Tick Tock

EIGHT

At the Phan house in Huntington Beach, Tommy’s mother waited in the driveway. Although the clouds had begun to shred in the night sky, she wore ankle-high rubber boots, black slacks, a raincoat, and a plastic rain scarf. Her ability to predict the weather was not as impressive as Mrs. Payne’s.

Del stayed behind the wheel with the engine running. Getting out of the Jaguar, Tommy said, ‘Mom, I don’t-’

Interrupting him, she said, ‘Get in backseat. I sit up front with terrible woman.’ When he hesitated, she said, ‘Go, go, foolish boy, less than hour to dawn.’

Tommy scrambled into the backseat with Scootie.

When his mother got in beside Del and pulled the passenger door shut, Tommy leaned forward from the back and said, ‘Mom, I’d like you to meet Deliverance Payne. Del, this-’

Glowering at Del, his mother said, ‘I don’t like you.’

Grinning, Del said, ‘Really? Already, I like you a lot.’

‘Let’s go,’ Tommy’s mother said.

Backing into the street, Del said, ‘Where?’

‘Go left. Just drive, I tell you when turn. Gi say you save Tommy’s life.’

‘She saved my life more than once,’ Tommy said. ‘She-’

‘Don’t think you save my son’s life then I like you,’ Tommy’s mother warned Del.

‘Earlier, I almost shot him.’

‘Is true?’

‘True,’ Del confirmed.

‘So okay, maybe could like you a little,’ Tommy’s mother grumbled.

Glancing back at Tommy, Del said, ‘She’s a hoot.’

‘Gi says you total stranger to Tommy.’

‘Served him dinner maybe ten hours ago but only really met him less than six hours ago,’ Del confirmed.

‘Served dinner?’

‘I’m a waitress.’

‘He eat cheeseburgers?’

‘Two of them.’

‘Stupid boy. No dating?’

‘Tommy and me? No, we’ve never dated.’

‘Good. Don’t. Here, turn right.’

‘Where are we going?’ Tommy asked.

‘Hairdresser.’

‘We’re going to the hairdresser? Why?’

‘You wait, you see,’ said his mother. Then to Del: ‘He’s a bad boy, break your heart.’

‘Mom!’ he said, mortified.

‘Can’t break my heart if I don’t date him,’ Del said.

‘Smart girl.’

Scootie squeezed past Tommy and thrust his big head into the front seat, sniffing suspiciously at the new passenger.

Turning in her seat, Tommy’s mother met the dog face to face.

Scootie grinned, tongue lolling.

‘Don’t like dogs,’ she said. ‘Dirty animals, always licking. You lick me, lose tongue.’

Scootie still grinned at her and slowly eased his head closer, sniffing, surely on the verge of licking.

Baring her teeth at the Labrador, Tommy’s mother made a warning sound low in her throat.

Startled, Scootie twitched, drew back, but then bared his teeth and growled in response. His ears flattened against his skull.

Tommy’s mother bared her teeth further and issued a growl meaner than the dog’s.

Whimpering, Scootie retreated, curling up in a comer of the backseat.

‘Turn left next block.’

Hoping to ingratiate himself, Tommy said, ‘Mom, I was so sorry to hear about Mai. What could’ve gotten into her, running away with a magician?’

Glowering at Tommy in the rear-view mirror, she said, ‘Brother was bad example. Young girl ruined by brother’s bad example, future destroyed by brother’s bad example.’

‘Which brother would that be?’ Del asked teasingly. Tommy said, ‘Mom, that’s not fair.’

‘Yeah,’ Del said, ‘Tommy’s never run off with a magician.’ She glanced away from the street, at Tommy. ‘Er… have you, tofu boy?’

Mother Phan said, ‘Marriage already arranged, future bright, now good Vietnamese boy left without bride.’

‘An arranged marriage?’ Del marvelled. ‘Nguyen boy, nice boy,’ said Tommy’s mother. ‘Chip Nguyen?’ Del wondered. Tommy’s mother hissed with disgust. ‘Not silly detec-tive chases blondes, shoots everyone.’

‘Nguyen is the Vietnamese equivalent of Smith,’ Tommy told Del.

‘So why didn’t you call your detective Chip Smith?’

‘I probably should have.’

‘I’ll tell you why you didn’t,’ Del said. ‘You’re proud of your heritage.’

'He pisses on heritage,’ Tommy’s mother said.

‘Mom!’

Tommy was so shocked by her language that his chest tightened, and he had to struggle to draw a breath. She never used foul words. That she had done so now was proof of an anger greater than she had ever displayed before.

Del said, ‘Actually, Mrs. Phan, you misunderstand Tommy. Family is very important to him. If you’d give him a chance-’

‘Did I say don’t like you?’

‘I believe you mentioned it,’ Del said.

‘More you talk, less I like.’

‘Mom, I’ve never seen you be rude to anyone before -anyone not in the family.’

‘Just watch. Turn left, girl.’ As Del followed instruc-tions, Tommy’s mother let out a quavery sigh of regret. ‘Boy for Mai not silly Chip Nguyen. This Nguyen Huu Van, family in doughnut business, have many doughnut shops. Perfect for Mai. Could have been many grand-children pretty as Mai. Now strange magician children.’

‘Isn’t that what it’s all about?’ Del asked.

‘What you say?’

‘Strange magician children. If there are three words that sum up what life should be all about, it’s “strange magician children.” Life shouldn’t be too predictable. It should be full of chance and mystery. New people, new ways, new hopes, new dreams, always with respect for the old ways, always built on tradition, but always new. That’s what makes life interesting.’

‘More you talk, less I like.’

‘Yes, you said.’

‘But you not listen.’

‘It’s a fault of mine,’ Del said.

‘Not listening.’

‘No, always talking. I listen but I always talk too.’

Tommy curled up in the back seat, in the corner opposite the dog, aware that he could not compete in this conversation.

His mother said to Del, ‘Can’t listen if talk.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘You bad news.’

‘I’m the weather,’ Del said. ‘What say?’

‘Neither good nor bad. Just there.’ ‘Tornado just there. But bad.’ ‘I’d rather be weather than geology,’ Del said. ‘What mean?’

‘Better to be a tornado than a mountain of rock.’ ‘Tornado come and go. Mountain always there.’ ‘The mountain is not always there.’ ‘Mountain always here,’ Mother Phan insisted. Del shook her head. ‘Not always.’

‘Where it go?’

With singular elan, Del said, ‘The sun explodes, goes nova, and the earth blows away.’

‘You crazy woman.’

‘Wait around a billion years and see.’

Tommy and Scootie locked eyes. Only minutes ago, he wouldn’t have believed that he could ever have felt such a kinship with the Labrador as he felt now.

Del said to Tommy’s mother, ‘And as the mountain blows away, there will be tornadoes of fire. The mountain will be gone, but the tornadoes still whirling.’

‘You the same as damn magician.’

‘Thank you. Mrs. Phan, it’s like the rock and scissors game writ large,’ Del said. ‘Tornadoes beat rock because tornadoes are passion.’

‘Tornadoes just hot air.’

‘Cold air.’

‘Anyway air.’

Glancing at the rear-view mirror, Del said, ‘Hey, guys, we’re being followed.’

They were on a residential street lined with ficus trees. The houses were neat but modest.

Tommy sat up and peered out the rear window of the teardrop-shaped sports car. Looming behind them was a massive Peterbilt tractor and trailer, like a juggernaut, no more than twenty feet away.

‘What’s he doing in a residential neighbourhood at this hour?’ Tommy wondered.

‘Killing you,’ Del said, tramping on the accelerator. The behemoth of a truck accelerated to match their pace, and the yellow glow of sodium-vapour streetlamps, flickering across its windshield, revealed the portly Samaritan behind the wheel, his face pale and his grin broad, although they were not close enough to see the green of his eyes.

‘This can’t be happening,’ Tommy said.

‘Is,’ Del said. ‘Boy, I wish Mom was here.’

‘You have mother?’ Tommy’s mom asked. ‘Actually,’ Del said, ‘I hatched from an insect egg. I was a mere larva, not a child. You’re right, Mrs. Phan - I had no mother.’

‘You are smart-mouth girl.’

‘Thank you.’

‘This is smart-mouth girl,’ Tommy’s mother told him. Bracing himself for impact, he said, ‘Yes, I know.’ Engine shrieking, the truck rocketed forward and smashed into their rear bumper.

The Jaguar shuddered and weaved along the street. Del fought the steering wheel, which wrenched left and right, but she maintained control.

‘You can outrun him,’ Tommy said. ‘He’s a Peterbilt, for God’s sake, and you’re a Jaguar.’

‘He’s got the advantage of being a supernatural entity,’ Del said. ‘The usual rules of the road don’t apply.’

The Peterbilt crashed into them again, and the rear bumper of the Jaguar tore away, clanging across the street into the front yard of a craftsman-style bunga-low.

‘Next block, turn right,’ Tommy’s mom said.

Accelerating, briefly putting distance between them and the Peterbilt, Del waited until the last possible moment to make the turn. She slid through it, entering the new street backend first, tyres screaming and smok-ing, and the car went into a spin.

With a sharp little yelp better suited to a dog one-quarter his size, Scootie shot off the backseat and tumbled onto the floor.

Tommy thought they were going to roll. It felt like a roll. He was experienced in rolling now, and knew what that penultimate angle felt like, just before the roll began, and this sure felt like it.

Under Del’s guidance, the Jaguar held the pavement tenaciously, however, and it shrieked to a shuddering halt as it came out of a complete three-hundred-sixty-degree spin.

Not a stupid dog, wanting to avoid being pitched off the seat again, Scootie waited on the floor until Del jammed her foot down on the accelerator. Only after the car rocketed forward did he scramble up beside Tommy.

Looking out the rear window, Tommy saw the Peterbilt braking aggressively on the street they had left. Even the superior driving skills of a supernatural entity -did they have highways in Hell where demons with Los-Angeles-area assignments were able to practice? -couldn’t finesse the huge truck into making such a sharp and sudden turn. Basic physics still applied. The Samaritan-thing was trying only to bring the vehicle to a stop.

With its tyres locked, the Peterbilt shot past the inter-section and disappeared into the next block.

Tommy prayed that it would jack-knife.

In the front seat, as the Jaguar accelerated to seventy, Mother Phan said, ‘Girl, you drive like crazy maniac detective in books.’

‘Thank you,’ Del said.

Mother Phan withdrew something from her purse.

Tommy couldn’t quite see what she held in her hand, but he heard a series of telltale electronic tones. ‘What’re you doing, Mom?’

‘Calling ahead.’

‘What’ve you got there?’

‘Cellular phone,’ she said blithely.

Astonished, he said, ‘You own a cellular phone?’

‘Why not?’

‘I thought cellular phones were for big shots?’

‘Not anymore. Everybody got one.’

‘Oh? I thought it was too dangerous to use a phone and drive.’

As she finished punching in the number, she explained:

‘I not driving. Riding.’

Del said, ‘For heaven’s sake, Tommy, you sound as if you live in the Middle Ages.’

He glanced out the rear window. A full block behind them, the Peterbilt reversed into sight on the street that they had left. It hadn’t jack-knifed.

Someone must have answered Mother Phan’s call, because she identified herself and spoke into the tele-phone in Vietnamese.

Less than a block and a half behind them, the Peterbilt swung through the intersection.

Tommy consulted his watch. ‘What time’s dawn?’

‘I don’t know,’ Del said. ‘Maybe half an hour, maybe forty minutes.’

‘Your morn would know to the minute, to the sec-ond.’

‘Probably,’ Del agreed.

Although Tommy couldn’t understand more than an occasional word of what his mother was saying, he had no doubt that she was furious with the person on the other end of the line. He winced at her tone and was relieved that he wasn’t on the receiving end of her anger.

Behind them, the Peterbilt was gaining. It had closed the gap to only a block.

Tommy said worriedly, ‘Del?’

‘I see it,’ she assured him, checking her side mirror and then accelerating even though they were already travelling dangerously fast for the street conditions of this residential neighbourhood.

With a final burst of invective in Vietnamese, Tommy’s mother switched off the cellular phone. ‘Stupid woman,’ she said.

‘Give it a rest,’ Del advised.

‘Not you,’ said Mother Phan. ‘You bad news, wicked, dangerous, but not stupid.’

‘Thank you,’ said Del.

‘I mean Quy. Stupid woman.’ Tommy said, ‘Who?’

‘Mrs. Quy Trang Dai.’

‘Who’s Quy Trang Dai?’

‘Stupid woman.’

‘Aside from being a stupid woman, who is she?’

‘Hairdresser.’

Tommy said, ‘I still don’t understand why we’re going to the hairdresser.’

‘You need a trim,’ Del told him.

The Jaguar engine was roaring so loudly that Mother Phan had to raise her voice to be heard. ‘She not only hairdresser. She friend. Play mah-jongg with her and other ladies every week, and sometimes bridge.’

‘We’re going for breakfast and a nice game of mah-jongg,’ Del told Tommy.

Mother Phan said, ‘Quy my age but different.’

‘Different how?’ Tommy asked.

‘Quy so old-fashioned, stuck in ways of Vietnam, can’t adjust to new world, never want anything to change.’

‘Oh, I see, yes,’ Tommy said. ‘She’s utterly different from you, Mom.’

He turned in his seat to peer anxiously out the rear window. The truck was bearing down on them, perhaps two-thirds of a block away.

‘Quy,’ said Mother Phan, ‘not from Saigon like our family, not born city person. She from sticks, nowhere village on Xan river near borders Laos and Cambodia. All jungle out there on Xan River. Some people there strange, have strange knowledge.’

‘Sort of like Pittsburgh,’ Del said.

‘What strange knowledge?’ Tommy asked.

‘Magic. But not magic like stupid Roland Ironwright pulls rabbits from hats and Mai thinks clever.’

‘Magic,’ Tommy said numbly.

‘This magic like making potion to win love of girl, making charm to succeed in business. But also worse.’

‘Worse how?’

‘Talking to dead,’ Mother Phan said ominously, ‘learn-ing secrets about land of dead, making dead walk and work as slaves.’

The Peterbilt was half a block behind them. As it approached, the roar of its engine was growing louder than that of the Jaguar.

Del pushed the Jaguar as hard as she dared, but she continued to lose ground.

Tommy’s mother said, ‘Xan River magic bring spirits from dark underworld, put curse on sorcerer’s enemies.’

‘This Xan River is definitely a part of the planet that’s under the influence of evil extraterrestrial powers,’ Del declared.

‘Quy Trang Dai know this magic,’ said Mother Phan. ‘How to make a dead man dig up out of his grave and kill who told to kill. How to use frog gonads in potion to make enemy’s heart and liver melt into mud. How to put curse on woman who sleeps with your husband, so she give birth to baby with human head, dog body, and lobster hands.’

‘And you played mah-jongg with this woman!’ Tommy demanded, outraged.

‘Sometimes bridge,’ said Mother Phan.

‘But how could you associate with this monster?’

‘Be respectful, boy. Quy your elder by many years, earn respect. She no monster. Aside from this stupid thing she do with rag doll, she nice lady.’

‘She’s trying to kill me!’

‘Not trying to kill you.’

‘She is trying to kill me.’

‘Don’t shout and be crazy like maniac drunk detec-tive.’

‘She’s trying to kill me!’

‘She only trying to scare you so you maybe be more respectful of Vietnamese ways.’

Behind them, the Samaritan-thing blew the Peterbilt’s air horn: three long blasts, gleefully announcing that it was closing in for the kill.

‘Mom, this creature murdered three innocent bystand-ers already tonight, and it sure as hell will kill me if it can.’

Tommy’s mother sighed regretfully. ‘Quy Trang Dai not always as good at magic as she think.’

‘What?’

‘Probably make rag doll with one missing ingredient, summon demon from underworld with one wrong word. Mistake.’

‘Mistake?’

‘Everybody make mistake sometime.’

Del said, ‘That’s why they make erasers.’

‘I’ll kill this Mrs. Dai, I swear,’ Tommy announced.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Mother Phan said. ‘Quy Trang Dai nice lady, you not kill nice lady.’

‘She is not a nice lady, damn it!’

Del said disapprovingly, ‘Tommy, I’ve never heard you be so judgmental.’

‘I’ll kill her,’ Tommy repeated defiantly.

Mother Phan said, ‘Quy never use magic for herself, not make herself rich with magic, work hard as hair-dresser. Only use magic once or twice a year to help others.’

‘Well I sure haven’t been helped by all this,’ Tommy said.

‘Ah,’ Del said knowingly, ‘I see.’

Tommy said, ‘What? What do you see?’

The air horn of the Peterbilt blared again.

To Tommy’s Mother, Del said, ‘Are you going to tell him?’

‘I don’t like you,’ Mother Phan reminded her.

‘You just don’t know me well enough yet.’

‘Never going to know you better.’

‘Let’s do lunch and see how it goes.’

Almost blinded by a flash of insight, Tommy blinked fiercely and said, ‘Mom, good God, did you ask this mon-ster, this nut ball Dai woman, to make that rag doll?’

‘No!’ his mother said. She turned to meet his eyes as he leaned forward from the backseat. ‘Never. You thoughtless son sometimes, won’t be doctor, won’t work in bakery, head full of stupid dreams, but in your heart you not bad boy, never bad boy.’

He was actually touched by what she had said. Over the years she had sparingly administered praise with an eyedropper; therefore, hearing her acknowledge that he was, although thoughtless, not truly an evil boy… well, this was like being fed a spoon, a cup, a bowl of motherly love.

‘Quy Trang Dai and other ladies, we play mah-jongg.

We play cards. While we play, we talk. Talk about whose son join gang, whose husband faithless. Talk about what children doing, what cute thing grandchildren say. I talk about you, how you become so far from family, from who you are, losing roots, try to be American but never can, going to end up lost.’

‘I am an American,’ Tommy said.

‘Can never be,’ she assured him, and her eyes were full of love and fear for him.

Tommy was overcome by a terrible sadness. What his mother meant was that she could never feel herself to be a complete American, that she was lost. Her homeland had been taken from her, and she had been transplanted to a world in which she could never feel entirely native and welcome, even though it was such a glorious land of great plenty and hospitality and freedom. The American dream, which Tommy strove with such passion to experience to the fullest, was achievable for her only to a limited extent. He had arrived on these shores young enough to remake himself entirely; but she would forever hold within her heart the Old World, its pleasures and beauty amplified by time and distance, and this nostalgia was a melancholy spell from which she could never fully awaken. Because she could not become American in her soul, she found it difficult -if not impossible - to believe that her children could be so transformed, and she worried that their aspirations would lead only to disappointment and bitterness.

‘I am American,’ Tommy repeatedly softly.

‘Didn’t ask stupid Quy Trang Dai to make rag doll. Was her own idea to scare you. I hear about it only one, two hours ago.’

‘I believe you,’ Tommy assured her.

‘Good boy.’

He reached one hand into the front seat.

His mother gripped his hand and squeezed it.

‘Good thing I’m not as sentimental as my mother,’ Del said. ‘I’d be bawling so hard I couldn’t see to drive.’

The interior of the Jaguar was filled with the brightness of the headlights from the Peterbilt behind it.

The air horn blared, blared again, and the Jaguar vibrated under the sonic assault.

Tommy didn’t have the courage to look back. ‘Always worry about you,’ said Mrs. Phan, raising her voice over the airliner-loud roar of the truck engine. ‘Never see problem with Mai, sweet Mai, always so quiet, always so obedient. Now we die, and terrible magician in Vegas laugh at stupid old Vietnamese mother and make strange magician babies with ruined daughter.’

‘Too bad Norman Rockwell isn’t alive,’ Del said. ‘He could make such a wonderful painting out of this.’

‘I don’t like this woman,’ Mother Phan told Tommy.

‘I know, Mom.’

‘She bad news. You sure she total stranger?’

‘Only met her tonight.’

‘You not dating her?’

‘Never dated.’

‘Turn left next corner,’ Mother Phan told Del.

‘Are you joking?’ Del said.

‘Turn left next corner. We almost to house of Quy Trang Dai.’

‘I have to slow down to make the turn, and if I slow down, Mrs. Dai’s demon is going to run right over us.’

‘Drive better,’ Mother Phan advised.

Del glared at her. ‘Listen, lady, I’m a world-class race-car driver, competed all over the world. No one drives better than I do. Except maybe my mother.’

Holding out the cellular phone, Mother Phan said, ‘Then call mother, hear what she say to do.’

Grim-faced, Del said, ‘Brace yourselves.’

Tommy let go of his mother’s hand, slid backward in his seat, and fumbled for his safety belt. It was tangled.

Scootie took refuge on the floor in front of his seat, directly behind Del.

Unable to disentangle the belt quickly enough to save himself, Tommy followed the dog’s example, huddling-squeezing into the floor space between the front and back seats on his side of the car, to avoid being catapulted into his mother’s lap when the ultimate crash came.

Del braked the Jaguar.

The roaring Peterbilt rammed them from behind, not hard, and fell back.

Again Del used the brakes. The tyres barked, and Tommy could smell burning rubber.

The Peterbilt rammed them harder than before, and sheet metal screamed, and the Jaguar shuddered as though it would fly apart like a sprung clock, and Tommy thumped his head against the back of the front seat.

The car was so awash in the glow of the truck’s headlights that Tommy could clearly see the Labrador’s face across the floor from him. Scootie was grinning.

Del braked again, swung hard to the right, but that was only a feint to lead the Peterbilt in the wrong direction, because the truck couldn’t manoeuvre as quickly as the car. Then she swung sharply to the left, as Mother Phan had instructed.

Tommy couldn’t see anything from his dog-level view, but he knew that Del hadn’t been able to get entirely out of the truck’s path, because as they made the left turn, they were struck again, clipped only at the extreme back end of the vehicle but hit with tremendous force, an impact that made Tommy’s ears ring and jarred through every bone, and the Jaguar spun. They went through one full revolution, and then another, perhaps a third, and Tommy felt as though he had been tossed into an industrial-size clothes dryer.

Tyres stuttered across the pavement, tyres exploded, rubber remnants slapped loudly against fender wells,

and steel wheel rims scraped-shrieked across the pave-ment. Pieces of the car tore free, clattered along the undercarriage, and were gone.

But the Jaguar didn’t roll over. It came out of the spin, rattling and pinging, lurching like a hobbled horse, but on all four wheels.

Tommy extracted himself from the cramped floor space between front and back seats, scrambled up, and looked out the rear window.

The dog joined him at the window, ear to ear.

As before, the Peterbilt had overshot the intersection.

‘How was that for driving,’ Del demanded.

Mother Phan said, ‘You never get insurance again.’

Beside Tommy, the Labrador whimpered.

Even Deliverance Payne was not going to be able to coax any speed out of the Jaguar in its current debilitated condition. The sports car chugged forward, loudly rattling and clanking, hissing, pinging, pitching and yawing, spouting steam, haemorrhaging fluids - like one of those rattletrap pickup trucks that comic hillbillies always drove in the movies.

Behind them, the huge Peterbilt reversed into the intersection through which they had just been flung.

‘We’ve got at least two blown tyres,’ Del said, ‘and the oil pressure is dropping fast.’

‘Not far,’ said Tommy’s mother. ‘Garage door be open, you pull in, all safe.’

‘What garage door?’ Del asked.

‘Garage door at Quy’s house.’

‘Oh, yes, the hairdresser witch.’

‘She no witch. Just come from Xan River, learn few things when she was girl.’

‘Sorry if I caused offence,’ Del said.

‘There, see, two houses ahead on right, lights on. Garage door open, you pull in, Quy Dai close door, all safe.’

The demon driver shifted gears, and the Peterbilt pulled into the street behind them. Its headlights swept across the rear window, across Tommy.

Scootie whimpered again. He licked Tommy’s face, either to reassure him or to say goodbye.

Facing front, wiping dog slobber off his cheek, Tommy said, ‘How can I be safe? It’s not dawn yet. The thing will see where we’ve gone.’

‘Can’t follow there,’ his mother said.

‘I’m telling you, it’ll drive straight through the house,’ he predicted.

‘No. Quy is one who made doll, called spirit from underworld, so it not allowed hurt her. Can’t enter house if Quy Trang Dai herself don’t make invitation.’

‘With all due respect, Mom, I don’t think we can count on demons being quite that polite.’

‘No, your mother’s probably right,’ Del said. ‘The supernatural world operates on its own laws, rather like we operate under the laws of physics.’

As the inside of the car grew bright again from the headlights behind, Tommy said, ‘If the damn thing drives the damn truck into the damn house and kills me, who do I complain to - Albert Einstein or the pope?’

Del turned right into the driveway, and the car creaked-clanked-clanged, wobbled-rolled-rocked-heaved into the open, lighted garage. When she braked to a stop, the engine coughed and stalled. The rear axle snapped, and the back of the Jaguar crashed to the garage floor.

Behind them the big door rolled down.

Tommy’s mother climbed out of the car.

When he followed her, he heard the shrill air brakes of the Peterbilt. Judging by the sound, the truck had pulled to the curb and stopped in front of the house.

A slender birdlike Vietnamese woman, about the size of a twelve-year-old girl, with a face as sweet as butterscotch pudding, stood at the interior door between the garage and the house. She was wearing a pink jogging suit and athletic shoes.

Mother Phan spoke to this woman briefly in Vietna-mese, and then introduced her as Quy Trang Dai.

Mrs. Dai appeared crestfallen when she faced Tommy. ‘So sorry about mistake. Terrible dumb mistake. Feel like stupid, worthless, ignorant old fool, want to throw myself in pit of river vipers, but have no pit here and no vipers either.’ Her dark eyes welled with tears. ‘Want to throw myself in pit so bad.’

‘Well,’ Del said to Tommy, ‘are you going to kill her?’

‘Maybe not.’

‘Wimp.’

Outside, the Peterbilt was still idling.

Blinking back her tears, her expression toughening, Mrs. Dai turned to Del, looked her up and down, and said suspiciously, ‘Who you?’

‘A total stranger.’

Mrs. Dai raised an eyebrow quizzically at Tommy. ‘Is true?’

‘True,’ Tommy said.

‘Not dating?’ asked Quy Trang Dai.

‘All I know about him is his name,’ Del said. ‘And she doesn’t get that right half the time,’ Tommy assured Mrs. Dai. He glanced at the big garage door, certain that the truck engine outside would suddenly rev... ‘Listen, are we really safe here?’

‘Safe here. Safer in house but…‘ Mrs. Dai squinted at Del, as though reluctant to grant admittance to this obvious corrupter of Vietnamese male youth.

To Tommy, Del said, ‘I think I could find some vipers if you’d be willing to dig a pit.’

Mother Phan spoke to Quy Trang Dai in Vietnamese. The hairdresser witch lowered her eyes guiltily and nodded and finally sighed. ‘Okay. You come inside. But I keep clean house. Is dog broke?’

‘He wasn’t broken, but I had him fixed,’ Del said. She winked at Tommy. ‘Couldn’t resist.’

Mrs. Dai led them into the house, through the laundry room, kitchen, and dining room.

Tommy noticed that the heels of her running shoes contained those light-emitting diodes that blinked in sequence from right to left, ostensibly a safety feature for the athletically-minded who took their exercise at night, though the effect was footgear with a Vegas flair.

In the living room, Mrs Dai said, ‘We wait here for dawn. Evil spirit have to go at sunrise, all be fine.’

The living room reflected the history of Vietnam as occupied territory: a mix of simple Chinese and French furniture with two pieces of contemporary American upholstery. On the wall over the sofa was a painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In a corner stood a Buddhist shrine; fresh fruit was arranged on the bright red altar, and sticks of incense, one lit, bristled from ceramic holders.

Mrs. Dai sat in an oversize, black chinoiserie chair with a padded seat upholstered in gold-and-white brocade. The chair was so large that the diminutive pink-clad woman appeared even more childlike than ever; her twinkling shoes didn’t quite reach the floor.

Taking off her plastic rain scarf but not her coat, Mother Phan settled into a bergкre-style chair and sat with her purse on her lap.

Tommy and Del perched on the edge of the sofa, and Scootie sat on the floor in front of them, looking curiously from Mother Phan to Mrs. Dai to Mother Phan again.

Outside, the Peterbilt engine still idled.

Tommy could see part of the truck, all of its running lights aglow, through one of the windows that flanked the front door, but he couldn’t see the driver’s cab or the Samaritan-thing.

Consulting her wristwatch, Mrs. Dai said, ‘Twenty-two minutes till dawn, then no one have to worry, everyone happy’ - with a wary glance at Mother Phan - ‘no one angry with friends anymore. Anyone like tea?’

Everyone politely declined tea.

‘No trouble to make,’ said Mrs. Dai.

Again, everyone politely declined.

After a brief silence, Del said, ‘So you were born and raised along the Xan River.’

Mrs. Dai brightened. ‘Oh, is such beautiful land. You been there?’

‘No,’ Del said, ‘though I’ve always wanted to go.’

‘Beautiful, beautiful,’ Mrs. Dai rhapsodised, clapping her small hands together. ‘Jungle so green and dark, air heavy as steam and full of smell of growing things, can hardly breathe for stink of growing things, so many flowers and snakes, all red-gold mist in morning, purple mist at twilight, leeches thick and long as hot dogs.’

Tommy muttered, ‘Lovely, lovely, with all the resur-rected dead men slaving in the rice paddies.’

‘Excuse please?’ said Mrs. Dai.

Glowering at Tommy, his mother said, ‘Be respect-ful.’

When Tommy declined to repeat himself, Del said, ‘Mrs. Dai, when you were a girl, did you ever notice anything strange in the skies over the Xan River?’

‘Strange?’

‘Strange objects.’

‘In skies?’

‘Disc-shaped craft, perhaps.’

Perplexed, Mrs. Dai said, ‘Dishes in sky?’

Tommy thought he heard something outside. It might have been a truck door closing.

Changing tack slightly, Del said, ‘In the village where you were raised, Mrs. Dai, were there any legends of short humanoid creatures living in the jungle?’

‘Short what?’ asked Mrs. Dai.

‘About four feet tall, grey skin, bulbous heads, enor-mous eyes, really mesmerizing eyes.’

Quy Trang Dai looked at Mother Phan for help. ‘She crazy person,’ Mother Phan explained. ‘Eerie lights in the night,’ Del said, ‘pulsating lights with an irresistible attraction? Anything like that along the banks of the Xan?’

‘Very dark in jungle at night. Very dark in village at night. No electricity.’

‘In your childhood,’ Del probed, ‘do you remember any periods of missing time, unexplained blackouts, fugue states?’

Nonplussed, Mrs. Dai could only say, ‘Everyone sure not like nice hot cup of tea?’

No doubt talking to herself but appearing to address Scootie, Del said, ‘Sure as hell, this Xan River is a primary focus of evil extraterrestrial influence.’

Heavy footsteps thudded across the front porch. Tommy tensed, waited, and when a knock came at the door, he stood bolt upright from the sofa.

‘Don’t answer door,’ Mrs. Dai advised. ‘Yeah,’ Del said, ‘it might be that damn aggressive Amway saleswoman.’

Scootie crept warily to the front door. He sniffed along the threshold, caught a scent he didn’t like, whimpered, and hurried back to Del’s side.

The knocking sounded again, louder and more insist-ent than before.

Raising her voice, Mrs. Dai said, ‘You can’t come in.’ Immediately, the demon pounded again, so hard that the door shook and the lock bolt rattled against the striker plate.

‘Go away,’ said Mrs. Dai. To Tommy, she said, ‘Only eighteen minutes, then everyone happy.’

Mother Phan said, ‘Sit down, Tuong. You just making everyone nervous.’

Tommy couldn’t take his eyes off the front door -until movement at one of the flanking windows drew his attention. The serpent-eyed fat man peered in at them.

‘We don’t even have a gun,’ Tommy worried. ‘Don’t need gun,’ Mother Phan said. ‘Got Quy Trang Dai. Sit down and be patient.’

The Samaritan-thing walked to the window on the other side of the front door and peered hungrily at Tommy through that pane. It rapped one knuckle against the glass.

To Del, Tommy repeated, ‘We don’t have a gun.’

‘We’ve got Mrs. Dai,’ Del said. ‘You can always pick her up by the ankles and use her as a club.’

Quy Trang Dai wagged one finger at the Samaritan-thing and said, ‘I made you, and I tell you go away, so now you go.’

The demon turned from the window. Its footsteps thudded across the porch and down the front steps.

‘There,’ said Mother Phan, ‘now sit down, Tuong, and behave.’

Trembling, Tommy sat on the sofa. ‘It really went away?’

‘No,’ said Mrs. Dai. ‘It going all around house now to see did I forget and leave door or window open.’

Tommy bolted up again. ‘Is there a chance you did?’

‘No. I not fool.’

‘You already made one big mistake,’ Tommy reminded her.

‘Tuong!’ Mother Phan gasped, appalled by his rude-ness.

‘Well,’ Tommy said, ‘she did. She made one hell of a mistake, so why not another?’

Pouting, Mrs. Dai said, ‘One mistake, I have to apolo-gize rest of my life?’

Feeling as if his skull might explode from the pressure of his anxiety, Tommy put his hands to his head. ‘This is nuts. This can’t be happening.’

‘It happening,’ Mrs. Dai said.

‘It’s got to be a nightmare.’

To the other women, Del said, ‘He’s just not prepared for this. He doesn’t watch The X Files.’

‘You not watch X Files?’ Mrs. Dai asked, astonished.

Shaking her head with dismay, Mother Phan said, ‘Probably watch junk detective show instead of good educational program.’

From elsewhere in the house came the sounds of the Samaritan-thing rapping on windows and testing doorknobs.

Scootie cuddled against Del, and she petted and soothed him.

Mrs. Dai said, ‘Some rain we have, huh?’

‘So early in season too,’ said Mother Phan.

‘Remind me of jungle rain, so heavy.’

‘We need rain after drought last year.’

‘Sure no drought this year.’

Del said, ‘Mrs. Dai, in your village in Vietnam, did farmers ever find crop circles, inexplicable depressed pat-terns in their fields? Or large circular depressions where something might have landed in the rice paddies?’

Leaning forward in her chair, Mother Phan said to Mrs. Dai, ‘Tuong not want to believe demon rapping window in front of his face, want to think it just bad dream, but then he believe Big Foot real.’

‘Big Foot?’ Mrs. Dai said, and pressed one hand to her lips to stifle a giggle.

The Samaritan-thing stomped up the steps onto the front porch once more. It appeared at the window to the left of the door, eyes fierce and radiant.

Mrs. Dai consulted her wristwatch. ‘Looking good.’

Tommy stood rigid, quivering.

To Mother Phan, Mrs. Dai said, ‘So sorry about Mai.’

‘Break mother’s heart,’ said Tommy’s mother.

‘She live to regret,’ said Mrs. Dai.

‘I try so hard to teach her right.’

‘She weak, magician clever.’

‘Tuong make bad example for sister,’ said Mother Phan.

‘My heart ache for you,’ Mrs. Dai said.

Virtually vibrating with tension, Tommy said, ‘Can we talk about this later, if there is a later?’

From the beast at the window came the piercing, ululant shriek that seemed more like an electronic than an animal voice.

Getting up from her chinoiserie chair, Mrs. Dai turned to the window, put her hands on her hips, and said, ‘Stop that, you bad thing. You wake neighbours.’

The creature fell silent, but it glared at Mrs. Dai almost as hatefully as it had glared at Tommy.

Abruptly the fat-man’s moon-round face split up the middle from chin to hairline, as it had done when the creature had clambered over the bow railing of the yacht on Newport Harbour. The halves of its countenance peeled apart, green eyes now bulging on the sides of its skull, and out of the gash in the centre of its face lashed a score of whip-thin, segmented black tendrils that writhed around a sucking hole crammed with gnashing teeth. As the beast pressed its face to the window, the tendrils slithered frenziedly across the glass.

‘You not scare me,’ Mrs. Dai said disdainfully. ‘Zip up face and go away.’

The writhing tendrils withdrew into the skull, and the torn visage re-knit into the face of the fat man - although with the green eyes of the demon.

‘You see,’ Mother Phan told Tommy, still sitting com-placently with her purse in her lap and her hands on the purse. ‘Don’t need gun when have Quy Trang Dai.’

‘Impressive,’ Del agreed.

At the window, its frustration palpable, the Samaritan-thing issued a pleading, needful mewl.

Mrs. Dai took three steps toward the window, lights flashing across the heels of her shoes, and waved at the beast with the backs of her hands. ‘Shoo,’ she said impatiently. ‘Shoo, shoo.’

This was more than the Samaritan-thing could tolerate, and it smashed one fat fist through the window.

As shattered glass cascaded into the living room, Mrs. Dai backed up three steps, bumping against the chinoiserie chair, and said, ‘This not good.’

‘This not good?’ Tommy half shouted. ‘What do you mean this not good?’

Rising from the sofa, Del said, ‘I think she means we turned down the last cup of tea we’re ever going to have a chance to drink.’

Mother Phan got up from the bergкre. She spoke to Quy Trang Dai in rapid Vietnamese.

Keeping her eyes on the demon at the broken window, Mrs. Dai answered in Vietnamese.

Looking distressed at last, Mother Phan said, ‘Oh, boy.’

The tone in which his mother spoke those two words affected Tommy in the same way as an icy finger drawn down his spine would have affected him.

At the window, the Samaritan-thing at first seemed shocked by its own boldness. This was, after all, the sacred domain of the hairdresser witch who had sum-moned it from Hell - or from wherever Xan River magi-cians summoned such creatures. It peered in amazement at the few jagged fragments of glass that still prickled from the window frame, no doubt wondering why it had not instantly been cast back to the sulfurous chambers of the underworld.

Mrs. Dai checked her wristwatch.

Tommy consulted his as well.

Ticktock.

Half snarling, half whining nervously, the Samaritan-thing climbed through the broken window into the living room.

‘Better stand together,’ said Mrs. Dai.

Tommy, Del, and Scootie moved out from behind the coffee table, joining his mother and Mrs. Dai in a tight grouping.

The serpent-eyed fat man no longer wore the hooded raincoat. The fire from the yacht should have burned away all attire, but curiously the flames had only singed its clothes, as though its imperviousness to fire extended somewhat to the garments it wore. The black wingtip shoes were badly scuffed and caked with mud. The filthy and rumpled trousers, the equally dishevelled and bullet-torn shirt and vest and suit jacket, the acrid smell of smoke that seeped from the creature, combined with its gardenia-white skin and inhuman eyes, gave it all the charm of a walking corpse.

For half a minute or more, the demon stood in inde-cision and evident uneasiness, perhaps waiting to be punished for violating the sanctity of Mrs. Dai’s house.

Ticktock.

Then it shook itself. Its plump hands curled into fists, relaxed, curled into fists. It licked its lips with a fat pink tongue - and it shrieked at them.

The deadline is dawn.

Beyond the windows the sky was still dark - though perhaps more charcoal grey than black.

Ticktock.

Mrs. Dai startled Tommy by raising her left hand to her mouth and savagely biting the meatiest part of her palm, below her thumb, drawing blood. She smacked her bloody hand against his forehead, in the manner of a faith healer knocking illness out of a penitent sufferer.

When Tommy started to wipe the blood away, Mrs. Dai said, ‘No, leave. I safe from demon because I summon into rag doll. Can’t harm me. If you smell like me, smell like my blood, it can’t know who you really are, think you me, then not harm you either.’

As the Samaritan-thing approached, Mrs. Dai smeared her blood on Del’s forehead, on Mother Phan’s fore-head, and after hesitating only briefly, on Scootie’s head as well.

‘Be still,’ she instructed them in an urgent whisper. ‘Be still, be quiet.’

Grumbling, hissing, the creature approached to within a foot of the group. Its fetid breath was repulsive, reeking of dead burnt flesh and curdled milk and rancid onions - as though, in another life, it had eaten hundreds of cheeseburgers and had been plagued with indigestion even in Hell.

With a wet crackling sound, the plump white hands metamorphosed into serrated pincers that were designed for efficient slashing and rending.

When the radiant green eyes fixed on Tommy’s eyes, they seemed to look through him, as if the beast were reading his identity on the bar code of his soul.

Tommy remained still. Silent.

The demon sniffed him, not as a snorting pig might revel in the delicious stink of its slops, but as a master viniculturist with an exquisitely sensitive nose might seek to isolate and identify each of the many delicate aromas rising from a glassful of fine Bordeaux.

Hissing, the beast turned to sniff Del, lingering less than it had with Tommy.

Then Mrs. Dai.

Then Mother Phan.

When the creature bent down to sniff Scootie, the Labrador returned the comptiment.

Apparently puzzled by finding the scent of the sor-ceress on all of them, the demon circled the group,

grumbling, mumbling to itself in some strange lan-guage.

As one, without having to discuss it, Tommy and the three women and the dog shuffled in a circle to keep their blood-smeared faces toward the Samaritan-thing as it prowled for prey.

When they had shuffled all the way around, three hundred and sixty degrees, and were back where they had started, the creature focused on Tommy once more. It leaned closer, until their faces were only three inches apart, and it sniffed. Sniffed. Sniffed. With a disgusting squishy sound, the fat man’s nose broadened and dark-ened into a scaly reptilian snout with wide, pug nostrils. It breathed in slowly and deeply, held its breath, exhaled, breathed in even slower and deeper than before.

The serpent-eyed thing opened its mouth and shrieked at Tommy, but though his heart raced faster, Tommy neither flinched nor cried out.

At last the demon exhaled its pent-up inhalation, bathing Tommy’s face in a gale of foul breath that made him want to spew up the coffee and pastries that he had eaten during the stop at The Great Pile.

The beast shuffled to the bergere, where Tommy’s mother had been sitting, and knocked her purse to the floor. It settled down and folded its killing pincers in its lap - and after a moment they metamorphosed into the fat man’s hands once more.

Tommy was afraid that his mother would leave the group, pick up her purse, and smack the demon over the head with it. But with uncharacteristic timidity, she remained as still and quiet as Mrs. Dai had instructed.

The hulking Samaritan-thing smacked its lips. It sighed wearily.

The radiant green eyes changed into the ordinary brown eyes of the murdered Samaritan.

The demon looked at its wristwatch.

Ticktock.

Yawning, it blinked at the group standing before it.

The beast bent forward in the bergкre, seized its right foot with both hands, and brought the foot to its face in a display of impossible double-jointedness. Its mouth cracked open from ear to ear, like the mouth of a crocodile, and it began to stuff its foot and then its heavy leg into its maw.

Tommy glanced at the windows.

Pale pink light spread like a dim blush on the face of the eastern sky.

As if it were not a solid creature, but an elaborate origami sculpture, the demon continued to fold itself into itself, growing smaller and smaller still - until, with a shimmer that hid the how of the final transformation, it became only a rag doll once more, exactly as it had been when he had found it on his doorstep, a limp-limbed figure of white cotton, with all the black stitches intact.

Pointing at the pink sky beyond the windows, Mrs. Dai said, ‘Going to be nice day.’