"Go screw yourself!"

Sonny Pa.s.son almost swallowed his cigar. "She told you to do what?"

Dr. Livaudais repeated what Judy had told him.

Deputy Don Lenoir shook his head. "Are we talking about the same girl, Tony? Judy Mahon is one of the sweetest kids in town."

"I always thought so," Tony agreed. "But she d.a.m.n sure has a gutter-mouth now."

"And you're sure she was raped?" Pa.s.son asked.

"I was." There was open and ill-concealed disgust in the doctor's voice. "Now I'm not so sure."

"Meaning? ..." Don asked.

"Well, I think she was a willing partic.i.p.ant in what we used to call a gang-bang."

"Jesus Christ!" Pa.s.son said. "Where do you reckon her boyfriend was all this time?"

"I think he was a part of it," Tony said. "Don Hemming is one sorry jerk!"

"Great football player, though," Patrolman Black injected.

That got him a dirty look from everyone in the squad room.

"If that's all you have to contribute, Louis," Chief Pa.s.son said. "Shut your mouth."

"What'd I say?" the city cop said, astonishment in the question.

The doctor, the deputy, and the chief ignored him.

"So what do we do?" Dr. Livaudais asked.

"We can't do anything," Deputy Lenoir replied. "Not unless she brings charges. Or her parents. Judy is sixteen and Don is seventeen, so that opens up a new can of worms; he's legally an adult."

"How about Health and Human Resources?" Tony asked.

"I'll call Mac and see what he says about it," Pa.s.son said. "And he might get to it in a month or so."

"Why a cat?" Don asked. "Why would a bright, beautiful, well-brought-up girl have a cat tattooed on er b.u.t.t?"

"G.o.d only knows," Tony said, striking much closer to home than he realized.

Sonny Pa.s.son felt eyes on him. But no one in the squad room was staring at him. Irritated, he glanced out the office window into the hall. No one there, either. "What the h.e.l.l?" he muttered. Don glanced at Pa.s.son. "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" "Qu'est-ce que c'est?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I felt ... feel feel eyes on me." eyes on me."

"h.e.l.l, it's just a cat," Louis Black said, pointing. All the men looked. A calico cat sat perched on the air conditioner, outside the window.

"Shoo!" Pa.s.son said, waving his hands at the cat. The cat yawned.

Pa.s.son picked up a magazine and beat it against the window pane.

The cat sat and stared at the man through very cold, unemotional eyes.

"Well, d.a.m.n!" Pa.s.son said, and solved the problem by lowering the blind. "I can't stand for anything to just stare at me."

"Anybody but me noticed the number of cats in town?" Tony questioned.

"There's a bunch of 'em," Louis Black agreed. "More than I ever remember seein'."

"Cats," Tony said softly. "And a cat tattooed on the b.u.t.tocks of Judy Mahon. Is there ... could there be some connection?"

"What would it be, Tony?" Pa.s.son asked. "h.e.l.l, they're just house cats."

"Yeah," the doctor said, standing up. "You're right."

After trudging along for more than five miles without seeing one single vehicle of any type, the hitchhiker began to realize that he'd been had. Those G.o.dd.a.m.ned smart-mouthed kids back there in that hick town on 84 had told him a friggin' lie when they said this was a shortcut down to 71. This wasn't no friggin' shortcut; this was a highway to nowheres. Walt Davis kicked at a beer can and cussed.

Well, he thought. The G.o.dd.a.m.ned road has to lead somewheres. n.o.body, not even these funny-talkin' folks in Louisiana builds a road that goes nowheres.

He hoped.

Walt trudged on. He couldn't figure out how in the h.e.l.l he'd let that guy convince him to ride down to Mississippi with him. Walt had never liked the south. Too G.o.dd.a.m.ned hot for one thing. Too G.o.dd.a.m.ned many cops for another. G.o.dd.a.m.ned cops always asking a bunch of d.a.m.n-fool questions. Always wantin' to know if you was headin' somewheres for a job?

A job! The very thought of work made his stomach hurt. Screw a job. Any Any job. It was easier to steal. Sleep out in a field at night, watch to see how many folks was in the house. Then come morning, watch them all leave, then bust in and grab any money that's layin' around. Be surprised how many folks leave money around. job. It was easier to steal. Sleep out in a field at night, watch to see how many folks was in the house. Then come morning, watch them all leave, then bust in and grab any money that's layin' around. Be surprised how many folks leave money around.

Sometimes he got lucky and found a chick they'd left in bed. Wrap her head up in a pillowcase so's she can't see you, knock off a quick piece of a.s.s, and split. Stuff the chick in a shed around the place, all trussed up, and a guy had ail day and sometimes half the night to get clear.

Hitch to the next town wearin' nice clothes took from the house, grab a bus for the next town, then change directions, ridin' the bus right through the town you'd just left. Stupid f.u.c.kin' cops never checked the people who was already on the bus.

They'd ask the driver, "You pick up anyone on the road?"

"Naw."

Usually that was it. But even if a guy was checked by the cops, the trick was don't never take no rings and watches and guns and s.h.i.t like that. Just money. It ain't against the law to be carryin' money.

But lately, Walt had been experiencing a run of bad luck. He figured money must be gettin' tight, 'cause there sure wasn't much of it left layin' around the houses no more.

But, he thought, walking along the deserted highway, at least I ain't been busted in a long, long time. He'd been arrested a couple of times as a kid, booked, mugged, fingerprinted. But that had been local s.h.i.t. Way to h.e.l.l gone back up in Maryland. And all that s.h.i.t in the movies about 'em checkin' prints in five minutes was garbage, man, and every con artist and crook and thief in the country that was worth a d.a.m.n knew it. Sometimes it takes months. And if your prints ain't on record with the Feds, forget it, baby.

Another trick was to wear gloves. Just be careful bustin' in, then find a pair of gloves to wear. Every house has four/five pairs of gloves layin' around. Straights are so stupid they they oughtta be locked up. oughtta be locked up.

Walt sat down to rest. The heat was bad, man. He looked up at the road sign. Becancour 2 Miles.

He shook his head. d.a.m.n folks down here had the dumbest names for their towns.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught movement to one side. He turned his head and took a better look.

A cat sat by the side of the road, staring at him. "Hey p.u.s.s.y," Walt said. "What the h.e.l.l you doin' way out here?"

The cat padded toward him on silent paws.

"Get your a.s.s away from me," Walt told the animal. "You the wrong kind of p.u.s.s.y."

The cat made a funny kind of noise in its throat.

Walt crawled to his knees. "Get away from me, cat.'

Something landed on his back with a soft thud. Walt screamed as claws dug through his sweat-soaked shirt ana into the flesh of his back. He hurled himself to one side and landed on his back, crushing the thing that was clawing at him. Jumping to his feet, he frantically looked around him.

A dozen cats were gathered around him.

The cat that had leaped onto his back, clawing and hissing, lay kicking and dying on the shoulder of the highway.

Walt jerked up his suitcase and ran across the road.

The cats followed him, licking their chops, sniffing the air, smelling the hot blood from the deep clawmarks on his back.

Something growled from deep in the dark timber. Walt spun around and around, looking to see what had growled and trying to keep an eye on the cats, as well.

Then a terrible odor struck Walt's nostrils. The smell was so bad it d.a.m.n near caused him to puke.

Walt looked at the ditch. It was full of water and about six or seven feet across. He tossed his suitcase across the expanse of dark, brackish water and jumped in, wading across. He grabbed his suitcase and ran up the other side of the bank, climbed the fence, and stepped into the woods, the earth squishy beneath the soles of his shoes.

And that smell! Jesus G.o.d ... it smelled like ... like ...

Death!

Walt looked back at the cats. They were all lined up in a neat furry row, like silent soldiers, watching him. "f.u.c.k you!" Walt said.

He turned around and came face to face with the most G.o.dawful looking thing he'd ever seen in all his life.

The thing grabbed at him.

5.

Sonny Pa.s.son was experiencing a feeling very much like that feeling he'd had just before his one and only shootout as a highway cop, back in 1963. One shoot-out in twenty years of carrying a badge up and down every highway in Louisiana wasn't bad.

He'd stopped a car for speeding and was walking up to the vehicle. The car had two guys in it, and they both got out. Mean-eyed-looking men.

Sonny had known-known-those turkeys were gonna pull guns. He couldn't tell you how he knew, but he knew.

Everything got all bright and clear to Sonny Pa.s.son. Things started moving kind of slow-like. He would swear to his dying day that he could hear every sound that was happening around him; every crawling insect, every flying bird, every hum, every chirp, every thing. thing.

That was the way it was now.

He'd killed both those men, even though one of them got off the first shot. Sonny had gut-shot him twice, his second shot higher than the first, tearing out the guy's back, severing the spinal cord. Sonny had dropped to one knee just as the second snakehead was rounding the rear of the car. Sonny put two rounds into the guy's chest, one slug shattering the heart. He'd got a big medal for that from the colonel and one from the governor. And no one in the troop ever knew that Sonny Pa.s.son, Trooper First Cla.s.s, had p.i.s.sed all over himself that day.

But that odd feeling just before the shooting ... he'd never forgotten it.

And he couldn't quite figure out why he was feeling the same thing now.

With a sigh, Sonny turned out his desk lamp and went home. A beer would taste real good.

Dr. Tony Livaudais checked his waiting room. Empty. "Lock it up," he told his receptionist. "And have a good evening."

He returned to his office and shut the door. He couldn't understand the feeling of ... well, he guessed it was depression that had wrapped itself around him.

For a fact, he needed some time off. But there was no way that would happen anytime soon.

But he didn't think that was it at all.

He just couldn't get over the Mahon girl. Things like that happened in the big cities; not in little towns like Becancour. Population three thousand six hundred and sixty-six.

Tony couldn't shake the feeling that something very bad was happening in and around Becancour.

He just didn't know what it might be.

Deputy Don Lenoir slowly drove through the peaceful looking town. His radio crackled with calls, but they were all concerning other parts of the parish. Sometimes Don would go two or three weeks without a call from the sheriffs office, located almost thirty-five miles away, to the north and east.

Sometimes he got the feeling that no one really cared about Becancour. Of course, that wasn't true, but still he got that feeling at times.

Don's eyes swept both sides of the street. He had not seen a stray dog in weeks. People still had dogs, but they were the variety that were penned, or house dogs.

No stray dogs. Odd, he thought.

A carload of kids motored past him, heading in the opposite direction, the m.u.f.flers just legal, the radio-or tape player, probably-blaring rock and roll at an intolerable level of db's. Intolerable for an adult, that is.

Don caught a glimpse of the kids' faces. Not happy faces. Sullen.

Been a lot of that lately, too, he thought. The kids around town, most of them, that is, did not appear to be happy.

He drove on, his headlights picking up the darting shapes of cats.

Sure was a bunch of cats around Becancour.