He told her about the premonitions he had as a child, calling them feelings instead of premonitions. He didn't mention why the bullies chased him, and she didn't ask.

"So, it's like you've been having these things since you were a child," she said.

"Yes, and they've never come as anything but warnings. I've never seen the winning Lotto numbers written in the steam on my bathroom mirror and I don't get visions that tell me what stocks to buy and when to sell them. I get warnings that tell me when to get lost."

They were interrupted by the waiter, who asked if they wanted a box for their dinners, which they were clearly not eating. They declined and the table was cleared.

Now comes the part about the bill, Lawless thought as his anxiety fought through the alcohol.

Jensen anticipated this might be awkward for them and said, "Why don't you let me pay for dinner since you bought the wine in the bar?"

"I didn't actually pay for it yet. It's probably on the dinner bill."

Laughing, she said, "Let's split it then."

Going Dutch didn't sound manly to Lawless, even though they weren't actually on a date. "Naw, I got this."

"I'll get the tip then. It's the least I could do. I mean, we just ran into each other here, right? It's not like you asked me out or anything."

Awkward, Lawless thought. Awkward as hell.

"Alright," he agreed, but as soon as the word left his lips, he was afraid it was the wrong thing to do. Shouldn't he have insisted on paying for it all?

As they waited for the waiter to charge his credit card, Lawless had a thought that froze his blood: What now? What should he say? He didn't want his time with her to end, he wanted to touch her, smell her hair, feel her skin...

Should he invite her over? That could be bad. What if, improbable though it was, they ended up in his bedroom, on his bed? She would see his shoes, and then what? Tell him she forgot she had an appointment at two that morning, that she had to go? Ask him just what the hell was he doing with eighty-two pairs of shoes, neatly organized in custom shoe racks? Something liquidy gurgled through his gut.

The waiter returned and Lawless signed the slip. Jensen put a generous tip on the table and they sat there, silently looking at the cash.

Just as he was about to pull out his gun and shoot himself in the head, she said, "Can we go to your place?"

"You wanna see my etchings?" he said, the words spilling out in his nervousness.

"What?" she said, breaking into a wide grin that revealed the most beautiful, stunning smile he had ever seen. "See your what?"

"You know, see my etchings. My drawings."

"You draw?" she said, still smiling. The smile had spread to her eyes, and she reeled him in.

Lawless realized she didn't know the joke, that he had dated himself. He would have been flustered had it not been for her smile, impossibly meant for him. And now the eyes.

"It's an old joke, from the sixties or seventies. Long before your time, I guess."

"What's it mean?"

"It was a pickup line. The etchings were just an excuse to ask someone back to your place. There never were any, or if there were, they just had them so they could ask girls back to see them. Get it?"

She pretended to be shocked, which only made her more beautiful. I'll die tonight.

He said, "Today you might say something like, 'Do you want to come over and watch a dvd' or 'Do you want to come over and hang out.' "

She was laughing now, a wonderful sound that chased away the somber events of the day. "No one says anything like that. They say, 'Hey babe, wanna hook up?' " She used the voice again, the stupid male voice.

Lawless smiled, warm, and she liked it.

"I don't know that I've ever seen you smile," she said, suddenly calm. "You should do it more often."

After a moment, he said, "I just might."

They locked eyes, smiling, feeling good. Like they were out for dinner but not hungry for food.

Finally, with a look he would never pull off again, he said, "Want to come over and see my etchings?"

"I love etchings."

They were both way over the legal limit for blood alcohol content, but got in their vehicles and drove to his place anyway. There was never any talk about calling a cab, or just taking one car and letting the soberest drive; policemen don't worry about getting hauled in on dui charges. Once they identify themselves as cops, they're let go with a chuckle. "Be good now. Y'all go on home." It was one of the great unwritten perks of being a cop.

Jensen followed Lawless to his condominium and parked in a visitor's space, actually two spaces; she wasn't seeing lines very well and was impatient. Lawless was a little more careful parking; he had to live here and parking in someone else's reserved spot was a huge no-no. Cars were towed without warning for such offenses.

At the door, he fumbled with the key, taking too long. He worked the lock and pushed the door open for her. She smiled as she walked past, into his place. He kept his distance, still not sure he knew what was happening. Other than her errant breast-brush and leg-grab at the bar, and who knows how accidental that had been, they hadn't kissed or touched in any way all evening.

"Do you want some wine? I'd offer you something else but that's all I drink." Lawless was standing in kitchen doorway. The only light in the room came from a corner lamp, set on low.

"No, thank you. I think I've had enough to drink." Jensen sat down on his leather couch and kicked off her shoes, leaned back and felt the softness of the cushions, drew her legs to her side; her skirt rode up her thighs, revealing brown summer-bare legs. She looked around the room, taking it in.

Lawless, who during the drive home had been thinking about the many ways he could chicken out of anything sexual, now looked at her legs and felt the heat rise again. He took off his coat and tie and threw them over the back of a chair.

"How about some water then, or a soda?" he asked, still looking at her legs.

"Water would be great."

He went to the kitchen and got two bottles of water from the refrigerator. He opened them both, handed her one, and sat on the other end of the couch, still keeping his distance, still looking at her legs.

She noticed, took a long drink of the cold water, held the bottle to her forehead: "That feels good."

Flashes of the premonition he had at the restaurant came back, startling him. The last of his inhibitions fled.

But first, there was something he needed to know.

"Why are you here?"

She smiled at him, lighting up the room. "You invited me over to see your etchings, remember? I'm such a big fan of etchings, I couldn't resist."

She was playing with him, and he smiled back. Then she said, "I don't see any etchings. I bet you just said that to get me to come home with you."

"Why did you say yes?"

She wrapped her lips around the end of the bottle and drank slowly. He stared at her neck. She moved the bottle away from her lips. "Does it matter?"

He thought, Does it really matter why she's here? His usual fears and insecurities paraded through his mind, but none stuck, pushed out by this one thing: he simply wanted this beautiful woman, felt they were supposed to be together, tonight - had seen them together. If he could have her only for one night, or just a few hours, he would take it. So what if she found out he liked shoes, a lot; there were worse things than that. So what if he wasn't very experienced in bed; he had something going tonight he'd never felt before and he thought he could keep up. And then there was this hunger, this need to have her.

I will die tonight.

"No, it doesn't matter at all."

He slid off the couch onto his knees, in front of her. She sat up, swung her feet to the floor, leaning and reaching to put her arms around his neck. She threw the water bottle out onto the floor and it spilled into the carpet. Their lips touched, he ran his hands up her thighs, under her skirt. She slid forward on the couch, her skirt rode up to her hips. Her lips were soft, warm, inviting. His, greedy and needing. Their tongues danced. He slid his hands up her thighs, under the thin band of her panties, and fanned his fingers outward, catching them. She lifted her hips, he ripped one side in his urgency. A deep moan escaped her throat as her fingers clawed at the buttons on his shirt.

It was a quarter past nine when Lawless and Jensen stumbled into his bedroom, tearing at each other's clothes. At the edge of town, on the bank of the Paradise Lateral behind Michigan Avenue, a private party for two was just getting under way.

Tony Fuegra and Bobby Gutierrez had been friends since fourth grade, when Bobby stopped Tony from getting his ass kicked by a sixth grader. Bobby didn't know Tony from Adam, but he hated the kid doing the ass kicking so he jumped on his back and flattened him. Bobby outweighed the older kid by fifty pounds, outweighed every kid in school for that matter, and just laid on top of him until the bell rang. He shoved the kid's face into the grass when he climbed off, because he could. Tony stuck with Bobby from then on.

They started partying in seventh grade because that's what everybody they knew did. Neither boy had a father, or anyone else in their life, to set them straight. What else was there to do besides party or run with the gangs? Hang out at the mall?

They were too laid back and lazy for gangs; all that running around at night, tagging and busting, was too much work. Partying was easy. All you needed was a little money, or a good friend who had a little money.

They graduated from Modesto High almost a year ago to the day, by the grace of God and liberal politics. They went through the graduation ceremony drunk, but they did not earn their diplomas. They were simply handed to them, like a Little League trophy for participation.

A diploma meant only two things to Tony and Bobby: they didn't have to torture themselves in school anymore and their mothers finally got off their backs. It wasn't the class work they disliked, they didn't do any, it was the hours of mind- and butt-numbing sitting in hard seats, listening to mostly old white people talk about things they could not have cared less about.

They got jobs at the Foster Farms turkey processing plant in Turlock, a town fifteen miles south of Modesto, the summer after graduation. They spent their days pulling guts out of turkeys and their nights drinking and smoking weed, until they ran out of paycheck, always several days before payday. They lived at home but had big plans to get a place of their own. Had they paid attention in math they would have known that when you spend all your paycheck all of the time, you don't have money for extras. Like an apartment and utility deposits. They gave their mothers money for rent and food and the rest went for gas, beer, and weed. Tony had a 1969 Impala that ran well enough to take them where they needed to go: work and back, the liquor store and back, the weed supplier and back.

They were celebrating a thirty-five-cent-per-hour raise, even though the extra money had yet to be realized in their paychecks. They had a case of Corona and a quarter-ounce of top grade green to mark the occasion. The bottles were chilling in a ice chest that took twenty minutes to haul the fifty yards from Bobby's back fence to the canal. It wasn't the weight of the ice chest or their being out of shape, which they were, that made the trip take so long, it was the joint they had shared in the backyard, just to get things started. Actually, it wasn't the joint itself, it was the stumbling, tripping, and laughing induced by the joint that made the trip take twenty minutes. They went back a second time for their lawn chairs and snacks; three bags of Doritos, each a different flavor, and two cans of nuts.

They liked to party on the canal bank because people left them alone there. It was peaceful and quiet, the only sounds coming from cows, crickets, and an occasional frog. Although Bobby's back fence was just fifty yards away, and they should have heard all the sounds of civilization, the country air worked like a baffle, quieting the drunken, angry shouts of hate and frustration, muffling all human sound.

Tony and Bobby did some serious partying on the canal bank.

They took up their familiar posts in lawn chairs set on either side of the cooler, an arrangement that allowed each to get his own beer and for the joint to be passed back and forth without anyone having to get up. They were close enough to the canal to ensure that most of their empties made it into the water, but not so close they could easily fall in. The canal also a served as a convenient toilet, a place to recycle beer.

Tony spun an empty bottle toward the canal, watched it arch through the moon-lit night, heard the splash, and said, "Two-for-two, holmes. At this rate I'm going to take Kobe's place on the Lakers, aye, ese?"

"Don't call me ese, you wetback," Bobby said. "You don't even know how to speak Spanish, fool, and you damn sure can't shoot like Kobe." They were Lakers fans: Kobe Bryant was the man.

"Get your fat arm off the cooler, bitch," Tony said, trying to get in the ice chest.

"Bitch hell. You ain't got no bitch, bitch, unless you count that Wanda bitch at work." Bobby laughed as he moved his arm and pulled a joint out of a plastic baggie. "Shit, you couldn't even get in Wanda's panties."

"Shut up, ese. Wanda's got back, man. I'm gonna get me some of that, you wait and see."

Bobby laughed again. "You stupid wetback, I'll have a gray beard down to my ass before you get with Wanda. Besides, she's ugly. And don't call me ese, bitch."

"Man, but could you do Yolanda?" Tony said, grabbing his crotch. "That bitch is fine!" He took a long pull from his bottle.

"Shit yeah, I could do Yolanda four times a day, bitch." Bobby reached across the cooler and said, "Gimme five for Yolanda's fine pussy." Although neither boy had seen or touched Yolanda's genitals, nor would they ever get close, they fived it across the beer cooler.

Bobby lit the joint and took a deep hit, holding in the potent smoke as long as his burning lungs allowed. He exhaled slowly, tilting his head up, blowing smoke at the stars.

"Gimme the smoke, ese," Tony said, reaching across the cooler, tapping Bobby's arm.

"I just got it started, fool. All I got was paper. Let me get some weed first, bitch. And don't call me ese."

"Bitch this, bitch," Tony said, grabbing his crotch again and watching his friend hit on the joint. He tapped Bobby on the arm again. "Pass the joint, bitch!"

Bobby leaned away from his friend and sucked longer on the thin marijuana cigarette, just to piss Tony off. He fought off a cough; small wisps leaked from his nostrils as he finally passed the joint to Tony.

"See, bitch," Tony said, as he took the joint and scowled. "You took too much, ese. Man, I don't know why I share my weed with you. You're a fat weed hog, bitch."

Bobby coughed out his hit and took a pull from his Corona to douse the fire in his throat. Still coughing, he said, "Bitch, your weed? I bought this weed, bitch. And don't call me ese, bitch."

Tony considered that for a moment, then said, passing the joint back, "Oh yeah. That's right, you did buy it. Bitch."

They looked at each other and started laughing; a stoners' laugh, hard and uncontrollable, so hard they fell out of their chairs into the sand where they rolled onto their backs and laughed at the moon and the stars until side cramps forced them to stop. Wiping tears from their bloodshot eyes, they righted their chairs and resumed their positions of importance on opposite sides of the cooler.

The joint got lost in the sand, but they had more. They finished their beers at the same time, and, after scoring direct hits in the water, popped open fresh ones. Halfway through their fourth beer, they opened a bag of Doritos and ate with gusto, spilling crumbs onto their shirts, staining their fingers with red powdery seasonings.

The next hour progressed in much the same way: they smoked weed, drank beer, insulted each other about their common lack of skill in basketball, and bragged about imaginary conquests over the opposite sex. The empty Doritos bag disappeared into the canal and they each threw a bottle at it as it floated downstream, missing by yards. A new bag of chips, different flavor, was opened, and they resumed their feast, this time staining their fingers green.

After Bobby finished his seventh beer, he fought the chair for his fat ass and got up, lurching to his feet, staggering forward, almost losing his balance.

"I gotta piss, bro. Wanna help me? The doctor told me not to lift anything heavy." Bobby laughed and zigzagged down the canal bank, working at his fly, trying to keep his balance.

"Shit, bitch, you're dick ain't heavy. You got a little boy dick, bitch. How many times you gonna use that joke, anyway? I heard it a hundred times, bitch. Get a new joke."

Bobby grunted as he shot a stream of hot smelly urine into the canal. "Damn, that feels good. Hey, bro, there's nothing like taking a piss when you really need to, aye bitch?"

"Shut up, bitch. Don't talk to me when you got your dick in your hand." Tony thought about what he'd just said and reflected on how they would share joints after Bobby had finished. Had Bobby even been inclined, there was no sink to wash up in.

Bobby laughed again and his stream shot further out over the black water. He swung his penis from side to side. "Hey, bro, I'm a sprinkler." He laughed some more, almost tottering into the canal.

Tony picked up the baggie with the joints, took one out and fired it up, cupping his hands to hide the flame. He took a deep drag and kept his eye on Bobby, who was still doing his sprinkler imitation. If he was lucky, he could get three or four hits before Bobby came back and took the joint away. Bobby had an enormous bladder that he let fill to bursting before relieving himself; he could piss for minutes, like a cow.

Tony blew the first hit out too quickly and was sucking on the joint again when he saw, in the bright moonlight, something big and black come out of the water, rising ten feet above the canal. A flash of silver, streaks of it, and the top of the black thing gaped open. Bobby, the human sprinkler, had also seen it come out of the water and was looking up at it when it struck. It came down over the top of Bobby and bit him in half.

With a slight twist of its head, it sank into the canal, making a soft splash.

Tony watched it disappear, then looked back at Bobby. What was left of him stood upright for a few moments, like a pants mannequin in a department store, before falling in slow motion back into the sand. His penis, still hanging from his pants like a wagging tongue, flopped over, still squirting; the urine had turned to blood.

Tony screamed "Bitch!" and shot out of his chair, knocking it down and spilling his beer. Confused and panicky, he ran down the canal bank, close to the water, past Bobby's corpse, shouting "Bitch! Bitch!"

He sprinted fifty feet, his muscles fueled by adrenaline, heard a splash, stopped and turned his head, whispered "Bitch." Something moved at the edge of the canal: a hand floated by, pushed by the swift current. A gaping mouth came out of the water and the hand disappeared. The black thing undulated through the water before it vanished.

Frozen by fear, Tony's mouth, the only part of him that would move, was busy producing a series of Bitch! Bitch! sounds as he stared at the black water.

The thing reappeared, rising up from the water again, twenty feet to Tony's left. It opened its mouth, showing the long silver teeth that sparkled, reflecting moon and starlight.

Tony's bladder released and he realized he had made a mistake running by the canal.

He shouted "Bitch!" at the creature and backed away, toward the field behind Bobby's house, then fell back and tumbled off the canal bank into the weeds and trash. Jumping to his feet, he shouted "Bitch!" and ran through the field, sing-songing bitch-bitch, bitch-bitch, bitch-bitch.