She picked at a speck of dust for a moment and then said, “The gods are perverse. They give lollipops
to children and take them away after the first lick.”
I wanted to disagree with her; but I couldn‟t. What she said was true. It‟s called growing up. In her
own way, Doe had resisted that. Now it was all catching up to her at once and I felt suddenly
burdened by her sadness. Not because of Raines‟ death—there was nothing to be done about that—
hut because of what they didn‟t have when he was alive; because the bright promises of youth had
become elusive; because the promises of the heart had been broken. I remembered Mufalatta „s story
about the two violins. She was playing a sad tune and my violin was answering.
“Harry knew from the start that he was second choice,” she went on. “I never deceived him about that.
But I tried. In the beginning we both tried real hard. Then Chief got more and more demanding and
Titan started talking politics and Harry started changing, day by day by day, and pretty soon I was just
part of the territory to him. Just another plaque on the wall. I wanted the commitment, Jake. Oh God,
how I wanted that. And now I want him back. I want to tell him I‟m sorry that it was all a. . . a.
She shook her head, trying to find a way to end the sentence, so I ended it for her.
“An error in judgment?” I suggested.
She looked up at me and said, “Au error in judgment? What a cheap way to sum tip a life.”
I was trying to think of a way to tell her about Sam Donleavy, but I didn‟t have a chance to get around
to it.
“I can‟t stay here, Jake,” she said, staring at the pictures on the wall. “Every place I look I see him.”
She looked at me. “Drive me out to Windsong, will you, please? Get me out of here.”
“Let‟s go,” I said. I could tell her on the way out.
She did whatever women do before they leave the house—it seemed like an eternity of puttering
around—then we left and walked back to my car. We didn‟t say anything but she clung to my arm so
hard it hurt.
The security guard flagged mc down as we drove toward the island.
“You got somebody waiting for you?‟ he asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“There‟s this black sedan down to the right. Pulled up just after you went in. He‟s been down there
ever since.”
I squinted through the dark and could see the car, halfa block away, sitting on our side of the street. It
could have been one of Dutch‟s hooligans, but I didn‟t recognize the car.
“Can you tell how many there are?”
“Just the one,” he said.
“Maybe he‟s sleeping one off” I said.
“Yeah, well, just thought I‟d mention it,” the guard said.
“Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
I pulled out of the security drive and turned left, away from the parked car. It pulled away from the
curb without showing any lights and fell in behind us. I drifted, letting it pull closer. As usual, my gun
was in the trunk.
“Hook up,” I told Doe.
“What?” she said.
“Your safety belt. Hook it up, and hang on.”
She groped for the belt and snapped it across her lap.
“What‟s the matter?” she asked, urgency creeping into her voice.
“We‟ve got company,” I said, hooking up my own belt. “Just hang on. It‟ll be like the old days in the
dune buggy.”
I waited until the car was ten feet behind me, then slammed down the gas pedal and twisted the
steering wheel. The car leaped forward, its tires tortured by the asphalt, and then spun around. I hit the
brakes, straightened it out, and left rubber all over Palm Drive as I headed in the other direction.
The other driver was faster than I figured. He swerved and hit my left rear fender. I lost control for a
moment, spun wheels, hit gas and brakes trying to get it back, leaped over the banquette, missed an
alcove of garbage cans and Dempster Dumpsters, and wasted about thirty feet of the fence
surrounding the compound. My car came to a halt, its ruined radiator hissing crazily.
I fumbled with the keys, got them out of the ignition, jumped out, and ran back toward the trunk. The
other car did a wheelie and headed back toward me, stopping ten feet away. I was still struggling with
the trunk latch when I heard Turk Nance say from behind me:
“You need driving lessons.”
While we were looking for him, Nance had followed me. Doe was out of the car beside me.
“Get back in the car,” I said as quietly as I could.
“What‟s going on?” she squealed.
Too late. Nance was standing in front of me, his Luger at arm‟s length, pointed at my face, his reptile
eyes dancing gleefully, his tongue searching his lips.
I reacted. Without thinking. Without figuring the odds. Without thinking about Doe.
It was like an orgasm, a great flood of relief. All my frustrations and anger boiled up out of me into a
blind, uncontrollable rage. Nance was more than lust a psychotic who had killed people I knew and
who‟d tried to kill me. He vas every broken promise, every shattered dream, every pissed-away value
in the last twenty years of my life.
I didn‟t think. I grabbed the gun by the barrel and twisted hard, heard the shot and felt the heat surge
through the barrel, burn my hand, and howl off down the street. I hit him, knocked him into the alcove
of garbage cans, hit him again, kneed him, thrashed him back and forth, from one wall to the other,
and then hit him again and kneed him again. He started to fall and I held him up and kept hitting him.
I could hear Doe screaming my name hysterically but I couldn‟t stop. Every punch felt good, every
kick. He started screaming, trying to get away from me. His shirt tore and he fell to his knees and
scrambled toward the street like a crab. I slammed my foot down on his ankle to stop him, twisted it,
and hit him in the hack of the head several times with my fist until my hand was burning with pain. I
dragged him up and kicked him in the small of his back and he vaulted in a clean diver‟s arc into the
garbage cans.
it wasn‟t enough. I snatched up a garbage pail lid and slammed it down on his head, three, four, five
times, until it was a mangled wreck, then threw it away, dragged him to his feet, and jammed my knee
into his groin again. I grabbed a fistful of his shirt, held him, and hit him halfa dozen more times,
short, hard shots, straight to the face. I hit him until he was a bloody, limp rag.
Doe was leaning against the wail, her hands stifling her screams, her eyes crazy with fear and shock.
“Stop it, Jake, for God‟s sake, please stop it!” she cried.
I dragged him up and threw him across the hood of the car, picked up his Luger, and jammed it into
his throat.
„The entire exhibition had taken about thirty seconds.
“You fucking Mongoloid!” I screamed in his ear. “That‟s three strikes. You‟re out.”
“No, no, no!” Doe screamed.
The security guard was in the street, blowing his whistle, not sure whether to pull his gun or not.
“Call this number,” I yelled to him, and barked out the number of the Warehouse. I repeated it.
“You got that?” I demanded.
“Yes, sir!”
“You call it now, tell whoever answers that Jake Kilmer wants company and not to waste time getting
here.”
“Yes, sir” He dashed back inside the security house.
Nance wasn‟t alone. Nance was never alone. Nance was a company mail; he liked people around.
“Run back inside the compound,” I told Doe.
“But—”
“Do it now. This creep isn‟t alone. Just get inside and stay there until——”