Road Kills
by
Michael Newton


BREAKOUT!

Flynn's team double-timed for the barn.  From the fled sound of
gunfire.  The wooden door of the garage bowed outward toward them,
straining in its frame.  A heartbeat later, it exploded, slats and
jagged splinters airborne as a classic Coupe de Ville burst through the
opening and made a straight run at the center of the line.

The khaki line broke stride.  A dozen guns went off at once, some
shotguns, semiautomatics, Magnums-rapid fire.  The Cadillac was taking
hits at fifty feet.  It kept coming.  The skirmish line disintegrated.
Tanner dodged to save himself.  . . .

 Also by Michael Newton

BLOOD SPORT

SLAY RIDE

THE NECRO FILE

. HEAD GAMES

Michael Newton t

A DELL BOOK

. VI CAP #5

Published by Dell Publishing a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell
Publishing Group, Inc.  666 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10103 NOTE:
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that
this book is stolen property.  It was reported as "unsold and
destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher
has received any payment for this "stripped book".

Copyright @ 1991 by Michael Newton All rights reserved.  No part of
this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without the written
permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

The trademark Dell@ is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office.

ISBN: 0-440-20878-5

Printed in the United States of America Published simultaneously in
Canada August 1991 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

OPM

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its
own way."

-Leo Tolstoy
 PROLOGUE

The old man starts it off like always, smiling at the bitch as if he's
known her all his life.  Old friends and all, the bitch not paying real
attention since he's old enough to be her daddy, looking more at Coley
when she looks at all.

It makes him nervous when they look, that way.

Not scared of getting caught, hell no-the laws aren't smart enough for
that.  A different kind of nervous, like her eyes could almost touch
him, look inside and see exactly what he's thinking.

What he wants to do.

The way she dresses, showing damn near everything, he doesn't think
she'd.  mind that much.  A little poke, and what the hell?  A bitch can
fake it any time she wants to.  This one wouldn't even have to put her
movie magazine away, just bend across the counter like, and drop those
skintight Calvins down around her ankles for a little while.  Push back
a little, if she got the urge.

His jeans are cramping, and he turns away, pretending interest in a
rack of magazines.  He picks up Easy Rider, paging through and hoping
for some snaps of biker women with their tops off, playing with
themselves the way they do whenever anybody sticks a camera in their
faces.

Coming up behind him on his right, the old man carrying a Miller
twelve-pack and a jumbo bag of pork rinds, acting like he doesn't have
a worry in the world.

"You ready, boy?"

"Yes, sir."

It crosses Coley's mind to give some smart-ass answer, like I wouldn't
be here if I wasn't ready, but the old man might get mad and go upside
his head.

Might crack him with the twelve-pack, if it really pissed him off.

one thing the old man hates, aside from laws and doing time, is any
kind of sass or back talk from a child.

It doesn't seem to make a bit of difference, Coley's sixteenth birthday
coming up next week.

The old man takes him out on jobs like this, all right, but it is
always more like schooling than participating.  Never getting in on any
of the good stuff, damn it.  Sometimes, Coley gets the feeling he is
used for cover, more than anything.  Like stupid bitches wouldn't give
a second glance to some old man who walked in with a teenage kid,
regardless of the time.

Like now, the little hand on twelve and big hand on the six.
Twelve-thirty.  Sitting in the dark, outside, for twenty minutes, while
the last two customers went up and down the narrow aisles like they
were lost or something, finally splurging on a single candy bar between
them, laughing like a pair of fucking morons when they left.

A momentary lull is all they need, with Jubal waiting in the dark to
cover them in case of a surprise.  So far, so good.  You have to give
the old man credit, when it comes to picking out an easy touch.

He trails the old man to the er, standing just behind him, to his left.
The = and twelve pack there in front of him, and Little Missy fakes a
smile.

"Will that be all?"

"Not quite."

The old man lets her see his pistol, covered by the beer and sack of
skins in case there's anybody glancing toward the lighted windows from
across the road.  No trouble here.

"Oh, God."

It's all the bitch can think of, going pale and trembly.  Just the way
the old man likes them, with a little quiver to her lips.

"First thing you wanna do is empty out that register, right quick."

She has to jab the button twice to get the cash drawer open, nervous as
she is, but they have time.

It looks like all the money in the world to Coley, tens and twenties
going in a paper bag with all those fives and singles, but he doesn't
get his hopes up.  Sharing in the take is not for children, who should
just be thankful they have food to eat.

"I don't suppose you know the combination on that safe?"

No, sir."

"Well, never mind.  You just come on around that counter, now.  We're
going for a little ride."

"Please, don't."

"I said get out here, bitch!"

She tries to rabbit, making for the storeroom with its swinging door
and yelling something Coley can't make out.  The old man right behind
her, moving quicker than a casual observer might expect You'll never
see him hop around like Richard Simmons, doing calisthenics, but the
old man keeps himself in shape.

He grabs her at the swinging door and taps her with the pistol, just
enough to clear her head and make her understand the way things are.
She has it in her mind to scream or struggle, but there's something in
the old man's eyes that makes them reconsiders every time.

The old man doesn't have to use much muscle, keeping one hand on her
slender arm and herding her in the direction of the exit.  Buttons
missing on her low-cut blouse and showing off the white lace of her
bra.  She looks at Coley, going past, but this time there is nothing
like an invitation in her eyes.

He falls in step behind them, warm night waiting on the sidewalk.
Feeling tense and tingly, shifting denim to accommodate his hard-on
when the old man turns around and pins him with the evil eye.

"Get back in there and fetch our things."

Like talking to a god damned retard.  Coley feeling stupid as he
doubles back to grab the skins and twelve-pack, forced to ride in front
with Jubal while the old man holds the bitch in back.

"You know the place."

"Yes, sir."  A grin on Jubal's face like he can hardly wait.

"I surely do."

The foothills this time, north of town.  An easy quarter hour's drive
with no one chasing them, no need to hurry.  In the back, the old man
crooning nonsense, while the bitch just whimpers.  Coley turns around
one time, before they leave the highway, and the old man has her blouse
unbuttoned, playing with her titties while' she sits and whimpers like
a frightened animal.

The good stuff.

Coley wonders if he ought to press his luck, this time, and ask if he
can have himself a piece.  An early birthday present, maybe, since the
most that he can hope for, otherwise, is fucking socks or jockey
shorts.  The old man may be pissed off as it is, him walking off
without the beer that way, but if he doesn't ask .  . .

"We're getting there," says Jubal, pulling down the rearview mirror so
that he can watch the action in the back.

"No hurry, son.  We barely introduced ourselves, back here."

"You got a sweet one, this time, no mistake."

"She'll do."  The old man playing cool and talking with his mouth full,
slapping at the bitch when she begins to cry out loud.

In front of them, the road becomes a narrow, rutted track, more weeds
than open ground, but Jijbal knows the way.  He will have found a
perfect spot to party with the bitch before they ever made a move.

Insurance, thinking out the game ahead of time that way.

Another hundred yards or so, before he kills the lights.  Up here,
above the city, you can see the stars without a lot of neon fucking up
your eyes.  Below them, spreading out as far as he can see, the L.A.
basin glimmers with an artificial radiance.  A hundred million lights,
like glowing coals of fire.

Behind him, talking to the bitch: "What say we stretch our legs a
little, darling'?  That all right with you?"

And Little Missy coming back: "Don't hurt me, please."

The old man laughing at her joke, and Jubal joining in.

"What makes you think we wanna hurt you?

We're just gonna have a little party's all."

A kicking, dragging sound, before he dumps her on the ground outside
the car.  She fakes him out, a blur of motion, running, but the old man
doesn't mind.  It's all a game, and she has nowhere in the world to
hide.

"Yours, Jubal."

Coley standing on the scrubby grass and watching Jubal run her down. It
doesn't take him long, the bitch built more for wiggling her ass across
a dance floor than for running like her life depends upon it.

Which it does.

She tries to scuffle, kicking Jubal twice before he smacks her with an
open hand and takes her down.

Returning to the car, he drags her by the hair, a cave man bringing
home his prize.

"Let's see what I been sweatin' for."

The blouse and flimsy bra in tatters, cast aside.

There is a railroad spike in Coley's jeans as Jubal tugs the Calvins
down her legs, like skinning out a rabbit.  This one still alive and
wriggling.

Her panties small enough to pass for nothing, gone before you know it
with a sweep of Jubal's hand.  He lifts her by the armpits, spinning
her around and shoving her against the car, bent forward with her face
and rosebud breasts against the hood.

"Your worst mistake tonight was turning tail on me," he tells her,
pressing one hand flat between her shoulder blades and wrestling with
his fly.

The old man steps in front of Coley, cutting off his view, a bland
expression on his homely face.

"You're growin' up," he says.

"I've had it in my mind that you should find out what it means to be a
man.  11 "Yes, Sir."

A squealing piggy sound behind the old man, Coley wanting desperately
to see, afraid to break his father's train of thought.

"First lesson, how to wait your turn."

"Yes, sir.  " The old man smiles.

"Go on and fetch us out a couple cold ones, will you, boy?"

"You want to tell me what you're thinking?"

Driving north along the San Diego Freeway, looking for his cutoff,
Joseph Flynn considered it and shook his head.

"Not yet."

His partner shifted in the shotgun seat and worked his hand into a
pocket, rattling loose change.

"I've got a penny, here."

"You wouldn't get your money's worth."

"Let's say I'm psychic, then.  You figure this is number four, before
we even take a look."

Flynn shrugged.

"They didn't call us out because it looks so different from the
rest."

"Let's wait and see," said Martin Tanner.

"People getting shot around the basin every day.  You should relax
more."

"You've been taping Donahue, again."

"It's Oprah, Joe.  You ought to keep up with the times.  Phil's in the
toilet, ratings-wise."

"I must've missed the memo."

"There you go."

Flynn took the Sunset off-ramp, circling around to travel
south-southwest along the winding boulevard, toward Santa Monica.  A
sheriff's black and-white was waiting on the shoulder, where a two-lane
access road branched off and disappeared into the rising foothills on
their right.

Flynn pulled in close enough to kiss the cruiser's ass and waited for a
khaki unit's man to make the short walk back.

"You guys the FBI?"

"Must be."

"Okay, just follow, me."

There wasn't any hurry with the dead, but Flynn felt anxious, all the
same.  Instead of leaning on his horn to give the deputy a jolt, he
settled back and concentrated on the scenery.

Ten minutes out of downtown Hollywood, and they were in the sticks,
Topanga State Park somewhere on their left, with rolling hills and
rugged canyons climbing toward the Santa Monica Mountains, just ahead.
Coyotes and raccoons prowled here, within sight of Los Angeles, and
half a dozen careless hikers suffered snake bites every spring.

Sometimes, it gave Flynn hope that nature could resist the city's
sprawl; at other times-like this-it simply made his job more
difficult.

Another black-and-white came into view, together with an ambulance and
the Forensics van, a pair of unmarked cars.  Flynn noted one of them
had city plates.

"LAPD," his partner said.

"I saw."

"The sheriff's people asked them in, it must be something."

"Yeah."

"I had my fingers crossed."

"The only thing you get from that's arthritis."

It was warm outside the air-conditioned car, an earthy smell that Flynn
associated with the mountains, still a quarter mile away.

And something else.

The lab men and a pair of ambulance attendants stood together near the
van, to take advantage of its shade.  As one, they studied Flynn and
Tanner with expressions ranging from contempt to curiosity.  These
federal suits were keeping them from finishing their job.

Approaching now, a face Flynn recognized.  Brad Crauter was assigned to
LAPD Homicide, and he had come up through the ranks to earn
lieutenant's bars the good old-fashioned way, by making heavy cases
stick in court.  Flynn knew his style from problems where their
interests overlapped, and Crauter had become a trusted contact on the
city force.

His sidekick was a solid six-foot-two, square shoulders, with a head to
match.  His sandy hair was clipped in something like the flat-top style
of H. R. Haldeman; his jaw and profile could have been a chainsaw
sculpture, sanded smooth.

"Ed Burroughs," Crauter told them, working through the introductions.

"He's a loot with sheriff's Homicide."

"Your territory, then," said Tanner, letting go of the lieutenant's
hand.

"I'm glad to share.  The last thing any of us want right now's anotiier
fucking psycho on the street."

"Is that the sheriff talking?"  Tanner asked.

"It will be, if you score a match."

Flynn glanced at Crauter.

"You were thinking Echo Park."

"It crossed my mind."

"Let's have a look."

Lieutenant Burroughs briefed them as they walked a final fifty yards.

"The victim is Rebecca Short, eighteen.  She worked at a convenience
store on Ocean Avenue, in Santa Monica.  The graveyard shift."

"You got that right," said Tanner.

"One o'clock on Wednesday morning, guy comes in to get some ice cream
for his wife.  She's knocked up, got the craving, I don't know. There's
no one at the counter, and he sees the cash drawer standing open. 
Gives a shout back in the storeroom, nothing.  We got lucky, and he
dropped a dime instead of ripping off the joint."

"Two days," said Flynn.

"Who found her?

"Coupla din ks on dirt bikes, cutting school.  The way kids are today,
I'm half surprised they didn't call their friends, start selling
tickets."

"You've been living right."

"I guess."

Their first sight of the body was a glimpse among some weeds, a bare
leg poking out.  Two days of late-September sun had done their work,
and they could smell Rebecca Short before they saw her.

She would not be much to look at, Joseph knew, but it was not as if
they had a choice.

The girl lay twisted at the waist, an awkward angle, one arm stretched
above her head, the other back and trailing on the ground behind her.
Flynn was momentarily reminded of a swimmer, digging in for speed, but
this one was not going anywhere.

Rebecca's executioner had stripped her clothing off before he killed
her, that much evident from rusty patterns on her flesh, where blood
had flowed from bullet wounds without the smearing and absorption
typical of fabric.  It would take Forensics to be sure, but Joseph
thought that one round, in the upper chest, had knocked her sprawling.
Number two had been the coup de grace, a point-blank round that
scorched her cheek below one glassy eye.  The flies and ants were
busily at work, and other predators had left their marks behind, in
ragged wounds that did not bleed.

"Shell casings?"

"Three, all forty-fives.  We don't know if the bastard missed her once,
or if there's something underneath we haven't seen."

"There should be clothing."

"Over there," said Burroughs, pointing to a spot some thirty yards
away, on Joseph's left, where he had left a deputy on watch.

"We've got it all, unless she had some jewelry we don't know about."

"Who made the field ID?"  asked Flynn.

"We're working off her driver's license, from the store.  She left her
purse.  The ME's got her parents standing by."

"No decent tracks, I guess, on ground like this."

"You kidding me?"

"Too much to hope for."

"Kids come up here all the time," said Burroughs.

"Adults too, I wouldn't be surprised.  They bring some weed, whatever,
fuck around, and watch the city lights.  Two days, I wouldn't trust
tracks, even if we had them."

"No one up the night she died, I take it?"

"No reports, at least.  The folks that come up here to screw, they hear
a couple shots, some of them head for home, the rest just shine it on.
Nobody calls the man."

"The ME knows we're looking for a match on Tran and Kaylor?"

"He's on top of it."

"No reason we should keep the family waiting, then."

Flynn offered no advice about the victim's clothes, her fingernails, or
any of a hundred other things Forensics and the medical examiner should
cover as they ran their tests.  It would have been insulting, and he
trusted all concerned to do their jobs.

They walked back to the cars, Lieutenant Burroughs signaling the lab
crew it was their turn with the body of Rebecca Short.  It struck Flynn
that the girl would be embarrassed, if she were alive.

Or, maybe not.

"So, how's it look to you?"  Brad Crauter asked.

"We'll need ballistics on the forty-five," said Tanner, "but I wouldn't
bet against a match, right now."

"That's what I thought.  The media gets hold of this, we'll have to
talk about a task force.

"Let's see what we pick up from Ballistics, first,"

said Flynn.

"I take it she was raped?"

The sheriff's homicide investigator shrugged.

"We didn't try and check," he said, "but I don't know of anybody brings
a babe like that up here to strip her down and shoot her in the face,
without a little action on the side."

"Or after," Crauter said.

"Not this time," Tanner said.

"Position on the body's wrong for any kind of major contact after
death.  You may find semen on the body, though, if one of them gets off
on pulling triggers."

"One of them?"  A frown was creasing Burroughs's face.

"I should have mentioned that," said Crauter, sounding vaguely
penitent.

"I'm listening."

"The first two homicides," said Tanner, we've confirmed dual
perpetrators from the acid phosphatase results.  They're both
secretors, incidentally.  Type O's an anal kind of guy; he likes to
rough it off.  Type A's a little more conservative: one vaginal, one
oral on the jobs, so far."

"Sick fuckers."

"If you're waiting for an argument, don't hold your breath."

"What else?"

"Right now," said Flynn, 'we've got their blood types and the
forty-five to play with, plus a maybe witness in L.A. who puts a couple
John Does in the area of Echo Park."

The sheriff's homicide investigator glared at Crauter.

"No one told me anything about a witness.

Crauter shrugged.  t's maybe, like he said.  We can't be sure about the
time, and the descriptions could match half the white men in the
state."

"I'll want them, anyway."

"No problem."

Flynn was well acquainted with the sometimes bitter rivalry between the
counay sheriff's office and LAPD.  Antagonism dated from the 1940s,
when Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz offered mobster Mickey Cohen a secure
haven from greedy vice cops and ambitious city prosecutors.  In more
recent times, the men in blue and khaki have been known to slug it out
when hot pursuit of fugitives crossed boundary lines.  Ever sensitive
to local concerns, the FBI's Los Angeles field office maintains two
distinct and separate bank robbery squad sone to investigate holdups in
county-administered areas, the other to cope with heists on city
turf.

It all boiled down to petty bullshit, but it made Flynn's job more
difficult by half, and he was hoping they could can the song and dance
before a killer's trail got any colder than it was already.

"We've got copies of the file," he said to Burroughs.

"I can have it on your desk this afternoon.

Plus Santa Barbara, if you want."

"I'll take whatever I can get."

"I said I'd send it over."  Crauter sounded peevish, getting edged out
of the game.

"We'll still kick in with Santa Barbara," Tanner said.

"How's that?"

"Hey, thanks."  The sheriff's officer was working on a smile.

"No sweat."  Flynn heard his partner's voice turn cold, saw Tanner's
dark eyes shifting toward the lab men and a crumpled body in the
weeds.

"The only guys I want one up on are the sorry fucks responsible for
that."

A slow ride down the canyon, Tanner frowning at the countryside and
telling Flynn,

"They didn't leave us much."

"We may get lucky, at the lab."

"You really think so?"

Flynn considered it and shook his head.

"Not really."

"No, I didn't think so, either.  Where's the guy with all the answers
when you need him, Joe?"

"You didn't hear?"

"Hear what?"

"He took an early out and started writing cop shows for the tube."

"That's what we need.  Mancuso, or some Nasty Boys."

Flynn caught the boulevard and aimed their federal four-door back
toward Hollywood.

"It couldn't hurt."

"We'd kill them in the ratings."

Smiling back, without much humor, as he said, "That's not a bad
idea."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Los Angeles field office occupies
four floors of the new federal building in Westwood, close by the
sprawling campus of UCLA.  Unrivaled in size and scope of operations,
the L.A. office boasts a full-time nurse on site, together with
security precautions that include closed-circuit television cameras on
each and every entrance.  With New York, Los Angeles is one of two
Bureau field offices administered by an FBI assistant director, the
exalted rank normally reserved for members of the Washington inner
circle.  Reporting directly to the assistant director's office are
three

"Special Agents in Charge," variously responsible for criminal cases,
security investigations, and administrative affairs.  On any given day,
agents assigned to the L.A. field office are involved in some fifteen
thousand pending cases, running the gamut from employee-background
investigation and theft of government property to espionage, bank
robbery and kidnapping, infiltration of organized crime . . . and
serial murder.

The latter problem fell to Joseph Flynn and Martin Tanner, in their
assignment to VI CAP the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.
Conceived in the early 1970s and finally activated in May 1985, VI CAP
was coordinated with the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime,
linked by a computer network to a suite of basement offices at the FBI
Academy in Quantico, Virginia.  On paper, VI CAP mission was advisory
and analytical, collecting nationwide reports of murder, sexual
assault, and arson for comparison of transient pattern crimes a smaller
local agency might overlook.  The FBI's crack Behavioral Science Unit
cooperated with psychological profiles of unknown subjects, deftly
narrowing the search for violent felons still at large.

It was an awesome task, with homicide and rape statistics climbing
every year, the crucial numbers on solutions falling in direct
proportion.  In 1989, one in four American murderers escaped detection
and arrest; the same was true for at least 49 percent of domestic
rapists, a minimum of five thousand unidentified child molesters, and a
staggering 84 percent of American arsonists.  Against those numbers,
the Quantico BSU office carried a staff of eighteen persons, including
two clerk-typists.  Nationwide, a total of eight FBI agents were
assigned to the VI CAP beat, with Southern California's high incidence
of serial murder rating the nation's only two-man team.  Elsewhere,
solitary agents held the line in San Francisco and Seattle, New York
City and Chicago, Dallas and Miami.  Each of them had grown accustomed
to the grisly face of death and grueling hours on a job that has no
end.

From L.A. proper, Flynn and Tanner were assigned to work a territory
ranging from Fresno in the north to San Diego and the Mexican border,
spreading eastward to include the states of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada.
On a given day, the VI CAP team was typically involved in ten or twelve
outstanding cases spanning some' 460,000 square miles.

On Friday afternoon, September 27, they were "light," four pending
cases in the L.A. basin, one each in the three adjoining states.
Besides their team of killer rapists, Flynn and Tanner were collecting
information on: a murderer of prostitutes in East Los Angeles, five
dead so far; a phantom sniper who had killed two men and wounded three
more victims in Artesia and Cerritos; and the "Homeless Hacker," blamed
for the mutilation deaths of half a-dozen transient victims between
Huntington Beach and Garden Grove.  In Prescott, Arizona, they were
looking for a chicken hawk who preyed on teenage hustlers, sodomizing
them for sport and sometimes beating them to death when he was in the
mood.  Las Vegas had a cabbie killer on the loose, with threats of an
impending strike by drivers city wide if they were not protected on the
job.  Near Moab, Utah, four

"Jane Does" had been unearthed from desert graves, and the authorities
expected more as they continued digging, still without a suspect or a
solid clue in sight.

The L.A. VI CAP office had no windows, but it did not lack for views.
Two walls were papered with a wide variety of state and city maps, some
marked with colored pins to signify reported crime scenes, dump sites,
and the like.  A third wall, opposite the only door, was decorated with
the photographs of victims-some "before," some "after"-in the cases
presently on tap.

Two dozen faces, grouped according to their cases, lined up
chronologically.  Some smiled, some frowned, some stared back at the
camera lens with lifeless eyes.  A few were scarcely recognizable as
human beings.

The high-school graduation photo of Rebecca Short was new, a fresh face
added to the roll call of the lost.

"I had my hopes up we might skate on this one,"

Martin Tanner said, unwrapping a cigar and rummaging through drawers to
find a light.  The desks were squared off facing one another, with the
victim wall on Tanner's right, the office doorway on his left.

"Dream on."

"You're always pessimistic, Joe.  These scum bags could have gone to
Mexico or Montreal, if they had brains enough to think it through."

"They didn't.  Anyway, we'd still have open cases on the books."

"But not so man That's, my point."

y- "These guys aren't counting-or they may be.  Either way, they're not
done, yet."

"You ever feel like trying something normal, for a change?  Some bank
jobs, maybe tap a couple phones to keep your hand in?"

"Every day," said Flynn.

"It doesn't help."

"I noticed that myself."

"Let's take it back to number one."

The first to die was Lisa Kaylor, seventeen, a high-school junior
working weekends at a Santa Barbara supermarket.  She had disappeared
the night of August 17, a Saturday, while rounding up abandoned
shopping baskets from the parking lot.

Twelve days elapsed before her body was discovered in the hills above
Goleta, stripped and gunned down with a.45, her rumpled clothes nearby.
The coroner's report confirmed she had been raped and sodomized by
animals in human form, before she died.  The rapist blood types-A and 0
respectively -were shared by 85 percent of all Americans.  Ballistics
tests on slugs and empty casings from the scene identified the murder
weapon as a semiautomatic Colt, of which there had been countless
millions manufactured since the First World War.

The science of detection has made giant strides in recent years.  Where
once examination of a blood or semen stain was limited to general
types, perusal with electron microscopes today reveals genetic
fingerprints" that isolate a given donor from the masses of humanity at
large.  No room for doubt remains, but samples from a given suspect in
the case are still required.  As bullets from a murder weapon tell
ballistics experts nothing, in the absence of a gun, so genes and DNA
are worthless to the criminologist, without a subject for comparison.

"The sheriff's men have covered everybody working on the night she
disappeared," said Tanner, frowning through a haze of smoke.

"They advertised for any customers who shopped that day and got a
couple hundred calls, but nobody remembers anything.  Without a
miracle, I'd say it's hopeless."

"L.A."  then."

The second homicide, September 4, had been a doubleheader.  Nguyen
Minh, age forty-two, was working in his liquor store on Wilshire
Boulevard that Wednesday night when someone capped him with a .45 and
emptied out the till.  The gunmen took Minh's twenty-year-old daughter
with them when they left.  Tran Lee was sodomized, both an ally and
orally, before the sleazoids shot her twice-a .38 this time-and dumped
her naked body near the lake in Echo Park.  An early-morning jogger
found her at the crack of dawn, September 5, and lost his high-in-fiber
breakfast on the dash to telephone police.

This time around, it seemed that the authorities had more to work with.
Starting at the liquor store, Forensics dusted everything in sight for
latent prints-and found so many, it would prove impossible to sort them
out.  The medical examiner confirmed a type-0 match from Tran Lee's
rectum, type A from her mouth, along with several foreign pubic hairs
that might prove useful if a suspect was identified.  Ballistics
matched the .45 to Lisa Kaylor's slaying, but the .38 was new. Perhaps,
if they could ever find the guns .  . .

The kicker was an eyeball witness, Crauter's 11 maybe," who reported
two Caucasian males outside the liquor store within the time frame of
the homicide and subsequent abduction.  One of them was "average"
height, "a little on the heavy side" and fiftyish, with salt-and-pepper
hair trimmed short enough to show his ears.  The other was a younger,
taller man with Elvis sideburns and a greasy-looking pompadour, dark
brown or maybe black.  Their clothes were unremarkable, and Crauter's
maybe witness could not link them to a vehicle.  There had been
"something weird" about them, but the witness could not pin it down.

"Two Wednesdays, now," said Tanner, reaching out to grasp at straws.

"We could have something, there."

"You think so?"

"No."

"The blood thing bothers me, on Short."

"I know."

According to the medical examiner's report, Rebecca Short had been
abused by three assailants prior to death.  Type O was anal, once
again, and oral swabs revealed type A. The AB sample found in her
vagina was a new twist, adding some alarming new dimensions to the
game.

"I hate to think these bastards are recruiting,"

Tanner said.

"It's bad enough with two."

"They may not have to," Flynn replied.

"You think it's been three all along?"

"A possibility."

"So, what .  . . he couldn't get it up the first two times?"

Flynn shrugged.

"The only thing we know for
sure, right now, is we've got three perps minimum on Short.  Two
match the Minh and Kaylor evidence, and there's the forty-five."

"That gives us one new guy, or he's been holding back, some reason,
while his buddies get it on."

"A lookout," Flynn suggested.

"Maybe some guy from the joint, just hit the street and looks his
buddies up for ways to pass the time.  New gun, new blood type."

"We can check it out through Sacramento, get some numbers on releases
in the last two weeks.  I wouldn't count on much from BSU, with just
the blood type."

"What the hell."  He grinned at Joe.

"It's not like they've got anything to do."

The analysts in Quantico were working on a profile of their subjects
from the first two crimes, with mixed results.  Removal of the victims
from initial points of contact, absence of a murder weapon at the
scene, and evidence of sexual assault preceding death all pointed to an
organized technique, with random strangers targeted as prey.  The flip
side sloppy crime scenes, lack of physical restraints, and bodies left
in plain view at the murder sites suggested a disorganized offender who
would ultimately snare himself through negligence.  The mix of
personalities was not exactly typical, and tacking on another unknown
subject only made the problem more obscure.

"Two things," said Flynn.

"On those parole dates, let's go back a while before the Kaylor job.
Remember Bittaker and Norris, how they met up in the joint and started
swapping fantasies?  As I recall, once Bittaker got out, he had to wait
for six or seven months until his buddy hit the bricks."

"It's something, anyway."

"The other thing, I want to goose the techs in Quantico on nationwide
comparisons.  If these guys aren't parolees, we could still be looking
at some travelers."

"Or rookies, either way."

"I keep on hearing Crauter's, witness, though.

The old guy-" "Watch it now."

"I don't see anybody in his fifties starting out from scratch, a thing
like this.  The sideburns, maybe, but his partner's twenty years too
late."

'7/ they're involved at all.  You've got more faith in Crauter's maybe
witness than they have downtown."

"Itfs just a feeling," Flynn replied.

"The guy came forward right away, ex-cop."

"From Mississippi, Joe, with glasses out to here."

"At least he had them on.  Don't tell me all those good ole boys you
worked around in Dallas couldn't spot a suspect from across the
street."

"We had our share of dip shits I can promise

YOU."

"A hunch, okay?"

"All right, but don't go climbing out on any limbs, in case I have to
follow you."

"I meant to have a word with you, about your weight."

"I've got your weight, right here."

"You want to flip for Short?"

Joe meant the family, and Tanner felt a momentary tightening inside. 
Old scars, but he could never get away without a twinge of pain.

"I don't mind taking them," he said.

Flynn shrugged.

"I think it's my turn, anyway."

They did not keep a running score on the survivor interviews, but
Tanner knew that Flynn was giving him an out.  A chance to walk away,
this once, without confronting too-familiar loss.

"I don't remember."  Feeling stupid as he said it, thankful even so.

"I'll take it, anyway," Flynn said.

"You need to work on your rapport with Quantico."

"That's crap.  It's been three months, and they were wrong.  You know
they were."

"It's all in how you break the news, I'm telling

YOU."

The topic of dissension was a profile garbled in transmission, somehow,
which had sent a team of San Diego homicide investigators on a two-week
snipe hunt, breeding animosity between the locals and the FBI before
some crucial errors were corrected.

"Anyway," said Tanner, "it came out all right."

"Is that why you keep getting disconnected every time you call?"

"One time.  It's not my fault the guy can't take constructive
criticism."

""Get your fucking head out' isn't what I call constructive."

"It's the spirit of the thing.  You had to be there."

"So, you'll bring them up to speed on number three and get that
readout?"

"Absolutely."

"Southwest focus, if they're short on time, but national is better."

"I know what to ask for, Joe."

"Turn on that famous charm."

"My pleasure."

"Anytime this afternoon is fine."

"You going somewhere?"

Flynn was on his feet.

"I thought I'd get this paperwork to Burroughs, see if he got anything
to share."

"You hang around the county boys too much, it may piss Crauter off."

"I'll use my famous charm."

"One thing you might try, if it doesn't work."

"What's that?"

"Tell both of them to get their fucking heads out."

Going out the door and laughing, Joseph told him,

"It's a thought."

He waited several moments, staring at the victim wall, before he lifted
the receiver on his telephone and tapped the number out for BSU, in
Quantico.

Already smiling to himself and turning on the charm.

At best, survivor interviews were never pleasant.  In his six years
with the VI CAP program, Flynn had dealt with wives and husbands,
friends and lovers, next of kin who ran the gamut from explosive rage
to brooding guilt and paranoia.  Some of them were stunned and
speechless, turning inward with their futile search for answers. Others
railed against some ethnic or religious group, police, the sorry state
of government for leaving heartless animals at large.

The worst, he thought, were those who blamed themselves without just
cause.  A mother, huddled in the shadows of her living room and asking
each successive visitor if they believed she was at fault.

If only she had seen the future and forbidden little Janey access to
the local shopping mall.  An officer in the marine corps, so distraught
about the open window that allowed a prowler to abduct his daughter
that he sent his wife to stay with relatives and nailed himself inside
the house.

How many suicides or failed attempts had followed in the wake of
random, senseless murder?

Too damned many.  Grieving faces that would never make the VI CAP
victims' wall.

Flynn's method with survivor interviews was simple: get the necessary
background information with a minimum of fanfare and intrusion, then
retreat and leave the walking wounded to repair their lives in peace.
He would not press, unless it struck him that a friend or family member
was concealing crucial information .  . . or was actually a suspect in
the case.

Rebecca Short had been a product of the Southern California middle
class.  Her parents owned a ranch-style home, two blocks from Lincoln
Boulevard, in Santa Monica.  As Joseph parked out front that Monday
afternoon, it struck him that the quiet neighborhood, lay something
like a mile from where Rebecca 'was abducted, five or six miles from
the point where she was raped and killed.

A different world.

You didn't smell the beach here, even though a number of the homes had
boats on trailers sitting in their driveways, surfboards propped
against garages here and there.  No sound of motorcycle engines, shouts
of sunburned men and women playing volleyball, but you could feel the
ocean's close proximity, if you took time to concentrate.

There was a year-old Volvo in the driveway, with a classic '68 Camaro
parked beside it, different generations of machines that seemed to get
along.

Flynn rang the bell and waited, FBI credentials in his hand before a
muscular young man filled up the doorway.

"Can I help you?"

"Special Agent Flynn.  I called ahead for an appointment."

"Right, come in."

The house was dark inside, with curtains drawn, as wounded houses often
are.  Survivors, by and large, were creatures of the shadows in the
early stages of their grief.  It took some time to face grim truth in
the uncompromising light of day.

"I'm Jason Short."  He shook Flynn's hand, a sturdy athlete's grip.

"Rebecca is my sister."

Is, not was.  It could have been denial, or a more direct refusal to
let tragedy disrupt a lifetime full of loving memories.

"In here."

The introductions only took a moment, but they seemed to last forever.
Franklin Short was pushing middle age, and Flynn had little doubt his
daughter's death would help him get there in a hurry.

Charcoal smudges underneath his eyes and whiskey on his breath, but he
was sober, hanging on to self-control.  Flynn knew approximately what
the effort cost him, and admired his strength.

The mother, Candace, was a fragile beauty, eyes tinged crimson by the
tears she shed in private.

From the photographs displayed at random vantage points around the
room, Flynn saw Rebecca had been more robust, almost voluptuous, a
diamond in the rough.  She might have grown into a lovely woman, given
half a chance.

Flynn took a seat, declined a cup of coffee, feeling each of them
assessing him.  Each wondering, in different terms, if he could help to
mend their shattered lives.

"I'm sorry to intrude, a time like this."

"You have a job to do," said Franklin Short.

"We want these monsters found and punished."

From the plural, Joseph knew that they were following the media
reports.  Some secondary victims turned their televisions off or even
canceled their subscriptions to the local paper in an effort to escape
reality, while others clipped the articles reliFiously, filled
scrapbooks as a monument to suffering.

"At least two men, the paper said."  Rebecca's brother sat with both
hands in his lap, the fingers interlaced, his knuckles white.

"They've done this kind of thing before."

'That's right."  The news of Mr.  Z, type AB blood, had been
deliberately withheld.

"I'm third-year law at USC.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but murder is a
state offense, not federal."

"That's correct.  I represent a special unit, organized to help police
departments with repeat offenders working different jurisdictions.  We
facilitate communication, flesh out profiles, anything that we can do
to help."

"I know you."  Candace Short was frowning as she studied Joseph's
face.

"Ve've never met, and still-" "TV," her husband said.

"I thought I recognized the name.  A year or so ago, it was.  That
lunatic they called the Reaper."

"Luther Blaylock."

Candace Short was watching him with greater interest, now.

"You caught him?"

"Killed him," said her husband.

"Shot him stone cold dead."

"Things happen," Flynn responded, pushing back the memories.

"The SOB deserved it.  Ask your questions, Mr.  Flynn."

He was not taking notes or working from a list of queries, playing it
by ear.

"Your daughter was in school, I understand?"

"First year, UCLA," the brother said.

"Her major was psychology."

"We didn't like her working, nights especially,"

Candace Short explained, "but she was always independent.  Strong, that
is.  She wouldn't go to school unless she helped to pay the bills."

"No problems with her classes?  Grades, professors, anything at all?"

"She loved it," Candace Short replied.

"Between the job and school, did she have time for many dates?"

"What difference does it make?"  The look on Jason's face told Flynn
that he was treading on thin ice.

"The circumstances of her death require at least a cursory examination
of the victim's social life,"

said Flynn.

"Rebecca was her name."  The mother's voice was close to cracking, like
a pane of antique glass.

"I

didn't raise a victim, Mr.  Flynn.  We had a daughter."

"I apologize," Flynn said, and meant it.

"In the bulk of cases I investigate, the perpetrators target random
strangers, choosing them by their appearance or availability.  One
residence- or place of business may be more accessible than others.
Fewer witnesses, less risk."

"I still don't understand-" "But even random killers sometimes turn on
relatives or close acquaintances.  lpd Kemper, up in Santa Cruz, killed
six young hitchhikers before he got around to murdering his mother.
Carroll Edward Cole killed seven prostitutes we know about, before his
wife got in the way.  The sad fact is, we still don't know enough about
Rebecca's killers to determine whether they were known to any of their
other victims.  Either way, I need your help."

"All right."

"About her social life "She didn't have a steady boyfriend," Candace
Short replied.

"I'm sure we would have known.  I would have known.  She dated now and
then, of course, when there was time, but mostly it was parties."

"Becky wasn't much at pairing off," said Jason grudgingly.

"No enemies?"

"We're not aware of any," said the father.

"Oh, I'm sure there must have been the standard arguments at school or
work, from time to time, but Becky thrived on making friends.  I don't
believe she ever learned to hold a grudge."

"She never mentioned anyone harassing her?

Some would-be Romeo who couldn't take a hint?"

"We used to call them mashers, Mr.  Flynn."  For just a second, there,
he thought that Candace Short had almost smiled.

"No, there was nothing of the sort that I recall."

"We understood the store was robbed," Rebecca's father said.

"That's true.  Of course, we need to cover every possibility .  . .
including robbery as cover for premeditated homicide.".

"I understand."

"Well, that should cover it.  I want to thank you for your help."

This time, Rebecca's father walked Flynn to the door, while Candace and
her son remained behind.

Outside, Short squinted in the sunlight, lately unaccustomed to the
glare.

"You'll find the men responsible for this?"

"I'll do my best."  "I pray they fight like Blaylock, when it's time.

"I'm not a praying man, myself."

Short's smile was more a grimace of internal pain.

"I'll pray enough for both of us," he said.

The look on Tanner's face turned Joseph's stomach sour, coming in.  A
gloomy frown that carved parentheses around his partner's mouth.

"Bad news?"  As if they dealt in any other kind.

"You want to have a seat?"

Flynn poured himself a cup of coffee, brought it to his desk, and
settled in.

"Okay, let's hear it."

"Quantico kicked back a printout," Tanner said.

"We've got at least five victims prior to Kaylor, with' a similar MO.
They call it partial, but it's all we've got, right now.  I just got
off the phone with Glen, in Dallas."

Glendon Loomis was the Bureau's VI CAP agent based in Texas, covering
an eight-state triangle that sprawled east-west from the Louisiana
bayous to New Mexico, and north from there to cover Arkansas and
Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska.

"so?  " "It isn't good.  You want it chronologically?"

"Whatever."

"Number one is Gladys Tolliver, age twenty-seven.  A beautician, had
her own salon in Plainview, Texas.  From the evidence, she disappeared
on Friday, April twenty-sixth, but no one noticed she was gone until
she started missing Saturday appointments.  Homicide investigators took
a sister with them when they checked it out.  She says there was a cash
box missing, the amount unspecified, along with miscellaneous supplies
like mousse and hairspray."

Frowning, Joseph sipped his coffee, waiting for the rest of it.

"They found her in the desert outside Lakeview, up in Swisher County,
on the twenty-ninth.  A Tuesday morning.  She was sodomized and raped
by two assailants prior to death, the latter a result of close-range
gunshots from an automatic pistol."

"Forty-five?"

"Nine-millimeter.  Rifling and tool marks on the casings matched the
old P-38."

"A classic."

"Did you want to guess the perpetrators' blood types, Joe?"

"I'll pass."

"Okay, that's one.  May seventeenth-another Friday-puts us up in
Gruver, Texas, near the Oklahoma line.  One Nancy Patchin, age sixteen,
was working night shift at a self-serve filling station when she
vanished with the contents of the till.  The owner estimates five
hundred and fifty dollars, for insurance purposes.  Some boys out
hunting lizards found her east of town on Sunday morning, the
nineteenth.  We've got the standard sexual assault and blood types,
three nine-millimeter rounds at point-blank range."

"P-38?"

"The very same," said Tanner.

"But there was a difference too.  Three stab wounds to the abdomen,
inflicted prior to death."

"Experimenting," Flynn replied.

"I wouldn't be surprised."

"Who's next?"

"June first, a Saturday, we're on to Boise City, Oklahoma, just across
the line.  A newlywed named Opal Coursey, twenty-two, went shopping and
she never made it back.  Bank records show that she withdrew the
maximum permissible amount-four hundred dollars-from an automatic
teller on the afternoon she disappeared.  Remains discovered outside
Lovington, New Mexico, the fifth of June.

Assaulted like the others, shot three times with someone's favorite
Walther."

"Jesus."

"It gets worse.  June twenty-third, a Sunday afternoon, they picked off
Valerie Martinez at a Laundromat in Aztec, northwest corner of the
state.

Nineteen years old, she was on duty by herself, some kind of general
maintenance.  The owner figures two, three hundred dollars missing from
the till.  Some tourists found her Monday evening, out by Shiprock.
Point-blank wounds from the nine millimeter and a forty-five."

"All right."

"We're waiting on a match, but I can feel it, Joe."

"It makes you wonder what became of the P-38."

"They used it one more time, we know about.

July fifth, Quartzsite, Arizona.  Jamie Wardlaw, thirty-two, closed
down the restaurant she managed, but the holiday receipts-around eight
thousand dollars-never made it to the night drop at the bank.  The
buzzards led a ranch hand to her body two days later, same MO across
the board."

"That's it?"

"So far."

"And sometime after Quartzsite, something happened to the Walther."

"Maybe they're just giving it a rest."

"We're handing off to Loomis, then?"

"You would have thought so."

"Say again?"

Unwritten rules assigned responsibility for any VI CAP problem to the
agent covering its point of origin.  If a demented killer from Los
Angeles moved eastward, Flynn and Tanner were expected to maintain
pursuit, regardless of geography.  It
was a method of ensuring continuity, while keeping one or two locales
from being swamped by transient criminals.

"Glen asked if we could handle it," said Tanner, smiling ruefully.

"He's got a shit load on his plate, right now.  That business in
Durango and the kids in Little Rock, some hookers up in Kansas City."

"Everybody's got a shit load Flynn replied.

"Eleven pending cases, I believe he said."

"Uh-huh."

"I also heard from Quantico."

"Oh, yes?"

"They didn't order us to take it, Joe.  I said I'd ask."

"Eleven cases, did you say?"

"All pending."

"Shit."

"Ve're tied with Glen for bodies, with the Ouartzsite job."

"You want these monkeys, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do."

Flynn turned his swivel chair to face the silent wall of faces.

"So do I."

"I'll make some calls."

"We need to know what happened to the other piece," said Flynn.

"They didn't trade it for the forty-five.  We're missing something."

"What, you mean beside their names, addresses, things like that?"

"Tell Glen we need those files."

"They're on the way."

Flynn tried to frown but could not pull it off.

"You set me up."

Across the desktops, Tanner grinning at him, peeling a cigar.

"What are friends for?"

The nicest part of coming' home thought Martin Tanner, was the sight
of Ronnie waiting for him.

Sometimes just emerging from the kitchen or the bedroom, maybe
gardening if there was light enough.  They had been married nearly
eighteen years-an anniversary coming up, next mont hand he could not
recall a single time that he had come off shift and found her sitting
still or staring at the tube.  When Tanner thought about his wife, he
mostly pictured her in motion, doing something useful.  Toiling at the
center of his world.

"Just me," he told her, reaching back to lock the door as Ronnie poked
her head around a corner from the hall.

"I thought it was the milkman," she informed him, stepping out to show
him she was dressed in nothing but her bra and panties.

"He'd be running late."

"You're late.  We're due at Rick and Donna's in an hour."

: "Why?"

"Don't tell me you forgot."

"Okay.  Assuming someone did forget, however .  . .

"Anniversary," she prompted him.

"Next month."

"Their anniversary.  Go on and have your shower now.

"How many years is this?"

"Thirteen."

"A lucky number."

"They think so."

He shrugged his jacket off and hung it neatly in the closet, followed
by his shoulder holster and the Smith & Wesson automatic that was now
the Bureaus standard-issue sidearm.  Hanging up his slacks, he turned
to find Veronica comparing blouses from her wardrobe, searching for the
proper shade ana style.

"I spoke to Glen today."

"Glen Loomis?"

"Right."

"How is he?"

"Fine, he says."

A child of Texas cotton farmers, Tanner had spent two years with the
Dallas Police Department before he transferred to the FBI Academy in
1973.

Assigned to Oklahoma City for the first twelve years of his career, he
had returned to Dallas as the local VI CAP agent when the program went
on-line in 1985.  The Tanners were relative newcomers in
Los Angeles, moving west in '87, and they nurtured Texas roots.  Glen
Loomis was a longtime friend, whose wife had died of cancer thirteen
months ago.

"We ought to go and see him, when we have the time."

"You mean, when I have time."

"Just business, I suppose?"

"What's that?"

"Your conversation."

"More or less.  We've got an overlapping case that Joe and I are
covering for Glen."

"If you go back, I want a full day's warning so that I can tag
along."

"You've been preempted by the fax machine."

"I thought so.  Is it bad?"

The sudden change of subjects stumped him.

"What?"

"The case."

"They're all bad, hon."

"But when you're finished, you've accomplished something."

Tanner watched her slipping on the chosen blouse, a floral print in
soft pastels.  Before she got it buttoned, he stepped up behind her,
strong hands circling her waist and moving up to cup her breasts
through silk and lace.

"How come you're always dressing up when I start stripping down?"

"Have you forgotten Friday evening?"

"Three whole days."  He nuzzled Ronnie's neck and felt her shiver,
nipples stiffening.

"The party, Martin."

"We can have our own.  Let Rick and Donna celebrate alone."

"We aren't the only guests."

"Then they won't miss us, will they?"

He bit her shoulder, pulling up the short hem of her slip and pressing
one palm flat against her stomach, fingers easing underneath elastic,
rummaging through downy pubic hair.

"We can't be .  . . late."

"I hear it's stylish."

"Martin .  . . oh."

"What's wrong?"

No answer, with his fingers working, free hand coming back to find her
breast again, this time beneath the slip.

"You pick the damnedest times."

"Complaining?"

"No.  A little lower."

"There?"

She stiffened, breathing heavily and flexing hips to press herself
against his hand.  He felt her open to him, warm and wet.

"Well, I suppose I'd better catch that shower."

Starting to withdraw, when Ronnie caught his hand and held it fast.

"You don't get off thateasy, G-man."

"Damn, I was afraid of that."

She moved against him, firm, round buttocks rubbing his erection
through the fabric of her slip and panties, Tanner's jockey shorts.

"We're overdressed," he said.

"So remedy the situation.  You're in charge."

He kept his right hand busy, Ronnie helping just
a little as he bunched the slip above her breasts at first, then
worked it over upraised arms and let it fall.  Left-handed, he
surprised her with the bra catch, opening it on his first attempt.  She
moaned and placed a hand on each of his, surprising strength as Ronnie
pressed his fingers deep into her flesh.

The jockey shorts hung up on his erection for a moment, but he got the
best of them, turned Ronnie so that she was facing him and drew her
close.

"What's that?"  she teased.

"An early anniversary present."

"How'd you know I wanted one?"

"A lucky guess."

He walked her backward to the bed and fell beside her, nuzzling her
throat and tugging at her briefs.

"Don't tear."  She raised her hips to help him.

"Blue bikinis?"

"You're as old as you feel."

"That makes me seventeen or eighteen, tops."

"I didn't know you then."

"I'll show you what you missed."

She pinched him, playing at resistance as he shifted, covering her body
with his own.

"You kids don't have much staying power, so I'm told."

"We compensate with our enthusiasm."

"Ooo .  . . you are enthusiastic."

Ronnie moving in accommodation lo his rhythm, trim legs clamped around
his hips, her ankles crossed in back.

"No hurry, tiger."

"That's what you think."

"Haste makes waste."

"Confucius say, no half-assed Western proverbs during fuckee-fuckee."

That made Ronnie laugh, but she was working at the same time, catching
up with Martin, using moves that made him gasp and grit his teeth.

"Okay .  . . I'll race you."

"Cheat."

"All's fair .  . . whatever ."mmmmm, like that."

"Like that?"

"I told you!  Keep that up, and I .  . . oh, God!"

Her spine arched like a bow, sweat beading on her velvet flesh.  Her
heels pressed tight against his buttocks, trapping him inside her,
secret muscles milking him.

"You shouldn't .  . . Jesus .  . . aaahhh!"

He spilled inside her, Ronnie taking all of it and whispering his name
as he collapsed.

"I win," she told him, sounding pleased.

"I almost had you, there."

"I'll say."

"So, how about a rematch?"

"After."

"After what?"

"The dinner party.  If you hit that shower in the next five minutes, we
can still be there in time for drinks."

"Is there no mercy for a wounded man?"

"Not even close."

She scrambled out of bed and slapped his backside with an open palm.

"I'll get you next time," Tanner vowed with mock belligerence.

"I'm counting on it, champ."

Flynn slept alone that night, as was his custom.

Never married, he was not a solitary man by inclination, but experience
confirmed that the relationships of law enforcement officers were
tenuous, at best.  The hours were a grind on any partner forced to wait
at home alone, much less with children, and the telephone became a
mortal enemy, with its potential for delivering the worst of news.

Some nights, Flynn envied Martin Tanner his relationship with Ronnie,
till he thought about the boy.  Their only child had been the victim of
a hit and-run drunk driver-a policeman's teenage son, ironically-and
while the tragedy occurred some years before Flynn met his partner,
there were scars that Tanner could not hide.

It showed sometimes, in the survivor interviews with parents .  . . or
when Flynn and Tanner were assigned to track a killer with a taste for
children.

Tanner did his job like a professional and practiced working on his
poker face when there were kids involved, but Flynn had learned to look
behind the eyes and catch a glimpse of pain inside.

No, thanks.

You can't lose what you never had, and yet .  . .

There had been times, once recently, when Joseph had considered
reevaluating his approach to life.  If he was honest with a woman, let
her know the bad news going in, it would be her decision and
responsibility to cope with lousy hours and the worry factor, making
due with what was left of Joseph's time when he came home.

Except, if Flynn was honest with himself, he knew that he was never
really off the job.

He knew the standard line about a lawman always standing ready, in the
case of an emergency, but there was more involved with working VI CAP
than the standard grind of late-night calls to view a crime scene.
There were images, of death and suffering that crept inside his brain
and then refused to leave, like ugly ghosts inhabiting a haunted house.
They did not trouble him around the clock, or even crop up in his
dreams with any regularity, but they were always there.

The dead and wounded had a spectral weight that would not register on
any scale, but Flynn could feel it, all the same.  His fellow travelers
in search of justice that was always just beyond his grasp.

It troubled Flynn that close to one in five repeaters in the murder
game escaped detection and were never taken off the street, but he was
equally concerned about the 82 percent who were consigned to prisons,
state asylums, even cages on death row.  He knew that punishment could
never fit the crimes, without a reinstatement of the Spanish
Inquisition, and it made no lasting difference in the end.  No matter
how a killer pined and suffered, ranted or repented in his final
moments, there would be no respite for his victims or the families they
left behind.

Flynn sometimes thought that women-the perceptive ones, at least-could
look at him and see
the dark side, warned ahead of time that he would always hold a little
something back, some part of him remaining out of reach.  It did not
stop their trying, but the best ones came to Joseph with a fatalism of
their own, prepared for anything, and he was sometimes disappointed
when the failure of a promising relationship evoked no demonstrations
of surprise.

He still enjoyed the, company of women, and he was not celibate by any
means, but work and his aversion to the L.A. "swinging singles" scene
conspired to limit Joseph's contacts on the distaff side.

Ironically, his last three lovers had been introduced to him on the
job, and one of them -an immunologist at USC, who helped the Bureau
with a case involving AIDS-still kept in touch from time to time.

As for the others .  . . well, he still had Amy Thatcher, any time he
cared to switch the television on and watch her do the news, dissecting
crime and politics, reducing the affairs of men to sound bytes in the
local ratings war.  When Joe tuned in, he mostly shut the sound off,
stubbornly refusing to associate her voice with rape and murder, graft
and smog reports.

Most nights, he did not watch at all.

Flynn knew his' limitations and he recognized his failures for exactly
what they were.  With Amy, he had tried too hard .  . . or was it hard
enough?

Whichever, they had grown apart, each using one another's job to mask
the feelings that were never vocalized.  They spoke at times, when
something from the Bureau shop made news, and it was always reasonably
cordial .  . . but the spark was gone.

Too bad.

The night he saved her life and wound up killing Luther Allen Blaylock,
Joseph had been slogging through a nightmare wide-awake, convinced that
Amy's blood would stain his hands forever if he failed.  It took some
time for Flynn to understand that there was no escaping stains and
scars, no matter how you played the game, regardless of who lost or
won.

You had to squint just so, to see them@ifferent stains, same hands-but
they were always there.

The marks of a survivor who has paid his dues.

And he was in the middle of the dream before he even realized that he
was dozing.  Names and faces blurred, composite characters emerging,
Joseph standing back to watch.  A woman and a man, no changing that,
but all the rest of it was flexible.  If Joseph blinked his eyes, the
woman might be Amy standing in the riiiddle of an oil field, or a Jane
Doe hostage in a junkyard, maybe even Laura Pasko hanging by her heels
inside an old, abandoned mill.  The man was Blaylock, bleeding into
Thomas Graham Scanlon.  Blink again, you had Kirk Sluder in a spotless
khaki uniform.

Flynn knew them all, their voices when they laughed and jeered, or wept
and begged.  They tried to throw him off sometimes, by altering the
script in places, but they could not touch the ending.  It was
sacrosanct, immutable.

God knows that Flynn would readily have changed it, if he could.

The darkness never slowed him down, a sense of urgency compelling him
to hurry.  They were running out of time.  He had a rendezvous to keep,
and lives were hanging in the balance.  Joseph's pistol seemed to weigh
a hundred pounds, but it was all he had to place between himself and
Death.

In front of him, two figures, intertwined so closely that they might be
dancing.  Moving closer, he could recognize the shifting faces, turning
over names inside his head.

"You're late."  A male voice, goading Flynn.

"I almost had to start without you."

"Well, I'm here."

"Let's find out what you've got."

The weapon changing from a pistol to a knife and back again, before his
eyes.  Flynn's sidearm braced in both hands as he raised it, lined the
sights up on a grinning face.

"Is that the best that you can do?"

He realized his adversary had a pistol and a knife, both hands full,
but his long arms held the woman fast.

"It's show time

Anguished screaming and a spray of crimson as the killer went to work.
Flynn frozen where he stood, and trembling.

"You have the right The dark man laughing at him, blood like war paint
streaked across his face.

"I know my rights."

"If you cannot afford He didn't know there could be so much blood
inside a human being, least of all a woman Amy's size.  It slopped
around his feet and ankles, filling up his shoes.

The recoil from his first shot rocked Flynn backward, jolting him.  He
nearly dropped his pistol, watching as the heavy slug ripped through
his target, spraying mangled flesh.  The killer brushing at it with his
gun hand, absentminded, as he might react to a mosquito buzzing in his
ear.

A second shot.

A third.

The pistol jumped on number four and slammed the mutilated woman back
against her captor, an expression of amazement surfacing behind the
pain.  The killer let her drop and made his move toward Joseph.  Two
more rounds in rapid fire, with no effect.

"I guess you're mine now."

Jolting upright in his bed, Flynn saw the sheet and blanket thrashed
into a snarl around his feet.

His shorts and T-shirt were a clammy second skin.

"Well, shit."  ' A shower might not help him, but it couldn't hurt.  He
kicked the tangled sheet away and padded to the bathroom, grateful for
the lights and mirrors that reflected them.  His hands looked clean,
but you could never tell.

Rebecca Short was waiting for him when he pulled the plastic shower
curtain back and stepped inside.  Her voice inside his head: You
haven't shown me much, so far.

"I'm getting there."

Flynn turned the shower on, full blast, and washed her down the
drain.

"We're gonna need some money, Wallace."

And a quickening in Coley's stomach, hearing Mama tell the old man what
they both already know, her voice all quiet-like.

It's time to hunt again.

Mixed feelings, for the first time, knowing there is more ahead of him
than sitting in the room with womenfolk, or watching from the car while
Jubal and the old man have their fun.  He has a working partner's stake
in anything that happens now .  . .

and there is something else.  A visceral excitement, looking forward to
the next time, which is new to him and very different from the way he
felt when he was still a child.

His sixteenth birthday come and gone, but this year Coley doesn't mind
that all he got were Kmart jockeys and a printed T-shirt reading WHERE
THE HELL IS BAKERSFIELD?  His gift from the old man has been delivered
early, back in Santa Monica, and he is riding high.

Not like an equal partner yet, of course.  He understands that he will
always be The Boy, where Mama and the old man were concerned.  The same
way Macy is their "little girl," despite the fact that she is sneaking
up on twenty-one and she's been married, fucking like a rabbit, for the
past four years.

It is peculiar, how the parents always have a hard time letting go.

But he has proved himself, all right.  A little shaky at the start,
from nerves, and finishing before he wanted to, but Jubal tells him
that it's natural, first time around.  You live and learn.

And shooting her was harder than the rest of it, the old man handing
him the Army Colt and stepping back.  The bitch already down and
wounded, going nowhere, with a weird expression on her face like she
was praying.

Now I lay me-down to sleep.

Sweet dreams.

He has seen women die before, but watching it and doing it are poles
apart.  A funny feeling as he takes the heavy automatic in his hand.
Not guilt, exactly-Mama tells him guilt is what you feel when you've
done something bad, to hurt the family-but it makes him hesitate.  The
old man poking Coley in the ribs and telling him,

"Get on with it."

A head shot, sticking to the lessons he has learned.  No witnesses,
unless you want to spend some time in jail, where niggers throw their
weight around and faggots try to poke you in the ass.  The
sound of the explosion ringing in his ears for hours afterward.  The
old man saying

"That's my boy" and letting Coley hold the still-warm automatic on
their ride back home.

Home being the motel, or one of many, where they always stay.  He can
recall a house in Texas, back before the trouble started, Mama moving
him and Macy into an apartment when the old man went away and money
started running short.  No beef when Macy started working, long as she
was smart enough to keep it to herself and set the money out somewhere
so Mama didn't have to think about exactly where it came from. Bringing
Jubal home one night and plumb surprising everybody when she told them
she was getting married.

Mama having words with Jubal, hashing over money matters, and the rest
was history.

They always rent two rooms, adjoining, with a door between if they can
get it.  Jubal and the old man flipping coins to see who's stuck with
Coley, since it costs too much to get The Boy a separate room.  Most
times, he winds up bedding on the floor, pretending he is deaf until
the others finish up and go to sleep.  His sister starts out giggling,
working up to moans and breathless cries for help when Jubal rides her,
winding down at last to giggling again.  She does not seem to mind him
listening or watching, and she only laughs on rare occasions when she
looks down from the bed and catches him with one hand busy in his
shorts.

With Mama, it is different.  Mama never makes a sound the whole time,
barely moving, while the old man grunts and wheezes, working up a
sweat.  For all he knows, she may be more responsive when they have
some privacy, but Coley has a feeling Mama never liked it much.

A necessary evil, as they say.

To Coley's certain knowledge, Mama and the old man only do it two,
three times a month, compared to Macy and her Jubal rutting damn near
every night.  A man himself now, Coley does not wonder at his father's
need for outside action, but he asks himself, from time to time, where
Jubal finds the energy.

No matter.

Need is need, and if you have a chance to satisfy yourself while
earning money for the family, so much the better.  All in all, it seems
a decent way to live.

When Coley daydreams, he imagines how it must have been in olden times,
before the laws had radios and helicopters and computers, all designed
to head a free man off and run him down.  He pictures them on
horseback, maybe granting them the telegraph, where all you have to do
is cut a single wire and no one in the territory knows what you're
about.  Sometimes, he takes it further, like that story on The Twilight
Zone, where soldiers drive a tank across the prairie and they wind up
back in eighteen-something, with the redskins closing in on General
Custer.  Thinking what it would have been like in the old days, driving
hell-for-leather out across the desert in a hot V-8, with M16s and
shit, the posse eating d-ast until you had enough of playing
cat-and-mouse.  Turn back and meet them
on the highway, one against a dozen, laughing when you blow them all
away.

And maybe shoot the horses too.  Why not?

He wishes they had automatic weapons, but the old man tells him guns
like that cost money they could better spend on food and lodging, not
to mention gasoline and motor oil.  The old man lacks ambition,
something you expect from parents, but he keeps on hoping Jubal may
decide to try a little something new, one time.

A bank, for instance.

Nothing big, like in Los Angeles, but they could start out small, some
country town with two, three tellers.  Herd them in the vault to put
the cash in shopping bags, and keep in mind the old man's golden rule:
no witnesses, no case.

A father hands down pearls of wisdom to his son that way, to help him
out in life.  It was a witness sent the old man up, both times, but
never more.

Surveillance cameras are a bitch, but lots of smaller stores still do
without them.  One time in to case the layout, counting heads and
noting little tricks like mirrors mounted on the wall, and if it looks
all right, you take it down the second time around.

No tape, no witnesses, and if the night clerk or the secretary has a
certain look, why shouldn't they amuse themselves awhile, before they
take her out?

You didn't ask the old man anything, if you were smart, but Jubal
answers certain questions, if you phrase them properly.  He laughs out
loud when Coley asks him whether Macy minds his fucking other women on
the job, explaining that it's nothing like the bond between a man and
wife.  Your normal, healthy man has needs that creep up on him when he
least expects it, catching him at any hour of the day or night.  A sexy
bitch walks by in hot pants and a halter top, a clingy skirt and
sweater if the weather's cool, and you can't help yourself.  A good
wife understands.

Considering the information, Coley takes it one step further.  Thinking
of his ma@a, he decides that some wives are relieved to have their men
pick up a little action on the side.  That way, a husband's needs are
satisfied, and maybe he won't pester her so much at home.

It strikes him funny, how some women like to fuck-his sister, for
example-while some others see it as their duty, lying there and hardly
breathing, waiting for the man to finish up so they can go to sleep.
Then you have others, like the bitch in Santa Monica, who fight like
hell, but Jubal tells him how they really love it, putting on a show of
mock resistance, coming all the while.  That kind don't really scare
until you finish, and they see you mean to use the gun.

So many things to know, but he is learning every day.

Nevada looks like more of Arizona and New Mexico, except for the
casinos.  Barren desert stretching out to the horizon, and the trees
you find are mostly in the mountains, passing through.  It would be
nice to see Las Vegas, but the old man points them north, toward Reno
and the capital at nearby Carson City.

Two ways you can go, when it comes time to
hunt.  Get lost in cities like L.A."  so big nobody knows his
next-door neighbor and they don't remember faces, or decide on
something smaller, open space around you where there's ample room to
run.  The old man tells him Vegas is an in-between, just big enough for
laws to keep their eyes peeled, watching visitors who don't appear
hellbent on flushing all their money down the shitter with the dice and
slot machines.  Worse yet, the town is owned by gangsters who will cut
your head off if you try to pick their pockets for a nickel, never mind
it may have been an accident.

You cross state lines, the laws most often shrug and figure what the
hell.  The Mafia is something else.  Those crazy wops will chase you
for a hundred years and kill your children's children for a dollar
ninety-five.

Another lesson learned.

They mostly stay in cheap motels, the latest on Kings Canyon Road,
outside of Carson City.  It amuses the old man to drive them past the
state pen, east of town, bright razor wire in tangles on the top of an
imposing wall.  It isn't much like Huntsville, where the old man pulled
his time, but prisons have a smell about them.  Something in the air
that makes the birds sing just a tad off key and keeps the sun from
shining quite so bright.

"You'll never see me in a place like that again,"

the old man says.

"No fucking way."  When Mama chides him gently for his language, he
just frowns and says,

"No fucking way at all."

The old man gets it in his mind that they should do a job right there,
in Carson City, as a kind of demonstration to the laws.  Be out of
there and well away before the fuckers know what hit them, leaving them
to run around in circles like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut
off.

. Nobody asks if Coley likes the plan, and he is wise enough to keep
misgivings to himself.  The old man says to jump, you ask how high.

The second night, they pick a doughnut shop on Hot Springs Road,
connecting Carson Airport with the highway into Sparks and @eno, to the
north.

Fair traffic, through the day and early evening, but it fades an hour
or two before the shop locks up, 11:30 on the dot.  One bitch on duty
by herself, at closing, and the morning crew shows up at half past
six.

No sweat.

The old man wastes time telling Macy what to look for, like it was her
first time checking out a job, but she just listens to him, smiling.
Papa's little girl.  Inside, they watch her joking with some pecker
head behind the register, pretending fascination with his come-on lines
and scoping' out the exits, storeroom, everything they need to know.

Five minutes, and she comes out with a sack of doughnuts.  Coley's
mouth is watering before she climbs back in the car.

"No cameras, Daddy.  Nothing special, I could see."

"Good girl."

The sack of doughnuts changing hands and coming back to Coley last.

"I wanted devil's food."

"So what)"
"You got me glazed with chocolate icing."

"So don't eat it."

"Bitch!"

The old man swiveling around, with eyes like chips of flint.

"Don't let me hear you cuss your sister, boy."

"No, sir."

"We're waiting."

"I apologize."

They stall till almost closing time that night, the women packing up
and getting ready for the road.

A town this size, it won't be safe to hang around and watch the laws
chase shadows, like they did it in Los Angeles.  First thing the
bloodhounds do is sniff around for strangers, where they can, and try
to strike a trail.

Good luck.

The old man always pays in cash and never signs the same name twice.
They have new license plates, since California, and a handful of
replacements in the trunk.  The best part is, nobody looks twice at a
family when they try and figure out who might have pulled a job.

Home free.

He is surprised, this evening, when the old man lets him drive.  A
change of pace, with Jubal and the old man going in, while Coley minds
the car.  At first, he wonders if he's being punished for the incident
with Macy.  Then it hits him that remaining with the car, to watch for
laws and witnesses, is actually a more responsible position.  Coley
grinning at his own reflection in the rearview mirror, promising
himself that he will justify the old man's trust.

No traffic on the street to speak of, and he watches the expression on
the bitch's face, a quick change, Jubal showing her the gun.  Instead
of running for it, she goes soft and weepy on them, emptying the
register and circling around the counter on command.  It's hard to tell
exactly what her body's like, beneath the uniform, but Coley knows he
won't have long to wait.

He has the engine turning over as they leave the doughnut shop.  A
pickup flecked with rust and primer rolling past, behind him,
disappearing in the night.  The old man takes the shotgun seat, the
bitch in back with Jubal, begging him to let her go.

"My dad' Il kill me if I come home late."

And Jubal smiling back at Coley in the mirror, saying,

"Don't you worry, sweetness.  Your old man ain't killing anybody."

Driving east for twenty miles, they skirt the mountains, desert coming
back with Joshua trees and sagebrush visible along the roadside, in the
high beams.

"Here."  The old man pointing right across his face, to indicate a
gravel access road.

The bitch has mostly stopped her sniveling, and Coley cranks the mirror
down to have himself a look.  He finds her sitting rigid, Jubal with
his tongue inside her ear and one hand underneath her skirt.  The bitch
is staring straight ahead, eyes wide, and hardly breathing. Trying to
convince herself it's all a dream, and if she waits awhile or
holds her breath, she'll wake up safe and sound, at home.

Dream on.

"This oughta do her."

On the left, a pit where someone has been dumping rubbish, furniture,
appliances.  Before he parks, the headlights frame an old refrigerator,
rusted out and pocked with bullet holes.

He kills the lights and engine, easing out.  Behind him, Jubal has the
bitch outside and on her feet, the old man circling around to join them
on the driver's side.

"You got a purty mouth," the old man says.

"I bet you hear that all the time."

No answer from the bitch, unless you count a muffled whining sound.

"Warm out tonight.  I doubt you need those clothes."

Behind her, Jubal chuckling to himself.

"I guarantee she don't."

"You better skin' em off, and show us what you're hidin' there."

It takes a moment for the bitch to understand, and silent tears are
streaming down her face as she complies.  A simple cotton bra beneath
the blouse, high-wasted panties underneath the skirt.

"The rest."

Too late, she thinks of running@oley sees it in her eyes-but she can
recognize that it is hopeless.

There is nowhere she can hide, no prospect of escape.  She finishes,
eyes downcast, nipples puckered from the night breeze playing over
naked flesh.

"Not bad," says Jubal, reaching from behind to slide a hand between her
legs, palm covering her pubic thatch.

"You wanna flip?"

The old man has a fifty-cent piece, tossing it and calling heads before
it slaps down in his open hand.  And heads it is.

"Well, damn."

The old man standing square in front of her, not touching yet.

"You any good at praying, girl?"

The bitch confused, just staring at him.

"Never mind, I'll teach you how.  The first thing ist you gotta show
respect by kneeling down."

She isn't quick enough, and Jubal nudges her behind the knee, big hands
on her shoulders, forcing her down on the sharp gravel.  The old man
working on his zipper for a minute there, before he gets it.

"Nice-and easy for a start," he tells her.

"That's your basic all-day sucker, bitch."

The old excitement making Coley's ears ring, watching as the Qld man
guides her with his hands.

Her protest garbled, incoherent.

"Plain bad manners, talking with your mouth full," Jubal chides her,
fishing out a doughnut from the sack they brought along.

"You hungry, Coley?"

"I could eat."  His own voice sounding small and distant, taut as a
piano wire.

"Your lucky night," says Jubal, passing him the bag.

"We got you devil's food."

The flight between Los Angeles and Carson City took an hour and a
quarter, Tanner sitting in a window seat and thankful that the one
immediately on his right was vacant.  Flying coach was bad enough,
without a boring nonstop talker or a bratty child to keep him
company.

He used the transit time for a review of what he knew, so far, about
the Carson City case.  The victim, eighteen-year-old Karen Geddes, had
apparently been kidnapped from her night job at a doughnut shop on
Sunday, October 13, and was driven out into the desert, where she died.
The body was recovered Thursday morning, putting Tanner on an early
Friday flight, his breakfast shifting restlessly inside.

He could have left the grunt work to the Bureau's Reno office, but the
case was getting under Tanner's skin.  Three weeks and then some, since
Rebecca Short in Santa Monica, and they were still no closer to a wrap.
The trip to Carson City was a personal extravagance, a nod to Tanner's
instinct that a tour of the murder scene would help him crawl inside
the twisted minds of men who raped and killed for sport.

A sheriff's deputy was waiting for him when he disembarked, all
polished brass and leather, creases you could shave with, hash marks
filling up his sleeves.  His smile was cautious, gray eyes frosty under
thick, dark brows.  He introduced himself as Sergeant Dickerson, gave
Tanner's hand a squeeze, and led the way outside.

"No bags?"

"I won't be staying overnight."

"Okay, we're right out front."

He felt commuters watching them, the uniform and suit together,
following their progress through the concourse.  It was better when the
escort wore plain clothes, but Tanner was accustomed to the curiosity
that went with crime.  A bit of morbid fascination, slowing down beside
a car wreck on the highway, coupled with an affirmation of survival in
the face of someone else's trauma.  There, but for the grace of God . .
.

Outside, the cruiser occupied a stretch of yellow curb between NO
PARKING signs.  He took the shotgun seat and buckled up, while
Dickerson slid in behind the wheel.

"You have a preference?"

"Let's take it step-by-step.  The shop, and then the dump site.  We can
save the morgue for last."

"Suits me."

"Are you assigned to the investigation?"

"Not specifically.  We've all been living with it since the victim
turned up missing, Sunday night.

You have to understand, we don't see many sex related homicides.  It
has a certain impact."

"Yes, it does."

"A job like yours, that's all you do, it must geteasier."

"You'd think so."

Rolling west on Hot Springs Road, five minutes brought them to the
doughnut shop.  The style was early shoebox, functional without
adornment, built of cinder blocks, plate glass, and Spanish tile.

Inside, a customer was browsing the display case, two more washing bear
claws down with coffee at a table facing on the street.

"Too bad."

"What's that?"

A frown creased Tanner's face.

"That cops don't really spend their whole shift hanging out at doughnut
shops.  We could have used a couple uniforms on Sunday night."

"It crossed my mind," said Dickerson.

"Spilt milk.  These assholes spot a black-and white out front, they'd
just go somewhere else."

"It's random, then?"

"Apparently.  We thought about some personal connection with the jobs
around L.A."  but looking back to Texas and the rest, it's too damn
thin."

"You want to go inside?"

"No point.  You dusted everything, I underrtand?"

"That's right.  We matched the victim and some other shop employees to
the la tents on the register.

The rest of it, their morning crew came in and went to work before they
found out anything was wrong.  They wiped the counters, mopped the
floor, and spritzed the windows, everything.  At least we know the
place is sanitary."

Tanner swiveled in his seat, eyes scanning storefronts on the far side
of the road.

"All these were closed?"

"Affirmative.  There may have been some traffic, back and forth, but no
one's beeq in touch.  If anybody saw it going down, they either didn't
pay attention, or they've got a reason not to call."

"Okay, let's see the dump."

They doubled back in the direction of the airport, swinging south on
Airport Road to pick up Highway 50 eastbound, into open desert.  Half
an hour from the scene of the abduction, Dickerson pulled over on the
gravel shoulder, parked, and killed the engine.

"Here we are."

It startled Tanner to discover that the dump site was precisely that. A
deep pit had been excavated, close to fifty feet in length and thirty
feet across, with trash of all descriptions dumped inside.  A number of
depositors had found the last few steps too arduous, abandoning their
rubbish on the open flats.  His eyes picked out innumerable cans and
bottles, wooden crates and cardboard boxes, broken articles of
furniture, a shattered television set.

He quickly gave up counting holes where ground squirrels burrowed in
the steep sides of the pit.

"You found the body where?"

"Inside that old refrigerator."  Dickerson was pointing to a gutted
Kenmore, pocked with bullet
holes.  Its dented, rusty door was lying on the ground.

"Somebody left the door on when they dumped it-that's a safety
violation in itself-and plinkers have been using it for target
practice."

"Who reported the discovery?"

"A local resident.  We've got him standing by, you need an interview.
He drove out here to dump some trash and thought he might as well
squeeze off a few.  The way I understand it, he just bought himself a
piece and never tried it out before."

"What was he carrying?"

"A Colt 357.  I believe it was a Python."

"Shit."

"You guessed it.  Anyway, he's out here blasting at the reefer, ten or
fifteen rounds before he accidentally hits the latch, the door swings
open, there she is."

"I hate to ask."

"We think he hit her twice, for sure.  I haven't seen the medical
examiner's report.  By that time she was way past feeling anything."

He stood before the Kenmore, smelling carrion.

Brown smears inside, that might be bloodstains, rust, or both.

"The clothing?"

"Over this way, in a pile.  We had it photographed as found."

"It looks like quite a bit of traffic, out this way.

No rain to speak of."

"Tracks are shit," said Dickerson.

"They'drove a Sherman tank out here, we might've gotten something we
could use."

"Shell casings?"

"Everything from twenty-twos to twelve-gauge.

The forensics people picked up all that they could find.  You're
looking for a forty-five, I understand."

"At least.  They've also used a thirty-eight and a nine-millimeter, off
and on.  We'll take what we can get."

"Four nights out here," said Dickerson, "the good news is the reefer
kept your basic predators away.

Of course, it isn't much on preservation when you pull the plug and
leave it sitting 'in the sun."

Four nights, three days.  The smell produced an ugly mental image as he
turned away.

"We're thinking drifters," Tanner said.

"The scores we know about, they can't be living very high, unless they
pick up jobs along the way.  You're checking out motels?"

"And tourist camps, for what it's worth.  Go back a week or so, we're
looking at eleven hundred names to start-and that's assuming that they
didn't stay in Sparks or Reno, Washoe City, someplace in between..  For
all we know, they may have just been driving through."

"It's possible," said Tanner, "but we think they case the targets, even
if it's just a walk-through on the afternoon before.  No proof, but
they've been god damned lucky missing customers and witnesses, if
they're just dropping in without a plan."

"We'll try and check the names, of course, but it'll take a while.  We
may get lucky, but I wouldn't count on anything."

"Agreed."

If Tanner's quarry had the common sense to case a job beforehand,
chances were they also knew
enough to sign false names on motel registration cards, switch license
plates from time to time, or even ditch their wheels and find another
ride to beat the heat.  Ironically, the present leads were so obscure
that any major effort by the killers to conceal themselves would
largely be a waste of time.

"I've got some sketches from a possible eyewitness in L.A."  you want
to show them off at the motels."

"It couldn't hurt," said Dickerson.

"Right now, we don't have squat."

"I'm done," said Tanner.

"Is the ME ready, do you think?"

"Should be.  He finished the postmortem yesterday.  We'll call ahead,
make sure."

A radio exchange confirmed the medical examiner's availability, and
Dickerson drove Tanner back downtown.  The main drag was a shabby
imitation of the Vegas Strip, its undersized hotel-casinos trying to
compete with Reno's carpet joints, just thirty miles away.  The capitol
was safely hidden on a side street, to avoid confusing legislative
functions with the state's chief industry.

All things considered, Tanner feared the medical examiner would prove
to be a hack or country bumpkin, chosen by his party for political
connections and by voters on the basis of his winning smile.

His first surprise was the facility, a modern hospital with all the
trimmings.  Number two was Louis Gresham in the flesh, a handsome
figure in his middle forties, with a solid handshake and a firm,
no-nonsense attitude.

"A rotten business, Mr.  Tanner.  Not the sort of crime we've grown
accustomed to in Carson City."

"So I understand."

"You'll want to see the body, I expect."

Four days in a refrigerator, sitting in the sun.

"I'd rather hear your findings, first.  The diagrams and photographs
may be enough."

Too much.

"Of course, please have a seat.  Some coffee?"

"Thanks."

The ME's office had diplomas on the wall, along with photographs of
Gresham shaking hands with governors, celebrities, a number of
civilians Tanner did not recognize.  The coffee Gresham's secretary
brought him in a thick ceramic mug was black and strong.

"You have the background on our victim, how the body was discovered?"

"Yes."

"Okay.  We have four bullet entry wounds, three exits.  Two of
those-both through-and-through were found to be postmortem,
accidentally inflicted by the man who found the body.  Spent
projectiles were recovered at the scene, from the refrigerator, which
conform to his .357 Magnum rounds."

"The others?"

"One was lost on exit from the back, a chest wound.  We recovered
number two, the fatal round, from where it lodged inside the victim's
skull.  it was a forty-five, considerably flattened, but we still might
have enough for a ballistics match, if we get lucky."

"I was told Forensics picked up cartridge cases."

"By the pound," said Gresham.

"Most of them irrelevant, but there were half a dozen forty-fives.

I'm hoping that your lab in Washington can match the firing pin or the
ejector marks."

"You read my mind."

"Aside from bullet wounds and drag marks, there were no external
injuries.  The victim was molested prior to death, presumably against
her will.  The acid phosphatase was positive on all three body
cavities, with evidence of three participants in the assault.  The men
you're looking for are all secretors.  Oral swabs reveal type A, with
type O on the rectal.  Your vaginal penetrator is a rare bird, type

AB."

"I'd like to see all three on the endangered species list."

"We have a match, I take it?"

"Carbon copy, down the line.  I don't suppose the body turned up any
latent prints?"

The ME sipped his coffee, frowning.

"No such luck.  Between the perspiration, body oil, and dirt, we never
had a chance.  We did find several suspect pubic hairs in both the
genital and anal regions, which may help establish continuity."

"That's something."

"I can tell you positively that the victim did not die in that
refrigerator.  She was shot outside-the missing bullet tells us that,
along with bloodstains in the dirt-and then they put her in the icebox
afterward."

"Concealment?"

"Or a twisted kind of joke.  No decent prints from the refrigerator,
incidentally."

"Too much to hope for," Tanner said.

"This makes how many?"

"Ten, we're sure of."

"Damn.  I wish we could have given you a solid lead."

"You did all right.  At least we know which way these sleazoids
traveled, from os Angeles."

"But who knows where they" re going next?"

"We'll hear about it when they get there," Tanner answered.

"I'd appreciate a copy of your file."

"All done.  My secretary has it, when you're ready."

"No time like the present."

"If there's anything that I can do "We'll let you know, of course.  And
thanks again."

He did not open the manila envelope at once, allowing it to wait.  The
next flight back was four o'clock, and Sergeant Dickerson insisted on
the sheriff's office buying Tanner's lunch.  The restaurant was
Mexican, the food delicious, and they spent an easy hour talking shop,
avoiding reference to the Geddes case by mutual consent.

"Your people have a rough time with the Metro boys down south," said
Dickerson.

"It's touch and go," said Tanner, recognizing the allusion to
continuing investigations of the old-line underworld, around Las
Vegas.

"Never worked the orgcrime beat myself."

"I have to laugh sometimes," the sergeant said.

"You see the headlines, every couple years, like
"Federal Sources Hint at Mob Involvement in Casinos.  "What a flash.
They make it sound like no one ever heard about the syndicate
before."

"I know the feeling," Tanner said.

"Back home, it's street gangs at the moment.  They've been averaging a
hit a day, the past few years, and every time the cops pick up a
twelve-year-old with colors and an AK-47, all the politicians act
surprised."

"It beats admitting they've been jerking off since the election."

"I suppose."

"You ever stop and wonder if it's worth the effort?"

"Maybe two, three times a day."

"So what's the answer?"

Tanner shrugged.

"I wasn't doing this, I'd probably be out there, bitching over how
nobody gives a damn.  At least this way I know that someone @
trying."

"Does it help?"

"From time to time."

Returning to the airport, he had twenty minutes grace before his
flight.  Veronica had given him a "lucky" quarter when he left the
house that morning, Tanner promising to drop it in a slot machine and
win a fat retirement bonus if he got the chance.  Before proceeding to
his gate, he detoured past the slots and found himself a futuristic one
armed bandit with a digital display in place of classic spinning
wheels.  It spoke to him with a robotic voice as Ronnie's quarter
disappeared.

"Another winner coming up!"

"We'll see."

He pulled the handle, watched the narrow screen go blank for several
seconds, finally showing up two stylized lemons and a lumpy-looking
plum.

The canned voice came back, full of sympathy.

"Oops!  Better luck next time!"

"I could use it," Tanner muttered, making sure the ME's file was safe
beneath his arm before he moved off toward the loading gate.

The telephone was on its second ring when Flynn returned from fetching
coffee, down the hall.  He hoped it would be Tanner, checking in with
news from Carson City-possibly a break-but he had no such luck.

"Flynn, here."

"You G-men ever break for lunch?"

Her voice was slightly different from the broadcast version-something
in the studio acoustics, Flynn imagined-but he would have known it
anywhere.

"Depends."

"Don't be defensive' Joe A simple meal."

"How come?"

"We both get hungry.  What's the harm?"

"I don't suppose your appetite includes a'pending case, by any
chance?"

"No cameras, Joe.  Just you and me."

"My work load looks like someone dumped the manuscript for War and
Peace across my desk,"

Flynn said.

"I'm really jammed."

"You can't play hooky for an hour?"  Amy sounded disappointed.

"Tell your SAC you're meeting with a snitch."

Against his own best judgment, Joseph's curiosity was winning out.

"What time?"

"Well, noon's traditional.  That gives you half an hour."

"Where?"

"I'll pick you up."

"I ought to leave a contact number."

"You can phone it in," she told him.

"Thirty minutes.  Don't be late."

Now, what the hell .  . . ?

It had to be a story, Flynn decided.  In the "old days," slipping out
for lunch with Amy Thatcher would have been routine, but Flynn had
burned that bridge .  . . or so he thought.  They had not parted
enemies, exactly, but he knew that Amy blamed him for' the failure of
their previous relationship.

Still .  . .

Flynn stopped short of calling it a love affair.

They never really knew each other well enough for that, although the
carnal heat was definitely there.

From rough beginnings, circling one another warily in their
professional capacities, they had allowed the chemistry to take
control.  Raw hunger, and it might have blossomed into something else,
except for Luther Blaylock's interruption when he kidnapped Amy, using
her as bait to get at Flynn.

The rescue effort was successful, but it altered
everything, from Flynn's perspective.  After Blaylock, he was prone to
study Amy's mannerisms, carefully dissecting every turn of phrase, in
search of evidence that she felt bound to him by obligation rather than
desire.  It could have been was probably-his own imagination, but the
doubts were no less real for knowing that.  In retrospect, Flynn still
could not be sure if Amy had been stifled, trapped in their
relationship .  . . or whether he had simply driven her away.

And in the end, what difference did it make?

The time for assigning blame and seeking remedies had long since
passed.  There had been other women in his life since Amy, and he knew
the TV anchorwoman well enough to rest assured that there were other
men in hers.  The two of them had made an effort, recognized a failure
when they saw one, finally went their separate ways.

No harm, no foul.

So why did Flynn experience a nagging pang of guilt each time her name
came up in conversation or he saw her on the tube?

It had to be a working lunch, no matter how she dressed it up in
mystery.  When Amy called, infrequently these days, she always had a
question on some pending case or other, looking for a handle that would
edge the competition out.  A leg up, as they say.

Flynn did not want to think about her legs, or any other part of her,
right now.  He drained his' coffee, shuffled papers for a moment
longer, finally rose and locked the office door behind him as he left.
Security was SOP throughout the building, even though the risk of
someone slipping in to rifle unsolved murder files was next to
nonexistent.  You could never tell, these days, when former agents of
the FBI were serving federal time for selling secrets to the Soviets,
and White House aides were being sent to jail for laundering illegal
hoards of cash.

Flynn took his pager with him, stopping by to warn the switchboard
operator that he would be stepping out without a contact number readily
available.  He would phone in, if feasible, or she could raise him on
the box in the event of an emergency.

Outside, it felt like early fall, a crisp breeze ruffling Flynn's hair
as he began a slow stroll toward the parking lot.  He was surprised by
the anticipation that he felt, a bittersweet sensation, still exciting
in its way.  This time he did allow himself to think of Amy's legs, and
took it on from there, relieved to find the mental image did not leave
him short of breath."

Okay.

The key was self-control.

She drove a classic Alfa Spyder he had never seen before.  The top was
down, a floral scarf enlisted to secure her long blond hair.

"Are you allowed to ride in foreign cars?"  she teased.

"As long as they're not Russian."

"Then you're safe with me."

Flynn thought about a comeback, kept it to himself, and settled in the
bucket seat.  Beside him,
Amy waited till he had his lap strap fastened, shifting gears and
peeling out with a delighted smile.

"Where are we going?"

"A surprise."

She followed Wilshire Boulevard to reach the San Diego Freeway, rolling
south with too much rushing wind for a coherent conversation Amy
choosing the off-ramp for Olympic Boulevar'd.  Two dozen blocks and
twenty minutes' worth of noontime traffic put them in Century City.
Briefly surrounded by the studios of 20th Century-Fox, they made a
left-hand turn on Avenue of the Stars, passing the huge ABC
Entertainment Center before Amy hung a right on Constellation
Boulevard.

The restaurant was Sefior Pico, and it startled Flynn, because it was
the first place they had ever gone together, by themselves.  Not yet a
couple, they were sitting down as cop and journalist to talk about the
Blaylock case, before they even knew the killer's name.  He was the
Reaper then, a nightmare creature of the media, and neither one of them
had realized how tracking him would change their lives.

How long ago?

Too long.

"Remember?"

Joseph nodded, wondering what he should say.

"Come on, I've got a table waiting."

"You were pretty confident."

"I kept my fingers crossed."

Flynn recognized the maitre d', but it was not reciprocated.  Amy, on
the other hand, was welcomed like a long-lost daughter-or, perhaps, the
mistress of the house.

"It's been a while," she said when they were seated.

"Yes."  Self-evident, no reason to elaborate.

"What happened to your face?"  Soft fingers following the scar across
his cheek before he thought to catch her hand.

"I cut myself."

"Oh, Joe."

"No big gee You should see the other guy."

"I heard about what happened."

Meaning Joseph's outing in the High Sierras, tracking a serial killer
whom the media had dubbed the Headhunter, after his modus operandi.

More lives wasted; more bad dreams.

"It's done."  He hesitated, groping, feeling like a fool.  And settled
for: "What's happening in TV land?"

"The same old thing.  Good news is no news.  Do you watch?"

"The television?"

"Me."

"You bet."  The half-truth offered to appease her, slow her down.

"Your people always scoop the competition, anyway."

"We try."  Was he imagining the strain behind her smile?

"I miss you."

"Amy-" He was interrupted by the cocktail waitress, Amy ordering a
Margarita, Joseph settling for a large iced tea.

"That's it?"

"I'm working," he reminded her.

"Oh, right.  The public trust."

"More like a bloodhound," he replied.

"How's that?"

"My SAC can smell a drink from three floors up.

He frowns on violations of procedure."

"I remember that."

A different waitress brought their menus, silence easing in between
them while they studied choices, placed their orders, watching her
retreat.

"So, have you?"

"Pardon?"

"Missed me."

"I believe we had this conversation, several times."

"You're right.  I'm sorry, Joe."

"No need."

"I figured we were here, old times and all .  . .

so what the hell?"

"Was that the reason for your call?"

"Not quite."

"Okay."

"Your section's keeping busy," she remarked.

"We've had it worse."

"I understand you're running into jurisdictional concerns with these
abductions in the past few weeks."

"It's news to me," Flynn said.

"Come on, Joe.  Everybody knows that LAs finest and the sheriff's
people fight like cats and dogs.

It's no big secret."

"Then you don't need me to lay it out."

"I'm making conversation."

"With a point."

"My point is, people need to know what's happening.  Four victims
murdered since the seventeenth of August, all the women raped
repeatedly."

."I'm not aware of any blackout on the case."

"Oh, no?"

"You have ballistics information, suspect sketches......... "We've been
running them."

"Well, then, you know as much as I do."

Amy forced a smile.

"I doubt that very much."

"You want the names?  Believe me, if we had a line on these jamokes,
you wouldn't have to ask."

"Why is it I keep thinking that there must be something more?"

"Professional enthusiasm?"

"I'm not laughing, Joe."

The waitress brought their food on plates too hot to touch without an
oven mitt.  Flynn took his time with a relleno, careful not to burn his
tongue, while Amy focused her attention on tamales, backing off a
bit.

It would not hurt to tell her that the killers had apparently left
town, unless the lead from Carson City came up bogus.  Then again, an
outing in Nevada did not mean the predators had fled Los Angeles for
good.  They might have felt the heat and tried to point pursuers in a
new direction, doubling back to wait while things cooled down.  And
there was still an outside chance that Carson City's victim might be
unrelated to the local string of homicides.

Good luck.

"Why can't we work this out?"

Flynn shrugged.

"You know we always hold some details back, to weed out false
confessions.  I can't change the game plan, and I wouldn't if I could.
Air every scrap of evidence, and half the loonies in Los Angeles could
make a case for their involvement in the crime."

"I need this story, Joe."

There was a note of desperation in her voice that made him frown.

"I don't quite grasp the -urgency,"

he said.

"We've gone three weeks without a hit, since Santa Monica."

"That's just my point.  They're overdue."

"You don't know that."

"Between the first and second murders, eighteen days," she said.

"And twenty-one before Rebecca Short.  Now it's been twenty-three.

"So what?  You haven't got enough to demonstrate that kind of
pattern."

He was not about to tell her that the unknown suspects-two of them, at
least-had passed a month between their first two crimes, in Texas.  As
it was, the Southwest link was still a secret from the press, but
Joseph had his doubts that it would last much longer.

"I make due with what I have," said Amy.

"I was hoping you might help me out .  . . for old time's sake."

Flynn felt a churning in his stomach, unrelated to the restaurant's
inflammatory salsa.

" so.  " "I beg your pardon?"

"I've been pulling too much overtime," he said.

"I

used to have a better eye."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

His tone took on a cutting edge.  ""I miss you, Joe.  Do you miss me? 
"What did you have in mind, for old time's sake?"

"I've given you no reason to insult me."

"I'm the one insulted, here," said Flynn.

"You look at me and see a price tag, I then you try and bargain
down."

"You think so)' "What am I supposed to think?"

Her cheeks were stained with angry color now, beneath the perfect
tan.

"Forget it, Joe.  I only thought .  . . God damn you, anyway!"

The tears were a surprise, but Joseph had no way of telling whether
they were genuine or part of a performance, mapped out in advance.
Regardless, sitting there with Amy made him stop and wonder, feeling
like6 an asshole and a victim, all at once.

"If I misread the situation, I apologize."

"I-said forget it, will you!"

"Sure."

He sipped his iced tea, wishing it was something strong enough to
moderate his racing pulse and flush the sudden guilt that squirmed
inside.  If she was talking straight .  . .

Hang tough, Flynn thought.  You've been around this track enough to
know it never takes you anywhere.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, leaving it between them like an offering.

"Don't bother."  Amy checking out the nearby tables, making sure that
no one caught her dabbing at her eyes.

"You may be right.  We fall into a pattern-I do, anyway-of using any
tool we can.  It's hard to turn that off, sometimes."

"I know the feeling."

"Do you?"

"Absolutely."

Thinking of the pressure points he used with witnesses, potential
suspects, to obtain desired results.

No third-degrees, but there was always some elastic in the guidelines,
rules that stretched a fair amount before they broke.  Sometimes it
worked; sometimes you wound up holding shit.

"I never meant-" "Forget it, Amy.  Let it go."

"I wish I didn't have to."

"We don't always have a choice."

"I guess that's right."  She took a moment, waiting for her voice to
come around.

"Still friends?"

"You bet."

"Okay."  She saw that he had pushed his plate away and said,

"All done?"

"My eyes were bigger than my stomach."  Reaching for his wallet till
she stopped him, laying out a credit card.

"Deductible expense," she said.

"The station pays.

"Okay by me."

She took the main streets back to Westwood, picking up the freeway when
she could and letting wind erase the need for awkward conversation.

Dropping Joseph off, she placed a soft hand on his arm and stopped him
for a moment, holding him inside the car.

"One thing.  I meant it when I said I've missed you.

"Goes both ways, I guess."

"You think it's something we should talk about?"

"I think we did."

"You ever change your mind "Try six or seven times a day,"

He closed the door behind him, leaning in to kiss her lightly on the
forehead.  Amy gave the Alfa more gas than she had to, pulling out, and
in another moment she had merged with flowing traffic, lost to sight.

Driving into Utah, the old man is smiling to himself, Hank Williams,
Jr."  on the radio.  '7these Mormons have the right idea," he says to
no one in particular.

"God tells' em any man should have as many wives as he can rightfully
support."

"Amen," says Jubal from the back, and Macy pokes him in the ribs.

"Don't get your hopes up, Wallace."  Rena knowing that he means it as a
joke and still not putting up with any foolishness.

"Just thinkin' to myself," the old man answers, piloting the beat-up
family car along an empty stretch of Highway 30 with the Grouse Creek
Mountains on their left.

"I hate to go against God's law, is all."

"You best forget about that law and mind your homework," Rena tells
him, staring out her window at the flat, dead land.

No air-conditioning inside the car, so they rely on four-and-sixty,
rolling down the windows front and back, the old man driving fast
enough to keep the wind flow coming through.  It isn't very cool, and
Macy whines about her tangled hair, but you get used to certain modes
of travel and it sticks.

Like family.

The old man wonders, sometimes, if he could have done a better job.
Earned bigger money in his younger days, perhaps, or taken greater care
to keep himself from getting busted there, a time or two.  The Texas
laws weren't all that smart, which meant you had to make a pretty dumb
mistake before they took you off the street.

Like leaving witnesses behind, for instance.

He has learned his lesson there, and no mistake.

The first time, taking down a two-bit store in Garza County, he is
hesitant to use the gun he carries, waving it around to scare the bitch
behind the countermand her two, three customers, but stopping short of
putting anybody down.  That being so, he has no one except himself to
blame when one of them takes down the license number on his Dodge and
hands it to the laws.

They give him eighteen months to think about his errors, talking to the
other cons about technique and picking up advice.  In retrospect, he
sees that he was unprepared from the beginning, parking out in front,
broad daylight, where a half-blind retard could have memorized his
tags.

And witnesses are critical.

You live and learn.

The second time around, he does more work on preparation, checking out
the Deaf Smith County
filling station for security, escape routes, anything that he can
think of, going in.  The trick is waltzing in near closing time, one
Friday night, with no one but a couple of employees on the premises.
Six hundred dollars in the till, and he is careful not to leave his
fingerprints around the register.  The two pump jockeys know his car by
sight, and they will have to go.

He puts them in the grease pit, standing side by side with hands atop
their heads, like German prisoners in World War 11.  The first shot
sounds like thunder, battering around inside the small garage and
ringing in his ears until he wants to scream.

The second muffled somehow, by the impact of the first.  Two bodies
slumped together, in the pit.

Next morning, turning on the radio to hear about two victims wounded in
a brutal robbery, both still alive and talking to the laws.  He hits
the front door running, Rena yelling after him, and Macy calling out to
know what's wrong with Daddy.  Rangers pull him over near Glenrio, and
he feels them spoiling for a fight, refusing to oblige them by
resisting even when they rough him up a bit.

A stiffer sentence this time: twenty-five to fifty years for robbery
with firearms and attempted murder, twice.  With good time, he is on
the streets again in twelve, an older man and wiser, bet your ass.

No more mistakes.

He is surprised, at first, to find his family waiting for him.  Rena
would have been within her rights to file for a divorce, but she hangs
tough, accepting his decisions like a perfect wife.  He is a stranger
to the children, for a while, until they get the feel of him again and
learn that sassing back will get them nothing but a knuckle sandwich.

Waiting out the rest of his parole, two stinking years, he works odd
jobs around Bovina, anything to keep a leaky roof above their head and
put food on the table for his family.  The laws are always watching,
and he knows it, smiling to himself when he is chopping weeds or
mending broken fences, glad to see them sitting in their black-and
whites pissed off that there is nothing they can hang him on.

Twelve years is more time than he spent in school, and it has been an
education, all the way.

His first successful murder is committed in the prison yard, a Mexican
who owes him cigarettes from betting on a cockroach race.  You earn
respect in prison by whatever means available.  The day he shanks the
Mex,.  it starts a minor riot, with a dozen inmates hauled awa to
solitary, several others winding up in the infirmary.  The wetbacks
hate him after that, but they are wise enough to let him be.

Confronted with professionals from every walk of crime, he makes
himself a willing pupil, picking up the information he will need to
make it work, outside.  He shines the box men on, too nervous for
explosives and the possibility of going up in smoke.

His tutors are the holdup artists, everything from corner filling
stations on to banks and big department stores.  While he does not
aspire to be another
Jesse James, the old man knows that it is best to be prepared for
anything.

He learns to run the cat roads, in and out of tiny rural towns, where
"shortcuts" may lead nowhere, picking out the likely points for
roadblocks, charting the alternatives.  He learns to use a spotter,
sending someone else to case a target, so that he does not arouse
suspicion on a second visit.  There are lessons in the fine art of
exchanging cars and license plates, obtaining guns and scouting
hideouts, drawing down on a patrolman if he stops you on a speeding rap
when you can least afford it.

Other tips, as well, on masks and various disguises, how to beat
surveillance cameras and confuse eyewitnesses, but he ignores that
part.  The old man has decided he will choose no mark with earn eras on
the premises, and he is not concerned about eyewitness testimony.

He has learned from his mistakes, as well as from his teachers in the
joint.

The first time, in Floydada, he lets Rena scrutinize his chosen target,
pleased that she accepts the order quietly, without objection. A
convenience store and self-serve filling station, no surveillance gear
or visible alarms, with decent business on a Friday night.  A skinny
little redhead on the register and grinning at him as he pulls a
six-pack from the cooler, coming back to let her see the gun.

The Walther is a souvenir from Europe, where his older brother took it
off a Kraut he killed' in'44

The old man has it from his brother's widow, after Clarence wrapped his
Dodge around a phone pole south of Marta, few years back.  He likes the
pistol's balance, feeling it and knowing he has death there, in his
hand.

A funny thing about the redhead, looking at her under the fluorescent
lights, the old man is surprised to feel a first-class boner poking out
his jeans.  He thinks of Rena, waiting for him with the children back
at home, and something clicks inside his head.

Why not?

Instead of dropping her behind the counter, like his first plan calls
for, he decides to take her for a ride.  The flat lands dark and safe
beyond his headlights, driving out of town.  She doesn't try to get
away until he stops the car, and all he has to do is rap her on the
skull to set her straight.

She does just like he tells her, trying to survive.  A blow job, first,
the redhead nearly choking when he comes, the pistol in her face
correcting any thought she has of spitting up.  The old man is amazed
to feel himself still hard, still ready, and he has her mount him,
right there in the driver's seat, her ass against the steering wheel.

Like high school, only better, since he doesn't have to drive the bitch
back home.

When he is finished, feeling like a goddamn kid again, he takes the
redhead for a walk.  They find a dry arroyo, choked with tumbleweeds in
places, with a ragged footpath leading down.  He lets the redhead lead,
afraid of snakes and spiders in the darkness, telling her he needs a
place to leave her where she can't walk back to town before he gets
away.  Assuring her that everything is fine.

"Right here."

The redhead staring at him, wondering how fifty yards can make a
difference, figuring there must be more.

"Don't tie me up."

"I won't.  Just turn around."

Again, the dumb bitch does as she is told.  The Walther almost touching
her, soft hair around the muzzle when he fires, the impact slamming her
away and forward, stretched out on her face.

Make sure.

The next two bullets wasted, he is certain, but at least they give him
peace of mind.  No witnesses, no case.

He waits for someone to report the body, but it never happens.  He
considers driving out to check on the remains but stops himself,
remembering the countless stories where some stupid ass gets nailed
returning to a crime scene.  If she wasn't dead, the bitch would damn
sure have been talking to the laws by now, and it would be in all the
papers.  He could thank coyotes for their help and put the whole thing
out of mind, start looking forward to another job.

The next time, in Lamesa, he gets lucky with a blonde.  She fights
some, scratching him around the face before they reach an understanding
and she starts to play along.  He shoots her twice when he is finished,
both rounds through-and-through, deciding it is too much trouble to
conceal the corpse.

They find the body, this time, but the county sheriff has himself a
witness who recalls a pair of black men, hanging out around the store.
The laws pick up two niggers in a stolen car days later, with a hot
nine-millimeter Browning automatic underneath the driver's seat.
Incredibly, the passenger breaks down in custody and names his sidekick
as the triggerman, accepting five years on a bargained guilty plea and
testifying at the trial that lands his buddy on death row.

Case closed.

Except that Rena knows about the blonde, that she was used a bit before
she died, and maybe she can guess about the redhead too.  He waits for
her to mention it, throw something up to him, but if it bothers her,
she keeps it to herself.

The perfect wife.

Then, Jubal

Most folks, meeting a prospective son-in-law, would shit if they
discovered he has done hard time.  The old man takes a different view,
regarding Jubal as a graduate of higher education, taking him aside to
tip a few and share philosophies of life.  Without revealing anything
to hang himself, he figures out that going straight is not on Jubal's
list of New Year's resolutions.  A position in the family business
suits the boy just fine.

The old man doesn't even mind when Jubal shares the bitches with him,
knowing that a man has needs no woman ever really understands.  He half
expects a gripe from Rena, when they start off taking Coley out to case
a mark or serve as camouflage inside the store, but she refrains from
any criticism of her man.  It is a part of growing up, and she is wise
enough to know that every boy must cut the apron strings, one day.

"We going' into Salt Lake City, Wallace?"

"Too much heat," the old man answers, miles and miles of desert
emptiness reflected in the lenses of his shades.

"We'll pick out something closer to the border, where we don't have far
to run if there's a need."

"As you think best."

Behind him, Coley asking,

"Did you ever meet a Mormon, Daddy?"

"Once, in Huntsville.  He was doin' time for his arithmetic."

"How's that?"

"Too many different ledgers for the Chevy dealership he had, down there
in Waco."

Macy pouting in the rearview mirror, asking,

"Is it time for supper yet?"

"Hold on awhile."

"I'm hungry now."  As close as she would ever come to arguing, that
whiny voice that makes him want to kick her ass sometimes, but Jubal
seems to like it.

Coming up, a highway sign sweeps past them, names and numbers, white on
green.

"It's thirty-eight to Logan.  We'll get something there," the old man
says.

"And stay the night?"

"We'll see."

No point in wasting money on some half-assed wide spot in the road if
they can drive a few more miles and find a town that meets their needs.
The old man does not know where they are going, yet, but he will
recognize the spot when they arrive.

"I hope we get a room with HBO," says Macy.

"Maybe Showtime."

"And a swimming pool," says Coley, joining in the game.

"A heated swimming pool."

"It ain't that cold."

"It is, at night."

The mirror shows him Macy, whispering in Jubal's ear, and Jubal
grinning like he just discovered pussy.  Macy giving him ideas about
that heated swimming pool, the old man getting some ideas himself.

It is a young man's world, in many ways, but he is not exactly ready
for the crap per yet.  Each time they pull a job, it feels like getting
back a fraction of the time he lost inside, recovering another small
piece of himself.

How many more, before the score is balanced out?

A shit load right.

He feels familiar hunger, stirring in him, urging him to hurry.  Logan
may not be the place, but they are bound to find one soon.  They still
have ample cash on hand, but picking up a little extra can't do any
harm.

No harm at all.

The women safe in a motel, somewhere, and he would take his boys out
for a little fun.  His boys.  It feels like heading up some kind of a
commando unit in the war he never fought, his brother's stories and the
movies on TV enough to fill in any gaps.

Three men against the world.

It does not cross his mind that they are pressing luck already strained
beyond the breaking point.

He knows that there are several thousand holdups in the country every
day, and sixty-some-odd murders, give or take.  For all the money spent
on fax machines, computers, and the like, most laws are still the
bonehead boy next door, grown up to act like big frogs in a little
pond.  They cannot see beyond the county line, most often, and they do
not care to try.

So much the better, for commandos on the move.

Los Angeles has made him skittish about remaining long in any given
place.  A close brush there, but they are safe and on the road again,
effectively beyond the reach of tiny minds.

They have to find us first, before they bring us in, he tells himself.
And finding ain't as easy as it sounds.

For openers, the laws are looking for a gang of two, three men, rough
trade that loots and robs and preys on womenfolk.  They are not
searching for a humble family of five, with women of their own.  Why
should they, when the very thought is so illogical?

Approaching Logan, they pass drive-in restaurants, a truck stop,
several fair motels.  The old man keeps on driving, hushing Macy up
when she insists that he is passing all the good stuff by.  He wants to
feel the town a bit before he makes his choice.

"I don't see any niggers," Jubal says.

"They haven't got that many," the old man replies.

"I think it's one percent, or something."

"Sounds all right with me."

"The bad-news is, they're kinda tight with alcohol."

"Well, shit."

"There's ladies present, Jubal."  Rena speaking quietly, still staring
out her window.

"Sorry, ma'am."

Beside him, Macy giggles, Jubal glaring at her till she knocks it
off.

"Yes, Sir," the old man says,

"I, think we might do business here."

"All right."

He hears the eagerness in Jubal's voice.  A glance at Coley, in the
mirror, finds him smiling to himself, like in a daydream.

"Coley?  You okay back there?"

"Yes, sir.  I'm fine."

A cop car falling in behind them, and the old man takes iteasy,
circling around the block to shake them off and keep from making an
illegal U-turn in the middle of the street.  Drives back the way they
came" in search of a motel.

'That's settled, then.  We'll find ourselves a place to stay, and have
a look around for something easy."

Rena glancing sideways at him, like she doesn't know if he means cash
or women but she does not speak.  A good wife knows her place.

"All right," he tells his family, a broad smile opening his face,
"let's see what we can see."

"I doubt we would have matched it up," the deputy told Flynn, "without
that flier on ballistics you guys sent around."

"No reason why you should.  It doesn't fit the trend."

"I don't mind telling you, this whole thing has the county up in
arms."

"Odds are they're gone by now."

"Try selling that to anybody on the street."

The call from Logan, Utah, had come in on Tuesday afternoon, and Flynn
was on the Wednesday morning flight.  His turn to beat the bushes,
Tanner holding down the fort at home, and both of them aware that it
was probably a waste of time.  Still, it was better than the option,
sitting on your hands and hoping for a lucky break they knew might
never come.

It would have been so easy to ignore the double homicide, since it
appeared to twist their pattern out of shape.- The victims-Larry
Krause, nineteen, and Kristen Sizemore, seventeen-were both enrolled at
Utah State.  They had been dating since the fall semester started, once
or twice a week on average, neither one of them apparently involved
with anybody else.

It looked like love .  . . or, anyway, the next best thing.

Too bad.

On Friday night, November' 1, they caught a movie at the Logan Cineplex
and shared a pizza afterward, another couple joining them by chance.

It was 11:30 when the couples went their separate ways, a move that
either cost two lives or saved two, all depending on your point of
view.

On campus, Kristen's roommates in the dorm were waiting up for a report
on how the date had gone, a girl-talk ritual they shared among
themselves.  When she had not returned by two o'clock, they were
concerned.  By five o'clock, the mood was frantic.  At the crack of
dawn, they said to hell with it and called security.

No one was waiting up for Larry Krause around the frat house, and his
brothers had not missed him yet when uniforms began arriving on the
scene.  His bed had not been slept in, and the campus officers were
forced to make a judgment call: hang loose and see what happened, or
involve the county sheriff's office.

Larry Krause, as an adult, would not become a missing person for
another sixteen hours, minimum.  His date was still a minor, though,
despite the fact that she was living in a campus dorm,
away from home.  The campus cops ran down their list of possibilities,
deciding Kristen's friends were probably correct in their assessment
that she was not planning to elope.

The call was made, wheels set in motion for a search.

At 9:15 A.M."  a cruiser spotted Larry's Datsun at a shopping mall in
Providence, just south of Logan, sitting with the doors unlocked and
windows down, his keys in the ignition.  On a whim, they checked the
trunk and found his body curled up by the spare, the blood from
matching point-blank head shots dried a rusty brown.  The murder weapon
was a semiautomatic .45.

The search for Kristen Sizemore shifted from routine to urgent, but it
still took two more days before a trucker found her body, naked,
lifeless, at a picnic site on Highway 89, northeast of town.  According
to the autopsy, she had been raped and sodomized by two assailants
prior to death, inflicted by a single close-range head shot from a
.38.

It was the kind of crime that stuns a small, conservative community,
evoking fear and rage in equal measures.  Parents grieved and neighbors
sympathized, while gun-shop owners braced themselves for record sales.
A local tragedy, but no one thought of it in broader terms until the
coroner completed his examination of the bodies, and a weary team of
sheriff's homicide investigators matched their leads against a
checklist from the

FBI.

According to ballistics tests, the .45 that murdered Larry Krause was
also linked with three more deaths in California and a recent homicide
in Carson City.  On the .38, they had a match with Tran Lee Minh's
murder, in Los Angeles.

And there was more.

The tests for acid phosphatase on Kristen Sizemore's body showed that
her assailants were secretors, blood types O (the anal swab) and AB
(from the vaginal), respectively.

"We're missing one."

"How's that?"

Flynn's escort was a homicide detective from the sheriff '@ office,
Parley Alexander.  Pushing forty, he was trim and fit, a stylish
dresser.  He had met Joe's morning flight in Salt Lake City, answering
Flynn's questions as they drove the fifty miles due north to Logan, in
Cache County.

"One assailant," Flynn replied.

"The last two crimes, in California and Nevada, female victims were
assaulted by a three-man team.  We're missing one, type A."

"They ditched him somewhere," Alexander offered.

"Or he called in sick."

"I hate to think they're splitting up, before we get a line on who they
are."

"The other two are still the same, though, right?"

"No question on the guns.  We'll need a cross match on the semen, but
the AB looks conclusive, anyway.  At three percent, it's rare enough to
qualify as signature material."

"I got the sketches you faxed over, from L.A. We're showing them around
the campus and the pizza parlor, but I don't expect a make."

Flynn shook his head.

"We haven't been that lucky, up to now."

"How many?"  Alexander asked.

"With these two positive, we've got an even dozen verified."

"You said it doesn't 4.it, though."

"All the rest went down as robberies, commercial targets with abduction
of employees from the scene.  I don't suppose these kids were rich, by
any chance?"

"No way.  The boy was working part-time at the campus bookstore,
holidays and weekends with his dad at a garage in town.  The girl was
on a partial scholarship.  She had some money from her parents, down in
Orem, but it all went into food and school.  Between them, figure they
were holding thirty, forty dollars, tops."

"How much was taken?"

"Hard to say.  The shooters missed some pocket change on Krause.  We
haven't found the wallet out of Kristen's purse."

Flynn did not like the sound of that.  One rapist missing, since
Nevada, and the other two apparently had killed for simple sport this
time, with no real thought of cashing in.  It could mean they were
slipping, losing it .  . . and they might still need money, for the
road.

He did not want to think about a fresh hit coming up so soon, and kept
the speculation to himself.

The locals were alert enough, just now, without a needless dose of
paranoia added to the mixture of emotions they were feeling.  How could
they protect themselves, beyond examining the suspect sketches from
L.A. and keeping one hand near a gun when strangers were around?

No way at all.

"You want to see the dump site?"  Alexander asked.

"We might as well."

A Wednesday in November, there was no one to distract them at the rural
picnic area.  His escort parked the cruiser in an empty lo designed to
take a dozen cars, and Flynn got out, allowing Alexander to direct
him.

"Over here."

The public rest rooms were of cinderblock construction, his and hers,
with swinging doors incapable of locking.  It was cool enough outside
to minimize the flies but not the odor, Joseph wondering how frequently
the place was cleaned.

"They left her in the men's room."  Alexander leading.

"Back there in the second stall.  Her feet were sticking out, is how
the trucker noticed."

"Clothes?"

"We found them in the trash can.  Everything was there, except for
jewelry.  Her roommates say she wore pearl earrings when she left the
dorm on Friday night.  No trace of any jewelry, by the time our people
got here."

"And you said her purse was rifled, with the wallet missing?"

"Right.  We found it in the boyfriend's car, stuffed underneath the
driver's seat."

Flynn stood before the stall and looked inside.

The toilet needed cleaning, but it wasn't bad, as highway rest stops
went.  He could not shake his
first impression that it was a dreary place in which to die.

"It looks to me like they were cruising, maybe looking for a place to
rob," said Alexander.

"I don't know what sets them off, but if they saw these kids -the
girl-they could have figured what the hell, why not?"

Flynn let the metal door swing shut and block the toilet from his
view.

"You may be right.  A chance encounter could explain why number three
missed out.  He's waiting for them somewhere, maybe back at some motel,
and they get lucky.  Impulse shopping."

"Or he could have split."

"It's possible," said Flynn, without enthusiasm.

"Even so, he's been around since number one, in Texas.  Type AB, the
new boy, only joined the team as a participant six weeks ago.  I don't
see type A bailing out for good, unless he had no choice."

"Some kind of accident, you mean?"

Flynn shrugged.

"Right now, we're flying blind.

It wouldn't hurt to check the local hospitals for new admissions, going
back a week or so before the crime.  You'll want an out-of-towner,
male, Caucasian, type-A blood."

"Will do."

"The L.A. sketches may be helpful .  . . or they may not.  While you're
at it, maybe ask around with agencies between here and Nevada, find'
out if they're holding anyone who fits the profile, busted in the past
two weeks.  We've missed a runner more than once when he was sitting in
a local jail."

"I'll put it on the wire."

"We're fishing, I admit," said Flynn, "but sometimes it's the only way
to go."

Outside, he drank the clean air in and let it clear his head.  A short
walk to the cruiser, Alexander there ahead of him and buckled in behind
the wheel.

"I don't know if you need to see the frat house or the dorm .  . ."

"Your people checked them out?"

"That's right."

"No point, then."

""Kay."

As they were backing out, Flynn pictured Kristen Sizemore with her
killers, grappling in the smelly men's room, miles from anywhere and
screaming for her life.  A sudden pang of sadness took him by
surprise.

"The parents are in town, if you have any need to see them."

"No."

They had been through enough, with worse to come, and they were useless
to him now.  It was the kind of random, senseless crime where
background information on the victims had no real significance.

"I don't know how you do it," Alexander said.

"Do what?"

"Put up with shit like this, day in, day out."

"You work in Homicide," said Flynn.

"It's not the same.  Our basic squeal, we get some kind of family
thing.  A husband hits his wife too hard, too often, or he comes home
from his girl-
friend's house some night and finds the missus waiting with a butcher
knife.  We have our share of child abuse, with one or two fatalities a
year.  A holdup now and then, where someone stops a bullet.  This shit,
though .  . ."

"It's pretty much the same," Flynn told him, lying through his teeth.

"No, Sir.  I've seen enough to know the difference.

These sick bastards Alexander hesitated, measuring his words.

"I just don't know how often I could face it."

"No one does, until they try."

"You like your job?"

"I volunteered," said Flynn, aware that it was not an answer.

"Jesus, I don't know.  It must be bad enough, the things you see around
L.A."  but following these guys across the country has to wear you
down."

"Our main advantage over local agencies is the ability to track a
subject anywhere he goes.  It gives us continuity and makes the runner
understand there's nowhere he can hide.  Sometimes, a nervous subject
makes mistakes."

"Or blows his top."

"That too."

"You run a risk of pushing them too far, I guess."

"It happens," Flynn acknowledged, thinking of the Truax case, for one.
Their subject barricaded on a rooftop with a cache of weapons, blasting
anything that moved within a hundred yards of his strategic sniper's
nest.

"The point is, when you're dealing with a random psychopath, he may
blow anyway, regardless.  If it comes to that, I'd rather be on top of
him, where I can try and intervene."

"You see a lot of guys like this, I understand."

"No two are ever quite the same."

"You mean MOs?"

"It's more than that," said Flynn.

"You have to look at personalities and try to find out where they're
coming from."

"That must be fun."

"Let's say it's educational.  We've got six cases in the files at
Quantico of random killers who were dressed as girls in early
childhood, by their relatives.  Two of them went to school that way,
until administrators got involved and filed injunctions."

"Jesus, what's the point?"

"It varied.  Five of the offending adults were the victims' mothers.
Their excuses ranged from punishment for stealing to a hope that
dressing up in petticoats would keep the boy from getting into
trouble."

"Number six?"

"An uncle, holding legal custody.  He got it in his mind that dressing
up a six-year-old in frilly lace and sending him to school that way
would teach him how to fight and be a man."

"I guess it didn't take?"

"Depends on your perspective," Flynn replied.

"The boy was Charlie Manson."

"Oh."

"My point is, even suffering identical abuse in childhood, these six
turned out differently from one another.  Running down the list, we've
got two bisexual sadists, a homosexual cannibal, a hetero-
sexual child-killer, a serial rapist, and a homophobic necrophile.  Go
figure."

"If it's all the same, I'd rather not."

"Okay."

"I mean, these guys are crazy, right?"

"They're sane, within the definition of the law.

That doesn't make them normal, but they understood what they were doing
at the time."

"And went ahead, regardless."

"Right."

"Some world we live in, huh?"

Flynn watched the open desert change to scattered homes and roadside
businesses, approaching Logan from the north.

"It helps to keep in mind you're dealing with a small fringe element.
Most criminals despise these guys as much as you do."

"Even so."

"Perspective's all I'm saying.  Dealing with a case like this can make
you stronger, if you work it out.

It doesn't have to change your life."

And even as he spoke the words, Flynn wondered whether they were true.
At what point did the inner strength become a callous disregard for
human suffering or for life itself?

Not yet.

"I hear you," Alexander said, "but if I never see another job like
this, it's fine with me."

"Let's hope you never have to," Flynn replied.

But someone would.

The men he was pursuing were not finished yet.

Flynn knew that much, regardless of the questions that remained about
reversion to a two-man hunting party and the whereabouts of number
three.

The latest in a string of questions he would have' to answer for
himself, before he ran his quarry down.

How long?

If they were run to earth that very evening, it would not be soon
enough.  Too many lives had been destroyed already for arrest and trial
to put things right.

And what was the alternative?  1Some kind of half assed vigilante
action, where an eye was claimed in payment for an eye?

The desert well behind them now, with shops and offices on either side.
No more frontier mentality along these streets, where men were
civilized and lived according to the rule of law.

Some men, at least.

As for the rest .  . .

"My captain said he'd like to see you, if you have the time."

"Okay.

Flynn did not check his watch before he answered, knowing that the next
flight home was still four hours off.  And if he missed it, there would
be another.

There would always be another, in due time.

Like human predators.

No end to killing, or the search for men who lived outside the law.

"You feel all right?"

Flynn pushed the morbid thoughts away and forced a smile.

"I'm fine."

"You looked a little funny for a second there."

.

"I'm fine," he said again.  As if repeating it would make it true.

"Could be that airline food," said Alexander, 10 frowning to himself.

"I wouldn't be surprised."

The first thing Joseph saw that Thursday morning, walking in the VI CAP
office, was his partner's smile.  If Martin was a cat, he would have
looked around the desktop for canary feathers, but the only item
visible was a computer printout.  Three, four pages, neatly stacked and
centered on the desk.

"Good trip?"  asked Tanner, dragging out the moment.

"Nothing special.  What's with you?"

"You know that break we've both been looking for?"

"It rings a bell."

"You're looking at it."  One hand covering the printout, pinning down
the flimsy sheets as if he thought they might escape.

"Let's hear it."

"Are you ready, Joe?"

"I'm ready."

Grinning.

"Maybe you should have a seat."

Flynn sat.

"We've got the Walther."

"Say again?"

"P-38, the very same.  Ballistics confirmation, five for five."

"You want to start at the beginning?"

"I'd be glad to.  Yesterday, while you were gone, I got a call from
Anaheim, Orange County."

"I know where it is."

"You're getting testy, Joe."

"You noticed."

"Anyway, it's one of their ballistics people on the horn.  They've got
a Walther over there, they confiscated from a DUI in early August."
Tanner ran a finger down the printout, reading.

"August ninth, to pin it down."

"Go on."

"They saw our flier on the Texas angle and decided that it wouldn't
hurt to make a practice shoot.  Turns out to be a perfect match, across
the board."

"There's more," Flynn said.

"Indeed there is.  The DUI was booked as Jory Rogers, formerly of
Brownfield, Texas."

"Ah."

"The bad news is, somebody bailed him out before Orange County ran a
make through the computer, and the bastard skipped.  His prints belong
to Jubal Gleason, Bureau number 31649.  His last known address was
confirmed, in Long Beach, but he didn't wait around for visitors.
They've got a warrant out, for what it's worth, but no one's seen him
since."

"I've got a feeling someone has."

"You'll love his rap sheet, Joe.  Dishonorable discharge from the army,
age nineteen, for theft and sale of U.S. property-to wit, a pair of
M16s.  He pulled eight months in the stockade before they kicked him
out."

"A patriot."

"From there, he started robbing liquor stores around Fort Worth.  He's
good for six or seven, off the record, but they only proved the one
that sent him up for eighteen months.  Paroled in April '85, went back
inside for strong-arm robbery that August, five to ten.  With good
time, he was on the street by Easter '88, age twenty-seven."

"Current whereabouts, unknown."

"So true."

"But we can figure where he's been."

"You want to guess his blood type, Joe?"

"I'd have to flip a coin."

dIt's O."

"One down."

"Ve're getting there."

As Tanner spoke, he pulled a glossy five-by-seven mug shot out from
underneath the papers on his desk and handed it to Flynn.  Full face
and profile, showing off the oily pompadour and Elvis sideburns noted
by the maybe witness from September 4, on Wilshire Boulevard.

"Long live the King," said Flynn.

"I thought you'd like it."

m
"Even better if we knew where he was playing next."

"At least we've got a solid make, the face and prints to pass
around."

"Who bailed him out in Anaheim?"

"According to the sheet, it was his wife."

"Well, shit.  A name?"

"No record.  They've just got her down as Mrs.  Jory Rogers.  More
concerned about the color of her money than a straight ID."

"And now he's gone."

A frown creased Tanner's face.

"It's interesting he didn't run, first thing.  There's seven weeks
between the DUI in Anaheim and Becky Short in Santa Monica.  Seems like
the warrant didn't worry him that much."

"He's either cool, or stupid."

"And he's not alone."

"I'll tell you where he was last Friday."

"It's confirmed?"

"I'm satisfied," said Flynn.

"They broke the holdup pattern, and I still don't know why there were
only two involved, but it's a make."

"We'll get there.  Give it time."

"It bothers me, the fact they didn't pick up any cash this time."

"You're thinking there's a job we still don't know about."

"Or else they need one soon," said Flynn.

"It means more bodies, either way."

"This time tomorrow, every deputy and meter maid from Texas to Montana
ought to have a copy of the photograph and prints.  This turkey's
running out of time."

"You think so?"

"Yes, indeed."

"I wish I had your confidence."

"You need an outing, Joe."

"I just got back," he said.

"A little drive, to clear the cobwebs.  I was thinking Long Beach."

"Ah."

"Check out the landlord, maybe see if there was something that the
locals overlooked."

"A forwarding address, for instance?"

"I should live so long."

Flynn glanced in the direction of the victim wall and found them
watching him.

"You know, I haven't been to Long Beach in a while."

"My treat, for lunch."

"You're on."

And Tanner said,

"I'll drive."

The-Long Beach address was a duplex on Atlantic Boulevard, near Signal
Hill.  Flynn guessed that Jimmy Carter had been president the last time
it received a coat of paint.  The mangy yard showed dirt in spots, as
if the earth were going bald.

"Nice place," said Tanner, pulling up in front.

"My dream house."

"You could have it for a song."

"I'm guessing that's the funeral march."

"I can't believe your attitude.  Invest a little time and money in a
place like this, you'd have a paradise."

"I see that now.  The landlord's meeting us?"

"He's here already, Joe."

"Oh, yeah?"

"He lives here.  Rents the other half."

"You called ahead."

"What else?"

The bell was out of order, so they knocked and waited.  Moments later,
shuffling footsteps heralded an occupant's approach.

The landlord was a chunky five-foot-seven, balding like his yard, with
mottled, flabby cheeks and ruptured veins around his crooked nose.  He
wore a T-shirt that had yellowed over time, with khaki trousers belted
underneath a hanging gut.  The slippers on his feet reminded Flynn of
something that a dog had fetched one time too often.

"Yeah?"

"George Murdock?"

"Maybe so."

On top of everything, his breath was ninety proof.

"I'm Agent Tanner, FBI.  We spoke this morning, on the phone.  This is
my partner, Agent Flynn."

"You want to talk about the trash next door?"

Flynn could not tell if Murdock was referring to his former tenants or
the property itself, but Tanner smiled and said,

"That's right."

"You might as well step in."

Inside, the house smelled vaguely rancid, like its occupant.  Flynn had
no trouble making out why Murdock lived alone.  The marvel was that
anyone would pay to live nearby.

"Go on and have a sit-down."  Murdock waved them toward a threadbare
sofa and its matching easy chair.

"I'll put some coffee on.  " "No, thank you," Tanner said.

"We shouldn't be that long."

"Well, maybe I'll just have a cup myself."

They sat and waited, listening to noises from the kitchen, punctuated
by profanity as Murdock bumbled through the task of putting coffee on
the stove.

It seemed to take forever, but 4e finally rejoined them, bearing a
ceramic mug that had been sculpted like a woman's torso, with
protruding breasts.

"Now then."  He settled on the far end of the couch, away from Flynn.

"What can I do you for?"

"As I explained, we're interested in Jory Rogers and his wife."

"White trash, the whole damn bunch of them."

"Vhat bunch?"  asked Flynn.

"All five.  I thought the older folks might help some, keep the kids in
line, but what the hell do I know?  Turns out they were all the
same."

"They gave you trouble?"  Tanner asked.

"Damned country music playing all the time, like it's the only station
on the radio.  That Rogers and his wife were at it damn near every
night, the whole time they were here."

"You mean they argued?"

"I mean they were screwing like they had to beat a deadline, wearing
out the god damned bedsprings.  Place comes furnished, by the way, in
case you know of anybody-" "There were five, you said?"

"That's right.  The Millers and their boy-I don't
recall his name, offhand-plus Rogers and his woman.  Way she dressed
around the house, can't say I blame him, being horny all the time.
These little halter tops and shorts, you know?  I'll be the first one
to admit it gives a man ideas."

"About the Millers "Hank and Vera, so they said.  The boy's name may
come back to me.  He didn't have a lot to say."

"Could you describe the Millers for us?"

"Well, you wouldn't recognize that they were trash, first thing.  At
least I didn't.  Hank and Vera would be someplace in their forties, I
suppose.

Some gray on Hank, but Vera didn't show it .  . .

or I guess she maybe dyes her hair.  I wouldn't know.  They seem all
right, until you see the way they hang around all day without a job and
all."

Flynn bit his tongue in lieu of asking Murdock what his own last job
had been.  Instead, he palmed the unknown-suspect sketch from Wilshire
Boulevard and showed it to their host.

"Would this be Hank, by any chance?"

"You squint just right, it could be, I suppose.  I'm better with a
snapshot now."

"You say they hung around the house all day?"

"I said none of 'em had a job.  Of course, they came and went like
anyone, the men at least.  Some crazy hours too.  At first, I thought
they might have been out hunting work, but no such luck."

"They showed up when?"

"July thirteenth.  I know the date offhand because the sheriff's people
asked me, back a while.

Moved out the twelfth of August, in the middle of the night.  One
thing, at least they paid the rent on time."

"So they were here a month?"

"That's it."

"Leave anything behind?"

"A mess, is all.  You should've seen the place, the way they left it.
Even so, I guess I'm lucky that they didn't steal the goddamn
furniture."

"Do you remember what they drove?"

"Old Chrysler, I believe it was."  The landlord sipped his coffee,
frowning to himself, considering.

.1 'That's right.  I couldn't say what year, exactly "Did you have
occasion to record the license number?"

"Hell, why would I?  They were California plates, I know that much. New
seven-digit jobs, if you can feature that.  I guess they bought the old
heap used."

Or stole the plates, Flynn thought.  And said: "You may be right."

"The color?"

"Beg your pardon?"

"Of the car," said Tanner.

"Oh, some kind of faded-looking green.  Had rust spots all around the
wheel wells, there in back.  I doubt they washed it once a year."

"And you have no idea of where they went, from here?"

"Hell, no.  I told you they snuck out.  They weren, t about to leave me
an address where I could send the cleaning bill .  . . not that they
would've paid it, anyhow."

"I understand."

"They're in some kind of trouble, I imagine.

Sheriff's people wouldn't tell me what they did."

"We're still investigating, at the moment," Flynn replied.

"Some kind of rip-off there, I wouldn't be surprised."

"Well, thank you for your help, sir.  If we need to get in touch with
you again .  . ."

"I'm mostly here, unless I'm out."  He chuckled wetly at the joke.

"Just call ahead, before you waste a trip."

"We will."

Retr eating to their unmarked four-door, Flynn was silent for a moment,
trying to digest the sketchy information they had managed to obtain.

When they were buckled in and rolling, Tanner voiced an echo of his
thoughts.

"That wasn't much."

"The car, at least," said Flynn.

"For what it's worth.  You know they bagged those plates."

"We may get something out of the description, anyway.

"It's worth a shot, I guess.  Unless they're total idiots, they've
picked a new one up by now."

"You never know."

"Five people," Tanner said.

"The women threw me, for a second."

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time wives or girlfriends stood around
and watched.  Remember the Gallegos?  And the Neellys, down in Alabama.
Wilder even had a victim helping him, before he cut her loose."

"A goddamn crazy world," his partner said.

"You got that right."

"So, now we sit and wait?"

"We can't be everywhere," said Flynn.

"The locals have to carry some of it, with Gleason's picture on the
wire."

"I think I'll have another talk with Glen, in Dallas.  See if he can
shake loose something on this clown besides his rap sheet."

"Like his family tree, for instance?"

"There you go."

"It couldn't hurt."

"I'd like to kick somebody's ass in Anaheim for turning Gleason out
before they checked the gun and ran his prints."

"Old news.  We can't do anything about it now."

"Just once.  A swift one up the old wa zoo

"That's why you don't have any friends."

"Say what?  I'm tact personified."

Flynn smiled and changed the subject.

"Is it lunch time, yet?"

His partner grinned back at him.

"I thought you'd never ask."

"I don't want any bullshit, now," the old man says.

"You understand?"

"Yes, Sir," from Coley, with his downcast eyes.

"I hear you."  Jubal looking sullen, like he still don't understand the
whole damn thing is his fault, anyway.

His fault they have to high-tail out of Utah in a hurry, never even
taking time to pick up any cash along the way.  Twelve stinking hours
on the interstates and back roads, taking turns behind the wheel and
stopping only when the car needs gas, until the old man finally calls a
halt in South Dakota.

Jubal's fault, and dragging Coley into it that way, because he can't
stand waiting till the old man has a decent score lined up.

It pisses Macy off to think about it, Jubal and his stiff dick spoiling
things for everyone like that.  As if he doesn't get enough at home, on
top of her most every night and all.  She reckons he would do it three,
four times a day if anyone would give him half a chance.

Tough shit.

She knows about the needs of men, from Mama's teaching and her own
firsthand experience.  The way that pressure builds inside, until a man
just has to get relief some way, or God knows what might happen.
Nature's way, her mama says, and Macy knows a thing or two about that
itch herself.

Oh, yes.

It isn't like she wants to be a goddamn nun, or anything.  Lord knows
she doesn't stay with Jubal for his money or his high IQ.  He can
deliver when it counts, and make her feel like something special in the
process, telling her that she's the best he ever had.

And Mama always says, it isn't like the others really count, at all.

Since grade school, Macy has been conscious of her physical effect on
men and boys.  She is the first girl in her class to wear a training
bra, and first again to go without one, when she feels the urge to
raise some eyebrows.  Sitting in the back row at the movies, with a boy
whose hands are everywhere at once, her body tingling with a new
excitement, understanding power when she takes him in her hand.

Word gets around, and Macy never has a problem getting dates.  She has
"a reputation," and it doesn't mean a god damned thing, her daddy
sitting down in Huntsville, doing time.  Her teachers and
the like expect no better from a jailbird's daughter, and she hates to
let them down.

But power is the best part, feeling young men tremble when she slides a
hand inside their jockey shorts and goes to work.  The way they tense
and stiffen, just before they melt.  A certain football player begging
her to suck him, Macy stalling for a while and finally giving in,
surprised to find she doesn't mind the taste.  at all.

In spite of everything, she draws the line at fucking, still a virgin
in her sophomore year, when Danny Sidlow talks her into trying
something new.

His tongue like an electric probe, down there, and Macy so caught up in
the sensation that it takes a couple strokes for her to understand that
he has changed positions, mounting her.  By then, she doesn't care, but
there are anxious moments afterward, until her monthly visitor checks
in a few days late, and Macy takes to keeping rubbers in her purse, for
serious emergencies.

The old man coming home has no immediate effect on Macy.  He has been
away so long, they barely know each other anymore.  His quick right
hand ensures obedience, but he will have to earn respect by taking care
of Mama and the family.

Shit jobs, at first, while he is on parole, but Macy bides her time, to
wait and see.

Some nights, she lies awake and listens to her parents in the room next
door.  The bedsprings and the old man's heavy breathing, while her mama
hardly makes a sound.  It gets her, sometimes, and she has to touch
herself despite the guilty feeling, finally letting go in the assurance
that she would not have such feelings if it wasn't natural.

The first time she lays eyes on Jubal Gleason, she is browsing at a
mall in Seminole and wishing she had money for a brand-new pair of
shoes.  The old man off parole and robbing now, supposedly a secret
from the children, but she hears enough around the house to work it
out, and Macy doesn't mind.  More money, if he works it right, and if
the laws find out, it won't be like she's really losing anything.

First sight of Jubal, standing with a couple of his friends outside a
place where they sell pizza by the slice, and when their eyes meet, she
can feel the instant chemistry.  Not idle speculation, of the sort that
she indulges in with guys at school; more knowing this one has exactly
what it takes.  The way he holds himself and smiles across the empty
space between them, shaking off his friends and coming over to her,
like the two of them are lifelong friends.

Or lovers.

She anticipates the husky voice, and still there is a tremor of
excitement as they manage the amenities.  Exchanging, names, and Macy
playing hard to-get for something like ten seconds flat, before
allowing that she might have time to take a ride.

His friends evaporate, and Jubal leads her to a vintage Chevy in the
parking lot.  They cruise without a given destination, aimlessly,
exchanging histories.  She springs the old man's time in Huntsville on
him as a challenge, wondering if it will put him
off, surprised to learn that Jubal has done time in jail himself.

Home free.

She understands about the laws who never give a man an even break,
pursuing him for one mistake until he cannot find a decent job or
seriously think of going straight.  No quarter for a jailbird on the
street, and if you have to steal to get along, the half assed -system
is to blame.

Almost before she knows it, they are parked and finished talking, Jubal
reaching for her, touching her, and Macy too caught up in what she
feels to push his hands away.

"You think I'm easy," she complains, not really caring.

""Special' was the word I had in mind," he tells her, smiling, peeling
off her jeans.

"One thing."

"What's that?"

His fingers teasing her as Macy rifles through her purse and finally
dumps it out.

"Wear this."

His gentle laughter soothing her.

"I like a girl who comes prepared."

She takes him home a few nights later, worried that the old man may
object.  It makes no difference, beyond logistical complications if she
has to sneak around, but Macy is relieved when they appear to hit it
off.  In retrospect, it strikes her that the old man sees a vague
reflection of himself in Jubal, young and wild, defiant in the face of
persecution by his enemies.

Three weeks go by before he pops the question, sitting at a drive-in
theater with Macy's blouse unbuttoned, pants around her ankles, Jubal
working on her with his educated hands.  A civil ceremony ties the knot
in Garza County, with their honeymoon consisting of a weekend at a
cheap motel in Lubbock.  Macy game for anything, until he tries it from
behind and hurts so bad she has to call it off, the one and only time
she has denied him anything.

The old man seems delighted by the new addition to the family, and
Jubal helps him scout his mark, the next time out.  A beauty shop in
Plainview, Mama going in to case the layout in advance, and Jubal
bringing home a box of samples for his special girl.

The local news is full of Plainview, afterward, and Macy can't help
thinking some about the woman, what was done to her before she died.
The execution does not put her off-she is acquainted with the old man's
view on witnesse@but when she pictures Jubal joining in the rest of it,
she wants to scratch his face until he bleeds.

Instead, she talks to Mama, hearing once again that it is nature's way
for men to need and take from womankind.  She is advised to count her
blessings, understanding that her man may act more civilized at home
once he has found an outlet for his need.  No point in telling Mama
that she feels a hunger of her own, shares Jubal's needs .  . . except
the one.  It is a woman's place to stand behind her man and comfort
him, accepting his decisions when it comes to earning money for the
family.

It takes some practice, but she learns to put the others out of mind,
allowing Jubal his release on outings where his freedom and his very
life are riding on the line.  He never touches her, those nights, until
he cleans himself, and always buys her something special afterward.  A
shorty nightgown, maybe, or a pair of Frederick's see-through panties,
with the crotch cut out.

In Logan, it is different, not like going on a normal run at all.  The
old man sitting in their roofn and watching television, resting up
while Ju@al and her brother take a drive to scout around.  Returning
hours later, with the smell of beer and strange perfume all over them,
both looking sheepish as they tell the old man there has been "a little
accident."

No money worth a damn, this time, and Macy hurts because she knows that
Jubal had to want the little bitch herself, aside from anything he
might find in her purse or in the boyfriend's wallet.  Rubbing Macy's
nose in what he needs.

I hope you had yourself a real nice time, because you 71 be a while
without.

She shifts position in the bathtub, stretching out her legs and waiting
for the heat to help her knotted muscles loosen up.  More tension from
the silent trip than simple stiffness from a half day in the car.  The
small motel on Highway 90, north of Rapid City, is remote enough that
they can stop and rest.

The bubble bath she bought in Carson City smells like flowers, lulling
Macy as she lies back with her eyes closed, picturing an open meadow
with the sun bright, overhead.  It takes a moment for her mind to
register a furtive movement, almost hidden by the tall, lush grass, but
Macy strains to make it out.  Her tension coming back as Macy
recognizes Jubal, grappling with a naked stranger, pinning her facedown
and worming into her the way he likes it, from behind.

And with the tension .  . . something else.

She lifts a knee, her right hand sliding down to rummage in between her
thighs.  A simple itch, that's all, and Macy knows just how to make it
go away.  Her left hand gliding up to cup a breast, the nipple pushing
out against her warm, slick palm.

Still watching Jubal in her mind, and hating him for causing her to
feel this way.  The image of his body straining, brown from sun and
glistening with sweat, enough to make her come just thinking of him, if
she doesn't take her time.

Hips moving in an easy rhythm to accommodate her hand, and ripples in
the tub that stroke her body from the netk down to her toes.  She feels
the pressure mounting, wanting to explode.

"Need any help?"

The hot blood rushing to her face as Macy's eyes snap open, Jubal
standing in the doorway, watching her.  And anger coming back, to
override embarrassment.

"I'm getting on just fine myself."

"That so?"

"Believe it."

"I got something better, if you're in the mood."

"It looks a little used to me."

Now, baby-"
"Don't you baby me!"

"You'll always be my baby, you know that."

He kneels beside the tub, his left hand reaching out to stroke her
thigh, and Macy splashes him.

"Goddamn you!"

Soapy water dripping from his face, and Jubal looking so confused and
hurt she has to giggle, angry with herself that she cannot sustain her
rage.

"Now both of us are wet."  His hand exploring, making Macy squirm.

"You stop that."

"Why?"

"Because I said so, damn it!"

"You don't mean that, sugar."

"Hell I don't."

His fingers working on the spot that makes her catch her breath.

"I got you something."

"I don't want it."

"Sure you do .  . . but this is something else."

He holds the earrings up where she can see them.  Shiny gold and
flawless, matching pearls.

"You think that's all I'm worth?"

"I couldn't tell you what you're worth, to me."

"I'll bet."  The words all muffled as he slides two fingers into her
and wiggles them around.

"I thought the bath was making all this steam, but now I see it's
you."

"You bastard."  Flinching at the sudden absence of his fingers.

"What?"

"I have to take my clothes off if I'm gonna have a bath."

She watches him undress, no hurry, with the hunger strong inside her
now.  Her own hand filling in for Jubal's while she waits.  Behind him,
she can see the bedroom, curtains open on a window facing toward the
parking lot.

"Where's Coley?"

"Staying with your folks tonight.  They figure I'll corrupt his
mind."

"You might."

"The boy has notions of his own."

"Corrupt me, then."

"I don't mind if I do."

He steps into the bathtub, looming over her, and Macy reaches up to him
with soapy hands.  He lifts her to her knees, one hand behind her head
to guide her as she takes him in, the salt taste of him on her tongue.
His free hand slides between them, toying with her breasts while Macy
licks him up and down.

"My baby."

Backing off, when she can feel that he is almost ready, making Jubal
wait.  He squats down in the water, at the tap end, stretching out his
legs and easing hers on top of him.

"I do believe I've changed my mind."

"I haven't."

Drawing Macy toward him, overcoming her resistance with a token show of
force.  She settles on his lap, the swell of him against her lips.  His
strong hands underneath her arms as he begins to lift her, sliding
underneath until he feels her in position.

"No."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I hate you."

"No, you don't."

The tip of him inside her, pressing deep as Jubal lowers her.  She
feels herself impaled, the tremors 12 radiating, forcing her to move
against her will.

"That's right."

Her anger banished at the moment of her jarring climax, Jubal close
behind her, thrusting hard and crying out her name.

Forgiving him because it is her duty, and an act of love.

The Rapid City Police Department is housed in city hall, located at the
intersection of Main Street and Mount Rushmore Road.  The public
parking lot was nearly full on Friday afternoon, November 8, but Martin
Tanner's escort found a slot and nosed the Buick in.

"Remember, we're on thin ice here," the driver said.

"The locals still have jurisdiction."

Tanner smiled.

"I've been around this block a time or two.  The warrants for unlawful
flight should get us in the door.  From there, I'll use my basic
charm."

His driver was Lloyd Corrigan, the Bureau's resident agent in Rapid
City, South Dakota.  Corrigan had welcomed Tanner at the airport, six
miles out, and driven him downtown because the local PD had declined to
send a man.  It might be early autumn, but there was a frigid cold snap
in the air.

They were expected, though unwelcome, and the
chief of Homicide was not so reckless as to slip away and leave them
hanging.  He could never tell when his department might require a favor
from the Bureau lab in Washington, and there were many ways to register
objections without cutting off his nose to spite his face.

Approaching city hall on foot, they followed posted signs to reach
police headquarters, situated in the rear.  A separate entrance let the
blue suits come and go, delivering their prisoners for booking with a
measure of discretion, to avoid upsetting businessmen and politicians
out in front.

The desk man was a burly sergeant, salt-and-pepper hair, the hash marks
on his sleeve denoting twenty years of service to the force.  His eyes
were frosty under thick, dark brows.  A polished name tag labeled him
as T. Bunkowski.

"How's it going, Tom?"

"Surviving, Lloyd.  What brings you by?"

"We've got a two o'clock with Captain Chinoweth in Homicide, myself and
Agent Tanner, from the Bureau office in Los Angeles."

"You're early," said Bunkowski, scanning down his list.

"I caught a tailwind," Tanner told him, putting on an artificial
smile.

"Sounds thrilling.  Let me find out if the captain's in."

He punched a button on the telephone beside his elbow, listened for a
moment, muttered something that included both their names, and cradled
the receiver.

"You can go on back.  First hallway-" "On the left, I know," said
Corrigan.

"I'll see you, Tom."

The sergeant buzzed them through a metal door, and Tanner heard it
latch behind them with a sound of grim finality.

"That guy a friend of yours?"  he asked.

"Most times.  He seems a little out of sorts today."

"I wonder why?"

"Three guesses."

Captain Richard Chinoweth was pushing fifty with a vengeance, lines
etched deep into his weathered face, the stocky torso showing evidence
of softening to flab beneath a wilted dress shirt.

Rather than attempting to conceal his bald spot, he had opted for a
drill instructor's crew cut, showing off the craggy outline of his
skull.  He chain smoked Camels, lighting one as Corrigan and Tanner
filled the open doorway to his private office.

"May as well come in and have a seat," he said, remaining at his
desk.

"Let's get this over with."

"Hard day?"  asked Corrigan.

"I'm waiting for the easy one they promised me at the academy."

"It may be we can help you out."

"How's that?"

"My colleague, Agent Tanner, from Los Angeles."

The captain nodded, pointing Tanner toward an empty chair against the
wall.

"Ve have good reason to believe the men responsible for Wednesday's
murder are federal fugitives," said Tanner, giving back the captain's
steady glare.

"You said that on the phone."

"And I'm still hoping we can find some basis for cooperation on this
case, to benefit both sides."

"I've got a homicide with rape involved," said Chinoweth.

"That's all I need to know right now.

These sons of bitches killed somebody else before they got to Rapid
City, those departments need to get in line and take a number."

"I could understand that sentiment," said Tanner, "if the suspects were
in custody.  The fact is, all you're holding at the moment is a DOA,
and cutting off communication with the outside world can only make your
job more difficult."

A tinge of color stained the captain's cheeks as he replied.

"Ve've got no blackout, here.  Lloyd has a copy of the file, and I've
supplied one to the state police."

"I've seen the homicide report," said Tanner, softening his voice.

"I'd like to get your reading, as a trained professional with firsthand
knowledge of the area."

"Not much to tell," said Chinoweth.

"Ve've got Pearl Rosebrock, twenty-one, abducted from a Circle K on
Anamosa Street, north side of town, November sixth.  The graveyard
shift.  Apparent robbery, the cash drawer standing open when our
officers arrived.  The manager reports eleven hundred dollars missing,
give or take.  Next morning, bright and early, milkman spots the body
out by Rushmore Mall, about a mile from where she disappeared.  The
cause of death is down as gunshots to the head and chest.  I'm told
three men had at her, first, before they popped the caps."

"Blood types?"

"You'll have to see the coroner for any details."

"One more question."

Chinoweth was coughing as he stubbed his Camel out, immediately
lighting up another.

"Yeah?  What's that?"

"Is it Los Angeles that ticks you off, or feds in general?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Damn right."

"Okay, the plain fact is I've seen too many local collars gobbled up by
Uncle Sam without so much as 'thank you' or a simple 'kiss my ass."  We
find a stolen car that's been transported interstate, the FBI claims
credit for recovery and adds it to the stats for some congressional
appropriations hearing.  Same damn thing on fugitives.  I've got no
beef with Lloyd, here, when it comes to bank jobs or abductions, shit
like that.  He does his job, we get alcng.  Now, on the flip side, when
a guy like you blows in from out of town, I figure there's a cop in
trouble on some kind of civil rights complaint, or else you're looking
for a free ride on the gravy train."

"Which gravy train is that?"

"Offhand, I'd say arrest statistics.  Any cop with half a brain knows
Washington gets off on numbers games.  You want the headlines and the
cash from Congress, you come up with balance sheets.

So many felony arrests per agent, property recovered, cases closed-that
kind of shit.  It doesn't matter where you get the numbers, just so
long as they come in on time."

"You sound like someone who's been burned."

"Let's say I've been around awhile."

"Let's say one other thing, before we wrap this up.  Your case is one
of thirteen homicides, with seven other states involved.  One suspect
has been named in federal warrants, for unlawful flight.  The most
important thing to me, right now, is stopping him before he kills
again.  I couldn't give a shit who gets his name in print.  Nobody-I
mean nobody is standing in my way."

The captain sneered.

"I answer to the city, friend.

You do your own job, I'll do mine."

"You want to talk about statistics," Tanner told him, "you could be
one.  I find out that you're withholding evidence, I'll slap
obstruction charges on your ass before you have a chance to light
another smoke."

"Some balls you got, to walk in here and try to muscle me."

"No muscle.  It's a fact of life."

"You've got me scared."

"I hope not," Tanner told him.

"Frightened people make mistakes.  Right now you can't afford one.  11
"I believe we're finished here."

"For now.  I'll be in touch."

Lloyd Corrigan was grinning as they reached the parking lot.

"Is that what you call charm?"

"I have my moments," Tanner said.

"About the coroner .  . ."

"No sweat.  We get along okay."

"Like you and Captain Asshole?"

"Better."

"Well," said Tanner, "let's find out."

The county coroner was Dr.  Emil, Kraft, a youthful-looking thirty-five
and working on his second term in office.  He was smiling when he met
them at the morgue, his handshake firm and dry.

"Bad business, this.  Our normal homicides run more to barroom brawls,
or something off the reservation.  I believe this makes the second sex
crime I've been called upon to handle in the past six weeks."

"We'd like to help you clear it up," said Tanner.

"But I'll tell you right up front, the local force would rather I dried
up and blew away."

"That's politics," said Kraft.

"I try to concentrate on medicine, except around November, every leap
year."

"Fair enough.  I've been referred to you by Cap tain Chinoweth, for
details on the Rosebrock autopsy reports."

"Of course.  If.  you were interested in seeing the remains-" "I'll
trust you," Tanner said.

"In that case, if you'll follow me Kraft's office was a tidy cubicle
with bright fluorescents overhead, diplomas and a set of family photos
on the walls.  His wife was young and pretty, children smiling in a
woodsy setting, armed with fishing poles.  The doctor sat behind a
smallish desk, with Corrigan and Tanner facing him in plastic chairs.

"You know the victim's name and age, of course, the general
circumstances of her death?"

"Bare bones," said Corrigan.

"We show the cause as gunshots, following a rape by three
assailants."

"Rape and sodomy, to be precise.  A fine distinction to the victim, I
imagine, but the law defines our choice of terms."

"Specifically "The rape, defined by statute as a penetration of the
female genitalia, was committed by an unknown male assailant, blood
type AB positive.  The acid phosphatase results were unequivocal."

"That's one," said Tanner.

"Sodomy, by statute, may consist of several different acts, including
oral copulation or the anal penetration of a victim by a penis or a
foreign object.  In the present case, we're positive for semen in the
mouth and rectum.  Both of the assailants were secretors, with the oral
trace recorded as a type-A donor, and the rectal coming out type O."

"That's three for three," said Tanner.

"I assumed as much," said Kraft.

"Unfortunately, we don't have facilities for matching a genetic
fingerprint, but I'll be happy to provide your lab with samples."

"Thank you, Dr.  "Make it Emil, please."

"All right.  About the fatal wounds "You're looking for a
thirty-eight," said Kraft.

"Two head shots, fired at something close to skin touch range.  The
slugs were hollow-points and badly mutilated, but we still took
photographs before we passed them on."

"I'll need a copy of the prints."

"No problem.  There were also foreign pubic hairs, recovered from the
victim's body.  Different shades of brown, suggesting two assailants
when we view the samples in conjunction with their placement on the
corpse.  As you're no doubt aware, we can't judge sex or age from hair
alone, except where infants are concerned."

"Those samples are available?"

"Indeed, they are."

"We're interested in any other.  injuries as well."

Kraft frowned.

"The victim was not tortured, in the sense of any systematic or
prolonged abuse beyond the sexual assault.  I noted bruising on the
left side of her face, consistent with a blow or blows delivered by a
strong right hand.  Her fingernails were short, and scrapings yielded
nothing but a trace of soil consistent with the site where she was
found.  Some superficial friction burns suggest that she was forcibly
disrobed, a fact consistent with the damage noted to her clothes."

"It may be late," said Tanner, "but I'd like to have the body surface
checked for latent fingerprints."

"Of course."

"I'll have Chicago set it up.  I hate to stall the family, but it may
be Saturday before they have a man available."

"We'll work it out," said Kraft.

"I met the parents yesterday.  This was their only child, you
understand.  They're very much concerned with seeing justice done."

"I want to thank you for your help, " said Tanner, rising from his
chair to shake Kraft's hand a second time.

"I was afraid I'd need a football helmet, butting heads all up and down
the line."

"My job description calls for full cooperation with authorities toward
the solution of apparent homicides.  Nobody mentioned any cutoff at the
city limits or the county line."

"Well, thanks again.  I'll have a man in touch with you tomorrow, at
the latest, to arrange the final tests."

"I'll be here, eight to five at least," said Kraft.

"If all else fails, I'm in the book."

He was prepared to show them out, but Corrigan took charge and ushered
Tanner through the open door.  The coroner was back behind his desk and
poring over files when Martin saw him last.

"Nice guy," said Tanner as they moved along the antiseptic corridor.

"He knows his job," said Corrigan.

"You really think we've got a shot at la tents from the body?"

"We can always hope," said Tanner, knowing that between exposure to the
elements and necessary handling by the authorities, the odds were long
indeed.

"Good luck."

"We'll need it."

"I've supplied your vehicle description to the locals, and they had the
Gleason mugs already.  If it helps, they're working overtime, in spite
of Chinoweth."

"This bunch we're looking for won't hang around," said Tanner.

"It's a fluke they spent as much time as they did around Los Angeles.
My guess, they like the sunshine, maybe got to feeling safe, a town
that size."

"The looks of things, they're running now," said Corrigan.

"Damn right.  We still don't know what broke their pattern, back in
Utah, but the way they're moving now, they could be up in Canada."

"Or back in Texas?"

"Doubtful.  Even figuring that Gleason hasn't heard we've made him yet,
they have to know there's too much heat back home."

"You're tracking five now, as I understand."

"Officially, it's Gleason on the hook, with two John Does.  The women
may or may not be a fixture with the team."

"The family that slays together stays together, eh?"

"It takes all kinds."

"I guess."

"You want to circle by the office on our way back to the airport, I can
touch base with Chicago now, move this along."

"Can do," said Corrigan.  When they were settled in the car, he cleared
his throat and added,

"Listen, if you need to get in touch with Chinoweth again-" "You want to
handle it?"

"It might be easier."

"Suits me.  Much more of little Richard, I'm afraid I'd have to buy
some stock in Preparation H."

It felt like old times, dialing up the television newsroom, speaking
Amy's name, and holding while a gofer went to see if he could track her
down.  Instead of music in his ear, a nonstop promo for the news at six
o'clock, reciting each participant's credentials and awards, the tape
repeating automatically when it ran down.  Flynn heard the whole thing
twice, about to give it up when Amy's voice broke in.

"Hello?"

"It's me."

"Who's me?"  Pretending that she did not recognize his voice.

"How quickly they forget."

"I'm pushing deadlines, here.  If this is social, Joe-" "Not quite."

"Oh, no?"  He could not say for sure if it was simple curiosity or
something more akin to disappointment in her voice.  What difference
did it make?

"I promised you a break, if one came through."

"Okay, I'm listening."

And taping, more than likely, so she did not have to put her faith in
memory or scribbled notes.

"The telephone's no good," he said.

"I've got some things to show you."

"Such as?"

"Photographs."

"The killers?"

"One of them, we're pretty sure."

"Is this exclusive?"  Dark suspicion infiltrating Amy's tone.

"Right now it is.  You understand, it's not the kind of thing that
keeps for long."

"Well, can you drop it by the station?"

"Not a chance.  Try neutral ground."

"You want it cloak-and-dagger, how about the parking lot at Dodger
Stadium.  We'll both wear shades."

Flynn chuckled.

"I was thinking of MacArthur Park, beside the lake."

"South shore."

"No company."

"I'll need about an hour."

"Fine."

So far, the Gleason mug shots had been circulated through the hands of
law enforcement only, blanketing twenty-four states west of the
Mississippi River.  Leaks were a foregone conclusion, with that kind of
scatter technique, and Flynn's
SAC had decided that morning in favor of briefing the media, turning
the heat up by making their prey a celebrity.  The mechanics of
releasing information had been left to Flynn and Tanner.  Now, with
Martin out of town and out of touch, Flynn had decided that it would
not hurt to give KXTV News a short twelve-hour lead.  By noon tomorrow,
every station in the southern half of California would be covering the
case; by Monday morning, Jubal Gleason would be peering out of
television screens from coast to coast.

Flynn took his time on Wilshire, out of Westwood, bisecting the Los
Angeles Country Club and breathing the rarefied air of Beverly Hills
for two miles before he came back to reality at San Vincente.  Here, in
place of posh boutiques for wispy lingerie and high-priced hair salons,
the street was lined with bars and pawnshops, tattoo parlors and
massage emporiums, the shops and theaters that liked to call themselves
.1 adult," hawking their dildos and leather regalia as "marital aids."
Past the tar pits and art museum, catching some lights for a change,
slowing down so he would not be eagerly waiting when Amy arrived.

The Alfa caught his eye at once, an empty space beside it in the
parking lot.  Flynn locked his car from force of habit, slipped a thin
manila envelope into his pocket, following an asphalt path down toward
the lake.

Her dress was an electric blue that brought out her eyes and made the
water in the lake seem murky, by comparison.  The sky was murky, with
another smog alert, but Amy seemed to find herself a spotlight, with an
errant ray of sunshine beaming down to make her blond hair shine.

It was the kind of setting that you see sometimes in movies, and you
always wonder how directors set it up.  Flynn wasn't interested, just
now, as Amy turned to face him with a cautious smile.

"The man of mystery."

"Not much."  He palmed the envelope and passed it off, in lieu of
touching hands.

"Our suspect's Jubal Gleason, two-time loser out of Texas.  All the
background's there, with his most recent photo from a DUI arrest in
Orange County three months back.  Turns out they found a pistol in the
car and finally matched it up to several murders out of state,
committed prior to ours."

"Particulars?"

"All there.  I ran a printout.  You can double-check the facts with
local agencies."

"Three months!  If you've been sitting on this, Joe-" "Relax.  We only
got the word on Wednesday afternoon."

Immediate suspicion in her eyes.

"What held Ballistics up so long?"

"No comment.  Maybe you should ask the guys in Anaheim."

"Damn right, I will."  She did some quick arithmetic.

"Three months means he was stopped before the job in Santa Barbara.
They've picked up another gun."

"Two, we're sure of."

"And the other suspect?"

"Two more, both John Does.  We've learned that Gleason had a duplex
rented out in Long Beach for a month or so, before the traffic stop. He
had a woman with him, claimed to be his wife, together with an older
couple and a teenage boy who may have been their son."

"ID?"

"All bogus.  Gleason went by Jory Rogers at the time.  The older couple
introduced themselves as Hank and Vera Miller.  No name on the boy, and
no hits from the data base, so far."

"How many people have you shown this to?"

"You're it, right now.  This time tomorrow, it's an open book.  We're
working on a segment for America @ Most Wanted, for a week from
Sunday."

"Top Ten list?"

"Not yet.  A bit more time, who knows?"

"I'd better hustle, if I want to take advantage of my lead."

"Sounds right."

She hesitated, turning back to face him with the sunlight tangled in
her hair.

"Hey, Joe?"

He waited, wondering what she would say.

"Why me?"

"Why not?"

A shrug from Amy.

"I just thought .  . . about the other day, and all "It's
unprofessional to hold a grudge.  They ought to teach you that in
anchorwoman's school."

"That's anchorperson, Amy countered, managing a smile.

"Okay."

owe you one."

"Don't push your luck.  I might call in my marker."

"Anytime."

"We'll see."

She left him, moving faster than her private ray of sun could follow,
toward the bright red sports car.  Joseph stood and watched, until she
merged with traffic and the little drop top rocket disappeared.

First thing tomorrow, he would be on hand to field the calls from
various affiliates and independent stations that were scooped tonight
by KXTV.

The job of soothing ruffled feathers would require some tact, but Flynn
had long experience at dealing with the media.

By then, with any luck, his partner would have turned up something they
could build on in Rapid City.  Anything at all to put the two John Does
in focus, while they sat and waited for some feedback on the Dallas
query, wishing Glen could manage six or seven different jobs at once.

And in the meantime .  . .

Joseph was not ready for the long drive back to Westwood yet.  He did
not want to face the victim wall just now.

Instead .  . .

A sudden thought.  He palmed the dashboard microphone and gave the FBI
dispatcher his intended destination, signing off as she confirmed.  A
few short blocks, and he was entering the flow of traffic on the Harbor
Freeway, rolling north.

The LAPD pistol range is situated in Elysian Park, near the police
academy.  Flynn's federal badge and status as a sometime lecturer at
the academy admitted him, and he stopped off to buy an extra box of
Smith & Wesson .40-caliber at law enforcement discount rates.  He was
relieved to find no more than half a dozen blue suits on the firing
line.

From the small athletic bag he carried, Flynn extracted military
earplugs and a pair of shooting glasses that the masters of the course
made mandatory.  When the ringing sound of pistol fire on either side
was muffled, and his eyes were screened, Flynn drew his weapon from the
jackass shoulder rig and weighed it in his hand.

The Bureau's newest standard-issue sidearm was the Smith & Wesson Model
1006, a double-action semiautomatic pistol crafted out of stainless
steel, with rubber grips.  While G-men were obliged to carry .38
revolvers from the Great Depression through the early 1980s, with the
optional addition of nine-millimeter automatics after 1986, the new
piece was a step up in technology and stopping power.  Theoretically
designed to feed the custom tailored Smith & Wesson .40-caliber, the
weapon expelled its 185-grain hollow-point projectiles at a muzzle
velocity of 950 feet per second, roughly equivalent to the impact of a
classic army .45.  The custom loads were light, to minimize the chances
of civilian casualties, but Flynn was pleased to note the piece would
feed more potent ten-millimeter cartridges in a crunch.

Like now.

His first clip held eleven of the Smith & Wesson .40 rounds, with one
more in the firing chamber, but the magazines he lifted out of the
athletic bag were mix-and-match, a potpourri of different bullet
weights and powder charges randomly selected as a challenge to the
weapon .  . . and himself.

Flynn fired the clip of custom .40s first, absorbing recoil in a firm
two-handed grip, both eyes wide open as he framed his sights against a
human silhouette down range.  The first six rounds, he took his time,
experimenting, leaning in to blur the last six in a burst of rapid
fire.

A pulley let him reel the paper target in, and he was fairly pleased.
The first six rounds were placed where he had aimed them, three holes
clustered in the blacked-out face, another near the chin, one each for
shoulders, left and right.  The last six ran together in a jagged tear
across the target's chest, where they had ripped the bull's-eye out and
left a tattered hole.

He took the target down and dropped it on the floor, replacing it and
hauling on the line until it hung at twenty yards.  Most fatal
shootings on the street took place at less than half that distance, but
it never hurt to be prepared.

Flynn had been familiar with the sights and sounds of death before he
ever joined the FBI.  As a marine in Vietnam, his tour spanned the
final eighteen months before American withdrawal, and he saw his share
of action in the Mekong delta, falling back on more than one occasion
to repulse invaders from the suburbs of Saigon.  The killing of a
man in jungle combat barely registered, too many things to do at once
. . . and when you had the time to think about it afterward, the mind
played tricks with shadows, leading you to wonder if you really shot a
man or simply tried your best and failed.

But Flynn had known it, every time.

And it was different, on the street.

In twelve years with the FBI, Joe Flynn had killed three men and helped
to kill a fourth.  He had not cracked the Bureau record yet, and felt
no urge to try, but it was probable that he would face more situations
calling for the use of deadly force if he remained with VI CAP running
down the savage dregs of criminal society.

And if he transferred out, what then?  A comfy desk job, manning a
computer terminal?  Or maybe sifting through the chaos in the wake of
LAs daily bank jobs, knowing half the criminals involved would be
arrested out of town or out of state, if they were ever found at all.
There might be something for him in security, transcribing wiretaps,
seeking evidence of treason in a housewife's extramarital affairs.

No, thanks.

He braced the Smith & Wesson, sighting down the slide one-handed, for
the hell of it.  His first round high, but still a crippling shot,
below the collarbone.  With hollow-points, he would have shattered bone
and muscle, maybe spiking fragments through the upper lung or pulmonary
artery.  At any rate, he would have dropped his man.

Round two was better, ripping through the target's solar plexus.
Hydrostatic shock would crush the diaphragm and empty out his lungs
before the metal mushroom ripped his liver, opened up the stomach,
lethal splinters drilling toward the spine.  A possible survivor, if
the paramedics were on standby and they had a decentER surgeon waiting,
but the odds were poor.

The next two shots were instant killers, punching clean holes through
the target's paper sternum, mangling an imaginary heart.  He took a
breath, released it slowly, letting pent-up tension fade.

Just paper hanging there, down range.

Swinging into a two-handed combat grip, he tracked three shots in rapid
fire from left to right, across the waistline of the silhouette.  They
weren't precisely even in their placement, but they would have
disemboweled a human target, dropped him in his tracks.

Not bad.

He tried the other five left-handed, taking extra time to line the
first shot up and then adjusting when he saw it strike a trifle low.
You never knew when injury or some trick of geography would leave an
agent forced to use his weaker hand-a driver firing from his moving
car, for instance and substantial emphasis was placed on manual
dexterity at the academy.  In periodic qualifying shoots, field agents
were required to demonstrate that they had not allowed their early
training to evaporate.

The last three shots were solid kills, a fist-sized pattern in the
chest that left Flynn satisfied.  He
reeled the target in, replaced it with another from the folded packet
in his bag, and ran it back again.

The custom loads, this time, right-handed.  He had mixed the factory
and hand loads, half and half, to give himself a feel of what the Smith
& Wesson could provide in an emergency.  No lightweight powder charges
here, when the ten-millimeter had potential for velocity and
penetration close to that of a .357 Magnum round.

Flynn braced himself and let it rip, a heartbeat in between his shots
for recoil to subside, his forearm tingling from the automatic's kick.
Around him, he was conscious of the other shooters backing off to watch
and listen, tabling their .38s and sleek nine-millimeters for a moment
while he emptied out his magazine in fire and thunder.

Done.

The automatic's slide locked open on an empty chamber, and he left it
that way, spending several moments in a crouch while he retrieved his
empty brass.  The spent shells went inside a plastic sandwich bag, for
credit trade-ins at the Bureau armory, and Flynn took time to load his
empty clips with Smith & Wesson .40-calibers that he had purchased
coming in.

Next up, a compact cleaning kit, as Joseph stripped the automatic down
and swabbed its smoky bore, wiped down the moving parts with pre-oiled
chamois cloths.  When he was satisfied that it was spotless and in
perfect working order, he reloaded with a brand-new magazine and worked
the slide to put a live round in the chamber, easing down the hammer
with his thumb.  The pistol's weight beneath his arm was comforting, a
trusted friend on hand in the event of an emergency.

His watch told Flynn that he had killed an hour on the range.  At KXTV,
they would be shuffling copy, squeezing in the bit on Jubal Gleason
with their other news to make the evening deadline.  He could picture
Amy supervising every step along the way, requiring much the same
perfection from subordinates that she demanded 'of herself.

And where was Tanner at the moment?  Butting heads with the authorities
in Rapid City, or would he be in the air by now?

No matter.

Flynn had stalled as long as he was able to, the empty office waiting
for him, silent faces watching from the wall.  The best thing he could
do to serve their interest was to be there, reaching out by telephone
to kick some ass and move their several inquiries along.

A couple of the blue suits watched him go and shrugged at one another,
frowning, as he walked back to his car.

Macy has been helping Mama double-check the shop since Tuesday, each
one stopping in at different times to browse around and bullshit with
the bitch behind the register.  It is a smallish place, all women s
clothes and handicrafts, but it appears to do a business in the
afternoons and early evenings, customers in money cars delivering their
cash and coming out again with things they can't resist.

Three hundred dollars for a dress that Mama says they'll probably wear
once or twice, then hang it up in mothballs and forget they even own
the goddamn thing.

An easy touch, by all appearances.  No cameras or security besides the
standard burglar tape around the windows, and it always seems to be one
bitch alone, on duty.  Pigs with money they can throw away like that
prefer the "homey" touch, with a familiar face to kiss their ass and
tell them that the customer is always right.

We'll see, says Coley to himself, imagining the score.  Some bitch was
down to meet a group of customers, the like of which she's damn sure
never seen before.  It will be fun to see how she obeys their every
whim.

But first, the money.

Mama reckons, with the traffic and the sticker prices, that the shop
may pull in two, three thousand dollars easy on an average day.  Not
bad, when they can bag the same in four, five minutes' work.

Not bad at all.

The old man has about forgiven him and Jubal for the Rapid City deal.
He hasn't said so, but it's Coley's guess that he remembers being young
his self and coming up against some bitch you know looks good enough to
eat, her snotty boyfriend sitting there and giving you the evil eye
like you were walking trash.

The rest of it was easy, with a special kick from doing it because they
wanted to, and not because they needed money for the road.  A power
trip, almost, to take the little college cunt and make her tell him
that she loved it, all the time he's banging into her and tears are
streaming down her face.

A righteous offer that she can't refuse.

Tonight, they're back to business, but he doesn't mind.  There's
nothing wrong with making money, and the old man always finds a way to
mix some pleasure with the job.  How many boys of Coley's age can say
their fathers really taught them how to score with bitches, first time,
every time?

It seems like Jubal and his sister have been getting back to normal
lately, after jealousy and hassles coming out of
South Dakota.  It was hard to picture Macy getting jealous, when she
knows how Jubal is and what he's doing every time the old man takes
them on a score, but maybe she can feel the difference, understanding
what it's like to take a bitch for fun and nothing else.

At least she's not pissed off these days.  Emerging from her final
stroll around the store, she corners Jubal, voice pitched low enough
that Coley has to strain his ears.

"The same brunette, with curly hair," she says.

"Not bad, I guess, you like the type."  Then taking Jubal's hand, to
place it on her tit, before she tells him,

"I think mine are better, though."

More bedspring music then, and Coley wonders whether Jubal will have
energy enough to play the game.  Doubts banished when he next sees
Jubal, zipping up his jeans and winking, like he still feels fit enough
to run the goddamn marathon.

Some people have it all.

They start out early, time to spare, and motor past a package store on
Kimberly, not far from Northpark Mall.  The old man buys a six-pack and
a fifth of Seagram's, letting Coley have a cold one for his trouble
while he sits in back.

Still time to kill, before the sun goes down.  He likes the shorter
days of autumn, running into winter, since the night is where it
happens.

"You can keep your sweaty summer days and hanging out around the soda
fountain, wishing something anything-would happen to produce a little
action, something with a spark of life .  . . or death.

The night is where it's at, and no mistake.  Already Coley knows a
bitch looks better in the shadows, even under artificial light, than
when you catch her in the sun.  More mystery, and if her tits aren't
just exactly right, whatever, you can squint your eyes and make
believe.  Like childhood, with the benefits of feeling like a man.

They kill the six-pack, Coley drawing one more beer, while Jubal and
the old man finish off the fifth and split the other four between them.
Neither one of them is drunk, but they are feeling cocky.

He can see the crooked smile on Jubal's face, reflected in the rearview
mirror, and the old man holds himself a little different when he's on
the verge of taking off.  Not stiff exactly, but alert, like he was
stalking game in darkest Africa and one mistake could bring a hungry
lion charging down their throats.

Or, maybe, just a pack of laws.

"Near time," the old man says, and drops the empty Seagram'sbottle out
his window, clanking in the gutter.  Cans are rolling on the floor at
Coley's feet, but they can ditch them later, when they finish up their
job.  One thing, the old man's scores damn sure beat mowing lawns and
painting address numbers on the curb.

They drive out Locust, past the fairgrounds, parking at the little
shopping center where their target is the last shop on the left.  Full
dark at half past five o'clock, and they are shutting down.  One
customer inside, already settling up her bill.  A blonde that might be
in her thirties, if you didn't look too close.

"Why don't we take 'em both?"  asks Jubal, grinning in the muted
dashboard light.

"Forget it," says the old man.

"Stick to what you know, you come out clean."

"Just asking'."

"And I answered you.  Forget it."

"Sure."

The customer is coming out now, moving toward her car.  They need to
give her time-no witnesses -but if they don't move quick enough, the
duty bitch may lock them out and hang a CLOSED sign in their face.  No
problem kicking in the door, of course, but that means noise, more risk
of someone picking up a telephone and dialing 911.

The old man jumping on it as the blonde pulls out, a simple

"Coley, move your ass," and he is halfway to the door.  Wait up,
goddammit!  Coley running, feeling like a fool and almost tripping on
his own damn feet.  The kind of spectacle a passerby is likely to
remember, if the laws come asking, later on.

A bell like Christmas mounted just above the door, to let the busy
bitch know she has company.

Emerging from the stockroom, she is smiling up until the time she sees
them, losing part of it on sight.

"I'm sorry, but we're closed."

"The sign says different."

"Even so."

"Won't be a minute," says the old man, showing her the .45.

No smile at all now on the bitch's face, but she is strong enough to
stand her ground, not quaking like they sometimes do.

"What do you want?"

"We'll start with money," the old man informs her.

"You just crack that register, right quick."

She does as she is told, a simple key stroke opening the drawer on
fives and tens and twenties, several of the slots right full.

"In here."  The old man handing her a paper sack from IGA and watching
while she puts the money in, reminding her to add the pocket change.

"The rest," he tells her, when she tries to hand the bag back,
something like a quarter full.

"That's all, unless you want the checks."

She lifts the empty cash tray out and shows them something like two
dozen checks below, the top one written in a scrawl that Coley can't
make out, but he can read "$250" clear enough.

Goddamnit!

None of them has even stopped to think that high-class customers will
pay by check or credit card before they shell out ready cash.  On
feeling it, he questions whether there would be five hundred dollars in
the bag.

"Well, shit."  The old man sounding pissed.

"At least we got ourselves a nice one.  Curly hair, like Macy said."

"A nice one," Coley echoes, and from what he sees, the blouse poked out
in front, her tits aren't bad.

The bitch can see where this is going, and she starts to back away, a
sudden bawling from the stockroom freezing her.

"What's that?"  the old man asks, as if it isn't obvious.

A baby, right.

She tries to block them from the back room, but the old man pushes her
aside.  It's hard to say how old the kid is, sitting in her playpen,
peering red faced through the bars.  Some kind of monkey with a shave,
it could be, face screwed up from crying, nothing but a shorty dress
and plastic bows to tell you it's a girl.

"What now?"  The question out before he has a chance to catch it.

"Hush a minute."  The old man considering his options, weighing odds.
At last he says,

"You bring the kid."

"Why me?"

"Because I said so, dammit!  Don't give me any lip!"

"No, Sir."

"Don't hurt her, please."

"Shut up an' move your ass."

His old man takes the bag of money, herds the bitch in front of him at
gunpoint, leaving Coley in the stockroom with the baby.  He has never
held a child before, nor wanted to.  She isn't heavy, but the squirming
and her god damned bawling make him nervous, pressing one hand tight
across her mouth to muzzle it before he trails the old man out."

"Well, now."  A grin of satisfaction creasing Jubal's face, until he
gets a load of Coley and the kid.

"What is this shit?"

"No matter," says the old man, squeezing in the shotgun seat to wedge
the bitch between them, up in front.

"It don't mean anything."

The car in motion, and the bitch resisting eager hands until the old
man cautions her to think about her whelp.  From then on, only
twitching, with a whimper now and then as he explores the good parts,
Jubal helping as he drives.

"Don't run us off the road, boy."

Jubal laughing as he answers,

"No, Sir.  I can drive one-handed all night long."

There is a golf course on their right, and then there isn't.  Driving
north, they pick up Highway 6 and follow it until the city lights are
left behind, a velvet field of stars unfolding overhead.

"Off, here."

A gravel access road that takes them nowhere special, winding back
through foothills to a point where Jubal kills the lights and shuts the
engine off.  Beside him, squirming on the seat and mewling muffled
sobs, the baby gums his hand.

"She's pissing on the seat!"

"Goddamnit, put her on the floor.  Them's rubber mats down there."

"Okay."

"We'll clean up after."

"Yes, Sir."

Doing as he's told and making sure he leaves the windows up to mute the
bawling as he slams the door.  Outside, the brisk night bringing Coley
alive and clearing his head.

"Don't hurt my baby, please."

"It ain't your brat I've got a mind to poke," the
old man tells her, Jubal grinning like a hungry wolf.

"Just let us go .  . . and I'll .  . . do anything you say.

"I guess you will at that.  Shuck off them clothes, to start."

She takes her time undressing, not a tease, but clumsy with her
trembling hands.  In Coley's mind, the fear enhances her performance,
makes her more desirable.  His hard-on feels like stainless steel
inside his pants.

When she is naked, Jubal and the old man start in flipping coins.  This
time the old man wins and shoves her back against the car, steps in
between her open legs.

"Looks like you're down for sloppy seconds, Coley."  Jubal taunting
him.

"Or else, you might try something new."

He watches as the old man takes her, feeding on the vision of her,
drinking in the essence of her tears.  The way a woman ought to be, all
meek and humble, pleasing man the best way she knows how.  He knows
that it is nature's way.

The old man takes his time, enjoying it, and finishes with growling
sounds, a few hard thrusts that make the bitch go stiff with sudden
pain.  She looks done-in, but Jubal wakes her quickly when he rolls her
over on the fender, penetrating from behind.

No holding back the cries, this time, as she attempts to wriggle
free.

"Go on and fight me, bitch!  I like some spirit in a piece of ass!"

Her bare feet scrabbling at the air, the ground, until he sees the
soles are scraped and bloody Even that excites him, Coley fearing that
he may shoot off inside his pants before he gets a turn.  So what if he
gets stuck with sloppy seconds?

Then again .  . .

"Yours, little brother."

Jubal drops her like a broken toy, the bitch down on her knees and
slumped against the car.  Her very posture tells him what to do, before
he gets the zipper down.

"Come on, bitch."

"Please"' "Hear that?  She's beggin' for it, Coley?"

"Do your duty, son."

"Get up here, bitch!"

His fingers tangle in her hair, the shaft of his erection pale by
moonlight, jabbing at her face.  He pokes her in the eye, at first, and
then corrects his aim.  Her lips are soft and warm against his helmet,
and he hasn't even forced his way inside.

"Come on!"

Wet-warm, enough to scald him, and the first stroke of her tongue.  The
earth tilts underneath his feet, his mind disintegrating into
fragments.  Coley hears the old man telling Jubal something, all about
the baby, telling him to drag it out of there and get this over with,
but nothing registers.  In front of him, the bitch is stiffening, mouth
tightening around his cock.

No matter if she hears and understands.  Too late.

What can she Teeth

The pain rips through his lower body, shattering,
apocalyptic, setting him on fire.  He tries to lurch away, and she
comes with him, snarling like a pit bull in the heat of battle.  Coley
doesn't even feel the talons raking at his chest and stomach.  Teeth
are everything, defining his existence and his end.

"Look out!"

The first shot slams her sideways, muzzle flash and powder stench like
something from a dream.

The impact shakes her head, and Coley howls in misery, his legs like
rubber, terrified of what may happen if he falls.

A second shot.

A third.

The bitch slumps backward, Jubal aiming two more bullets at her
blood-streaked face.  Behind him, Coley thrashes on the ground and
tries to hold himself together, even touching it enough to make him
scream.

A voice from somewhere, nowhere.

"Help me get him in the car."

"The kid?"

"Forget about the fucking kid.  She can't say anything."

"Christ, will you look at that?"

"Shut up and get his legs."

never seen-" "For Christ@ sake shut your fucking mouth!"

He feels the engine turning over, like a distant tremor in the earth,
miles down.  Remote and meaningless.  The only thing that matters is
his pain, relentless waves of agony that radiate from Coley's groin to
burst inside his skull.

"He needs a doctor."  Jubal, sounding like he's down a well.

"You need your fucking head examined.  How would we explain it?"

"All I meant-" "No doctor!  Drive the fucking car."

"Yes, sir."

The gentle rocking motion seems to help, at first, but then they hit a
chug hole and he has to scream.

The old man swivels backward in his seat and presses one hand down on
Coley's forehead, like he wants to check for fever.

"Hang on, boy," he says.

"We're going home."

A tiny chime drew Flynn's attention to the seat-belt warning sign, and
he peered out the window of the Boeing 727, treated to an aerial
perspective of the junction of the Rock and Mississippi rivers.
Relieved to have the long flight nearly over, Joseph stowed his
in-flight magazine and settled back to wait.

His destination was the large Quad Cities Airport, south of Moline and
the Rock in Henry County, Illinois.  It placed him in the wrong state,
geographically, but it was still the only major airport close to
Davenport, in Iowa.  Considering the job at hand, six miles of highway
and a long suspension bridge would hardly qualify as major obstacles.

The bodies had been found on Saturday, an hour short of noon, with the
postmortem and ballistics tests providing Flynn's incentive for another
jaunt outside L.A. His prey was on the move, and while his and Tanner's
visits to selected crime scenes in the past four weeks had turned up
little in the way of useful information, you could never tell about the
next time out.

And when it came to Davenport, Flynn had a private motive of his own.

"Chicago's territory," Tanner had reminded him that afternoon.

"They may want to collaborate."

"I wouldn't mind the help."

"Help's nice."  He pictured Tanner grinning.

"Listen, Joe, why don't I take this round?"

"My turn," said Flynn.

"You covered Rapid City."

"Even so, I've got this frequent-flier thing.

"No, thanks."

"Well, if you're sure."

"I'm positive."

"Okay, Joe, have it your way.  Just be careful with the new kid, huh?"
Flynn's partner chuckled as he cradled the receiver, breaking off.

I'll do my best.

He found the "new kid" waiting for him at Arrivals, putting on a
cautious smile as Joseph cleared the gate.  Her name was Carrie Miles,
and she had six years on the job, beginning with the Indianapolis field
office and graduating to Chicago when the district VI CAP agent, Brian
Floyd, retired on doctor's orders.  Agent Miles was thirty-one years
old, a slim brunette with gorgeous eyes and a degree in criminal
forensics.  She had worked with Flynn and Tanner on the Truax case the
year before, and watched their man flame-out in Bloomington, a blood
bath at the local university that rated headlines from Caracas to
Kowloon.

The lady was professional, she had her job down cold, and she had
volunteered for VI CAP in a flash when Floyd stepped down.  If she was
foxy in the bargain .  . . well, Flynn never judged his colleagues on
the basis of appearance or an accident of nature.

Almost never.

Carrie shook his hand, her bright smile faltering as she examined
Joseph's face.

"That's new."  An index finger brushed her own left cheek, to indicate
the scar.

"A gift from an admirer."

"Ouch.  Green's Summit?"

"You've been reading up."

"I try to stay on top of things.  You made good time."

"Fresh trail," he said.

"I can't afford to let it go.

So, how's Chicago?"

"Windy."

"I was glad you got the spot."

"You said that in your card."

"That's right."  The sudden warmth in Joseph's cheeks surprised him.

"So, you brought a car?"

"Out front.  Is that your luggage?"

Flynn held up the small athletic bag.

"The bare essentials," he replied.

"I didn't know if I'd be staying over."

"If you do, I'll help you shop."

"You're on."

Flynn took the shotgun seat, his carr-on between his feet, and waited
while she buckled in behind the wheel.

"It must be quite a change," he said.

"Bright lights, big city."

"Some.  My parents live in South Bend, say an hour east, if I'm not
scrupulous about the posted speed.  I've been around the Loop a time or
two before."

"You like it?"

"What, Chicago or the job?"

"Whichever."

"Yes, and yes.  The background in forensics helps, of course.  As far
as neighbors go, they don't mess with a fed."

"Sounds fair."

"I get along," she said.

"So, what's the rundown?"

"Friday night, a small boutique on Locust, south of Emeis Park," said
Carrie.

"Louise Neibel, twenty-six, was closing down the shop.  She had her
daughter Shelly, eighteen months, back in the storeroom when your boys
dropped by."

"Goddamnit."

"Yeah.  Louise was shot five times at point-blank range, a forty-five.
The baby wasn't touched, except to drop her on the ground.  The ME
lists exposure as the cause of death.  Cold nights, this time of
year."

"I understand we have a blood match?"

"That's affirmative.  Louise was sodomized and raped, types O and A,
respectively.  We don't know what went wrong with number three exactly,
but she bit him, if you get my drift."

Flynn cocked an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"Damn straight."  There was a cutting edge to Carrie's voice as she
went on.

"His raping days are over, Joe."

"Well, now.  Poetic justice."

"Getting there.  We've got his blood type and the tissue sample
standing by.  The standard APB to hospitals and clinics, both sides of
the line.  The local pharmacists and doctors all have Gleason's mug
shot, plus the L.A. sketch.  No match up yet."

"How badly was he bleeding?"

"Bad enough.  The ME wouldn't quote me odds, but he should probably
survive, if he got adequate first aid."

"You want to call that living."

"Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

"I would have settled for a body."

"No such luck.  If he's alive, somebody's hiding him.  If not, they've
got him planted somewhere, or they're packing him around."

"Fifteen," said Flynn.

"These jerks are overdue to hit a snag."

"Too bad she didn't have a chance to bite them all."

"I don't believe in miracles."

They crossed the mighty Mississippi on a toll bridge, down river from
the Rock Island Arsenal and national cemetery.  Rolling into Davenport,
they drove directly to the downtown office of the Scott County medical
examiner.

"The chief ME is out of town," said Carrie.

"We'll be talking to his deputy, Zack Grimdyke."

"Pull the other one."

"I kid you not.  He's nice, though.  Don't make any cracks, all
right?"

"You're thinking of my partner now."

"Uh-huh."

The office complex was effectively deserted after sundown on a
Saturday.  A watchman with the eyes of a retired detective let them in
and checked their names against his clipboard, giving them directions
to the ME's office on the second floor.

Zack Grimdyke was a chubby blond, his reddish beard suggestive of a
Viking who had let himself get out of shape.  The smile seemed out of
sync with his profession, but it struck Flynn as sincere.

"You must be Special Agent Miles."  He turned the charm on Carrie,
nearly bowing as he shook her hand.

"And Agent Flynn," she finished off the introductions, one more round
of handshakes to complete the ritual before they settled into chairs on
either side of Grimdyke's cluttered desk.

"A troubling case," the deputy ME remarked, his smile on hold.

"I understand one of the perpetrators suffered injury."

"To put it mildly," Grimdyke said.

"The tissue we recovered constitutes approximately two-thirds of a
normal adult glans, which is-" "I recognize the term."

"Of course.  In the erectile state, I would expect substantial
bleeding, which appeared to be the case.  Unfortunately, the precise
amount is difficult to verify."

"Potentially a lethal wound?"

"Unless the bleeding was controlled somehow, I couldn't rule out a
fatality.  Of course, with sutures or a tourniquet .  . ."

Flynn felt his toes begin to curl, involuntarily.

"Or if the wound was cauterized-" "We'd still be talking shock," Flynn
interrupted.

"Almost certainly.  And the discomfort-" "Can you estimate the chances
of recovery?"

"Without the care of a physician?"  Grimdyke shook his head.

"I've never been much good at odds.  I can say that the probability of
serious infection from a human bite is fairly high, without the proper
application of a disinfectant.  As for shock and blood loss, it depends
on how and when they close the wound.  I wouldn't give a nickel for
your subject's future sex life, barring reconstructive surgery, perhaps
some psychotherapy to back it up."

"He could have used that going in."

"Agreed.  At least we'll know if he turns up in a ditch somewhere."

"I don't suppose it's possible to estimate the subject's age or any
kind of physical description from the evidence on hand."

"Beyond the fact that he's a male, brown-haired Caucasian, presently in
pain, I really couldn't say.

There's no such thing as glans-to-body ratio, or anything like that.
From what we have, he might be three-foot-six or six-foot-three."

"Brown-haired, you said?"

"We found a pubic sample .  . . with the rest.  It gives us basic
color, but the variation from a subject's pubic hair to scalp may be
dramatic, as you're probably aware.  Then, we have bl aches, dyes "No
latent fingerprints on either of the victims?"

Carrie asked.

"Unfortunately, no.  The child was clothed, of course, and she had
crawled around the dirt and grass awhile before she finally lost
consciousness, obliterating any la tents on her arms or legs.  The
adult victim was undoubtedly manhandled by her various assailants, but
again, the dust and blood from gunshot wounds prevented us from finding
anything."

"It was a long shot, anyway."

"Worth checking all the same,"isaid Flynn.

"I wish we could have been more help."

"You did all right.  The blood types and ballistics match confirm our
same three perpetrators, if we ever run them down."

"The AB donor won't be running very fast," said Grimdyke.

"We can always keep our fingers crossed."

Outside, retreating toward the Bureau four-door, Carrie said,

"They fed you on the plane, I guess."

"I skipped it," Flynn replied.

"Some kind of rubber chicken from the microwave."

"They've got a'decent steak house, not too far from here, unless you
meant to go right back."

"I've just been giving that some thought," said Flynn.

"It's coming up on Sunday, and our boys go on the tube tomorrow night.
If they're in town, or anywhere close by, the broadcast may be good for
a reaction."

"So?"

He shrugged.

"These bozos start to run, I'd rather not be sitting in L.A."

"Okay."  Her smile winked on and off.

"We shouldn't have a problem getting rooms.  It's what you'd call
off-season, if they had a season here."

"I'll let my office pay the tab."

"Like hell.  You come to my house, you're a guest."

"I never argue with the hostess," Flynn replied.

"You'd better not."

The restaurant was self-serve, homey, with a laid-back atmosphere.  The
steaks were tender, charbroiled to perfection, and competitively
priced.  They sat across from one another, in a booth, and took their
time, with Carrie bringing Joseph up to date on her activities since
last they worked together.

"After Truax, it was different she informe him.

"I won't say they had me making coffee for the troops beforehand, but
it changed, you know?"

"It would have."

"Nothing quite like Bloomington, of course.  I don't suppose you heard
about the Lisher case."

"The twelve-year-old they held for ransom?"

"Right."  Flynn thought she seemed inordinately pleased.

"You traced the money up to Michigan, as I recall."

"Ann Arbor.  I'm impressed."

"Because I read?"  Flynn stroked his knife scarred cheek and smiled.

"It helps me pass the time between my facials."

"Anyway, when I heard Floyd was getting out, I knew I had to take a
shot.  What was it, liver?"

"Kidneys."

"Right.  So, I was counting on a runaround-too young, too
inexperienced, too something-when they called me back to Quantico for
interviews .  . . and here I am."

"Big caseload?"

"Not so bad, right now.  Five active files, and two of those are in
Chicago proper.  We're about to close the transients, in Missouri, but
I've still got rural jobs in West Virginia and Ohio giving me the
fits."

"You'll work it out."

"How long have you been telling fortunes?"

Joseph checked his watch.

"About two minutes."

"Great.  A rookie psychic."

"But a veteran judge of character," he said.

"I'm glad we have another shot at teaming up."

"Me too."

She seemed about to add some comment, but she caught herself and took
another bite of T-bone.  Joseph let it go and worked his plate in
silence for the next few moments, cleaning up.

"dessert?" he asked as Carrie finished with her meal.

"No way, Jose.  I have to keep in shape."

He smiled and let that pass.

"You mentioned rooms?"

"I haven't shopped around," she said.

"We ought to find a fair selection in the Yellow Pages."

Twenty minutes and a short drive later, they were registered at a motel
on Highway 61, close by the Northpark Mall.  ("In case you get the urge
to do some shopping," Carrie told him with a smile.) They had adjoining
rooms, with a connecting door that locked on either side.  Flynn's
"suite" consisted of a bedroom and smallish bath, meticulously clean,
from crisp white towels and linen to a flimsy
paper strip that guaranteed the toilet bowl was sanitized for his
protection.

Emptying his carry-on, he laid out underwear and socks, a second shirt
and toiletries.  The suit would have to do.  Flynn had his few
belongings stowed away when Carrie knocked on the connecting door.

"You decent?"

"That depends on your perspective," he replied, already working on the
latch.

"I'm dressed."

"That's close enough."

She had her jacket off, no pistol showing, as she stepped into the
room.  Flynn could not place her scent by name, but it was
tantalizing.

"There's a little tavern two doors down," she said, "if you feel like a
nightcap."

"Absolutely."

"Let me get my purse and jacket."

And the gun, he thought.  The federal agent's version of American
Express.  You don't leave home without it.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

Flynn double-locked his door from the inside and followed Carrie out
through her room, breathing in the smell of her perfume.

Not bad.

The worst that he could hope for was a pleasant evening with a friend.
As for the best?

Flynn smiled and let himself relax.  The night would take care of
itself -for him, for Carrie, for his wounded prey.

He scanned the lights of Davenport and felt his smile turn upside
down.

I hope it hurts like hell, he thought, and did his best to put the mood
behind him as he followed Carrie down the' street

The call reached Martin Tanner at his home' late Saturday, as he was
sitting down with Ronnie to a plate of baked Virginia ham and greens.

"Hello?"

"It's Loomis."

Tanner raised an eyebrow.

"On a weekend?  I'm impressed."

"You said this thing was hot," the voice from Dallas answered him.

"Don't tell me now I could have shined it on."

"You're working miracles, as usual," Tanner told him.

"What's the scoop?"

"This wasn'teas , man.  You owe me lunch or y something, next time I
get out that way."

"Agreed."

"Not that burrito place we always go.  I mean a meal on plates, with
silverware."

"My budget, Glen."

"My ass."

"You win.  Let's take it from the top."

"Okay," said Loomis, riffling papers at the other end.

"I sent you everything from Gleason's sheet the last time, so I had to
think awhile before I figured out exactly where to start."

"It couldn't hurt."

"Nobody likes a smart-ass, guy."

"As you were saying?"

"So, it finally occurred to me, that I was barking up the wrong damn
tree.  Like, maybe I should look around for personal material, instead
of just rehashing what we know already, from the joint."

"Sounds fair."

"I mean, if Gleason's got a woman with him, calling her his wife, who
says she isn't?"

"And?"

"I started checking marriage records," Loomis said.

"Now, those are county files, and if you cast your mind back, you'll
recall we've got about two hundred and fifty counties in the state."

"Two hundred fifty-four."

"I'm warning you."

"Oka , go on."

y "So, anyway, I figure what the hell.  I'm fishing, so I may as well
start out in the vicinity of incidents we have confirmed."

"Makes sense to me."

"And what I've got," said Loomis, "is a Dawson County license dated
March sixteenth, this year, with Jubal Gleason listed as the room and
Macy Robin Sawyer as the bride."  9 "They're newlyweds."

"Looks like.  One thing, it was a civil ceremony,
and we're not exactly talking pillars of society, okay?  No snapshots
in the local paper, so I can't describe the woman for you or confirm
she's Gleason's current traveling companion."

"It's a start," said Tanner.

"Anyway, the license names her parentsGleason's are deceased-and I
picked up a two-line confirmation from the weekly in Lamesa."

"You've been busy.".

"Make that lunch and dinner, now I think about it."

"I'm reserving judgment till I hear the rest."

"Cheap bastard.  Anyway, we've shot our wad on Gleason's background, so
I tried the girl.  You sitting down?"

"Let's have it."

"Macy's papa is an ex-con by the name of Wallace Andrew Sawyer, born
June seventh, 1940, down in Langtree.  Nothing on his sheet until the
spring of '73, when he knocked over a mom-and pop market in Graham
Chapel.  The Garza County sheriff picked him up, and he got eighteen
months.

Served twelve and change."

"No violence?"

"Not the first time.  February 1975, he hit a filling station up in
Westway.  Put the two attendants in the grease pit, and he shot 'em
both, but they survived.  The Rangers took him at Glenrio, and he fell
on robbery, plus two counts of attempted murder.

Twenty-five to fifty on the books, but he was' out by August '87, with
his good time.  Two years on parole, without a hitch.  There was some
talk about a lawsuit, by the victims, but they never filed.  He's
registered in Dawson County as an ex-con, like the law requires, but no
one's seen him for a while."

"Like seven months, for instance?"

"Give or take.  I can't get anyone to make your sketch, for sure, but
I'll be faxing mug shots to your office in the morning."

"Fair enough.  You wouldn't have his blood type from the prison files,
by any chance."

"I would," said Loomis.

"He'@ type A."

"All right."

"You see him working with his son-in-law?"

"It's looking better all the time.  The blood match and his history are
two-for-two."

"You still need one more perp, I understand."

"Since Santa Monica, that's right."

"I may have something for you there."

"I'd throw in breakfast," Tanner told him.

"Country fries?"

"Why not?"

"Okay, here goes.  The old man's wife is Rena, DOB December seventh,
1946."

"Pearl Harbor Day."

"Her maiden name was Carlson, if it matters.

They were married in July of 1964.  You know about the
daughter......... "Age?"

"Let's see, I show her born in Dickens County, February 1968.  That
makes her twenty-three."

"Okay."

"They've also got a boy," said Loomis.

"Coley Louis Sawyer.  His old man was pending trial on charges from the
Westway job when he was born, October '75."

"So he'd be sixteen now."

"You're getting better on that math."

"I don't suppose-" "His blood type?  Sorry, no."

"It was a long shot, anyway."

"At least he's old enough, if Daddy feels like teaching him the family
business."

"If he's AB positive, I think he may be looking for some workmen's
comp, these days."

"What happened?"  Loomis asked.

"Our runners made another score in Iowa on Friday, outside Davenport.
They dumped a woman and her baby, raped the mother, all the usual
except the victim got a piece of number three.

"Oh, yeah?"

"She put the bite on him, you might say."

"Ouch!"

"Guy got excited, lost his head."

"Okay, enough.  You're killing me."

"If you come up with any new material "I'll send it on, you bet."

"I owe you two or three."

"Damn right."

He cradled the receiver, drumming fingers on the plastic for a moment,
finally distracted by the sound of Ronnie's voice.

"This ham is getting cold."

"I'm sorry, babe."

A small platoon of brooding questions followed Tanner toward the dining
room.

He had to clear the press release through channels, with the SAC for
criminal investigations, but the heat surrounding Jubal Gleason and his
tribe helped expedite approval for the move.  His first call went to
Washington, where members of the Bureau's weekend staff were briefed on
information out of Dallas, for a hasty update on the Sunday broadcast
of America's Most Wanted.  If it turned out they were blowing smoke
about the Sawyers, an apology in print should patch things up.  If not
. . .

The next step, Tanner told himself, was touchy.

Washington would handle national releases, but he had Los Angeles to
think about, and that meant calling papers, major television stations,
leaving radio to pick up what they could by word of mouth.

But where to start?

He thought of Amy Thatcher instantly.  She had a history with Joe, and
while his partner swore that it was past tense, Flynn still favored her
with early leaks from time to time, for auld langsyne She wasn 't in
the book, of course, but Tanner had her number in his Rolodex, from
other days when job requirements had him keeping track of Joseph's
whereabouts at night.

If Amy had not moved, or changed her number in the meantime .  . .

"Yes?"

He recognized the voice at once.  Not quite the same as on TV, but
close enough.

"Miz Thatcher, this is Agent Martin Tanner, with the FBI."

"Yes, Mr.  Tanner, I remember you."  A sudden edge of tension in her
voice, like she expected him
to dump some bad news in her lap.

"Is Joe all right?"

So that was it.  He frowned, but did not let it throw him.

"Fine, just fine.  He's out of town right now, on an investigation, but
we've turned up information on the kidnap-murders which I thought you'd
like to hear, ASAP."

"That's very kind."  A measure of relief in Amy's voice, with something
else.  A predatory edge.

"You mind if I record?"

"Feel free."

A click on Amy's end of the connection, and the line rang hollow when
she spoke again.

"All set."

"We,have a possible ID on one of Gleason's sidekicks, but I have to
emphasize it's only possible, and not confirmed.  Right now we're
asking that the subject get in touch with us and answer certain
questions, if he will."

"I know the drill.  Go on, please."

"Wallace Andrew Sawyer, fifty-one, a Texas native," Tanner said.

"He's been in prison twice, for two counts each of robbery with
firearms and attempted murder.  Last paroled in 1987, discharged '89
without a beef."

"The link?"

"His daughter married Gleason back in March this year."

"The woman, out in Long Beach?"

"It's a possibility we're looking into," Tanner said.

"Have you got artwork?"

"Mug shots on the way, for Sawyer.  Nothing on the womenfolk."

"You're one man short."

"Or maybe not.  The old man has a son named Coley out there, somewhere.
He's a minor, whereabouts unknown.  We'd like to speak to him as a
potential witness."

"Or potential killer?"

"Well "Okay, I understand.  No record on the boy?"

"We haven't turned one up, so far."

"About those mug shots .  . ."

"I was told I'd have them in the morning."

"Great.  We'll call ahead and send a courier around, if that's all
right."

"Suits me."

"Who else is running this?"  she asked.

"We've given Fox an update for tomorrow night.

Aside from that, I'm working down the local list, and A for Amy came up
first."

"I owe you one."

"My pleasure," he replied.

"I take it Joe's on top of this?"

"We're trading off on road trips," Tanner said.

"It's premature to say how close we are, assuming I could even
guess."

"Well, if he gets in touch "I'll tell him hi from KXTV News."

"From me."

"Okay."

"And thanks again."

He hung up on the dial tone, frowning as he crossed the first name off
his list.  The obvious con-
cern in Amy's voice was not so much a shock to Tanner as it was a
curiosity.  From listening to Joe around the office, he had come to
understand their parting had been acrimonious, a stormy scene that left
them barely speaking for a period of months.

The ice had thawed a bit since then, with Amy calling Joe from time to
time, in need of scoops, but Flynn repeatedly assured his partner there
was nothing left of what had gone before.

And yet .  . .

If Amy wasn't worried, she had done a fair-to middling imitation on the
telephone.  It might be just for show, but he could think of no
percentage for her, working on a snow job once removed.  And if she
cared enough to worry .  . .

Stop that!

It was none of Tanner's goddamn business, in the first place, and he
knew that Joe would not appreciate him butting in.  Aside from mere
propriety, he knew the risk involved in trying to interpret feelings on
the basis of a simple conversation, when you barely know the person and
the two of you weren't even talking face-to-face.

Forget it, Tanner told himself.  But there was something in her tone. .
. .

So what?

If he could hear it, Flynn would certainly have picked up on the
undertone by now.  The two of them had spoken several times in recent
weeks, and Joe had shown no symptoms of a main bewitched.

His problem, anyway.

Right now they had three killers on the loose and one of those laid up,
with any luck-to occupy his mind.  Vicarious romance could wait until
the job was finished and they had some time to crack a six-pack, sit
around, and chew the fat awhile.

Too many unknown factors still remaining in the game.

it looked like Wallace Sawyer for the second perpetrator, but they
would not know for sure until they ran him down and put a sample of his
blood beneath a microscope.  Type A was just a hint, but it was hopeful
. . . and it also meant that in the proper circumstances, Sawyer's son
might carry type AB.  Genetics was not Tanner's strong point, but he
knew enough to work the cross types out and keep his hopes up while
they narrowed down the field.

This time tomorrow, Sawyer and his son-in-law would be celebrities from
coast to coast, new entrants on the Bureau's hit parade.  And if the
broadcast did not bring results, they would be forced to look for other
angles of attack, new ways to run the bastards down.

But first, the list.

He still had three more television stations and the Times to brief
before he thought about Orange County.  Filling in the locals was a
simple courtesy, more than necessity, since Tanner's quarry was
undoubtedly beyond the reach of any lawmen or informants in L.A. It
made the editors and station managers feel good to know that they had
been included in the dragnet, and it never hurt to have the media
behind you when it came to tracking fugitives.

For all he knew, the photographs of Sawyer might jar loose some local
witnesses-a certain landlord out in Long Beach, for example-to provide
fresh information on the roving gang.  If not, it was a small
investment in community relations, well worth Tanner's time when there
was nothing decent on the tube.

And in the morning, bright and early, he would be in touch with
Flynn.

Two hours difference, and he saw no point in rous ting Joe tonight.  He
thought of Flynn in Davenport, with Carrie Miles, and wondered how the
two of them were getting on.  If she still looked at Flynn the way she
had in Bloomington, when they were running Truax down.

Two women?

"Jesus, I should have his problems?"

Calling from the kitchen, Ronnie said, I'm sorry, what was that?"

He chuckled, reaching for the phone, and said, "Just talking to
myself."

"As long as no one answers you," she chided him.

"They haven't, yet."

The pain is waiting for him when he wakes, if you can call that
sleeping.  More like sweating out a fever, with the twisted, vaguely
nauseating dreams strung one behind the other in an endless train.  He
does not have a damned idea what any of it means, but every time he
comes around he feels like puking up the remnants of a meal he can't
recall.

More pain than Coley has endured-or imagined -in his life, before this
point.  Sometimes, when he is watching movies on TV with the old man,
he sees some guy on fire and running with the flames trailed out behind
him, knowing it's a stunt and wondering what people feel like when they
really burn.  It isn'teasy, thinking like a dying man in agony, and
Coley never has much luck.

Until today.

Or is it night?

The shades are drawn, with lamps on, but he doesn't know if that means
nighttime or a simple
cautionary measure by the family.  They can't have John Q. Public from
Chicago strolling by and glancing in an open window, what with Coley
bundled up and trembling in the bedclothes, face like death warmed over
sticking out on top.

Security is number one, no matter what .  . . but Jesus Christ, the
pain!

He understands about the doctor, how they can't involve a stranger who
might telephone police.  Assuming they could find a quack who still
makes house calls, they would have to snuff him afterward, and that is
bound to point a guilty finger at their temporary hiding place.  Same
reason why they can't just drop him at Emergency Receiving, when the
laws are out in numbers, turning over every rock.

Security.

The needs of many, weighed against the one.

He has a memory of Mama, standing over him with worried eyes and
telling him that everything will be all right.  The old man lurks
behind her, keeps his mouth shut when he can't think fast enough to
come up with a soothing lie.

On top of pain, embarrassment.  His mama and his sister knowing why he
can't stand up or piss without a ragged scream.  They've seen his
bloody clothes and heard the story, helped to bandage mangled flesh as
best they can.  In lucid moments, he suspects humiliation may be worse
than pain .  . . and then, fresh waves of agony assault his senses,
changing Coley's mind and setting him on fire until his sister's pills
take hold and push him over into sweet unconsciousness.

The fucking bitch in Davenport has ruined him, no doubt about it. Coley
does not have to see the damage; he can feel it, understanding that the
pain would certainly have mellowed out a bit if he was merely nicked or
bruised.  Sixteen and barely shaving, he is so fucked up that he will
never do another woman any good.

The knowledge makes him feel like weeping, but a real man doesn't cry.
Of course, he can't control the tears of pain that streak his face
before the pills kick in, and that is more humiliation he must bear.

God damn it!

In his semiconscious state, he sees the bitches lining up in front of
him.  A few of them he recognizes, easy marks they've done on jobs, but
most of them are strangers.  Coley knows, inside himself, that they are
cunts he would have had a chance to play with, somewhere down the line,
if he was still a man.  Undressing slowly now, to tease him.  Almost
bringing him erect, before the pain cuts short his fantasy.

The god damned bitch in Davenport.

It is the old man's fault, as much as' anyone for talking up that way
and telling Jubal he should drag the baby out before she finished
serving Coley.  Stupid, mixing signals like they have to rush or
something, when he knows they have all night to do it right.

Spilt milk, no crying.

The old man is hanging tough, but Coley sees a trace of something in
his eyes when he comes in to stand beside the bed and stare.  It may b
e guilt, for all he knows-a new emotion for the old man, out-
side Coley's range of private observation.  Feeling bad, because he
knows at least a part of it is his fault, tipping off the bitch that
way.

Tough shit.

He doesn't have the time or energy right now to sympathize with anybody
else.  His own condition eats up every ounce of anger, strength, and
pity he has left.

A snatch of something in his mind, from television or the radio.  Old
news, but it comes back to him as clear as day.  Some kid in backwoods
nowhere, gets his dick ripped off by farm machinery or some weird shit,
if you can picture that.  It makes you wonder what the little fart was
doing, maybe fucking tractors, but the point is that a team of doctors
found his prick and sewed it back.  The news announcer saying he would
be as good as new, in time.

Too bad.

A deal like that, the doctors have to do their thing within the first
few hours.  Coley knows that much, and anyway, you can't sew back
what's lost and gone.  He doesn't know how much of him is left-afraid
to look or ask, and too damned painful to the touch-but he remembers
Jubal and the old man hurrying that night.  The bitch stone dead, her
baby squalling while they load him in the car and gnash the gears .  a
couple times before they get it right.

No time for crawling on your hands and knees in darkness, looking for a
chewed-up piece of dick, when someone may have heard the shots and
thought to call the laws.

He wonders if they'll find it in the bitch's stomach when they slice
her open on the slab.  What have we here?  The doctors bending close
and peering through their glasses, trying to determine what she had for
lunch and whether there was tube steak on the menu.

Pain.

He almost feels like laughing, for a minute there, but suffering
prevents him, and is anger makes a comeback, prowling restlessly and
seeking someone he can blame.

It never crosses Coley's fevered mind to blame himself.  If taking
bitches down is nature's way, he has done nothing wrong .  . . and they
are strangers, after all.  It isn't like they ever harm a friend or
relative, someone who counts.

The family matters, and the friends you count on who will put their
lives out on the line without a second thought, when things look bad.

He tries to think of someone in the latter category, scanning
half-remembered names and faces, but he comes up empty.  Friends-the
real kin dare a tough commodity to come by when you're living on the
road and moving constantly.  No kids from school, such as it was, and
you could write the so-called neighbors off immediately.  Fuller Brush
men, bums, and transients sitting in their cheap motel rooms, waiting
for a whore or simply killing time.

It crosses Coley's mind to wonder where they are, but he forgets to
ask.  If they are still in Davenport or close enough to reach it with
an easy drive, the laws will be on edge, alert to strangers in the
neighborhood.  The way it works, dumb bastards never think a local boy
could bring himself to harm the womenfolk that way, and most times they
are right.

He can remember driving, but his sense of time and distance is
distorted, waking minutes stretched like hours, while the time he
spends unconscious simply disappears.  For all he knows, they could be
days and states away from Davenport, his dick, the stone-cold bitch who
ruined him.

Revenge is something else he thinks about, but it will have to wait. He
won't be punishing dumb cunts the way he likes to, since the old man
showed him how, but there are other ways.  The fact that he can't fuck
them doesn't mean he can't have any fun at all.

It hits him, then: no fucking for the next how many years?  Once more,
the television helps him out.  Some passing comment on a miniseries,
from a doctor who was once a cool, ass-kicking vice detective on a
different network, saying that the average white man in America drops
dead some time around his early seventies.

Say fifty, sixty years without a mouth or cunt to keep him warm.

He tells himself the pain will fade in time, unless it kills him first.
Right now the thought of checking out is something to consider,
wondering how much a man should have to take and still keep coming back
for more.

Another TV kid in mind.  This one, his old man goes berserk and sets
the kid on fire with gasoline, to get revenge against the mother in a
bitter custody dispute.  Somehow, the goddamn kid survives with burns
that cover him from head to toe.  He lives .  through years of therapy
and skin grafts, coming out with shriveled lobster claws for hands and
scars like crinkled rubber where his face should be.  The talk shows
eat him up alive, with Phil and Oprah going teary-eyed as they proclaim
his courage, strength, and dignity.

The crispy kid just stares at them with lidless lizard eyes and tells
them how he loves to ride his skateboard.  Looking forward to the day
when he goes back to school, for Christ's sake, with a bunch of jocks
and bitches who are bound to point at him and stare.

Some life.

And what about the people Coley passes every day, not even knowing they
have artificial limbs, false teeth or eyes, perhaps a rubber bag
strapped underneath their clothes to catch the piss and shit?

It is a world of gimps and walking freaks, but he has never given.  any
thought to joining their society.

Until today.

He makes his mind up to survive, pay bitches back for all that he has
suffered.  Make them understand you can't emasculate a man by snipping
off a part of him that measures barely three, four inches overall.  A
little rest, before he turns his mind to payback time.

But there is still the pain, and bitter tears of suffering he cannot
hide.  He twists the pillow, wrapping it around his head, and tries to
keep from crying out.

No good.

His mama coming back at him with more pills in her hand, a glass of
water from the bathroom.

Coley swallowing the medicine, not even knowing what it is, content to
feel his eyelids droop as chemicals combine and hold the pain at bay.

In time, he dozes off.

Perchance, to dream.

Macy sits and watches TV in the room she shares with Jubal, getting
bored.  Full dark outside, and Sixty Minutes doing something with a
big-name company accused of mixing sawdust in its breakfast cereal. The
chairman of the board is out to lunch when Morley Safer comes around to
see him, trailing cameras in his wake, and uniformed security proceeds
to show them out.

Dumb bastards.

Getting caught is stupid, like the old man says.

You want to steal from people, do it one-on-one and get the money in
your pocket, leave no witnesses behind.  What kind of brainless idiot
would build a million-dollar factory for cereal, dump sawdust in the
mix where any one of several hundred wage slaves can observe the
process, and expect no one to drop a dime?

It almost makes her laugh, but then she thinks of Coley, lying in the
room next door, and frowns instead.  Another stupid jerk, so careless
that he goes and gets his cock chewed off, like he was looking for a
blow job from a snapping turtle.

Jesus!

Macy rarely thinks of him as kin-more like a guy who's always there
with some lame joke to try to make her laugh-but seeing Coley hurt,
that way, has turned her stomach.  Part of it, she knows, is thinking
that it could have been the old man just as easy, even Jubal with the
bloody towels between his legs, except he always likes it from behind
when he goes hunting.

On the tube, a bleach commercial fading into Andy Rooney, bushy eyebrow
and a frown as he surveys the liquid-soap dispensers cluttering his
desk.  He wants to know if Macy every thinks about the trouble some
folks have when they get finished pissing and then try to wash their
hands.  It seems to worry him, but she has other problems on her mind
right now.

As if in answer to her thoughts, a sound of Jubal in the bathroom,
flushing.  Macy slides across the bed and hikes the TV volume when he
turns the shower on so she can hear Mike Wallace talk about the mail he
got last week.  Some viewer bitching that their piece about Spike Lee
ignored "his essence as a black messiah for our time."  Another geek
upset because the program took some potshots at the CIA.

Big fucking deal.

She flips around the dial, with Jubal humming in the shower, wondering
if she should join him for a while.  The notion warms her up, but Macy
isn't really in the mood, and she decides against it.

Later, maybe, when he comes to bed .  . . unless the thing with Coley
has him spooked.

A part of her feels guilty, wishing she could tell them all it serves
him right.  She knows about the
call of nature and her mama's way of getting by, does what she can to
emulate a loving wife, but there are moments when she wants to slap
their faces-even Daddy's-and demand to know exactly what the hell they
think they're doing.

Stealing to support the family beats working, sure, and finishing the
witnesses makes perfect sense.  But all the rest of it leaves Macy
feeling like the men have got together and concocted some excuse to dip
their wicks, first chance they get.

You want to play, sometimes you have to pay.

Still, Coley is her brother, and she gets a queasy feeling when she
thinks about the hell he must be going through.  The pills she gave to
Mama are a little something special, picked up from a dealer in Los
Angeles, but when they're gone, somebody else will have to shop around.
She has a sneaking hunch that Tylenol won't do the trick, this time.

Fox network coming up.  She likes their programs on a Sunday night,
when all the competition offers are a lot of crappy situation comedies
or tired old women solving murder mysteries a five-year-old could
crack. The Simpsons may be cartoon people, but they make her laugh, and
Macy sees a little of herself in Kelly Bundy, always getting pushed
around because she gets by on her body, no great shakes in school.

But first, America's Most Wanted, with the guy whose little boy got
murdered, down in Florida or somewhere swampy, where the rednecks say
you all" and spit tobacco in the middle of the street.

She wonders if they'll have bank robbers on the show tonight, or maybe
someone like the old fart from New Jersey, slaughtering his whole damn
family one afternoon and hiding out for twenty years.

She nearly shits when Jubal's face comes on the screen.  A mug shot out
of Huntsville she has never seen b before, and he is younger in the
photograph, but Macy knows him at a glance.  The host explaining how
they'll have the first hot story coming up in just a minute, once they
break to sell some beer and laundry soap.

She scrambles off the motel bed and hits the bathroom running, jerking
back the shower curtain so that Jubal nearly drops his cock.  All
soapy, making sure he gets it nice and clean.

"Shit fire," he mutters, "if you're in a rush, I'll let you help."

"No time for that," she tells him, measuring her words.

"You better grab a towel and get your ass out here.  You're on TV."

"Too bad we don't have popcorn," Carrie said.

"Or Milk Duds," Flynn replied.

"My favorite."

They were in Carrie's room, Flynn seated in a wooden chair and Carrie
on the bed, her back against the headboard, legs stretched out in front
of her.  The aging Zenith television had been set for Fox, and the
announcer was completing promos for the nightly lineup.

"Funny," Joseph said.

"What's that?"

"They all sound like Don Pardo."

"It's gimmick," Carrie told him, smiling.

"Want to hear my theory?"

"Sure."

"There's only been one real announcer since the TV was invented, maybe
since the start of radio.

They keep him going with a secret formula and everybody uses him."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Needs work."

"Another critic."

On the screen, the credits for America's Most Wanted ran with scenes of
darting eyes and people leaping out of phone booths, running in and out
of narrow alleys, flashers from patrol cars lighting up the night.  A
moment later, and the camera shifted to a bustling office where the'
host was waiting, looking solemn in a three-piece suit.

"Good evening.  It's Sunday, November seventeenth, and we're
broadcasting from the nation's capital tonight, continuing our manhunt
for America's most wanted fugitives."

"You think he's cute?"  asked Carrie, teasing.

"Not my type."

"Tonigh t," the host went on, "we're looking for a three-time loser
with a record of convictions for assault and robbery.  The FBI and
local agencies suspect him of.  involvement in a string of brutal rapes
and murders spanning nine states in as many months."  The Texas prison
photograph of Jubal Gleason filled one corner of the screen.

"But first "So far, so good," said Carrie as the picture faded into ads
for bathroom tissue and a douche that was supposed to smell like
springtime in the Rockies.

"I just hope they got the whole thing in."

"You think they'll run?"

Flynn shrugged.

"For all I know, they're running now.  They may not even have a
television.  Hell-" "We're back."

m
Another shot of Gleason on the screen, voice over from the three-piece
suit.

"Since April twenty sixth no less than fifteen persons have been
murdered in a string of incidents that range from Texas out to
California, back across the Rocky Mountains to the Middle West.  Twelve
female victims suffered sexual abuse before they died.  The other
victims in the spree include two males, apparently shot down for money,
and an eighteen month-old child who perished from exposure after being
dumped in open country, miles from home."

The camera angle shifted, closing in on Gleason's smirking face.

"Tonight, the FBI and local officers in nine states hope that you can
help them find the men responsible and take them off the street, before
they rape and kill again."

The mug shot was replaced by actors going through their paces,
recreating scenes frorti Gleason's past while the announcer ran it
down.

He touched on Gleason's ouster from the navy and his brig time for the
theft of automatic weapons, robbery of liquor stores that put him on a
prison farm for eighteen months, and strong-arm robberies that earned
him five to ten behind the walls at Huntsville.  Presentation of the
blood type and ballistics evidence was matched with his arrest in
Anaheim and subsequent escape.  Next time his photo came up on the
screen, it was displayed beside the LAPD suspect sketch from Wilshire
Boulevard.

"Since Gleason's flight from California," the announcer said, "the same
technique and weapons have been used to murder four more helpless
victims in Nevada, Utah, and in Rapid City, South Dakota.  On the
fifteenth of November-Friday evening-Louise Neibel and her infant
daughter Shelly were abducted by a trio of assailants from a small
boutique in Davenport, Iowa.  Louise was raped and shot to death, after
injuring one of her attackers in an apparent struggle.  Shelly Neibel
was abandoned in the open countryside, where she was found next
morning.  Medical examiners ascribe her death to hypothermia, exposure
to the elements."

The mug shots back again, full face and profile,"

as the host prepared to wrap it up.

"These photographs are three years old, but witnesses report that
Gleason still maintains flared sideburns and an

"Elvis' pompadour.  Authorities suspect he may be traveling with this
man"-Sawyer s black-and-whites from Huntsville fillin up the
screen-"convicted robber Wallace Andrew Sawyer, who is also Gleason's
father-in-law."

"All right," said Carrie, leaning forward with her elbows on her
upraised knees.

"Sawyer's criminal record dates from 1973, and he was convicted of
attempting to murder two robbery victims in 1975.  The photos on your
screen are four years old and date from his parole.  He has not been
accused of any crime since then, but federal officers are anxious to
discuss the whereabouts of Sawyer's son-in-law."

"Damn straight," said Flynn.

"It is believed that Gleason may be traveling with his wife, Macy
Sawyer Gleason, and with other
members of the Sawyer family.  In California, Gleason used the alias
of Jory Rogers when he rented an apartment last July.  His companions,
described as a middle-aged couple and their teenage son, were
introduced as Hank and Vera Miller to their landlord.  If you've seen
the subject of tonight's first case, our lines are open, federal agents
standing by to take your call.  Next up on America @ Most Wanted, a
Baltimore drug dealer with a fondness for machine guns and-" Flynn
cranked the volume down and turned to Carrie.

"Well?"

"They got it in," she said.

"If Gleason or the old man caught the show, it ought to stir them
up."

"I guess."

"You don't sound very confident."

He frowned.

"It isn't that.  These guys are so unstable as it is, they might decide
to barricade themselves in some motel, with hostages, and shoot it
out."

"They're runners," Carrie told him.

"Once they see the writing on the wall, smart money says you'll
find them making tracks."

"And killing all the way," Flynn said.

"You're not responsible for what a psycho does,"

she answered, looking sheepish as she lectured Flynn.

"You know as well as I do-better-that we're not supposed to take it
personally."

"I read the memo," Flynn replied.

"It'doesn't help."

"We'll get them," Carrie said.

"I feel it."

"Hope you're right."  He forced a smile.

"But'in the meantime, time for me to hit the showers, see about a fresh
start on tomorrow."

"Right.  I'll see you in the morning.

"Sure.") He passed through the connecting door between their rooms and
closed it softly, one hand on the latch before he stopped himself.  Why
bother?  If he wasn't safe with Carrie Miles, he might as well curl up
inside the closet and forget the whole damned thing.

Which, at the moment, did not seem like such a bad idea.

A humming in the pipes told Carrie that Flynn had turned his shower on,
the figures on her silent television going through a pantomime for Taco
Bell.  The silence was oppressive, like a heavy blanket draped around
her shoulders.  She felt restless, anxious to e up an moving, anyt ing
to s a e her present mood.

This IL was Flynn's fault, when you thought about it.  Cozy dinners two
nights running, and the nightcap Saturday.  Adjoining rooms with a
connecting door, pretending that he did not recognize the way she felt
each time their eyes made contact.

She had waited for him, all last night, expecting him to slip back once
the lights went out and join her in the double bed that seemed too
large, when she was all alone.  When he did not appear in ninety
minutes, Carrie thought about reversing it, surprising him, but finally
wrote it off and gave herself to fitful sleep.

It wasn't like she had been dreaming of him
nightly, since the Truax job in Bloomington.  There had been dreams .
. . well, one or two .  . .

where Flynn had played a part and Carrie woke up reaching for him,
wanting him, but that was months ago.  A simple crush, for heaven's
sake.

Until she saw him getting off the plane.

He had not changed-except the scar, which still made Carrie flinch-and
there was something in his smile, his general presence, that played
havoc with her objectivity.

Not love, by any means.  She knew the warning signs, from sudden loss
of appetite to cold sweats in the middle of the night, and what she
felt for Joe was different.

Good old-fashioned lust, perhaps.

A tingling in her loins confirmed it, Carrie shifting on the bed, but
when she crossed her legs it only made things worse.  God damn him,
anyway.

If Flynn was such a great detective, he should have a better eye for
clues and attitudes.

She sat up straight and smiled.  If Sherlock couldn't recognize his
man-or woman-it was time to get things moving.  A surrender was in
order, maybe throw herself on Joseph's mercy .  . .

or the next best thing.

She rose and shed her jacket, dropping it across the bed.  No time for
hangers, if she meant to catch him when his guard was down.  The white
blouse next, her fingers nervous on the buttons, but she mastered them
and shook the garment off breasts wobbling in the lacy cups of her
brassiere.

The skirt was easy, just a button and the zipper on the left-hand side,
and Carrie stood before the mirror in her bra and panty hose.  No
underwear beneath the nylon, just in case, her pubic curls mashed flat
but clearly visible.

You almost blew it, Joe.  Good thing for you I'm feeling generous.

But what if he surprised her at the final instant, holding back and
leaving her embarrassed, like a hopeless idiot?

No way.

She reached back for the hook-and-eye latch on her bra, released it,
tugged the garment off to free her breasts.  Her nipples itched,
distending when she scratched them lightly with her fingernails, a new
sensation taking over.

Pace yourself.

She almost ran the panty hose, inverting them and tangling her feet up
in her haste.  Then she was naked, running one slim hand between her
legs and feeling musky dampness on her fingertips.

Belatedly, she thought about the door.  She would have heard Flynn turn
the latch .  . . or would she?  If he locked the door from force of
habit-or specifically to keep her out-she would be stymied, all
undressed with nowhere to go.

Get moving, dammit!

Carrie tried the door and found it open, drumming water from the
bathroom louder as she stepped across the threshold.  Glancing at the
bed, she saw his clothes and shoulder holster there, the Smith & Wesson
safely out of reach.

It would have been the final straw for Flynn to gun her down in
self-defense while she was trying to surprise him in the buff.  Great
headlines, and
the two of them could kiss their jobs good-bye, assuming she
survived.

Across the bedroom, moving on her tiptoes, nipples puckered now as much
from temperature and nerves as from desire.  He had the heater turned
down low, but Carrie did not tamper with the setting, thinking it would
be delicious when he warmed her up.

The bathroom door was cracked, an inch or two, with pale light falling
in a wedge across the carpet.

Peeking in, she caught a glimpse of steam and condensation on the
mirror, nothing but a formless blur.  She reasoned that the motel
bathrooms would be more or less identical, and any minor differences
would hardly be significant.  Once Carrie made the final leap, she had
no fear of getting lost between the door and shower stall.

She pushed the door back, slowly, praying that the hinges would not
squeak and give her game away.  She did not want to frighten Joseph out
of ten years' growth, but the surprise effect was critical, her basic
edge.

The floor was vinyl, cool beneath her feet as Carrie stepped inside the
bathroom, hesitating for a moment with her hand raised toward the
shower curtain.  She could see Flynn through the plastic, more or less,
a tan shape moving underneath the spray.  The steam smelled soapy, and
it made her sweat.

She drew the shower curtain back, not snatching it away like Norman
Bates, but gently, giving Joseph time to overcome initial shock.  And
Carrie gave him points for cool, the way he stood there facing her,
with water streaming down his chest, and never even dropped the soap.

"I needed company," she told him, tingling as his eyes devoured her.

"I'm glad."

She stepped inside the shower stall and Pulled the curtain shut behind
her, reaching for the soap.

"Let me."

He gave it up without a fight and let her work a lather on his chest,
the washboard muscles of his abdomen, her fingers tangling in the wiry
forest of his pubic hair.  His penis jumped in Carrie's hand as she
began to soap it lovingly.

"Now rinse."

He did as he was told and turned to face the shower nozzle, Carrie
watching as a pale cascade of suds went down the drain.

"Your back now."

Flynn assumed the standard frisk position, outstretched hands against
the shower stall, his feet apart.  She started at his shoulders,
working briskly down along his spine, around his buttocks, and along
the muscled columns of his thighs.  Once over lightly, but she was not
finished, yet.

While Joseph held his pose, she quickly soaped herself from collarbone
to knees, slick fingers setting sparks off as they brushed her nipples,
rummaging between her legs.  When she was sleek and wet, hands bundled
up in mitts of foam, she stepped in close behind him, slid her arms
around his waist, and started scrubbing Joseph with her own warm
flesh.

He caught his breath and stiffened as a round
thigh slid between his open legs, her soft hands circling around in
front to join the play.

"You ought to patent that," he said.

"I'm still perfecting the technique."

He groaned.

"I wouldn't change a thing."

She bit his shoulder, none too softly, moving with him as her own heat
flared.  The unrestricted access , to his flesh, his power in her
hands, made Carrie s head swim.

"Wait .  . . too soon!"

She felt him trembling on the edge and took her hands away, retreating
slightly as she turned him back to face her, needle streams of water
rinsing them together.  Joseph crushed her to him, covering her lips
with his, his strong hands following her body's lush topography.  She
slipped her arms around his neck and left him to it, stiffening as
Joseph found her nipples, melting when his fingers plumbed the steamy
cleft between her thighs.

His cock was trapped between them, pressed against her naked belly.  It
felt huge with wanting her, and Carrie wondered for an instant whether
she could take it all.

One way to answer that.

She shifted, one leg rising to encircle Joseph's waist, "while she went
up on tiptoes with the other foot.  Her hand slipped in between them,
searching, guiding him until their focal points of hunger were aligned.
A squirming, settling thrust, and she began to take him, inch by
driving inch.

She came almost immediately, kept on coming as he cupped strong hands
beneath her buttocks, lifting her with both feet off the porcelain and
driving her against the shower wall.  He pummeled her without apology,
first filling her and then withdrawing to the point that Carrie felt an
aching void before she was impaled again.  The power of her own
release, one climax bleeding into yet another, left her limp and
clinging, ankles crossed over his buttocks as he plowed her tender
flesh.

And Carrie knew that he was ready when he stiffened, piercing her with
shorter quicker strokes .1 and gasping in her ear.  She called upon her
last reserve of strength to trap him in a velvet fist, worked with him,
milking him as he exploded, drenching her inside.

They clung together afterward, with Joseph sliding to his knees and
Carrie straddling his hips, their heartbeats intertwined like echos in
a cave.

She hardly felt the water streaming over them and plastering her hair
against her scalp and shoulders.

"Jesus!"

"I heard that."

"I felt that."  - "Wouldn't be surprised, they felt it in Chicago."

"Richter scale," she countered, smiling.

"Bed."

"Have mercy!"

"Flattery will get you nowhere.  I'm exhausted, lady."

"Now he tells me."

"Even so, if I had company "Big talk."

"I may surprise you."

I, Oh')#' "You never know."

A stirring, even now, and Carrie shivered in the afterglow.

"You might, at that," she said, and clung to Joseph as he carried her
away.

Sitting on the sway-backed sofa, the remote control in one hand and the
other wrapped around a frosty can of Miller, Rupert Leach was busy
counting dollar signs.  He had not moved a muscle since the program
broke for a commercial, waiting for his pulse to stabilize and
calculating different ways that he could profit, just by picking up the
telephone.

The TV didn't mention a reward, but he could ask about that later.
Fifteen people dead across the country, there was bounty money on the
table somewhere.  Had to be.  The trick was making sure he did it right
the first time, covering his bets and taking every care to keep himself
from getting screwed.

Rewards aside, he thought of all the free publicity he would
receive-and not just local, either.  He remembered back in '58 and '59,
when they were hauling Eddie Gem's old car around to county fairs
and charging folks a quarter just to look inside.

The motel game was better, all around.  He would not have to take it on
the road, and he could charge a damn sight more than quarters for the
privilege of sleeping in a bed where famous psychos spent the night.

Free advertising on the tube, when they were caught, and all Leach had
to do was print some fliers, maybe front the money for a billboard on
the highway to direct his brand-new clientele.

There was a class of people in America who cherished morbid landmarks,
everything from Alcatraz to the address where Jesse James was gunned
down, in Missouri.  Folks would come from miles around to slip between
the sheets where killers spent the night, and Leach would be there with
his hand out, every time.

At first, he had believed his eyes were playing tricks.  The snapshots
on TV were not exact, but they were damn sure close enough, if you
allowed for passing time.  The young one down in 109 was Gleason, bet
your ass, and never mind the fact he signed his name as Jerry Gorman
when he registered.  Next door, in 108, the older man was definitely
Wallace Sawyer, even though he introduced himself as Wendell Sims.  The
women you could take or leave, but Rupert Leach knew money on the hoof
when it appeared.

The question, now, was who to call.  They,gave a toll-free number, on
TV, but dealing with the feds meant Uncle Sam was right on top of you,
for starters, nosing into every move you made.  Leach knew his
alphabet, all right, and it was such an easy step from FBI to IRS,
those fucking vampires snooping through his books and making him
account for every penny he had handled since he opened up the
Hide-Away.

Some kind of irony, at that, considering the name of his motel and who
was resting not a hundred feet from where he sat.  They must have
laughed until they pissed their pants on that one, making it a private
joke.  The tWo men coming in and sizing Rupert up as someone they could
hoodwink, just like that.

Smart bastards.  See who's laughing when they haul your crazy asses out
of bed and slap you in a holding cell.

The county sheriff's office seemed to be his best hope, at the moment.
Close at hand, for one thing, and he knew a couple of the deputies from
talking to them now and then.  They weren't the kind to look a gift
horse in the mouth, and if they came to bag a psycho killer, they would
not waste time on trivia like checking into Leach's taxes or his
private life.

Another bonus, he had read somewhere that uniformed police were barred
by law from sharing in rewards for apprehending criminals.  He wasn't
sure about the feds, but Rupert liked the feel of letting someone else
take all the risk while he sat back and ladled out the gravy for
himself.

Not bad.

He finished off his beer and reached across to snag the telephone.  He
had the sheriff's number memorized, for the occasions when a paying
guest got rowdy or took off with something from the
rooms.  A kind of cheap insurance, when your closest neighbor was a
half mile down the highway, out of sight and earshot from the
Hide-Awa

Y.

"Grant County sheriff's office."

Feeling edgy, now that it was started.

"This is Rupert Leach, out to the Hide-Away Motel, on Highway 6 I."

"Yes, sir."

"You know that show on TV, with the fugitives and all?"

"Uh-huh."  A bare suggestion of impatience entering the other's tone.

"Well, as it happens, I've got two of those boys sittin' with me, right
this minute.  Could you send a car around to pick 'em up?"

He comes awake to someone swearing, knows the old man's voice at once,
in spite of his delirium.

"God damn that boy!"

He cringes in the semidarkness, jerky shadows from the television,
hearing Mama try to calm the old man down.  Afraid of getting whipped
for causing trouble now, on top of everything, when he can hardly even
move.

"Now, Wallace, honestly .  . . it's not his fault."

"Whose is it, then?"  The old man working up a head of steam.  '7
didn't get myself picked up for driving drunk and leave the fucking
laws a goddamn pistol in the car!"

Relief, as Coley understands the target of the old man's sudden rage is
Jubal, rather than himself.

But why?  The California bust is ancient history.  It cost them bail
for Jubal, and the old P-38, but they

have put a couple thousand miles between themselves and Anaheim since
then.  It doesn't make a lick of sense, the old man getting all worked
up, unless .  . .

"We're on the goddamn television, Rena.  Can you get that through your
head?  My picture on the tube, like I was Ed Mc-fucking-Mahon, and it
ain't no sweepstakes giveaway!"

"They put up Jubal's picture too."

"But he deserves it, getting drunk and giving up the gun that way.  It
ain't my fault that he's too fucking dumb to take a leak, Without he
wets himself."

"What's done is done."

"They know about the boy, for Christ's sake."

Coley stiff and trembling at the words.

"One of the perpetrators injured, did you hear him talking?"

"I was right here with you, Wallace."

"Ten or fifteen million people watching this, I wouldn't be surprised.
I couldn't walk downtown and buy a drink right now, without some greedy
bastard calling up the laws."

"You don't know that for sure."

"I know these bulls are catchin' people off the TV every day, that's
what I know.  You hear about it all the time, some guy relaxing in his
own apartment and the laws bust in."

"They don't know where we are."

"It seems to me they sure as hell know where we been.  It doesn't take
no mental Frankenstein to figure out we can't run far, the boy chewed
up and all."

'There's nothing we can do about it now."p
"That's where you're wrong," the old man tells her, going quiet for a
couple minutes while he thinks it through.  At last he says,

"We're getting out."

"Out, where?"

"For damn sure, out of here.  Get started packing, and I'll be right
back to help you load the car."

The old man goes next door, more shouting through the wall, with
Jubal's voice and Macy's joining in.  The words don't matter, as the
pain comes back, with Mama bending over him and wiping off his forehead
with a washcloth.

"Coley?"

"Mama."

"How you feeling, baby?"

"I believe I'm finished, Mama."

Sudden anger in her voice.

"Don't ever let me hear you say that, understand?  We don't allow for
quitters in this family."

"No, ma'am."

"That's better now."  The washcloth coming back, along with softness in
her tone.

"We got to move again, your daddy says.  I don't know where, just yet.
It's bound to hurt you some."

"I'm hurtin' now."

"I know that, baby .  . . just like you know I'd've called a doctor, if
I could.  We just can't take the chance right now."

"It ain't your fault."

"Nobody's fault," she said.

"Things happen, sometimes, and we don't know why.  It's just the way
things are, and once they happen, you can't turn the clock around.  We
just move on from where we find ourselves."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You rest another minute now while I pack up some things.  It won't be
long."

Next door, a sound like scuffling and something heavy thrown against
the wall.

"His sister screaming that they don't have time to mess around, and
then it's quiet, voices coming bat:k too low for him to understand
what's being said.

He lies there, underneath a sheet and blanket, listening to his mama
pack.  One suitcase for the three of them, and all their other things
go into paper shopping bags or cardboard boxes, like a bunch of
hand-me-downs picked up at yard sales.

Clothes they buy at Goodwill-or at Kmart, if they're lucky-since the
clerks at big-name stores look down their noses when you walk in
rumpled from the road.

The towel between his legs is stiff with drying blood, but Coley thinks
the worst of it is over.

Chances are he will not bleed to death, but Coley can't decide if
living with the pain is worth the effort.

"Rena?"

He has missed the old man coming back, a grim expression on his face
like he just stepped in shit while he was walking barefoot.  Mama
answering him from the bathroom, where she's rounding up the toiletries
and bars of motel soap they haven't used.

She always says it pays to keep a family clean.

"Five minutes."  The old man delivering his order like a general on
the battlefield.

"I'm almost done."

"Well, hurry up."  He moves to stand beside the bed.

"We need to make tracks, boy."

"I hear you, Pa."

"Can you get dressed all right?"

"I'll try.  " "Good boy."  The old man draws the sheets back, wincing
at the sight of so much blood, and says, "Just do the best you can."

"Might turn the TV up a bit."

"I'll do that."

Bad Bart Simpson telling Homer not to have a cow, and it is good enough
to cover Coley's cries as he begins to move.

When Chester Darlage signed on as a sheriff's deputy, he took the job
for what it was.  No path to glory there, but most of the civilians
that he dealt with, day-to-day, still showed a measure of respect for
what he represented, with his badge and custom-tailored uniform.  Grant
County wasn't Madison, much less Milwaukee, and they had been spared a
measure of the eighties' crime wave, but it was a job that kept you on
your toes.

Like now, for instance.

You could never tell about the next call coming in, if it would be some
rowdy teenage beer bash or a drifter with a shotgun and an attitude who
made his living out of busting liquor stores.  A family argument could
blow up in your face, if you got careless, and it didn't make a bit of
difference who was pissed at whom before the law arrived, once all that
anger focused on a uniform.  Hell, you could lose it running down some
punk who "borrowed" Daddy's car, unless you watched yourself.

And then you had the jackpot calls that came in maybe once a year, if
you were living right.

It might have been coincidence or fate, the sheriff being on vacation
in St.  Paul, but there was no damn time to fetch him back.  Plus, if
they came up empty on the raid, it would be easier to minimize without
the old man breathing down his neck and telling Darlage what a fool he
was.

For starters, Chester didn't know this Rupert Leach from Daffy Duck,
except he ran a small motel on Highway 61, up north of Fennimore.

They had no problem with the place that Darlage knew about, some calls
to roust a noisy drunk from time to time or stop a sticky-fingered
guest from walking off with towels and shit, but nothing heavy.  If the
manager was moving pills or women through the Hide-Away, it didn't show
up on the books, and that was fine.

One problem at a time was plenty, thank you very much.

You had to figure, going in, that it was either nothing or the biggest
thing to hit Grant County since a tanker full of army nerve gas
jackknifed south of Patch Grove two years back.  This Leach claimed he
was sitting on a couple hard-ass killers wanted by the FBI and half the
lawmen west of Minneapolis, which could mean he was seeing things .  .
. or they were looking at some juicy headlines, coming up.

In which case, Chester Darlage meant to see they spelled his name
right, yes indeed.

Two men, two women, and a kid, according to the motel manager's report.
No way of telling what "a kid" might mean to Leach, but Darlage read
enough detective magazines to know that places like Chicago and New
York had little bastards eight and nine years old who carried guns and
weren't afraid to use them, on a cop.  Same thing for women, when you
thought about it, so he figured five potential adversaries and
collected fourteen deputies to join him on the raid.

It meant a brief delay, retrieving men and guns from Preston, Boscobel,
and Woodman, but a quarter hour saw them all together, ready for the
main event.  He briefed them quickly, telling them it could be major
trouble or a half-assed false alarm, but they were bound to check it
out.  Four squad cars rolling north from Fennimore, with every man
keyed up and anxious for a chance to show what he was made of, in a
pinch.

The kind of thing you trained for as a rookie, thinking all the while
that it would never really happen, even if you put in twenty years
behind the badge.

His driver was a hulk named Overton, with three years on the job.  Not
much in terms of conversation, but the truth was, Darlage needed time
to think.  He had the layout of the Hide-Away in mind, and he was
figuring the best way to surround it so that no one had a chance to
slip away.

The highway, first.  Four cruisers ought to be enough to cordon off the
parking lot.  If there was time, they might pull in a hundred yards or
so before they reached the Hide-Away and send some men ahead on foot,
stake out the rear perimeter before the main force showed itself out
front.

From that point, it was up to the intended quarry, how they wanted it
to go.  If there was shooting, Darlage had his men equipped with
shotguns, semiautomatic rifles, and the big .357 Magnums that were
standard issue ifor the force.  No matter how you stacked it, five guns
ranged against fifteen was lousy odds.

"How far?"

"About another half a mile," said Overton.

"Pull over when you have the place in sight," said Darlage.

"Something like a hundred yards."

"Okay.  11 He palmed the dashboard microphone and told the other cars
to watch him closely, stop when he did, no one getting itchy.  Three
affirmative responses I coming back before he hung it up and settled in
his seat.

"Up there."

A glint of amber neon, screened by overhanging trees.  He couldn't read
the sign, but what the hell, who needed it?

"Here's fine."

Four cruisers lined up on the grassy shoulder, khaki troops ganged up
to hear the word.

"I want eight men to go ahead on foot," said Darlage.

"Throw a ring around the back and sides of the motel before we block
the parking lot.  Don't show yourselves for anything, unless you get
some-
body breaking for the trees.  You'll know it when we make our move,
out front."

He chose eight men at random, working left to right around the ring of
faces, and they took off through the darkness, double time.  Not bad,
considering he mostly had to work with farm boys who had turned to law
enforcement as an out from working in the fields.  They seemed to take
it seriously, hoping for a chance to show what they could do.

"All right, let's hit it."

Seven men among the four cars now, and Darlage had the cruiser's
shotgun braced between his knees as Overland moved out, the others
falling into place behind.  The Hide-Away was mostly dark, besides the
sign out front and something like a half-assed night-light in the
rental office.

"Leach said 108 and 109.  I want 'em boxed in, good and proper."

"Right."

The parking lot was basically an open slab of asphalt fronting on the
highway, nothing like a curb with special exits that would make it
easier.

Three vehicles in sight as Darlage scanned the layout, one of them
parked ass-in toward the door of number 108.

"Real easy now The words no sooner out of Chester's mouth than
headlights swept across the suspect vehicle, and Darlage saw a startled
face behind the wheel.

Two more beside him, in the front seat; one or two in back, he couldn't
rightly say.

"Look out!"

The old sedan leaped forward with its lights off, swerving off the mark
to catch them broadside.

Overton was thrown against the cruiser's steering wheel with force
enough to snap his teeth like castanets, the impact jolting Chester up
against the dash.

He saw an arm come out the rider's window, fingers wrapped around blue
steel, and then the muzzle flash erupted, etching spiderwebs across the
cruiser's windshield as a bullet whistled past his ear.

"God damn it!"

Two more shots, before the suspect vehicle broke free, and there was
something wet on Chester's face, like summer rain, before the tail car
rammed them from behind.  Another olt, and Darlage cracked the
punctured windshield with his forehead, stunned.

He swiveled in his seat to shout at Overton, and found the driver
slumped across the seat, his face a crimson mask.  The black-and-white
behind them was attempting to reverse directions with their bumpers
locked, and getting nowhere fast.

He hit the asphalt running, legs like rubber, fumbling with the safety
on his twelve-gauge.  Squeezing off a round before he got the weapon to
his shoulder, and a clump of blacktop churned to brittle clods in front
of him.

The second shot was better, sighting down the shotgun's barrel at a
pair of taillights pulling out of range.  He might have had then too,
except another sheriff 's cruiser loomed in front of him just then,
in hot pursuit, his buckshot peppering the driver's side and causing
them to swerve off course.

"Well, shit!"  20 The last car streaking past him with its single
occupant, lights flashing, siren wailing as it reached the highway,
running with the pedal down.

There goes your headline, Darlage told himself.

And thought it wouldn't make a god damned bit of difference how they
spelled his name now, after all.

The nearest airport in Wisconsin was La Crosse Municipal, and Martin
Taniier's flight touche'd down at 10:18 A.m. The in-flight breakfast
rested on his stomach like a paperweight, and he was working on a
first-class case of indigestion as they taxied toward the terminal.
Instead of disembarking through a covered jet bridge, they deplaned
outside, and Tanner crossed the fifty yards of tarmac with his
shoulders hunched against a spitting rain.

Clear skies in California, when he left, and here he was without a god
damned raincoat, getting wet.

The final straw.

Inside the terminal, he paused to get his bearings, picked out Flynn
and Carrie Miles together, waiting for him on the far side of a waist@
high barrier.

"Nice weather," Tanner said, directing it to Flynn as he shook Carrie's
hand.

"You could've told me I'd be needing a canoe."

"It's hardly sprinkling."

"Two days out of town, you're Nature Boy."  He turned to Carrie, going
easy on the frown.

"So, how's Chicago?"

"At the moment it looks pretty tame."

"I guess.  The locals muffed it, huh?"

"Let's say they gave it everything they had.  No check-through
luggage?"

Tanner's free hand came around to slap his scruffy carry-on.

"My worldly goods," he answered, putting on a smile he didn't feel.

"I must have missed that course at the Academy."

"Which course is that?"

"The one on how to fit your whole life in a shoebox," Carrie said.

"You pick it up in transit.  Are we set?"

"If you are."

"Then I'd say it's time to roll.PP They had the standard Bureau
four-door parked out front, and Tanner took the backseat, Carrie
sliding in behind the wheel.  He caught the look she gave to Flynn
before they pulled away, and made a point of not attempting to
interpret it.  Whatever they were doing on their own time, it was none
of Tanner's business, if it did not interfere with their performance on
the job.

"We're going where, again?"

"Grant County first," said Carrie.

"Forty-something miles due south, on Highway 61.  The @he riff people
lost our runners outside Boscobel, before they hit the county line."

"Terrific.  There were casualties, you said?"

"One officer in I.C.U with head wounds," Flynn replied.

"A couple others banged up when they made their break at the motel, and
one guy took a hit from friendly fire.  The deputy who lost them
cracked his pelvis when they ran him off the road."

"I thought the Keystone Kops were all retired,"

said Tanner.

"Way it sounds, our' perpetrators must have seen the TV spot .  . . or
else the motel manager was dumb enough to tip them off, somehow, before
he made the call.  The uniforms rolled up and found them sitting in the
car, all set to go, and it just went to hell from there."

"And they were northbound, at the last report?"

"For what it's worth.  You know how back roads are, out in the sticks.
They could be into Illinois or Minnesota, even back in Iowa, by now."

"I'm thinking there's a lot of elbow room in Canada."

"It crossed my.  mind," said Flynn.

"The shortest way would be a run through Michigan, said Carrie,
watching Tanner in the rearview mirror.

"Is it covered?"

"Best we can.  The highway maps show sixteen major crossings into
Michigan.  Start counting unmarked access roads and logging tracks, I
would imagine you could triple that."

"At least.  What kind of a reaction are we getting from the state
police."

"They're hot to trot," Flynn said.

"Of course, they're spread thin as it is, with normal duties.  It
would help if we could focus on a given area, to start."

"RCMP on standby?"

"We're in touch."

"I can't believe we came this close and screwed it up.

"We haven't lost them yet," said Carrie.

"Give it time."

"Old men aren't much @n patience," Joseph said.

"Old men, my ass.  Cops shooting one another, and the bad guys drive
away."

"It happens."

"So I see."

"We've been in touch with Michigan.  They're beefing up patrols along
the border, but they don't want roadblocks yet."

"How's that description of the car."

"It's good enough, unless they've switched by now.  11 "Small
favors."

"Statewide APBS, including Michigan and Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.
The local news is going crazy.  If they're on the road, we ought to
catch a squeal before too long."

"That's if.

"Their other choice is holing up somewhere and waiting out the heat. If
I were Jubal Gleason, I don't think I'd want to try and rent a room,
just now."

"Suppose they hide out in the woods somewhere?"

"We're catching frost now, almost every night,"

said Carrie Miles.

"The weatherman says fifty-fifty for an early snow, midweek."

"I didn't plan on letting Mother Nature make the collar."

"Either way," said Flynn,

"I'll take what I can get.  " "Who's waiting for us at the other end?"
asked Tanner.

"County sheriff.  He was out of town last night when it went down.
Somebody called him back, I guess."

"He must be thrilled."

"We haven't met him, but I understand that egg on-face is not his
favorite breakfast dish."

"He needs to keep a close eye on the kitchen help next time."

"I think we got that point across."

"So, what's he got that we can use?"

"A starting point," said Flynn.

"Right now that's all we have."

"Okay," said Tanner, staring out his window at a blur of trees.

"Let's get it done."

Instead of driving to the county seat at Lancaster, they found the
sheriff and a couple of his people waiting for them at a picnic area a
few miles south of Boscobel.  They had outrun the drizzling rain, but
dark clouds formed a roof of slate that stretched to the horizon,
swollen underbellies looking almost close enough to touch.

"Great meeting place," said Tanner, scowling in the back.

"Are we supposed to roast some weenies now, or what?"

"Be cool," Flynn cautioned.

"We don't need the natives any more excited than they are already."

"Think he might shoot us, if he runs out of deputies?"

The sheriff 's name was Gordon Nash.  He wore a charcoal business suit
and wingtips, with a gold lapel pin in the likeness of a tiny badge.
His tie tack was a Lilliputian pair of handcuffs, and a diamond graced
the pinkie of his strong right hand.  Gray hair was parted on the left,
above a face that looked like it was chiseled out of wood.

Without a smile.

They worked through simple introductions, standing in the parking lot
between the sheriff's cruiser and their unmarked car.

"I'm not about to try and snow you," Nash began.

"My people blew it, even if there were extenuating circumstances.
Pulling off a raid like that without my say-so was the first mistake,
and I expect to kick some ass, once all involved are on their feet."

"We're not concerned with criticism or the discipline applied by local
agencies," said Flynn.

"Right now our top priority is running down these fugitives before they
have a chance to kill somebody else."

"My second point," the sheriff said.

"Regardless how my deputies screwed up, I've still got one man lying up
in I.C.U who may not live.  Your fugitives are into me now, for
attempted murder at the very least."

"You'll have to get in line," said Tanner.

"We've got fifteen homicides we know about, on top of.

rapes, kidnappings, robberies, unlawful flight you name it."

"I've already seen the shopping list," Nash said.

"The way I look at trash like this, you play first come, first
served."

"It's academic," Carrie Miles suggested, "if we go on the assumption
that they've crossed the county line."

"You think so?"

Flynn worked hard to keep the tension from his voice.

"We didn't drive down from La Crosse to start a pissing contest,
Sheriff.  Frankly, I don't give a damn where Gleason and the Sawyers go
to trial, for starters.  What we have to do, first thing, is get them
off the street.  Now, can you help us out, or not?"

Nash spent a moment frowning, finally tucked big hands inside his
pockets, leaning back against the black-and-white.

"We've got a firm ID from Rupert Leach, dowo to the Hide-Away Motel,"
he said.

"Of course, we didn't have much doubt, but there was still a chance he
got mixed up and put the finger on some other bad-ass types.  It's
Gleason and his crowd, all right."

"Did they leave anything behind?"

"Some bloody towels and bedding," Nash replied.

"Whichever one is hurt, I'd say he's hurting bad " "What kind of
weapons were they packing?"  Tanner asked.

The sheriff made a sour face.

"A handgun's all my people saw, for sure.  We found some casings
from a forty-five outside the Hide-Away.  No telling what they've got,
aside from that."

"The deputy they cracked up on the highway, was he shot?"

Nash shook his head.

"The bastards faked him out and let him pull up on the left.  He meant
to run them off the road, but it got turned around somehow.  The
cruiser clipped a couple trees, before it rolled."

"And where was that, again?"

"You passed it coming in, about a half mile up the road."

"Fresh skid marks?"  Carrie asked.

"The very same."

"Nobody picked them up in town what is it, Boscobel?"

"We think they went around," 'said Nash.

"You've got some back roads don't show up on maps, connecting 61 with
State 133.  They could've run southwest, toward Woodman, or you've got
Blue River, out the other way.  Take time to work your way around, you
come back out on 61 and cross the river north of Boscobel without a
pass through town.  No sweat."

"How long's that take?"

"From where they ditched my deputy, say twenty minutes, if they kept it
up to speed."

"Suppose they doubled back instead?"

"I had my fingers crossed on that one, but it doesn't play," said
Nash.

"They had to knbw that any reinforcements from the county seat would be
behind them, coming out of Lancaster and Fennimore.  With radio alerts,
they'd run a greater risk of interception to the east and west.  Their
best shot's still a run due north, to Crawford County, and it's
anybody's guess from there."

"How quickly did your people reach the state Police?"  asked Flynn.

"They went for ambulance and local backup first," the sheriff said.

"According to the log, I'd call it half an hour, give or take."

"And figure fifteen, twenty minutes more to organize some kind of
response."

"At least."

"Let's call it thirty, to be safe.  If they were pushing it, they could
have covered forty, fifty miles before word got around."

"Assuming they went north to start," said Nash, "that's half a dozen
counties from La Crosse to Sauk and Juneau."

"Better all the time," said Tanner, scowling at the storm clouds
overhead.

"The state police are covering motels and tourist camps, for what it's
worth," Nash said.

"I doubt these birds are dumb enough to make the same mistake again."

"Ve're looking at the first real brush they've had since Anaheim,"
Flynn said, "and that was just a random stop for DUI.  With any kind of
luck, they may be spooked enough to fumble."

"If they keep on running," Tanner said, "they'll either have to stop
for gas or bag new wheels.

Whichever, it's a chance for us to cut their trail."

"I think of that," said Nash, "the first thing comes to mind is some
old couple living on their own, back off the highway somewhere.
Gleason's bunch
could whack them out, switch cars, we might not know it for a week or
more."

"You could have gone all day without reminding us of that."

"One thing," said Flynn.

"I've got this hunch it's a mistake to call it Gleason's gang.  The old
man, Sawyer, has a record going back for years before his daughter
married Gleason."

" so?

"So if we want to think ahead of them, I'd say we need to get inside
his head and try to scope it out that way."

"Whoever calls the shots, they're limited on options," Nash replied.

"That's true enough," said Flynn, "but I'm not talking where they go.
it's how they get there we should focus on."

"I'm listening."

"Another gang might very well have split by now.

Divide the risk by going off their separate ways and feed their
casualty a bullet, if they had to.  Anything to shut him up."

"Your point?"

"This isn't just a gang," Flynn said, "it's family.  A rural Texas
family at that."

"So what?"

"They'll stick together," Tanner told him, "and it just might hang
them, in the end."

"We know from blood types," Flynn continued, "that it wasn't Gleason or
the old man who got mauled in Davenport.  That makes it Sawyer's son,
and they're not leaving him behind.  He'll slow them down."

"Unless he dies," said Nash.

"It hasn't killed him yet."

"And if it does?"

"They'll stop and bury him," said Tanner.

"It's the way they think.  Take care of family first, and everybody
else gets screwed."

"So if you're right, there's still a million places they could hider
plant a body, if it comes to that."

"But every minute they spend standing still is time they can't afford,"
said Flynn.

"And in the meantime, we just wait aroundy' "Not quite.  We've got a
fair-sized army, searching high and low.  We've got the media involved,
along with anyone who picks a daily paper up or watches TV news.  We're
not exactly sitting on our hands."

"I want to see these bastards locked inside a cage or stretched out on
a slab," said Nash.

"It doesn't matter which."

"We're getting there," Flynn told him, "but it won't help, going off
half-cocked."

"You'll keep me posted on your progress?"

"Or the state police," said Flynn.

"Our plans don't call for freezing anybody out."

"No matter how it looks," the sheriff said, "my people really aren't
this green."

"We've all muffed stake outs Flynn replied.

"It's how you pick the pieces up that counts."

"I guess."  Nash did not sound convinced."  "Well, if there's anything
that I can do "Ve'll be in touch."

"He's taking it to heart," said Carrie, when they
were together in the car and Nash had pulled away.

"I'd say he's lucky there's a year before he stands for reelection,"
Tanner said.

"It may not help."

"Too bad.  You live with your mistakes."

Or die with them, Flynn thought.  And said,

"The state police are operating out of Reedsburg, trying to coordinate
a search.  What say we take a drive up there and make ourselves
available?"

"Suits me," said Carrie, glancing back at Tanner in the rearview.

"Might as well," Flynn's partner said.

"At least that way we've got a shot at turning something up by
accident."

"It's always nice to have an optimist around,"

said Flynn.

"That sunny disposition makes the difference every time."

It got a chuckle out of Carrie, Tanner sitting in the back and glaring
at the two of them.

"Don't spoil my mood," he cautioned Flynn.

"I wouldn't dare."

"It's different strokes, is all.  I tried to stop and smell the roses
once myself."

"What happened?"

"Damnedest thing," said Tanner.

"I got fertilizer up my nose, and I've been smelling bullshit ever
since."

"You think they really got a thousand lakes?"  asks Macy, staring out
her window at the landscape rolling by.

"Who gives a shit?"

"I'm only makin' conversation."

"Ve need gas."  The old man driving, frowning at the gauge.

"You passed an Exxon back a ways."

In spite of everything, the pain and all, it still makes Coley wonder
when his sister acts so dumb.

"We don't dare stop," says Mama, cutting in before the old man thinks
of anything to say.

"New car is what we need."  No flies on Jubal as he puts it all
together, sitting there and stroking Macy's thigh.

"I know just how to do it too."

"I'm way ahead of you," the old man tells him, slowing down a tad and
checking out a dirt road on the left.  He lets it go, but keeps on
looking, leaning slightly forward now, with both hands on the wheel.

"Someplace you can't see from the road says Jubal.

"Lay up there till night and get ourselves a fresh start, with some
different wheels."

"A house, like?"  Macy right on top of things, as usual.

"You're catching on."

"Don't treat me like I'm stupid, Jubal."

"Not a bit."

"Right here."  The old man pointing at a road that disappears among the
trees, a mailbox out in front, beside the highway.  Small reflective
letters spell Out BEND IX on the box.

"Suppose nobody's home?"  Another one of Macy's gems.

"Ve don't need anybody home.  It helps, is all."

"Oh, right."

Long shadows, once they're off the highway, driving through the tunnel
formed by trees.  He cranks his window down a little way and rests his
cheek against the cool, smooth glass, wind blowing through his tangled
hair.

He has no clear idea of how long they've been driving since the motel
trap on Highway 61.  Dark blurring into murky dawn and breakfast time
gone past without a bite.  It must be hours, but it feels like days,
the pain and all.  At least the highways have been smooth enough to
keep from jolting him, not like their mad dash from the Hide-Away
Motel, with Coley huddled in his seat, teeth clenched around a
scream.

He thinks the bleeding may have stopped by now.  Of course, he can't be
sure, the way his jockey shorts and jeans are plastered to his body.
Thinking of the time when he will have to peel them off makes Coley
hurt again, and he attempts to blank the prospect from his mind.

The old man always says to concentrate on first things first.  Right
now they need a place to spend the day, secure from prying eyes, and
different wheels to put them on the road, come nightfall.

Common sense says anybody living out this far away from town is bound
to have a car.  You can't haul groceries ten or fifteen miles by hand,
for Christ's sake, with the milk gone sour and melted ice cream
dripping on your shoes.

"Well, now."

The old man's voice distracts him from his reverie, and Coley has his
first view of the farmhouse.

Old and peeling paint, two stories, with an ancient looking barn off to
the side.  He half expects an outhouse, crescent moon carved in the
door, but doesn't see one eight away.  Beyond the house and barn, a
wide expanse of open fields where trees should be.

It comes to him that someone, once upon a time, invested months of
busting ass to carve a farm out of the forest, leaving trees out front
to screen the highway sights and sounds.  More likely, they were here
before there even was a highway, mere coincidence connecting them with
modern-day society.

He feels a sudden urge to turn around and look for someplace else, but
the old man and Jubal have their minds made up.

"Looks good," the old man says.

"Can't tell if anybody's home," says Jubal, reaching underneath his
denim jacket for the .45.

"Hey, over there."  His sister pointing toward the barn, where movement
draws her eyes.

"I do believe it's Old Mac Donald

"Just another workin' stiff," says Jubal, easing off the safety on his
gun.

The farmer wears an old straw hat, plaid shirt, and faded overalls, the
cuffs tucked into rubber boots.  He seems to take forever, crossing
from the barn to reach the point where they have parked, their engine
idling, in the middle of the yard.

"I'll do the talking now," the old man says, his voice pitched low
enough the farmer shouldn't hear.  Behind him, Jubal holds the .45
between his knees, its muzzle pointed toward the floorboards.

"Somethin' I can do for you?"  the farmer asks, suspicion in his
voice.

"I do believe we're lost."

"Looks like.  You left the highway back three quarters of a mile."

"Truth is, we've got a sick boy here.  We need some help."

A frown from Old Mac Donald

"Closest doctor's down to Bryant.  Go back like you came and pointer
south on Highway 52."

"A doctor ain't exactly what we had in mind."

"Well, then-" His first glimpse of the .38 cuts off the sluggish flow
of words.  The old man telling him,

"Fact is, we need some food, a place to rest awhile, and something else
to drive when we light out tonight."

"So that's it."

"I should say.  Who else you got inside there?"

"Wife is all."  The farmer stoops a little, counting heads.

"There's five a you."

"That's good," says Jubal, cracking wise.

"We'll do times tables later on."

"I mean to say, the only things I got to drive would be a tractor,
which ain't running, and an old Ford pickup.

"Less you got a couple a contortionists among you, one or two is gonna
wind up ridin' in the back."

"Well, shit."

"Forget about it," says the old man, glancing back at Jubal.

"Ve got time to think about it while we wait for dark.  You take the
man inside and find his missus.  Keep a close eye on 'em while I put
the car around in back."

"You bet."

"And I mean watch 'em, nothing else, until we get this all worked
out."

"I said okay."

"Me too," says Macy, scrambling out and trailing Jubal toward the
porch, their hostage shuffling out in front.

Fat chickens scatter as they drive around and park behind the
farmhouse.  Mama and the old man coming back to help him out and get
him on his feet.

"Be strong now, son.  We're almost home."

The state police lieutenant's name was Hagen Washburn.  He had
twenty-odd years on the job, and most of it was written on his long,
lean face.

He wore his hair trimmed short enough to show
the scalp on top, with razor creases in his uniform, the brass and
leather polished till they hurt your eyes.  His voice was deep and
mellow, a surprise from someone who would probably not tip the scales
above 160 pounds.

"The bad news," Washburn told his tiny audience of three, "is that we
haven't had a serious report in going on ten hours.  Turn the thing
around, and that's the good news too."

"How's that?"  asked Carrie Miles.  Her back was stiff from driving up
and down the state, she needed sleep, and riddles grated on her nerves
just now.

"Ve've got the word out all around to filling stations, pharmacies,
convenience stores, and grocers -anyplace that we could think of they
might stop for gas, food, medicine, whatever."

"Even so, you're bound to miss a few," Flynn said.

"Damn few, I'd say.  They drove all night, you have to figure they'll
be running on the fumes by now, and missing breakfast something
fierce."

They had discussed it on the drive from Boscobel to Reedsburg, Carrie
feeling more depressed with every passing mile.  It seemed to her
impossible that Gleason and the Sawyers wouldn't go to ground
somewhere, pick off another victim maybe three or four-and hit the road
by night with brand-new wheels.  If they got lucky, bagged two cars
instead of one, they could divid@ their force and stand a better chance
of passing checkpoints unopposed.  The state police and local deputies
were looking for a gang of five, and while a dash of common sense would
have them watching every car they saw, reality was often very
different.

"You said no serious reports," she interjected.

"What about the false alarms?"

"We've checked out three so far," said Washburn.

"Up by Hewitt, fellow thought he found their car abandoned on the side
of Highway 10, but it turned out to be a simple breakdown.  Couple of
my troopers met the owner coming back with a mechanic when they got
there.

"Number two was out to Galesville, truck stop there on Highway 54,
about ten miles before you cross the river into Illinois.  Three guys
came in, all scruffy looking, and the waitress got herself a case of
nerves.  They checked out clean."

"That still leaves one," said Tanner.

"Way up north, by Land o'lakes," said Washburn.

"Old man and a younger one stole eighty dollars and some Jim Beam from
a liquor store, punched out the clerk.  I thought we had a hot one
there, but they got picked up by the Vilas County sheriff half an hour
later.  Sitting out by Starlake, drunk as skunks.  They're known around
the area for raising hell, the past five years or so."

"Strike three."

"We're not out yet.  I've got a hunch these cruds are still around."

"I've been in touch with the Milwaukee office,"

Carrie said.

"They've got a Bureau SWAT team and a helicopter standing by in case
they're needed."

"I appreciate the thought," said Washburn, "but I doubt we'll need that
kind of help.  If we can pin
our targets down, we've got enough men on the job to bury them in
uniforms."

"Insurance," Carrie said, deliberately avoiding tender toes.

"Our people need to feel like they're involved."

"I know exactly what you mean."  The gleam in Washburn's eye told
Carrie she had scored a point with mock humility.

"We're all friends here "Well," Flynn responded, "if there's nothing we
can do right now "Can't think of anything, offhand."

"I can," said Carrie, glancing at her watch.

"It's over thirty hours since I closed my eyes.  I'm burning out."

"Same here," said Flynn.

"I caught a nap while I was airborne," Tanner said, "for all the good
it did."

"Best Western on the highway headed out of town can put you up, I would
imagine," said Lieutenant Washburn.

"Chances are they won't be overrun with customers this time of year,
and I can ring you up if something breaks."

"You'll do that?"  Carrie pressed.

"Sure thing.  I wouldn't want you snoozing through the main event."

They rented two rooms, one for Carrie by herself, with Flynn and Tanner
doubling up next door.

once she was alone, without an urgent task or destination, the fatigue
took over, changing tarrie's mind about the shower she had planned
before she went to bed.  Stripped down to underwear, she crawled
between the crisp, clean sheets and made a concentrated effort not to
think of Flynn stretched out beside her, stroking her and tugging down
her tight bikini panties.  . . .

Waking fantasy bled into dreams, and it was hours later, creeping up on
sundown, when she woke.  Recalling fragments of her dream, she felt the
old, familiar stirrings of arousal, rolling out of bed and moving
toward the bathroom for a shower that would clear the cobwebs out.

Ice cold, you bet.  The perfect way to launch another round of stalking
human prey, with no distractions on her mind.

And afterward, when they were finished ... well, there would be time to
deal with problems as they came.  Flynn had a life to lead, and so did
she, but while it lasted .  . .

Stupid, Carrie thought, already shivering before she shed her
underthings and climbed inside the shower stall.  Her mind ticked off
rule number one for agents working in the field: Don't get emotionally
involved.  The rule was carved in stone, applied to cases and,
presumably, to other agents of the FBI as well.

Too late.  If there was one thing Carrie Miles could positively vouch
for at the moment, it was her involvement.  With the case at hand. With
Joseph Flynn.  She couldn't see how either problem would resolve
itself, so far, but there was time.

And in the meantime .  . .

Gathering her courage, Carrie took a breath and held it, closed her
eyes, and stepped beneath the shower's icy spray.

The sun was going down when Cyril Bendix turned his Oldsmobile off
Highway 52 and started through the trees, the last leg of the journey
to his parents' farm.  The cardboard box beside him held a rebuilt
carburetor for the tractor that was giving Dad the fits.  He estimated
it would take an hour, more or less, to get the old beast running. Dark
by then, of course, but there were ample lights out in the barn.

Eight years since he had taken the apartment in Antigo, week before his
nineteenth birthday, but whenever Cyril thought about the farm, he
pictured it as home.  The move had been a matter of necessity-a young
man needed room to breathe and care for other pressing needs as well,
without his mother standing guard outside his bedroom door-but they
remained a close-knit family in most respects.  Dad missed the extra
help around the place, no doubt, but Cyril had himself a steady job at
Sears, in the repairs department, making decent money now.

Since childhood, Cyril Bendix had been clever with his hands,
dismantling things and putting them together so they ran as good as new
. . .

and some a damn sight better, if you had to know the truth.  He had a
gift for fixing things, and that included women.  Way he tuned the
ladies up with loving care, they liked to check in nice and regular,
for maintenance.

His latest was a twenty-year-old fox named Andrea, worked swing shift
at the diner where he spent his lunch break two, three days a week.
First glance, he had her figured for a bottle blonde, but Cyril readily
admitted his mistake the first time she had let him skin those panties
off and get acquainted.  Stripped for action, she was something to
behold, and she could even get a rise from Cyril in her waitress
uniform, the way she leaned across that counter, showing him a glimpse
of heaven.

Better concentrate, he told himself, about the time he pulled up in the
yard and killed the engine on his Olds.  No sign of anyone around the
place, right off, but they were always home, except on market
Saturdays.  Lights shining through the kitchen window, on the side,
told Cyril it was suppertime, or thereabouts.

He tapped the horn to let them know he had arrived, in case they missed
him driving up.  No answer from the house, but none had been
expected.

He would find the front door open, like he always did, and something on
the stove to make his stomach growl, despite the fact that he had
copped a burger on the way from town.

He had the driver's door wide-open, one foot on the ground, when
unexpected- movement drew his eyes in the direction of the barn.  He
blinked at the young woman standing there, and she was gone, retreating
into shadows through the open door.

Now what the hell?

It could have been an optical illusion, fantasies of Andrea and sorry
lighting riding piggyback, but Cyril did not think so.  He had lived
this long without experiencing a hallucination or mirage, and there was
no good reason for his mind to suddenly start playing tricks.

But, if there was a woman in the barn ... He left the tractor
carburetor on the seat and closed the door behind him, torn between a
quick run to the house and checking out the barn.  He chose the latter
out of curiosity, no real alarm as yet.  If there was someone in the
barn who shouldn't be there, he would find out who she was.

And if she had some business on the place-a neighbor's daughter helping
out the folks, perhaps -well, then, it just might be his lucky day.

Still twenty paces to the barn, when Cyril heard the screen door slam
behind him, on the front porch of his parents' house.  He glanced
around to find a young man grinning at him from the steps.

Nobody he remembered, with the sideburns down below his earlobes, eyes
that seemed to look right through a person, like you weren't exactly
there.

"You kept us waitin'," said the stranger, bringing up both hands, and
Cyril recognized the blue-steel automatic as a .45 or something close
enough in caliber to knock him on his ass.

He swiveled toward the barn, already dodging, and the first shot
whistled past his shoulder, on the left.  In front of him, the girl was
back and yelling something to the shooter on the porch-it sounded very
much like

"Get him, Junior!"-and he veered off course, the shift enough to save
him as a second bullet smacked against the siding of the barn.

You never really know what you can do; until your life depends on
making time and getting every move exactly right.  Long years since
Cyril ran a football down the field and back again, too many beers and
late nights in between, but he could razzle-dazzle when he had to, bet
your ass.

The third and fourth shots kicked up dust behind him, number five
another slap against the barn, and then he turned the corner, running
straight while there was time.  Dark trees in front of him, the only
cover he would find for miles around and all he needed, if he worked it
right.

Too many jumbled thoughts inside his head right now to sort them out,
but Cyril knew his parents were in desperate trouble.  Maybe dead
already, if the asshole with the .45 was cool enough to come out
shooting, right away.

And there was nothing he could do to help them, on his own, unarmed and
running for his life.  The best thing he could do, right now, was find
himself a telephone and get the sheriff's people rolling,

PDQ.

He thought of circling back around the house and toward the highway,
flagging down a car, but he would have no way of knowing who was at the
wheel until he put himself in killing range.  On second thought, his
best shot was another farm .  . .

and that could only mean the Reynolds place, a mile due north through
heavy woods.

Was that a crashing in the undergrowth behind him?  Someone on his
track, so soon?

The secondary rush of fear gave Cyril Bendix all the energy he needed,
plunging straight ahead, unmindful of the thorny branches snagging at
his clothes and whipping past his face.

He ran as if the lives of everyone he loved depended on it, praying
that he would not be too late.

"A fucking slaughterhouse," Lieutenant Washburn said, before
remembering that Carrie Miles was standing at his elbow.  ""Scuse my
English, ma'am."

"No sweat."

Forensics had erected floodlights in the yard, around the house and
barn, to make things easy on the search team hunting cartridges and any
other bits of cast-off evidence.

"The victims?"  Tanner asked.

"Hap Bendix and his wife, Louise," said Washburn, nodding toward a
sheriff 's cruiser parked beside the ancient barn.

"Ve've got their son here, if you need to have a word with him."

"He found the bodies?"

Washburn shook his head.

"Came up to help his old man fix a tractor wasn't working.  That's the
carburetor he was bringing, over there."

They watched a sheriff's deputy snap several photographs of something
lying in the yard.  A crumpled cardboard box, with bits and pieces of
machinery spilling out.

"So anyway, the boy-that's Cyril Bendi drives up in the yard, and just
about the timexhe cuts the engine off, he sees somebody standing by the
barn.  A girl, he says."

"ID?"  asked Flynn.

"He doesn't know her, but we got the best description he could give."

"Okay.

"She ducks back out of sight, and while he's walking over there to find
out who she is, your buddy Gleason steps out on the porch, starts
popping at him with a forty-five.  We've got the casings, and the boy
made Gleason from a photograph."

"He wasn't hit?"

"Got lucky," Washburn said.

"He ran around the barn and made it to the woods before they got a
decent shot.  The closest neighbors are a mile or so up north.  That's
where he used the phone and called the sheriff's people out."

"Let's have a look inside," said Flynn.

Lieutenant Washburn glanced at Carrie, putting on a frown.

"It's not a pretty sight."

She faced him squarely and replied,

"It never is."

Inside the house, they worked around technicians dusting everything in
sight for fingerprints, one member of the team vacuuming rugs and
furniture in search of hairs or fibers they could try and match to
other crime scenes) anything to help nail down another case.

"They had themselves a bite to eat, in here."

Their escort led them to a combination kitchen-
dining room, with copper implements on hooks around the walls, a heavy
oak dining table, and a stove that nearly qualified for antique status.
Dirty dishes stacked up on a drain board by a double sink constructed
out of stainless steel.

"My guess, they checked the barn and saw the old man only had a pickup
truck.  Got started asking questions, and the answers didn't suit them.
By and by, they started playing rough."

Flynn walked around the dining table, smears of blood already dried a
crusty brown, and counted holes where roofing nails had recently been
hammered through the polished wood.  More bloodstains on the wooden
floor, with smudges left by shoes and sliding chair legs.

"Bastards nailed their hands down on the table first, then started
playing with a corkscrew and some kitchen knives.  No way of telling
whether they were finished when the boy pulled in.  Whatever, there's
an APB out on his Oldsmobile.  We're getting closer."

"What about the car they came in?"  Carrie asked.

"It's parked behind the house.  They didn't leave us much.  Your basic
fast-food litter and some bloodstains on the seat in back.  I've got a
print team on it."

"How were these two killed?"  asked Tanner.

"Throats cut with a butcher knife.  I figure they're conserving
ammunition.  Anyway, they scored some, stopping here."

"How's that?"

"Our witness says the victims had a double-barrel twelve-gauge and a
Remington ought-six, both missing when we checked the house.  He isn't
sure how many rounds they kept on hand, but some of these old farmers
stock a fair supply."

"So now they've got at least four guns."

"And better range," said Washburn, frowning at the bloody tabletop.

"Let's get some air."

Outside, they moved beyond the-ring of floodlights, welcoming the
darkness.

"Did you want to see the witness?"  Washburn asked.

Flynn glanced at Carrie and his partner, finally shook his head.

"No point, unless you think he's holding back."

"No way.  He be out hunting Gleason's people on his own, if we were
dumb enough to turn him loose."

"About that Oldsmobile "Half tank, he says, or pretty near.  The good
news is, they'll know it's hot.  May try and ditch it pretty soon."

"Which means another scene like this," said Carrie Miles.

"Unless we catch them first."  The state police lieutenant shrugged
resignedly.

"One thing I've learned, these twenty years, the good guys always start
a lap behind."

"We gotta ditch this car," the old man says, his face like something
from a midnight horror movie in the feeble dashboard lights.

"There's still a quarter tank of gas," says Macy, leaning forward in
the backseat of the Oldsmobile.

"Too hot," the old man answers her, eyes fixed on Jubal in the
rearview mirror.

"We'd be home and dry, if Jubal hadn't missed that pecker wood and let
him get away."

"I don't remember anybody out there helpin' me."  He meets the old
man's eyes, unflinching.

Damned unfair, the way it all comes down to him, like he's responsible
for everything that happens in the fucking world.

"I tried," says Macy, pouting now.

"Oh, right.  Big help, you standing there and yelling,

"Gtt him, Jubal!  Get him!"  Thanks a lot."

"At least I got him out the car."

"He would've got out, anyway.  You think he meant to sit there all
night long?"

"Some thanks I get."

"No matter what went wrong."  The old man's voice a razor, cutting
through their argument.

"We need another car, and no mistakes this time."

"Another farm?"  asks Jubal.

"I don't give a rat's ass how they earn their living, just as long as
they got wheels."

"Some houses up ahead, there," Rena says, her finger pointing out
beyond the headlights.

"We need something further off the road.  Keep looking sharp."

Ten minutes later, Jubal spotting lights set back, beyond an open
field.

"How's that?"

"Not bad.  Let's check it out."

A gravel driveway, flanked by barbed-wire fence on either side.  In
front of them, a house set back perhaps a hundred yards from contact
with the highway, skeletons of shade trees out in front.  The lights
look warm and hopeful in the darkness.

"Getting there," the old man says.

"No goddamn shooting till I give the word."

It was a whim that made Red Chandler check the Talmadge place that
Monday morning, in the predawn hours, and a sneaking hunch that made
him kill his headlights turning off the highway, down the gravel drive.
He had been on patrol since midnight, running back roads in Oneida
County, shifting back to Highway 17 when he got tired of counting
trees.  One speeder for the night, so far, and he was getting bored,
the small transistor radio beside him Putting out Van Halen laced with
static, turned down low enough that he could hear the two-way if he
caught a squeal.

They had been warned about the fugitives at roll call, one hellacious
shoot-out down by Boscobel, and now two old folks dead in Langlade
County, forty miles due south of Chandler's beat.  The Bendix
Oldsmobile was on his hot sheet, numbers and description, but you had
to figure they were well across the line in Michigan by now, if they
had any sense at all.

And yet .  . .

He had been dating Essie Talmadge for a month or so, which meant they
were beyond the stage of holding hands, but Chandler had not gotten in
her panties yet.  He was a patient man, and he was getting there, but
in the meantime .  . . well, it wouldn't hurt if Essie cracked her
blinds this morning, just in time to catch a glimpse of Chandler
black-and-white outside.  He knew the way a woman likes to feel
protected when she gives herself to any man.

No point in waking up the house with headlights shining through the
windows, even so, and cutting off the high beams' eased the crawly
feeling in his stomach that the deputy could not identify by name.  Not
fear, or even apprehension; more a vague uneasiness, like picking up an
odor in your kitchen of a morning, knowing something in the Frigidaire
was past its prime.

It wouldn't hurt to take a look around, this once.

The people of Oneida County paid his salary, and he was pledged to ride
around with guns on, swigging coffee all night long, so they could rest
in peace.

He saw the Oldsmobile before he cleared the far end of the drive,
off-white, a ghostly shape parked right in front.  Of course, it could
be any Oldsmobile, and so he put his spotlight on the license plate,
just flashing it to see the numbers quick-like, on and off before it
could alert somebody in the house.

Shit fire.

He put the cruiser in reverse without a second thought, the dashboard
mike already in his hand as he backed out of there, eyes torn between
his rearview mirror and the house, afraid of making any noise that
would alert the animals inside.  He knew what they were wanted for-some
of it, anyway and pictured Essie dead or worse, her parents sprawled
beside her in a pile and leaking on the deep shag carpet.

Chandler reached the highway, backed up twenty yards beyond the drive,
and sat there with the engine running, breathing hard.  The microphone
was welded to his hand by sweat.

"Car seventeen to base, you read me?"

Startled to discover he was whispering, he tried again and got an
answer this time.

"COPY, seventeen."

Adrenaline was racing through his system as he "You won't believe what
I just found."

The helicopter flight from Reedsburg took them all of forty minutes,
loading time included, and the ground troops were in place before they
touched down in an open field, two hundred yards due east of where
their prey had gone to ground.  Gray morning light was blushing pink
around the edges, and Lieutenant Washburn's spotting glasses told Flynn
everything he had to know.

One-story house, an L shape, with the rear concealed from where they
stood.  Trees spotted all around the yard, denuded now, except for two
big evergreens that blocked a crucial quarter of the house and open
yard in back.  Outbuildings that included a garage and tool sheds plus
a classic barn that had been decorated with the Mail Pouch logo, fresh
and bright.  On three sides of the homestead, open fields lay waiting
for the plow, woods crowding closer on the north.

Americana in the raw.

The uniforms had done their best with what they had: long rifles on the
highway, covering the keyed the mike.

house; a picket line of shotguns circling the property on three sides,
mingling with the trees along the north perimeter, while spotters tried
to scope out any new activity in back.

"How long between the call and all of this?"

asked Flynn.

"For everyone to get here, maybe fifteen, twenty minutes," Washburn
said.

"So they could be.  across that field and in the trees by now."

"Or sitting in the barn with that ought-six," said Carrie Miles.

"We're not the only ones with distance now."

"Who says they're even in the house?"  asked Tanner.

"Are they picking up the phone?"

"We lost it."

"Say again?"

"We put a trained negotiator on the line.  He let the phone ring
fifteen, twenty times, before the line went dead."

"So, someone's home."

"I'd say.  We've tried the hailers," Washburn told him, "but they're
playing hard-to-get."

"No way of knowing if the occupants are still alive," said Flynn.

"I wouldn't want to bet my paycheck on their chances."

"What about the Bureau SWAT team?"  Carrie asked.

"That means another hour, even if they fly right now," said Washburn.

"I've got people here prepared for a strategic entry."

"Your call," Joseph said.

"One thing: We're coming with you."

"Suit yourself."  The state police lieutenant frowned.

"Of course, you realize-" "You can't be held responsible, I know."
Flynn caught a flash of Tanner's crooked smile.

"Let's get it done."

The loft is dusty, spiders spinging in the rafters overhead, but Jubal
concentrates on taking care of business.  Staring over open sights,
along the barrel of the Remington, he thinks it would be fun to pop a
uniform or two and watch them squirm before they die.

Just something to amuse himself.

The old man's fault that they are trapped this way, so busy scouting
out the house for cash or anything that he can steal, they lose their
one shot at a simple in-and-out.  Too late to cry about that now, with
laws mobbed up outside and spoiling for a fight.

He thinks about returning to the joint and feels a sour burning in his
stomach just from picturing the bars and drab, gray walls.  Fuck that.
He's been inside and gone the route with bad-ass niggers, greasy
Mexicans, and burly faggots looking for an easy piece of ass when they
aren't busy pumping iron.  The guards don't give a shit, as long as
things get taken care of private-like, without a major break in the
routine.

No, thank you.

Going back inside, this time, means trials in eight, nine states for
starters.  Somewhere down the
line, he will be looking at death row.  No sweat in California, where
the fucking pansy courts refuse to carry out an execution once the
sentence is pronounced, but there is always Texas waiting for him,
fucking Huntsville and the needle, governors campaigning on the basis
of their body counts.

If he is dying, Jubal tells himself, the least that he can do is choose
the time and place.

Or, with a bit of luck .  . .

Behind the barn and sixty yards away, thick woods stand waiting for
him, shadows in among the trees.  No guarantee that he can make it, but
a fighting chance is better than a swift kick in the ass.

He wriggles backward on his knees and elbows, feeling like a soldier.
Macy still inside the house with Coley and her mama, but it can't be
helped.

She'll only slow him down, and if he has a chance at all, it has to be
a break directly toward the woods, no stupid dodging back and forth
between the house and barn to pick up stragglers.

Right.

He scrambles down the ladder, half expecting uniforms to crash in any
second and surround him when he can't defend himself.  Cheap bastards
never give a man a fighting chance, unless you make it for yourself.

The front doors of the barn are twelve or fifteen feet across and face
the house, the open yard and highway out beyond, with guns and khaki'
everywhere He takes the back, a normal access door, and cracks it just
an inch or so to see if anybody tries to take his head off with a lucky
shot.

So far, so good.

He lets the door swing wide, but catches it before it bangs against the
wooden siding.  Just like fucking laws to overlook the obvious and
concentrate their troops out front.  A part of him considers that it
may just be a trap, but Jubal is committed now, for good or ill.

Who was it said that dying on your feet beats living on your knees?

Who gives a flying fuck?

He checks the Remington, makes damn sure that the safety switch is
clear, and sets off running for the trees.

The gas was straight CS, two canisters fired through the broad front
windows of the house, another for the master bedroom, on the south end
of the house."  Pale wisps of vapor leaking out of shattered windows
ten or fifteen seconds after it was introduced.

The lightweight riot mask was snug on Carrie's face, a two-piece unit
that combined a filter for the nose and mouth with airtight goggles,
like a scuba diver's mask.  The Kevlar flack vest pinched her breasts,
but it would stop a shotgun blast and most commercial handgun rounds at
any kind.  of normal range.

A pinch was nothing in comparison to a twelve gauge mastectomy.

Three troopers led a mad dash to the kitchen door, the leader with a
one-man ram, his two backups carrying a shotgun and an M16,
respectively.

They did not bother with a warning this time, one
blow from the ram enough to crack the latching mechanism, shattering
an inset pane of glass.  The door flew back, and Carrie followed
uniforms inside, her Smith & Wesson steady in a firm, two handed
grip.

They found a woman huddled underneath the dining table, curled up in a
fetal ball and gagging on the CS fumes.  Strong hands thrust underneath
to drag her out and snap a pair of handcuffs on her wrists, arms pinned
behind her back and ankles bound with strips of plastic.

Carrie covering the empty kitchen-dining room as number one was handed
off to waiting hands outside.  The point men coming back to barge
through the connecting doorway, high and low, more shouting as they met
another woman.  This one younger, tear-streaked face, hands braced
against the wall until they got the bracelets on.

"Two down," the leader counted through his riot mask.

"Let's get her out of here."

"I've got it covered," Carrie told him, sighting down the short slide
of her pistol toward a swirling fog bank, filling up the corridor.

"Stay put," their leader told the rifleman.

"Ve'll be right back."

"Affirmative."

Their heavy footsteps clomping back across the kitchen, echoed by
another set somewhere ahead of Carrie, in the noxious mist.

"You hear that?"

On her left, the rifleman was bringing up his M16, the sling looped
once around his arm.

"Police!"  he barked.

"Come forward slowly, with your hands above your head!"

The answer was a shotgun blast that cut a neat hole in the wall of CS
gas and punched the trooper backward, slamming him against the nearest
wall.

Beside him, Carrie hit a fighting crouch and held her pistol steady,
praying that she would not freeze when it was time to fire.

Incredibly, the pain has started to recede.  It may be fear or pure
adrenaline, no difference either way.  As long as he can walk and hold
the twelve gauge steady, he can go out like a man.

The sneaky bastards using gas now, treating them like bugs or fucking
gophers down 'a hole.

The snot rag wrapped around his lower face is little help, despite a
dunking in the toilet bowl, but it will have to do.

Ahead of Coley, scuffling noises in the central hallway that divides
the house in two.  He recognizes Macy's voice and holds his fire a
moment, shuffling closer on his wooden legs, the feeling of a dead
weight in his groin.

Too late for Coley, Mama.  Damn sure too late for the snooty shits who
tried to put them off when they came knocking, asking for a
telephone.

Too fucking late for everybody, when he thinks about it, drawing
strength and icy calm from what he knows must happen next.

In front of him, retreating shadows, with a burden slung between them.
Macy?  Two more standing fast and cutting off his angle of retreat. One
of them asks a muffled question, and the other points
a weapon in his general direction, barking orders through a mask.

"Police!  Come forward slowly, with your hands above your head!"

The beauty of a shotgun is, you only have to squint and aim for
distance work, like potting game birds on the wing.  This close, it is
enough for him to brace the gun against his side and squeeze the
trigger, rocking with the recoil, feeling thunder in his ears that
rattles down the full length of his spine.

One down, the rag-doll figure vaulting backward, flattening against the
wall and slumping like a boneless thing.  He feels a sudden rush, like
when he did his first bitch, back in Santa Monica.  A blood high,
thrumming in his veins like hard-rock music only he can hear.

The second law hunched down and pointing at him with a pistol, braced
to fire.

'7hrow down the fucking gun!"

A woman's voice.  Bitch-cop, the perfect target and frustration as he
swings the double-barrel into line, his finger tightening around the
second trigger.

Something like a hammer blow impacting on his shoulder, spinning him
around before another stroke slams home, against his ribs.  The twelve
gauge blasts a fist-sized hole in ceiling plaster, jolted from his
fingers by the recoil, dust all over everything like flies on shit. The
weapon bounces off his lap as Coley falls, awakening the other pain.

God damn his luck.

The old man will be really disappointed in him now.

"Look sharp now!"

Tanner heard the order from the far end of the skirmish line, advancing
over open ground toward the garage.  Flynn's team was double-timing for
the barn, the point men out of sight before they caught the muffled
sounds of gunfire coming from the house.

Behind them, right.

The khaki line broke stride, a couple of the troopers glancing back
across their shoulders, wishing they could turn around and help their
buddies out.  No comment from the walkie-talkie carried by their
leader, asking for assistance if the action got too hairy in the
house.

"Proceed!"

As if upon command, the wooden door of the garage bowed outward, toward
them, straining in its frame.  A heartbeat later it exploded, slats and
jagged splinters airborne as a classic Caddy Coupe de Ville burst
through the opening and made a straight run at the center of the
line.

A dozen guns went off at once, some shotguns, semiautomatics, Magnums
kicking ass in rapid fire.  The Cadillac was taking hits at fifty feet,
the windshield misting over first, and then imploding, Tanner catching
just a glimpse of someone's face, behind it as he tried to aim and
snapped off three quick rounds.

The skirmish line disintegrated, scattering, a trooper running into
Tanner as he dodged to save
himself.  They kept on firing, though, despite the risk of injury from
cross fire, pumping lead into the Caddy as it rumbled past.  The
windows shattered, doors and fenders pocked by countless shiny circles
where the paint was blown away.

He saw the hood fly up-the driver blind now, if he was alive-and still
the troopers kept on firing, back in the direction of the highway and
their own parked cars, the reinforcements ducking under cover from a
rain of friendly fire.  The sergeant in command was cursing them and
slapping muzzles down, but by the time he got control, the Coup de
Ville had wallowed to a halt on three flat tires, the radiator gushing
steam.

"All right!"

One trooper's voice cut through the stillness, making several of the
others laugh self-consciously.

"All right, my ass!"  the sergeant snapped.

"Let's go and see what's left."

They were about to storm the barn when someone stationed at the
northeast corner shouted,

"There he goes!"

Flynn came around the blind side with a pair of uniforms in front of
him, the Smith & Wesson in his hand.  They were in time to see a man
high stepping through the weeds, some thirty yards away, a rifle
clutched against his chest.

"Don't let him make the trees."

The general surge bore Joseph forward, hoping for a quick, clean shot.
He pulled up when the uniforms around him started fanning out and
snapping weapons to their shoulders, taking steady aim.

"Hold up there!"

The command alerted Gleason-there could be no doubt about the
sideburns, even from a distance -and he spun to face them, raising the
ought-six to try a shot.

Good luck.

The first blast sent a shock wave rolling out across the field and
raised a cloud' of swirling dust where Gleason stood.  Flynn saw him
jerking, twisting in the middle of it, like a hiker swarmed by angry
bees, and then he lost his balance, going down.  A sudden stillness on
the firing line, the last few cartridges still tumbling, airborne, as
the racket ceased.

"Padilla.  Marx."

Upon command, the troopers named ran forward, spreading out to flank
what had to be a corpse.  They went in crouched and ready, just in case
it turned out-they had fired a hundred-something rounds at Superman and
he was playing possum, but a moment later they were standing over
Gleason's body, flashing back a quick thumbs-up.

"Secure your weapons, people."

Flynn broke ranks, retreating past the barn and toward the farmhouse.
Wondering how many showers it would take to get the smell of gunsmoke
off his skin.  He spotted Tanner in the yard, with troopers ringed
around a Cadillac that looked like something from a gangster movie,
shot to hell.

No sign of Carrie for a moment, and he picked the pace up, slowing only
when he saw her sitting
on the front porch of the farmhouse, dark hair tousled, with a gas
mask lying on the ground between her feet.

She saw him coming, almost rose to meet him, EPILOGUE and decided it
was too much work.

"We made it, Joe," she said.  The smile was bruised, but still
intact.

He gave one back to her and said,

"I guess that's right."

"The Talmadges make twenty, all together?"

The last three victims of the Sawyer-Gleason clan had been discovered
in the parlor of the farmhouse, slumped together on the couch and torn
by shotgun fire, as if their executioner had found them watching
television and surprised them with an audience-participation spot
promoting sudden death.

"It's twenty-one," said Tanner, lighting a cigar.

"Ve just got word about the deputy down south."

"And three in custody," said Flynn.

"I don't know why the goddamn boy's still alive,"

said Carrie, glaring at her Miller Lite.

"I must be losing it."

"You hit what you were aiming at," said Flynn.

"He's in the bag, and you don't get a bonus for the dead ones.  Let it
go."

"Besides," said Tanner, sipping Michelob,

"I like to think of little Coley No-dick sitting out a couple
hundred years in maximum security somewhere.

He'll make a lot of friends."

"I didn't think that it would be like this," said Carrie, trouble
written on her face.

"The shooting?"

"All of it," she said.

"The bodies, everything.  I thought it would be .  . . different."

Joseph shrugged.

"Don't sweat it out.  Nobody said you have to like it."

"That's the trouble, Joe.  Inside that house, my heart was pounding
like a thousand beats a minute, and I loved it.  When I dropped the
hammer on him, I was thinking

"This is what it's all about."

"You had a job," said Tanner, "and you did it.

Nothing wrong with feeling satisfied."

"I wonder."

"Don't.  It's like a war, sometimes, between the different sides.  A
soldier gets keyed tip, forgets that he's supposed to have some kind of
psychic trauma every time he pulls the trigger.  No one stops to think
it may have anything to do with who he pulls the trigger on.  You did
your job," he said again.

"Go on, be glad.  It doesn't make you one of them."

"You say so."

"Absolutely.  And I know whereof I speak."

"I'll vouch for that," Flynn said.

"Somebody talks as much as you do has to have at least some vague idea
of what he's saying."

"I don't have to stand for this abuse," said Tanner, finishing his beer
in one long swallow.

"Anybody needs a real pro's sage advice, you'll find me in the-room.
They've got a Lakers game on HBO."

He left them, Flynn and Carrie sitting on the same side of the booth.
She edged a little closer when they were alone' "You think he knows
Flynn thought about it.

"Hard to say.  He knows a lot of things nobody ever hears."

"One thing I didn't mention."

"Oh?"

"The fact that I was scared, in there.  Not just excited.  For a
second, when he dropped the trooper, I was damn near scared to
death."

"Thank God for Kevlar," Flynn replied.

"You weren't the only one with nerves out there today."

"It felt that way."

"Regardless.  It gets easier," he said, "but not that much.  The day it
gets too easy, you begin to lose your edge.  Bad news."

"I feel an edge right now," she told him, slipping one hand underneath
the table, resting on his thigh.

"You know what's crazy?"

"Vhat?"

"When I was looking down that twelve-gauge, just before I fired, it
flashed on me that if I didn't take him down, we wouldn't have tonight.
I mean, together."

"Here we are."

"And in the morning, there you go."

"You're not exactly standing still," he told her.

"Still, I might dig up an extra day or two, if you can."

"Really?"

"If I had a reason."

Carrie working with her hand.

"A good, hard reason?"

"I believe it's coming back to me."

"Your place or mine?"

"I'd rather not have Martin and the Lakers for an audience, if that's
okay."

"Good thinking.  Shall we go?"

"Another drink first," Flynn replied.

"Ve've got all night."

"That's right," she said, and smiled.

"Ve do."

Though this series is fiction, VI CAP is i real organization initially
conceived in the late 1960's when the crimes of the Boston Strangler,
Charles Manson, and other "motiveless" killers began to make national
headlines.  The case files of Special Agents Flynn and Tanner are a
scorching record of brutal crime.  Their Los Angeles is an urban
nightmare ruled by psychotic lords of violence.  But VI CAP agents are
tough and relentles'ey never give up until they get their man.

VI CAP #I BLOOD SPORT

20735-5 $3.50 El VI CAP #2 SLAY RIDE 20736-3 $3.95

0 VI CAP #3 THE NECHO FILE

20737-1 $3.-50

11 VI CAP #4 HEAD GAMES

20877-7 $3.50

0 VI CAP #3 ROAD KILLS

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