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Bob takes the long way home, covering streets he missed before. Coming around the back way, he sees Kyle Cheney's car parked two blocks from where it should be. Man's car maybe broke down on his way to work. After five now, could be he's up. For that matter, could be Paul's home. Could be Andy and George are the only ones missing He pa.s.ses his own house and parks in front of Cheney's.

There's no answer when he knocks.

He walks down a couple houses to Hector's. Mrs. Sanchez will be up for sure. Getting breakfast together. Just ask her if the boys have been around. And watch her get as panicked as Cindy. No, not yet, there's no need for that yet.

He turns and walks to his truck, stands with his hand on the door, looks down the street to his own home.

Go down there and tell Cindy.

Can't find them. Don't know where they are. I don't know where our sons are.

He lets go of the door and squats, dips his head between his shoulders. G.o.d. Don't know where the boys are. Don't know where they are. Don't know if they're safe.

A nightmare of fathers.

Man's first job, keep his family safe. No reason to be if you can't do that.

A car turns the corner and he stands, rising quickly so he won't be seen like this. The car goes past, a stranger at the wheel.

He wishes he'd had a real drink at the Rodeo instead of a beer.

He opens the door and climbs inside the truck and starts the motor and puts it in gear so he can drive down the block and tell his wife.

Across the street, something gleams behind a bush.

He gets out of the truck and walks over there and finds two bikes stashed behind one of the huge pampas gra.s.s bushes the new couple put in when they bought the corner house.

One bike is Paul Cheney's Redline.

The other is George's Mongoose.

He turns and stares at Kyle Cheney's house.

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It's exactly like being invisible.

Being in a room of people, almost in plain sight, and none of them seeing you, that's exactly like being invisible.

Andy clenches his teeth.

No, that's not right, it's not exactly like being invisible. Well, it could be, but he's in no position to say. Never having actually been invisible. It's more precise and accurate to say that it's exactly as he imagines being invisible would be.

There, no one could fault him for that usage.

The fat guy stops yelling at Fernando.

Something's happening.

He wants to look up, lift his face from where it's tucked against his chest and take a look at the room. But he knows the movement will expose him. The trick to it, to folding up here on the floor just at the end of the couch, the trick is to be still. That's why he hides his face, even the movement of his eyes would draw attention.

It took forever to get here.

Getting from the bathroom to the kitchen hadn't been that hard. Using all the stuff going on in the livingroom, moving down the hall and across the edge of the room while the fat guy was arguing with Fernando, that had been pretty easy. But getting out of the kitchen and in here had been really hard.

Once Jeff showed up it happened fast. Everyone focused on Jeff. It was like a magic trick. Legerdemain. Everyone is watching one thing, while what's important is happening somewhere else.

And once Jeff and the fat guy started talking, it was so easy to stay perfectly still, not to move at all. Just to listen to the story of their father.

When the fat guy said the thing about his dad hitting people with a baseball bat with galvanized nails in it, he knew right away why the nails were galvanized. It's exactly the way he would do it, too. He thinks about making a bat like that. You'd also want to make sure the wood was well sealed so the blood didn't seep in and make it swell. If that happened, it would eventually crack. That's probably the way their dad did it, he's good at making things.

He pictures. .h.i.tting someone in the head with something like that. You'd have to be pretty strong, it'd be heavy, and the nails would get stuck in the bone and it would be hard to pull free. And, yeah, the fat guy is right, blood would spray out of those holes in your cheek if you tried to talk, the air pressure inside your mouth would make that happen.

It sure sounds like a real story, like something that really happened. And if it did, that might mean he's not as weird as he thinks he is. Well, still plenty weird, but maybe not so scary weird. Because he's thought about doing stuff like that, but it sounds like his dad really has done stuff like that. So maybe it's not so bad to have those things in your head. Or, at least, maybe there's a reason for them getting in there.

When the gun goes off he only moves a tiny bit. Just enough to look and see what's happened to Jeff. Then he closes his eyes again. Because it's not his brother or Hector, and he can deal with that. Plus, having his eyes closed keeps the room from spinning. Sure his head still hurts and his left eye still feels loose in its socket, but as long as the room doesn't spin around like he's been drinking Thunderbird all day long he can deal with it.

Now the fat guy is talking again.

--Get that loser out of here.

He opens his eyes and the room stays still. Fernando is right in front of him, pointing at Jeff's dead body.

--I'm gonna get stuff all over me.

--There's garbage sacks in the bag I brought. Wrap him and put him in the garage. And when you're done, you're going and finding Timo and the big kid and drag their a.s.ses back here.

--Geezer, maybe it's time.

--'Nando, I just told you what time it is. I put a bullet in that loser's face. That told everybody what time it is. It's time to start taking me very f.u.c.king seriously and giving my words a little...s.h.i.t...a little...s.h.i.t! Word? For what holds us to the ground. Totally basic word. Someone say it before I go crazy.

George whispers.

--It's gravity.

--Yes! Give my words some gravity. Jesus. Is that so hard? What else do I have to do?

They all watch Fernando wrap Jeff in the bags.

He should move now. Too long in one place and he'll become visible again.

So he leans slowly to the side, unfolding into the s.p.a.ce between the back of the couch and the wall, the s.p.a.ce he didn't hide in because he knew they'd look there, and he worms to the other side, careful not to rub the bulge in the back of the couch that is made by the fat guy, and they're all still watching Fernando, and he gets on all fours and crawls quickly into the front hall that spins around him and he squeezes between a big dead plant in a big pot and a couple stacked cardboard boxes and when Fernando drags the bagged body into the garage and leaves the door open he follows him and settles next to a rusted out old bathtub with claw feet and stays there until Fernando goes back in the house and closes the door and leaves him alone with all the chemicals and stuff that are just like the ones Fernando and his brothers had back in their garage and everything spins and he goes asleep again.

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--Bob Whelan. Bob G.o.dd.a.m.n Whelan.

Geezer scoots his a.s.s around on the couch, trying to ease the rash on his sweaty b.u.t.tocks. He watches Fernando tromp around the house and out to the back yard, looking for the comatose kid. He looks at the two huddled against the wall.

--If I'd been smart, smarter, I would of told the Oakland crew not to listen to him. He decided to get out of the trade, decided he didn't want to take it any further than running the gra.s.s and acid and all that hippie s.h.i.t, told the Angels the town was theirs he just wanted out; when that little negotiation took place, I should have told them not to listen, told them a head case like Bob Whelan will never leave the life, never get tired of kicking the s.h.i.t out of people, should have told them to do everyone a favor and put him out on the train tracks. Now look what I got. Got his kids on my hands. His kids.

He makes the grabber into a fist and bangs it on the floor.

--Kids! f.u.c.ker. He made, you know, he made a speech? Went over the hill, made me and Jeff go with him so it'd be like an official peace conference the way those bikers like it. Made us go with him even though we didn't want to give up the town to those f.u.c.kers, even though he knew they might just say f.u.c.k the cease fire and start breaking bottles on our heads the second we walked into their clubhouse.

He takes the grabber by its aluminum shaft, raises one b.u.t.t cheek and scratches it with the claw.

--G.o.dd.a.m.n rash. G.o.dd.a.m.n house. G.o.dd.a.m.n no AC. My place, I got a swamp cooler. Ever been in a trailer with a swamp cooler? You haven't. Like a f.u.c.king ice box. I love it. Turn the thing off for maybe two months in the whole year. Meter man comes around from PG&E, his eyes spin around in his head. Tells me there's an energy shortage, I should conserve. I tell him, I pay the d.a.m.n bill, how I use the energy I pay for is my f.u.c.king business. Got that swamp cooler, what else I got, I got a 32 inch color Zenith with HBO and Showtime. You know anyone else got both HBO and Showtime? No. Got the Spice channel, too. All the Playboy specials and the Emmanuel movies. Got the fridge full of cold cuts and sourdough rolls and sliced Swiss cheese. Got a freezer full of frozen sausage pizzas and Haagen-Dazs. The cupboard full of pork rinds and Funions and Ding Dongs.

He raises the other cheek and scratches.

--Love my trailer. Never get a heat rash in that thing. Never break a sweat. My whole life in this town I've been sweating and itching till I got that trailer and that swamp cooler. And now, now it is at risk, my castle is at risk because fifteen f.u.c.king years ago I was stupid and didn't tell the Angels not to listen to your dad's f.u.c.king speech about how he was done forever with the business. Kids! All his c.r.a.p about his three year old he doesn't want around this s.h.i.t, his new baby boy in the hospital he wants to be with. Bulls.h.i.t! And here, what do we have here? Here we are finding out how much his kids mean to him. They mean he got to raise his private little gang to send to f.u.c.k me up and bust my lab and put me in the s.h.i.t with Oakland! f.u.c.ker! Should have killed him myself!

He throws the grabber on the floor.

--f.u.c.k.

He waves his hand at the boys.

--George.

--Yeah.

--Come here and pick that up for me.

George gets up, stumbles, takes a couple steps and picks up the grabber and holds it out to Geezer.

--Our dad didn't tell us to do anything. He wouldn't do anything like that.

Geezer takes the grabber.

--Kid, you got no clue what your old man would do for money, a piece of p.u.s.s.y, or just to f.u.c.k someone up because he thinks it'd be fun.

He holds out his hand.

--Help me up. Maybe get some air on my a.s.s, stop this itching.

George takes Geezer's hand and pulls him to his feet, lets go and wipes his palms on his jeans.

Geezer plucks the seat of his sweat pants away from his a.s.s.

--So, your friend, he gonna come back with my half key so I can salvage something here? Say he got away from Timo, he the kind gonna call the cops, knowing it'll mean you guys are gonna be dead? He gonna call your dad?

George shakes his head.

--He won't call my dad.

--Cops?

--No.

--Good. Now go sit down and keep your mouth shut because when I hear you I think about you and I get p.i.s.sed and I can barely keep from shooting you.

George goes and sits down next to Hector and takes his hand. Hector doesn't move, his eyes are open, looking at Ramon again, but he doesn't move at all.

Fernando comes in from the back yard.

--He's not out there.

--You sure?

--I went all around the house, looked under all the bushes. Timo and Cheney took a couple bikes. The other two are out there.

--Where is he then?

--I say he's in the house.

He kicks a pile of carpet remnants.

--He's somewhere in all this s.h.i.t. We put the bathroom window back together after they got in. It's still together. The other windows are all locked. He didn't come through here, walk out the front door.

Geezer holds out his arms.

--OK, so?

--He's a scrawny brat, he's hiding under something. Behind something.

They both shut up. They look at the couch.

Geezer c.o.c.ks the derringer, waves Fernando toward the couch.

Fernando looks at the floor, picks up Jeff's wrench, runs across the room, jumps on the couch and throws the wrench into the s.p.a.ce behind it.

--f.u.c.k.

Geezer comes over.

--Get him?

Fernando reaches behind the couch and comes up with the wrench.

--He ain't back there.

--Hey, hermano.

He drops the wrench, looks at Ramon.