I reached out and tried to take her in my arms but she very gently pushed me away.

"They're looking for you," she said.

"Right now, I don't give a d.a.m.n, Cindy. All I give a d.a.m.n about is talking to you."

"They say you killed Mae Swenson."

She had started to back away from me as we spoke.

"You know better than that, Cindy! You know I didn't kill her!"

Josh reached me just then and said, "C'mon, Spence, we've got to get going before somebody sees you."

I didn't pay any attention.

I tried to draw Cindy close to me again.

But once again she pushed away.

"We've got proof that Garrett killed her, Cindy. You don't even have to testify any more if you don't want to. Proof!"

I grabbed the western boot from Josh's hand and held it up to her. "There's blood on this boot. And once we get it a.n.a.lyzed, I'm sure it'll be Mae Swenson's blood. And it's Garrett's boot!"

"Oh, s.h.i.t," Josh said.

Only then did I become aware of a small group of people surrounding us. Just gawking.

"It's Spence," a few of them whispered.

"They ain't gonna have a hard time findin' him now," one old-timer cackled.

But I didn't care.

This time, I pulled her to me so hard there was no way she could escape.

I felt as if I were stoned on the most exotic drugs I'd ever taken, drugs that somehow made Cindy my only reality.

I pulled her close enough to feel her soft sweet breath on my face.

"I'm going to take this boot to the Chief, Cindy, and then I'm going to be free. And then I'm going to wait for your graduation, and then we're going to get married. That's a promise, Cindy! That's a promise!"

I guess I saw the patrol car peripherally hut it didn't really register until it came right up over the curb and stopped about three feet from where Cindy and Josh and I stood.

I turned and saw him get out of the car very quickly, his Magnum already drawn and ready for business. He had to move slowly because the sidewalk was very icy.

"No need in you getting hurt, Spence," Garrett said, looking crisp and efficient in his uniform. "I put the cuffs on you, put you in the back seat, that's all that's gonna happen."

"You sonofab.i.t.c.h," I said. "You're the one who should be arrested. You're the one who killed Mae Swenson, not me."

I could hear the growing crowd muttering about what I'd said.

But I didn't care what they thought either way.

Right now, all I wanted to do was get that boot safely to the Chief.

Josh stepped up. "I was taking him to the police station, Garrett. You leave us alone, let us walk down that block alone, and you'll have him with no trouble."

Garrett smirked. "That right, little brother?"

"That's right. You have my word on it."

Garrett played to the crowd. "Now that's something isn't it? Your word on it? You think because you're some big basketball star, you can do whatever you want?"

A few crowd members laughed.

Garrett looked at Cindy. "He hurt you?"

She shook her head, mute.

"You ever lay a hand on her again, Spence, and I'll kill you right on the spot. You understand me?"

We'd come a long way from buying Conan comic books at the mall.

"May I go home?" Cindy said. "I'd really like to go home."

Garrett smiled at her and in that smile I could see that he loved her as much as I did. And for a moment, I almost felt sorry for him. Because Cindy was going to be mine.

The funny thing was, every few moments I'd be aware of that corny Christmas music on the air, and of the rusty noises the street decorations made when they blew in the wind.

"You go on home, Cindy. I'll call you later."

"Thanks," she said, and smiled nervously at him.

She looked at Josh and me as if we had crashed her party. This was the ultimate betrayal, taking Garrett's side here, but I couldn't help it. I still wanted to run away with her.

I had just turned back to Garrett when I saw his gaze lite on the western boot that Josh carried in his right hand.

"What the h.e.l.l's that?"

"None of your business," Josh said.

"None of my business. That's my boot you've got."

"We're taking it to the Chief," Josh said. "It's evidence."

"You two broke into my apartment tonight, didn't you?"

Josh nodded to me and said, "Just start walking to the station, Spence. I'll catch up with you."

"I want that boot," Garrett said.

Right now, I didn't exist for him. Neither did the swelling crowd. There was just him and Josh and that western boot.

"Go to the police station and turn yourself in, Spence," Josh said. "Don't give him an excuse to hurt you."

Garrett was moving closer all the time.

His Magnum was coming up and he was holding his free hand out, palm up.

"Put the boot right there, hero. And right now."

"You're not getting it," Josh said. Then to me, "Get going, Spence. Turn yourself in."

"I'm not going to tell you again, a.s.shole. The boot. Now."

And that was when he lunged for it, Garrett did.

And that was when he lost it, totally lost it. It must have been the boot that made him so crazy, how the boot would ultimately give him away.

And that was when it happened, the gun going off, the gun I still hear and will hear for the rest of my life, the gun that put three bullets into the chest of my brother Josh, and left him dead upon the sidewalk.

I don't remember most of it, just holding Josh and rocking him and rocking him, and crying his name over and over and over.

I guess I was aware of Garrett getting into his patrol car and driving away but it didn't matter to me.

Not with my little brother Josh dead in my arms. Not with Josh dead in my arms.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Seven Years Later On the day they execute him, my wife Cindy wakes before me and goes into the bathroom and throws up. The noise and grief of it wakes me. I roll over, eyes just opening, and see the gray harsh sky filling the window.

Down the hall, the oldest of our two children, Marisa, age four, is calling out for her mother. She is sobbing.

I tug on my pajama bottoms and trot down the hall. Marisa is subject to very bad nightmares and needs constant rea.s.surance that everything in her world is going to be all right.

Susan is still sleeping in her crib as I sit down on the edge of Marisa's bed and put her in my lap. She is sleep-warm, sleep-sweet. I feel ashamed to admit this, even to myself, but she is my favorite daughter. I cannot help the way I feel.

Her pajama top is wet from her tears. She hugs me.

"I heard him, Daddy, I heard him," she sobs into my neck.

"Heard who, honey?"

"The man in the well."

My entire body freezes.

"Did your Mommy take you there again?"

"Uh-huh."

"When?"

"Yesterday. And he was in my dreams, Daddy. The man in the well. And he talked to me."

"I'm sorry, honey. But you're all right. He can't hurt you."

She is sniffling now, the worst of her tears over with. "He scares me, Daddy."

"I know, honey. I know he does." Then I hoist her up and bounce her in the air the way I did when she was Susan's age. "How about some Frosted Flakes?"

I make her breakfast: her favorite cereal, Frosted Flakes, a small gla.s.s of orange juice, a Flintstones vitamin, and a piece of wheat toast with jam (she hates both margarine and b.u.t.ter).

"Now you sit here and enjoy your breakfast. I'm going to go talk to your mommy."

She is naked in the bathroom, just stepping out of the shower when I open the door and let myself in without knocking.

"That's not very nice," she says. If anything, the seven years have made her more beautiful, given her face a richer, more melancholy beauty.

"Neither is taking Marisa to the well."

She looks away quickly, reaches out for her blue robe hanging on the back of the door. She can't quite reach it. I watch the way her b.r.e.a.s.t.s ride up as her arm stretches. Unfortunately, she seems to have lost her s.e.xual desire of late. We make love a few times a month and she's developed the habit of taking a shower immediately after the deed is done, as if she wants all memory of me washed away.

I hold the robe for her and she turns her back to me and slides into the buff blue terrycloth.

I watch our faces in the mirror.

"You promised," I said.

"Little children love fantasy games."

"Not this fantasy game. She's terrified of it."

She stares at my reflection a long time and says, "Well, life's sort of a terrifying business, anyway, isn't it?"

This last time, the fourth since our wedding, she stayed in the hospital six weeks. At least this time there was no electro-shock. I'm not sure she ever quite recovered from them.

"Don't you have to be at your parents'?" Cindy says.

"Yes."