Fiction 2, Chapters 3 & 4

Chapter 3

"... Horror, I cry!

Horror and misery.

Was this the traveller's tale I craved to hear?"

Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus

The downcast guy who had been playing pool when I entered came over, repeating, "Last call for Happy Hour, folks." His eyes were downcast too, maybe looking for the cue-ball. Otherwise, it was a major tabloid miracle. He had turned into a waiter so I told him to bring us another round of the same.

"Ok, a Lite and a what?"

His question was apparently addressed to my companion's glass. Here was another clown who couldn't look anybody in the eyes, like the bartender. I wondered what a conversation between those two would sound like. -No more tequila for the reptile boots. They've had enough-

"A White Russian?" he asked the glass again.

"Raht!" answered its ventriloquist, and off he went.

She fidgeted a little in her bag and asked me, "Honey, would ya mind if Ah told Lorna over there", that was apparently the pool champ __busy demolishing another masculine contender__ "that ya was my father? She's been eyein' ya, an she always thinks she knows everythin'."

That I had to think about.

It took a couple of seconds to try to figure any downside. Except for the fact that a public exhibition of fellatio might now be frowned on, I couldn't see any.

"Ok.." There wasn't any upside either, as far as I could see. "What the hell?"

She called Lorna over and pulled it, nice and bold. Lorna and I shook hands and bullshitted each other for a minute or two. The body odor wasn't so bad when I got used to it. -More or less- Her eyes were still squinting, though. Judging from her pool game, there was nothing wrong with her vision to account for it.

I even told her, "You know, you put me in mind of that good-looking actress who made some movies in the fifties. What was her name? Bardot?"

If we had been in a French jurisdiction, I could have drawn a life sentence __no possibility of parole__ for that jumbo. But, the old snaggle was all agleam with pleasure, even if she didn't have Clue One who Brigitte Bardot was. One thing this ranch definitely needed was a passel of dental missionaries who worked cheap. While the people down there are just as proud __if not vain__ as they are anywhere else, the money's just not there for luxuries.

Satisfied, mollified and gratified, Lorna went back to war. The next round arrived and the waiter was duly redressed. -No, he'd been dressed before-

Roxanne placed her right hand over my left breast pocket, and let it drop after a few seconds, without saying anything. She did it again, screwing up her courage. I mentioned with some humor that we seemed to be doing things backwards, but there was no reaction. She took a healthy pull at the glass.

"Honey, what Ah wanna ask ya, is, Ah,___Ah need somethin'. Ah gotta get back on my feet. Ah need ta get a place to stay, for my boy, for me. Ah gotta get enough together ta go someplace Ah can get a steady job, an get my boy in school, an get away from____"

She ran out of words, but not out of pleading, and her eyes were starting to get wet.

"Hey, cut out the tears," I reassured her. "It'll be all right. Don't worry, I'll give you a hand, no strings attached. Ok.?"

It was more than no strings attached. Up to a minute ago I had just been toying with someone that I figured was counting on manipulating me. But, ever since the death of my wife __whenever an occasion seems suitable for pity__ it's just like a sluice-gate has been opened in a Hoover dam full of the stuff. Any lingering passion or tingle __or whatever__ had seemingly drowned in that pity.

"Hey, it's Ok, it really is." I tried reassurance again but it wasn't getting across. Roxanne just could not take "Yes" for an answer, so my words didn't really sink in. The gentle tone must have encouraged her to go on, though.

She tried again. "Honey, whatever ya want___anythin' ya'd like or want from me___whatever Ah cain do for ya___please___ya must want somethin' Ah could do for ya____"

Her hand was on my knee now, not stroking, not ascending, but barely holding on for dear life.

I haven't mentioned yet, by way of background, that I enrolled in adolescence at the usual age, but never managed to graduate. These days, the only abilities I have __that are stronger and last longer than in my prime__ are the power to excrete and the power to daydream. Deep down, I was starting to fantasize about having a grateful love slave, with fixed teeth, who would overlook my lack of resemblance to Redford or Beatty. She would fondle and feed me tidbits for the rest of my life, maybe in Alaska, where no one would know what she had been. It wasn't really well-formed yet, but I was sure that my tingle was alive and well in Fantasyland.

Peter Pan flies again. Tinker Bell lives!

There's no bigger sucker in the world than a would-be con-man when he's the mark being hustled. So I volunteered, "Don't worry, kid. Just tell me what you need."

"If Ah cain get the money for the motel____"

Aim low, and you'll never be disappointed. Who says so? I pulled out what she least expected at that point, and took all except a single bill from it. Eight twenties: nothing to me, but it was twice as much as salvation to her. And I guess, more important to her than the fantasies I wouldn't admit to, at any rate. I gave them to her. I didn't stuff them anywhere or get coy. I just folded the bills over, took her hand, and put them in it.

Her hand wouldn't, couldn't close, and tears started to drop on the top of my hand over the folded twenties. It was a good thing she wasn't wearing makeup. I'm trying to make light of this but it's no good. I'll never forget the expression on her face, the feel of her hand, the kiss of her falling tears.

I put my wallet away and started to leave.

"Take care, Roxanne, you and the boy."

What? If this is so beautiful, why go then? Why? To leave it beautiful, of course. Whatever else it was, it was part cruel illusion for both of us. After all, I had been using __playing with her__ and even as we sat there, her "friend" had to be picking his teeth with the change from my five bucks. What kind of real friend wouldn't have a buck-fifty to get her kid a burger without collecting in advance? Only one who needed her to earn it for him. Then factor in Aids, Herpes and friends, the sociable diseases, and my distaste for condoms. No romance here.

"Don't go, Honey." She held my arm with her free hand.

There were a lot of things that didn't add up, even with the pimp/hooker scenario: you don't have to tell me. She was too clean __and except for the "tartule"__ too unmarked by life to have been a whore for very long, at least a low-class one. She was some way away from winning any elocution contests, but there was no crudeness or profanity in her speech. I knew that whatever the real story was, it wouldn't lead to a conclusion as kind to my ego as this one would be. I wanted to get away cheap; the money was nothing.

-I admit to being foolish but deny the stupidity charge-

Her eyes were desperate. "There mus be somethin' Ah cain do for this. Ah jes cain't take money for nothin'. Ya jes gotta let me do somethin'." Heading her off with a bald-faced lie, I said, "Kid, I've been taking blood pressure medicine for so long now, I'm probably the limpest 'Dick' in Texas. Don't worry about it. It's Ok.."

What a change! A flash of humor and sass.

She smiled again, and announced her candidacy, "Sounds like a challenge to me."

The lady almost hooked me with that __not just because it sounded sexy__ but more because it came across as really good natured. That's probably the only line from a guy in a Texas bar that she had never heard before, so I doubt if her response was a practiced one.

New York, perhaps; Texas, never.

Still__ if I had been born a car, there would have been a handicap in the transmission department: there is no reverse gear in me. "Don't worry about it," I assured her. "I've got to go now. Take it easy, Roxanne."

I was feeling distant now and heading for the front door.

She saw me to my truck nevertheless, catching up to me. I stuck a key into the lock of the front left door and turned toward her to say goodbye again. There was more of a feeling of distance now and a definite need to escape, but it was just not in me to get in the truck, close the door and drive off.

Even though I had already left, in a way.

It felt like my consciousness had pulled back from my corneas inside my head; as if I were in a house and looking out the windows, safe inside.

On the way out, I spotted her boy and the frizzy guy parked in a green, late-model station wagon. Late model down here is less than ten years old, but this one was only a few years off the line. This was a seacoast area, and I didn't notice that it was rusted out anywhere that I could see. More stuff adding up to something that didn't add up. It didn't matter; we were on the other side of the truck from the wagon and out of their view.

She was going on again about the need to do something for me. There was even talk of washing windows and baking. She put her arms around me, and kissed me on the lips, passively waiting my lead. I don't know what it was but I didn't respond in any way; I just remotely accepted it __and after a second__ moved my face to the side, though I was holding her lightly.

I said, "Relax, it's Ok.."

Why I chose those words to say I don't know, because I was the one who was tense. She pulled back a little __disappointed__ then came closer and tried again with the same results, including the "Relax." Maybe it was the teeth; maybe___maybe not.

It wasn't sex she was offering now; more like friendship and gratitude. I know that now and I should have accepted at least that, for her sake and maybe my own. She was still acting like I had saved her life, and I didn't understand why.

Roxanne twisted the fingers of one hand through and around the hair falling on her shoulder.

"You know, if ya'd like ta come over tomorrow, we could go for a walk." -Sure, see ya round the corner in a half an hour- "If Ah'm not there, ya can ask Maggie at the office. I'll let her know where Ah am. Ok.?"

"Sure, I remember where it is. I'll see you tomorrow, maybe." I never had a chance to ask her if she believed me then. I know I didn't.

The lights from an inbound car hit us head-on, as it pulled up to, then slightly beyond us in a spray of loose gravel. All of the doors sprang open except the driver's, and three men unfolded like switch-blades from the openings.

There was another gravel-throated roar from the side of the lot, as the frizzy-haired boyfriend backed up his station wagon at about forty or fifty. Then it spun around __with a tortured squeal of tires__ to head west into a labyrinth of side-streets.

A shout shot through the nearest open door, and the emerging figure closest to us kept on coming, while the other two jumped back into the sedan. Their doors slammed loudly, as the spinning tires splattered Roxanne and me with flying stones. Like a bat out of hell, it flew out of the lot __with one back door open__ just as though it was hooked to a tow cable clamped onto Frizzy's wagon.

The rest was almost too fast to remember in the right order.

Whoever __or whatever__ was coming scared the hell out of Roxanne, and she was trying to say something; what it was, I don't know. Maybe to cry for help or beg for mercy. Whatever, it was stuck inside her because there were nothing but gasps coming out.

A black guy, whipcord lean and average height, was coming straight for us with the ferocity of an attack dog. I was too scared by the sudden turn of events to do anything really clever like run away.

There must have been enough light on my features and enough time for him to take in the stupid look of shock and alarm on my face because he spun to the left as he came even with Roxanne and ignored me. -Maybe, that wasn't too bright of him- Shouldering me aside, he grabbed her right arm at the elbow with his left hand. I let him do it, dropping back a foot or two and then turning away about ninety degrees to the left.

He had felt like a steel cable in the brief contact, taut and flexible and tough as hell. Then the black man raised his open right hand to hit Roxanne in the face, and his palm was a shocking shade of white.

-Piss on you, pal!-

I kicked with my right foot at the back of his right knee and it buckled a little. With a hop I started it down toward the ground at the same time that I rammed an elbow into the nape of his neck. He said, "Oh!" believe it or not. -Oh? Oh, what? you shit!-

The sound of his kneecap cracking on the surface of the lot spoke volumes to me even though the tough guy himself was now speechless. I grabbed his goddamned pencil-neck in the open crook of my right elbow and one shoulder pad -Jesus! Shoulder pads, on his shirt?- with my left hand. Mind you, my right foot was still grinding down on his ruined knee.

The ligaments were snapping.

I whirled him down and around __hitting the ground__ as he tried for a killer kidney blow with one of his own busy elbows. But his head got whipped anyway, right into the Suburban's centerpost which proved to be conveniently located. The "thunk" sounded so nice that I did it again, twice.

I was shocked; although it was mostly that a tough guy would be wearing shoulder pads in his shirt, for chrissake, like a goddamned Pointer Sister in a Sumo match.

-You don't have to tell me. I get a little mean-spirited under stress-

Aches and pains came to my attention here and there. Here, right kidney; there, the inside of my left thigh. The wiry bastard had made a good stab at me with each elbow, but the angles hadn't quite been in his favor. In a minute or so, the pains were mostly gone.

You might say that breaking someone's kneecap when his back is turned is an underhanded way to win. So is softball. What's your point? And don't ask me why I got involved. I don't know why.

I turned to ask Roxanne why.

I looked all around. No Roxanne!

Disengaging, I pushed myself off the ground and stood up, a little surprised to find my head dizzy and my heart racing. After a minute, I grabbed the unconscious man's collar by the back, and tried to pull him clear of the Suburban and out of the parking area altogether. No sense in letting him get killed by a careless driver. After two feet of that, there was a torn collar in my grip and a human speed bump that just cleared my truck.

How could such a lean guy weigh so much?

I did two things then that I really shouldn't have. I left him there, helpless and liable at any minute to be turned into a pot-hole patch __which was heartless__ and I turned my back and left him there without patting him down for a weapon __which was absolutely stupid!

I never gave a thought to his buddies coming back before I could get away, either. Maybe he would be as lucky as I was that night, since I didn't get myself clubbed, stabbed or shot as I unlocked the truck.

It felt cold out now. I got in and drove away, alone.

I only saw Roxanne once more for a minute in the short and brutal remainder of her life, and it took me a long time after that to figure the problem out. What killed it __and might have killed her__ was that she didn't expect enough from me, just a week's rent in a cheap motel. And that affronted me in some way that I still don't understand. If she had asked me to save both her son and herself, take them away, and help them find a way to live with dignity____ Who knows?

* * * * * * * * * *

-Jough myjielle, a hardnyuck gyuck thorrys lajd. Geg tha guthee ov mylajd-

Listen to me, an obdurate man who speaks of regrets. Ask the black man about my regrets.

* * * * * * * * * *

The woman wrapped the cloak around her shoulders, and twirled it slightly as she turned to leave. She glanced back at the Chairman with veiled contempt, and declared, "I was watchin' Hiraldo today, you know?"

He was turned away, refusing to face her. "So?"

"There was a bunch of women on the show. Hiraldo called 'em 'Domino Tricks', you know?"

"So what?"

"Well, they do what you like me to do; you know, what you wrote down. I got to thinkin' about what they were talkin' about, about money; you know?"

"You're well paid for your efforts. Don't get greedy."

The inevitable resentment was building up earlier than it usually did, as he began to enter the other phase of his existence.

"I was just thinking____"

"Get out!" It was a tortured shout from a twisted mouth in a livid face.

Chapter 4

"Pattern'd by that the poet here describes,

By nature made for murders ...."

Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare.

Maybe Pop had been right and this was no way to live. It was nine in the morning and I was still in bed while a howling wind rocked the trailer, even with the stabilizing jacks extended. Occasional hail was rattling off my roof, and a drenching downpour chilled my inside; although the rest of me was warm and dry.

On top of that, Stretch was banging on my door. I wouldn't say it was a habit, though Stretch did it fairly often for the most trivial of reasons. I think it amused him to wake people who didn't arise at 6:00 AM to put off a shower for just another day too long.

Incidentally, Stretch was his given, if not Christian, name. He's only five foot four. The name came from a much beloved __much, much taller__ great-grandfather whose real name had been lost in the mists of time and bourbon.

The way I heard the story from Stretch, no one had thought to ask Grandpa his baptismal name until he was too far gone, the last of his generation. The family bible __long unconsulted__ had disappeared somehow. They weren't sure of the decade, but believed that the bible __an expensive one__ had probably been traded for a bottle of Jim Beam during a medical or dental emergency, so his family had been forced to put the nickname on the gravestone. Then a baby came to bless their lives, and Stretch must have loomed larger then because no caring parents could have intentionally been that cruel.

Nothing trivial would have positioned him out there in the rain waiting for me, but I took the time to put on slippers and a sweat-suit in any event, before opening the door.

It wasn't Stretch, of course.

She didn't come in. She just stood in the rain, left hand holding an overnight bag, the right arm protectively over her son's shoulders. They were both soaked, and my father would once have commented that they looked like drowned rats, without intending any insult.

The trailer is at least thirty inches off the ground and the door opens outward, so that it obviously can't be opened if someone is standing on the stairs. Roxanne and the boy were standing in a puddle halfway up to their ankles __just beyond the bottom stair__ and I was warm and dry, gawking down at them. If there is a personal God, He can no more help being merciful than I could have left them standing in the deluge.

"Jesus Christ, get inside quick."

She didn't; just stood there shaking her head. "Ah can't, someone's pickin' me up. Could ya keep him with ya for a couple a hours till Ah get back? Ah can pay ya back then."

"Forget the money, Roxanne, just get inside before____" Before what, I asked myself. -Neither of them could have gotten get any wetter-

"Ah can't! Ah gotta go, Honey. But Ah can't take him with me. Please, Richard, please take care a him an get him dry. Please, Richard. Please."

I'd have helped in any event, but her remembering and using my name like that was a nice touch. Roxanne took helpless silence for permission, letting go of the boy to take hold of the bag with both hands, and lift it through the doorway. She didn't use the steps, and I'll lay odds she was too considerate to get them wetter if she didn't have to.

The boy was next: pulled, pushed and prodded up the steps until he was inside. I stepped around him, putting him behind me.

"Roxanne____," I said hopelessly.

"It's all raht, Honey. Ah got no choice; Ah gotta go now." Then she addressed her boy. "David, ya be good now, an Ah'll be back later ta get ya. Ah love ya an Ah'll be back." And, "Could ya kind a get him dried off a little." The last was directed to me as she placed her right hand on the edge of the door.

"Please?"

Those big, green eyes were crying now, begging me for my help. They were also avidly recording the interior view at the same time, unwilling to put away the last vestige of David that might remain to her. Finally __reluctantly__ they closed and locked tight, squeezing out a few more laggard tears.

And then she was able to turn her face away, leaning in to firmly shut the door on us.

In the movies I would have been out there straight away, stumbling around in the storm in a sweat-suit and wading through groundwater in my sheepskin slippers.

But this wasn't the movies. After what could have been a second or a minute, I opened the door again.

She was gone. Ever after, though, the last image that I remember of Roxanne alive is not the true one. That scene in my memory is still dominated by her naked eyes, magnified by the glistening teardrops that filled them.

And that was it.

I didn't know it then __and she wasn't absolutely sure of it either, I suppose__ but the last "please" was meant to be "goodbye" to both of us, if it came to that.

"Please," David replied, when I asked if he wanted a towel.

-A pretty polite way to say "Yeah"-

I got the boy a couple of bath towels and pushed him, dripping, into the bathroom. Then I picked his bag up to wipe it off with some paper toweling, and was stopped dead in my tracks. The bag was heavy; heavy and packed with something that had a consistent density throughout the bag. It wasn't clothing in the bag, that was obvious, and it wasn't locked, not even with one of those chintzy stamped keys that usually come with cheap luggage. So I opened it.

There were packages of paper inside, and each was covered with the usual wrapping familiar to any copy machine or laser printer user __five hundred sheets__ a ream of letter-sized paper. The packages had been opened and then rewrapped with a brown packing tape. There was no logo or other printing on the wrapping.

Bingo! It was money, of a sort.

There were the back sides of four ten dollar bills staring back at me, printed on the left side of the sheet, one above the other. I checked the other side of the sheet and __of course__ the faces were printed on the right side. They were ready for cutting. Suddenly I realized why we call them "greenbacks." It had never occurred to me before that the bills were basically printed with black ink on the faces and green ink on the backs. Only the serial numbers and the Treasury Seal on the face side were green, and that seemed to be a brighter shade of green.

All the serial numbers were different and they were random, not in any order.

The bills seemed way too small, so I pulled out my wallet and took a bill out to check it. Just twenties, no tens unfortunately. But I could see that I had been fooled into mentally discarding the entire clear space around each printed bill. After cutting, some of the clear space would serve as a border around the printed portion, especially on the backs. The bills looked good. Holding a sheet up to one of my twelve-volt lamps, I searched for the little blue and red threads that are found throughout the paper used for real money.

Sure enough, they were there and, after checking a few, it seemed pretty certain that they were real threads __not printed__ scattered pretty well through the sheets. There was no translucent filament running an inch or so inside the left front edge of the bill. That's all right; it would probably be years before the Federal Reserve reissued ten dollar denominations that way.

On each of the sheets there was a printed numeric error message to the left of one of the bill faces. At least that's what it looked like to me. Whichever bill of the four was chosen for the message seemed to be random.

Picking up the entire ream of sheets, I riffled the left edges of the face side, and turning it over, the right edges of the back side. There were no sheets without error messages on the face side; a few sheets with more than one error message on the face side; no sheets with any error message on the back side.

Even without peering closely I could see __from the poor print quality of the error text__ that it was not printed on the same machine that did the printing of the bills. It was typical output from a dot-matrix printer.

This was what we used to call "Green-goods" in scams and con-games. It's usually not passed; instead, it's used to bait the mark.

Perhaps a little more background to slow down my pulse. I still get a rush from remembering the first sight of unpolished cash, because it looks so much more seductive than unpolished diamonds. I've seen both and there's no comparison.

The reason that I never went back to honest work __even temporarily__ after my wife died is that I needed to get away from everything we had known together. Customers or employers like to have even part-time or temporary programmer/analysts -that was me- available continuously. No matter how structured the working environment in computers, programming is a highly idiosyncratic art, and the concepts behind a particular set of commands can be as personal as poetry. They are often damn near inscrutable to succeeding programmers trying to maintain, change, replace or fine-tune the program.

A programmer or analyst who isn't available __"on call"__ virtually fifty weeks a year is not going to get much work. And, I didn't need the money more than I needed to expand my boring and lonely horizons.

So I'm "retired" instead of "out of work." And I'm now a would-be con-man instead of a computer consultant. That's not such a stretch, believe me. And it's not such a coincidence that a computer-literate technocrat would be the one to stumble across this treasure chest, not any more.

As I stood there in my trailer, stunned but thinking like a runaway train, a lot of surmises started coming up the rails at me, mostly about how the counterfeit would have been manufactured. I say, Watson, the more sophisticated and elaborate the output of a technological process, the higher the quality of the product and the more cleverly unique the concept, the easier it is to retrace its creation backwards. It's called "reverse engineering."

I have most of the basic equipment required for producing a crude version of that kind of graphic printing in my home office. Most larger offices would, as well, these days. Some insignificant hardware and drastic software changes could account for the high quality product that was in my hands. But I'll get into that later.

There were three things to deal with right away: a bag full of counterfeit money, a missing mother, and a shivering boy in my bathroom. He was just starting to peel down, and he had nothing to wear except counterfeit money.

The last was what decided me. "Hey, kid."

"Yes, Sir?" I could really hear the capital "S" in the "Sir."

"Keep your stuff on. We've got to get you something to wear."

I took him with me. If necessary, I knew that I could explain away the phony money without making tabloid headlines. I didn't even want to think about the ramifications of a naked, underage kid being found in my trailer, regardless of the sex.

It's a cruel world.

Actually, the fastest way to get him warm would be with the truck's heater. I slipped my feet into a pair of expendable loafers. Going out again in the rain was no problem for David; ask anyone who's ever done it before they dried off. If the weather is fairly temperate, you actually feel warmer back in the rain. There was an umbrella next to the doorway. It would come in handy for me if not for the boy.

I grabbed the bag, put on a rain hat and jacket, and followed the boy out the door. I started to double-lock the door. -Wait a minute; suppose Roxanne comes back while we're gone?-

What to do?

I did what nobody else raised in New York City would ever think of doing. I left it unlocked.

No computer freak would willingly part from his hardware for very long, so I had an old Toshiba 5100, gutted and refitted with the latest processer, and an extra-large hard disk, expansion chassis, color monitor and CD-ROM reader hooked up. There was a laser printer, too, because I'd been looking into some underground computer bulletin boards that specialize in forgery.

Leave the door unlocked? Yes, I did. I didn't take the time to leave a note, but I thought that if Roxanne came back and found shelter available, she'd stay and realize that we'd be back shortly.

I drove to Wal-Mart. Where else?

My Suburban is packed in the back with things that are useful for hauling a travel trailer and basically looks like that corner of the garage that you never got around to straightening up. So the bag easily fit under a folded tarp, and then I locked up and we went into the store.

David picked out his own change of underwear, shirt and jeans, and I threw in a jacket. When he didn't want the thirty dollar sneakers, we skipped shoes altogether. The umbrella helped to shield David on the way out, even though the rain was starting to slacken.

"Have you eaten yet, David?" I asked. My rumbling stomach was interrupting me.

"No, Sir." He didn't sound all that interested.

I asked him anyway, "What do you want to eat, then?"

"Something quick. Is that all right? I really want to get back, so I don't miss my Mom when she comes back. She always does. Maybe, a hamburger." It sounded like that was just the first thing that came to mind.

I was just realizing that the boy's Texas accent was much less pronounced than his mother's. One of the very few benefits of network television.

"Do you like sausage and eggs, David?"

"Yes, Sir," he replied. -Indifferently-

"We can pick up some of those croissant sandwiches, kind of like a real soft bagel that somebody took a bite out of. Never mind____ It's got sausage and egg on it, and tastes pretty good. How about it?"

Must be pretty hungry, I thought, to thorry a munya lushin lishgael tutha gossoon.

-Jesus, I'm thinking in Cant now. How far have I reverted?-

"Ok, Sir."

We pulled through Burger King's drive-through service lane, to pick up two of the worst ways there are to pack plaque into your arteries with LDL cholesterol. Along with a cardboard container of misnamed "Hash-browns." The rain stopped while we waited.

"How did you and your mother find me, David?" I was more than curious; I was mystified. "There must be a dozen campgrounds and trailer parks spread out all over Rockport."

"Yes, Sir," he agreed. "We just started at the two between Aransas Pass and here. You were in the third one." David remarked on their odyssey as though there was nothing impressive about it. He was busy trying to get a rock station on my radio.

I was astonished. "You walked all that way in the rain?"

"It wasn't too bad. It wasn't raining all the time and we got a hitch to the first one." His twirling fingers found some god-awful Rap music.

"Did you ask at the office for me?" I hadn't specified the site number any more than the campground.

"No, Sir. Mom was afraid they'd chase us. We came in on the other side of the building, away from the office and just walked around and looked for your truck with the New Jersey plates."

I could barely believe it. What if they had to search all dozen places?

It didn't take long to get back. It took just a little more time than Roxanne had.

The front door of my trailer was swinging in the swift breeze and a pair of sport-shoes had been discarded just under the rear bedroom door, lying in the wet grass____ No, it wasn't the shoes that had been discarded. I unclipped a pen-like cylinder of tear-gas and a compact __but deadly__ Tekna diving knife from over my sun-visor. Another Tekna was kept next to the front door, inside the trailer. Not to mention my pistol, well hidden in the bedroom. -It's better to be armed and at the ready than unarmed and sorry, I figure-

I should have gone straight up the front steps for the pistol, of course, but that's hindsight. And I was being drawn down, not up, as if magnetized.

"Stay in the truck, son," I told the boy. "I'm going to lock the doors when I get out. You stay here and you leave them locked till I tell you it's Ok.." Hopefully, he wasn't tall enough to see what was giving me the willies. I pulled up a little, anyhow, so all that he could see was the front and street -that's the left- side of the trailer.

Getting out and holding the door mostly closed, I caught his eye and commanded obedience, "Got that, David."

"Yes," he said and nodded. His eyes seemed stunned. No "Sir," this time. Slamming the truck door was easy; walking back to the rear end of the trailer was not.

Roxanne had tried very hard to get back to us, and she had almost made it.

It's funny __no, it's odd__ that when I remember what happened, this is how it goes. First we meet and then, the next thing, I almost fall over her body. What happened in between seems to happen afterwards, in the same order as the flashbacks that gave me time to get used to the shock.

My eyes avoided focussing on anything except the untied Reeboks on her feet. There was no blood on the shoes or the laces; it had been washed off and they looked out of place. If I still sound confused __well__ that's because I still am confused. Apart from the shoes, there was a lot of blood, an awful lot of blood. There looked to be far too much blood on the ground for Roxanne to still be alive.

I was squatting down beneath the back end of the trailer. Everything but her feet lay under the trailer __where the falling rain couldn't get at the blood to dilute it__ and there was a huge, red puddle between us. It seemed to be all over her jacket __and the shirt as well__ but I wasn't sure about the jeans; just where the dampness of blood left off and the water-soaked part began.

I shivered in the chill breeze.

There was no sense in my trying for a pulse. If there was one, it would have been too weak for an amateur like me to find it. If there wasn't, I still wouldn't be sure if she was dead or I wasn't probing the right place. In any case, it was more important to call an ambulance right away. I closed the front trailer door, but didn't lock it because my keys were still in the ignition. And when I turned away from the trailer, my heart nearly stopped.

There were three of them: two on each side __aiming revolvers at me__ and one real hulk in the middle with a face like a rock-slide. He took off a pair of dark sunglasses; so I could get a better view of his strange and colorless eyes, I guess. I can't tell you what was wrong with them exactly, besides that. They were clear __yet unfocussed__ as though he was looking at me, but seeing meat on the table or some other comparison that I wouldn't appreciate.

He wasn't exactly ugly, just real craggy __the face sort of frozen and white__ and his empty eyes were staring at me. The other two were wearing leather jackets and jeans, but the man in the middle had a raincoat on over a white shirt and gray slacks, and his shoes were entrusted to rubbers. Similarly, a water-repellant cover protected his hat.

He looked like a gargoyle who'd been dressed by his mother.

The hulk gestured at the man on his right. It was easy to see who was the boss; nobody who wasn't insane would work with this guy unless he had to. The right hand man -I think of him as "Blackie" because the guy on the left had blonde hair- came at me. His gun was in his left hand, and he started to pat me down with the right hand on my left side. Finding the Tekna in my left hand pocket, he tossed it away from me toward his boss, who ignored it.

Then he made two mistakes and I panicked.

If I was a hero you might call it bravery, or the old college try, or just plain stupidity. Take my word for it: it was good old-fashioned panic, no more controlled than a chicken with his head chopped off.

Instead of stepping back out of the line of fire and switching gun hands, my searcher kept the gun in his left hand and crossed his right in front of him to pat down my right side. There was no way that I could handle the three of them, no matter how easy the goon in front of me was making it __but honestly__ I was scared out of my wits. After seeing what they had done to Roxanne __and one peep at those frosty eyes__ everything in me was pushing to try anything to get away.

If there had been any notion in my head about what they were really capable of, I would have been rooted to the spot. -Panic thoughts-

To make a long story short, I floored the gunman but missed the gun and then a helping of kidney punch from the headman got me good. For good measure there was also a glancing blow on the back of the head for dessert __from Whitey's revolver__ that clicked my teeth with the whiplash.

It was the punch that put me down, though; a shot in the right side that broke me in two. -Like a log-splitter-

The combination blacked me out.

I woke up to the sound and the feel of a wet trickle on me. My back was already wet from the puddles on the ground. For a minute, I thought they were pissing on me and didn't want to open my eyes. Then the smell of the gasoline and the taste of the spray got through to me as it splashed on my chest.

In bad dreams, I still see myself lying there.

The only clear features are my eyes surrounded by flames, two melting, fusing puddles of horror. From the other end __in that waking nightmare__ those same eyes opened wide. They were stung by the splashing spray __but stayed open even so__ riveted to the red can passing back and forth above me.

You must have the same fears, imagination, horror; you know what kind of panicked stampede was going on inside of me.

When I realized what they were going to do, I couldn't even scream, not on the outside anyway. Inside, everything finally clenched up and I could only stare up at the terrible Death that had come to my door for me. Not the one I'd been waiting for.

"Where is it?" His voice was a light, clear tenor, sweet as an angel's. When he spoke, I could see his teeth, yellow and pointed.

There was no way to tell him or even to open my mouth. The clear windows that were his eyes permitted me a view of the cold vacuum where another man's soul would have been. Beyond any doubt, the moment he found what he wanted, I would be cremated __alive and kicking__ but not for long.

It would seem like it was long, though.

And if he didn't find out from me where the counterfeit was, the match would be struck regardless. The difference to me would only be the rest of my life, a minute or two. He hunkered down, close.

I felt powerless. Hell! I was exactly that, probably with a mild concussion. He took a wooden match from a small box, struck it on the scratch pad and held it cupped in his hands. Safety matches.

"Where is it?" he demanded. It almost sounded like singing.

I couldn't answer. He flipped the match at me and flashed a sharp yellow smile.

"Short." He smiled again and lit another match. "Where is it?"

There was no doubt what was coming next. The part of me that didn't want to die immediately of a stroke, hoped he wouldn't miscalculate. Another flip.

"Over." The smile was a brighter yellow now and his eyes finally focussed on something, the next match.

"Where?" The same request but now it was a perfunctory one. We were getting to the part he really liked. He really didn't want me to delay his fulfillment by answering him, even if it only meant a delay of a few seconds.

There was a fear of this man planted in me then that would never die, not even if he did or I did, as seemed more likely. Or even if we both did. But something else was born in that minute when the panic became ordinary fear, something that probably won't make any sense to you. It was contempt for him and for everyone like him. Not a noble contempt for what he stood for, but an arrogant contempt of his inferiority in all save cruelty, and a new-found conviction that his superiority there was due only to constant practice.

"Fuck you!" I snarled. -Hopefully, Father Rooney had been right-

No smile now. The man with the yellow fangs rose and stepped back. He was getting clear; this was it. Scratch! Snap!

The next match, my match, flared bigger and bigger until I was inside it. A !ROAR! enveloped me. I never thought anything could sound so loud. The waterfall noise almost drowned out the sound of a horn and the slam of car doors in another world. That world, wavering outside the flaming boundary of my pyre, seemed infinitely remote, infinitely desirable, a cool mirage, except for one thing.

I was alone in Hell and the Devil was out there, locked out there by the flames.

His face had disappeared. Now it was high time for me to disappear, as well. -The Jesuit had been right, after all- Liquid gasoline had acted like a refrigerant as it vaporized, cool enough to almost offset the heat of the burning vapor above me, for a second or two at least.

Holding my breath, I turned over into the puddle I had been lying in; fast, before the liquid gas boiled off. I rolled again, then again, until I was under the middle of the trailer, grabbing the tear gas cylinder in my right pocket. Not much of a defense, but better than nothing.

Nothing! Nobody! The bastards were gone and I was safe, for the moment at any rate. Roxanne and I shared a dubious shelter, and just then I never wanted to leave it.

You've heard the standard disclaimer on television, "Kids, don't try this at home. Our demonstration was conducted by a confirmed sadist, on a certifiable lunatic who didn't have any say in the matter." The difference between salvation and hell might have been only that my clothing had been damp from the rain, and the air had been humid, as well.

Because there was really no choice, I crawled out and got up, grimacing at the pain in my lower right side. I found and picked up my knife, putting it in my pocket.

And then I threw up. When there was nothing left to throw up, I went through the motions some more in spite of that and sat on the steps of my trailer for a minute or so, trembling.

David was gone!

The front passenger's door was ajar and the doorlock button was up. Walking around the trailer was my next move, but he wasn't in sight, anywhere. I called his name out but there was no response. Again! Again, no response.

-Quick!-

It had to be too late, but I knew there was an emergency phone number on the backboard to the pay phone in the laundry room. It was far enough to drive, and far enough to turn off the rapping noise from the radio.

After I got there, it hit me that the laundry room is in the same building as the office, so I went straight into the office and yelled at Stretch to call for an ambulance right away; a woman was dying.

Stretch dialed the number carefully from a card taped over the touch tone buttons, and delegated it to me as soon as he heard it ring. It doesn't come back to me now __exactly how well the report was made or the words involved__ but they showed up within a couple of minutes so it couldn't have been too disjointed.

I had my emergency flashers on when the ambulance came crying, and Stretch pointed and yelled at them to follow me to the site. I left room at the site for the ambulance and then jumped out to run around to the back end of my trailer.

The paramedics were both women and the one who wasn't the driver dived into the blood. Then she shifted Roxanne's body to feel for a pulse at the sides of the neck, but no luck. She let the body sag back and crawled back out, then stared at me obliquely and quickly got into the ambulance.

I could hear the door locks "clunk."

They drove away. -That was odd-

No questions, no sympathy. -Just leave her there?-

My eyes wouldn't look anywhere else except down at her shoes. My memory reverted again and again to the way she had closed her green eyes, crying, as she shut my door on her life only a little earlier in the morning.

I suppose a man in shock, who wasn't prime man-of-action material to begin with, is entitled to think foolishly for a little while.

I hadn't really been burned at all. Most of the heat from the fire had gone upward, and the rest had been absorbed by the liquid gasoline still being vaporized. It was getting itchy where the gas had soaked through my clothing __or had otherwise been in contact with my skin__ but I thought it was solvent dermatitis, not burn damage. My walk was still crab-like from my second kidney punch in less than a week.

Feeling chilly, I put my hands in my jacket pockets.

The right one encountered the tear gas canister, a little bigger than a fountain pen, a little smaller than a marking pen. The left hand was chilled even more by the metal clip on the sheath of the Tekna knife, the highly distinctive hilt of which was protruding from my pocket for anyone to see.

And more sirens were approaching now.

* * * * * * * * * *

-Soonie tha schlanger omathon witha karab chats shulin intha borryglorrying-

Watch the big fool pacing out in the rain with his weapons.

* * * * * * * * * *

"First, Weller, is the amber light on your scrambler lit?"

"No, sir."

"Good! If it goes on, tell me so and don't say anything more. What about Russell and the woman?"

"She's dead, sir." Weller immediately got defensive. "It wasn't my fault. She killed herself." The connection was a poor one, especially with the portable scramblers on.

"What happened, Weller?" The Chairman forced himself to be patient, even as his face turned purple.

"What?" The big man preferred not to hear the Chairman's last question.

"What happened?" Smoothly, patiently, he told himself.

"She stabbed herself. I didn't do nothing, nothing at all."

The Chairman preferred not to hear the creature's last answer. "What did you do to her? What did you tell her that she'd kill herself."

"I didn't do nothing; just talking about her kid, that's all. Nothing."

"You damned fool, there's no one left except Russell, now."

"No, there's a guy __a big guy__ with a beard. I think he's got the stuff. He's still alive, I'm sure he is. We'll get the stuff from him. He's ours. There's no way he's going to get away." Weller was desperate to demonstrate progress.

"He's still alive, you're sure; you God damned fool! Find Russell! Keep your eye on this big guy too __if he actually survived running into you__ but find Russell and find him first. You got that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you get the house yet?"

"Yes, sir."

"Give the address to Garth when I hang up. He'll drive me down there tomorrow, and you'd better have the place cleaned up. Get that?"

The creature replied with the standard "Yes, sir," but the Chairman had already hung up on him.

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You are at Fiction 2, Chapters 3 & 4