Monica could see that if she wanted to leave this woman behind, she'd have to fight her.

"OK," she said, opening the door.

"I'm going, too," said Matt, entering the foyer.

Monica looked back at him.

"It's my dad's car," he pointed out.

"Jesus," said Monica, heading out the door, with Anna and Matt behind her.

On the patio, Roger the dog pawed at the sliding-gla.s.s door and barked a couple of times. Sometimes when he did this, people came and let him in and gave him food. But this time, n.o.body was coming. Roger could hear noises in there. He pawed at the door a couple more times. Nothing. Roger sighed and went back over to resume growling at the Enemy Toad.

Eliot, after yelling at the police car that had missed him, only because he had jumped, by maybe three-eighths of an inch, stood on the sidewalk for a few seconds, bending over, hands on knees, trying to calm down. He was definitely going to file a complaint with the police department. This maniac comes out of the driveway backward, for G.o.d's sake! Knocking down the gate!

Eliot took a couple of deep breaths, collecting himself, then stepped over the smashed gate and started walking quickly up the driveway. He had almost reached the front door when it burst open and he was almost knocked over by a lady police officer, whom he recognized, after a second, as the one he'd met here the other night. She looked very agitated. She grabbed Eliot by the front of his T-shirt.

"Which way did they go?" she said.

"The police?" said Eliot. "Those idiots d.a.m.n near ... "

"Those aren't police," said Monica. "Those are robbers."

"What?" said Eliot. Then he saw Anna, looking even more agitated than Monica, and Matt, who had blood on his face and shirt.

"Matt!" he said. "Are you OK?"

"They got Jenny!" said Matt. "We gotta go after her!"

"They got Jenny?" said Eliot. "What are they ... "

"WHICH WAY DID THEY GO?" shouted Monica, shaking Eliot's T-shirt.

"That way," said Eliot, "straight down Garbanzo. We can follow them in my ... "

Monica, Matt, and Anna were already running for the Kia. Eliot caught up just in time to jump into the backseat with Anna. He was closing the door when somebody pulled it back open. It was Nina.

"Nina!" said Anna. "You shouldn't ... "

"You have to stay here," said Monica, starting the car. "Quedate!"

"No," said Nina, cramming in next to Eliot and slamming the door. She wasn't staying in this crazy house, especially not with Mr. Herk.

"Jesus," said Monica, mostly to herself, as she swung the Kia out of the driveway.

"Now what?" Snake asked Jenny. The police cruiser was headed north on Le Jeune Road.

"Just keep straight," said Jenny, her voice dull.

"Good girlie," said Snake. He stroked the back of her neck. She tried to pull away. He jerked her back close against him. His stink was strong in the closed car.

In the front seat, Eddie was gripping the wheel the way a drowning man grips a life preserver. His driving was erratic, but this was not unusual in Miami, a place where most motorists obeyed the traffic laws and customs of their individual countries of origin. Plus, Eddie was driving a police car, so even if he ran a red light-which he had already done, twice-n.o.body honked.

"Snake," he said, "there's gonna be a lotta people at the airport, and cops."

"So?" said Snake. He was not afraid of cops. He left cops handcuffed to entertainment units.

"So," said Eddie, trying to keep his voice calm, "we're inna cop car here, and case you forgot, we ain't no f.u.c.kin' cops. I'm thinkin', let's just pull over somewhere, leave the car, leave the girl, leave the guy in the trunk, take the money, and get the f.u.c.k outta here."

Snake sighed. "That's a loser talkin', Eddie," he said. "Don't you see what we done? We beat the bar a.s.sholes, we beat the cops, we beat the drug kingpin. We're winnin', Eddie. And we're gonna keep win-nin'." Snake could not believe he had wasted so much of his life ha.s.sling people for change. For f.u.c.king dimes. He was never going back to that. He was moving ahead, to the bright future that beckoned through the windshield, beyond the tightly clenched hands of his soon-to-be-ex-henchman.

Walter was so frustrated, he was about to tear his arm out of its socket. His partner was in a car chase. Involving armed robbers. This was something Walter had dreamed about ever since he'd gotten into police work, and he was handcuffed to an entertainment unit. With his own handcuffs!

Using the results of hundreds of grunting, sweating hours in the weight room, Walter gave a mighty yank on the entertainment unit, causing it to topple forward hard, its weight dragging both Walter and Arthur to their knees. The ma.s.sive unit crashed to the floor, the gla.s.s shelves smashing and the stereo components bouncing across the room. But the frame remained intact; the thick steel tubes were welded solidly together.

"What the f.u.c.k did you do that for?" shouted Arthur.

"I'm trying to break this thing," said Walter.

"Don't you wanna get outta here? Don't you wanna go help your family?"

Arthur said nothing. The truthful answer was no.

"s.h.i.t," said Walter, yanking at his handcuff again. To Arthur, he said, "We need a telephone."

"They ripped them all out of this part of the house," said Arthur.

"You got a phone in the bedroom?" asked Walter. "Down the hall?"

"Yeah," said Arthur, "but how're we gonna ... "

"Help me get this thing up," said Walter, struggling to lift the frame.

"We can't move this thing that far," said Arthur.

"We're gonna try," said Walter.

"You can't make me," said Arthur.

Walter shoved the frame hard sideways; it hit Arthur in the shoulder.

"OW!" said Arthur.

"You help me move this thing," said Walter, "or I'll shove you into that wall and crush you like a bug."

With great effort, most of it provided by Walter, they got the entertainment unit upright and began dragging and pushing it toward the hall, where Walter discovered that it was too tall for the hallway ceiling.

"s.h.i.t!" he said. "We hafta get outside."

"What?" said Arthur.

"We hafta get outside, yell for the neighbors," said Walter.

"Outside?" said Arthur. "Attached to this thing? Are you outta your f.u.c.king mind?"

But Walter wasn't listening. He looked toward the foyer; there was no way the entertainment unit would go through the front door. So how had they gotten it into the house in the first place? He looked toward the family room, and saw the answer.

"This way," he said, giving the entertainment unit a mighty and purposeful yank.

"You see anything?" asked Leonard. He and Henry were in the dense vegetation that started at the edge of the Herk patio.

"No," said Henry. "But I'm hearing plenty."

"Yeah," said Leonard. "Sounds like they're breakin' furniture in there. Either that, or rap music."

"Whatever it is," said Henry, "I'm about ready to ... Hey, look at that."

"Jesus," said Leonard, as the grunting, struggling figure of Walter Kramitz came into view, dragging the entertainment unit. "Is that a cop?"

"Miami PD," said Henry. "Big boy. What the h.e.l.l is he doing?"

"Looks like he's attached to some kind of ... I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.n," said Leonard, as Arthur came into view.

"There's our boy," said Henry. "Leads an interestin' life, don't he?"

They watched as the large, red-faced police officer dragged the even-larger entertainment unit, trailed by the reluctant Arthur Herk, relentlessly toward the very same sliding-gla.s.s door that Henry had shot a hole through just the other night. Somebody had put a piece of duct tape over the hole.

When they got to within a few feet of the door, Henry said, "I made a decision."

"Which is?" asked Leonard.

"Which is, I'm gonna take our boy out."

"Now?" asked Leonard. "While he's attached to a cop?"

"Yup," said Henry. "The cop can't do anything to us, cuffed to that thing. And I wanna get this job over with and get outta here. The longer we stay down here, the weirder it gets."

"You got that right," said Leonard. "This is Weirdsville f.u.c.kin' USA, this town."

"So we're gonna do this," said Henry, raising his rifle, "and then we're bookin' to the airport."

"Amen," said Leonard, flailing futilely at a mosquito. "Airport sounds real good to me."

Roger the dog was not sure what to do. On the one hand, he had the Enemy Toad to growl at. But he also had people coming toward him from inside the house, and they might have food. Plus, the other people, the ones he'd greeted earlier at the far end of the yard, had come closer. Roger recalled, somewhere in his primitive brain circuitry, that these people had tasted pretty good. Maybe he should check them out again! But what about the toad? What about the people in the house? So many decisions!

Walter tried to slide the patio door open; it was locked, with the kind of lock that requires a key to open.

"Where's the key?" he asked Arthur.

"I dunno," said Arthur. He was very unhappy. His wrist was bleeding, from where the handcuff chafed.

"OK, then," said Walter, shoving the entertainment unit so it was parallel to the patio door. "On three, we're gonna smash this through the door."

"Like f.u.c.k we are," said Arthur.

Walter braced himself. "One," he said.

"What're they doing?" asked Leonard.

"They're making an excellent target," said Henry, sighting through the rifle scope.

"Two," said Walter.