"You will. You'll do it now, or I'll shoot you. I'll shoot you in first one foot and then the other. And then I'll shoot you in the knee. And I'll continue to shoot you until you either do as I tell you or you die."

She took aim and I knew she was telling the truth. She'd shoot me without a moment's regret. And she'd continue to shoot me until I was dead. I stood, using the table for support. I walked wooden-legged to DeChooch and knelt beside him.

"Do it," she said. "Unb.u.t.ton his shirt."

I put my hand to his chest and felt his warmth, felt him take a shallow breath. "He's still alive!"

"Even better," Sophia said.

I gave an involuntary shudder and began unb.u.t.toning his shirt. One b.u.t.ton at a time. Slowly. Buying time. My fingers feeling stupid and clumsy. Barely able to manage the task.

When I had the shirt unb.u.t.toned, Sophia reached behind her and got a butcher knife from the wooden block on the kitchen counter. She tossed the knife on the floor beside DeChooch. "Cut his undershirt away."

I took the knife in hand, feeling the weight of it. If this was television, in one swift move I'd have the knife plunged into Sophia. But this was real life, and I had no idea how to throw a knife or how to move fast enough to beat the bullet.

I put the knife to the white undershirt. My mind was scrambling. My hands were shaking and sweat p.r.i.c.kled at my underarms and scalp. I made the initial stab and then ran the knife the length of the shirt, exposing DeChooch's k.n.o.bby chest. My own chest feeling hot as fire and painfully constricted.

"Now cut his heart out," Sophia said, her voice quiet and steady.

I looked up at her and her face was serene . . . except for the terrifying eyes. She was confident that she was doing the right thing. Probably had voices in her head rea.s.suring her even as I knelt over DeChooch.

Something dripped onto DeChooch's chest. Either I was drooling or else my nose was running. I was too scared to tell which it was. "I don't know how to do this," I said. " I don't know how to get at the heart."

"You'll find a way."

"I can't."

"You will will!"

I shook my head.

"Would you like to pray before you die?" she asked.

"The room in the cellar . . . did he put you in it often? Did you pray there?"

The serenity left her. "He said I was crazy, but he he was the one who was crazy. He didn't have faith. G.o.d didn't speak to was the one who was crazy. He didn't have faith. G.o.d didn't speak to him him."

"He shouldn't have locked you in the room," I said, feeling a rush of anger at the man who put his schizophrenic wife in a cement cell rather than get her medical attention.

"It's time," Sophia said, leveling the gun at me.

I glanced down at DeChooch, wondering if I could kill him to save myself. How strong was my sense of survival? I glanced over at the cellar door. "I have an idea," I said. "DeChooch has some power tools in the cellar. I might be able to get through his ribs if I had a power saw."

"That's ridiculous."

I jumped up. "No. It's exactly what I need. I saw this on television. On one of those doctor shows. I'll be right back."

"Stop!"

I was at the cellar door. "This will only take a minute." I opened the door, turned the light on, and moved onto the first step.

She was several paces behind me with the gun. "Not so fast," she said. "I'm going down with you."

We took the steps together, going slowly, not wanting to misstep. I crossed the cellar and grabbed a portable power saw that was sitting on DeChooch's tool bench. Women want babies. Men want power tools.

"Back upstairs," she said, agitated at being in the cellar, looking anxious to leave.

I took the stairs slowly again, dragging my feet, knowing she was antsy behind me. I could feel the gun at my back. She was too close. Taking chances because she wanted to get out of the cellar. I got to the top stair and I whirled around, catching her at midchest with the power saw.

She gave a small exclamation, and there was a gunshot that went wild, and then she was tumbling down the stairs. I didn't wait to see the outcome. I jumped through the door, slammed it and locked it, and ran out of the house. I ran through the front door I'd carelessly left unlocked when I'd followed DeChooch into the kitchen.

I pounded on Angela Marguchi's door, yelling for her to open it. The door opened and I almost knocked Angela over in my rush to get in. "Lock the door," I said. "Lock all the doors and get me your mother's shotgun." Then I ran to the phone and called 911.

The police arrived before I got enough control over myself to go back into the house. No point going in if my hands were shaking so badly I couldn't hold the shotgun.

Two uniforms entered DeChooch's half of the house and minutes later gave the all-clear for the paramedics to enter. Sophia was still in the cellar. She'd broken her hip and probably had some cracked ribs. I thought the cracked ribs were chillingly ironic.

I followed the EMS crew and stopped in my tracks when I got to the kitchen. DeChooch wasn't on the floor.

Billy Kwiatkowski had been the first uniform in. "Where's DeChooch?" I asked him. "I left him on the floor by the table."

"The kitchen was empty when I entered," he said.

We both looked at the trail of blood leading to the back door. Kwiatkowski switched his flashlight on and walked into the yard. He returned moments later.

"Hard to follow the trail through the gra.s.s in the dark, but there's some blood in the alley behind the garage. It looks to me like he had a car back there and drove off."

Unbelievable. f.u.c.king unbelievable. The man was like a roach . . . turn the light on and he disappears.

I gave my statement and slipped away. I was worried about Grandma. I wanted to make sure she was safe at home. And I wanted to sit in my mother's kitchen. And most of all, I wanted a cupcake.

LIGHTS WERE BLAZING when I pulled up to my parents' house. Everyone was in the front room watching the news. And if I knew my family, everyone was waiting up for Valerie.

Grandma jumped off the couch when I walked in. "Did you get him? Did you get DeChooch?"

I shook my head. "He got away." I didn't feel like going into a big explanation.

"He's a pip," Grandma said, sinking back into the couch.

I went into the kitchen to get a cupcake. I heard the front door open and close and Valerie drooped into the kitchen and slumped into a chair at the table. She had her hair slicked back behind her ears and sort of plumped up on top. Blond lesbian impersonator does Elvis.

I put the plate of cupcakes in front of her and took a seat. "Well? How was your date?"

"It was a disaster. She's not my type."

"What's your type?"

"Not women, apparently." She peeled the paper wrapper off a chocolate cupcake. "Janeane kissed me and nothing happened. Then she kissed me again and she was sort of . . . pa.s.sionate."

"How pa.s.sionate?"

Valerie turned scarlet. "She Frenched me!"

"And?"

"Weird. It was really weird."

"So you're not a lesbian?"

"That would be my guess."

"Hey, you gave it a try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained," I said.

"I thought it could be an acquired taste. Like, you know how when we were kids and I hated asparagus? And now I love asparagus."

"Maybe you need to stick with it longer. Took you twenty years to get to like asparagus."

Valerie thought about that while she ate her cupcake.

Grandma came in. "What's going on here? Am I missing something?"

"We're eating cupcakes," I said.

Grandma took a cupcake and sat down. "Have you been on Stephanie's motorcycle yet?" she asked Valerie. "I rode on it tonight and it made my privates tingle."

Valerie almost choked on her cupcake.

"Maybe you want to give up on being a lesbian and get a Harley," I said to Valerie.

My mother came into the kitchen. She looked at the cupcake plate and sighed. "They were supposed to be for the girls."

"We're girls," Grandma said.

My mother sat down and took a cupcake. She chose the vanilla with the colorful spinkles. We all stared in shock at this. My mother almost never ate a perfect cupcake with sprinkles. My mother ate leftover halves and cupcakes with ruined icing. She ate the broken cookies and pancakes that got burned on one side.

"Wow," I said to her, "you're eating a whole cupcake."

"I deserve it," my mother said.

"I bet you've been watching Oprah again," Grandma said to my mother. "I always know when you've been watching Oprah."

My mother fiddled with the wrapper. "There's something else . . ."

We all stopped eating and stared at my mother.

"I'm going back to school," she said. "I applied to Trenton State, and I just got word I'm accepted. I'm going part-time. They have night courses."

I let out a whoosh of air in relief. I'd been afraid she was going to announce she was getting a tongue stud or maybe a tattoo. Or maybe that she was running away from home and joining the circus. "That's great," I said. "What kind of a program are you in?"

"It's just general right now," my mother said. "But someday I'd like to be a nurse. I always thought I'd make a good nurse."

IT WAS ALMOST twelve when I got back to my apartment. The adrenaline high was gone, replaced by exhaustion. I was full of cupcakes and milk and I was ready to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. I took the elevator and when the doors opened on my floor I stepped out and stood statue still, barely believing my eyes. Down the hall, in front of my door, sat Eddie DeChooch.

DeChooch had a huge wad of towel held to his head with his belt, the buckle jauntily placed at his temple. He looked up when I walked toward him, but he didn't get to his feet and he didn't smile or shoot me or say h.e.l.lo. He just sat there staring.

"You must have a beaut of a headache," I said.

"I could use an aspirin."

"Why didn't you just let yourself in? Everyone else does."

"No tools. You need tools to do that."

I pulled him to his feet and helped him into my apartment. I sat him down in my comfy living room chair and hauled out the half-empty bottle of hooch Grandma had left hidden in my closet from an overnight stay.

DeChooch chugged three fingers and got some color back into his face.

"Christ, I thought you were gonna carve me up like a Sunday goose," he said.

"It was close. When did you come around?"

"When you were talking about getting through the ribs. Jesus. Makes my b.a.l.l.s crawl just remembering it." He took another hit on the bottle. "I got out of there as soon as the two of you went down the stairs."

I had to smile. I booked through the kitchen so fast I didn't even notice DeChooch was gone. "So what's up now?"

He slouched back into the chair. "I rode around for a while. I was gonna take off, but my head hurts. She shot half the ear away. And I'm tired. Jeez, I'm tired. But you know what? I'm not so depressed. So I figure, what the h.e.l.l, let's see what my lawyer can do for me."

"You want me to bring you in."

DeChooch opened his eyes. "h.e.l.l no! I want Ranger to bring me in. I just don't know how to get in touch with him."

"After all I've been through, I at least deserve the collar."

"Hey, what about me? I only got half an ear!"

I did a large sigh and called Ranger.