A Hatful of Pain

ONE

	I drove the van slowly, scanning the street signs reflected in my headlights. Behind me, ragged dark clouds flew like witches among faint stars and a thin moon. I was just ahead of a snowstorm that hadn't been predicted, and its flashes of lightning sparked a danger sign in my mind.
	I cut the headlights, cut the motor, and coasted to a stop across the street from the Mischievous Motel. The three-story building sat between a deserted pool hall and a rundown tenement.
	I pulled my wig down just over my forehead, topped it with a Boston Red Sox cap, and double-checked the contents of my paper bag.
	After a brewery truck rumbled by, I stepped out of the van to an audience of eight or nine kids sneering and making wisecracks. I felt them sizing me up.
	I'm six-one and was a varsity wrestler for Boston College, but my slight limp and baby face don't exude the authority necessary for survival in dark alleys, rough bars, or newly opened express checkout lanes.
	"Hey, thanks for the van."
	"Washing it should disguise it."
	"Don't hurry back."
	I couldn't let the kids distract me. I dashed across the icy street, fighting the wind.
	When I passed the darkened entrance of Hammer's Pool Hall, I tripped over the legs of a man sitting on the cold pavement. He was propped against a bent metal grocery cart full of garbage bags. His pockets were turned inside out. He didn't bother to look up.
	I hesitated over him, feeling a strange bond between us, a peculiar sort of camaraderie. Yes, my clothes appeared to have some pharmaceutical explanation--but it was more than that. In him I saw an image of every outsider who'd ever lived, myself included. Outsiders hoping someday it might occur to the general populace, perhaps while they're stepping over some man on the sidewalk who could soon be lying in the ragged coffin of his own frozen body, that the system just may not be working.
	I set down my paper bag, pulled out my wallet and dropped all my cash--forty dollars--into his lap. I was encouraged when he stuffed the bills into his shirt pocket (recently a homeless lady had taken a bill from me, stuffed it into her moist mouth, and chewed it with salivating relish). The man looked up, mouth ajar, eyes wet. I think he'd been crying. He couldn't have been much older than me, maybe thirty, but he looked like a very old man.
	If he could have endured any eye-to-eye contact, he might have taken the chance and smiled at me. As it was, he nodded slightly and returned his gaze to the ground.
	"I'll be back soon." I have to go. Honest.
	I picked up my paper bag and stepped around him. Before heading into the alley I checked my watch. 11:59:30. In thirty seconds a homeless-looking man should give me a signal.
	Fifty yards ahead of me a man with an overcoat buttoned up to his chin staggered into a trashcan. I think he said, "Excuse me, ma'am." Two women in miniskirts and fur coats who'd been loitering on the corner approached him. One of them gave him something. I waited for him to signal to me, but instead he shuffled away. 12:01:18. Something was wrong.
	Backing into the shadows, I looked toward the man sitting in the entrance of the pool hall. Surely he wasn't the operative. But who else could it be?
	I peered into the shadows of the alley one last time. A human figure was emerging and straightening from what a moment before had appeared to be only a large pile of trash. He brushed himself off, then nodded at me.
	I signaled to a solitary figure pacing on the roof of the tenement, then headed into the alley between a battered hurricane fence and the motel. Several windows were lit. In one, a woman wearing only a red lace brassiere was sitting on the lap of a man in a Santa Claus costume. I ducked and ran past it.
	Sixty yards into the alley I flexed my fingers and tugged on the frosted railing of a fire escape. It felt sturdy. I hoped so. All I could see to break my fall were greasy fast-food wrappers swirling after each other.
	The large paper bag clenched between my teeth made climbing awkward. Two stories up, I slipped on an icy rung. Dangling by my arms in the wind, all my muscles tightened--my hands so I wouldn't fall, my jaw so I wouldn't drop the bag, my sphincter so I wouldn't soil my pants. Finally, I found the rung with my feet and kept going.
	As I pulled myself up onto the snowy roof, I inhaled a mouthful of stale frying fat fumes billowing from the exhaust of the motel's coffee shop. I worked my way through the smoke and across the slippery roof to the far edge. Keeping my eyes on the horizon, I took a walkie-talkie from my pocket and checked its channel.
	Next, I pulled out my binoculars. Three miles east, I saw the Atlantic Ocean. Moving slowly, the top of the mast of a cargo iceboat disappeared behind the golden steeple of a church. I focused on the Terrig Corporation Animal Test Lab, one block down Terrig Street. Next, I scouted for police cars. I saw fire escapes of nearby buildings, and a beer sign's blinking yellow light. In the distance, dark purple clouds marked a rapidly moving squall line.
	I checked my watch--forty seconds left. No time to figure out what complications the storm might bring. I keyed my walkie-talkie.
	"Van one."
	Slowly, a white van pulled around the corner. Black lettering stenciled on its rear doors read ABC LAUNDRY SERVICE. It stopped in front of the Terrig Test Lab and two operatives sprang out. Lab coats and sanitary face masks disguised them as laboratory technicians. Using a key, they entered the building through the front door.
	I blew on my icy fingertips, then focused the binoculars on the van. The rear doors opened. A ramp lowered. An operative wheeled an industrial-size laundry cart down the ramp, onto the street, and into the Test Lab at a pace suggesting more at stake than brighter whites.
	I continued watching the cross streets. Four rumpled men sat on a snow-cleared curb warming themselves in steam rising from a sewer grating.
	Wind slapped at my jacket. I waited for the operative to return.
	Two minutes later, he came out of the lab pushing the cart slowly. My binoculars revealed a full cargo of bloody lab coats. From beneath the coats, cries of fear carried in the wind and stirred rage that rippled along my spine. I rubbed the back of my neck, massaging the knots my muscles had twisted themselves into.
	From inside the van an assistant emerged and pulled the heavy cart slowly up the ramp. The operative raced another empty cart down the ramp and into the Test Lab. A few minutes later, puffing hard into the frigid air, he returned with the second cart full.
	The van drove away leaving two operatives inside the lab. Sixty seconds later, I keyed the walkie-talkie.
	"Two!"
	A second van, twin to the first, arrived from the opposite direction. Two more laundry carts were shuttled in. I moved carefully across the roof. My van was surrounded by kids with tattoos, boot camp haircuts, and broken-glass expressions, casually plotting their lives of crime.
	Snow started falling. I wiped moisture from the binoculars and scanned the streets. One block north, as out of place as a ski mask in a bank, was a late model car. A white Toyota. Braking repeatedly, its driver rapidly twisted his head left and right, perhaps aware that if he turned down the wrong street, his car and he would be spare parts and Alpo before he could shift into reverse. From my perch, the car looked like a white rat lost in a maze.
	Two vans had come and gone without incident and a third identical van arrived as the wind swung to the north. With the changing wind, new sounds emerged from the night. Swirling in their center was the wail of a police siren. Sirens were part of the music of the city, day and night, but this was close.
	Headlights broke the darkness of Terrig Street. I keyed my walkie-talkie.
	"Hold still."
	"Tell it," a voice huffed. "Tell it fast." In the background I heard metal cages being pried open.
	"Hazard one," I said, then cued my brother stationed on the far side of Terrig, "Diversion A. Hit it."
	"Ten-four."
	A police cruiser, lights flashing, rolled up behind the van. I hoped that the operatives in the van wouldn't resist arrest, but they might. Perhaps they hadn't learned, as I did two years ago, to put your hands on top of your head to avoid the unpleasant experience of getting shot first and questioned afterward.
	My resultant limp is almost gone. However, my leg ached a little in tonight's cold.
	A hand-held searchlight from the police cruiser shined on the license plate of the van. Suddenly, a burglar alarm began shrieking. The cruiser pulled around the van, fishtailed slightly, then raced away.
	Diversion 'A', never before attempted, had worked.
	During the loading of the eighth and final van, snow began falling faster. The connection between the unforeseen snow and impending danger flashed once more across my mind.
	Water-based paint.
	I snapped the binoculars to my eyes and focused on the rear doors of the van. The "Y" of ABC LAUNDRY was dripping. I focused on the license plate. The "E" was bleeding, changing back to its original "L."
	Police backup was surely on the way. We had to get the van out of there.
	Too late! The piercing sound of a police siren tied a knot in my stomach. I keyed my walkie-talkie.
	"Second hazard one."
	No answer.
	A cruiser turned down Terrig Street. As it slowed, the pitch of its engine lowered. It sounded hungry. Feral.
	I panicked and ignored code. "Police. Hold still."
	No answer.
	I pressed the cold metal receiver against my forehead to keep from yelling into it. The cruiser's headlights were diffused by snow that seemed not to be reflecting light but glowing with a radiance of its own.
	Answer!
	"Ten-four," a soft female voice said. Kristin. Good. She wouldn't make any mistakes. Although only twenty years old, she was an experienced operative.
	The cruiser's searchlight lit up as the car rolled to a stop directly behind the van. The beam shined on the van's rear doors, then traced the paint flowing downward in river patterns.
	The light flicked off, the doors opened, and two giant cops wearing yellow rain ponchos climbed out of the cruiser and stalked the van. They looked as if they could lift it off the ground and play catch with it.
	"Team three: start Diversion B in sixty seconds."
	I would need the full minute. I hoped Kristin would wait inside the lab and perfectly time her escape--and that the driver of the van wouldn't panic and leave without her.
	I reached into my paper bag and removed a radio-controlled model Cobra helicopter. I positioned it on the roof, then checked its payload. Muted by a Whisper Tech muffler, its engine wouldn't be heard above the wind and the rattling of the coffee shop's exhaust fan. After testing the controls, I lifted it off. Stabilized by a gyro, it rose twenty yards straight up, then propelled forward into the threatening sky.
	As I zeroed it in on a final approach down Terrig Street, the wind rocked it hard. I struggled to keep it upright. The Cobra had to be steady when its bay doors opened or it would shake and lose altitude. Impatient, I kept shifting the controls from one hand to the other, fingering the button that releases the payload.
	One of the cops peered in the rear window of the van. His partner took off a glove, then wiped at the "ABC." Moving decisively now, he shoved his glove back on and began rounding the van, shouting something that made his partner start going around the far side.
	Cutting the speed of the Cobra, I maneuvered it into position less than a yard above the police cruiser. From that point, I lifted it straight up about fifty yards and stabilized the controls. When the Cobra seemed steady, I released the payload. Two dozen clear glass marbles rained down on the metal trunk.
	Bang! Bang! Bang!
	Even a block away it sounded like gunfire.
	Both cops spun, drew their guns, and went into a crouch, frantically yelling things I couldn't make out. They crouch-hopped toward the cruiser, springing up and down as if riding short, invisible ponies, waving guns in all directions.
	I keyed my walkie-talkie. It triggered a gunshot that rang in the distance.
	The cops scrambled into the cruiser, U-turned, and drove down Terrig Street shining their light into every dark corner along the way.
	Unhindered, the van drove off.
	I worked the next several minutes bringing the Cobra in to a safe landing. Then I returned to the edge of the icy roof.
	I had not seen Kristin escape. Maybe she slipped away while I was landing the Cobra. I keyed my mike.
	"Everybody okay?"
	A popping noise came through the speaker, followed by the chugging sound of the van's engine. The driver's voice held a rasp of excitement. "Smashing aerial show, Captain. Thanks for pulling my chestnuts out of the fire."
	The unexpected humor loosened the knot in my stomach.
	"You're welcome. Is everyone accounted for?"
	No answer.
	I repeated my question.
	Again no answer.
	I thumped the walkie-talkie to make sure the batteries were in place.
	"Got everybody?"
	Still no answer. The night suddenly seemed darker and colder.
	The silence was broken by the shriek of skidding tires. The police cruiser with the cops in yellow ponchos was rounding the corner and it squealed to a halt in front of Terrig Corporation.
	After charging out of the cruiser the cops stared open-mouthed at the spot where the van had been parked minutes before. Then they jumped along the street, kicking at slush puddles and flapping like giant yellow bats.
	I waited. The storm blackened the sky. The golden steeple of the church went monochromatic before disappearing altogether.
	After the cops finally left, I climbed down the fire escape.
	Keeping a wary eye on the shadows, I made my way through the alley, then onto the slushy sidewalk. Wind lashed the snow in waves. I glanced toward Hammer's Pool Hall and hesitated. I felt bad about not returning to the homeless man in the entranceway.
	I'll help him later. Something seemed to have gone wrong with the mission. Head down, I crossed the street.
	All four tires of my van were still inflated, and all the hubcaps were still there. The gang hadn't been feeling playful.
	They were, however, watching me like buzzards watch a dying horse crossing the desert. One thin punk, his face decorated as if he'd just removed it from a tackle box, was leaning on the van. Behind me, someone shouted a nasty anatomical name popular with guys who like to sound tough.
	I kept walking. Did they think I had money? Was I on their turf?
	From every direction, I heard whistles and movement. The gang was mobilizing. Shit creek seemed to have claimed me. A paddle wouldn't help.
	The gang was almost on me. I saw glints of reflected light and heard Switchblades snicking open.
	I ran, anticipating the punk leaning on the van would block my path.
	Ghostlike, he went backward, fusing into shadows.
	I didn't realize how relieved I was to reach my van until I climbed inside and was overcome with emotion and the yearning to softly kiss my steering wheel. Then came the sinking feeling the gang's calmness was due to their knowledge that my van's engine was resting on the sidewalk behind them. And I wasn't going anywhere.
	I ground the starter, gave the engine too much gas, and was surprised when it growled to life somewhere under a cloud of smoke. I wasn't sure whether the engine was running or on fire, but I put it in gear.
	Curious about why the gang had let me go, I rolled down my window and looked back. The gang was skillfully melding into the night, and racing toward me was a carnival of whirling red and white lights.


TWO

	I slid down in the front seat until my knees banged against the dashboard. The approaching headlights briefly swept across the interior above me, then raced by, heading toward Terrig Street.
	After they rounded the corner, I sat up and tried the walkie-talkie. Still no response.
	I drove eight blocks in the opposite direction, parked, got out, and backtracked on foot. Wind whipped at my face. I plunged my hands into my pockets and walked briskly past boarded up buildings, an empty Laundromat, and a gun shop advertising a "Back to School" special.
	A hundred yards farther, in the middle of an otherwise vacant block, I reached a fence surrounding a U-Rent Storage compound. I stopped and looked over my shoulder in the traditionally furtive fashion of someone about to do something illegal. Then I climbed the fence, dropped to the other side, and trotted to the back, where the aisle was barricaded by a rusted out car sitting on concrete blocks. The car didn't have an interior, and just junk where the engine had been.
	Two men were pounding on the car with heavy tools, their noise barely masking the growling and barking coming from the storage shed beyond. Ten feet from the old car, I stopped. I suspected the men knew I was there, but they didn't look up.
	I moved closer.
	A man with a face like a constipated bulldog's stopped and stepped out to block my path. Threatening. His hands curled into fists, his lip into a snarl. Primal and deadly.
	I forgot the password.
	"Gulp."
	That wasn't it.
	He took a step toward me.
	"Eat beans," I stammered, "not beings."
	He smiled and I could see what he'd looked like as a little kid. Quickly he was behind me, slapping me soundly between the shoulders--which started me stumbling through a maze of crushed automobile parts.
	Exiting the maze, I crawled through the side door of an ABC LAUNDRY van, out the back, and into a storage shed. In the center of the shed a light bulb tucked into a dented metal cone hung from the ceiling. Directly below the cone, a folding card table stood like an island in a sea of dog cages, laundry carts, and other supplies and equipment.
	Squeezed around the periphery of the shed were twenty operatives wearing lab coats, tailored, it seemed, by the same guy who designed the Hefty Bag. The coats were accessorized with cheap wigs and fake mustaches.
	I looked for Kristin, who I'd recognize in any disguise. We'd been teammates on many missions of the Animal Liberation Front. Blonde and pixyish, it was the passion of Kristin's gaze that made her memorable; her beauty sprang from her soul and illuminated her physical features.
	But she wasn't here. I wondered if anybody had seen her, my brother, or the driver of the final van. But no trained operative would admit they knew anything about lookouts, drivers, or for that matter, the person standing next to him.
	The guy right next to me spoke. "We're awfully close to Terrig."
	"If the cops find us here," I said, "I'll be very surprised."
	"We'll all be surprised," he said. "Unpleasantly."
	I turned my attention to the two men and two women nearest the table. The men, veterinarians, were scrambling to set up shop. One of the two women was my sister, Corky.
	Corky was the liaison between the A.L.F. and my rock band, Fluke. A third-grade school teacher, she would be my candidate for the person best qualified to run the universe, should that office ever get on the ballot. She had only a small repertoire of movements, brief and exact, like her words.
	Standing next to her, with sparkling green eyes set in a sprinkle of freckles, was Ann Berlin, lead singer and saxophonist of Fluke. Her black jeans were tucked into black boots. A shifting curtain of blonde hair gathered loosely into the collar of her black coat. She had a law degree, and always tried to help people, but dressed in all black she looked intimidating. Dangerous even.
	Corky raised her head slightly and gathered everyone's eyes.
	"Don't take off your disguises. Talk only if you have to. Dogs with life-threatening wounds are our top priority. Bring them to this table. Dogs with no hope for survival will be put to sleep." Her eyes added, "Go!"
	Inside the pen to my right a small brown puppy lay on his back, paws up, tongue out the side of his mouth, whimpering. The burns on his sides were raw, bleeding, festering. Kneeling down, I scratched his belly. His face was swollen.
	"You'll be okay."
	His tail wagged weakly in reply. Somehow he still wanted to trust mankind after all we'd done to him.
	"Good boy."
	Although he could hardly roll over, he struggled up, tried to lick my hand, looked embarrassed and promptly collapsed in a heap. I scratched his ears, lifted him out, and cradled him close to my chest. He managed to lick my chin.
	The younger of the two vets wore a folded bandanna around his head that looked like a cardinal in flight. He signaled I was next.
	The older vet was the gentle grandfatherly type. If they'd been making a movie and looking for a small-town vet, he would have been perfect casting. Cold air had tinged his skin light blue. He slid over to the portable heater and held out his shivering hands--hands that needed to be steady.
	The young vet removed rubber gloves from a medical bag. "Here, Dr. Dean . . ." His voice trailed away as he realized he'd breached the confidentiality essential to the Animal Liberation Front, since the FBI lists us as a terrorist organization.
	"Excuse me?" I said, pretending I thought he'd been talking to me and I hadn't heard him clearly. The young vet's eyes thanked me.
	I set the puppy gently on the table. As the two vets examined him, he lay silent, head on his paws, looking up at me. He opened his mouth slightly, then closed it, as though forever.
	"They'll fix you up," I said. He wiggled his tail once, weakly.
	After a few moments Dr. Dean shook his head and took out a needle. I knew what that meant. So quickly extinguished was my spark of hope. Eyes open, staring ahead, the small brown puppy looked as he had an instant ago. For something as meaningful as it is, death doesn't look like much at first.
	A slow blues riff ran through my mind, an all-too-familiar theme. Regret. We should've gotten to Terrig sooner.
	Once again, Corky drew everyone's attention. As before, it was her stillness you noticed, the economy of movement emphasized by the way she did not speak, but politely waited.
	"Second priority," she said. "Calm any barking dogs who might give away our location. Third: examine dogs in pain. Fourth: feed each dog. Finally: return the vans to the rental agencies and discard all the clothes you wore tonight. Fibers can be used to link you to the Terrig Lab." She paused as the sound of sirens grew louder. When they began fading, she continued. "We'll guard this shed in six-hour shifts. In three days, if the police have let up on their search, we'll take the dogs to the Peace Plantation Refuge."
	They'd be safe there.
	Memories of the thousand acre Refuge, some as vivid as photographs, flipped through my mind. Once, while I was working there, an elderly woman returned to thank us, saying that when we saved a small dog from destruction and gave it to her, we had saved two lives. She claimed that Winnie the Pooch provided her with the most unselfish love she'd ever experienced. He gratefully slept on the cold ground to be near her, licked her hand even when she had no food to offer, guarded her as though she were royalty. Gave her a reason to live.
	I hoped that some of the dogs rescued tonight would one day have a similar impact.
	I moved to a snarling little bundle of ferocity, a Scottish terrier, and held out my hand. He growled, sniffed, then allowed me to pat his head.
	Two hours later, every dog was fed. Some were asleep. Three were dead.
	"Great work," Ann said, to the nods and smiles of everyone in the room.
	We had saved eighty-five dogs and filmed video footage of Terrig's illegal animal testing. But our biggest challenge loomed a week ahead. December eighteenth. The Laurel Corporation. But where was Kristin?
	Ann looked at Corky.
	My sister said, "As you all know, our next mission involves even higher stakes; the lives of over ten thousand rabbits. Laurel is trying to extend their government grant for another five years. To get this research welfare, three million dollars' worth, Laurel has only to complete one final battery of tests and file a report. We can stop them by taking photos of signed test procedures that prove they are defrauding the government. We'll contact you in the usual way. Code twelve. Repeat: code one, two. Timing will be critical. Take care, and thanks."
	One operative left every two minutes. The first to go were those who'd requested to leave early--like Ann Berlin, who worked Sundays for a legal firm providing free services to the poor. Ann represented children in child abuse cases, and her workload increased each year. As a result, the firm put pressure on her to join them full-time. Certainly her legal work was very important, but it seemed to me there were plenty of lawyers to handle all the legitimate work, with some to spare. A.L.F. members were hard to come by. So, every Sunday, I said a silent prayer we wouldn't lose her, and this was the cause of some of my anxiety on weekends. Although, admittedly, some of it was due to the slipshod play of the New England Patriots.
	Having no pressing engagements, I was one of the last to leave. I drove back to Hammer's. The same homeless man lay in the doorway, asleep, his legs under his grocery cart. His head rested on the cold cement sidewalk. His neck was at an angle that made me wince. It looked broken. After I saw him breathing, I took off my jacket, folded it, and slid it under his cheek. He didn't awaken.
	A vague disquiet lingered, one I'd had since leaving the shed, a nagging sense that I was forgetting something, or unaware of something. Am I being followed? Holding down my wig, I peered from the entrance of the pool hall. Winds swept clean the east side of the street, piling deep snowdrifts against the west side. The street was deserted except for a cat that scampered across the sidewalk and hid behind the tire of a parked car, watching me. No people. No traffic. What's wrong?
	Sirens still blared from the direction of the Terrig Lab, which worried me. Why would they still be there? Had they gotten Kristin? I was tempted to return to Terrig, but knew better. I'd been trained to stick to the plan.
	My thoughts swirled away from the sirens and sank into my gut. The chilling experience of seeing animals suffering was mingling with the warmth of knowing I'd helped stop some of it. In the morning, Mr. Terrig would be very surprised. And very, very angry. With no dogs to torture, he might grease the steps at the old folks home.
	I managed a choking laugh. I had to. Laughter kept the lid on my anger.


THREE

	After spending the day inside the U-Rent Storage shed, my brother Bill and I drove northwest into Cavalry, then to the east side of Cavalry where the graffiti was densest. At first, all that spray painting looked like vandalism. As I got used to it, I realized it gave a bright splash of color to the otherwise drab neighborhood, and that once you got past the prejudice against defacing public property it really wasn't all that bad. Of course, I never said this to anyone.
	Amidst that graffiti was a spotless red brick building, its owner having been more persistent than the neighborhood taggers. Not that the building, the Howling Lobster, was free of spray paint. Inside, Bill and I sat at a table under a six-foot-high cartoon spray-painted on the wall. The cartoon depicted a chef about to dump a live lobster into a pot of boiling water on a gas stove. The lobster was saying to the chef, "Just because it's your job, doesn't make it right."
	It felt good to be in the Lobster because the memories were good. Our band had held its first gig to support the A.L.F. here four years ago, and our spirit had grown along with the Lobster's crowd of regulars. Now, our concerts were the lifeblood of the A.L.F.'s operating budget.
	Bill, twenty-six years old, looked like a young President Clinton with shoulder-length blonde hair. Tonight he wore a religious medallion draped around his neck, which he held away from his chest, watching it unwind on its chain. There was always a restless energy about his movements.
	I was bombing in beer nuts and expostulating on topics of cosmic significance, such as how fresh the nuts tasted. I drank water, though alcohol was free. I hoped this would build character, a quality I couldn't afford to pass up, whatever the price. I'd recently turned twenty-seven, and I figured it was now or never on the question of character.
	Bill and I talked softly and laughed about how lucky we'd been last night with "Diversion A." To distract the police, Bill had run up and down side streets, rocking parked cars and triggering alarms.
	"They almost caught me," he said, "when I stopped to listen to one alarmed car talk to me. It kept saying in a whiny voice, 'I've been tampered with.' Cops tore around the corner and I had to dive through an ice-covered hedge and share a mulberry bush with a hoot owl."
	My brother was exaggerating, as he frequently did, creating the image he was slightly crazier than he really was. Crazy or not, his dedication to the A.L.F. continued to surprise me. His strong religious beliefs did not fall in line with the beliefs of animal-rights activists. Deep into God, he believed things that people have difficulty believing even in Salt Lake City. Yet somehow his loyalty to family superseded his loyalty to self. His internal struggle surfaced only occasionally. Although, sometimes without warning.
	Bill tilted his head slightly to see past my left shoulder. I shifted enough to follow his gaze. Threading his way toward us, around a small nativity scene and through the crowd, was the owner of the Lobster, Richard Tipton. An accomplished jazz pianist, Richard joined us onstage at our request.
	From a distance, he looked like an overweight Bill Cosby. But up close he had the run-over look of a man who was struggling to make ends meet. He had been my father's best friend and they'd played together in a jazz band in Indiana more than two decades ago. Richard would have been like a father to me, if it weren't for the fact he was like a father to so many others.
	I didn't like what I saw trailing Richard--a huge bald-headed monster whose face bore shiny white scar tissue that looked as hard as marble. When they reached our table, Richard put his arm around the monster, who smiled as though he'd been scratched behind the ears.
	"This is Chas Blat," Richard said. "New bouncer, longtime friend."
	Bill and I stood as Richard introduced us. "Chas, meet the Baker brothers. Bill, who always wears a religious medallion, and Clark, who always wears an ear-to-ear grin." He slapped Chas's shoulder. "Between you and me, son, both adornments make me suspect they're up to something. Besides, that is, being members of my favorite rock band, Fluke."
	"I've heard of Fluke," Chas said. "Aren't you 'The rock band with the big heart'?"
	"That was before the shock absorbers on our van wore out," I said. "Now we're 'The rock band with the bad kidneys.'"
	Chas laughed. "I've heard good things about your comedy, too."
	"Thanks." I stuck out my hand. Chas offered a warm handshake that seemed to commit him to liking you.
	Richard asked, "Any new songs tonight?"
	"One," Bill said. "Dudley will give you the music." Dudley, our drummer, wrote most of our songs; songs that made you remember, with a chill, that great feeling of the first month of falling in love.
	"Terrific." Richard moved behind the bar and motioned us to sit down.
	I sat and held my breath. I had no idea how much Chas weighed, but I was surprised when he sat on a chair and the legs didn't snap.
	Richard returned with two plates of pastries, slid one in front of us and headed backstage with the other. Chas offered Bill and me first choice. We shook our heads.
	"You sure?" Chas stuffed one into his mouth. And it was gone. "They're great. Really light and flaky."
	For ten minutes, Chas talked about the delights of pastries, pies, and pizzas, the way men at sea talk about women. He remembered people by what they liked to eat, cities by his favorite restaurants. He was a nice man who'd been places and eaten things. He tucked pastry number three into his mouth.
	"Where'd you work before today?" I asked.
	He swallowed. "Just got out of prison. Almost died there."
	Bill's eyebrows shot up. "Died? How?"
	"Boredom. Food was tasteless. All starches." He selected a bear claw and balanced it tenderly. "Funny, though. Now that I'm out of prison, starches are all I can afford. You have any idea what it's like, being an ex-con, having to go around begging people to hire you?"
	"We're rock musicians," I said. "We know all about it."
	Chas snorted, his colossal white dome bobbing.
	Bill leaned forward. "So why were you in prison?"
	Chas choked down the pastry and lowered his eyes to a stack of pamphlets on the table.
	"What are those?"
	Bill wasn't the type to let his question go unanswered, but I, having no desire to upset the enormous man, reached for the stack of pamphlets, grabbed the conversational ball and threw it the hell into center field.
	"Just some information about organizations we encourage our audience to support."
	Bill's mouth was still agape at the nerve of me hijacking the conversation. He wouldn't have looked more surprised had I stabbed him with a fork.
	"That's a list of cosmetic companies who don't use animals to test their products anymore. And the ones that still do, like the Terrig and Laurel corporations."
	"How do they test cosmetics on animals--put rouge and lipstick on a pig, take it to a bar, and see if anyone asks it to dance?" Chas paused, seemingly for a laugh.
	While I might laugh at deathbed pranks, stuff found wadded up in napkins, or even old reruns of "Three's Company," animal testing is one of two subjects I don't find humor in. The other is my ex-wife.
	"More than twenty million animals die every year in the U.S. to test products such as nail polish, floor wax, and drain cleaners." I opened a pamphlet and pushed it to Chas.
	He started reading, then pointed to a name under the heading "Products Killing Animals."
	"Hey, I used this shampoo for a while." He rubbed his large bald head. "That was the year my hair fell out. You think the animals they tested it on died of embarrassment?"
	"They died from the incredible pain of having shampoo forced down their throats without anesthetics."
	Chas blinked rapidly.
	"The animals suffer convulsions and paralysis," I said, "and bleed from their eyes, nose, and mouth."
	Chas looked as if he'd bitten into a Quarter-Pounder and found an ear.
	"How'd you get into cosmetics and animals? How'd you even find out what goes on?"
	I wasn't sure I should tell him. I tilted my empty glass to buy time. Why not, though. He was Richard's longtime friend . . .
	My brother looked Chas square in the eye. I suspected he was readying to again press Chas about why he'd gone to prison. Bill began, "Why were you--"
	"Eight years ago," I interrupted, and Bill's eyebrows went up like a drawbridge opening, probably because I had never interrupted him before, and he knew I'd been counting on this distinction to get me into heaven at a later date.
	Chas's eyes gleamed bright with attention.
	"My sister," I continued, "having no idea the cosmetic industry used animals for testing, took a summer job at Terrig Lab as a clinical technician. At first, it didn't look too bad. She trained dogs in the lab to run on a treadmill. Then she found out these dogs were bombarded with massive doses of radiation, and they ran only because electric shocks were applied. Shock intensity was increased until the dogs died. The experiment proved nothing but continued thanks to funding from our tax dollars. Corky was so sickened by the unnecessary cruelty that she got in touch with an organization that rescued animals."
	"It must be my speech impediment," Chas said. "I try to ask how you got involved, and darned if I don't ask how your sister got involved by mistake. Let me give it another shot. How did you get involved?"
	Bill began tapping his shoe against the leg of the table.
 	I cleared my throat. "The Animal Liberation Front asked Corky not to quit her job, they needed her on the inside. But Corky understood that if anything happened to the lab, as its newest employee she would be a suspect. So, the night of the liberation she invited three fellow technicians to her apartment for dinner."
	When Chas nodded, I realized I was explaining the importance of an alibi to an ex-con.
	"She was also worried about her lab key. What if the A.L.F. didn't return it before she had to go to work? Someone might guess she'd lent it out, which might make her a suspect, alibi or no alibi. So she asked me, as a favor, to handle the key. I was supposed to just open the lab door. A thirty-second involvement. But when I saw the team needed help, I followed them inside."
	Seeing that scene in my mind, I closed my eyes.
	When I opened them, Chas was waiting patiently.
	"Tell me," he said softly.
	"Thirty irradiated dogs lay inside a small corral. Some were partially dissected and still alive. The rest were dead. I helped carry the living dogs outside into a van. They decided to leave the dead dogs behind. When I was locking the lab door, movement drew me to the shadows and to what I was pretty sure was a dead English sheepdog. I went back inside and checked for a pulse. None.
	"But I thought I heard crying. I stood motionless. Again, I sensed the sheepdog was moving. I rechecked his pulse. None. Then I noticed a small dog nobody had seen because his fur was just like the dead dog's he was snuggled against.
	"I tried coaxing the live dog to go with me, but he wouldn't leave his friend. When I tried to move him, he bared his teeth and growled. Outside, the van's engine roared to life. I pleaded with the small dog to come with me. The headlights of the van flashed on. I lifted the dead sheepdog. 'Come on, fella,' I said, 'you're coming home with me.' I carried the dead dog outside, hoping the live dog would follow. I didn't know it then, but the live dog was blind from exposure to radiation. Navigating by smell and sound, he followed his friend and jumped into the van, where he rested his head on the body."
	"Did he make it?" Chas asked.
	"He could, in fact, bite your leg right now."
	Chas slowly moved his eyes downward. My blind dog, Hoover, was asleep under the table. I scratched him behind the ears and he flapped his tail against the floor.
	Hoover is a shaggy dog, the kind a child with a minimum knowledge of anatomy could draw, no details required--a shaggy dog that isn't a particular kind of shaggy dog. When I stopped scratching him, he put his head back down. I dropped a beer nut on the floor and Hoover vacuumed it up.
	Chas watched Hoover a minute longer, then turned his attention to the literature on the table.
	"You stick this stuff on car windshields?"
	"No. We put the pamphlets by the door, and drop the leaflets from a radio-controlled model helicopter we hover over the audience."
	"Smokes, aren't those gizmos noisy?"
	"Not with the new turbine engine technology."
	"If you want me to, I'll hand out leaflets between flights."
	"Thanks, but if we hand 'em out, people act put-upon. If we drop 'em from the air, people actually dive to snag them." I shrugged, failing in yet another attempt to understand human nature.
	All at once the background noise died away. Richard peered from behind the jukebox holding a plug in one hand and waving an empty pastry plate with his other.
	"On in ten!"
	Like Pavlov's dog, my adrenaline began to flow.
	Chas excused himself and stood. His chair sighed with relief.
	With Hoover following us very closely, Bill and I followed the light of a red EXIT sign down the hall and turned left into the dressing room.
	Illuminated by a single bulb, the dressing room was an all-purpose room where breaks were taken between sets and brooms and mops were stored. Scattered on the walls were posters featuring rock greats. Alice Cooper, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin were pale yellow, faded, and peeling.
	Ann Berlin was relaxing on a folding chair and changing the reed in her saxophone. Tonight, instead of wearing the dark camouflage clothes she'd worn as an operative the previous night, her athletic body was graciously displayed in a sparkling green gown. I'd only ever seen her dressed in those two extremes, camouflaged or alluring, which made it hard for me to picture her as a lawyer.
	James "Dudley" Mack, our drummer, was tapping a rhythm with his fingers on an Igloo cooler and making Ann laugh. I used to envy Dudley for his social skills. He was everything I was too cautious to be: moody, emotional, full of rage, love and enthusiasm.
	But I no longer envied him. Long ago I'd decided certain social skills were beyond me, and now I stood silently enjoying his lively banter, with no more comprehension of its creation than a sea gull staring at the space shuttle.
	Yet, inside Dudley was a subtle sadness. With strong chiseled features, he was a living caricature of Dudley Do-Right, and actively pursued by women. But he hadn't dated anyone since graduating with a biology degree from the University of Massachusetts--at which time the only girl he'd ever loved, my sister Corky, broke up with him. Ever since that heartbreak, eight years ago, he'd avoided other women and spent his free time studying the behavior of ducks while volunteering at the Boston Aquarium.
	Bill slid a trashcan aside with his foot and stepped in front of me.
	"Be careful of what you say to Chas. He was doing a little digging, don't you think?"
	"Don't worry," I said. "Any friend of a good man like Richard is probably a good man, too."
	"You really believe that?"
	I thought I did, until I said it out loud.
	"You win."
	While I was taking the compulsory eight-count, my brother was smiling benignly, leaning on a mop.
	"Something isn't right about that guy," he said. "Know what I mean?"
	"Sure do. He requested Muskrat Love."
	"Go ahead, joke away." Bill fingered a broken mop handle, giving some evidence of intentions to reverse its direction and turn me into a Clark-kabob.
	I gazed dolefully into the eyes of Janis Joplin.
	A knock came on the dressing room door.
	"On in two!"
	Ann set down her saxophone and walked over to me. In a silky voice she said, "You're not limping. Your leg okay?"
	"Much better, thanks." I stuffed a fistful of Cracker Jacks into my mouth.
	"I wish you wouldn't eat those."
	"Murrouph." I swallowed and held the box out to her. "Sorry. Did you want them? You could just say no, you don't have to make that kind of face at me."
	Her fingers touched my hand. A whisper touch, there and gone.
	"Haven't you eaten enough?"
	I looked into the box and smiled at her. "No. The box isn't empty."
	Again, someone pounded on the door. Hoover's ears thrust out to the sides in a way that seemed to signal both alarm and curiosity. He waddled toward the sound. I stepped over the trashcan and opened the door to my sister standing squarely in the door frame.
	"What are you doing here?" I asked. There had to be a problem for her to leave the makeshift animal hospital, especially since it was getting late and tomorrow was a school day. Herding third graders took energy.
	"I know you're about ready to go on," she said. "But when your set's over, meet me at the bar. I'll have a Cavalry Charger waiting for you."
	That worried me. The last time I had a drink I ended up staggering around the room holding my head, screaming, "Get this thing off me." She knew that.
	"I'll have one ready for you," she said, confirming my worries. Something was wrong.
	The other band members filtered past us. Dudley stopped next to Corky.
	"The adoption papers are ready. Just sign them and you can walk me home."
	Corky continued looking at me, ignoring Dudley. If she expected him to give up, though, she had badly underestimated him.
	Dudley backed off toward the stage.
	"I'm housebroken, had all my shots, and don't bark at night. Unless you want me to."
	Dudley had teased Corky for so many years I wondered if she knew how much Dudley still loved her. Or if she felt love was perilous. Or if she simply was uncomfortable around someone whose natural enthusiasm had once propelled him out of a car to dance with a tollbooth attendant.
	Bill handed me my guitar. I watched the departing backs of the other band members. I understood why Corky was keeping bad news from us until later. The first set established the tone of the evening.
 	She nodded at me, eyes wide, and drifted into the crowd.
	I could guess the gist of her concern. A lot of planning was going into the liberation of rabbits from Laurel in six days. She'd probably hit a snag.
	"Let's go." Hoover stood up, wagged his tail, and we scrambled onstage together. He took his spot on a throw rug that I put in the same place each night so he could find it.
	I looked across the dance floor, past several rows of tables, to where Corky stood in front of the cartoon chef, rocklike in the river of people flowing past her. Although she was directly between the chef and his pot, he didn't seem to notice her.
	Corky is attractive but she doesn't do much to enhance her appearance. Tonight, her long dark hair looked as if it had been yanked on for a week by her third-grade class, and her clothes didn't make a statement except a general one of disinterest. Dudley's obsession with her puzzled me. Was he interested in her solely because she was the only woman he couldn't have? And did she ignore him because she understood his obsession?
	The lights came up and the crowd noise went down as if they were wired to the same switch. Onstage, Richard was highlighted by a single blue spotlight.
	"Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, there are bands that aren't very good, there are bands that are pretty good, and every once in a while a band surfaces that is so good it transcends the very definition of rock 'n' roll. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you--a pretty good band."
	A crack of applause split through the laughter as Richard took his place behind the bank of keyboards. The blue spotlight swung to Dudley, outlining his drums. As he kept a steady beat on the toms he leaned toward his mike.
	"Heard the joke about the guy who goes to Africa? Gets off the plane and the first sound he hears is tribal drums. He turns to a native, 'What's with the drums?' The native says, 'Very bad if drums stop.' The guy gets to his hotel and the drums are still pounding. He asks the bellhop, 'What's with the drums?' The bellhop replies, 'Very bad if drums stop.' Later, he's walking through town when suddenly the drums stop. The guy turns to a lady near him and asks, 'Now what happens?' The lady says, 'Very bad. Now comes the bass solo.'"
	The audience rocked with laughter.
	Bill's bass guitar and the tribal rhythm of Dudley's drumsticks launched us into Raw Youth's "Tame Yourself."
	   If you are weaker, I will eat you
	   If you are smaller, I will defeat you
	   King of all I see
	   I will proudly wear your memory
	   What separates me from the wildest beast?
	   It is greed and vanity
	   And the bigger brain, oh the shame, the shame.
	Bill and Richard traded leads. Staccato arpeggios burst out, ricocheted back and forth and into lightning riffs, like speeding bullets, making me feel as though I were caught in some sort of a crossfire.
	When I looked to where Corky had been standing, there was only a man dancing, large enough to have consumed her whole, staring blankly into infinity, rotating his butt like he was stirring the cartoon lobster pot with it. As he stirred, something in my stomach seemed to slither and coil.


FOUR

	I no longer feared the passage of time. I had stopped it while waiting for the set to end. When it finally did, Hoover and I rushed to the bar to wait for Corky. I spun onto a stool in front of Mervyn the bartender, and Hoover curled around the base of the stool.
	Mervyn was as tiny and fragile as a sparrow. His sea-blue eyes took in his surroundings through wire-rimmed glasses that sat low on his nose. Although I knew nothing about his past, conversations with him revealed considerable expertise in the field of deviant psychology.
	I nodded to Mervyn, who poured me a glass of water. I splashed the straw around and about in the icy water while scanning the crowd for Corky.
	Seated three stools to my right was a man in a brown leather coat whose granite face seemed incapable of the flexibility required for a smile. Although his voice was soft as he talked to Mervyn, I caught enough of his words to realize he was asking about Fluke, and their rapidity gave the impression he wasn't just passing the time of day. I leaned toward him, trying to hear more.
	The male conversations around me broke off--a sign Ann was approaching--but I was surprised when she swung onto the stool next to mine. My brain sounded an alert that it was shutting down. I've never developed whatever part of the brain it is that enables men to say whatever you're supposed to say to women. I suspect that even John Hinkley, who shot President Reagan to impress Jodie Foster, knows more about women than I do.
	"How's it going, Clark?" Ann said.
	"Fine." I scooped a handful of beer nuts from the bowl on the counter.
	"Where's Corky?"
	"Don't know, she disappeared."
	"Ah. A rather unusual usage of the word 'fine' of which I wasn't aware."
	Mervyn came down and wiped up some of the liquid off the counter in front of me.
	"What'll it be?"
	"A Cavalry Charger, please." Rarely do I drink, for fear of saying something stupid, but it seemed a little late to be having qualms.
	"Make it two," Ann said.
	Mervyn made us two Cavalry Chargers using half the bottles on the back bar. Our drinks came and we sipped them while we looked for Corky.
	"Clark," Ann said. "Can I ask you something?"
	I cocked my head to listen.
	"I've known your sister more than a year and I still haven't figured out why she gets so tense whenever Dudley's around?"
	I pondered Ann's question as we both watched two men wander in who looked as if they'd cheerfully disembowel their own grandmothers for the price of a beer. Their presence gave me a measure of joy; not because I approved of this eccentricity in customers, but because their patronage meant we were drawing some of the crowd from the Stagger Back Inn, the topless bar across the street.
	For several years the Stagger Back had steadily lost business to the Lobster. A few months ago, they closed for two weeks. When they reopened, Bill and I crossed Rosy Street to see what had changed. The doorman looked down at us from the unfathomable heights of his exalted position. I suspected the owner had stationed him at the door and told him that any customer was a bum until he proved himself otherwise. Showed him what he meant by proof, then put it back into the cash register.
	Inside, a stagnant mysterious smoke clung to the few molecules of oxygen I gasped for. The lumpy shape of cigarettes suggested most of the crowd rolled their own. It was the kind of place you hoped you wouldn't meet your sister.
	Bill and I sat at a table near the bar. Topless waitresses hustled around, making me nervous. Ten minutes later, a band came onstage but no one seemed to listen. People came into the bar, looked around and left.
	When we decided to leave, I made a theatrical show of feeling for my wallet and being relieved to find it still in my pocket.
	"I really should carry traveler's checks in a place like this."
	Although I had soaked in the dank atmosphere of the Stagger Back Inn only a few minutes, I recognized its patrons when they came into the Lobster and began to breath normally again. The two new ones took a seat.
	"When Corky broke up with Dudley," I said, "she insisted she was a jinx on him because he almost electrocuted himself the day they decided to go steady."
	Ann gave me a sidelong glance.
	"Then I understand why the issue isn't resolved for Dudley. He knows Corky is too sensible to believe in jinxes."
	"True. But I still don't know her real reason. Although . . ." I let myself trail off, thinking that ever since Dad died, Corky had seemed afraid of getting close to anyone. Or was I just projecting? I bombed in another beer nut.
	Without a fair and adequate warning, Ann asked, "So, what went wrong with your marriage?"
	I swallowed the beer nut the wrong way and nearly choked, making it too late to work a mystified smile onto my face that might convey I hadn't the slightest idea what she was talking about. So I forged ahead, even though my brain was twinkling with warning lights like the console of a crashing airliner.
	"Didn't need a wife, I had a television set to insult my intelligence."
	I crossed my legs, toyed with the button on my shirt pocket, then rattled the ice cubes in my glass to see if any liquid was trapped beneath them. Mervyn answered the rattle. With his keen sense of deviant behavior, he saw I was in trouble and mixed me another Charger.
	A few gulps of my second drink led me into my past.
	"Six years ago, after I graduated from college, I got married. Seems a lifetime ago."
	But how many lifetimes have to pass before I can forget that gut-wrenching moment when Jessie told me she wanted a divorce. Jesus. I can't believe it still hurts to think about it. I don't think I can talk about it.
	So I lied. "My wife was always mad at me."
	"About what?"
	I put my glass down and twisted it against my soggy napkin.
	"She said I never listened to her. Or something like that."
	Ann didn't return my feeble attempt at a smile.
	"There's not much else to tell," I said. "Our marriage didn't last long. Although it did teach me one valuable lesson. If a woman says, 'We need to talk,' you should treat it like a hotel fire: don't breathe, stay low to the ground, and crawl rapidly for the nearest exit."
	I could tell by the look on Ann's face that something was wrong, and that it had to do with what I'd said.
	"Clark?" She looked me over thoroughly, perhaps measuring me for a straitjacket. "You go to an awful lot of trouble to appear, even to your closest friends, like you have no feelings. You offer no more depth than . . . than the goofy sayings on these cocktail napkins!" She picked up a wet napkin, let it drain a little, then flopped it gently across my nose. "How come?"
	"But the napkins are very funny." I let the wet one stay where it was.
	"Funny," she conceded, "but not very deep."
	I felt I ought to say something--I'm sorry I'm alive, or something.
	"Women are naturally deeper than men," I said. "You should have seen me when I found out I wasn't ever going to be a woman. I cried like a baby. Hell of a thing to tell a kid." I offered Ann my warmest, most charming smile.
	"What the devil are you smirking at?" Her green eyes looked hurt and clouded in the brief moment I saw them before she glanced off into space, ignoring me. Yep, another minute and she'll be curled up in my lap. I took the wet napkin off my nose.
	Mervyn materialized, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses back into place, offering me more beer nuts. I said thank you, then tried not to look at them. One bowl was enough.
	Ann looked back at me. "I don't know if you realize it, but your wife has left scars on you that aren't properly healing. Why?"
	Opening and closing my mouth, I was unable to bring myself to offer an answer that wasn't as good as the question. I gazed out the window instead.
	"Is it still snowing outside?"
	Ann didn't answer. The noise of the bar flooded in on me. The rest of the band had disappeared.
	"We're due backstage."
* * *
	Corky didn't show up during the second break, either. I guessed there had been an emergency, and she'd left in a hurry. After the third set, Bill told us all that he was headed for the men's room.
	I caught his arm. "That guy over there with the granite face looks familiar. Could he be a local reporter?"
	"Could be," Bill said. But, then again, he was on his way to the men's room. I suspect he would have agreed if I'd said God is a woodchuck.
	Hoover followed Ann backstage, his rear end waddling busily. Dudley walked past me toward the bar, and I joined him, heading for a booth reserved for band members.
	To our chagrin, the booth was inhabited by Cavalry's three most ubiquitous convicted felons. Their leader, Lester Gillis, was a short man. Maybe five-two, but stocky, swarthy, with a large mustache. A soul less charitable than myself would have said he looked like an organ grinder who'd just stomped his monkey to death. He was leaning back in a silver fox fur coat, watching Dudley and me approach as though we were maggots climbing onto a wedding cake.
	A purplish tattoo, scratched into the knuckles of the right hand of the tallest felon, said Mungo.
	I recognized the third, a rodent-faced man, from newspaper photos. He had a shaved head and a nose that looked sewn back on. His name was Harry "The Rat" Hickabob. His arms were folded across his barrel chest, and he'd eaten half the RESERVED sign to educate the waitresses.
	"Excuse me, gentlemen," Dudley said softly. "This booth is reserved for Fluke."
	The Rat said clearly that he didn't much care. I understood it even without the gesture.
	Mungo stood up, and up. Towering over us, he looked down, his eyes red with alcohol, showing all the humanity of rusted ball bearings.
	"Why'd ya steal our customers from the Stagger Back?"
	Rather than answer I tried to figure out if these guys presence and Corky's absence might be in some way connected.
	I forced my attention back onto Mungo, who was lecturing on the high cost of dental work and the difficulty of a musician trying to earn a living with two broken arms. As he finished he looked down at me and shifted his gaze to a small black ant crossing the piebald floor. He crushed the ant, grinding it as though it were a giant tarantula.
	"I hate bugs." He was looking at me.
	"It was only an--"
	Crack! The Rat smashed an empty beer bottle over the edge of the wooden table. Glass sprayed. Dozens of glistening wet shards stuck to my cotton jacket.
	Everyone in the bar was watching and pretending they weren't; their stillness gave them away.
	The Rat pointed the sharp edge of the bottle at me.
	"You ain't listening. It's pissin' us off. . . ."
	My first instinct was to take away the broken bottle and feed it to him. But there was no way to tell to what extent he was bluffing, or to what extent he was insane.
	Dudley leaned toward me and whispered, "Get Richard."
	I backstepped. It didn't go unnoticed.
	"Hey, Baby Face," The Rat hollered. "A squirrel ever run up your pants leg and down the other--disappointed?" Mungo threw back his head and let out a great peal of gleeful laughter.
	I was so preoccupied backing away that I didn't get around to feeling insulted until much later. After a few more steps, I turned and hightailed it for Richard. It took a concerted effort not to look back to see if anyone was following me, as I had no desire to be skewered on the business end of a broken beer bottle. I wove my way through the crowd to where Richard was polishing glasses behind the bar.
	I plopped onto a stool in front of him, as I'd done countless times in the months following my mother's death. After Fluke had played and gone home, with nowhere to go, I'd sit and talk and joke about nothing in particular. Richard didn't seem to mind. It was in keeping with his personality to listen and to laugh, amused by the world and dead serious at the same time. With snapping eyes that seemed to be just one step ahead, he'd anticipate what I'd say, yet never seem bored.
	Richard stopped polishing the beer glass, hung it upside down in a glass cabinet, folded his towel, and then walked toward the booth.
	Mungo and The Rat were still laughing. Dudley was waiting, but Lester, like my sister, had disappeared.
	Richard slid into the booth and put his arm around Mungo. Mungo grinned broadly, as if the canary had just landed in the cat bowl.


FIVE

	"Where did Mr. Gillis go?" Richard asked. "And to what do we owe the pleasure of your company tonight?"
	"You wanna know why we're here?" Mungo said. "Well, I wanna know why anyone's here? They should be across the street listening to the Four Maldehydes."
	The night Bill and I visited the Stagger Back Inn, it seemed to us that if the Four Maldehydes didn't go out of business it would be only because nobody noticed they were ever in business. They were ignored despite strutting around wearing white leather Pampers over black Spandex tights and snarling at the audience. One Maldehyde had painted a slit on his throat with musical notes dripping down like blood. Another tried to eat his microphone.
	Mungo's laugh, too loud for indoor use, finally died. He wriggled his fingers at Petey, a pleasant waitress who'd worked at the Lobster over ten years and was confused in demeanor except when waitressing. Petey hesitated, then saw Richard and started over. When she reached the table, marinating in perfume that smelled like fruit salad, she said, "Hi, Mungo. May I help you?"
	Petey knows Mungo?
	"Sure, babe, you can help me. Tell me why your phone's always busy."
	Petey lifted her chin. "After my first date with you, I took my phone off the hook."
	"It's been over a month."
	"Small price to pay."
	Mungo glared at her. "You can't talk to customers like that!"
	"You're right." Petey tossed her hair. "Sorry. Can I get you anything? Beer? Wine? Rabies shot?"
	Mungo all but came out of his seat. "Scotch. No tap water in it this time." He blew her a big sloppy kiss, stuck out his tongue and wiggled it. "Stick it where I remember how much you like it, bitch." He cupped his hands in front of his chest and moved them back and forth. I assumed he was not indicating Petey had an arthritic condition.
	Even in the darkened bar, Petey's blush was visible. Mungo and The Rat howled and gave every impression that these were the moments they lived for.
	Richard made a fist and told Petey to skip the drink. He looked at Mungo and held one thumb up in an exaggerated version of an umpire's "you're out!" sign.
	Mungo leaned back in casual defiance.
	Richard nodded towards the kitchen. Chas Blat was rounding the corner, his massive bulk jiggling in remembrance of calories past. Chas's white marble scars, aglow under the fluorescent lighting, made the scars of Frankenstein's monster look like cosmetic surgery.
	The Rat, about to slurp another swig of beer, dropped the bottle as if it had been shot out of his hand.
	"When did he get out of prison?"
	"Do you expect to be moving along now," Richard said, "or would you both like to wake up with your asses sewn to your faces?"
	"If your goon touches me," The Rat said, "I'll take you to court and take every cent you have."
	Richard laughed. "You can reach into my pockets and do that."
	The Rat blinked rapidly. Twice. As if sand had blown in his face. "Then," he said in a voice too shaky to have conviction, "then I'll call the police."
	Richard leaned forward. "If there is anything you'd like to tell the police, I suggest you jot it down now, before Chas hits you."
	Chas was fifteen feet away and closing. Mungo and The Rat vacated the booth in all haste.
* * *
	Lester swaggered across the dance floor with his fox fur coat draped over his arm as the fourth set started.
	Since the crowd's mood grew somber as the evening wore on, much of our fourth set was blues. Richard played melodies that sounded like somebody crying. Ann interlaced the melodies with slow, sad sax riffs, and Bill picked his bass, wincing as though tearing each note from his chest.
	Near the end of the set, Ann drifted across the stage. Her effect on men in the audience was unanimous: heads moved in a synchronized turn that would've made a chorus line proud.
	"Let me introduce the band," she said low into the mike. "On keyboards, the owner of the Lobster--Richard Tipton."
	Richard jumped into his B. B. King-gone-mad finale, tearing through blues riffs on three banks of synths. The crowd cheered.
	"On drums--Dudley Mack."
	Dudley began his solo, playing the snare slightly ahead of the bass drum for a driving beat. He twirled his sticks in the air and: BOMP chaka chaka chaka BOMP!
	"On bass guitar--Bill Baker."
	My brother stepped into the spotlight, his mane of golden hair rippling as he jammed into a viciously crisp bass solo.
	"Rhythm guitar--Clark Baker."
	While Bill flew the Cobra, raining leaflets over the audience, I improvised. As I hit my final lick, Bill deftly landed the Cobra at my feet.
	I went to the microphone and introduced Ann. She stepped forward and started a melody. As she played, a murmur swept through the room in a rising wave. Moving toward the stage was a beefy, purple-haired young man, his face blood-red with anger. Behind Purple Hair, pushing him forward, were two equally angry young men. Crumpled in Purple Hair's right fist were the pamphlets I'd put by the door. As he pushed forward, the crowd parted in front of him, their voices stilled in anticipation of trouble. This must have been what Corky wanted to warn us about.
	When Purple Hair reached the stage, Bill went over to meet him--to push him back from the stage, I thought, but instead he helped him climb up. As Purple Hair brushed past me, one of the buttons on his jacket snagged my guitar strings and made a sound not unlike a chicken caught in a vacuum cleaner. He grabbed my mike from its stand.
	"The Bible tells us in Genesis 1:27 that God created man in His image!" Purple Hair proceeded to "shame" the audience with a rousing sermon that imitated budget television evangelism, getting boos and applause in equally frenzied parts.
	"Psalms 8:6 tells us man has dominion over all other things. And in Hebrews 7:25, God told people to sacrifice animals for their sins."
	Animal-rights supporters, about half the audience, howled their protest. Applause burst from a dozen or so other people.
	Purple Hair shredded pamphlet after pamphlet, tossing the scraps high into the air, where they drifted down like confetti. As he preached and tore pamphlets, the applause grew as if the crowd thought turning against the band was part of the evening's entertainment. A steadily growing number targeted us with beer bottles, beer nuts, the baby Jesus from the nativity scene, and a leather Army boot. Within moments the Lobster looked like a terrorist training camp.
	A fight broke out in front of Bill and me. Hoover retreated, bumping blindly into a speaker before threading his way between two amps.
	There was some poetry in the melee: one man was thrown clear across the room, spinning and staggering and flailing with his arms, while three men dove swanlike out of the way.
	Chas came striding around the corner, his heavy head moving like a wrecker's ball. When Purple Hair saw him, he vaulted down from center stage. Too late. Chas collared him, then dragged him wrenching and squirming toward the door.
	The crowd kept pressing in on us.
	Dudley jumped up from his stool, tapped loudly on his boom mike, and pointed at Purple Hair. "There, ladies and gentlemen, goes the president of Fluke's fan club." Most of the crowd turned to look. Some laughed. The intervals between the sounds of bottles and glasses exploding around us lengthened, like popcorn almost finished popping. "Our Pres just wants to keep us from getting too big for our britches. He's afraid if we get famous, he'll get famous too, and someone will publish those nude photos of him." Dudley laughed his infectious laugh and the crowd laughed, shattering the hostility of the moment.
	Before the crowd could work its fury back up, Richard spread timbres across octaves, building an enormous layered crescendo. Instead of pressing forward, the crowd swayed with the music, back and forth, like sea plants at the bottom of the ocean.
* * *
	Backstage, Dudley took two dripping cans of Diet Coke from the bed of ice in the cooler and tossed one underhanded to Bill.
	"Thanks."
	"You're welcome. Now I'm going to kill you." Dudley formed a gun with his hand and pantomimed blowing Bill away. "What were you thinking when you helped that kid up onto the stage?"
	"Hey. I'm awfully sorry." Bill broke off the pop-top and poised it in midair, like a knife. "Here, I'll slash my wrists."
	"Let me say this as politely as I can. What diseased germ invaded your brain?" Dudley began rubbing his right temple with his fingertips.
	"What's the rude version, you kick me as you say it?"
	"Listen, just try to remember that people who interrupt our gigs with our pamphlets crumpled probably aren't looking for autographs."
	Bill threw the pop-top into the trashcan as if it were something he should have done yesterday.
	"It doesn't matter what that kid said tonight. He's been a regular fan; you should've recognized him. You're not thinking straight because Corky showed up."
	Cheap shot. Had I been refereeing this argument instead of sitting in the stands, I'd have blown a whistle, flag on the play. I looked down at Hoover, who had his mouth clamped shut, a sign of worry. He worries when his people seem upset.
	Dudley groaned. "You're weirder than the things I get free with my breakfast cereal."
	Bill walked away. Dudley began talking to a quart-size food blender balanced on an overturned metal pail next to the doorway.
	"Bill's barking mad." Dudley was leaning over, eye-to-multifaceted-eye with a tarantula, Smuffkins. Smuffy was my pet and she traveled everywhere with us. Her traveling home, a broken fourteen-speed food processor, had a sign below the power switch: AND YOU THINK THERE'S STRESS IN YOUR LIFE.
	"Don't take it personally," I answered for Smuffy. "It's been a rough month for us all and Bill's high-strung anyway. We ought to be sympathetic."
	Dudley was still facing Smuffy. "It's just that sometimes his attitude . . ."
	"I know."
	Despite being a man who rarely did anything unkind, Bill gave the impression of being capable of any enormity. His mind was always going a mile a minute and when he started talking he sounded like a clock with a spring wound too tight--at any moment he might start ringing frantically and hop off the shelf.
	Dudley turned to face me. "He needs an analyst or a psychiatrist or a good spanking, which I'm about to give him."
	Corky burst in. "Clark--" Seeing Dudley, she stopped short.
	Dudley grinned. "How's our baby?"
	Corky considered him quizzically.
	"Oh no--" Dudley said. "I'm sorry, it wasn't you."
	"If I have a baby, somebody had better tell Jesus he has a little brother."
	Corky, like me, uses humor as a shield. Unlike our own brother, Dudley accepts this fact.
	Bill still hopes Corky and I will one day drop our shields and get in touch with our humanness, become complete human beings. To this effect, he suggests we study the Bible.
	I stopped believing in God when I read that He told man that he could sacrifice animals for his use. It seemed to me that anybody so insensitive to other species could be only a human being in disguise.
	I explained to Bill my theory that man invented God to justify his own self-obsession as a species, his unfounded claim that he is of more value than other creatures. Bill said my having such a theory was sure proof that Satan had sent a demon to infest my soul.
	"You were right about trouble," I told Corky. "How'd you know about that kid?"
	She shook her head. "I didn't."
	"You didn't . . . why didn't you wait for me at the bar?"
	"The father of one of my students recognized me and asked me to dance. Nice guy, but drunk. Out of character. So I excused myself and went to the pay phone to call A.L.F. members and warn them."
	"About what?"
	"Trouble. Remember the last van that pulled away from the Terrig Lab? Kristin told the driver to leave without her, that someone else was going to pick her up. She smuggled in a can of gasoline and, after everyone else was gone, turned off the fire alarms and set fire to the equipment."
	Good for Kristin, taking initiative like that. Now Terrig couldn't simply replace the dogs.
	"Who picked her up?"
	Corky pushed away her hair, revealing a tear. "Nobody, Clark. That's what I'm trying to tell you . . . Kristin died in the fire."
	My intestines lurched. I slammed my fist into Alice Cooper's face and cracked the wall-plaster underneath.
	"Damn that Terrig. He taunted the protesters!"
	"I talked with Kristin's mother, told her I was a friend of Kristin's and how sorry I was." Corky's voice was getting hoarse. "Her father grabbed the phone and started pumping me for information about the animal-rights cult that had brainwashed his daughter."
	I was staring at the floor, hardly hearing her.
	"Kristin's father--Clark?--Kristin's father might use his clout to get back at animal-rights organizations."
	"Clout?"
	"Her father is Beezil Terrig."
	I slid down the wall and sat on the floor. I don't know why I was surprised she'd set fire to her own father's lab--a lot of people become animal-rights activists precisely because they know what goes on behind lab doors. Like Corky and me.
	I shivered. I noticed my jacket was open and snapped it shut. I wasn't surprised when that didn't stop my shivering.


SIX

	"On in ten."
	I was sitting on the stage, immersed in sad thoughts, and watching the crowd's Brownian movement. Bill hustled up, stood close to me, but kept raking his eyes over the crowd.
	"Somebody's going to kill Richard tonight."
	"Beezil Terrig?"
	"Don't know. I heard it on the soundcheck system." That didn't help much. We had six wireless microphones placed around the lounge to help us balance sound levels.
	"Which channel?"
	"Couldn't tell. When I looked over, it was scanning again."
	"Recognize the voice?"
	"Cold. It would fit the guy with the granite face. Second row."
	Following Bill's eyes, I saw Granite nervously twisting his shoulders, as if something were crawling down his back.
	I could warn Richard, but Bill was probably wrong. He was pessimistic; while some people saw the glass as half full, he saw it as empty and cracked.
	"What should we do?" I said.
	"If we play our wireless guitars, we can stay between Richard and Granite. But the voice I heard was talking to someone else. Watch for anyone pointing any--"
	Bill's eyes had locked onto something moving behind me. I turned.
	Dudley always moved like a dancer, smoothly, as though he heard music.
	"Stay loose," he said. "So far our performance isn't one for the books, but at least it's a concert and not a political rally, a soccer game, or a seminar on aluminum siding. We still can hit our stride in the last set."
	Dudley assumed we were suffering from our usual state of mind before going on, performance anxiety, which he never fully understood because he had talent. I suspect he could get some sort of music out of a ripe kumquat, even if he'd never played one before.
	He patted our shoulders. "On in one."
	Bill and I trailed close behind him, like baby ducks, to the dressing room, where we caught Ann eating Cracker Jacks. With a guilty expression she closed the box.
	Richard came in and looked at his watch.
	"Let's go."
 	He was so eager to lead us onstage that, although he ordinarily stepped aside for everybody, this time he commandeered a charge through the stage wings. Bill marched next to him, unnaturally close. I lagged behind to give Hoover a drink of water. If there was danger, I didn't want him onstage.
	"Stay."
	Hoover went rigid, arching his back and thrusting his head down and forward. I closed the door, inhaled deeply to calm myself, cut between two telephone-booth-sized amplifiers, and, not counting the cymbals I bumped into, slipped silently to my microphone.
	I ran through my checklist: Synthesizers on? Check. Amplifiers on? Check. Escape route visible? Check. All was in order.
	The curtains opened and a rush of warm air from the lounge carried the smell of damp woolen coats. While I adjusted the height of my microphone, Bill, standing to my right, inched his mike forward, parallel with mine, so we could communicate with head nods.
	I grabbed my guitar off its stand and strapped it on. A snappy up-tempo brush pattern kicked off the song "Slaves" by Fetchin' Bones. Gripping my pick, I stabbed nervously at the strings. Now and then I hit one.
		Slaves of the twentieth century
		Of science, fashion, industry, and gourmet
		Lab cats, lab rats, in pain they squeal
		What do you think a monkey feels
		When his brain is split by cold hard steel?
		No tears shampoo, so gentle and kind
		A million rabbits, each one blind.
		Who draws the line
		Between slaves and you and me?
	Richard moved around the stage, playing different keyboards, changing MIDI settings, adjusting amplifiers. Granite paced around the lounge, from the bar to his table to the men's room, and back, the angle between him and Richard continually changing. Trying to stay between them, Bill and I shuffled around and kept bumping into each other. Twice, when Granite reached into his pockets, Bill and I leapt to occupy the exact same spot. This is not easily accomplished, not in this physical universe, but we almost made it.
	Finally, Ann tapped her microphone, signaling the last song of the set.
	"On bass--Bill Baker."
	Bill, concentrating on staying between Richard and Granite, played in a spacey, faraway style that Van Gogh might have arranged if he'd poked out his eye instead of dicing off his ear. Bill's was a brief solo, or so it seemed to me. I was next. If Granite was planning to kill Richard tonight he'd have to make his move soon.
	Usually when I play my solo I stand in one spot. This time I had to move in front of Richard. After my introduction, I stepped to the front of the stage, leaped three feet in the air and came down in an unchecked split, pulling screaming harmonics off the top of the guitar neck to mask my own screams of pain. Then I rose to my feet, twirling and wailing. Really wailing.
	After I finished my solo, I stepped gingerly past Ann as she came forward to her microphone.
	"On keyboards, the owner of the Lobster, Richard Tipton."
	I jerked my head around to fix Richard's location. Oh no--he'd strapped on his portable keyboard. With a smooth stride he stepped all the way to the front of the stage.
	Bill turned to me, blue eyes large. We both kept playing, but the sentiment "Oh, shit" came clearly through our guitars.
	Richard laid a trumpet across his sound-sampling keyboard, overlaid a distorted guitar, and when he improvised fragments of random melody with his fingers, out came a riff that sounded like Miles Davis playing Jimi Hendrix.
	Granite watched us with a bovine passivity. Maybe he was planning the attack for later, outside. Or maybe he was the wrong guy.
	When Richard finished, Ann glided to the front of the stage.
	"Thank you for coming to see us, and--" she held up the Army boot that had landed onstage "-- thank you for all the lovely gifts. You've been a great audience." She looked at me.
	"Remember," I said, "when you eat meat, there's more love in your belly than in your heart."
	"On your way out," Ann said, brandishing scraps of paper, "Please take our pamphlet."
	Bill waved. "Godspeed." The crowd started to disperse.
	"If you support animal-rights," Dudley smiled, "I hope you'll get all your friends involved. If you don't support animal-rights, I hope you don't have any friends."
	The jukebox blared back on. Richard headed for his office. Chas, running his finger over the scar on his cheek, followed right behind Richard.
	As the bar emptied, I caught glimpses of Granite sitting at a table, drinking, watching the crowd as though he were looking for someone. I began untangling cables, one eye on him. At certain angles the dim lighting illuminated his face such that I felt I knew him--and the context in which I knew him was disturbing.
	He lifted his glass and, as if unwilling to admit it was empty, turned it upward until he was looking through the bottom of it like a telescope. Then he put it down, stood, bundled himself in his coat, and walked away without leaving a tip.
	Bill popped up in front of me.
	"I'll stick with Richard. You follow Granite."
	Granite was walking behind one of the last couples to leave, a charming blue-haired duo, wearing matching T-shirts decorated with razor blades. As Granite neared the exit, Ann was heading in my direction.
	"I'm on the case." I slipped down from the stage.
	Ann angled in front of me, her hand cupping the ends of her hair and squeezing as if testing its springiness.
	"Want to get something to eat. . . ."
	"Yes, uh." I stepped around her. "Be right back."
	Granite was outside now. I stopped just inside the door, near the pillaged nativity scene, and peered out at the parking lot. When I pushed the door open a wet blast of snow hit me in the face like a slap. Turning away, I found myself nose to nose with Ann.
	I looked back at the parking lot and Ann looked with me, her head beneath my head like a totem pole.
	Granite stopped beside a fancy wine-colored car, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a cell phone. Ann started to say something. I put my finger to my lips.
	Granite faced us, hunched over, shielding the phone's mouthpiece from the wind. I couldn't hear what he was saying. Nor could I move closer--no cover, our van was the only other vehicle in the parking lot.
	I strained to hear. For a split second the wind died, and I clearly heard Granite say, "Fluke is finished. History."
	Ann was right behind me as I charged across the parking lot, leaning forward into the wind that was slowing as well as silencing our attack.
	I hit Granite with a flying tackle. We slid over the icy pavement and into the rear tires of his car. My forehead bounced off the Y in the words GOODYEAR DOUBLE EAGLE. We both scrambled to our feet. Backing away from him, I stayed on my toes. As I moved, I measured Granite as I'd measured dozens of wrestling opponents. He seemed sluggish and my confidence duly built--until he threw a punch.
	We spent a while trying to hit each other. I favored one particular uppercut that never seemed to make contact with anything but air. He, on the other hand, threw some pretty snappy boxing combinations. When he jabbed with his left, I backed away on tiptoe to his right. When he swung with his right, I danced to his left. While I dazzled him with my footwork, he blinded me with his punches.
	Gaining confidence, he closed in, and accidentally stepped into one of my wild uppercuts. He doubled up and moaned. I held up my hand and stared at my knuckles, now pulsing with pain.
	Ann jumped on Granite's back. He reached around, trying to pull her off, spinning first one way, then twisting the other, like a dog chasing his tail.
	He finally stumbled. Before he regained balance, I wrestled him to the ground and pinned him facedown with his arms behind his back.
	Ann sat down on his legs. "What did he do to deserve this?"
	"Didn't tip the waitress."
	"Not funny," Granite said.
	"Everyone's a critic. Did Terrig hire you? Why have you been following Fluke?"
	When he didn't answer, I tried to reach into his trouser pockets to find a wallet. He bucked and nearly threw me off.
	I leaned on him harder. "Where have I seen you before?"
	"Er . . . how would I know?"
	"Guess, or I'll keep sitting here, being funny, until you plead for mercy."
	His eyes darted to a black object in the snow, then darted away. "That's better. See what happens when people communicate?" While straight-arming his head, I leaned over him, fished his cell phone out of the snow, and found my friend, the redial button.
	I'd learned a trick while married. Whenever I found my wife gone, I'd tap the redial button to determine if she'd been talking to her friends, as she'd claimed, or to someone I hadn't met. Before long I recognized a pattern. She lied when her calls had gone to a lawyer's office. But, although I knew where she was going, I never imagined the reason.
	I pushed RECALL, SEND, then waited. Two rings, then a pick-up.
	"Hello?"
	"Who's this?"
	"Who you looking for?"
	"You. We've captured your accomplice."
	He hung up. I poked Granite's shoulder.
	"Your partner coming?"
	Granite didn't answer. I tossed the phone into the nearest snow bank. With a renewed burst of energy he twisted and struggled. Evidently I'd needed to violate his personal property to convince him that I meant business.
	"Why do you want to kill Richard?"
	"Kill somebody? You're crazy!" He twisted violently, rocking me. I saw Bill standing in the entranceway of the Lobster and suddenly remembered his words: the threat to kill Richard had come from someone with a cold voice. Granite's voice was deep and warm. I had the wrong guy.
	Bill, yet unaware I was sitting on perhaps a completely innocent pillar of the community, slid up to us with a little snicker in his eye. Wanting him to hear Granite's voice, hoping I was wrong, I asked Granite: "Where's your accomplice?"
	His answer was drowned by a nerve shattering "Phooooommmm" from the Howling Lobster.
	Ann and I used Granite as a launch pad and rocketed past my stunned brother toward the noise. Its dying echo included splintering wood and cracking glass, followed by shouting from Richard's office.


SEVEN

	Richard's office was a long, rectangular room with high wooden rafters. Its Spartan furnishings consisted of a desk, a filing cabinet, a green plastic couch, animal-rights posters on the walls, and a rubber tree. At the base of the tree Chas was kneeling over Richard, on his back in a pool of blood. Richard's face was riddled with small scarlet spots, his white shirt soaked in red.
	I felt my heart in my chest as if it had just started pumping the moment before.
	The wall behind Richard was splintered around knee-high, and blood was splattered over the words on the poster: "I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. This is the way of a whole human being--Abraham Lincoln."
	Dudley ran in. "Oh God! I'll call an ambulance!"
	I sank to my knees beside Richard and put my ear to his face. He was breathing. At that moment, it was enough.
	Each breath he took seemed as if it might be his last, but after a grueling pause there would be another. Scarcely breathing myself, I pressed his shirt against his stomach, trying to stop the blood. He felt cold to the touch. Nausea rose in my throat and I swallowed hard to push it back down. My knees were wet with blood. Chas was motionless, tears pouring from his eyes.
	I used a cushion from the couch to raise Richard's hips; the bleeding slowed. I pulled the cover from the couch and spread it over him. I didn't know what else to do.
	Somewhere a siren wailed. Like a wolf answering a mating call, another joined in. Ann knelt beside us and took Richard's hand. I struggled to my feet and went outside.
	An ambulance slid to a halt in front of the Lobster and three paramedics jumped out. I led them to the office, then went back outside when I heard more sirens. Three patrol cars careened up, their lights casting electric red ribbons on the snowy pavement and across the faces of the gathering gawkers.
	Two officers cordoned off the sidewalk, one stayed to hold back the expanding crowd, others swarmed the area, digging around, flashlights slicing into the darkness around the building. Police radios buzzed and chattered in the background.
	As the crowd pushed forward, I retreated to the spot where I'd tackled Granite. Although he was gone, hiding deep in my mind was a clue to his identity.
	The paramedics carried Richard on a stretcher into the ambulance. I saw his face, eyes closed. I tried to find words to express my feelings and settled for the most primitive.
	"Noooo!"
	Ann came over and put her arms around me. She looked up at me. Her eyes were shimmering with unspilled tears.
	"He never hurt a fly," I said. I even watched him help one once.
* * *
	I dropped the rest of the band at the hospital's emergency-room entrance, parked, and told Hoover to stay in the van. He knew every nuance of my voice and backed away from the door immediately.
	Above the reception desk, metallic letters said "Paul Revere County Hospital." Thirty miles from home, this was where my father had begun his one-way trip to the final mystery beyond the grave.
	The receptionist looked at me, "My goodness, those are dreadful bruises on your face. Come here."
	I obeyed. Then I told her what I wanted and she directed me to the third floor.
	The familiar brain-numbing smell of hospital disinfectant pervaded the waiting room. Bill and Ann stood rigidly against the far wall. Dudley was slumped in a chair.
	"How is he?" I asked. Ann's freckled face, remarkably rich and intriguing, remained blank. I asked again, more softly. Her eyes sideswiped me. It wasn't the answer I wanted.
	Twenty minutes later three policemen arrived and separated us. My cop led me to an empty room and took off his jacket. His arms were a lot bigger than Hulk Hogan's but without any muscle tone whatsoever--they might not have even had bones. He pulled out a notebook and asked me what I knew. I told him about Granite, and the death threat that Bill had overheard.
	The cop feverishly scribbled notes and circled the words death threat. "That makes sense. I know people in Cavalry who hate Fluke even being here."
	Our mere presence? It made me feel like a cat turd at a dog show.
	"You're trying to cripple our town's biggest industry. You don't have a family to support, do you?"
	"Aren't you glad?"
	"Don't get smart with me."
	That'd be a waste of time. I looked at my shoes before he could call for thumbscrews.
	"Did you argue with Mr. Tipton, maybe over your percentage of the gate?" His eyes widened in accusation.
	I met his eyes without flinching, but was too startled to respond.
	"No need to answer. Fluke is somewhere near the center of this crime and we intend to solve it."
	As he grilled me, rephrasing the same questions, I started getting one of those dull headaches like the ones that squeeze behind my eyes whenever I think of my ex-wife. My answers didn't change, and he closed his notepad and left.
	When I got back to the waiting room the others were already there, their interviews over.
	"They tell you anything?" Ann asked me.
	"Only that they've narrowed down the suspects to anyone in Fluke."
	"I got the same spiel. It's typical. In law school my boyfriend studied cases like this." This was Ann talking. It was so rare she spoke of her past that Bill and Dudley looked twice to make sure of where the sound was coming from. "When a town wants a lynching, sometimes the law gets stretched before a neck does."
	An intern rushed past. I suddenly stopped worrying about anything but Richard. I plopped down next to Bill and quietly waited.
	Around four a.m., a surgeon in a blue gown came out of the OR and pulled off his mask and cap. We huddled around him.
	"Mr. Tipton is alive and stable. We've removed the shotgun pellets, sutured up the damage, and put him on IV antibiotics. He has a concussion from falling, but I didn't see a fracture. But the loss of blood, and the shock from the shooting has left him in a coma."
	Ann started crying. I felt the poisonous losses of the past working their way through my bloodstream.
	"What are the odds he'll come out of it?" Bill asked.
	"Good. Sometimes a coma is the body's way of conserving energy to facilitate healing."
	"Any permanent damage?" Bill asked.
	"We won't know until he comes out of the coma. Go home and get some sleep. You look exhausted. I don't need any more patients."


EIGHT

	I woke up at nine, went to the refrigerator and selected an Eskimo Cheese Whip; depression doesn't want wholesome, it wants sugar and fat. I called the hospital--no change, stable but still unconscious.
	Mustering what was left of my mental agility, I got the mail--a postcard from my dentist, a polite man who always asks how I've been, reminding me that I haven't accomplished anything in half a year. The most I could point to was a series of failed attempts at advanced education, a Fluke CD still not finished, and a few trial memberships at health clubs.
	I settled onto the couch in front of the TV. I'd moved back home with my brother four years ago, just after Mom died, one year after my wife left me, and thirteen years after Dad died. Our home was just outside Celtic City, in the middle of a large tract of three bedroom homes, but clearly distinguished from neighboring homes in that it had a completely different house number.
	When I was ten years old, Bill nine, and Corky twelve, our cocker spaniel puppy Kirby ran out into the street. All I could do was shout "No!" and watch as Dad swerved into a utility pole. Car shrapnel hit Kirby.
	A vet put Kirby to sleep so he wouldn't suffer. Dad wasn't so lucky. For two weeks the doctors tried to bring his pain under control.
	"Son," he choked out one day during visiting hours, "I need rest. Okay?"
	"Sure, Dad." But I couldn't leave. Couldn't say good-bye.
	His eyes widened and his hand went slack. A tear formed in his eye. Whether because he'd asked me to leave and I hadn't, or because of his physical condition, I never was certain. He slipped into unconsciousness.
	Back home, in bed, staring at the opposite wall, I cried, though not for long. Exhaustion dropped me into oblivion. The phone call pulled me out.
	Dad had died.
	At that moment, time stopped. Jimmy Carter was President, The Official Preppie Handbook was the rage, the question "Who shot J.R.?" had the nation guessing, Mount St. Helens and the Moral Majority were spouting off, and bumper stickers said things like Historians Are a Thing of the Past.
	That night I listened to Mama crying to herself in her room, and I cried along with her in mine.
	Over the next few years I mostly stayed inside and watched television. Sometimes Mom sat with me, but I could tell she wasn't really interested in the shows. She'd always try to strike up a conversation, first talking about nothing in particular, then asking why I didn't go out and play, and could she do anything to help me in any way.
	She couldn't. I'd developed a belief in emotional distance, distance maintained by joking my way through each day, as if life were a sitcom.
	Now, Eskimo Cheese Whip in hand, I watched a talk-show host and his audience debating sex-change operations with an intensity that suggested almost everyone might have one.
	A commercial came on: a woman washing her hair, hinting your own hair would fall out by the handful if you didn't use Laurel shampoo. It reminded me that Laurel used the Draize Eye Irritancy Test, a national standard since 1944. Cosmetic companies place thousands of rabbits in stocks to prevent them from clawing at their eyes to dislodge toxic substances. Rabbits have no tear ducts and cannot make tears. With only their heads protruding, the lower lid of each rabbit's eye is pulled away from the eyeball to form a small cup. Into that cup a lab worker drops drain cleaner and other harsh chemicals to be tested as the rabbit squirms to break free. The eye is held closed. The rabbits, who vocalize only when in unbearable pain, scream.
	I started flipping channels.
	I stopped when I saw a reporter standing in front of the charred remains of the Terrig Test Lab interviewing Beezil Terrig and his wife Margo. Beezil had tiny black eyes and the slick sloping forehead of a killer whale. His wife was sobbing into a handkerchief.
	"--to my knowledge," Beezil was saying, "our testing was in compliance with all regulations regarding lab animals."
	"Your daughter was an animal-rights activist. Why did she burn down your laboratory?"
	"Kristin didn't fall for that animal-rights propaganda. We raised her to be smarter than that."
	"But our sources say--"
	"Your sources are wrong. Besides, animals aren't even the issue, jobs are. Why don't you report the good side of what we do? We perform research for the benefit of all mankind."
	Shaving lotion scented like urinal cakes is a giant leap for mankind?
	"Your daughter must have believed otherwise."
	"Listen! Kristin wasn't a fanatic about animals."
	"Then perhaps she was trying to get even with you."
	"What the hell for? Listen, you've got a lot of nerve."
	"Something you did to her. A family problem?"
	Beezil seemed taken aback by a question insinuating a dark side to his personal life. He cleared his throat. "No family problem. If Kristin ever supported animal-rights, she was led astray."
	"By whom, Mr. Terrig?"
	"I don't know. But I will find out." His nostrils flared into the camera and I felt as though he were looking directly at me.
	"Do you feel responsible for her death?"
	Beezil's head dropped. His wife stepped forward.
	"We haven't been close to her for several years."
	I leaned back. Kristin's parents had no idea how she felt. Maybe she'd never had a chance to tell them, or maybe they hadn't listened, but I knew she'd want them to understand her passion.
	Hoover snorted, shook himself, padded over to me, and lay down. I brushed him as I waited for the Terrigs to return home. After an hour, I called, not sure if I was calling for Kristin or spoiling for a fight.
	"Mrs. Terrig, I was a friend of Kristin's, and I'm very sorry about what happened."
	"Thank you. It's a difficult time for us."
	"I saw you on television, and if you'll allow me, I'd like to share with you the details of what Kristin believed in. It was an important part of who she was."
	"Please excuse me for a moment."
	I heard Beezil's angry voice in the background. I caught "animal-rights puke" and "hunting trip" before she picked the phone back up.
	"We want to meet with you. There's a lot that doesn't make sense to us, but my husband will be busy for several days. We'd like to invite you to our home."
	"Could we set a firm time?"
	"Thursday, say at seven?"
	"Thank you."
* * *
	At dusk, for the first time in hours, my face didn't hurt so much. That was something to be glad about as Bill worked the Ford van through light traffic in Tory Town while baring his firespewing soul about Richard getting shot. When he ran out of words, he slammed his fist against the steering wheel. The glove compartment burst open and a stack of road maps slid against Hoover's legs. This derailed his anger. I arranged the maps in a neat pile and put them back.
	Hoover's nose was pushed into the inch of open window I'd cracked for him. He relied on me to describe the sights.
	"To our right, all along Constitution Avenue, Christmas lights are blinking off and on. Benches, awnings, telephone booths--everything is decorated with fringes of icicles reflecting the lights."
	I didn't tell him the colorful lights couldn't hide the shabbiness of the storefronts, that the streets were infested with pushers, hookers, and reporters, each making a living off the others, or that you could walk ten blocks in any direction without leaving the scene of a crime.
	As Bill turned a corner I said, "Has Ann ever mentioned having a boyfriend?"
	"I'm not sure she's ever talked with anyone, even Corky, about anything personal."
	"No one comes to gigs with her."
	"Maybe she's just too busy to have a personal life. I hear it's overrated anyway."
	"She spends a lot of time on child-abuse cases."
	"There might be a personal reason for that."
	"You think?"
	"Sure. Wouldn't it be logical--if she was an abused child or something."
	My stomach lurched as if Bill had shifted from fourth to reverse accidentally.
	"She's never said anything like that."
	"Yeah, well, it's not something likely to be real easy to talk about. You know, some psychologists say people who are crazy about animals often are that way because their fellow humans have hurt them badly."
	I believed that.
	"Why are you asking, anyway?"
	"Just wondering."
	"You never 'just wondered' anything in your life."
	"I think she likes me."
	"No offense, Clark, but hasn't she noticed the TV Guide in your back pocket?"
	The hidden truth in the remark stung.
	"What brought this on?"
	"I picked up some blips on my radar screen."
	"Such as?"
	"She's trying to stop me from eating too much. Seems to want to understand my idiosyncrasies."
	"I guess anything is possible," he said, then muttered to himself about there being no accounting for taste.
	He parked the van, we locked up, then crossed an icy parking lot to Chez Beagle. Although it looked like a place where you'd rent a donkey, Bill had been eating here over a decade and introduced me to the place after I got Hoover. The food came out of a microwave, but the owner was French and, as in many restaurants in France, dogs were welcome.
	When we walked in, dogs shifted restlessly, their tags jingling like sleigh bells. Hoover followed us to our table, which sat, give or take a little, just inside the men's room. I picked up a copy of the local tabloid newspaper, the Beacon Hill Examiner from a nearby table. It would be better, on the whole, than thinking.
	Across from us, nursing a bowl of soup, an old man sat in a wrinkled gray suit. On the floor beside him stretched a scruffy bundle of bones lightly sprinkled with brown fur. A tuft of beige fuzz stood up on his head and gave Bones the look of something drawn by Dr. Seuss. Bones slowly chewed on a hard dinner roll while eyeing Hoover.
	After the waitress took our orders, I unfolded the Examiner. The headline exploded in front of me: DAUGHTER DIES IN TERRIG FIRE.
	My misgivings grew when I noticed Slim Twitchle's byline over the story. While psychologists say you are your own worst critic, in Fluke's case it's always been Slim Twitchle. He reviewed us often, and seemed to take genuine pleasure in tearing us apart. When he referred to our "songs," the quotation marks around "songs" functioned much like the jaws of a Pooper Scooper.
	According to Cavalry's Fire Chief, someone had cut open a gas line to a hydrogen furnace, splashed gasoline around the lab and set it on fire. Kristin died when the hydrogen exploded.
	At least it must have been quick.
	Beezil Terrig disputed the fire chief's explanation, claiming the gas line had burst and ignited on its own, and that he intended to sue the manufacturer.
	Well, well. Is Beezil protecting Kristin? Hiding the fact his lab was the target of animal-rights activists? Or trying to make a buck off the manufacturer?
	The medical examiner was calling the death accidental. Slim pointed out that a "friend of the victim" had told him that Kristin had been acting on orders from the Animal Liberation Front, connected with the local rock band Fluke. But Beezil Terrig denied that his daughter was ever part of any "animal-rights cult."
	"Know anything about Kristin's personal life? Her friends?"
	"No," Bill said, unsnaggling the tines of his fork. "Why?"
	"Someone told Slim Twitchle that Kristin was killed while working with the A.L.F. and Fluke."
	Bill looked as if someone had just crapped inside his Pope John Paul lunch box. "An inside leak would destroy the A.L.F." Bill stopped talking as a waitress passed. "We have to plug it."
	I tossed the newspaper onto the seat next to me. "I do believe I'd like to jump down this Slim Twitchle's throat, grab his toes, pull him inside out, and make him swallow himself." Of course, as I had no idea what Slim looked like, it was only an assumption that this hadn't already been done.
	"How can we learn more about Kristin if her parents are our only connection?"
	I told Bill about Mr. Terrig's upcoming hunting trip.
	Bill looked at the tines of his fork, now parallel. He brightened. "That gives me a long shot to seal the leak. If any of the hunting group just bought their license, I can get their name off the register at the local gun shop. I'll say I'm new in town and ask if I can join them."
	If anyone could pull it off, my brother could. He was an accomplished member of the Hunt Saboteurs Association. With his hair under a cap, he did a convincing Redneck impersonation, spouting knowledge of Big Time Wrestling and the attributes of the county's best trucking institutes. He even has a Christmas card in his wallet from Red-Man chewing tobacco.
	"What do you have in mind?" I asked.
	"Maybe a few wisecracks during the hunt about those commie animal-rights activists. Whatever might get Terrig shooting his mouth off if he knows anything."
	"You're not afraid he'll recognize you?"
	"What, you think he's a fan of ours?"
	"No. But Kristin might have had some pictures of Fluke. Beezil could've found them. . . ."
	The waitress slid two peanut butter sandwiches in front of us, along with Beagle's special preserves (made fresh each day by pouring jam from a can into a fancy jar) and two cups of coffee.
	I was sipping mine, which tasted like something you'd sit in to remove a tattoo, when the door burst open and smashed into a plastic four-foot-high Santa holding a Styrofoam candy cane, bouncing him off the wall. To the barking of a dozen dogs, Lester Gillis, Mungo, and The Rat trampled over Santa Claus as if storming a fortress.
	"Don't show any fear," I told Bill. "Try to appear larger than you really are."
	Under the table, Hoover growled low in his throat and tensed. I slipped my hand underneath his collar.
	The three felons circled us. Mungo moved behind me. Looking up at him I experienced a dizzying sensation as if passing the Statue of Liberty in a rowboat. With one hand on either side of me, he leaned on the table. It sagged. Inside my stomach, half of a peanut butter sandwich did a slow somersault.
	The Rat wore a buckskin cowboy jacket and boots with spurs. Before sitting down he took an apple from a bowl on the counter and started peeling it with a knife considerably larger than necessary for the job. Lester sat at the end of our table, snatched the rest of my sandwich, and swallowed it with a sound like a plumber unstopping a toilet.
	"First you play your crap at the Lobster, then you steal my customers, and now you brainwash them into screwing with research you're too dumb to understand." His eyes dared me to contradict him.
	I did. Perhaps because I was hungry and he ate my sandwich. I raised my voice. "Those animals suffer every day! You want us to sit back and do nothing when there are cruelty free ways of testing products? What about computer simulations? What about cell-culture systems? Don't you tell me I'm too dumb to understand."
	He burped. "Who gives a shit."
	"What a great philosophy: don't care about things that can't hurt you. Animals get tortured? Can't hurt you. But you know what can hurt you? Your attitude can come back and bite you in the ass. When kids are raised with no compassion, why shouldn't they gun you down as they drive by? Believe me there is a correlation, so wise up. Try reading. It's amazing how sophisticated pop-up books have become."
	I looked hard at him, impressed with my courage but appalled by my judgment. It would have been smarter to have offered him a hammer, nails, and a cross, then put my feet together.
	Bones stopped chewing his dinner roll and cocked his head as if thinking over what I'd said. Lester didn't bother to.
	"Just because I don't shovel it as fast as you do, doesn't mean you're right."
	Mungo dope-slapped the back of my head. "Message for you, Baby Cakes. Keep your mouth shut about whatever you imagined you saw in Terrig's lab, and keep your jerkwads away from there unless you want the world to know who's in the A.L.F."
	Lester was smiling. "People like Ann Berlin and Corky Baker."
	I would have staggered, but I was sitting.
	I turned to Bill, whose demeanor was rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, had just caught the Amtrak in the small of the back.
	"A.L.F. members don't use their real names," I said.
	Mungo rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. "Bullshit, Baby Cakes."
	That's a nickname I sure hope doesn't stick.
	Lester made a slight upward gesture with his hand and all three felons rose.
	As they headed for the door, Bones growled softly. Without breaking stride, Lester kicked him in the head with a sickening thud that sent the dog yelping under his master's chair.
	I've learned to live with many of my mistakes--a campaign contribution to Bob Packwood, buying my wife a Dirt Devil for Valentines--but I felt guilty about making Lester mad enough to kick that poor old dog. Bones had abandoned his dinner roll and now seemed afraid of it.
	If Lester comes back, I'll stuff that roll so far up his butt that the Donner Party wouldn't reach it on a three day hike.
	When my legs were steady, I pushed myself into a standing position, put money on the table, helped Santa to his feet, and went outside into the chilly night, where the clash of Renaissance armies was only sleet beating on the aluminum awnings.
	"You know," Bill said, "you haven't heard the last of what happened back there."
	"You sound pretty certain."
	"I am. If you ever get married again, when the judge asks, 'Is there any reason these two shouldn't be married,' I'm going to say 'Does she know he's insane?' and tell them about this."
	The issue of my sanity sounded like dangerous territory, so I declared a personal moratorium on the subject and instead asked, "How did Lester know we were here?"
	"You think he's been tailing us?"
	"Unless someone at Beagle tipped him off."
	"Doubt that. Those people have been my good friends for a very long time."
	Lester may have unspeakable ways of persuading them, I thought.
	But my worried expression must have confused Bill, because he sounded defensive. "Clark, you're my best friend. You know that, don't you?"
	I looked from side to side like a dog who needed to be let out.
	"I love you," he said.
	Go on. Tell him you love him, too. I started to. I nearly did.


NINE

	Bill was in the kitchen taking shrink-wrap off three new bibles, Dudley was looking out the window, and Ann was talking about Richard winning the Cavalry city cleanup prize in 1993 and 1996. In her voice was a rising wistfulness at the sense of something good having come to an end. Tears formed in her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
	Corky hugged her. "Me, too. I've been locking myself in bathrooms and crying."
	"Sounds like a good name for a country music song," I said, but wished I hadn't. This was no time to joke. Dudley was looking out of the window at passing cars. Maybe thinking of throwing himself into the road.
	Bill handed me a bible--he gave them to people who needed "a good talking-to from the Lord." I had an impressive collection.
	After a long silence I spoke softly, telling them about my conversation with Mrs. Terrig.
	"We owe it to Kristin to tell them. And I know you caring folks will insist on joining me when I go over there."
	"Sorry," Bill said. "You're chafing your lips on the wrong butt."
	I glanced around the room at the others.
	Dudley brushed his hand through his thick black hair.
	"And what, exactly, aren't you telling us?"
	"Nothing much, really. A friend of Kristin's seems to have leaked the names of several A.L.F. members, and Beezil hired Lester Gillis to threaten us to keep quiet."
	Anger flowed out of Dudley like a tangible force.
	"Hell. I'll go with you then. In fact, I'll run over there right now and punch him in the mouth." Dudley punched at a folding metal chair. He barely touched it, but it buckled comically and crashed with a clatter.
	"When you're finished with the chair," I said, "I have a mixing board that's been giving me trouble."
	"Why resort to violence, Dudley?" Ann was serious. "You're smarter than Beezil is."
	"Oh, good. Then I'll dash right over and give him a pop quiz."
	"Kristin deserves having her parents understand what she believed in," Ann said. "I'll go with you, Clark."
	"That's nice," Bill said, "and I'm sure her dad will sincerely thank you both to a pulp."
	"We still have to find the leak," Dudley said.
	Corky headed for the door. "How about if I call each A.L.F. member and ask if they'll lead the Laurel mission. If anyone balks without a fast reason, we'll know to be suspicious."
	"What if they agree only so they can lead us into a trap?"
	"Good point. We'll change plans at the last minute to mess them up. Let's visit Richard."
	Outside, Hoover arfed and snapped at the snow like he knew he should be playing in it, but wasn't quite sure what to do. I wished I could teach him to frolic. When I said "Okay," he jumped into the van. I tucked him under a blanket, and with only his nose sticking out, he seemed at peace with the world.
	As Highway 1 threaded its way northeast between rolling hills, gusts of wind tried to push us into snow banks in the gully below. Corky sat next to me in the front and slid the Miles Davis CD we'd bought for Richard into the player. It choked me up a little, listening to what Richard liked.
	Dudley leaned forward and touched Corky's shoulder. "What'll it take to get you to go on a date?"
	"You got any friends?"
	Dudley started to laugh, but his breath caught short when he noticed a pair of ducks flying north, fighting the wind driven snow. "Loons are very rare in Massachusetts. Especially flying after sunset."
	Corky squinted in the direction of the birds.
	"Six pairs nest at the Quabbin reservoir," Dudley went on, "and four near the reservoir. Acid rain is threatening their habitat . . ." About five minutes into Dudley's monologue on the trials and tribulations of loons, Ann and Bill had dozed off, tilting against each other.
	The windshield wipers weren't coping well with the snow flying straight into the windshield like tracer bullets. I switched on the high beams, turning the snow into a white curtain. I switched back to low.
	Something in my rearview mirror broke through the haze. A car was gaining on us, fast. My speed had crept up to fifty. I slowed to forty, moved into the right lane and held steady.
	Instead of passing, the driver slowed down and paced us, staying in my blind spot.
	What's his problem? I increased my speed to fifty, back to forty. He did the same. Now I was worried.
	With patches of ice on the road, I was afraid to make a sudden move. The car, a white Celica, increased speed and drew even with me. Through murky darkness and two fogged windows I saw a tight-lipped grimace.
	He began moving ahead of me. Have I driven him to road rage?
	With that thought lodged in my head like a bullet, he started moving into my lane, forcing me off the road.
	I backed off the accelerator. He matched my speed and continued edging into me, so I gambled and pumped the brakes.
	The Celica swerved into us and its right rear bumper clipped the van. An agonizing cry of shredding metal was followed by a shattering of glass as the van's left headlight was pulverized.
	We shot toward the frozen ravine that ran parallel to the highway, nearly fifty feet below.
	I pulled hard to the left.
	The van began to tilt, and I corrected with a slight pull to the right and a tap on the brakes. The energy of the aborted rollover channeled itself into a slide. When I tried to correct, the van slithered like a wet bar of soap from one side of the highway to the other until we plunged over the shoulder.
	I was still fighting the wheel as we slued down an embankment. The front passenger door flew open. I clung to the steering wheel. Corky grappled with the dashboard and struggled to stay inside as objects hurled past her, out the door.
	So this is it, curtains. And the show was just getting interesting. On to the Afterlife. I'm sure I'll go to heaven, I've been dull enough.
	My head hit the steering wheel.


TEN

	Heaven was a snow bank and an ice-encrusted maple tree. Looking out the windshield I gazed up at a shimmering guitar, dangling like ripe fruit from a low branch.
	An angelic creature tugged at my arm.
	Corky. I shook my head to clear it, but I might as well have been trying to finish a jigsaw puzzle by shaking the box. Gripping my arm, Corky pulled herself upright, taking me back down to earth at the same time. Although still dizzy, I now understood that the guitar-bearing-tree was only some sort of prank, or perhaps an advertisement that (like most others) I did not understand.
	"You okay?" I asked, as a headache began to crack down the center of my forehead.
	"Next time, I drive," my sister said. "Not that I don't just love the inside of your glove compartment."
	I twisted around. Ann was rubbing her eyes.
	"What happened?"
	"Someone tried to kill us," Dudley said. "If Clark hadn't kept us on the road till we passed that ravine--"
	"You all right?" I asked Ann.
	"What about you?" She touched my forehead. "It's bleeding."
	"Who the hell was that?" Bill was looking out the windows. "Is he still around?"
	Corky climbed out into the blackness. I followed. Steam hissed from under the van, and a car sloshed by up on the road; no flashlight searched for us, no Celica lurked. Snow was blowing in on the rising wind, closing our footprints like dents in dough.
	A smothered whimper cleared my dizziness instantly.
	"Hoover!"
	I stumbled to the rear of the van. The doors hung open. Papers, boxes, and a spare tire littered the snow. I groped from one dark shape to another until I spotted him, facedown and motionless under a broken amplifier. I tossed it aside with a strength I'd never before had, unprepared to deal with the loss of another friend.
	His blood stained the snow. I thought I saw his rib cage move, but it could've just been the wind. I put my hand on his neck and could feel, weak and irregular, a heartbeat.
	His body convulsed.
	"Please Hoover, hold on."
	I fumbled in my pockets for the keys, then realized they would still be in the ignition. I forced myself to breathe, got seated and cranked the engine.
	Everyone strained, rocking the van, trying to loosen it from the trench it had carved in the snow.
	Bill shouted, "Hoover lifted his head."
	My shaking slowed. I cranked again. The engine turned over but didn't start.
	Corky stuck her head through an open window. "You and I can hitchhike to the last town we passed. The others can dig the van out. If they free the van before we get a ride, they can pick us up." She was taking charge. It felt right.
	When I approached Hoover, he tried to wag his tail.
	I took off my jacket, wrapped it around him, positioned my hand under his furry body and lifted him into the crook of my arm. Although he didn't resist me, he made a pained sound.
	"Easy." Cradling him tightly, I said, "Corky and I are hitchhiking to a vet."
	Dudley looked at the buried van.
	"Look for us in half-an-hour."
	Ann touched Corky's shoulder. "I know where Dr. Dean lives. I'll go."
	"Good," Corky said. "I'll help here. Watch for that car to return."
	I'd seen a white Toyota driving around near Terrig Corporation the night Kristin died. Maybe he hadn't been lost. Maybe Kristin's death wasn't an accident.
	Dudley came up behind me and wrapped his nylon jacket over my shoulders.
	"Thanks."
	Ann and I worked our way up the embankment. A ribbon of blood matted the fur by Hoover's nose. I tried not to jostle him. He turned a panting mouth and a confused expression up to me as if expecting me to stop the pain. I wished I could explain to him that not even a big dog like me could do that.
	We reached the shoulder of the highway and started walking. My wet clothes began to stiffen. Minutes passed. I hugged Hoover, who was getting colder and heavier.
	The sound of an engine cut through the swooshing wind. Ann turned and stuck out her thumb. I stroked Hoover's side but couldn't feel any warmth or movement. Is he alive? It was a prayer.
	A Cadillac Narcissus whuffed by without even slowing down. It nearly hit us. Its driver scowled like we'd been stationed on the side of the highway just to annoy him. Angered, I shouted in his wake, "May your hemorrhoids win prizes at county fairs!"
	The next car was moving slower, more deliberately. Ann put her thumb out again and the car slid to a stop just past us. Rusty and dented, it reminded me of the Dumpster behind Chez Beagle. Clutching Hoover's dead weight to my chest, I ran after Ann, who opened the rear door, jumped in, and held the door open for me.
	I handed Hoover to her, got in, then took him back. He stirred. He's alive. A warm glow flowed through me.
	The driver twisted and leaned over the seat. She was wearing what looked like a nightgown, but was apparently an evening gown. Sheer, black, with layers of ruffles down the front.
	"Hi. I'm Joy."
	Ann introduced us, and I thanked Joy as much as I could, short of saying I loved her, which might have been misconstrued.
	"You the accident back there?"
	"'Fraid so."
	She touched Hoover's shoulder.
	"Is he okay?"
	"We need to get him to a vet."
	"Hang on." Joy eased back onto the icy highway, punched the accelerator and we took off. The headlights made an empty tunnel into the darkness ahead of us. By the light of the occasional street lamp I saw blood trickling from Hoover's muzzle. I held him tightly.
	The dashboard clock said 8:45 when we hit downtown Plymouth, which was brightly lit but mostly empty, like a movie set. Ann told Joy the address. We were passing through a residential area when Joy suddenly turned into a driveway. "Here we are." She pointed to a modest wooden sign, ROBERT B. DEAN AND SON, VETERINARIANS. "Take care."
	"We will," Ann said. "Bye-bye. And thanks."
	As I slid out with Hoover, I smeared blood on the upholstery.
	"Sorry."
	"Get in there," she said, looking like one of those big-eyed, dark-haired children with the sad expressions you see painted on velvet. She gave me a little wave as she drove off. I waved back. Somehow it seemed sad that she would never know how anything turned out.
	Ann rang the front doorbell. The porch light came on, the door opened, and Dr. Dean stood before us in a faded tan bathrobe. Without saying a word he gently took Hoover and marched down a hallway. Ann and I followed him through a door at the end of the hall.
	He lay Hoover on an examining table. Ann held her hand out to me, and when I let my hand slip into hers, she pulled me gently away. Dr. Dean listened to Hoover's heart and lungs with a stethoscope, palpated his abdomen, and examined his wounds. Hoover lay stiffly on his side, as if paralyzed. The only signs he clung to life were his ragged breathing and faint whimpers.
	Dr. Dean went to a cabinet and took out a needle. I knew what that meant. I must have gasped because he glanced up. "It's only a painkiller. For now. The next several hours will be critical."
	Hoover remained stiff, tongue lolling, muscles tense. With agonizing slowness, Dr. Dean inserted the needle. Hoover didn't move, but as the plunger went down his muscles began to relax.
	I wouldn't let another loved one die without saying good-bye. I put my lips close to his ear.
	"Good-bye, Hoover."
	He lifted his head suspiciously. Was I finally going to betray him? his expression asked.
	"You're a good dog." I had trouble keeping my voice steady. "I love you very, very much."
	Hoover whined softly. He knew that. He knew some things very clearly. He knew Love. He knew Friend. But he didn't understand Good-bye. No pack animal does, not even for a minute.
	"See you when you wake up."
	Dr. Dean set down the needle and directed us into his kitchen. Ann sat on the edge of a chair, and I performed a caged-lion imitation.
	"When I was fifteen," she said, "my collie, Topper, got out of the back yard."
	I stopped pacing.
	"I combed the streets for days," she said. "Then a clerk at an animal shelter told me they'd gotten a collie but kept him only six hours. She described the collie and I was sure he was my Topper. But she wouldn't break regulations and tell me who took him--until I started crying. He'd been turned over to a laboratory for animal experimentation--only ten blocks away."
	Her eyes flickered as she seemed to look inward. "I ran all ten blocks to the lab. While I was screaming bloody murder at the receptionist, Topper began barking from behind a locked door. I pried the door open, but two security guards dragged me out.
	"I cried for weeks, certain it had been a terrible mistake. Years later I found out that pound-seizure laws force animal shelters to turn over lost cats and dogs to experimentation--more than 200,000 a year. So I joined the A.L.F. and went to law school to learn how to fight the bastards who make laws like that."
	Her hair sagged on her head, her head sagged on her shoulders. "Time has gone by so fast." She sat in a sort of limp, crumpled way, as if she'd been hurled onto her chair from a passing train. "So little has changed."
	Time had gotten away from both of us. I thought about what Dad had missed by dying in 1980. What would he have thought of personal computers, Rubik's Cube, Baby Fae, MTV, and Lake Wobegon?
	Pacing in front of the kitchen window, I stared out at the darkness. All those changes and nothing prepares you for how much it hurts when someone you love dies.


ELEVEN

	At 9:32 there was a sharp rap on Dr. Dean's front door.
	"I'll get it," I said. Then I remembered there was a man outside who'd recently attempted to turn me into road-kill. "Who is it?"
	"We're soliciting donations for the morally handicapped. We accept whips, chains, live chickens, or Mike Tyson Fan Club Cards!"
	"I've been waiting for you since puberty." I swung the door open.
	Dudley breezed in, followed by Bill and Corky.
	"Saw you pacing in front of the window," Dudley said. "Didn't you think we'd show?"
	"Too wired to sit."
	"How's Hoover?" Bill asked.
	"Alive. Doc's with him now."
	We gathered around the kitchen table. "How'd you get here so fast?"
	Bill told us of how Joy had gone back for them.
	Then Ann told of our bone-chilling hitchhike. I interjected one point with which she disagreed. "That Joy's a sweet girl," I said. "Maybe a bit naïve. A young girl driving alone at night should know better than to pick up hitchhikers."
	"I hate to be the one to take a flyswatter to your Tinker Bell," Ann said, "but that sweet girl is a prostitute who's had plenty of practice doing a quick read of strangers."
	This dazed me. "You really think so?"
	From the next room, Hoover let out a whine of pain that made me shudder. Too much good in the world seemed to be dying. Somewhere a clock ticked steadily.
	Nearly an hour later, Dr. Dean carried out Hoover, limp and lifeless. My heart sank.
	"Is he all right?" Ann asked.
	At the sound of Ann's voice, Hoover's limp tail jerked in a fair attempt at wagging. His face, though thinner and tired, lit up.
	Dr. Dean placed Hoover in Ann's outstretched arms. "Well, he's banged up pretty bad, a few cuts, probably cracked a rib or two, but there are no signs of organ damage."
	I laughed with relief.
	"It took fifty-eight stitches to stop the hemorrhaging." Dr. Dean took off a pair of thin rubber gloves and dropped them in a trashcan. "Blood loss was minimal. The cold weather probably saved his life. He'll need plenty of rest and clean bandages every day." He scratched Hoover's chin. Hoover licked his hand.
	I followed him to the surgery room where he handed me gauze, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and another of antibiotics, and the bill.
	Riding home in a taxi, I watched the landscape driven with snow as the wind whistled across untouched drifts. The stars were flickering through thinning clouds. I did my best to describe the view to Hoover.
* * *
	That night I lay awake in bed and listened to Hoover's soft breathing. When I closed my eyes I could see Beezil's killer-whale face. He would battle us with all the resources of the Terrig Corporation. A battle we couldn't avoid, yet a battle we couldn't win with a leak in the A.L.F. I stared at the ceiling, a Howard Jones' song running through my head.
	As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields
	As long as animals die in testing, we won't find humanity
	Don't be part of it, don't be part of the killing.
	The only part of me that slept at all that night was my right hand. And that was only because it was wrapped around a baseball bat so tightly that God Himself would've broken a few fingernails trying to get it away from me.
* * *
	Hoover nestled between Ann and the passenger window. His head drooped over the edge of the front seat, bangs falling over his eyes. The van had been dragged back up to the road, where, minus some chrome and glass, it ran just fine.
	When we arrived at Paul Revere Hospital, Dudley volunteered to stay in the van with Hoover.
	The afternoon sun shone on the pool around the statue of Paul Revere that graced the entrance to the hospital. The water in the pool was black, and a sign hanging around the neck of Paul Revere's horse read, "Danger. Pond contains antifreeze." Sparrows who couldn't read were preening their feathers and drinking, heads tilted back into the sun with each beakful of poison.
	Inside the hospital, thirty yards past the nurses' station, Bill, Ann, and I walked into a white, sterile room. Richard stared without recognition out of unblinking eyes. An IV dripped clear liquid into the vein in his arm. Ann's gaze fixed on the large purplish bruise on his forehead. She dabbed at a tear. I didn't cry, but my eyes itched.
	We listened to Richard breathe in, breathe out.
	I pulled a white plastic chair close beside him and took his right hand. He didn't stir. His fingers stayed limp, but at least they were warm.
	As I held his hand, my mind drifted back four years: The Lobster had been a typical nightclub, and Fluke a typical self-absorbed rock band, neither connected with the A.L.F. Although I'd gone along with Corky on A.L.F. missions, I had never discussed them with anyone else, even my brother. One night after the Lobster had closed, Richard came up to us as we were packing our equipment.
	"I'll donate fifty percent of the gate to the A.L.F., if you'll play two extra nights a week."
	Only Bill voted no, saying it would make it too hard to play weekends in New York, but he accepted the outcome.
	Later, I caught Richard in his office.
	"What made you decide to support the A.L.F.?"
	"I've always wondered what rationale people like Klansmen applied to draw a line around one group of beings and claim they had more innate worth than others. I was talking with your sister yesterday and suddenly saw that I, too, drew a line around a group of beings--human beings."
	"But you know that not every A.L.F. action is legal. Breaking the law isn't your style."
	"The A.L.F.'s actions are no different from those of abolitionists before the Civil War, when slavery laws and even the Supreme Court said owning humans was legal. In the end, who turned out to be morally right?"
	That was as philosophical a statement as I'd ever heard Richard utter.
	Now I was afraid I'd never hear another. Richard breathed in, and out.
	"Who shot you?" I wh