tommy, who stood amid his own coterie only a few yards away, straining to hear what was being said by Aural and her admirers while still nodding sympathetically to the sufferers clustered around him. It had not escaped his notice that her following grew and grew.

Some of the faces had become recognizable, coming to show after show even though Tommy was careful about holding performances in towns at least fifty miles apart from each other.

They had begun to follow her like groupies, and Tommy's awareness of the potential for gain in the situation was offset by his increasing envy.

I He was going to have to do something about it, that much was for sure.

It was rapidly becoming the Aural McKesson Show, featuring the Reverend Tommy R. Walker, instead of the other way around and if he wasn't careful, Aural might wake up to the fact that it could just as easily be the Aural McKesson Show, featuring herself as saint and singer, and to hell with the Reverend Tommy altogether. The girl had shown no aptitude for curing folks as yet,_ and as far as he knew she hadn't even tried, but she certainly understood the technique, and Tommy was not so far gone in self-esteem not to know that she could do it just as well as he could if she put her mind to it.

Probably a lot better because, damn it, she had that look of sanctity about her when she was up on that stage, wearing that robe he gave her, that no amount of thumping and sweating by Tommy would ever overcome. If her followers could ever see her the way she really was, a foulmouthed, ungrateful, irreverent, greedy, sacrilegious little tease of a tramp-the way Tommy knew her to bebut then the trick was always to keep your public life and your private life separate, and Aural had seemed to understand that from the start.

He was going to have to deal with things pretty soon, because to hear Rae tell it Aural could walk away with the Apostolic just by crooking her finger. And with Rae, too, he suspected, even though she would never admit it.

Rae had become more fascinated with Aural than she was with Tommy. And growing rebellious and uppity in little ways under the girl's influence, too. The Apostolics sure weren't the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but they were trained and docile and worked cheap and without them and without Rae to do the hundred little things she did, Tommy would be without a show, without a livelihood, without a goddamned prayer. He was too old to start over again with nothing more than a gold Bible and a winning way and ten thousand feet of patched canvas tent.

Tommy looked over to where Aural stood amid her fans. She was smiling that little smile she used when she was being saintly, nothing big enough to show actual mirth. It was the kind of smile a mother used when watching her child do something endearing for the umpteenth patient, knowing, ever tolerant of her beloved. The around her were lapping it up. He saw Rae standing at the edge of the crowd, studying Aural with the same devotion as all the others, as if she actually believed the act, as if she didn't have access to the real Aural whenever she wanted it. The flock attending Tommy had dispersed, many of them gravitating towards Aural's crowd, so that Tommy stood alone, watching the phenomenon he had helped to create.

Either he had to harness Aural in a way she couldn't get loose from him … or he had to get rid of her, quick.

He didn't have any idea of a way to harness her-she could shrug him off and walk off with his show anytime she wanted to-and it wouldn't be long before she realized that as well as Tommy.

But he did know how to get rid of her.

Cooper had to walk three miles to work because there was no public transportation to the restaurant and he did not have a car, but the walk did not bother him. On the way to work it gave him a chance to run over in his mind his course of action for the day, and on the return trip, when it was dark outside except for the headlights of cars going past on the road, he used the time to pore over the day's events and see where he had done right and where he had gone wrong. It wasn't like the life in prison; there were so many ways to make a mistake here in the world.

Nobody yelled at him at the job when he made a mistake-Cooper was not the kind of man to raise your voice to-but they had other ways of letting him know. Ways that made him feel much worse. He knew they were all talking about him behind his back, mocking, him, laughing at his incompetence, smirking at his slowness.

But he had ways of getting back at them. That was what he considered on his walk to work, the methods he would use to get even with all the snickering, condescending shitass little clerks who worked in the restaurant with him.

A different way for each one. He could just squeeze them all together and punish them at once, but that wouldn't be any fun. He wanted to get them one at a time and do it leisurely so they knew why they were being punished, and he wanted to do each one in a different way-because that would be fun.

He didn't know exactly when he would start repaying his fellow employees, but he knew he would have to have a car first, for two reasons. If he had a car he could transport them somewhere away from the restaurant. Finding a place wouldn't be hard-the road was lined by scruffy, piney woods on both sides and there was nothing in there but trees and bushes and snakes. Cooper knew that because he had gone exploring. The land was no good for yfarming, too close to the road for living. It was junk land and Cooper was thinking of ways of putting a whole lot of junk on it. Or under it.

The other reason he'd need a car was to go away in when he was finished.

He'd have to be stupid to just stick around, still walking to and from the restaurant when there was nobody left to work in it but him. And Cooper wasn't stupid. Sometimes it took him a while to figure out exactly what he wanted to do, but that didn't make him stupid.

The clerks at the restaurant would find out just how smart he was, soon enough. As soon as he got a car.

And he wasn't going to steal one, either. He knew better than that, that was the way to have every cop in the state pulling you over and asking for your registration. It would be his own car, it would belong to him, he would pay for it with his own money. Or at least he'd make the down payment. He could see himself doing that, walking into the used-car lot, pointing to the car he wanted, then wiping that smug smile off the salesman's face by pulling a wad of bills from his pocket and counting them off. He could see himself taking the keys from the hands of the clerk who would be impressed now, getting behind the,wheel, and driving right out of there with the registration in his pocket. After that Cooper couldn't see any more about the car; that was the only picture he had in his mind.

But it was enough. It would be fun, and he knew what he'd do once he got the car. That part was a little fuzzy, too, but not because he couldn't see it clearly. Rather, because he could see too many possibilities.

Meanwhile, the walk was fine with Cooper. Once in a while some stranger would slow down and offer him a ride. Cooper liked that, as long as they didn't try to talk to him too much. He liked sitting in a different car, he liked studying the driver from the corner of his eye, he liked imagining what he'd do to them if they tried any funny stuff. Sometimes they would ask him what he was grinning about. He hadn't told any of them yet-but he might.

He remembered the girl. Her car was old, but big, with lots of room, even up front. It had a muffler problem, but what Cooper remembered best was that she let him drive and got him onto the highway and then urged him on until he was going fast, so fast he couldn't do anything but drive. She kept telling him to go faster and faster and that's when she did the amazing thing and slipped down on that big front seat and told him to pay attention to his driving or he'd kill them both. But it was very hard to pay attention to his driving with her doing that to him, and she wasn't just teasing about it either. She went at him Re she was starved, with all kinds of moans and sloppy noises which he thought were probably words but he couldn't make them out because of what she was doing and he didn't know why she'd bother talking then anyway. But she was very good at it. And fast, so fast he hardly got to the part where he thought about how easy it would be to kill her before he was finished. Cooper tried to watch the road, but he swerved badly a couple of times towards the end and nearly put them into the ditch.

When he howled and cried out at the finish, she lifted up from the seat, wiping her face and laughing.

"I gather you liked that," she said, still laughing. "Either that or you got it caught in the zipper."

She was slouched against her door now, looking real pleased with herself. Her blouse was open and he saw her reach her hand inside.

"Keep driving," she said.

"Where?" he asked.

"See, that part's easy," she said. "You just point the car and the road'Il take you where it's going."

Cooper didn't like her tone of voice now, but after a minute she slid her naked foot across the seat and started playing with his leg with her toes. He didn't remember seeing her ever take her boots off.

She was kind of purring now and her hand was working under her blouse but Cooper didn't like being touched so soon after and he felt like kicking her out of the car while they were speeding along.

"I could kill you, you know," he said.

"You're about to get your chance, sugar," she said.

Her foot was now in his lap, but what she thought she was going to accomplish with her heel was a mystery to Cooper. Grinding it around like that now just annoyed him.

"Uh huh," he said.

"My turn," she said.

Cooper looked at her face. If she thought he was going to do what she had just done, she must be even crazier than she was acting.

"Keep your eyes on the road," she said. "I'll show you where to turn off."

He pulled the car onto a dirt lane that wasn't much wider than the car itself and that was the first time Cooper explored the piney woods.

Walking to work, he grinned at the memory.

The retard with the bug eyes was all right, Cooper liked him, he decided. He just smiled a lot and said friendly things and never tried to give Cooper advice and never made comments on how he was doing. But the guy who hung around the french-fry vat, Lyle, Kyle, whatever his name was, was beginning to be a real pain in the, ass.

Cooper had seen his kind before. He was scared shitless of Cooper-the only sign that he had any sense at allbut was trying like crazy to be friends with him. Cooper just knew he was going to have to hurt him some, if only to stop him trying to be a buddy. Cooper didn't want Kyle for a buddy, he didn't need some pimple-faced teenager for a pal, the kid didn't know his ass from a sandwich bun. If Cooper hurt him some, the kid would stop trying to be so chummy, and it would also serve to make him realize that Cooper really was dangerous. Once they thought he wasn't dangerous, they would think they could do and say anything, make fun of him any way they liked.

"Where's that girl I saw you with?" he was saying now, winking at Cooper like they shared a secret.

"Who?"

"The one I saw you with," Kyle said.

"You never saw me with a girl," Cooper said.

"Yeah, I did," Kyle insisted. "You drove off in her car. An Oldsmobile about a hundred years old."

Cooper did not think anyone had seen him with the girl.

Kyle slipped an order of frozen potato slices into the simmering fat, which convulsed briefly with a subdued hiss.

"What was her name?" Kyle asked.

"I don't know," Cooper said, honestly.

"Sure you do. Mayvis, ain't it? I see her around here a lot. She's a real beauty, ain't she?"

Cooper pulled the rubber garbage can from under the counter and dragged it towards the door. It wasn't really his job, it belonged to the reetard, but Coop needed to get out of that kitchen. How come he hadn't noticed Kyle watching him when he drove off with the girl?

"She's okay," Cooper said.

"What did you do with her?" Kyle asked, his voice insinuating all kinds of things.

Cooper looked up from the garbage to stare at the kid.

He wondered if he shoved the boy's hand into the boiling fat if that would shut him up.

"Something," Cooper said.

"I just bet you did," the kid said, and winked again.

Then, to anyone else in the kitchen who wanted to hear, he said, "I just bet old COOP did something mighty interesting with Mayvis."

Somebody grunted something which Kyle took as encouragement to continue.

"He did it so good she hasn't come back," Kyle said.

"Ain't that right, Coop?"

Cooper thought of shoving the boy's whole head into the french-fry vat, but instead he lifted the garbage can in his arms and backed out the door.

"Where'd you leave her?" Kyle persisted. "Some of rest of us would like to find her."

"Somewhere," said Cooper. The screen door was yanked shut by its hinges, but Cooper could still hear them talking about him.

Clamden's chief of police loped heavily after the soccer ball, holding on to his holster with one hand while the rest of the paraphernalia on his belt-radio, baton, keys, cuffs-slapped against his hips and butt.

'You destroy the myth of the graceful fat man," Becker said.

Tee swung mightily at the ball, catching it glancingly off the side of his boot so that it dribbled ineffectively in the general direction of Becker.

"Not fat," Tee puffed. "That's a paunch. It's a sign of respectability."

"You're getting awfully respectable," Becker said. He got to the ball in a few quick steps and rerouted it towards Jack.

Tee patted his stomach affectionately. "Think of it as a symbol of authority," he said. "Underneath all this flesh and equipment, I'm lean as a whippet. The uniform is very misleading. Right, Jack?"

Jack grunted something that could have been agreement as he concentrated on the ball, his mouth open with the effort. He and Tee had basically the same skill level, and each had been kicking a ball about the same amount of time.

"Your basic criminal type is skinny," Tee was explaining. "Righteous bulk just naturally intimidates him."

Jack kicked the ball to Becker and once again Becker deflected it to Tee with apparent ease. The guy was like one of those flippers in a pinball machine, Tee thought.

He barely touched the ball, hardly kissed it, and it seemed exactly where he wanted and with speed and power.

He was, once again, impressed by the easy athleticism of his friend.

Tee kicked another shot and laughed at himself.

"I'm more of a football player," he said. "This is a damned European game. Whoever heard of not using your hands? It's unnatural."

"Most popular sport in the world," Becker said, dancing to the ball and flicking it over to Jack.

"Oh, sure, the world. What do they know?"

"Speaking of your basic criminal," Becker said.

"Now you're talking," Tee said. "I know him well. I can pick him out of a crowd by the dishonest way he looks and moves."

"Nice talent," Becker said. "Must have its uses."

"It's why they made me chief of police," Tee said.

"The old unerring eye. I can not only pick out your malefactor-that's police talk, Jack, very sophisticated-" Jack nodded to indicate that he was listening. "I can even tell you his criminal specialty."

"How is that done, exactly? That specialty thing?"

Tee picked the ball up and placed it on his hip.

"You know how pets and their owners start to resemble each other after a while? It's the same with your average perpetrator. After a few years, he looks like what he does.

Your burglar develops big ears and shifty eyes, for instance."

"Pay no attention to him, Jack," Becker said.

"A sex fiend grows hair on his palms, just like they warned us."

"I was told you'd go blind," Becker said.

Jack took the ball from Tee's hands and the big man seemed hardly to notice. Jack recognized this tone in their voices; when the two men teased each other like this, Jack was better off playing by himself until the mood passed.

'You'll notice I do not wear glasses," said Tee.

'I hadn't noticed, but then I can't see too well."

"I feared as much. Always sad to see a good man go bad "Well, now, given your expertise in these matters…"

"I am, after all, the chief of police."

"And have the paunch to prove it," Becker said. "So, as the expert, what can you tell me about the man watching us from the hedge?"

Tee studied the forest hedge surrounding the playing field. It took him a moment to discern the shape of a man standing amid the foliage. He shook his head, acknowledging Becker's ability to see things without seeming to look. The man was behind Becker's back, and Tee could not remember that Becker had ever so much as turned around.

"What do you do, smell them?"

"This one is a little riper than most," Becker said.

The man was at least forty yards away. Tee had been joking; he was not sure that Becker was. He had asked Becker once how he did it, how he appeared to notice everything without paying attention. Becker's answer had only increased the mystery. "The way a deer does it," Becker had said. "He notices everything because everything is a threat. He's afraid." Tee could see nothing deerlike about his friend, nor could he detect any fear. The man he knew was not a passive prey animal, cringing at shadows. He was the shape within the shadow; he was a carnivore.

"He could be a scout," Tee ventured of the man in the bushes. "My legend may have spread. Or Jack's perhaps."

"Could be, I suppose," Becker said.

"You sound dubious. I'd say a soccer scout or a fan.

Or he could be lost."

"Waiting for a bus?":'Or a pervert."

"That's a fan of sorts," Becker said. "Maybe your legend has spread."

"Don't look at me. I don't attract that kind of attention.

I have my admirers, of course."

"Being the chief, you would."

"Can't be helped. But they're all manly men and homey women."

"I've heard about the women. Are you still chasing Mimi at the doughnut shop?" 'We're just good friends," Tee said, his voice temporarily serious. He cast a look at Jack to see if the boy was listening. "I want that understood."

"I believe you, but then I'm gullible."

"Do you think I should walk over there and intimidate the guy?"

"I wouldn't bother."

"I could beat him senseless for loitering. The chief is allowed to do that, you know."

"Or you could just shoot him from here and save yourself the walk."

"Not the worst idea. Then again, I have a radio on my hip, you'll notice."

"Let's have some music then," said Becker.

"I could summon help, provided there are any batteries in it."

"Actually, I wouldn't bother with any of that," Becker said. He signaled for Jack to kick him the ball. Becker scooped it up with his toe and caught it niidair on his ankle, bouncing it to his knee. "He'll be coming to visit us pretty soon. You can pound him senseless when he arrives."

"Oh, good."

As if on cue, the man stepped out of the hedge. and started towards them. How does he know these things?

Tee asked himself Associate Director Hatcher of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the man in charge of the various Violent Crime Divisions on the East Coast, stood in the bushes and watched John Becker kick a ball. He hated the way Becker kicked a ball, hated the way the man moved, the way he seemed to do everything with an effortless grace that mocked the clumsy efforts of those around him. It was one of the reasons that Becker was the most effective agent Hatcher had ever seen. One of several reasons, and Hatcher envied him all of them. Except one.

Hatcher, for whom most things came only with practice and diligent effort, had one consummate skill that Becker couldn't touch. Hatcher knew that he wasn't the brightest agent around, nor the bravest, nor the best organized. He certainly had no natural talent for sleuthing, no instinct for the profession, no insight into the criminal mind beyond what he had been taught in class. What Hatcher had, what Becker lacked totally, was the ability to manipulate people. They didn't usually give awards and medals for such a skill-they gave promotions. It was not a talent that others would praise or envy, and other men did not yearn to be close to it as they did to athleticism or humor. In fact, it made many people dislike the possessor. Many, but not all. It was recognized by others who had the skill, and they manipulated Hatcher to manipulate others, and it would work that way until he rose to the top and did all the manipulating himself. That was how it was with power.

Most men in the Bureau would not have made this trip to see Becker in person, they would have thought it belittled someone as highly placed as Hatcher. But that was because they viewed status as the important thing, and there they were wrong. The important thing was to get the results that would solidify his position and increase his grip on the power his office offered him. Becker could not be manipulated by telephone, nor could he be summoned to Hatcher's office as if he were still employed by the Bureau. He could not be ordered to take an assignment; he could not be soft-soaped into it either. The secret to manipulating anyone was to know his weaknesses, and Hatcher knew Becker's.

Becker's first weakness was that he hated Hatcher, hated him openly and defiantly and made no attempt to hide it. This made him a biased reporter and immediately discounted Becker's account of things with his superiors.

Hatcher hated Becker, too, but knew better than to ever reveal it to anyone. Publicly, he praised Becker's undis courage and skill, bending over backwards to give impression of fairness. This gave credibility to the slightest and grudging suggestion of any deficiency.

Becker vented his hatred of Hatcher to anyone who would listen. Hatcher used his hatred of Becker only in the places where it would do the most good, and that was one of the differences between them. Not that he ever wanted to do Becker too much harm. The man had his uses. Properly directed and sparingly employed, Becker could be used to carry another's career. He could be saddled and ridden. Hatcher had managed to make Becker's successes his own triumphs in the past and he felt confident that he could do it again.

The big cop was staring at Hatcher now and talking to Becker, who didn't bother to turn to look. He had been spotted, which did not surprise him.

Hatcher had not performed well in surveillance technique in training, and even if he had, it would have been hoping for too much to spy on Becker for very long without being detected.

As Hatcher stepped out of the bushes and started across the field, Becker finally feigned to look in his direction.

He said something to the cop and they both laughed. The forty yards across empty field seemed like an eternity with their eyes on him. It was like walking into a sniper's scope with Becker looking at him and Hatcher had difficulty with the simple process of walking now that he was so conscious of it. He stumbled once and looked back to find the vengeful bit of turf that had tripped him, hearing the laughter of the cop floating towards him. Simple acts of coordination had always been troublesome for Hatcherhe never knew where to put his hands when talking to someone, and matters of rhythm eluded him entirely. He was used to these embarrassments and quite accustomed to the amusement his discomfort gave to others. He no longer minded when they snickered up their sleeves at him; while they were having such a good time at his expense, they never noticed that he was outmaneuvering them.

Becker would be reveling in his huniiliation, of course, but Hatcher knew he could turn this to his own advantage.

He would not waste energy worrying about his pride.

Becker was bouncing the ball with his whole body now, keeping it in the air off his knees, feet, shoulders, chest, and head. It was an impressive display of control and agility and gave Hatcher another twinge of hatred. A man that age had no business looking as agile as a tap dancer.

When he got within twenty yards, Hatcher began to smile. It always took him a while to conjure one up, but once he had it securely on his face, he could keep it there for as long as needed.

"What does your unerring eye tell you about this one?" Becker asked as Hatcher stepped into the open.

"Definitely a villain," Tee said.

"Absolutely."

"A brown suit, black shoes. Looks like a fashion felon at the very least."

"There's more."

"Christ, is he stiff! He moves like Nixon." Tee laughed when Hatcher stumbled. "Definitely not a cat burglar."

"So? Your expert opinion?"

"As chief of police-you want the official verdict?"

"Please."

"There's a snake in the grass approaching us."

"Close," Becker said. "But a snake at least has the conviction to get right down on its belly. Hatcher does not have that much courage. He's more of a lizard."

"Friend of yours, is he?"

"Of long standing," Becker said.

Hatcher mistimed his approach and stuck out his hand to shake far too soon. He had to walk fifteen yards with his hand thrust forward, a smile fixed on his face.

"Associate Director Hatcher, FBI," he said, moving first towards Tee.

"Nice to meet you, officer."

"Chief," said Becker.

"I beg your pardon, Chief…?"

"Terhune. Thomas Tee Terhune. How are you?"

"A pleasure." Hatcher turned to face Becker as if just noticing him for the first time. "John. How have you been?"

Becker did not take Hatcher's offered hand.

"I don't feel like it," Becker said.

"Pardon me?"

"I don't feel like doing it. I don't want the case. You can go back."

Hatcher widened his smile and tipped his face skyward for a second as if overcome by a laugh.

"Actually…" he started, then Jack joined the company, easing the ball from Becker's hand. "And who is this? You must be Special Agent Crist's little boy. Jack, isn't it?". "You know it is," Becker said. "You boned up on Karen's file on the way here from New York."

"You're certainly getting to be a strong-looking young man, Jack. Do you want to be an agent like your mom when you grow up?"

"He's going into proctology instead. The work's the same but it pays better." Becker stepped between Hatcher and the boy as if to protect Jack from contamination. "Go home with Tee," he said. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

Becker took the ball back from the boy's hands and dropped it to the ground, imprisoning it with a foot.

"You're looking well, John," Hatcher said as Tee and the boy walked away. His cheeks were burning with humiliation, but his smile was firmly in place. He knew his eyes revealed his hatred, but Becker was not looking in his eyes. He was not looking directly at Hatcher at all.

"Go down to Springville and talk to the man yourself," Becker said. "You don't need me. You've probably already identified him by his prints on the envelope or the DNA in his saliva on the stamp, for all I know."

"I'm not sure who you mean."

"Look, Hatcher, I know honesty is a difficult concept for you, and I don't want you to break a habit of a lifetime and start dealing in it wholesale, but at least fake it for the purposes of this conversation or else this conversation is over. You've been reading my mail, right?"

Hatcher dropped the smile and assumed his forthright look.

"Naturally we screen anything that comes in addressed to an agent, for your own safety."

"I'm not an agent. I'm out."

Becker got the ball in the air, using only his feet, and suddenly Hatcher was confronted with a maze of blackand-white checks sailing between himself and Becker, each flight a tightly controlled arc coming off Becker's knees and feet. Finally he caught the ball on the top of his foot and held it there Re a juggler waiting for applause.

"Very impressive, John."

With another flick, Becker aimed the ball in a lazy arc towards Hatcher, who stepped back, startled, trying to catch it with his hands. The ball fell to the ground and Hatcher stared at it for a moment, as if making sure it was dead before picking it up.

"Well, technically, the U.S. government considers you to be on indeterminate medical extension. Naturally we all still consider you a part of the team."

"I quit. I'm not going to do it anymore. I've told that to half a dozen people." Becker wiggled his fingers, calling for the ball.

"I do see that, but technically-and I hate to be technical, but there are those times when it matters-technically you were put on medical extension before you-announced your dissatisfactions, and just as we cannot dismiss an agent when he is on extension because of stress or other psychological reasons, so, too, we cannot accept a resignation under those circumstances. It might be stress-induced, you see. It wouldn't be right for us to do so."

"I should have had Tee shoot you. It would have been so much simpler."

Hatcher tossed the ball to Becker's insistent fingers, throwing it underhanded. To Hatcher's intense annoyance, Becker deflected it off his knee, tapped it with his forehead, and put it into Hatcher's chest. This time Hatcher managed to hold on to it.

"We do think we know who has been sending you the letters," Hatcher said, struggling against an urge to hurl the ball into Becker's face.

"Of course you know. That last number was his prison identification number, wasn't it?"

Becker wiggled his fingers again, calling for the ball.

"I am told it may have been. I wonder, John, could we go to your house?

Agent Crist should be back from work soon and it would be good for her to take part in this discussion."

This time he handed the ball to Becker.

"Is this a discussion? I've already given you my answer."

"Inasmuch as it concerns her, too."

Becker stuck the ball on his hip.

"How does it concern her?"

"In her work, I mean."

"Karen is in Kidnapping. Are you treating this as a kidnapping?"

"Actually, I'm moving Special Agent Crist to Serial Killings."

"Why?"

"Why not? She's an excellent agent and a very competent administrator.

It's the usual procedure for grooming people for advancement to move them around, get them familiar with as much of our scope of operations as possible."

"You can't do that."

"Why is that, John?"

"I don't want her involved in Serial Killing."

"Uh-huh."

"Don't do it, that's all."

"It's the proper career move for her, John."

"It wouldn't be good for her."

"Would you care to elaborate? It might help if I understood just why."

"No, I wouldn't care to elaborate. She was in Serial once; she has enough experience with it."

"We do have certain procedures. If it were up to me-, I "It is up to you, Hatcher. It's all up to you. I'm telling you, I don't want her transferred to Serial."

"I see. Well, it is a little unorthodox. However, you're right, she was in Serial briefly as a very junior agent. Just one case, as I recall, before she transferred out. I don't recall the case in detail."

"Sure, you do. It was my case. It was your case, too, as a matter of fact."

"Oh, that's right, John. I'd forgotten… There were some deaths, as I recall."

Becker glared at him, but Hatcher's bland tone never wavered.

"Well, I suppose we could fudge things a bit under the circumstances. I could make it a temporary posting for her, just for this one case, then she would be through with Serial for the rest of her career. I don't think it would affect her overall performance rating."

"Who gives her that performance rating? Not you, by any chance?"

Hatcher tightened his smile another notch. "Naturally, the quicker the case is closed, the less Special Agent Crist will be exposed to Serial."

"Meaning if I don't take the case, I'm responsible."

"There's no connection, John. You and Agent Crist are separate entities-who just happen to live together."

Becker took a step towards Hatcher and dropped the 'ball, bringing his right foot into it with a massive blow.

"No!" Hatcher yelled and fell to the ground, cradling his head in his hands. Even as he dropped he realized that Becker was not aiming the ball directly at him. Close, but not at him. If he had wanted to, he could have decapitated Hatcher with the ball.

Hatcher got to his feet, cheeks blazing with humiliation, but he didn't mind the embarrassment. He had what he wanted.

He had Becker back at work.

The Reverend Tommy R. Walker lay on his back on the bed with Rae astride him, naked for a change. Normally she would be wearing her nightgown shoved up to her hips, or a t-shirt that she slept in during the warmer months. Often as not she was wearing her socks, too, complaining about cold toes even in the warmest weather.

A shy girl, old Rae, Tommy thought, and after the first year or so he didn't much mind if she stayed covered up or not. There not much to look at anyway.

L however, since Aural's arrival, she'd been shed ding clothes like a Christmas tree dropping pine needles.

First went the socks, and then the shirt, and lately she'd taken to slipping into bed every night with nothing on at all, primed and ready to go. Tommy had been getting quite a workout, which was another surprise because normally Rae was not one to initiate anything. Now all of a sudden the last few days she was like a bitch in heat, presenting herself to him every time he turned around, naked as a jay and in the full light of day. She had always been a lights-out, curtains-drawn kind of girl before this.

"Oh, Tommy, you great big-hunk," she said, searching slightly for the word. It wasn't exactly Wung dirty, but it was talking, which was more than she ever did before unless he told her exactly what to say. It didn't matter that it seemed awkward coming from her and was never the right thing-the very fact of vocalizing was interesting.

He knew it was all about Aural, of course. He had but to mention the younger woman's name and Rae would be rubbing up and down against him as if the thought of her as exciting to Rae as it was to Tommy. The last few times they had talked about Aural while Rae was riding him, him asking questions about what she'd done and said lately and Rae gasping out- answers between her little puffs and pants. This whole business of sitting on him was Aural's idea, he bet. He was fairly certain she'd been giving Rae tips on what to do, because Rae sure as hell had shown no natural gift for the sport before this. Rae seemed to like the position, too, once she got used to being exposed the way it made her.

"Oh, Reverend," she moaned. "You are so large."

Tommy told himself not to laugh. The girl was trying and should be encouraged.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're like a whole big piece of-ummmm!"

She closed her eyes and waggled her head from side to side.

"Like what? A whole big piece of what?"

"Ummm!"

He grabbed her hips, holding her still for the moment, which was the last thing she wanted.

"A big piece of what?"

She struggled with him, trying to think of something but having trouble with the concept.

"Sai@," she gasped at last, pushing his hands away and pumping now for all she was worth.

Tommy knew what the plan was, of course. Rae was hoping to fuck him senseless so that he wouldn't have the strength to think about chasing after Aural. Aural, who was undoubtedly egging her on, was probably hoping the same. But they were wrong on two counts, Tommy thought. One, frequent sex didn't make you want less, it made you want more. Sex was the greatest aphrodisiac in the world, and Rae could bang him three times a day after every meal and he'd still find a way to lust after Aural if he was of a mind. And second, he wasn't any longer of a mind.

He was still obsessed about Aural, all right, but not to get in her pants. He'd had a taste of what kind of a painful mess that would be.

What he wanted now was to get rid of her. Quickly, cleanly, neatly. And as they were always saying these days, information is power.

"Oh, Reverend," Rae was sighing as she collapsed on his chest. "You are the best.":'How would you know?" 'You make me so happy, sugar," she said.

"How would you know I'm the best? You ain't had but a handful of men in your whole life. Least that's what you told me. You weren't lying to me, were you?"

"No, honey. A woman just knows these things, that's all."

"Well, as it happens, you're right. I am the best, but how you would know it is beyond me. Someone like your friend Aural might know, of course. Maybe she took one look at me and told you."

"I don't need any help to know a good thing when I got it," she said, not wishing to be drawn in. Tommy was frequently a little cruel after sex, but then Tommy was frequently a little cruel anyway.

"What was you saying about her burning her boyfriend?" Tommy asked, pushing her off him and rolling onto his side.

"Did I say anything about that?"

"Well, yes, Rae, you did. Just about the time you was tugging down my shorts. I guess you forgot about it because you found the salami."

Rae giggled and slapped his shoulder. In the past she would have blushed like a beet and hidden her head. Old Rae was blossoming all around.

"A good salami makes a hungry woman forget all kinds of things,'-' he said.

"You," she said, prodding him again.

"So how did this boyfriend take to being burned alive is what I want to know."

"I don't think he appreciated it much."

"I wouldn't think so. How come Aural ain't afraid of him coming after her and tying her to a stake with a can of lighter fluid and a bag of briquettes?"

"Aural says he's too dumb."

"Too dumb to want to get even?"

"Too dumb to find her," said Rae.

"Uh-huh."

"Although why you'd want to be with a man who was that dumb in the first place… heavens."

"Not all women have your intellectual interests in salami, Rae," he said.

Rae tittered and reached between his legs.

"It ain't all intellectual," she said.

He removed her hand. Did she think he was a machine?

"Even if her boyfriend can't find her, ain't she worried that the cops might?" he asked.

"Why would the cops find her?"

"Why? Well, Rae, I may be wrong, but it seems to me that setting a human being on fire is probably a felony of some kind."

"In North Carolina."

"Hell, anywhere."

"I mean, she did it in North Carolina. She's in West Virginia now.

Doesn't it have to be an interstate crime or something like that?"

"What the hell is an interstate crime?"

"Honey, I don't know, but I don't think North Carolina police can just drive up here and arrest her for something she did down there unless it's a federal crime, and then it ain't their job."

"Whose job is it?"

"A federal crime? Well, that would be for the FBI, wouldn't it?"

"Would it?" asked Tommy. He got up on his knees so he was over her for a change. "A case for the FBI, huh?"

"I think so," Rae said. She toyed with the hair on his chest, twisting it into strands. If he didn't stop her he would end up looking like he was wearing corn rows.

"You know what?" he asked.

"What?"

"I think Aural had better be careful who she tells her stories to because somebody might take it into their mind that she should be reported."."Who would do that?"

"You never know," said the Reverend. "Human nature is a very curious thing. Very curious.

A truck passed Cooper as he walked along the highway, its brake lights on as it decelerated rapidly. A heavy mist had lifted only minutes ago, leaving the pines coated with moisture that sparkled in the early morning sun as it broke through. At times the reflection was blinding, and drivers heading east drove with their visors down and sunglasses on.

Cooper watched them, some shading their eyes with their hands and squinting against the glare. Ahead of him, a slight bend in the road coincided with the solar angle in such a way that drivers were blinded for several hundred yards and the traffic there had slowed to a crawl.

As Cooper approached, the sun's angle changed enough of a fraction of an arc that the glare was even worse and people were actually stopping their cars, a few of them pulling to the side. Cooper walked beside them, marveling at the sight of dozens of cars behaving as if a stop sign had suddenly materialized in the center of the highway.

The drivers looked so stupid to him, immobilized by the sun, blindly creeping after the rear ends of the cars in front of them like elephants in the circus linked trunk to tail, while the traffic in the westbound lane raced by at normal speed.

"Idiots!" Cooper yelled. Those closest looked around, gawking, trying to find the source of the voice. Some of them insisted on putting their heads out their windows and looking up, staring into the sun, as if they had heard the voice of God.

"Dummies!"

A man two cars away leaned out, his necktie dangling outside the car.

"What?" he asked. "What is it?" The man was looking in the direction of Cooper, but not at him. Cooper thought about grabbing that necktie-one of the currently fashionable eyesores with a flock of herons against a background of green and orange-and yanking on it until the man's head fell off.

"You're a dumb shit," Cooper said.

The man just kept squinting, looking more puzzled than threatened.

"What?" he asked again, as if the sun were affecting his hearing as well as his sight. "What?"

It was then that Cooper realized the extent of his invisibility. Nobody could see him. Which meant nobody could stop him, nobody could report him. He felt suddenly omnipotent. He could do anything he wanted to any one of these people in any of these cars and no one could stop him. No one would even know that he was the one who did it.

Walking farther, Cooper passed a young woman who glanced up at him as he came abreast of her, then away, towards the backseat. Cooper got to her blind spot and turned and studied her. She looked good, small and clean and neat, and there was something about her mouth that reminded him of that other girl. Her hair was cut close to her head, which made her look like a girl pretending to be a boy. He didn't know why, but Cooper liked that, he felt his excitement growing. He could reach right in there and grab her, he thought, and no one would know. Right in the middle of a crowd and no one would see because he was invisible. He could do what he wanted-he could make her do what he wanted-surrounded by dozens of cars and people and no one would know anything about it.

Cooper laughed in anticipation and the woman lifted her eyes in his direction. She had been studying the floor of her car, trying to avoid the sun, but now she looked up, shielding her eyes with her hand.

She looked stupid, too, squinting at him that way and not seeing him.

They were all stupid, Cooper realized with surge of superiority, stupid as a herd of cows. Only he could see where he was going, only he was invisible.

The doorlatch on her car was up, so Cooper yanked the door open and pushed into the car, propelling her into the passenger seat.

At first she was too frightened to speak and her mouth moved open and shut as silently as a fish. Stupid, Cooper thought.

"What…" she finally sputtered. "@who are you?"

"I'm Invisible Man," Cooper said. He grabbed her by the arm and she gasped and tried to pull away, but of course it wasn't possible to pull away from Cooper.

"Please," she said. "Please," and she thrust her purse at him.

She wasn't trying to get out the other door as he had thought she would.

The woman seemed to be trying to climb into the backseat instead. Cooper glanced back and saw the infant in the car seat for the first time. The baby stared back at Cooper, its big blue eyes as curious as Cooper's own.

The mother was panicking, but her fear hadn't transmitted itself to the baby yet and it studied Cooper calmly.

"Hi," Cooper said, reaching his finger towards the child.

The mother tried to pull Cooper's hand away from the baby, so he jerked her back onto the front seat. She bit into the hand that held her, sinking her teeth as hard as she could. The infant was reaching for Cooper's.finger, but he had to snatch his free hand away in order to club the woman.