"Vividly, I think. Maybe as young as nineteen, no older than twenty-one or so."

"Height?"

"An inch shorter than me."

"Weight?"

"Maybe a hundred and fifty pounds. Thin. No, that's not right, not thin, not scrawny. Lean but muscular."

"Complexion?"

"Fair. He's been indoors a lot. Thick hair, dark brown or black. Good-looking kid, a little like that actor, Tom Cruise, but more hawkish. He had unusual eyes. Gray. Like silver with a little tarnish on it."

Connie said, "What I'm thinking is, we go over to Nancy Quan's house. She lives right here in Laguna Beach-"

Nancy was a sketch artist who worked for Special Projects and had a gift for hearing and correctly interpreting the nuances in a witness's description of a suspect. Her pencil sketches often proved to be astonishingly good portraits of the perps when they were at last cornered and hauled into custody.

"-you describe this kid to her, she draws him, and we take the sketch to the Laguna police, see if they know the little creep."

Harry said, "What if they don't?"

"Then we start knocking on doors, showing the sketch."

"Doors? Where?"

"Houses and apartments within a block of where you ran into him. It's possible he lives in that immediate area. Even if he doesn't live there, maybe he hangs out there, has friends in the neighborhood-"

'This kid has no friends."

"-or relatives. Someone might recognize him."

"People aren't going to be real happy, we go knocking on their doors in the middle of the night." Connie grimaced. "You want to wait for dawn?"

"Guess not."

The band was returning for their final set.

Connie chugged the last of her coffee, pushed her chair back, got up, took some folding money from one coat pocket, and threw a couple of bills on the table.

"Let me pay half," Harry said.

"My treat."

"No, really, I should pay half."

She gave him an are-you-nuts look.

"I like to keep accounts in balance with everyone. You know that," he explained.

'Take a walk on the wild side, Harry. Let the accounts go out of balance. Tell you what-if dawn comes and we wake up in h.e.l.l, you can buy breakfast."

She headed for the door.

When he saw her coming, the host in the Armani suit and hand-painted silk tie scurried into the safety of the kitchen.

Following Connie, Harry glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. It was twenty-two minutes past one o'clock in the morning.

Dawn was perhaps five hours away.

8.

Padding through the night town. People in their dark places all drowsy around him. He yawns and thinks about lying under some bushes and sleeping. There's another world when he sleeps, a nice world where he has a family that lives in a warm place and welcomes him there, feeds him every day, plays with him anytime he wants to play, calls him Prince, takes him with them in a car and lets him put his head out the window in the wind with his ears flapping-feels good, smells coming at him dizzy-fast, yes yes yes-and never kicks him. It's a good world in sleep, even though he can't catch the cats there, either.

Then he remembers the young-man-bad-thing, the black place, the people and animal eyes without bodies, and he isn't sleepy any more.

He's got to do something about the bad thing, but he doesn't know what. He senses it is going to hurt the woman, the boy, hurt them bad. It has much anger. Hate. It would set their fur on fire if they had fur. He doesn't know why. Or when or how or where. But he must do something, save them, be a good dog, good.

So. . .

Do something.

Okay.

So . . .

Until he can think what to do about the bad thing, he might as well look for some more food. Maybe the smiling fat man left more good sc.r.a.ps for him behind the people food place. Maybe the fat man is still there in the open door, looking this way and that way along the alley, hoping to see Fella again, thinking he would like to take Fella home, give him a warm place, feed him every day, play with him anytime he wants to play, take Fella for rides in cars with his head sticking out in the wind.

Hurrying now. Trying to smell the fat man. Is he out in the open? Waiting?

Sniffing, sniffing, he pa.s.ses a rust-smelling, grease-smelling, oil-smelling car parked in a big empty s.p.a.ce, and then he smells the woman, the boy, even through the closed windows. He stops, looks up. Boy sleeping, can't be seen. Woman leaning against door, head against window. Awake, but she does not see him.

Maybe the fat man will like the woman, the boy, will have room for all of them in his nice warm people place, and they can play together, all of them, eat when they want, go for rides in cars with their heads sticking out windows, smells coming at them dizzy-fast. Yes yes yes yes yes yes. Why not? In the sleep world, there is a family. Why not in this world, too?

He is excited. This is good. This is really good. He feels the wonderful thing around the corner, wonderful thing coming that he always knew was out there somewhere. Good. Yes. Good. Yes yes yes yes yes.

The people food place with the fat man waiting is not far from the car, so maybe he should bark to make the woman see him, then lead her and the boy to the fat man.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes.

But wait, wait, it could take too long, too long, getting them to follow him. People are so slow to understand sometimes. The fat man might go away. Then they get there, the fat man is gone, they're standing in the alley, and they don't know why, they think he's just a stupid dog, stupid silly dog, humiliated like when the cat is up in the tree looking down at him.

No no no no no. The fat man can't go away, can't. Fat man goes away, they won't be together in a nice warm place or in a car with the wind.

What to do, what to do? Excited. Bark? Don't bark? Stay, go, yes, no, bark, don't bark?

Pee. Got to pee. Lift the leg. Ah. Yes. Strong-smelling pee. Steaming on the pavement, steaming. Interesting.

Fat man. Don't forget the fat man. Waiting in the alley. Go to the fat man first, before he goes inside and is gone forever, get him and bring him back here, yes yes yes yes, because the woman and the boy are not going anywhere.

Good dog. Smart dog.

He trots away from the car. Then runs. To the corner. Around. A little farther. Another corner. The alley behind the people food place.

Panting, excited, he runs up to the door where the fat man gave out sc.r.a.ps. It is closed. The fat man is gone. No more sc.r.a.ps on the ground.

He is surprised. He was so sure. All of them together like in the sleep world. He scratches at the door. Scratches, scratches.

The fat man doesn't come. The door stays closed.

He barks. Waits. Barks.

Nothing.

Well. So. Now what?

He is still excited, but not as much as before. Not so excited that he has to pee, but too excited to be still. He paces in front of the door, back and forth across the alley, whining in frustration and confusion, beginning to be a little sad.

Voices echo to him from the far end of the alley, and he knows one of them belongs to the stinky man who smells like everything bad at once, including like the touch of the thing-that-willkill-you. He can smell the stinky man really well even from a distance. He doesn't know who the other voices belong to, can't smell those people so much because the stinky man's odor covers them. Maybe one is the fat man, looking for his Fella.

Could be.

Wagging his tail, he hurries to the end of the alley, but when he gets there he finds no fat man, so he stops wagging. Only a man and a woman he's never seen before, standing near a car in front of the people food place with the stinky man, all of them talking.

You really cops? says the stinky man. says the stinky man.

What'd you do to the car? says the woman. says the woman.

Nothing. I didn 't do anything to the car.

There's any c.r.a.p in this car, you're a dead man.

No, listen, for G.o.d's sake.

Forced detox, you sc.u.mbag.

How could I get in the car, with it locked?

So you tried, huh?

I just wanted to nose around, see were you really cops.

I'll show you are we really cops or not, you hairball.

Hey, let go of me!

Jesus, you stink!

Let me go, let me go!

Come on, let him go. All right, easy now, says the man who isn't so stinky. Sniffing, sniffing, he smells something on this new man that he smells on the stinky man, too, and it surprises him. The touch of the thing-that-will-kill you. This man has been around the bad thing not long ago. says the man who isn't so stinky. Sniffing, sniffing, he smells something on this new man that he smells on the stinky man, too, and it surprises him. The touch of the thing-that-will-kill you. This man has been around the bad thing not long ago.

You smell like a walking toxic waste dump, says the woman. says the woman.

She also has on her the smell of the thing-that-will-kill-you. All three of them. Stinky man, man, and woman. Interesting.

He moves closer, sniffing.

Listen, please, I've got to talk to a cop, says the stinky man. says the stinky man. So talk, So talk, says the woman. says the woman.

My name's Sammy Shamroe. I got a crime to report.

Let me guess- somebody stole your new Mercedes. somebody stole your new Mercedes.

I need help!

So do we, pal.

All three of them not only have the touch of the bad thing on them, but they smell of fear, the same fear he has smelled on the woman and the boy who call him Woofer. They are afraid of the bad thing, all of them.

Someone's going to kill me, says the stinky man. says the stinky man.

Yeah, it's gonna be me if you don't get out of my face.

Easy. Easy now.

The stinky man says, And he's not human, either. I call him the ratman. And he's not human, either. I call him the ratman. Maybe these people should meet the woman and the boy in the car. All of them afraid separately. Together, maybe not afraid. Together, all of them, they might live in a warm place, play all the time, feed him every day, all of them go places in a car-except the stinky man would have to run behind unless he stopped being stinky enough to make you sneeze. Maybe these people should meet the woman and the boy in the car. All of them afraid separately. Together, maybe not afraid. Together, all of them, they might live in a warm place, play all the time, feed him every day, all of them go places in a car-except the stinky man would have to run behind unless he stopped being stinky enough to make you sneeze.

/ call him the ratman 'cause he's made out of rats, he falls apart and he's just a bunch of rats call him the ratman 'cause he's made out of rats, he falls apart and he's just a bunch of rats running everywhichway. running everywhichway.

But how? How to get them together with the woman and the boy? How to make them understand, people being so slow sometimes?

8.

When the dog came sniffing around their feet, Harry didn't know if it was with the b.u.m, Sammy, or if it was just a stray on its own. Depending on how obstreperous the vagrant became, if they had to use force with him, the dog might take sides. It didn't look dangerous, but you never could tell. As for Sammy, he appeared to be more of a threat than the dog. He was wasted from life on the street and from whatever had put him there, worse than skinny, spindly, Salvation Army giveaway clothes hanging so loosely on him that you expected to hear bones rattling together when he moved, but that didn't mean he was weak. He was twitchy with excess energy. His eyes were so wide open, the lids seemed to have been stretched back and pinned out of the way. His face was tight with tension lines, and his lips repeatedly skinned back from his bad teeth in a feral snarl that might have been meant to be an ingratiating smile but was alarming instead.

"The ratman, see, is what I call him, not what he calls himself. Never heard him call himself anything. Don't know where the h.e.l.l he comes from, where he's hiding his ship, he's just all of a sudden there, there, just there, the s.a.d.i.s.tic b.a.s.t.a.r.d, one scary son of a b.i.t.c.h-" In spite of how weak he appeared to be, Sammy might be like a robotic mechanism receiving too much power, circuits overloading, on the trembling verge of exploding, disintegrating into a shrapnel of gears and springs and burst pneumatic tubes that would kill everyone within a block. He might have a knife, knives, even a gun. Harry had seen shaky little guys like this who looked as if a strong gust of wind would blow them all the way to China; then it turned out that they were stoned on PCP, which could transform kittens into tigers, and three strong men were required to disarm and subdue them. just there, the s.a.d.i.s.tic b.a.s.t.a.r.d, one scary son of a b.i.t.c.h-" In spite of how weak he appeared to be, Sammy might be like a robotic mechanism receiving too much power, circuits overloading, on the trembling verge of exploding, disintegrating into a shrapnel of gears and springs and burst pneumatic tubes that would kill everyone within a block. He might have a knife, knives, even a gun. Harry had seen shaky little guys like this who looked as if a strong gust of wind would blow them all the way to China; then it turned out that they were stoned on PCP, which could transform kittens into tigers, and three strong men were required to disarm and subdue them.