"They're leaving," whispered Matt. He and Andrew, having received a warm but brief welcome from Roger, had moved to an observation point next to a large potted plant at the edge of the patio, about thirty feet from Henry and Leonard.

"Whadda we do?" asked Andrew.

"I think she's gonna let the dog in," said Matt. "When she opens the door, we run up, and I shoot her, and you witness it."

"I'm gonna witness it from here," said Andrew, "in case her father shoots us."

"With what?" said Matt. "The remote control? You gotta come with me so Jenny sees that you witnessed it."

"He has a gun somewhere," Andrew said. "This is Miami."

Matt could not argue with that. Sounding braver than he felt, he whispered, "Come on," and started across the patio toward the sliding-gla.s.s door. Andrew followed, reluctantly, a few feet behind.

Henry and Leonard did not see the boys immediately; they were both intently watching Anna Herk as she moved toward the door from the other side.

"Fine-looking woman," Leonard observed.

"Shut up," Henry observed. He raised his rifle and trained the sight on Arthur Herk, thinking about how he was going to do this. If Herk stayed in the room, sitting in front of the TV, it would be easy. But Henry had to be ready in case Herk got up and followed the women out. Henry didn't want to shoot with the women still in the room, but he would if he had to.

Anna Herk reached the patio door, unlatched it, slid it open, and called, "Roger, c'mon, boy." At this point, a number of things happened in extremely quick succession: -Roger, calculating with his nine functioning brain cells that the chances were better of getting food inside the house with the humans than outside with the Enemy Toad, left his surveillance post and shot, a low-flying, furry missile, through the door opening into the family room.

-Right behind him came Matt, rushing toward the opening, holding his realistic SquirtMaster Model 9000. He had planned to yell, "HEY, JENNY!" but he was very nervous, so it came out more like, "HENNY!"

-Anna, seeing a shape rushing out of the night toward her yelling unintelligibly, screamed.

-Two steps behind, Jenny, hearing her mom scream, then seeing the shape, screamed.

-Arthur Herk, hearing both women screaming, dropped the remote control. Roger immediately went over to see if it was food.

-Outside in the gloom, Leonard said, "What the f.u.c.k?"

-In about the same time that it took for Leonard to come to that conclusion, Henry, who had a gift for processing information and making decisions very rapidly, which is why he was the one with the rifle, decided that, whatever this other shooter was there to do, he, Henry, was there to shoot Arthur Herk, and he had better do it right now.

-As Henry was deciding, Matt burst through the door opening past the screaming Anna Herk and aimed his SquirtMaster Model 9000 at the screaming Jenny.

-Arthur Herk, seeing a gunman come through the door, dove forward off the sofa to the floor in front of the television, which was fortunate for Arthur, because ...

-maybe a tenth of a second later, a bullet from Henry's rifle pa.s.sed directly through the middle of the airs.p.a.ce where Arthur's head had been and into the thirty-five-inch diagonal screen of the Herk family TV set, which imploded with a brief, brutal "POP," shattering, in a bright bluish flash, the image of the president of the Hair Club for Men.

-Arthur Herk, hearing the explosion, scrabbled frantically at the floor with his hands and knees and shot forward, alligator-like, out of the family room and into the hallway leading to Nina's room.

-Anna Herk, a mother instinctively and fearlessly protecting her baby, jumped on Matt's back, causing him to stagger forward into Jenny, such that the three of them collapsed to the floor in a human sandwich, with Matt in the middle and both women pounding him and screaming.

-Down the hall, Nina, hearing screams, an explosion, then more screams, opened her door and saw Arthur coming out of a crouch and hurtling down the hall toward her with the face of a crazed animal. She slammed the door, which came violently open again as Arthur burst through it. Convinced she was about to be raped, Nina leaped onto her bed and slithered out the open window, dropped onto the lawn, and, wearing only a blue nightgown, sprinted, barefoot and terrified, into the night.

-At the edge of the patio, Leonard and Henry heard a siren and, without exchanging words, began quickly and professionally to get the h.e.l.l out of there.

-Thirty feet to the right, Andrew, less professionally but just as quickly, did the same.

-In Roger's dish, the toad, which did not achieve its current station in life by being easily distracted, continued to eat Roger's kibble.

Nina reached the wall first; in fact, in the darkness beneath the huge ficus tree, she ran into the wall. Emitting a sharp, high-pitched cry of pain, she stumbled backward, directly in the path of Leonard, who emerged from a thicket moving at top middle-aged-guy speed and slammed into her, causing her to cry out again as they both went down, with Leonard tripping over her and hitting the wall headfirst, hard.

Three seconds later, Henry, puffing, burst through the thicket and stopped as he saw two entangled shapes on the ground by the wall, both moaning. Crouching, Henry approached the shapes, turning the rifle around in his hands so he could use it as a club.

"Leonard?" he said. "Leonard?"

One of the moaning shapes began, slowly, to sit up. It was not Leonard. Henry raised his rifle and braced himself, ready to strike. He was in that pose when Puggy landed on his head. Henry crumpled to the ground and dropped the rifle, which Puggy, bouncing quickly to his feet, s.n.a.t.c.hed up.

Puggy had never shot a rifle; he had never even touched a rifle. He held this one the way he had seen people hold rifles on TV, kind of looking down the barrel with one eye. He stepped back a few feet and pointed the rifle in the general direction of Henry.

If there had been more light, and if Henry hadn't had searing blasts of pain stabbing his neck and right shoulder, he might have noticed that whoever this stocky little man holding his rifle was, he still had the safety on, and he didn't have his finger inside the trigger guard. If he had been his usual self, Henry might have made a play on this guy-kick his feet out, roll sideways, come up moving, going for the gun he kept in an ankle holster.

But Henry was not his usual self, and he knew it, and could hear that the sirens were very close now, and as much as he wanted to know what was going on here, he figured his best play was to continue getting the h.e.l.l out of there. Keeping his eye on Puggy, moving slowly, keeping his hands in view, he got his knees under himself, then his feet, then stood up. Puggy watched him.

"I don't want any trouble," Henry said.

"Me neither," said Puggy. Puggy never wanted trouble.

"I'm gonna get my friend here," Henry said.

"Don't touch the girl," Puggy said.

Henry thought, Girl? But he said, "No, no, I'm just gonna get my friend, OK?" He moved slowly to the wall and ... s.h.i.t, there was a girl. What was going on here? He grabbed Leonard's shoulder and shook it.

"C'mon," he said. "Come on, dammit!"

Leonard sat up a little, his eyes starting to focus. First he saw Henry, right over him; then he saw a girl in a nightgown, on the ground next to him; then he saw a guy with a rifle. His head hurt and there was blood in his eyes and he could hear sirens really loud.

He said: "What the f.u.c.k?"

"Come on," said Henry, yanking Leonard up, feeling a nauseating stab of pain in his shoulder. He looked one more time at the stocky man, who was still pointing the rifle vaguely in his direction. Henry knew this guy was not a pro. Henry was pretty sure he could get the rifle back-he did not want to leave the rifle-but Leonard was very shaky, and the siren had stopped, which meant the cops were here.

Henry pushed Leonard over to the wall, got his shoulder under Leonard's a.s.s-another stab of pain-and shoved him over the wall; then he followed. He herded Leonard as quickly as he could to the rental car and shoved him into the backseat. He climbed gingerly in the front and drove out of the neighborhood, watching the rearview, thinking about how he was going to word the phone call.

CHAPTER three

If you asked the average seventeen-year-old male whether he would enjoy lying on the floor pressed between two attractive women, he would say, Heck yes. But it was not proving to be a sensual experience for Matt. The problem, basically, was that although he he knew that he was just a fun-loving high-school student engaged in a harmless game, neither Anna Herk nor Jenny knew this. And so while he didn't want to do anything to hurt knew that he was just a fun-loving high-school student engaged in a harmless game, neither Anna Herk nor Jenny knew this. And so while he didn't want to do anything to hurt them them, they had no qualms whatsoever about beating the s.h.i.t out of him him.

Behind him, Anna Herk, who worked out regularly at the health club, was clinging to Matt like a psychotic lamprey. She had both legs wrapped tightly around him, pinning his arms to his side; her right arm was around his throat, pretty much cutting off his air supply. She was using her left fist to pound the back of his head, and she was screaming into his left ear, and although she was not by nature an aggressive or hostile person, she was trying desperately to sound like one.

"YOU LET HER GO YOU SON OF A b.i.t.c.h!" were her exact words.

Matt would have liked nothing more than to let Jenny go, because Jenny was kneeing his groin and scratching at him with fingernails that felt like X-Acto knives. But Matt could not move, because Mrs. Herk was right on top of him, pressing him down on her writhing, scratching, screaming daughter, slamming his face into the hard tile floor every time Anna pounded the back of his head; blood was spurting from his nose. He tried to explain himself, but the only sound he could force out through his constricted throat was an ambiguous "Gack." Through the darkening haze of his diminishing consciousness, Matt felt a new, hairy presence next to his right cheek. It was Roger, who, having sized up the situation and decided what needed to be done, was licking up Mart's blood.

On the street outside, Miami police officer Monica Ramirez, who heard a minimum of three Monica Lewinsky jokes per day from her endlessly self-amused male colleagues, stopped her police cruiser in front of the Herk address, which had been phoned to 911 by a neighbor. She rolled down her window and heard what sounded like a woman's screaming. Turning the cruiser into the driveway, she nosed the front b.u.mper up against the steel security gate and pressed the accelerator gently; the security gate, as most of them did, immediately popped open.

Monica pulled into the driveway and got out of the car, as did her partner, Officer Walter Kramitz. They had been partners for two months now, and Monica could tell he was getting ready to ask her for a date, which meant she had been thinking about how she was going to gently tell him no, the truth being that he was a little too fascinated by his own arm muscles. Plus he was married.

Kramitz tried the front door, which was locked, then pushed the buzzer, then pounded on the door, yelling, "Police!"

Monica didn't expect anybody to open the door. She said, "I'm going around back," and took off running around the left side of the house.

When she rounded the back corner, she heard the screams coming louder from the direction of the patio. As she approached the open sliding-gla.s.s door, Monica unholstered her revolver. Through the gla.s.s, she first saw a tangle of feet; then she saw people struggling on the floor, blood, and a rifle.

Pivoting in through the door opening, she raised her revolver and shouted: "Police! Everybody hold it!" (Monica never yelled "Freeze!" She thought it was trite.) The people struggling on the floor did not appear to hear her, although Roger immediately trotted over and, in the universal gesture of dog friendship, thrust his snout into Monica's crotch.

"STOP IT!" shouted Monica. This statement was aimed at Roger, but Anna Herk heard it and, with her arm still around Matt's throat, turning to see a police officer aiming a gun her way, froze.

"Get off them," said Monica.

"I live here," said Anna.

"Get off them anyway," said Monica.

Anna rolled off Matt. Matt, free at last, rolled off Jenny and put his hands up to his bleeding nose. Jenny, weeping, crawled over to her mom.

"Are you OK, honey?" asked Anna. Jenny nodded.

Monica, lowering the gun but keeping it unholstered, said to Anna, "OK, I want you to tell me what's going on."

Anna pointed to Matt and said, "This person tried to ... "

"FREEZE!" shouted Officer Kramitz, coming through the patio doorway with his gun drawn. He had given up on the front door.

"It's OK," said Monica. "Everything's cool."

"OK," said Officer Kramitz, disappointed. "What happened?"

"This lady was just starting to tell me," said Monica. "Go ahead."

"This person tried to kill us," said Anna.

Everybody looked at Matt.

"No!" he said. "It's me! Matt Arnold." He took his hand away from his bleeding nose so they could see who it was.

"I was just trying to kill Jenny," he explained.

"You SEE?" said Anna.

"No, no," said Matt, "I don't mean kill kill her, I mean, it's a her, I mean, it's a game game, Killer. From school. I'm in her biology cla.s.s biology cla.s.s. Jenny, tell them it's me me."

Everybody looked at Jenny, who was looking at Matt and realizing that, underneath the blood, he was, in fact, a guy from her biology cla.s.s. She had seen him looking at her, although, like all pretty girls, she had learned to appear as though she never noticed when boys were looking at her, although of course she always did.

"What are you doing in my house?" Jenny asked.

"I'm supposed to kill you," said Matt.

"You see?" said Anna again.

"With a squirt gun," said Matt. "It's a squirt gun."

Everybody looked at the rifle. Officer Kramitz went over and picked it up.

"It's a squirt gun," he said, really disappointed now.

"Oh s.h.i.t s.h.i.t," said Jenny. "Is THAT what this is? That stupid game game?"

"Yes!" said Matt. "The game!"

"Oh Jesus," said Jenny. To her mom, she said: "We have this game at school where you get somebody's name, and you're supposed to squirt them."

"In their house house?" asked Anna. "At night night? What kind of game is that?"

"I'm sorry," said Matt. "I didn't think it ... "

"It's about TIME you people got here," said Arthur Herk, emerging from the hallway. He had been in Nina's room, with the door locked, until he was sure the danger had pa.s.sed. Roger trotted over to see if Arthur was bringing food, but veered away when Arthur kicked at him.

"And you are ... " said Monica.

"I own this house," said Arthur.

"Good for you," said Monica. "And your name is?"

"Arthur Herk. I know the mayor, and I want to know what took you people so f.u.c.king long."

"Sir," said Monica, "first, we came as soon as we got the call. Second, don't use that language with me."