"Please go away."

Softly: "Love me."

If Jennifer had been capable of producing tears, she would have wept.

"Love me, and I won't have any reason to hurt you again. All I want is for you to love me." She was no more capable of loving him than she was of producing tears from her ruined eyes. Easier to love a viper, a rock, or the cold indifferent blackness between the stars.

"I only need to be loved," he insisted.

She knew that he was incapable of love. Indeed, he had no concept whatsoever of the meaning of the word. He wanted it only because he could not have it, could not feel it, because it was a mystery to him, a great unknown. Even if she were able to love him and convince him of her love, she would not be saved, for he would be unmoved by love when at last it was given to him, would deny its existence, and would continue to torture her out of habit.

Suddenly the rain sound resumed. Voices in the corridor. Squeaking wheels on the tiered cart that carried dinner trays.

The torment was over. For now.

"I can't stay long this evening," Bryan said. "Not the usual eternity." He chuckled at that remark, amused by himself, but to "Jennifer it was only an offensive wet sound in his throat, humorless.

He said, "I've had an unexpected increase in business. So much to do. I'm afraid I've got to run." As always, he marked his departure by bending over the bed railing and kissing the numb left side of her face. She could not feel the pressure or texture of his lips against her cheek, only a b.u.t.terfly-wing touch of coolness. She suspected that his kiss might have felt no different, maybe only colder, if planted on the still-sensitive right side of her face.

When he left, he chose to make noise, and she listened to his receding footsteps. After a while, Angelina came to feed her dinner. Soft foods. Mashed potatoes with gravy. Pureed beef. Pureed peas. Applesauce with a sprinkling of cinnamon and brown sugar. Ice cream. Things she would have no difficulty swallowing.

Jennifer said nothing about what had been done to her. From grim experience, she had learned that she would not be believed.

He must have the appearance of an angel, because everyone but her seemed disposed to trust him on first sight, attributing to him only the kindest motives and n.o.blest intentions. She wondered if her ordeal would ever end.

7.

Ricky Estefan emptied half the box of rigatoni into the big pot of boiling water. A head of foam rose instantaneously, and an appealing starchy smell wafted up in a cloud of steam. On another burner stood a smaller pot of fragrantly bubbling spaghetti sauce.

As he adjusted the gas flames, he heard a strange noise toward the front of the house. A thump, not especially loud but solid. He c.o.c.ked his head, listened. Just when he decided that he'd imagined the noise, it came again: thump. thump.

He went down the hall to the front door, switched on the porch light, and looked through the fish-eye lens in the peephole. As far as he could see, no one was out there. He unlocked the door, opened it, and cautiously leaned outside to look both ways. None of the outdoor furniture had fallen over. The night was windless, so the bench swing hung motionless on its chains.

The rain continued to fall hard. In the street, the vaguely purplish light of the mercury-vapor lamps revealed rivers along both gutters, nearly to the tops of the curbs, churning toward the drains at the end of the block, glistening like streams of molten silver.

He was concerned that the thump had signaled storm damage of some kind, but that seemed unlikely without a good wind.

After he closed the door, he twisted the dead-bolt into place and slid the security chain home. Since being gutshot and struggling back from the brink, he had developed a healthy paranoia. Well, healthy or unhealthy, it was a d.a.m.ned fine example of paranoia, shiny from use. He kept the doors locked at all times, and with nightfall he drew the drapes shut at every window so no one could peer inside.

His fear embarra.s.sed him. He had once been so strong, capable, and self-confident. When Harry had left earlier, Ricky had pretended to stay at the kitchen table, working on the belt buckle. But as soon as he heard the front door close, he shuffled down the hall to slip the dead-bolt quietly into place while his old friend was still on the front porch. His face had been burning with shame, but he'd been uneasy about leaving a door unlocked even for a few minutes.

Now, as he turned away from the door, the mysterious noise came again. Thump. Thump. This time he thought it was located in the living room. He stepped through the archway to find the source. This time he thought it was located in the living room. He stepped through the archway to find the source.

Two table lamps were on in the living room. A warm amber glow suffused that cozy s.p.a.ce. The coved ceiling was patterned with twin circles of light broken by the shadows of lamp shade wires and finials.

Ricky liked light throughout the house in the evening until he went to bed. He no longer was comfortable entering a dark room and then then flicking a switch. flicking a switch.

Everything was in order. He even peered behind the sofa to be sure . . . well, to be sure that nothing was amiss back there.

Thump.

His bedroom?

A door in the living room opened on a small vestibule with a simply but charmingly coffered ceiling. Three other doors ringed the vestibule: guest bath, a cramped guest bedroom, and a master bedroom of modest dimensions, one lamp aglow in each. Ricky checked everywhere, closets too, but found nothing that could have caused the thumping.

He pulled the drapes aside at each window to see if the latches were engaged and all the panes of gla.s.s intact. They were.

Thump.

This time it seemed to come from the garage.

From the nightstand beside his bed, he got a revolver. Smith & Wesson .38 Chief's Special. He knew it was fully loaded. He flipped the cylinder out and checked anyway. All five rounds were there.

Thump.

He developed a st.i.tch in his lower left abdomen, a painful stretching-twitching sensation with which he was too familiar, and although the bungalow was small, he needed more than a minute to reach the connecting door to the garage. It was off the hallway, just before the kitchen. He leaned against it, one ear to the crack of the jamb, listening.

Thump.

The sound had definitely come from the garage.

He pinched the dead-bolt turn between thumb and forefinger . . . then hesitated. He didn't want to go into the garage.

He became aware of a dew of perspiration on his brow.

"Come on, come on," he said, but he didn't respond to his own urging. He hated himself for being afraid. Although he remembered the terrible pain of the bullets smacking through his belly and scrambling his guts, although he could recall the agony of all the subsequent infections and the anguish of the months in the hospital under the shadow of death, although he knew that many other men would have given up when he persevered, and although he knew that his caution and fear were justified by all that he had experienced and survived, he hated himself nonetheless.

Thump.

Cursing himself, he disengaged the lock, opened the door, found the light switch. He stepped across the threshold.

The garage was wide enough for two cars, and his blue Mitsubishi was parked on the far side. The half nearest the house was occupied by his long workbench, racks of tools, cabinets filled with supplies, and the gas-fired forge in which he melted small ingots of silver to pour into the jewelry and buckle molds that he created.

The rataplan of the rain was louder here because there was no drop ceiling and the garage roof was not insulated. A damp chill rose off the concrete floor.

No one was in the nearer half of the large chamber. None of the storage cabinets had a compartment big enough to hide a man.

With the .38 in hand, he circled the car, looked inside it, even eased down onto his creaking knees and peered under it. n.o.body was hiding there.

The exterior man-size door of the garage was locked from the inside. So was the only window, which in any case was too small to admit anyone older than five.

He wondered if the noise had originated on the roof. For a minute, two minutes, he stood beside the car, staring up at the rafters, waiting for the thump to come again. Nothing. Just the rain, rain, rain, an unceasing tattoo.

Feeling foolish, Ricky returned to the house and locked the connecting door. He took the revolver into the kitchen with him and put it on the built-in secretary beside the telephone. The flames under both the pasta and sauce had gone out. For a moment he thought the gas service had failed, but then he saw that the k.n.o.bs in front of both burners were in the OFF position. He knew they had been on when he left the kitchen. He turned them on again, and blue flames came to life with a whoosh whoosh under the pots. After adjusting them to the right intensity, he stared at them for a while; the flames did not subside of their own accord. under the pots. After adjusting them to the right intensity, he stared at them for a while; the flames did not subside of their own accord.

Somebody was playing games with him.

He returned to the secretary, picked up the gun, and considered searching the house again. But he had already inspected every inch of the place, and knew for certain that he was alone. Following a brief hesitation, he searched it again-with the same result as the first time. When he returned to the kitchen, no one had turned off the gas. The sauce was boiling so rapidly, it had begun to stick to the bottom of the pot. He put the gun aside. He speared a piece of rigatoni with a large fork, blew on it to cool it, tasted. It was slightly overcooked but okay. He drained the pasta into a colander in the sink, shook the colander, dumped the pasta on a plate, and added sauce.

Somebody was playing games with him.

But who?

8.

Rain drizzled through the leafy oleander bushes, encountered the layers of plastic garbage bags that Sammy had draped across the packing crate, and drained off the plastic into the vacant lot or out into the alleyway. Under the rags that served as bedding, the floor of the crate was also lined with plastic, so his humble home was relatively dry.

Even if he had been sitting in water up to his waist, Sammy Shamroe might not have noticed, for he had already finished one double-liter jug of wine and had started a second. He was feeling no pain-or at least that's what he told himself.

He had it pretty good, really. The cheap wine kept him warm, temporarily purged him of selfhatred and remorse, and put him in touch with certain innocent feelings and naive expectations of childhood. Two fat blueberry-scented candles, salvaged from someone else's garbage and anch.o.r.ed now in a pie pan, filled his sanctuary with a pleasant fragrance and a soft light as cozy as that from an antique Tiffany lamp. The close walls of the packing crate were comforting rather than claustrophobic. The ceaseless chorus of the rain was lulling. But for the candles, perhaps it had been something like this in the sac of fetal membranes: snugly housed, suspended weightless in amniotic fluid, surrounded by the soft liquid roar of Mother's blood rushing through her veins and arteries, not merely unconcerned about the future but unaware of it.

Even when the ratman pulled aside the hanging rug that served as a door over the only opening in the crate, Sammy was not delivered from his imitation prenatal bliss. Deep down, he knew that he was in trouble, but he was too whacked to be afraid.

The crate was eight feet by six, as large as many walk-in closets. Bearish as he was, the ratman still could have squeezed in across from Sammy without knocking over the candles, but he remained crouched in the doorway, holding back the rug with one arm.

His eyes were different from what they had always been before. Shiny black. Without any whites at all. Pinpoint yellow pupils in the center, glowing. Like distant headlights on the night highway to h.e.l.l.

"How're you doing, Sammy?" the ratman asked in a tone of voice that was uncharacteristically solicitous. "You getting along okay, hmmmmm?"

Though a surfeit of wine had so numbed Sammy Shamroe's survival instinct that he couldn't get back in touch with his fear, he knew that he should should be afraid. Therefore he remained motionless and watchful, as he might have done if be afraid. Therefore he remained motionless and watchful, as he might have done if a a rattlesnake had slithered into his crate and blocked the only way out. rattlesnake had slithered into his crate and blocked the only way out.

The ratman said, "Just wanted you to know, I won't be stopping around for a while. Got new business. Overworked. Got to deal with more urgent matters first. When it's over, I'll be exhausted, sleep for a whole day, around the clock."

Being temporarily fearless did not mean that Sammy had become courageous. He dared not speak.

"Did you know how much this exhausts me, Sammy? No? Thinning out the herd, disposing of the lame and the diseased-it's no piece of cake, let me tell you."

When the ratman smiled and shook his head, shining beads of rainwater were flung off his beard. They spattered Sammy.

Even in the comforting womb of his wine haze, Sammy retained enough awareness to be amazed by the ratman's sudden garrulousness. Yet, as amazing as it was, the huge man's monologue was curiously reminiscent of something he had heard before, a long time ago in another place, though he could not recall where or when or from whom. It wasn't the gravelly voice or the words themselves that brought Sammy to the edge of deja vu, but the tonal quality of the ratman's revelations, the eerie earnestness, the cadences of his speech.

"Dealing with vermin like you," the ratman said, "is draining. Believe me. Draining. It'd be so much easier if I could waste each of you the first time we meet, make you spontaneously combust or make your head explode. Wouldn't that be nice?"

No. Colorful, exciting, interesting for sure, but not nice, Sammy thought, although his fear remained in abeyance. Sammy thought, although his fear remained in abeyance.

"But to fulfill my destiny," the ratman said, "to become what I am required to become, I have to show you my wrath, make you quiver and be humbled before me, make you understand the meaning of your d.a.m.nation."

Sammy remembered where he had heard this sort of thing before. Another street person. Maybe eighteen months ago, two years ago, up in Los Angeles. A guy named Mike, had a messiah complex, thought he was chosen by G.o.d to make the world pay for its sins, finally went over the top with the concept, knifed three or four people who were lined up outside an art-house theater that was showing a re-released director's cut of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure cut of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure with twenty minutes of material never seen in the original version. with twenty minutes of material never seen in the original version.

"Do you know what I am becoming, Sammy?"

Sammy just clutched his remaining two-liter jug.

"I am becoming the new G.o.d," said the ratman. "A new G.o.d is needed. I have been chosen. The old G.o.d was too merciful. Things have gotten out of hand. It's my duty to Become, and having Become, to rule more sternly."

In the candlelight, the raindrops remaining in the ratman's hair and eyebrows and beard glimmered as if a woefully misguided artisan had decorated him with jewels in the manner of a Faberge egg.

"When I deal out these more urgent judgments, and when I've had a chance to rest, I'll be back to see you," the ratman promised. "I just didn't want you to think you'd been forgotten. Wouldn't want you to feel neglected, unappreciated. Poor, poor Sammy. I won't forget you. That's not just a promise-it's the sacred word of the new G.o.d."

Then the ratman worked a malevolent miracle to insure that he he was not forgotten even in the thousand-fathom oblivion of a deep wine sea. He blinked, and when his lids popped up again, his eyes were no longer ebony and yellow, were not eyes at all any longer, but were b.a.l.l.s of greasy white worms writhing in his sockets. When he opened his mouth, his teeth had become razor-sharp fangs. Venom dripped, a glossy black tongue fluttered like that of a questing serpent, and a violent exhalation erupted from him, reeking of putrefied flesh. His head and body swelled, burst, but didn't deconstruct into a horde of rats this time. Instead, ratman and clothes were transformed into tens of thousands of black flies that swarmed through the packing crate, buzzing fiercely, batting against Sammy's face. The thrumming of their wings was so loud that it drowned out even the drone of the pouring rain, and then- was not forgotten even in the thousand-fathom oblivion of a deep wine sea. He blinked, and when his lids popped up again, his eyes were no longer ebony and yellow, were not eyes at all any longer, but were b.a.l.l.s of greasy white worms writhing in his sockets. When he opened his mouth, his teeth had become razor-sharp fangs. Venom dripped, a glossy black tongue fluttered like that of a questing serpent, and a violent exhalation erupted from him, reeking of putrefied flesh. His head and body swelled, burst, but didn't deconstruct into a horde of rats this time. Instead, ratman and clothes were transformed into tens of thousands of black flies that swarmed through the packing crate, buzzing fiercely, batting against Sammy's face. The thrumming of their wings was so loud that it drowned out even the drone of the pouring rain, and then- They were gone.

Vanished.

The rug hung heavy and wet over the open section of the crate.

Candleglow flickered and pulsed across the wooden walls.

The air smelled of blueberry-scented wax.

Sammy chugged a couple of long swallows of wine directly from the mouth of the jug, instead of pouring it first into the dirty jelly jar that he had been using. A little of it spilled over his whiskerstubbled chin, but he didn't care. He was eager to remain numb, detached. If he had been in touch with his fear during the past few minutes, he would no doubt have peed his pants.

He felt it was also important to remain detached in order to think less emotionally about what the ratman had said. Previously, the creature had spoken little and had never revealed anything of its own motivations or intentions. Now it was spouting all this babble about thinning the herd, judgment, G.o.dhood.

It was valuable to know the ratman's mind was filled with the same crazy stuff that had cluttered up the head of old Mike, stabber of moviegoers. Regardless of his ability to appear out of nowhere and disappear into thin air, in spite of his inhuman eyes and ability to change shapes, all of that G.o.d blather made him seem hardly more special than any of the countless heirs of Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez who roamed the world, heeding inner voices, killing for pleasure, and keeping refrigerators filled with the severed heads of their victims. If in some fundamental way he was like the other psychos out there, then even with his special talents he was as vulnerable as they were. Though functioning in a wine fog, Sammy could see that this new insight might be a useful survival tool. The problem was, he had never been good at survival.

Thinking about the ratman made his head hurt. h.e.l.l, the mere prospect of surviving surviving gave him a migraine. Who wanted to survive? And why? Death would only come later if not sooner. Each survival was merely a short-term triumph. In the end, oblivion for everyone. And in the meantime, nothing but pain. To Sammy, it seemed that the only terrible thing about the ratman was not that he killed people but that he apparently liked to make them suffer first, cranked up the terror, poured on the pain, did not remove his victims from this world with kindly despatch. Sammy tipped the jug and poured wine into the jelly jar that was on the floor, braced between his splayed legs. He raised the gla.s.s to his lips. In the glimmering ruby liquid, he sought a glimmerless, peaceful, perfect darkness. gave him a migraine. Who wanted to survive? And why? Death would only come later if not sooner. Each survival was merely a short-term triumph. In the end, oblivion for everyone. And in the meantime, nothing but pain. To Sammy, it seemed that the only terrible thing about the ratman was not that he killed people but that he apparently liked to make them suffer first, cranked up the terror, poured on the pain, did not remove his victims from this world with kindly despatch. Sammy tipped the jug and poured wine into the jelly jar that was on the floor, braced between his splayed legs. He raised the gla.s.s to his lips. In the glimmering ruby liquid, he sought a glimmerless, peaceful, perfect darkness.

9.

Mickey Chan was sitting alone in a back booth, concentrating on his soup. Connie saw him as soon as she pushed through the front door of the small Chinese restaurant in Newport Beach, and she made her way toward him between black-lacquered chairs and tables with silver-gray tablecloths. A red and gold painted dragon coiled across the ceiling, serpentined around the light fixtures.

If Mickey saw her coming, he pretended to be unaware. He sucked soup from the spoon, then spooned up more, never taking his gaze off the contents of his bowl.

He was small but sinewy, in his late forties, and wore his hair closely cropped. His skin was the shade of antique parchment.

Although he allowed his Caucasian clients to think that he was Chinese, he was actually a Vietnamese refugee who had fled to the States after the fall of Saigon. Rumor had it, he'd been a Saigon homicide detective or an officer in the South Vietnamese Internal Security Agency, which was probably true.

Some said that he'd had a reputation as a real terror in the interrogation room, a man who would resort to any tool or technique to break the will of a suspected criminal or Communist, but Connie doubted those stories. She liked Mickey. He was tough, but he had about him the air of a man who had known great loss and was capable of profound compa.s.sion.

As she reached his table, he spoke to her without shifting his attention from the soup: "Good evening, Connie."