"I will," Irene called after her, then turned to Pender again, kneeling beside him and pressing two fingers against the side of his neck again. She felt his pulse, weak but steady, and watched his great chest rising and falling, rising and falling. "Don't die on me," she told him. "Don't you dare die on me."

Pender opened his eyes. "I'll drink to that," he said with a wink, then closed his eyes again, and let the darkness wash over him.

EPILOGUE.

EIGHT MONTHS LATER.

1.

The People's Posse ended tonight, as it did every week, with host Sandy Wells alone in the spotlight, seated on a three-legged stool on an otherwise darkened soundstage, with a stark, textured black drop cloth for a background. He was wearing his trademark leather jacket and his silver hair was razor-trimmed to perfection; as the theme music faded, he turned to face the camera in three-quarter profile-his best angle, all his media mavens a.s.sured him.

"And so ends the b.l.o.o.d.y saga of Ulysses Christopher Maxwell," Wells declared, his gunslinger eyes narrowed and his bulldog jaw outthrust. "There are, as always, many questions that remain unanswered. Forensics and ballistics can only tell us so much-we may never know, for instance, exactly why or where veteran private investigator Mick MacAlister met his fate, or how his tarpaulin-covered corpse wound up in the back of a pickup truck parked only a few blocks from his office, riddled with bullets fired from the same revolver that eventually terminated Maxwell's monstrous reign of terror.

"But this much we do know...." As he did every week when it came time to deliver his closing homily, Wells turned to his left to face camera three. The sudden move had the effect of a theatrical aside, adding an inclusive intimacy, as if he had been addressing a wider audience, but was now speaking directly to the individual viewer. "Ulysses Maxwell was not born a monster. It was the extreme abuse he suffered as a child, from parents who had no doubt been abused themselves as children, that turned him into one. Ultimately, of course, each of us is responsible for his or her own actions-still, it's inc.u.mbent upon each of us to do what we can to break the chain."

As he spoke, camera three had been tightening in on him; by now he was in extreme close-up, his exquisitely barbered face filling the screen. "If you were abused as a child, I urge you to get professional help-break the chain. And if you know someone who was abused, a spouse, a friend, a relative, encourage them to do the same and break the chain-you'll find plenty of links to mental health organizations on our website, www dot peoplesposse dot com. And most crucially, if you suspect someone of child abuse, but want to protect your anonymity, we've set up a brand-new dedicated tipline at 1-800-NOCHAIN-it's a free call, guaranteed confidential-drop a dime and stop a crime. Break the chain."

Wells turned back to camera one. "So until next week, I'm Sandy Wells, and you are The People's Posse. Take care and be safe."

"You too, Sandy," Irene Cogan muttered from her living room sofa. It had been a slightly disconcerting experience, watching herself being interviewed by a man she'd never met or even spoken with. But at least they'd withheld Lily's name, and the unknown actress who'd played Lily during the "re-creations" had been a buxom blond in her early twenties. The unknown actress who'd played Irene looked more like Matt Damon in drag, and wore a shiny reddish-blond wig that kept threatening to fall off during the chase scene at Scorned Ridge.

It had also felt kind of weird to see Scorned Ridge again. The dilapidated cabin, the domed Plexiglas drying shed where Maxwell and his foster mother used to keep the strawberry blonds-reexperiencing it all through the filter of the b.o.o.b tube, with actors and actresses playing herself and Maxwell, had an oddly distancing effect. Irene found herself wondering which version she'd be seeing in her next nightmare.

As soon as Wells had signed off, the screen split vertically in two, silently rolling the TPP credits on the right half, while the left half ran a visually elongated promo for the show coming up next on The Crime Channel. It was a two-year-old doc.u.mentary about a DID patient up in Washington whose alter had attacked his therapist.

Irene, who'd seen it before, turned the volume down and began channel surfing idly, her mind a thousand miles away again. She was thinking about her upcoming trip to Salem, the Oregon capital, to testify before a committee looking into the alleged abuses of electroshock therapy protocol at the Reed-Chase Inst.i.tute. Irene had at first been reluctant to partic.i.p.ate in what looked like a very public flogging of a very dead horse, but eventually she'd decided that someone had to speak up for poor Al Corder, if only to point out that however misguided his methods, he might very well have been on to something.

Exhibit One, of course, was the astonishing improvement in Lily DeVries's condition. As soon as the legal ha.s.sles were behind her (in light of Alison Corder's testimony that Lily had saved her life, the Portland DA had decided to go the slam dunk route and charge Maxwell with all four Oregon murders), she'd enrolled full-time at CSUMB-California State University Monterey Bay, also known jocularly as UFO, the University of Fort Ord, because it was situated on the vast, decommissioned military base.

The university was currently on spring break, Irene was reminded, when she looked up and discovered she had channel surfed her way from The Crime Channel to MTV's Spring Break Party-Cancun. Lily had been frantic for permission to attend the event with a few of her college girlfriends, but after conferring with Irene, now counseling Lily on an as-needed basis, Uncle Rollie had made a counteroffer of an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for Lily and a friend.

And judging by the goings-on currently being aired, thought Irene, they'd made the right decision. The overheated atmosphere, the girls in their skimpy tops and b.u.t.t-floss thongs, the bare-chested, sweating boys, the orgiastic dancing, the overt s.e.xuality, the whole suds-and-Ecstasy subculture, would surely have been- OhmiG.o.d! thought Irene, doing a full Wile E. Coyote double take, jaw dropped, neck outstretched, eyeb.a.l.l.s all but popping out on springs. "Pen!" she shouted. "Pen, get down here quick!"

Pender had never much enjoyed watching himself on television. He'd been up in his study, formerly the spare room, playing poker on the Internet when he heard Irene shouting. He tore off his computer gla.s.ses like Clark Kent turning into Superman, grabbed a 3-iron from the golf bag leaning against the wall, and was out the door and down the stairs in seconds, hauling a.s.s faster than he'd hauled it in years.

But then, there was a lot less a.s.s to be hauled. The Grim Reaper is a h.e.l.l of a motivator-Pender had lost fifty pounds since his heart attack, given up cigars, and cut way down on the Jim Beam. He'd also kept his promise never to use a golf cart again, and coincidentally or not, had lowered his handicap two whole strokes-it was now under the drinking, if not the driving, age.

"What is it?" he called, racing into the living room.

"Take a look at this." Without turning around, Irene nodded toward the television.

Pender circled around behind the sofa, sheepishly dropping the 3-iron behind it, and sat down next to her. The two had been living together for almost seven months-Irene had insisted on Pender moving in with her while he was recuperating from his heart attack, and once they'd become lovers, it hadn't seemed to make sense for him to pay rent elsewhere when they were sleeping together every night anyway.

"What is this, some kind of a test?" he asked her incredulously. In Pender's experience, women Irene's age-or any age-did not customarily insist upon their boyfriends watching nubile, half-naked college girls shaking their hooters.

"Wait, she just moved out of the picture...watch the right side of the screen...there! There she is-red top."

He had already spotted the well-developed girl in the red top-he just hadn't looked up at her face. "Oh s.h.i.t, oh dear," he said, feeling like a dirty old man. "I thought she was supposed to be in D.C., taking in all the fine educational sights."

"So did I," said Irene.

"She does seem to be enjoying herself," said Pender after another few seconds.

"She does, doesn't she?" Neither of them had taken their eyes from the screen.

"Are you going to tell Rollie?"

The show cut to commercial. Irene hit the Mute b.u.t.ton on the remote. Her heart (to use a nonpsychiatric term) was so full she couldn't find words to express what it meant to her to see Lily dancing, happy, surrounded by kids her own age. Pride was in there somewhere, parental and professional. Also awe, and a little understandable trepidation. She turned to Pender with tears in her eyes. "Sweetheart," she said softly, "if I'd had b.o.o.bs like that when I was her age, I'd have been shaking them, too."

2.

"Good evening, Mr. Maxwell-and how's my strong silent type this evening?" Swingshift nurse, fat, cheerful, sloppy in white. Max, paralyzed from the neck down, followed her with his eyes, mentally gagging and hog-tying her.

"Ooo-if looks could kill," she said forbearingly. "Look here, I've brought your dinner. Let me see now, we have...sirloin steak, medium rare, peas, mashed potatoes, garlic bread, Caesar salad, hold the anchovies...."

All nonsense, of course. Max received his nutrition through a nasogastric feeding tube. He tried to stop her from talking by the sheer force of his loathing, but all she had to do was move out of his direct line of sight and she would disappear. Max could no more have turned his head than he could have tap-danced his way out of the state-run s.h.i.t hole to which he'd been confined since his extradition to Oregon, pending a dozen trials that were now unlikely to ever take place.

For one thing, Max's lawyers could now legitimately argue that he was unable to aid in his own defense-the doctors were split on whether his continued mutism, even when the feeding tube was removed, was physical, voluntary, or psychosomatic. For another, not many prosecutors were all that keen on trying a man who'd have to be wheeled into the courtroom tied to his wheelchair, with urine dripping into a baggie at his side and his respirator, plugged into a permanent tracheostomy hole, going hiss-suck!, hiss-suck! every five and a half seconds.

So the view from the antique, horizontally rotating Stryker frame never really changed. It only shifted between the discolored, water-stained, off-white ceiling tiles and the one-foot-square, black-and-white floor tiles whenever the staff got around to clamping a canvas stretcher on top of him and spinning him around like a pig on a spit. There was a window somewhere off to one side, but all he could see of it was the waxing and waning of daylight.

As if being sentenced to life without parole in his own body weren't punishment enough (only the State was debarred from cruel and unusual punishment: nature practiced it on a regular basis), every so often Max would be stricken by a headache. For the able-bodied, even the able-bodied migraine sufferer, it's hard to fathom the effects of a headache on someone who only has sensation from the neck up-let's just say that old cliche about being in a world of pain had never been more applicable.

And there was another factor that exacerbated his suffering: Max had skated through most of his existence without having to endure even prolonged discomfort-that, after all, had always been Lyssy's job. From youthful boredom to third-degree burns, from gas pains to gunshot wounds, from aches to amputations, the system had always had Lyssy as its scapegoat.

But Max could no longer summon Lyssy at will. He'd tried, those first few months, f.u.c.king Jesus how he'd tried. Raging, cajoling, threatening, promising-nothing worked. Even worse (dear G.o.d and all the angels in heaven and all the devils in h.e.l.l, how many layers of "even worse" were there in this stinking onion of existence), Max himself had been unable to retreat to the dark place-it was as if Lyssy had somehow locked the door behind him. The door in the wall that didn't exist.

Sleep was the only refuge left to Max-but with sleep came dreams even less bearable than his waking h.e.l.l. He could never fully recall them when awake, but they must have been pretty awful if he could wake up to all this with even a transitory sense of relief.

There were only two things that kept Max going, or rather, that kept him from letting go of his tenuous hold on sanity. One was that it couldn't last forever: when he'd first arrived, he'd overheard a doctor telling the nurse that on the life expectancy charts, a C-3 quadriplegic fell somewhere between a hamster and a house cat.

The other thing standing between Max and the Big Scream was that he still hadn't given up on Lyssy. The little b.a.s.t.a.r.d was in there, all right, and Max remained convinced that sooner or later he'd come up with a way to get him out, to swap places. A few minutes ago, in fact, he'd come up with what felt like a very promising approach, but one that would require his complete concentration.

So he waited for the nurse to leave before closing his eyes. Lyssy! he called. Lyssy, it's Lily. I'm in trouble-I need your help.

And again: Lyssy, it's Lily. I'm in trouble-I need your help.

And again and again and again, without a hint of a response. Unable even to sigh unless he timed it to the hiss-suck! of the respirator, Max opened his eyes again and settled in for another long night in h.e.l.l.

3.

Lyssy, it's Lily. I'm in trouble-I need your help.

Utter darkness. Lyssy was afraid for a moment-then he heard the creek burbling and remembered where he was. He opened his eyes. It must have been around sunset-the inside of the cabin was all lit up with a rosy, comforting glow.

"Lyssy, it's Lil." He couldn't see her-her voice was coming from the porch.

"So who else vould it be?" A credible imitation of the querulous old man played by Billy Crystal in The Princess Bride.

She laughed. "I need your help."

He hopped out of bed, crossed the room without a trace of a limp, on an artifical leg so natural he could hardly even remember which leg it was, and opened the door. Lil (that's what she wanted to be called, to signify the consolidation of her two ident.i.ties) was standing there with both arms so full of kindling she couldn't manage the door latch.

Lyssy stepped back, ushered her in with a gallant sweep of his arm, then stepped out onto the porch. The clearing too was bathed in a roseate light. "You feel like going down to the rock?"

She joined him, brushing leaves and twigs from the front of her sweater. She was wearing that soft brown cashmere number-without a bra, Lyssy couldn't help but notice as they negotiated the rocky path around the side of the cabin and down to the flat rock overhanging the creek.

But he wasn't in a s.e.xy mood-just mellow. Mellow as the sunset as he followed Lil onto the rock. She took off her sandals and dangled her legs over the side, her bare toes idly stirring the silvery clear, slow-moving current. Lyssy stood over her, looking down into the water. "See those waterbugs there, right on the surface?" she said, pointing to a few tiny, nearly transparent insects with two wide round paddles, larger than their bodies, for feet. "You know why they have those big feet? It's so when fish look up, they think, 'Duh-uh, those must belong to some really humongous bug, no way I could swallow that.'"

Lyssy laughed. "Maybe that's what Bigfoot is-some monkey three or four feet high, with really big feet." He lowered himself easily, even gracefully-his new leg was amazing, it felt like it was becoming part of him-and stretched out athwart the sun-warmed rock with his head in her lap. You couldn't actually see the sun from here, but the sky was a melting rainbow of colors and the creek a fiery red-gold ribbon. "I probably asked you this before, but I can't remember. How long did you say we get to stay here?"

"Forever," she said without hesitation.

"And is it...real?"

She smiled down at him, her face in shadow, curtained by her dark brown hair. "You can have forever, or you can have real," she told him, "but honey, you can't have 'em both."

Lyssy smiled back at her. "Forever," he said dreamily. "I'll take forever."

Also by Jonathan Nasaw.

Twenty-Seven Bones.

Fear Itself.

The Girls He Adored The World on Blood.

Shadows.

Shakedown Street.

West of the Moon.

Easy Walking.