Guess where he'd be when the blood started flying?

Downstairs watching a poodle lose a noodle.

Good old MeMe, that dog was a hundred years old. Why didn't she die? The G.o.dd.a.m.ned dog was going to outlive him. Here he was seventy and next year his chair would be empty and the G.o.dd.a.m.ned dog would be laying there watching wrestling.

"Christ, Selma, can't you take the dog out to s.h.i.t? It's almost time for the matches,"

"Ray, such language. MeMe can't go to the toilet like we can."

"So who's going to the toilet these days. I feel like I got a cork in my a.s.s."

"Ray, I will not stand for that sort of language in this house."

"This isn't a house, it's a G.o.dd.a.m.ned apartment."

"Ray."

"Don't give me that Ray c.r.a.p. Every time you get that tone in your voice it means I'm not going to get any. Big deal. Ten years ago it was still a big deal. Not now. Hold out if you want, I couldn't get this old salami up with a crane."

"Ray, you take MeMe out this instant."

"It's embarra.s.sing for a grown man to stand around and watch a G.o.dd.a.m.ned poodle leave its calling card. I feel like everybody's getting snapshots. If we're going to have a dog, why don't we get something like a shepherd, something with some dignity.

Not this rat with a hairdo."

"I can be very hard to live with, Ray."

"Believe me, I know it. You're hard to live with now. Look here, for Christsake, the matches are coming on."

She looked at the television. "They still have to call each other names for a while and there's always a couple of commercials first . . . You know I can't go out there. A woman alone-"

"Yeah, yeah, all the guys are just hanging out of windows to get a look at you."

"I wasn't so bad in my time."

"So the dinosaurs are dead now, Selma."

"And you're a year older than me."

"Oh, for crying out loud. Give me the G.o.dd.a.m.ned leash and let me get it over with."

"And don't forget the p.o.o.py scooper."

"I'm not scooping up no fresh dogs.h.i.t."

"You can't leave it just lying around. Someone will step in it. You got to take it to the dumpster."

"Oh h.e.l.l, give me the G.o.dd.a.m.ned p.o.o.py scooper."

TEN.

9:47 P.M.

Becky put on a Ray Charles alb.u.m, moved the needle to her favorite, "Born to Lose."

There was a knock on the door.

She smiled. That darn Eva, she thought. She went to the door, opened it with a jerk.

It wasn't Eva.

9:50 P.M.

MeMe was really hunkered, and Raymond was glad to see the little pooch was having a hard time. Maybe the G.o.dd.a.m.ned dog would strain itself to death. Serve the little b.i.t.c.h right. He nearly died twice a day, and the hemorrhoids, Christsake, like footb.a.l.l.s.

Someone screamed-shortly, as if it had been quickly m.u.f.fled.

Raymond turned. It came from across the way, from the upper deck of apartments.

He jerked on MeMe's leash, began moving toward the stairs. Then common sense got the better of him. Now, just a minute, he thought. Probably it was nothing except some husband with a big poker putting it to ...

Another scream, this one m.u.f.fled like the first, as if the voice had crept out from behind a hand, and had just as quickly been recaptured.

Definitely upstairs, Raymond thought. He moved off the gra.s.sy section of the lot and into the shadows, making his way toward the stairs. He went around the dumpster and saw a form standing twenty feet away, one foot on the bottom stair step. The man was turned so that his back was to him, and Raymond could see that he held a rifle or shotgun.

Raymond let go of the leash and gripping the p.o.o.py scooper like a baseball bat, stepped briskly toward the sentry, his heart beating with the rhythmic thumping of a boxer's speed bag.

And then, just as he was even with the steps and there was only the metal stairs and their open gaps separating him from the man with the gun, the guy turned.

It was a kid, and the kid's face jumped into a surprised expression and the shotgun-for he could see now that it was a shotgun-raised... and the kid was starting to point it at him through the stair gaps. Raymond slammed the scooper against the side of the barrel and the gun went hard right and there was an explosion, and he thought, am I dead?

A second later he determined he was not even hit, and he reached the barrel with one hand, and with a quick wrenching action, pulled it out of the kid's grasp and through the steps.

The kid yelled something at him and came around the stairs, teeth bared in a mad-dog smile.

Raymond dropped the shotgun and laid the scooper, with a nice, wind-whistling, both-handed swing, upside the kid's head.

The kid went down.

Raymond swung the scooper again and when he hit the kid's skull, blood jumped up like a dark liquid shadow and fell to the cement lot.

The kid fell forward on his face. Out.

MeMe ran up and began chewing on the kid's leg.

Raymond picked up the shotgun and started upstairs, hoping to locate the source of the scream. Fishy things going on, an ocean full of fishy things.

At the top of the stairs he stopped and looked down. The kid was still out. The p.o.o.py scooper lay where he had dropped it in place of the shotgun, and MeMe was chewing on the kid's shoe, jerking and growling savagely. Well, he thought, maybe the little s.h.i.t isn't so bad after all. "Good dog," he said.

He pumped a round into the 12-gauge.

Brian had been standing guard at the car, watching the street entrance. Loony's job was to watch the lot and the stairs. But the sound of the shotgun blast had caused him to turn.

In the shadows, some distance away, he saw two people struggling. He recognized one shape as Loony, and he saw that shape grab its head and go down. The other figure had something in his hand and he was. .h.i.tting Loony with it, and in a moment he realized that the man now had the shotgun and was going upstairs. A little dog was chewing on Loony's leg.

"d.a.m.n," Brian said softly.

He jumped in the Chevy, gunned it to life. Most likely Clyde and Stone had heard the shotgun blast, but if not . . .

He hit down three hard times on the horn.

Raymond, now moving across the landing, listening and watching for who knows what, heard the horn too. He glanced toward the lot, saw lights coming fast toward the apartment building.

Then, to his right, he heard another sound and he whirled.

The door directly to his right burst open and two bodies slammed into him and he fell back against the railing, the shotgun went out of his hands and over and he almost followed.

Fists slammed his head and he slid down to the landing with his back against the rail. All he could see were legs. He could hear music-that black guy, Ray Charles-and between the legs he could see a woman lying on the floor, naked, gagged, her arms stretched out and tied to furniture.

Then the legs he was looking through began to move, kicking at him. Hurting him.

And he remembered Raider and his famous scissor move and how he had once put it on Leroy Jerowsky and how he had brought Jerowsky down so hard he'd cracked his head open.

Another kick in the chest and he rolled and slapped out with his old legs and caught one pair of the kicking legs above the knees and twisted. The boy went forward and hit the railing with his forehead and it made a nice pleasant sound, sort of like someone tossing up a cantaloupe and swatting it with a two-by-four. The kid fell down beside him.

He tried to wiggle his legs from around him and get up, but the other kid kicked him in the head, hard.

Raymond started crawling, but the legs followed him, kicking.

He pa.s.sed out for a moment.

The legs went away.

There was some yelling below. He heard MeMe yelp once. Something sharp went into his throat, twisted, and he felt wet warmth on his face and chest, and his last thought was that he was going to miss the G.o.dd.a.m.ned wrestling matches, and this one was for the belt too.

He rolled over on top of the unconscious boy.

ELEVEN.

Black '66 Chevy moving fast. Three inside. Brian driving, Loony, holding his head, blood oozing through his fingers, the dead poodle on the floorboard, appearing to be red-furred, and Stone in the back, his head hung down.

"You stupid motherf.u.c.kers," Brian said. "You stupid motherf.u.c.kers. Throw that G.o.dd.a.m.ned dog out!"

"I'm going to stuff the motherf.u.c.ker," Loony said. "I'm going to stuff the little motherf.u.c.ker and use him to kick like a f.u.c.king football."

"Throw that G.o.dd.a.m.ned dog out, you moron!" "c.o.c.ksucker nearly chewed my leg off-"

"Throw that f.u.c.king dog out, or so help me the devil, I'm going to throw you out."

Loony took the b.l.o.o.d.y dog by the scruff of the neck and tossed it. Pearls of its blood splattered the side of the car, blew in on Stone, decorated his face like a strawberry explosion. He didn't move, still sat with his head half-hung.

"Loony," Brian said, "you ignorant s.h.i.t. You stupid motherf.u.c.ker. And you, Stone, you went off and left Clyde. What's with you, man?"

Stone shook his head violently. There were tears in his eyes. He slapped his hand beaver-tail-like on the seat beside him. He made a sound somewhere between a cry and a moan.

Brian ran a red light, took a right down a side street, drove fast.

Black '66 blending with the night. Gone.

(4).

POSSESSION.

ONE.

And so the summer moved on.

Clyde named no cohorts, and the three who had been with him breathed deep sighs, and Brian told the other two thoughtfully: "Well, I'm not surprised. He's a Superman."

And not long after that the Superman hung himself from his cell bars, and Brian, on many a night, had to ask himself why.

The House was abandoned (later the slumlord would be forced to renovate, and in the water-filled bas.e.m.e.nt bodies would be found and the papers would be full of it), and Stone and Loony went their way for a while, came to see Brian at his house on dark nights after the street had put itself to bed.

The three played it cool and silent.

The newspaper, the television and the radio news eventually gave up on the novelty of the Rapist Ripper; lost interest in the fact that the human components that had made up the whole were free somewhere.

No more Rapist Ripper attacks occurred. Galveston sighed and became complacent.