"And maybe to find Alfie."

"You think Alfie's in California?"

New York said, "Well, he had to go somewhere. Besides, the minute this People thing fell on us, we started trying to learn every thing we could about Martin Stillwater, and right away we find out there was some trouble at his house in Mission Viejo late this after noon, early this evening."

"What kind of trouble?"

"The police report's been written up, but it isn't logged into their computer yet, so we can't just access it. We need to get our hands on a hard copy. Were working on that. So far, we know there was an intruder in the house. Stillwater apparently shot somebody, but the guy got away."

"You think it has something to do with Alfie?"

"Nobody here's a big believer in coincidence."

The pitch of the Lear engines changed. The jet had come out of its climb, leveled off, and settled down to cruising speed.

Oslett said, "But how would Alfie know about Stillwater?"

"Maybe he reads People," New York said, and laughed nervously.

"If you're thinking the intruder was Alfie why would he go after this guy?"

"We don't have a theory yet."

Oslett sighed. "I feel as if I'm standing in a cosmic toilet, and God just flushed it.

"Maybe you should've taken more care with the way you were handling him."

"This wasn't a handling screwup," Oslett bristled.

"Hey, I'm making no accusations. I'm only telling you one of the things that's being said back here."

"Seems to me the big screwup was in satellite surveillance."

"Can't expect them to locate him after he took off the shoes."

"But how come they needed a day and a half to find the damned shoes?

Bad weather over the Midwest. Sunspot activity, magnetic disturbances.

Too many hundreds of square miles in the initial search zone.

Excuses, excuses, excuses."

"At least they have some," New York said smugly.

Oslett fumed in silence. He hated being away from Manhattan.

The moment the shadow of his plane crossed the city line, the knives came out, and the ambitious pygmies started trying to whittle his reputation down to their size.

"You'll be met by an advance man in California," New York said.

"He'll give you an update."

"Terrific."

Oslett frowned at the phone and pressed END, terminating the He needed a drink.

In addition to the pilot and co-pilot, the flight crew included a stewardess. With a button on the arm of his chair, he could summon her from the small galley at the back of the plane. In seconds she arrived, and he ordered a double Scotch on the rocks.

She was an attractive blonde in a burgundy blouse, gray skirt, and matching gray jacket. He turned in his seat to watch her walk back to the galley.

He wondered how easy she was. If he charmed her, maybe she'd let him take her into the john and do it to her standing up.

For all of a minute, he indulged that fantasy, but then faced reality and put her out of his mind. Even if she was easy, there would be unpleasant consequences. Afterward, she would want to sit beside him, probably all the way to California, and share with him her thoughts and feelings about everything from love and fate to death and the significance of Cheer Whiz. He didn't care what she thought and felt, only what she could do, and he was in no mood to pretend to be a sensitive nineties kind of guy.

When she brought the Scotch, he asked what videotapes were available.

She gave him a list of forty titles. The best movie of all time was in the plane's library, Lethal Weapon 3. He had lost track of how many times he'd seen it, and the pleasure he took from it did not diminish with repetition. It was the ideal film because it had no story line that made enough sense to bother following, did not expect the viewer to watch the characters change and grow, was composed entirely of a series of violent action sequences, and was louder than a stockcar race and a Megadeth concert combined.

Four separately positioned monitors made it possible for four films to be shown simultaneously to different passengers. The stewardess ran Lethal Weapon 3 on the monitor nearest to Oslett and gave him a set of headphones.

He put on the headset, turned the volume high, and settled back in his seat with a grin.

Later, after he finished the Scotch, he dozed off while Danny Glover and Mel Gibson screamed unintelligible dialogue at each other, fires raged, machine guns chattered, explosives detonated, and music thundered.

Monday night they stayed in a pair of connecting units in a motel in Laguna Beach. The accommodations didn't qualify as five- or even four-star lodging, but the rooms were clean and the bathrooms had plenty of towels. With the holiday weekend gone and the summer tourist season months in the future, at least half of the motel was unoccupied, and though they were right off Pacific Coast Highway, quiet ruled.

The events of the day had taken their toll. Paige felt as if she had been awake for a week. Even the too-soft and slightly lumpy motel mattress was as enticing as a bed of clouds on which gods and goddesses might sleep.

For dinner they ate pizza in the motel. Marty went out to fetch it-also salads and cannoli with deliciously thick ricotta custard from a restaurant a couple of blocks away.

When he returned with the food, he pounded insistently on the door, and he was pale and hollow-eyed when he rushed inside, arms laden with take-out boxes. At first Paige thought he had seen the look-alike cruising the area, but then she realized he expected to return and find them gone-or dead.

The outer doors of both rooms featured sturdy dead-bolt locks and security chains. They engaged these and also wedged straight backed desk chairs under the knobs.

Neither Paige nor Marty could imagine any means by which The Other could possibly find them. They wedged the chairs under the knobs anyway.

Tight.

Incredibly, in spite of the terror they had been through, the kids were willing to let Marty convince them that the night away from home was a special treat. They were not accustomed to staying in motels, so everything from the coin-operated vibrating mattress to the free stationery to the miniature bars of fragrant soap was sufficiently exotic to fascinate them when Marty drew their attention to it.

They were especially intrigued that the toilet seats in both rooms were wrapped by crisp white paper bands on which were printed assurances in three languages that the facilities had been sanitized.

From this, Emily deduced that some motel guests must be "real pigs" who didn't know enough to clean up after themselves, and Charlotte speculated about whether such a special notice indicated that more than soap or Lysol had been used to sterilize the surfaces, perhaps flamethrowers or nuclear radiation.

Marty was clever enough to realize that the more exotic flavors of soft drinks in the motel vending machines, which the girls did not get at home, would also delight them and lift their spirits. He bought chocolate Yoo-Hoo, Mountain Dew, Sparkling Grape, Cherry Crush, Tangerine Treat, and Pineapple Fizz. The four of them sat on the two queen-size beds in one of the rooms, containers of food spread around them on the mattresses, bottles of colorful sodas on the nightstands.

Charlotte and Emily had to taste some of each beverage before the end of dinner, which made Paige queasy.

Through her family-counseling practice, Paige had long ago learned that children were potentially more resilient than adults when it came to coping with trauma. That potential was best realized when they enjoyed a stable family structure, received large doses of affection, and believed themselves to be respected and loved. She felt a rush of pride that her own kids were proving so emotionally elastic and strong-then superstitiously and surreptitiously knocked one knuckle softly against the wooden headboard, silently asking God not to punish either her or the children for her hubris.

Most surprisingly, once Charlotte and Emily had bathed, put on pajamas, and been tucked into the beds in the connecting room, they wanted Marty to conduct his usual story hour and continue the verses about Santa's evil twin. Paige recognized an uncomfortable-in fact, uncanny-similarity between the fanciful poem and recent frightening events in their own lives. She was sure Marty and the girls were also aware of the connection. Yet Marty seemed as pleased by the opportunity to share more verses as the kids were eager to hear them.

He positioned a chair at the foot of-and exactly between-the two beds.

In their rush to get packed and out of the house, he had even remembered to bring the notebook that was labeled Stories for Charlotte and Emily, with its clip-on, battery-powered reading lamp.

He sat down and held the notebook at reading distance.

The shotgun lay on the floor beside him.

The Beretta was on the dresser, where Paige could reach it in two seconds flat.

Marty waited for the silence to develop the proper quality of expectation.

The scene was remarkably like the one Paige had witnessed so often in the girls' room at home, except for two differences. The queen-size beds dwarfed Charlotte and Emily, making them seem like children in a fairy tale, homeless waifs who had sneaked into a giant's castle to steal some of his porridge and enjoy his guest rooms. And the miniature reading lamp clipped to the notebook was not the sole source of light, one of the nightstand lamps was aglow as well, and would remain so all night-the girls' only apparent concession to fear.

Surprised to discover that she, too, was looking forward with pleasure to the continuation of the poem, Paige sat on the foot of Emily's bed.

She wondered what it was about storytelling that made people want it almost as much as food and water, even more so in bad times than good.

Movies had never drawn more patrons than during the Great Depression.

Book sales often improved in a recession. The need went beyond a mere desire for entertainment and distraction from one's troubles. It was more profound and mysterious than that.

When a hush had fallen on the room and the moment seemed just right, Marty began to read. Because Charlotte and Emily had insisted he start at the beginning, he recited the verses they had already heard on Saturday and Sunday nights, arriving at that moment when Santa's evil twin stood at the kitchen door of the Stillwater house, intent upon breaking inside.

"With picks, loids, gwizzels, and rocks, he quickly and silently opens both locks.

He enters the kitchen without a sound.

Now chances for devilment truly abound.

He opens the fridge and eats all the cake, pondering what sort of mess he can make.

He pours the milk all over the floor, pickles, pudding, ketchup, and Coors.

He scatters the bread-white and rye and finally he spits right in the pie."

"Oh, gross," Charlotte said.

Emily grinned. "Hocked a greenie."

"What kind of pie was it?" Charlotte wondered.

Paige said, "Mincemeat."

"Yuck. Then I don't blame him for spitting in it."

"At the corkboard by the phone and stool, he sees drawings the kids did at school.

Emily has painted a kind, smiling face.

Charlotte has drawn elephants in space.

The villain takes out a red felt-tip pen, taps it, uncaps it, chuckles, and then, on both pictures, scrawls the word "Poo!" He always knows the worst things to do."

"He's a critic!" Charlotte gasped, making fists of her small hands and punching vigorously at the air above her bed.

"Critics," Emily said exasperatedly and rolled her eyes the way she had seen her father do a few times.

"My God," Charlotte said, covering her face with her hands, "we have a critic in our house."

"You knew this was going to be a scary story," Marty said.

"Mad giggles from him continue to bubble, while he gets into far greater trouble.

He's hugely more evil than he is brave, so then after he loads up the microwave with ten whole pounds of popping corn (oh, we should rue the day he was born), he turns and runs right out of the room, because that old oven is gonna go BOOM!"

"Ten pounds!" Charlotte's imagination swept her away. She rose up on her elbows, head off the pillows, and babbled excitedly, "Wow, you'd need a forklift and a dump truck to carry it all away, once it was popped, 'cause it'd be like snowdrifts only popcorn, mountains of popcorn. We'd need a vat of caramel and maybe a zillion pounds of pecans just to make it all into popcorn balls. We'd be up to our asses in it."

"What did you say?" Paige asked.

"I said you'd need a forklift-"

"No, that word you used."

"What word?"

"Asses," Paige said patiently.

Charlotte said, "That's not a bad word."

"Oh?"

"They say it on TV all the time."

"Not everything on TV is intelligent and tasteful," Paige said.

Marty lowered the story notebook. "Hardly anything, in fact."

To Charlotte, Paige said, "On TV, I've seen people driving cars off cliffs, poisoning their fathers to get the family inheritance, fighting with swords, robbing banks-all sorts of things I better not catch either of you doing."

"Especially the father-poisoning thing," Marty said.

Charlotte said, "Okay, I won't say 'ass."

"Good."