"OK, then," said Eliot.

They lapsed into silence, each drifting off into jumbled recollections of the evening. At the Herk home, Anna, Jenny, and Nina were doing the same, as was Puggy in his tree. In each case, the recollections were surprisingly pleasant, considering that the evening had begun with somebody apparently trying to kill somebody.

Arthur Herk was pretty sure he knew who both somebodys were, and his thoughts were not pleasant. He had been thinking about the situation, and he had decided what he was going to do. After pouring himself another drink, he dialed a number from the phone on the family-room bar.

"It's me," he told the person at the other end. "Yeah." He took a swallow of his drink and looked over at the bullet hole.

"Listen," he said. "I need a missile."

CHAPTER four

"She should be leaning over more," said the Big Fat Stupid Client From h.e.l.l, "so you can see more gazombas."

"Good point, more gazombas," said Eliot, pretending to make a note of it. He was way too tired to argue this morning. It had been a long night: He'd driven Matt home at 2 A.M., and then he'd spent forty-five minutes getting berated by his ex-wife, Patty. Patty was not the berating kind, but she recognized a stupid parental decision when she saw one.

"You knew about this?" Patty had said. "You knew he was going to be creeping around a stranger's yard with a gun, in Miami, and you let him?"

"It was a squirt gun," said Eliot, causing Patty to roll her eyes so hard he thought they would pop out and bounce across the kitchen floor. Patty had always been way better at being a grown-up than Eliot; this was one key reason why they were no longer married.

Eliot said little after that. He just stood there and took his berating, because he knew Patty was right: He was an incompetent moron parent who had let his son get into a dangerous situation. He was also (Patty had reminded him quietly, outside of Matt's hearing) five months behind on his alimony and child support.

"I'm sorry," Eliot had said, as he left. "I'm working as hard as I can."

"I know," Patty had said. "That's what has me worried."

Driving home, Eliot pondered his situation: He was a failure as a husband and as a parent; his business was a joke; he had no prospects; he was driving a Kia. Willing his brain, against every instinct, to think practically, he tried to devise a logical, workable plan for straightening his life out, and his brain came up with: suicide. He would write a farewell letter-it would be funny, yet deeply moving-then he would put on some clean underwear and launch himself off the tiny balcony of his tiny apartment, hurtle toward the parking lot, maybe aiming for the 1987 Trans Am belonging to the a.s.shole in unit 238 who played his Death Star stereo loud all night, and, splat, just like that, his troubles would be over. His life insurance would pay for Matt's college education. At his funeral, people would recall specific feature stories that he had written and describe him as "troubled" but "brilliant."

These thoughts comforted Eliot until he realized that he was way too scared of heights to jump from his balcony. He couldn't even look over the railing when he was out there cooking hot dogs on his Wal-Mart grill. Plus, he did not have any life insurance. So he decided to continue failing at everything.

He got back to his apartment after 3 A.M. and spent the next four hours drinking black coffee and putting together his Hammerhead Beer presentation, which he would be presenting that very morning. He had planned to come up with an idea so original, so imaginative, so creative, and so compelling that even the Big Fat Stupid Client From h.e.l.l would see its brilliance. But because it was very late and he was very tired, he decided to go with: big t.i.ts.

"I'm a wh.o.r.e, OK?" he said to himself several dozen times as he worked. "You got a problem with that?"

And thus it was that the next morning, when the Big Fat Stupid Client From h.e.l.l walked into Eliot's office, forty-five minutes late, without knocking or closing the door behind him, he saw, on ah easel, in large type, the words GET HAMMERED WITH HAMMERHEAD!

Under these words was an ill.u.s.tration that Eliot had created on his computer by manipulating various photographs that he had basically stolen off the Internet. The ill.u.s.tration consisted of an oily, muscular, smirking male model on a motorboat being offered a Hammerhead Beer by a female model wearing a string bikini about the size of a DNA strand, out of which were falling two flagrantly artificial, volley-ball-shaped b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

The images in the ill.u.s.tration were not in scale with each other, because Eliot didn't really know how to work the computer program, and he couldn't read the manual because he couldn't find his reading gla.s.ses. Thus the male model looked, relative to the woman, comically small, like an oily, muscular, smirking weasel; any given one of the female model's b.r.e.a.s.t.s was larger than his head. The beer bottle appeared to be the size of a fire hydrant. It was a stunningly bad piece of graphic art, so of course the Client From h.e.l.l, except for wanting more gazomba exposure, thought it was great.

"You see?" he told Eliot. "You see the difference?"

"Well," said Eliot, "I ... "

"You got t.i.tS! Instead of a FISH!" pointed out the Client From h.e.l.l. "You know? You hear what I'm telling you?"

"Well," said Eliot, "it ... "

"Ask a guy what he wants, t.i.ts or a fish, see what he tells you," said the Client From h.e.l.l, his voice starting to rise.

"I suppose that ... "

"HE TELLS YOU t.i.tS!" said the Client From h.e.l.l.

The certified public accountant from next door appeared in Eliot's doorway, glared at Eliot for a full five seconds, then slammed Eliot's door.

"OK, then," said Eliot, "if we're agreed on the concept, we need to talk about placement, but first ... "

"Is she from around here?" said the Client From h.e.l.l, pointing his fat finger at the gazomba woman.

"No," said Eliot, quickly. "She's ... she lives in, ah ... Uruguay."

"Uruguay?" said the Client From h.e.l.l. "They got t.i.ts like that in Uruguay?"

"Oh yeah, they're known for it," said Eliot. "People call it 'Uruguay: Bosom Capital of the World.' Listen, I think we need to talk about your, I mean, my fee, because ... "

"How far is Uruguay?" said the Client From h.e.l.l. "Is that in, whaddyacallit, Europe?"

"No," said Eliot, "it's in Latin America. The thing is, I sent you several statements, but ... "

"Latin America ?" said the Client From h.e.l.l, looking at the gazomba woman with renewed interest. "You're telling me this is a spic?"

"Listen," said Eliot. "We really need to talk about your ... "

"How much?" asked the Client From h.e.l.l, still looking at the gazomba woman.

"Well," said Eliot, "there was no retainer, I mean, there was a retainer, well, I mean, I sent a statement for a retainer, but you never, I mean, unless it's in the mail, but ... "

"How much?" said the Client From h.e.l.l, turning to Eliot.

"Here," said Eliot, handing him a statement.

The Client From h.e.l.l looked at it.

'Twelve hundred dollars?" he said.

"Well," said Eliot, "bear in mind ... "

"Twelve hundred f.u.c.king dollars?" said the Client From h.e.l.l. He spent more than twelve hundred dollars every month getting his back hair waxed. But he truly enjoyed watching people need his money. It was almost s.e.xual, with him.

"Well," said Eliot, "it's a very reasonable, I mean, if you look at what most ... "

Eliot stopped talking without even being interrupted, because, to his amazement, the Client From h.e.l.l was taking out his checkbook, then his pen. It was a fat pen. The Client From h.e.l.l, sensing Eliot's desperate hope, wrote the check exquisitely slowly; then he tore it out slowly and tapped it against his fat hand a few times, watching Eliot, before he handed it over.

Eliot looked at it.

"This is for four hundred dollars," he said.

"Lemme ask you something," said the Client From h.e.l.l. "Whose idea was this?" He waved his fat arm at the beer ad.

"Well," said Eliot, "we're talking about a certain investment of time that.,."

"WHO THOUGHT UP THE IDEA OF t.i.tS?" said the Client From h.e.l.l. In the hall outside, a door slammed; Eliot knew this was the certified public accountant exiting his office to search for the building manager.

"You did," said Eliot.

"Do you see a fish in this picture?" asked the Client From h.e.l.l.

"No," said Eliot.

"The way I see it," said the Client From h.e.l.l, "I came up with the concept. This is MY concept."

Eliot looked at the check, then at the grotesque beer ad, then at the check again. He looked at the check for several seconds. When he finally spoke, he did not lookup.

"OK," he said.

The Client From h.e.l.l smirked fatly and turned back to the ad.

't.i.ts like that," he said, shaking his head. "On a spic." Then, without saying good-bye or closing the door, he walked out.

Eliot was still looking at the check.

"I'm a wh.o.r.e," he announced, to his office.

The phone rang, and Eliot considered not answering it, because it was probably the building manager calling to tell him that (a) he was disturbing other tenants, and (b) he was two months behind on his rent. But it also might be Matt. So he picked up the receiver.

"Eliot Arnold," he said, warily.

"Hi," said a woman's voice, and Eliot's heart jumped. "This is Anna Herk. The woman who beat up your son."

"Hi!" said Eliot, thinking about her eyes.

"How is Matt?" asked Anna. "Is he OK?"

"Oh, he's fine," said Eliot. "He's a teenager."

"I'm sorry," said Anna.

"That's OK," said Eliot. "He'll grow out of it, if n.o.body shoots him."

"No," said Anna, laughing, "I mean, I'm sorry about jumping on him. And I'm really sorry about dumping on you last night. I had no business doing that."

"You did the right thing," said Eliot. "He had no business being there."

"Well, anyway," said Anna, "the reason I called, besides to say I'm sorry again, is, did you lose some reading gla.s.ses?"

"As a matter of fact," he said, "I did."

"Horn-rims?" she asked.

"Yup."

"Made in Taiwan?"

"Four ninety-nine at Eckerd Drag."

"Well," Anna said, "I haven't seen them."

Eliot laughed.

"No, really," she said, "I found them in the family room, and I wanted to return them to you."

"You don't have to do that," said Eliot. "I mean they're just cheap ... "

"Really," she said, "I want to."

Whoa.

"OK," Eliot said.

"You're in the Grove, right?" she said.

"Yes."

"Well, I'm running some errands around there this afternoon, and I thought maybe I could stop by."

Eliot looked around his small, grimy, unsuccessful-looking office, the most impressive aspect of which was the gazomba woman.

"Well," he said, "how about, I mean, if you haven't eaten, we could, I mean, we could maybe get something?"

"Are you asking me to lunch?"

"I don't mean to, I mean, if you'd rather ... "

"Lunch sounds great."