"But they don't stay happy with just things," Susan said. "Right?"

She was looking at Sally, who was smiling at Elvis.

"Right," Sally said, putting Elvis on the table.

We finished a pitcher of Diet c.o.ke and our salad and the pizza came. Susan ate the most. Michael was second. Sally third, and I had a single slice.

"Is this like the real way pizza's supposed to be?" Susan asked me.

"Tastes fine to me," I said.

"You're Italian," Susan said. "You should know. Didn't your mother make pizza?"

"No."

"Your grandmother?"

"No."

"How can you be Italian? My mom makes matzo ball soup."

"So did my mom," I said.

"But you're Italian, not Jewish."

"We liked matzoball soup," I said.

"You know," Susan said. "I can never tell when you're serious and when you're trying to be funny."

"It's a curse," I said. "I'm working with a doctor to find the charm that'll free me."

We finished the pizza and I paid the check. Sally left the tip. It was what we had agreed to do whenever I invited them out.

I walked them to their Honda, each carrying the gift I'd given them from Mickey's Collectibles.

"Come over for dinner Sunday," Sally said.

She looked tired but she was smiling. Her skin was clear, and in the red, white, and yellow lights of the stores in the mall she reminded me of Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Contessa.

"Adele invited us to come to Flo's for a barbecue," I said. "You, the kids, me, Ames."

"What time?" she asked.

I don't know," I said. "I'll call you tomorrow."

Michael and Susan waved to me as Sally drove off. I checked my watch. If I didn't drive too fast, I'd be in front of Hoffmann's at least fifteen minutes before nine.

14.

I WAS ACROSS FROM Kevin Hoffmann's impressive iron gate and high brick walls at ten minutes to nine. I didn't stop. I drove around the neighborhood and came back. There were no other cars on the street of big houses, all with big driveways and big garages.

Then I heard Ames's motor scooter coming. It was like a call to the curious. When he stopped behind me and turned the bike off, I was sure we had only minutes before we were surrounded by police.

A very thin, very small, very nervous black man wearing a pair of dark pants, a navy-colored T-shirt, a bulky-looking brown leather jacket, and a battered fedora that would have been the envy of Indiana Jones got off the back of Ames's bike. I got out of the car.

"Snickers," said Ames.

I shook Snickers's hand and handed him a hundred-dollar bill, a twenty, and a ten. He kissed each one and said, "The trunk."

We moved behind the car and I opened the trunk. Since it was a rental, it was empty.

Snickers pointed at Ames's scooter.

"Inside," he said, standing back and looking both ways down the street, constantly adjusting his battered fedora.

Ames and I managed to get the scooter in the trunk. Half of it hung out. Ames pulled a bungee cord from the little pouch on his scooter and expertly tied the scooter down.

"Back in the car," Snickers whispered.

We all got back in. From the backseat, leaning over my shoulder, Snickers, who could have used a healthy dose of Scope, guided me slowly to a driveway two estates over from the Hoffmann place.

"They ain't home," said Snickers. "Go right over the lawn. Lights out. Park near the pool on the gra.s.s. Cops can't see a car from the street and they don't do a house-by-house until a little after midnight or one depending on which cop is working. Tonight's Friday. It'll be the fat old white guy, off-duty North Port cop. He came by about half an hour ago. He'll hit this stretch at one, maybe a few minutes past, then again at three-thirty."

I nodded and got out of the car, following Snickers, who disappeared through a clump of bushes.

"Wall's not hard to get up," Snickers said, stopping when we got to the barrier. "But up top it's got a jolt that'll send you flying and lucky to land on your a.s.s and they'll know inside something's been climbing or landing."

The moon was almost full but not bright enough to show us what Snickers's flashlight, produced from the inside of his leather jacket, put into a white pool of light.

"Dead birds, gulls, racc.o.o.ns on the ground all along here," he said. "All zapped. Probably won't kill a man though I don't know, a skinny one like me or you even or an old one like old Ames here wouldn't want to test it out."

"So what do we do?" I asked.

"We wade in the water," Snickers said, snapping off his flashlight. "Like the old song says. *I'm gonna wade in the water.'"

We followed him along the wall to the narrow beach where the wall ended, but a metal fence about twelve feet high extended into the water about ten yards.

Hoffmann's house was clear from where we stood. It sat back, three stories, lights on in almost every window. I didn't see anyone looking out of a window at the white-moon ripples on the waves.

"We're gonna get wet to the ankles," Snickers said, taking off his shoes and socks, rolling up his cuffs, and motioning for Ames and me to do the same. We did, tucking the socks into the shoes. "Tide's low, real low. We get around the fence. You do just what I do, right behind me, know what I'm sayin'?"

I wasn't sure that an answer was called for, but I said, "Yes."

"And remember, don't touch the fence," Snickers said, shoes tucked under his arms. "I repeat, do not touch the fence."

The water was cool but not cold, bare feet on finely ground sh.e.l.ls and then firm sand as we followed Snickers.

The water was up to my calves when we moved around the fence. Something slithered against my foot. I tried not to think of what it might be.

The wooden dock I had seen from inside the house stood high out of the water, with a small cabin boat tied to it and bobbing.

Snickers motioned to us and, heads together, he whispered. "Dock is wired. Boat's wired too. Likewise about ten feet of the beach from fence we came around to fence on the other side. Some scared people in there with something to hide. A challenge. Anthony Bussy likes a challenge."

"Anthony Bussy?" I asked.

"Me," he said with irritation. "You don't think my momma named me Snickers do you? We ain't no comedy team, Snickers, Cowboy, and the Wop. We're Ocean's Three and the head man is me."

Anthony "Snickers" Bussy was high on something. I hoped it was sugar.

We waded single file to the dock but didn't touch it. Snickers moved toward the beach and motioned underneath the boards of the boat dock where small waves were lapping. He bent over and duck-walked under the dock, still ankle-deep in the water. On the far side, he turned and held up his right hand. Then he reached up and took hold of a two-by-four that jutted out and with both hands swung himself up on the deck. Then he turned and held out his hands, motioning for me to reach up to him.

For a skinny little man on a sugar high, Snickers was strong. He pulled me up and balanced me with one hand to keep my feet next to his. Then the two of us helped Ames follow us. This was a little trickier, since Ames was taller and weighed down by whatever armor he carried under his slicker, but he made it.

"There's a wood plank under the sand," Snickers whispered. "About as wide as J. Lo's behind. Walk behind me real tight-a.s.s and you'll feel it with your toes."

Snickers led the way, with Ames behind me probably wondering who Jay Lowe was and how wide a behind he had. We must have looked like three Alzheimer patients playing Follow the Leader.

After about a dozen steps Snickers stopped.

"Safe here," Snickers said. "No dogs. Let's move."

When we reached the shadow of the house, Snickers put his back to the wall, wiped the bottoms of his feet to get rid of the sand, and motioned for us to do the same. Ames and I brushed our feet and put on our socks and shoes.

I had made a rough two-page drawing of the inside of the house, but Snickers had said he didn't need it. He had been here before. All he needed was to know which room we were going for.

"Windows are wired," Snickers whispered. "There's a door back here, back of the garage, and a big door to the house. We go in back here."

The back door was on a broad, covered porch with wooden deck chairs padded with plush turquoise down pillows. The windows off the door were dark. Snickers moved to one of them and looked in. Satisfied, he reached under his leather jacket and came up with two six-inch-long needle-thin rods of metal.

"Spend maybe a hundred and fifty thousand juicing this place and the lock on the back door ain't worth fire-ant s.h.i.t."

He inserted both pieces of metal in the lock, played with them for a few seconds, and heard something over the waves that Ames and I didn't hear.

"Black jack, quinine, a bit of dose," he said, putting the pieces of metal away and coming out from under his coat with a ribbon-thin strip of dark metal and a pliers, the thinnest pliers I had ever seen, with long pincers.

"Dead bolts," he whispered, going to work. "Two of them. Got a real quiet little handsaw with diamond blades I can rent from a supplier in Tampa, but I didn't have the cash and you didn't have the time. This worked last time. If they didn't change to something better, it'll work again."

Snickers went to work, slowly, quietly.

"You're working cheap," I said, seeing beads of sweat beginning to form on his nose.

"Love of the game," he said. "Here comes our only sure noise. Cowboy?"

Ames reached under his slicker and came out with his shotgun.

There was a metallic double click, not loud but not quiet either. Snickers tucked his tools away, opened the door, and walked in, with Ames and me behind him.

We were in the kitchen. There was enough light coming from the next room to show us that. We stood waiting, Ames's shotgun aimed at the pa.s.sageway between the kitchen and what looked like a family room or den.

There were voices far away, deep in the house. We followed Snickers through the next door and found ourselves in a room filled with overstuffed dark chairs and shelves of books and videotapes. A large television set with a monster screen stood at the end of the room.

There was a single floor lamp on. Between the shelves of books and tapes were huge paintings of baseball players in full uniform, four of them altogether. In one, Willie Mays stood with his bat back, waiting for the pitch. In another, a pitcher, hands up, ball protected, looking over his shoulder at a man on second base, was frozen forever deciding whether to throw a fastball or curve. I thought it was Robin Roberts. I wasn't sure.

The third painting looked as if it had been copied from an old baseball card, a very old baseball card judging from the player's uniform, mustache, and the part down the center of his hair. I guessed Honus Wagner.

The fourth painting was someone I didn't recognize at first. The Yankees uniform, the confident smile, the bat over his shoulder, the cap tilted back. It was Kevin Hoffmann, an idealized Kevin Hoffmann, a Kevin Hoffmann at least thirty years younger than the man I had met, but definitely Kevin Hoffmann who, I knew, had never played for the Yankees.

"Come on," Snickers whispered to wake me from Hoffmann's dream.

Snickers first, me second, and Ames last, we moved past a door to our right to a second door at the end of the room. Snickers opened it slowly and we heard a man's voice, clear, distinct, several rooms away.

"He's gonna have some trouble living that one down," the man said.

"He's been through it before. We all were. They'll be cheering him with the next home run."

The voices were coming from a radio or television. We moved slowly through a hardwood-floored dining room to an open door. The sound of the baseball announcers came from our right. There was a spiral staircase just to our left. Up we went. When we were almost at the top, I looked down into the room where the voice from the television set said, "A hit here could tie it up."

I could see Kevin Hoffmann below, sitting with his back to me. He was wearing a pair of tan shorts and a baggy short-sleeved shirt with black-and-white vertical stripes. In his left hand was a gla.s.s of dark liquid. On his lap was a large pistol. I nudged Ames, who looked where I was pointing and he nodded.

Stanley was around somewhere but either out of sight in the room where Hoffmann sat, reading a book of poetry in the room next to the one where William Trasker lay, or roaming the house with a gun in his hands.

There was a small landing, not big enough for all three of us, at the top of the staircase. And there was a closed door. Snickers opened it slowly. The hinges made no sound. Light flooded in from the hallway beyond.

We moved through the door, Ames with shotgun held at hip level, aimed down the hallway. The door to Stanley's room was open. The light was on. I moved forward and led the way to the room where I had seen Trasker. That door was closed. I opened it very slowly and stepped into darkness, with Snickers behind me and Ames turning his gun toward the now partially open door.

Snickers's flashlight came on, circled the room, and hit the bed.

The covers were pulled down and rumpled. There was an indentation where someone's head had been, but there was no William Trasker.

The overhead light suddenly came on and Stanley, in the doorway, a very large Magnum in his right hand, stood looking at us with an amused smile. He adjusted his gla.s.ses with his free hand and concentrated on Ames.

"We play gunfight in the streets of Laredo or do we go downstairs and pretend we're civilized? I'm up for either," Stanley said. "Old Wyatt Earp goes first and if he doesn't put me down hard, you're next. Fonesca?"

"Put the gun away, Ames," I said.

"I can do him," Ames said.

"We'd be murdering him in his own house," I said.

"And you didn't come to kill," said Stanley. "You came for William Trasker. I'll take you to him."