His burning gaze dared Paul-dared anyone-to argue or laugh.

No one did, exactly, but the kid with the buzz haircut said, "Christ." Putting equal parts disbelief and sarcasm into it.

Dunbar shot him a glare. "You got a problem with this...Dukey?"

Dunbar's wife touched his forearm while the kid with the crew cut uttered a face-saving chuckle, but nothing more.

D.B., from his seat on a beer cooler lid, said, "I don't blame anyone for their doubts, but we saw what we saw. Poor Judd got taken down by six or seven wild men. A gal, too. It's just a fact, so now we gotta figure what to do about it."

"Holy Christ," someone muttered. "So it's true?"

Paul admired Don Brandon's quiet strength. Without raising his voice, he'd established the credibility of an incredible claim. He'd turned the conversation from the theoretical to the strategic without ruffling a single feather.

"Duke," a black woman said, "you don't like what you hear, then tell me where Judd's hanging out today."

The poolside chorus mumbled its stricken endorsement of the foul play scenario. If there was nothing to all of this, then where was Judd Maxwell? The kid named Duke didn't bother to reply. He sucked harshly at his cigarette, eyes hooded.

"That would explain the rats," growled a shirtless polar bear of a man. About fifty, he had a full head of white hair, a face grizzled and sunburned.

"What rats?" asked Paul.

"Rats," the man repeated impatiently. "They're all over the place."

"I forgot all about that," said Dunbar, his eyes widening. "With everything else going on that night, I forgot how the damn things came after me about the time the screaming started."

"And they went after the old folks, the ones with the blood or whatever the hell was in their plastic cups," added D.B.

"Well I sure as hell don't know what y'all are talking about, but it still makes sense," said the shirtless polar bear. "Rats hang out with vampires." He looked at the blank faces. "Don't you poor fools never read nothing?"

The middle-aged black man with the creased forehead barked once, an abrupt imitation of laughter that did nothing to erase the scowl. "I get it. Now we gotta study up on garlic and bats. Stakes through the heart under a full moon."

"Easy, Carl," said D.B. "Denver's just talking. But we're getting off track. We got less bickering and more figuring to do. That make sense to everyone?"

How could it not? The man's voice was an ice floe of cool reason.

Duke motioned D.B. to his feet so he could retrieve a beer from under him. "Let me play devil's advocate here," he said. It seemed the perfect role for the kid. He pulled the pull tab as he strolled center stage. "Let's say somebody or a bunch of somebodies really did tear Judd Maxwell apart last night." He made a show of flipping a cigarette ash, as though demonstrating how little weight he gave that view. "How do you know they're vampires?"

"Because they ripped his fucking throat out with their teeth, Dukey," Dunbar said, sounding alarmingly calm. On the verge of committing the same foul act on the dragon-tattooed kid, Paul thought.

Joy Dunbar found her husband's forearm in a move so practiced she probably didn't even know she was doing it.

"And I heard it," Paul said, surprising even himself. Not that he'd heard vampires, of course, but...something. Something worth talking about. "Not that I buy the official version, but what I heard was pure torment and terror. Not some drunks raising a ruckus. Besides, I stepped into the Winking Dog myself once, so I have a hard time discrediting any horror story that starts there."

Now he had their attention. Chairs shifted more quietly now. Several parents seemed to search for children who'd wandered out of sight.

Eyes downcast like she was studying the soft drink in her lap, the thin woman sharing a seat with Duke said, "I was at the Dog last night, too, and I never seen fangs or nothing." She dropped her spent cigarette into the can. "And I wouldn't mind continuing to not see nothing in that I got two kids and a job. Don't love the job-and, come to think of it, the kids aren't always at the top of my list, either." She looked up at Paul, her expression hard. "But life's been worse, mister. You might not understand that."

The rhythmic motion he caught out of the corner of an eye was heads nodding in unison.

"She's right," said the black woman who'd spoken before. Wide-hipped but attractive, she grabbed the hand of a well-built man next to her and said, "We got kids, too. Three of 'em, and they ain't seen their momma and dad for two months now. Every payday, money goes into a special envelope that'll get us all together someday. Till then, Jermaine and me ain't seen and ain't gonna see."

D.B. offered Paul a sad smile, then called out, "Jamey Weeks."

"What?" cried the wiry young guy with a fuzzy mustache standing next to Denver, the polar bear. His entire body twitched at the mention of his name, while his face carried the expression of someone who's just been called out in a police lineup.

D.B. said, "Jamey, can I see your resume a minute?"

The younger guy blinked. "My...?"

"Forget it, Jamey." D.B. gave Paul another sad smile. "Through no fault of his own, Jamey hasn't had a real job before getting hired to bag nuts and bolts for a hardware parts distributor in the parkway. No background check."

"Two years at Burger King," Jamey grumped, sensing he'd just been insulted, but not clear on the details.

"Lots of us worked fast food," said a short Hispanic man with a bandanna that sopped only some of the sweat from his eyes. "Or we stand in line all morning for sub-minimum wage, off-the-books day labor. We chase one boomtown rumor after another, always a day late. That's how things was till we pulled into Babylon. Anything suspicious about this town, sorry, we ain't seen a thing."

Having had his say, he tossed a cigarette and made a lap for one of the scraggly-haired kids who'd earlier been kicking a soccer ball in the patchy lawn.

D.B. leaned in closer to Paul and lowered his voice. "No document checks, either. Some bosses, they just pay in cash without even being asked."

"Jamey."

This time the voice making the wiry guy jump belonged to Dunbar.

"Yeah?"

"How you like your new job?"

Jamey played it like it was a trick question, taking his time before answering. "It's okay."

"You get lots of breaks and sitting-on-your-ass time when it's not too busy?" Dunbar asked.

Jamey thought again and nodded. "I guess. Sure."

Dunbar stared hard at the younger man, making him melt in the sun. "Don't they make machines these days for bagging hardware?"

"I don't know," Jamey mumbled.

"They got lots of people on the floor with you, right?"

"Regan Santana works with me," he answered brightly, pointing a beer can at the bandanna-wearing family man.

"What about local people? Lots of them?"

"What're you getting at, man?" Duke demanded.

"Answer me," Dunbar snapped, getting Jamey to shrug.

"Enough, I guess."

"Enough that you find yourself with nothing to do a lot of the time?"

Jamey looked like he was trying to see the trap, but eventually gave up and just nodded.

"And how much are you making an hour?" Dunbar pressed on.

Jamey dropped his head. "Fourteen."

"So what?" Denver barked. "Guy makes a halfway decent wage, first time in his life, and you wanna tell him he should run like hell?"

Todd set aside his latest beer can and rose, first wriggling free of his wife's forearm hold. He nodded sharply at the black couple and said, "Jermaine here knows where I'm going with this, but he ain't gonna say nothing. He's gonna sit there with a blank look on his face 'cuz he don't wanna end up in the middle of another convenience store gun battle in Detroit. But what I'm saying is, there's always a catch when you get something for nothing, and we all know it."

He locked glances with several of the others, and was always the last to look away. "Sure, we're sitting here with cash in our pockets like it's Christmas, but we all know there ain't no Santa Claus. Sooner we admit that, sooner we can get down to the business of working out what to do about this."

Dunbar's speech ended as abruptly as it had begun. He plopped back down in his lawn chair and let his wife's arm flutter to his shoulders like a trainer working over her fighter.

Searching faces for reactions, Paul found mostly averted gazes. He'd kicked off his shoes and almost stirred one foot in the murky pool water to distract himself from what he was about to say, but stopped himself in time.

"My story's the opposite of yours," he told the crowd. He faced blank stares. "This town seems to be working overtime to get my family out. All while spending good money to keep you folks in. Frankly, it's got me confused."

He got a humorless chuckle from Dunbar. "Frankly, it's got me confused, too," he said.

His wife said something and he said something back and she handed him a cigarette from her purse. Something to calm his nerves. He lit up and dragged smoke into his lungs and stared at a sky now streaked with clouds. "Why in hell would this town choose us over someone classy like you?" he said.

"That's not what I'm saying."

Dunbar cut Paul off with a wave of his cigarette. His eyes sought something in the parking lot on the other side of the weedy lawn. Paul could tell when he'd found it. "Silver Lexus. Wonder what one of them goes for new. And I'm sure you bought yours new, right?"

Paul bit back a response.

The plump blond leaned over her husband to say something, but he shook her off. He was a man on constant simmer, his wife taking on the full-time job of keeping the heat turned low. Must be a great life for both of them.

"Bet we could live on your monthly car payment," Dunbar said with another unfelt chuckle. He took a drag from his cigarette, then flicked it, only half dead, into the pool, where it hissed sharply before the murky rainwater finished it off.

"It is a mystery," Dunbar said so quietly that the words seemed to be for his own benefit or that of his placating wife. Tracking Paul with his dark eyes, he said, "Man with your car and shorts and country club tan, man packing enough punch to waltz us two out of jail like that..." He snapped his fingers, let the rest fade, unfinished.

A fresh smile touched his lips. "You and your little wife, you sip your dirty martinis with lawyers and judges and politicians. Belong to all the right clubs. Republicans, right?" Dunbar shook his head. "No, I can't imagine why this town likes us better than you."

Paul had never been accused of wealth and privilege before-had never even thought of it as something that should induce guilt-but now he saw quiet condemnation in every haggard, bloodshot eye. He looked to D.B. for support, but the most he got was a weak smile.

"Just a second," said the black family man, Jermaine.

He rose to cross the weedy lawn to the parking lot. Paul watched him rummage through the trunk of a copper Ford with plastic for a rear window. He pulled out a duffel bag.

"Oh no," said his wife.

The crowd watched him retrace his steps, their interest perked by her reaction. Jermaine reached into the canvas bag and pulled out a handgun. He aimed it at the sky and announced, "Smith & Wesson Model 15 Combat Masterpiece." He grinned. "Don't have no silver bullets, but I bet it could do some damage."

"Awesome," said the boy sitting on the lap of his father, Regan Santana.

"If you gotta have a .38 wheelgun," sniffed a lank, middle-aged man with a long ponytail and bad teeth.

The revolver, dull and dark and long, sent shivers down Paul's spine. Much like the jailhouse scene that morning, he realized that outside of a thousand movies and TV shows, he'd never seen a real gun in someone's hand before. The nonchalance with which nearly everyone else treated the sight made him see what a sheltered life he'd led.

"You really want to cause some trouble," Ponytail continued, "you get yourself what I got."

Denver sighed heavily. "Go ahead and tell us, Pete. Being as you're going to anyhow."

"Ruger Blackhawk .357 mag with a retrofitted nine millimeter cylinder for Parabellum cartridges," Ponytail snapped.

Sounding interested, D.B. said, "You got it on you?"

Pete's face changed and his gaze drifted to the pool. "Had to sell it to pay my goddamn lawyer."

"Well, the gun you used to have is certainly helpful to our situation here," Duke said.

Pete said, "So what? Best weapon 'round here's in Judd's room, and I don't think he'd have any problem with us using it on them fucks."

"What're you talking about?" asked the black man with the creased forehead.

"Talking 'bout that taped baseball bat he used to run around with."

"And you got the balls to criticize my .38," Jermaine snorted, still aiming his revolver at the sky.

"Bet I could be in Judd's room in under five seconds," Jamey, the former fast food worker, said with a wink that suggested job skills beyond burger-flipping.

"I got me an itty-bitty five-shot .38 Charco with nickel finish," D.B. said. "Kind of a girl's gun, but it conceals well in my pancake holster."

"Yeah? Well there's no concealing my Savage .30-.30 deer rifle," said Denver. "And yes, I got it with me."

"Alright!" Duke shouted. "You got a scope?"

"Yeah, but just enough shells for my eight-round clip."

"We'll put you on the balcony," said D.B. "You can be our official sniper."

"What about the rest of us?" someone wanted to know, and that sparked a lively debate over the comparative stopping power of kitchen knives, gasoline bombs and homemade shivs. It was a game now, played by drinking men who'd seen too many movies. Paul wondered how cocky they'd be going after whoever had preyed on Judd Maxwell.

He caught Todd Dunbar's troubled eyes and knew that there was at least one Sundowner who was taking the whole thing seriously. But then Dunbar flashed him a ghost of a smile.

"Thanks for the help, Mr. High Horse," he said. "But I think we got this situation under control here. Don't you?"

Chapter Twenty-Five.