"Stand back, Rich. You don't want any of this getting on your suit."

I decide to take my chance and start to climb quickly out of the trunk. I get about an inch when Agent Wade suddenly slams the trunk down on my head hard. My head spins as he speaks in a tight and unforgiving whisper.

"Next time, trunk boy, I make the plans."

William forgets all about the videotape and drives for three hours nonstop. He seems to make a point of running over every hole and rock in the road, and by the time he slows and pulls over, I feel like I've been shooting the longest rapids in history. I have now added a serious amount of puke to the overall putrid odor of Will's car.

William Holden blames the world for everything. He blames it for his lack of hair, his lack of voice, his absolute lack of personality, and he unequivocally blames it for turning him into a merciless killer. I've yet to hear any killer openly admit that they did the things they did purely because it cheered them up. Being a bald eight-year-old made William retreat into himself-not far enough, as far as I'm concerned-and he grew up a solitary figure. He initially tried to become a best-selling author-indeed, that is still his most fervent dream-but an alarming lack of talent persuaded him to go into research instead. During his investigations, he stumbled across some pretty weird stuff, and the murders he now commits are actually a homage to the great G.o.d Ra. He even has a little mantra he chants every now and then: "Ra-Ra Rarara." Just think cheerleader.

Will pulls over, and when I smell gasoline I realize he has stopped to refuel. I listen hard, trying to make out everything that is going on outside. Will dumps the fuel pump in the car, scratches himself, gives a few bars of his Ra-Ra mantra, and then, after jingling some loose change in his pocket, he walks off, probably to the men's room. He has left the gas pump sticking out of the petrol cap, and I want to tell him how dangerous that is.

I slip the catch of the trunk, and after checking out of the hole I made, I slowly open the trunk and look around. A four-wheel truck is pulling away and nearly crashes when the driver glances down and sees me emerging from the trunk. I quickly hide my face and wait for the four-wheel to skid back onto the highway and nearly cause a major pile-up-then jump out. I can barely bring myself to look at the mess I've made in the trunk, but Will's videoca.s.sette needs serious cleaning, that's for sure.

I gather myself, grab a few handfuls of the pale blue paper towels they considerately leave for drivers by the gas pumps, and wipe my clothes and face with them. As I do, I walk round to the front of Will's car and am leaning on his hood when he returns. He is naturally surprised to see me and is slightly put out by the amount of dry sick sticking to my clothes and hair.

"Hi, Will. . . ."

"Douglas!?"

"Excuse the vomit."

Will's eyes fall to my stained clothes. "You look terrible. What did you eat back there?"

Will knows I don't own a car and is probably trying to figure out how I managed to jog so far-and so fast.

I point to the sky. "Did you know it was a full moon tonight?"

"I, uh . . . I can't say I noticed." There is a querying look in William's eye.

"Look. Up there. See it?"

William is looking increasingly uncomfortable.

"A full moon." I look in supposed awe at the moon and find to my disappointment that it is completely obscured from view.

William doesn't bother looking. He is too busy staring at me-and wondering.

"Are you feeling okay, Douglas?"

I can see he is nervous. Not as nervous as some of his victims, but just a little on the edgy side. Will's kills-my phrase, not his; maybe I should take up writing novels-have all happened at night, and I have come to the conclusion that Will is trying to make it sunny by putting on his fireball act.

"I'm fine, Will. Absolutely triple A-OK."

"How did you get out here?"

"I was in the trunk of your car." There is no real point in lying to him. Besides, the look on his face, a real look of absolute and utter noncomprehension, is worth all the honesty in the world.

"Listen, if you'd wanted a lift, all you needed to do was say."

"That's very kind of you, Will."

He's making small talk to try to buy himself time. In his mind, there is a dim light going on. He searches for the meaning behind the light, and I realize he is trying that old favorite-putting two and two together. I can almost see the slow grinding of his calculations. First there were a lot of killers, now there aren't so many. He looks up, and I know he's made the connection. He's not a published author for nothing.

"You little punk!"

His hands are around my throat before I've got time to react. I realize the pummeling I have had in the trunk has slowed me down and I am not at my best. I gag as I feel the life being squeezed out of me.

"No-good little piece of s.h.i.t!"

He is surprisingly strong for a hairless man, and as I find myself starting to black out, I do something I haven't done since I was a kid: I jab my thumbnails straight into Will's bulging eyeb.a.l.l.s. He squeals, his grip eases, and I head-b.u.t.t him as hard as I can across the bridge of his nose. As the stunned Will staggers back, I grab the gas pump and ram it into his mouth, clamping it there while I dump half a gallon of super-unleaded into him. His panicked eyes bulge when he sees my silver-plated cigarette lighter snap on.

"Ra-ra Rarara."

It is over in seconds, and I nearly get a tan from the sunburst. To be fair, there isn't a great deal of suffering, but I can always lie to Agent Wade about that.

I then turn and run. By my reckoning, I've got maybe eighty miles to cover. That's almost three marathons.

Behind me, the garage explodes with a deafening roar, and when I look back I see a garage attendant staggering around, engulfed in flames. I wince and call out, "Whoops. . . ." But he doesn't hear me as my voice is lost in another deafening explosion.

In my hand I clutch a memento-something I swiped from Will's glove compartment several days earlier. I don't really know what I'm going to do with a pair of false eyebrows, but I'm sort of hoping they'll come in useful around Halloween.

THE LIST.

A GENT WADE GENT WADE pulls up beside a plastic Hannibal Hanimal-a seven-foot-tall wolverine with a big canine-toothed smile. We're in a new drive-in burger joint, and the windshield wipers are on fast speed as the rain lashes down. Agent Wade risks being drowned as he leans out the window and talks into the intercom installed in the wolverine's chest. pulls up beside a plastic Hannibal Hanimal-a seven-foot-tall wolverine with a big canine-toothed smile. We're in a new drive-in burger joint, and the windshield wipers are on fast speed as the rain lashes down. Agent Wade risks being drowned as he leans out the window and talks into the intercom installed in the wolverine's chest.

"Gimme two specials . . . but make one a vegetarian."

"I'm not vegetarian."

Agent Wade regards me, frowns. "Yeah, you are. I saw the doc.u.mentary on Grandson."

"I'm not Grandson, remember?"

Agent Wade considers this for a moment. "Right. . . ." Then he speaks into the intercom again. "Hold the vegetarian. Apparently I'm sitting with a doppelganger." Agent Wade laughs to himself at this.

I turn away, watch the rain for a moment.

Agent Wade eventually leans back in the car and gives the plastic wolverine a thoughtful glance. "If that was real, I'd have to shoot it."

"Yeah?"

"Animals that big are a threat to national security."

I study him for a moment. "Listen, I never got the chance to say this, but thanks for the a.s.sist the other night."

Agent Wade gives me a dismissive look. "With a plan like that, you needed all the help you could get."

As we sit in the car eating our Hannibal Hanimal specials, which I paid for, Agent Wade gazes at the plastic Hanimals that litter the drive-in burger joint. Together with three more wolverines, there are four grizzlies, four leopards, three gorillas, five alligators, and what I think are a cl.u.s.ter of snapping turtles.

Agent Wade studies an angry grizzly rearing up in front of the car. "We should have gone to KFC. Portions are bigger."

Agent Wade then unfolds a typed page, and as I catch a glimpse of it, I realize it is a list of all the Club members. Agent Wade pulls out a pencil and flamboyantly puts a line through William Holden's name. Nothing is said, but there is a mutual feeling of accomplishment. I notice that Agent Wade has even put the list in alphabetical order, and I feel I have let him down badly by starting halfway down the page.

TALLULAH BANKHEADRICHARD BURTONCHERTONY CURTISDOUGLAS FAIRBANKS JR JR.BETTY GRABLEWILLIAM HOLDENBURT LANCASTERJAMES MASONCHUCK NORRIS.

As I study the page, I become a little alarmed.

"Uh, I don't think I should be on the list. I'm not a serial killer."

Agent Wade looks at me. "You're not?"

"No."

"But I thought . . . ?"

"Of course I'm not." I give Agent Wade an indignant look.

He pauses before giving me a brief and uneasy smile. "Whatever you say, Doug." He puts a big thick line through my name. "My mistake."

TALLULAH BANKHEADRICHARD BURTONCHERTONY CURTISDOUGLAS FAIRBANKS JR. BETTY GRABLE BETTY GRABLEWILLIAM HOLDEN BURT LANCASTER BURT LANCASTERJAMES MASONCHUCK NORRIS.

We eat the rest of the meal in silence, the rain refusing to let up even for an instant. The plastic Hanimals get soaked, and one of the leopards short-circuits, sparking and fizzing before smoke starts pouring out of its mouth. Agent Wade was right-we should have gone to KFC.

As he slurps his milk shake he looks at me, weighing me up in a slightly unnerving fashion. I'm glad when he finally speaks.

"So, how come you're still alive to tell the tale? I'd have thought the Club would've cottoned on to you by now."

"Oh . . . I'm a pretty clever guy."

"You are?"

"Like you need to ask. . . ." We share a knowing smile.

He holds my look. "Tell me all the same."

"The skillers come from all over, so no one knows their real names, no one knows where they live, they know nothing about each other. Then when one 'leaves,' so to speak-the Club has no real way of contacting them to find out why. They try the small ads but soon give up when there's no sign of a reply. These ads cost money, and we don't like to waste Club funds."

Agent Wade glances back out the window, his ever-alert eye drawn to a waitress from the burger joint slicing through the downpour on Rollerblades to a waiting sedan and then slipping and falling hard-ending up lying sprawled across the hood.

"So if you're not a serial killer, Dougie, what exactly are you?"

I respond with a certain amount of pride. "I guess I'm the all-American hero. The answer to everyone's prayers. The Avenging Angel. That's me-Demon Dougie."

I watch the dark clouds scud across the depressingly gray sky, can see one that is shaped like a horse's head, a coal black stallion snorting its angry and willful rage over the earth.

Agent Wade has fallen silent, meditating, letting my words sink in. He blows out one last puff of smoke and then stubs out his cigarette in an ashtray. He runs his tongue around his teeth, then clears his throat. "I was going to be a dentist. That was my life plan."

"Really?" I take a moment to adjust from my newfound and glorious reverie, trying hard to focus on what Agent Wade is saying.

"I'm from a long line of dentists."

Despite this downswing in euphoria, I wonder if he could take a look at my upper-right molar, as it's been giving me a lot of pain recently.

"Thing is, I wanted to help people in another way, Dougie. Not just mend their teeth, but somehow mend their lives as well." This could easily sound cra.s.s, but somehow, coming from Agent Wade's mouth, it seems poignant. "Plus I was very keen on guns. A big fan. You know?"

I nod, take a big slurp of my milk shake, feel the ice cold liquid bring on that agonizing pain I get in my chest every time I drink this stuff.

"Some kids grow out of Cowboys and Indians. Not me."

I smile grimly as I remember my own childhood. "I was always the Indian. Being hunted down and 'scalped' by the other boys. I had to run pretty fast some days, I can tell you. It seemed everyone wanted a piece of Geronimo. That's what I used to call myself."

"Geronimo was FBI."

I stop, look at Agent Wade. He nods. Earnestly.

"Geronimo?"

"Not that it was called the FBI in those days."

"I never knew that. Geronimo, huh?"

"I forget what they used to call it, but I'm certain he was a member."

"Pinkerton . . . wasn't that what they were called?" I think I'm correct when I say this, but Agent Wade doesn't seem to acknowledge me. Instead he checks himself in the rearview, runs a hand through his hair, talking to me but staring at himself.

"So . . . who's next?"

TALLULAH BANKHEAD.

TETCHY TATTOOED TERROR.

I DECIDE TO TRY DECIDE TO TRY to rectify my earlier mistake and start doing this alphabetically. to rectify my earlier mistake and start doing this alphabetically.

It hasn't rained for at least an hour, and when I get to the next Club meeting, I imagine everyone will be in good spirits. As I pa.s.s the nerdish quiz team, I notice they are now short one of their members and they appear a little on the solemn side. I don't get time to dwell on this because as soon as I get to the table, I know that something's wrong.

I feel myself turning pale when I glance up to the television that sits on high above our regular table and see a photo of William Holden glaring down at me. It is the one they used on the jacket of his first novel. His shiny face and head peer out smugly, and my stomach flips when they cut to the newsanchor, who looks up solemnly from behind his desk. "It took a high-cla.s.s forensics team working round the clock, but the body has now been formally identified. More after these messages."

The Club members are all staring up at the screen. They are silent, and there is the unmistakable aura of concern and shock. I feel like turning on my heel and running for my life.

Tony is the first to catch my eye. He looks very somber. "You hear about this?"

To my horror, I find I can't speak. I look dumbly at Tony as my throat dries up. The other members are looking my way, awaiting a response, and Christ help me, I can't do anything but give them a low gurgle.