"Want to talk about it some more, try and think it out?"

"No, not just now. We've made a step, but we won't try to make too many too fast." She reached out and took his hand. "What would you say to us fixing some breakfast?"

"Sounds good."

Rolling out of bed, she slipped off her pajamas, picked up her shirt and jeans.

She turned, holding the clothes before her, and saw the hunger on Monty's face.

He tried to smile it away. She continued to look at him, and finally let the clothes fall.

"Hey, big guy, want to try a roll in the hay?"

My G.o.d, thought Monty, she's actually making with the s.e.x play.

"Sure." Play it slow and easy, he told himself. Slow and easy.

He stood up and dropped his clothes. They crawled under the sheets. He touched her hip and their lips slid together, his erection touched her belly, and suddenly she jerked her mouth from his and screamed.

SIX.

"You sure you're all right?"

"I'm all right, Monty. Don't ask me again, you're driving me crazy."

"Sorry. Just worried. Here, drink some more water."

She took the gla.s.s he offered and drank. "G.o.d, I'm sorry, Monty. Of all times-"

"No problem."

"It was fine until I closed my eyes to kiss you . . . Your lips were ... It was like that kid was on me, Monty. His lips were your lips ("Scream and I'll cut your heart out") and I could smell his sour beer-breath, and the sheet clung to my foot and it was like the other kid's hands, the one whose face is a blank ("Hold her, hold her"), and I remembered how my hands were tied, how this kid was on me grunting, how the other was holding my feet, and it was like time travel, Monty, and I was there again ("Fight, and I'll cut your throat, b.i.t.c.h") and you were him and the sheet clutching at my ankles was the other one. I could smell him, hear that Ray Charles alb.u.m-did I tell you I had to throw that alb.u.m away?-feel him pressing against me with his ... d.i.c.k."

"I know." (G.o.d it hurts, G.o.d it hurts, another man's d.i.c.k.) "I swear, it's not you, I was even ready for s.e.x, wanted it for the first time in months, but the moment I closed my eyes-"

"I know. Don't let that fret you."

"It's been so long since I made love to you, hasn't it? So long."

(Over three months, but who's counting?) "It's not your fault."

"Hold me, Monty?" "You know it, baby."

SEVEN.

12:35 P.M.

Dinner (Becky insisted on calling the noon meal dinner and the evening meal supper) was tuna fish sandwiches and potato chips with instant iced tea. Upset as he was, it didn't do a lot for Monty's stomach. He was glad when Becky insisted that he do some fishing. He had planned to try out some of Dean's equipment, but so far he hadn't so much as seen it. In his youth he had been quite a fisherman, and it just might be the thing to calm him, organize his head.

He put on a light sweater to fight the cool wind, kissed Becky on the forehead and went out to the shed.

He found the key and got some equipment out of there, decided to use a clown spinner on his setup. Then he went out to the dock and made a few practice casts. He still had the arm. Timing was a bit off, but he still had the arm, and for that he was grateful.

Somehow, it seemed very important that something be like-or at least close to- how it used to be.

Becky found beneath the cabinet (looking through the cabin had suddenly become an obsession with her) a small TV with bent-over rabbit ears clothed in aluminum foil.

Christ, this could be the thing. A mind drainer. She got it out and put it on the drainboard, straightened the wounded ears and pinched the foil into place. She plugged it in, picked up a fuzzy station that seemed to be transmitting from the moon.

Oh boy, she thought, my all-time non-favorite, Hogan 's Heroes.

But what the h.e.l.l? She pulled up a chair, fixed herself another gla.s.s of iced tea (she had tossed off" three in the last thirty minutes) and began watching.

Monty cast the clown spinner.

Becky watched TV.

The black '66 sat in the pasture.

And along the highway, up and down blacktops and clay roads, the law ran around like little blind mice and caught no one.

EIGHT.

1:30 P.M.

"You're kidding me. You want to stop at every house along here and ask these n.i.g.g.e.rs if they've seen a car fitting Trawler's description? What're you? Nuts?"

"It's a long shot, but what else are we doing?"

"Look, don't you know it's n.i.g.g.e.rs that killed Trawler?"

"No, I didn't know that. Neither do you."

"d.i.c.k to a doughnut that it is. When they catch these a.s.sholes they'll be n.i.g.g.e.rs.

You think these n.i.g.g.e.rs are going to turn in other n.i.g.g.e.rs?"

"Larry, would you like to go another round?"

"Another round of what?"

"Never mind." Ted decided that when he found who had put him with Larry, they were going to die of slow torture. Maybe he'd pull their teeth out one by one with pliers.

That would get him wanned up, then he'd use tweezers on their hair, root by root. "Let's just do it. You don't like it, you can stay in the car."

"Okay, have it your way."

The third house they stopped at was owned by Malachi Roberts. Sitting in the drive, Larry said, "What a n.i.g.g.e.r shack."

"You going to stay in the car?"

"No, tired of staying in the car."

"Let me ask the questions."

"Hey, I only talk to n.i.g.g.e.rs when I have to."

"Fine,"

They got out of the car and walked up to the house, knocked. A big black man wearing khaki work clothes answered the door. He was covered in grease.

"Officers," he said cordially.

"Afternoon," Ted said. "I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?"

"Suppose."

"It won't take but a minute."

"Ask. But make it pretty quick. I got to get back to the shop. Got a car waiting."

"Shop?"

"I'm a mechanic. Got a little shop down the road there, next to the highway."

"Yeah, I've seen it."

Larry went over and sat on the porch, dangled his feet in the empty flower bed.

Ted put one foot on the step and leaned an elbow on his knee.

"The twenty-ninth, two days back, a highway patrolman was killed not far from here. Now, I know I'm talking long shot, but he described the car as a '66 black Chevy.

Said it had several pa.s.sengers-" "I saw it."

Larry, who had been watching the highway, turned to look at Malachi. Ted said, "Sure? I mean it's been a couple days-"

"I saw it." Malachi went over to a big metal rocking chair that had once been green but was now covered with rust, and sat down. "It wasn't two days ago, though, it was one."

"They'd have been long gone by then," Larry said.

"No, I saw them."

"Tell me about it," Ted said.

"It was the night my wife died. Must have seen that old car about one or so in the morning. Couldn't sleep that night, was out here smoking my pipe. I saw the lights, heard . . . h.e.l.l, felt that car coming, just like it was some kind of black cat carrying bad omens. When the lightning cracked I saw that car clear as if it was daylight, clearer than it is now. I could see people-if they was people -in it,"

"If they were people?" Ted asked.

Malachi, who was rocking slightly and staring off into s.p.a.ce, stopped abruptly, looked at Ted. "You can go on and think me crazy, if you like, but them wasn't people in that car, they was evils. Some kind of evils. I could feel it as surely as I can feel anything."

"You're absolutely positive when you saw it?"

"Mister, I can't forget. I'm going to a funeral this afternoon, and I'm trying to do some work to get enough money so I can pay for the burying. I'm burying my wife. Night before last-early in the morning, really-I saw that car drive by and my wife died. You don't forget something like that. No. I'm going to have that night in my head for a long time."

"I'm sorry about your wife."

"Not half as sorry as I am."

"Is there anything else you can tell me about it?" "It turned off toward Minnanette.

That's all I know, except it's evil."

"Thanks. And again, I'm sorry about your wife."

"I've got to go to work. I've only got a couple hours before I got to clean up and go to the church."

"Understand. Thank you."

Ted and Larry went back to the car.

Ted said, "We got something,"

"What have we got?"

"We've got an ID on the car. He saw it."