Jasmine tried to step between them. "That's not so, Jimmy. You're his son." She had grown b.r.e.a.s.t.s and gone to college, but Jasmine was still as dumb as a dirt clod. "Sure I'm his son," Blackburn said. "That's why he did it." He fixed his eyes on the old man's. "And that's why I've come back."

He released Dad's arm, and the old man ran into the kitchen.

Blackburn started after him. He glanced back at Jasmine. "Very psychos.e.xual," he said. "Very Freudian." He followed Dad into the kitchen and out the back door.

Dad scuttled under the sheets on the clothesline, then ran across the backyard and through the windbreak of evergreens on the north. Blackburn stopped at the windbreak and watched through the trees as Dad crawled under the barbed-wire fence into the hay meadow. The old man's shirt tore.

Blackburn waited until Dad disappeared behind the crest of the hill. Then he turned and walked to the Hornet. Jasmine emerged from the house as he brought out the Python.

She froze at the edge of the porch, and Blackburn saw that she thought he was going to shoot her. This saddened him. He had never been a perfect brother, but she should have realized long ago that he never did anything to anyone who didn't deserve it.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "It isn't even c.o.c.ked."

She didn't relax. "What are you going to do with it?"

Blackburn started toward the meadow. "Retroactive gene-pool maintenance."

Jasmine jumped from the porch and ran to him. She grabbed his wrist and tried to make him stop. He kept walking. Jasmine wasn't very strong.

"Jimmy, there's no point," she said. "He's got cancer, and he won't accept treatment. He told the doctors to go to h.e.l.l. They said he only has three to five months."

"Then this is my last chance," Blackburn said.

"But he's payinghimself back for the things he did. All you have to do is let him!"

Blackburn shook his head. "People can't punish themselves for their sins. Only the people they've sinned against can do that."

"The Bible says onlyG.o.d can do that."

"The Bible's full of chickens.h.i.t." He pulled free and sprinted for the windbreak. He heard Jasmine running after him. "Don't make me lock you up!" he shouted.

The sound of her footsteps stopped. When Blackburn reached the evergreens, he looked back and saw her getting into the Hornet. He wasn't worried. He had the keys. Even if she knew how to hot-wire, he would be finished before she could have anyone else here.

He climbed over the fence and ran up the hill. When he reached the top, he spotted Dad and Dog a fewhundred yards away to the north. Dog was dancing around the old man, nipping, and Dad was kicking at her. As Blackburn watched, the old man kicked himself off balance and fell into the prairie hay. Dog darted in and s...o...b..red on his face, then darted away again.

Blackburn slowed his pace to a walk. He c.o.c.ked the Python.

"Hey, Daddy!" he called. "Wanna play catch?"

There was no fear in the old man's face, and Blackburn was glad. Fear might have made things difficult.

It occurred to Blackburn that this was the first time Dad had ever made anything easier for him.

He stood over his father and aimed the Python at the old man's forehead. Then Dog came up and s...o...b..red on Dad's face again. Blackburn yelled and chased her away. When he turned back, he saw that Dad had gotten up and was trying to run toward the house. Blackburn almost put a slug into the ground at Dad's feet, and then was ashamed of himself. He hadn't played around with any of the others.

When he killed, he killed clean. Mostly. To do otherwise would be to behave as the old man would.

Dad was a pitiful runner. Blackburn caught him and grabbed his shirt where it had been torn by the barbed wire. Dad twisted around, flailing, and hit Blackburn's gun hand. The Python went off, the shot echoing. Blackburn stumbled, and he and his father fell together. Dad tried to scramble away backward, and his shirt ripped open wide, exposing his torso. Blackburn let go, and the old man collapsed onto his back. Blackburn, on his knees, straddled him.

Dad's narrow chest, rising and falling as the old man wheezed, looked hollow. The ribs stuck out. The hair and skin were as white as milk.

Except for the tumor.

It was a pink egg above the left nipple. Red capillaries, thin as spiderwebs, laced through the skin over and around it, vanishing beneath the whiteness a few inches away.

Then the whiteness melted as if the sunlight were X rays, and Blackburn saw the capillaries spreading throughout his father like a living net. He saw the heart stumbling. He saw the lymph glands strangling. He saw the kidneys shuddering, failing.

Blackburn looked up at his father's face. He couldn't see beneath the skin here, but he didn't have to.

"You have breast cancer," he said.

Dad's eyes flashed. "I ain't!" His breath stung. "I ain't got no woman's disease!"

Blackburn pointed at the tumor. "There it is."

The old man swung a fist. Blackburn blocked it with his arm.

"I ain't!" Dad yelled. "It ain't possible!"

"Why not?" "Because I'm a man!"

The words struck Blackburn as hilarious, and he laughed and laughed. The tumor shook. It seemed to be growing as he watched, as if a cosmic clown were filling it with divine breath. As if it were a sacred balloon.

When Blackburn could laugh no more, he saw that Dad was crying. It was a miracle. Blackburn was stunned. He got off the old man and laid his pistol in the gra.s.s. He knelt there, hands clasped, and knew that judgment had been rendered. Punishment had been meted. The universe had proven that it was sometimes perfect, and he would not alter perfection. This one time, seeing it was enough.

As the old man wept, Blackburn bowed down and kissed his breast. The pink egg was hot. Blackburn wanted to always remember how it felt.

"You don't have to get me a birthday present," he murmured.

Then he stood and looked around for Dog. He spotted her lying fifty feet down the hill. He called to her, but she didn't move. He remembered then that the Python had fired.

When he went to her, he found that the bullet had gone through her skull behind the eyes. She hadn't even yelped. There hadn't been time for pain.

Blackburn couldn't cry for her. When there was no time for pain, there was nothing to cry about. Truly, in this place, in this moment, the universe was perfect.

He slowed the Hornet when he saw Jasmine. She was running toward town, coming up on the old water tower. She stopped and turned when she heard the car. Blackburn pulled the Hornet onto the shoulder, got out, and walked to her.

Jasmine was breathing hard. She had run two miles. Her dress was damp and dirty. She had fallen.

"That dress is too long for running," Blackburn said.

She didn't seem to hear him. "Well?" she asked.

"Well what?"

She wiped hair from her forehead. "Did you do it?"

He gazed at the remains of the water tower. It had been his hideout, his Rosetta stone, his starship. He had stood on its catwalk and watched his sister, the size of a doll, playing in the field below.

"Remember the s...o...b..ll war we had here?" he asked. "You and I built a fort, and some of the town kids built another one. Ours was up against the tower fence. We pretended the water tank was our doomsday bomb."

Jasmine still wasn't listening. "Did you hurt him?"

"And in the spring and summer we flew kites. I made them myself. You were always kind of in the way." "Did you do something to Daddy?"

Blackburn looked at her again. Had he done anything to Daddy? He supposed that he had.

Just after finding Dog's body, he had heard the Python's hammer click. He had turned to see that Dad had pointed the gun at his own chest. Blackburn had gone over and taken it away. Then he had gathered up Dog and left. At the windbreak he had looked back. The old man had still been kneeling in the same spot.

"All I did," Blackburn told Jasmine, "was kiss him good-bye."

Jasmine stared. "I don't believe you."

Blackburn went back to the Hornet. He retrieved the Python from under the driver's seat and tucked it into his jeans. Then he took his duffel from the back seat and tossed it into the ditch. He threw the shovel that he had taken from the garage down beside it. Finally, he lifted Dog's body from the pa.s.senger seat.

It was wrapped in a sheet he'd pulled from the clothesline. Only a little blood had leaked through.

Carrying Dog, he returned to Jasmine. "You can take the car back to the house," he said. "See for yourself."

Jasmine was eyeing the bundle in Blackburn's arms. "Don't you need it?"

"No." He would steal another car in town. It was time for a switch anyway.

Jasmine went to the Hornet, then faced her brother again. "Tomorrow's your birthday, isn't it?"

"Yes."

Jasmine tried to smile. It didn't suit her. "Well," she said. "Happy birthday, then."

"Thanks." He turned toward the ditch. "Say hi to Mom for me." He heard the Hornet start as he climbed into the field. By the time he reached the fallen tower, Jasmine was gone.

He laid Dog beside the rusted tank, then retrieved his duffel and the shovel. As he dug the grave, he told Dog about the lessons he had learned from the things he had read and done here. A car on the Potwin road slowed, and its occupants stared at him as it went by.

When Blackburn lowered Dog into the grave, he saw an earthworm writhing in a corner. This reminded him of another story, and he told Dog about the one time that he and Dad had gone fishing together. He wondered if Dad ever went fishing anymore. He doubted it.

He patted Dog through the sheet and filled in the grave. He threw the shovel among the pieces of the water tower's legs, then slung his duffel over his shoulder and walked toward the heart of town.

His family had vanished into the past. For the first time in his life, Blackburn was alone. The perfection of the universe, embodied in the quiet Sunday evening of Wantoda, lay before him. He felt weightless, as if he were falling. Or flying.

Cars were pulling into the parking lot at the Methodist church, and ghosts were emerging from them.Blackburn's lips pulsed with warmth. He took out the Python and c.o.c.ked it.

It was good to be home.

VICTIM NUMBER SEVENTEEN.

The bookstore was crowded. So many people were in line ahead of Blackburn that he couldn't see the author. He was surprised. He had thought he would be one of only a few people in St. Louis who would appreciate Artimus Arthur'sThe Guy Who Killed People.

He gazed at the book in his hands. He had bought it here the week before, and now had brought it back to be autographed. The dust jacket was black, with the t.i.tle embossed in letters of bleeding crimson. At the bottom, in small white type, were the words A NOVEL BY ARTIMUS ARTHUR. Blackburn liked that. It indicated that Arthur, as famous as he was, still considered the book more important than his name. There wasn't even a photograph of him on the back of the jacket, although there was a small one on the flap. The back of the jacket was an unbroken expanse of black. It was a statement in itself, worthy to shroud the words inside.

Blackburn had never before read anything so full of truth.The Guy Who Killed People told the story of a man who was sick of the world, and who set out to make it right. In the process, he had to do away with liars, fiends, bad drivers, politicians, vice cops, dope dealers, and civil servants. Blackburn was fascinated and impressed, although he found some of the death scenes unrealistic. For one thing, The Guy Who Killed People was able to obtain barrels of caustic chemicals with more ease than Blackburn was able to obtain .357 Magnum cartridges. But that didn't really matter; the book was fiction, and its death scenes were metaphors. The Guy Who Killed People was Everyman, and the child-abusers, state legislators, and morons that he wasted weren't meant to represent real child-abusers, state legislators, and morons, but their dark spirits.

The photograph on the back flap was of a bearded man whose facial lines seemed to cut to the bone.

His eyes were deep-set, as if they had seen so much of life that they wanted to retreat. Blackburn was anxious to meet the man. If his real-world face was like the face in the photograph, and if his real-time thoughts were as piercing as those in his novel, Artimus Arthur might well be the wisest man on the planet. And wisdom was not his only power. While readingThe Guy Who Killed People, Blackburn had felt that Artimus Arthur was there with him, probing his mind and exposing his soul on the pages of the book. It was as if Arthur had written the novel about Blackburn himself.

He was convinced that no one-not his family, not Dolores, not even Ernie-had ever understood him as Artimus Arthur did. No one he had ever met had even grasped concepts as simple as freedom and justice. So how could they have understood him? Artimus Arthur, on the other hand, had mastered those concepts and more. Otherwise he could never have writtenThe Guy Who Killed People.

As he waited to have his book signed, Blackburn imagined Arthur looking up from the autograph table and recognizing in an instant that Blackburn was a man like the protagonist of his novel, a man of independence and conviction. The two of them would go off to a coffee shop and discuss the book, emphasizing the questions of morality and responsibility that it raised. Finally, when the coffee shop was about to close, Arthur would look at Blackburn and say, "There are laws deeper and more rigid than those shaped by the inconstant fools who place themselves above us, and a man who knows and keeps those laws is beyond the judgment of such fools. That man must never seek absolution, for where noabsolution is needed, none can be given." Then Artimus Arthur would leave the coffee shop and Blackburn would watch him walk into the night, a woolen scarf wrapped around his neck, snowflakes falling behind him. The snowflakes would sparkle in the white cones cast by the streetlamps.

The line was moving now, and Blackburn stepped forward. His book's dust jacket gleamed under the fluorescent lights. Blackburn looked up, blinking, and saw Artimus Arthur.

The writer's skin was paler than the photograph had suggested, the beard less dense. His eyes were not deep-set, but encircled by dark flesh. He was wearing a gray suit that was too big, and his shirt had an orange stain on the collar. He slumped in his chair. Even so, no one could fail to recognize him. Reality was never as pristine as a photograph. Blackburn didn't like things pristine anyway.

Arthur was signing a book for a s.h.a.ggy man who was speaking in a loud voice. "-and I'm planning to discuss what I call the 'poetics of postmodern psychopathy' as imagized in both this novel and your Purple Silence, Pink Death in the Contemporary Literature course I'm teaching this semester, and I was wondering-"

The s.h.a.ggy man yammered on even after Arthur had finished signing his copy ofThe Guy Who Killed People. He wanted Arthur to come to his cla.s.s and describe his "thematic impulses" for his students.

Arthur gave him a blank look, saying nothing. Then a bookstore employee hustled the man away, and the next person in line stepped up. This person was an attractive young woman.

Artimus Arthur sat up straighter and smiled. He took the woman's copy of his novel and then kissed her knuckles. The woman laughed. Arthur wrote a long inscription in the book and then asked, "Would you care to come around?" He patted the folding chair on his left. "It gets dull sitting here by oneself." His voice was higher-pitched than Blackburn had imagined, and he slurred some of his words.

The woman accepted the invitation. Artimus Arthur scooted his chair closer to hers and leaned over to whisper in her ear. She flinched, but laughed again. Arthur signed three more books in quick succession, and then it was the turn of another attractive woman. He chatted with her and wrote another long inscription.

"Would you care to come around too?" he asked. "I'm sure we could find a third chair." Another employee brought a chair and set it up on Arthur's right. The new woman went around the table and sat down. Arthur's hands disappeared.

Blackburn dropped his book. When he squatted to pick it up, he could see under the autograph table.

Arthur was squeezing the women's knees. Blackburn stood and saw that the women were fl.u.s.tered, but didn't want to make a scene. Arthur brought his hands up and signed the next book.

Blackburn's nylon coat had become too warm, so he unzipped it partway. Then he opened the back cover ofThe Guy Who Killed People and read the "About the Author" note under Arthur's photograph.

The note said that he lived in Long Island, New York, with his wife of thirty-four years, Irma. Blackburn looked up at the real Arthur again and tried to guess what Irma must be like.

Arthur leaned to his right and whispered into the ear of Attractive Woman Number Two. She stood, thanked him for signing her book, and left. He smiled, leaned to his left, and whispered into the ear of Attractive Woman Number One. She scooted her chair a few inches away but didn't leave. Arthur signed another book, and another. Now only four people remained between Blackburn and the autograph table, but Blackburn had decided that he didn't want his copy ofThe Guy Who Killed People signed just yet. He got out of line and went into the science fiction aisle, where he could observe Arthur'sbehavior.

The novelist wasn't himself. No one whose written words contained such wisdom could be the sort of fool that he appeared to be now. His slurred speech suggested that he had been drinking, and that in turn suggested that it was his intoxication that was making him come on to women who weren't his wife of thirty-four years, women who were in fact young enough to be his children. It was repulsive and pitiful, but it wasn't the real Arthur doing it.

Another young woman approached the table, and Arthur told her that he would only sign her book if she gave him a kiss. She looked around as if searching for an escape route, but then leaned down and gave Arthur his kiss. He invited her to join him behind the table, but she declined and fled. Attractive Woman Number One, still seated to Arthur's left, had a trapped look in her eyes. Arthur whispered in her ear again. From Blackburn's vantage point, he could see Arthur's hand come down to rest on her thigh.