My next step, after checking on Annamaria, would be to find out who the people of Roseland really were. They were either not who they claimed to be or not only who they claimed to be.

I am one megasuspicious pretty-boy, pathetic, stupid cocker.

The time-out had served me well. I drove farther along the glen, looking for a place where the hillside was navigable.

Suddenly he was standing forty feet in front of me. I could have driven straight through him, but I braked to a halt.

There in the wild grass, he wore a three-piece suit and a necktie. From five feet in front of the trucklet, he regarded me with that deadpan look that had once been famous.

He was portly, with a round face and full cheeks and two chins, but not immense like Chef Shilshom. Unlike the chef, he had come by his physique not by indulgence but because of genetics, having been stout as a small child. His lower lip protruded far past the upper, as if he were pondering how best to deal with a problematic person whom he wished to be rid of but did not wish to insult.

"This is not a good time," I told him. "My plate is full. My cup runneth over. I'm sorry. I don't usually speak in cliches. And those weren't references to your weight. I'm just frazzled. I'm not able to deal with one more complication."

Among some of the lingering dead who have come to me for help, a couple have been famous performers in their lifetimes. In spite of what you might think if you closely follow the entertainment-news programs on TV and the Internet, celebrities do have souls.

In the first three of my memoirs, I have written about my rather long relationship with Mr. Elvis Presley's spirit. He appeared to me when I was in high school, and we hung around together for quite a few years. For reasons he was slow to make clear to me, the King of Rock 'n' Roll was reluctant to move on to the Other Side, though he wanted to be there. The problem was not anything as simple as that he was worried there would be no deep-fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches in the next life. Eventually I helped him cross over.

Then came Mr. Frank Sinatra. His spirit was my companion only for a few weeks. They were memorable days. As a poltergeist, as in life, Mr. Sinatra could throw a heck of a hard punch when you needed backup.

I don't know why I assumed that if the spirit of another famous person were to come to me, seeking assistance in moving on from this world, he or she would have been a renowned singer.

The gentleman in the suit walked around to the passenger side of the mini truck. He had an unusual aura of authority because it was in no way stern or superior and because it was twined with an air of congeniality.

"Sir, I am honored, I really am, that you would come to me for assistance. I'm an admirer. If I survive this, I'll do what I can for you. But, see, there's so much going on in Roseland that my head will explode if I have to think about one more thing."

He put his hands to his head and then flung them away, fingers wide, as if depicting the consequences of a detonating skull.

"Yes, exactly. I'm sorry about this. Never say no to a spirit in need. That's my motto. Well, it's not my motto, but it's a principle of mine. I don't have a motto. Unless maybe 'If it's worth eating, it's worth frying.' I'm babbling, aren't I? That's because I'm such a fan. I really am. I guess you hear that all the time. Or did when you were alive. I guess you don't hear it as often since you're dead."

The dire situation in Roseland was not so much the reason for my nervous babbling. And I was not rattled by the fact that I really was an admirer of his work. Those were both causes, but I was also intimidated by that deadpan expression, which suggested that he had the patience to outwait me until my resistance wilted, and because it reminded me of the wit and intelligence that were behind it. Elvis? Piece of cake. Sinatra? Mostly easy. But I was out of my league with this one, who was probably smarter than me by a factor of ten.

"You've waited a long time to cross over," I said. "Must be thirty years. Give me another day. Then we'll talk. Or I'll talk, since you can't. But just now, you know, there's all these bad people. And dead bodies. The woman on the horse. The imprisoned boy. And a ticking clock. You know all about ticking clocks. Who knows more about ticking clocks than you? And I've got pigs to deal with! They're big, mean, walkin'-tall pigs, sir. You never had to deal with primate swine. I'd be no good for you right now."

He smiled and nodded. He waved me on.

As he turned away, before he dematerialized, I said, "Wait. Mr. Hitchcock."

He faced me once more.

"You weren't ... you didn't ... I mean, you didn't die here, did you?"

He grimaced and shook his head. No.

"Did you ever visit Roseland when you were alive?"

He shook his head again.

"Back in the day, did you ever do business with Constantine Cloyce's movie studio?"

He nodded, and his expression was uncharacteristically fierce.

"I guess you didn't like working with him."

Mr. Alfred Hitchcock put one finger in his mouth, as if to make himself gag.

"But you're not here because of him."

No.

"You're here just for me."

Yes.

"I'm flattered."

He shrugged.

"Just let me get the boy out of here. Then we'll take a meeting. That was a Hollywood joke. Not a very good one."

His smile was grandfatherly. I thought I was going to like him, assuming that I would live long enough to know him better.

He waved me on again.

I drove a hundred feet along the glen until I found a navigable place in the hillside. When I looked back, Mr. Hitchcock was gone.

I cruised to the top, started down the farther slope-and braked sharply when I saw four freaks beyond the next vale, in single file, following the ridgeline of a lower hill.

Although the novelty of their appearance had worn off, they were no less strange than ever, creatures that might have stepped out of a delirium inspired by a tropical disease, conjured by a mind in the sweaty grip of malaria, more suited to a world with a yellow sky than to even this Roseland, which itself seemed at times to be a fever dream.

Because the electric vehicle was quiet and because the swine things were as usual intent upon making their way toward whatever mayhem they had in mind, I hoped they might not notice me. They noticed. They came to a halt and turned to stare directly at me.

I pulled the wheel to the right, intending to turn 180 degrees and retreat at full speed. The vehicle wouldn't move. The battery was dead.

Thirty-two.

THE FREAKS SAW ME, BUT THAT DIDN'T MEAN THEY would find me important enough that they would deviate from their current mission just to rip my head off. There's nothing special about my head, except to me, of course, no tattoos or nose rings or gold teeth that would make it a worthy trophy.

This squad included none of the grotesquely deformed kind with ungainly limbs. They were all strapping specimens who conformed to the highest standards of their monstrous breed, any of them worthy of a best-in-show prize at the next competition on the Island of Dr. Moreau.

They seemed more organized and purposeful than previous groups. They hadn't been shambling along the crest of the hill, but instead trotting single file in what seemed to be a disciplined procession. Furthermore, each held the same weapon in its right hand-an axe with a head that included both a cutting edge and a hammer. This uniform weaponry and the fact that they all sported foot-long scraps of red cloth that dangled from their left ears suggested perhaps a smaller tribe within the larger one.

They were on a reconnaissance mission or had a particular target and a timetable for taking it out. Or perhaps this was lunchtime in Swineville and the slops were in the trough, in which case the burly young beasts would want to get there before the best stuff had been scarfed up by greedy pigs.

Sitting in the mini truck, I sought to inflate my optimism until it was bigger than the balloon tires. But the cold sweat on my brow and on the palms of my hands belied my confident smile.

I stared across the vale at the four, trying to show no fear. They stared at me, probably insulted because I wasn't showing any fear.

When you consider how difficult it often can be for two people of the same nationality, the same community, the same race, and the same religion to understand each other's point of view and to live in harmony, you can see why I had doubts that this encounter would end with hugs and professions of eternal friendship.

The four freaks moved at the same time, coming off the far crest and descending the hill toward the vale between their slope and mine. They didn't advance at a run, but slowly, and not in single file, but side by side.

Perhaps their measured reaction, so different from the frenzied pursuits and snarling fury I previously witnessed, meant that they were not as driven by hatred as others of their kind, that they did not love violence for violence's sake, that they were a more moderate sect open to dialogue and compromise.

I got out from behind the steering wheel and stood beside the mini truck.

When the four were halfway down the farther hill, they began to swing their axes at their sides, in unison: forward, back, forward, back, forward and around in a full circle; forward, back, forward, back, forward and around....

Considerably less hopeful of finding common ground, I drew my pistol. Although I disliked firearms, I wished I had a handgun of a higher caliber than 9 mm.

The Beretta had seemed more than adequate until I found myself without wheels, in open land, challenged by four primate swine in circumstances that allowed a better look at them than I'd had before. Each towered over six feet and weighed perhaps three hundred pounds. The articulation of their knee joints, hips, and spines was nearly human, which ensured that any comic potential in their appearance was forfeited; in them I could see no slightest suggestion of Porky Pig. They had long-toed feet and hands with fingers, not cloven hooves, although it appeared that the nails on all of their limbs were of dark-brown hornlike material that tapered into talons designed to eviscerate.

I would have preferred to flee rather than to try to stand them off, but I wasn't confident that I could outrun them. I was lighter and more limber than they were, and I should therefore be faster. Wild boars, however, have a top speed of thirty miles an hour. I didn't know whether there was enough swine in these creatures for them to run that fast, but I knew for sure that, if they could, there wasn't enough swine in me to escape them.

As they reached the bottom of the opposing hill and entered the grassy vale, I fired one round into the air. In retrospect, letting off a warning shot in that situation seems as foolish as shaking a finger in disapproval at a looming grizzly bear.

I hoped to chase them away rather than be forced to kill them, even if they might be looking forward to-as Mrs. Tameed vividly suggested to the nameless boy-buggering me a few times before chewing off my face.

When they kept coming across the narrow vale, I took a two-hand grip on the pistol, stepped into the isosceles stance, drew down on the brute at the right end of the line, and squeezed off five rounds.

I thought three of them hit their target. The beast staggered, dropped its axe, and swayed.

Copper-jacketed hollow points were killing ammo. They bloomed on penetration, and the damage to tissue could be grievous.

For a moment, the impact of the bullets knocked the beast's voice out of it, but then it began to shriek.

Surprised that it remained on its feet, I pumped out two more shots. The second caused the wounded creature to clasp one hand to its throat. Then it toppled backward.

The three other swine things neither rushed toward nor away from me. They stood beside their fallen comrade, staring at it, as if not quite sure what had brought it down.

Still in a shooting stance, I sighted on another beast but waited, hoping that they would now see the wisdom of withdrawal.

The three turned and gazed up at me, at that moment not with rage and hatred, but with puzzlement. They looked back and forth from me to the dead creature, as though wondering how and why I had killed it. But then I thought that their expression might be less puzzlement than indecision. Among ordinary pigs, some have been known to eat their young; so perhaps these three were considering whether to pursue me or instead to settle down for a bit of cannibalism while the carcass was fresh.

I'd seen enough of their kind to have noted that instead of the sameness of faces within most other animal species, there were numerous differences in their features, one to another, not as many as among human beings, but enough to make them seem less like a pack and more like a gathering of individuals.

Now, as they looked from their dead companion to me, the unique quality of each grotesque face made them more terrifying than ever. If they didn't think as one, all on the same track of blind instinct, if each could scheme in its singular fashion about how best to pursue and trap and kill its quarry, the likelihood of escaping them in any extended chase would be hardly greater than the likelihood of foiling black-robed Death himself when he knocked on your door with his harvesting scythe in one bony hand and a termination notice in his other.

Sunshine winked off the blades of the axes and laid a sheen on the skull-crushing hammer heads.

The freaks turned their attention from me and the corpse to one another. Their wide jackal mouths cracked open, but if they made any sounds, I could not hear them.

Each snaky, hairless, white tail, with a tuft of gray at the tip, raised straight up-one, two, three.

Their pointed ears twitched. Pricked forward. And then flattened back along their skulls.

They spread out at the foot of the slope, putting more space between one another.

Again, they swung their axes forward, back, forward, back, and around in a complete circle. As if the blades were stropped sharper against the whetting air, flares of sun flew from the weapons.

I had needed seven rounds to bring down the first freak. At that rate, I'd need twenty-one shots to kill the remaining three.

Ten rounds remained in the Beretta's magazine. The spare in my holster contained another seventeen, but I doubted that I would have the time to swap it for the empty one as they stormed toward me.

Shakespeare has Falstaff say that discretion is the better part of valor, and on that slope I opted for discretion. I ran to the crown of the hill and down the other side.

I am aware that Falstaff was a fighter but also a coward, a thief but also a charmer. He serves as a role model only for those who believe that self-esteem is the highest of all values. The playwright meant for him to be a comic figure but not an admirable one, for he knew that when such men lose their capacity to amuse, they are dangerous in the extreme. They are the Charles Mansons and the Pol Pots of our time, no crime too terrible to dissuade them from committing it.

All of us are cowards at some time in our lives, but I took comfort in the fact that when I fled that hillside, I left no allies behind. With only my own butt at risk, I could justifiably claim that my action was caution rather than cowardice. Or so I told myself as I fled pell-mell into the glen where I had earlier parked for a moment in the mini truck, making thin quaverous sounds of childlike terror, repressing the urge to wet my pants, and turned north in the hope of making it on foot to the guest tower. By such self-deceptions do we survive-and also begin to put the most essential part of ourselves at risk.

Thirty-three.

THE TOPOLOGY OF THAT PART OF ROSELAND WAS COMPLICATED, the hills and vales turning into one another in such a way that I was reminded of the folds and fissures on the surface of the brain. I was like a thought slipping through the fissures, and the thought was: Move, move, live, live!

I stayed entirely in the lower places, some of which were shaded by looming hillsides, others by banyan trees that grew on slopes and by California laurels that rooted in swales between the hills, where the soil was always a little moist. Weaving quickly between trees, ducking under low branches, racing across open areas, I relied on intuition to decide which way to go each time the rumpled land folded upon itself in such a way that the path branched.

Focused on moving fast and faster, I dared not look back and risk faltering. Besides, if the freaks were gaining on me, I would rather not know until one of those taloned hands snared my sports jacket and wrenched me off my feet or until an axe cleaved my skull and killed me in the instant, sparing me what horrors I might have to endure if I were taken alive.

Only a couple of hours earlier, I had been cozy in the main-house kitchen, eating quiche and cheesecake. My biggest problems had been how to penetrate the armored mysteries of Roseland and how to make sense of what people here told me when they pulled a cloak of inscrutability over themselves before every conversation.

At least the swine things weren't inscrutable. They didn't play word games with me or pretend to be distracted, or in any other way deceive. The freaks made their intentions clear: They wanted to club me, chop me, eat me, and sit around later reminiscing about the taste of me. They were as open about their intentions as were IRS agents.

I followed so many branching paths that I was not sure anymore whether I was moving toward or away from the guest tower. And I would not have been surprised to see on a hillside the abandoned vehicle with balloon tires and the three freaks playing cards while they waited for me to run in a circle and back into their arms.

A couple of times, the cool air shimmered with what seemed to be currents of rising heat, and I saw things in my peripheral vision that weren't there when I turned my head for a closer look. Some of them might have been nothing but shadows that appeared solid and menacing only from the corner of the eye. But others were far more specific: an impression of a great pile of human skulls, of coyotes feeding on several dead freaks, of a naked woman chained to a post as cowled figures touched torches to the kindling at her feet....

One vision did not vanish when I looked directly at it. I came out of a grove of laurels, and twenty feet ahead, the path divided around a promontory of land. Marking the crossroads was a leafless black-limbed tree that someone had used as the framework for a mobile of sun-bleached bones. Hanging from the branches were the delicate skeletons of children, some of whom had been perhaps as young as three, none older than ten, when they were murdered and stripped of their clothing and arranged just so in this insane celebration of cruelty.

The sight was like a road sign announcing that ahead lay a town in the thrall of savage violence that knew no limits.

For the first time in my headlong flight, I faltered when the apparition didn't dissolve before me. But I regained my footing and hurried on, taking the path to the right.

I could imagine only that somehow I was running in two Roselands at once: the estate to which I'd come with Annamaria a couple of days before, and another that existed in some alternate reality parallel to ours.