Nancy stared up from the bench. The beggar hovered over her. The blue sky, the yellow sycamores, the path, the other benches, the Hall, they were all erased. He filled her vision. His slack jowls, his glaring white eyes, pressed down on her.

Eight o’clock. Don’t forget now. That’s the Animal Hour.

Her pulse beat loudly in her head. It drowned the honk of horns, the Broadway buses. The rattle of leaves and the footsteps on the street were gone. There was just the tom-tom of her pulse in her head, all through her.

Eight o’clock …

“What?” She had to force the word out. “What did you say?”

That’s the Animal Hour …

The beggar held his hand out, grinning, glaring at her.

“What?” she said again, more loudly; shrilly.

He spoke in his thin cackle. “Can you spare a quarter, Miss? Just a quarter—fifty cents—for a cup of coffee.”

Nancy tried to breathe. She tried to catch her breath. Jesus, am I going nuts? What did I hear, what did he say?

“Please, Miss. A quarter. Just something for some coffee.”

She became aware that her wrist was aching. The gun. She remembered all at once that she was still gripping the gun. Holding it just within the mouth of her leather purse.

Christ!

She made a small noise. Looked down, stared down. Saw the ugly black weapon in her hand.

Christ! Christ!

She dropped the thing as if it had burned her. She clutched the purse shut with both hands, all ten fingernails digging into the leather.

Then she raised her eyes, fast. The beggar had shuffled in even closer. The sour, rancid smell of him, of his piss and his sweat, clogged her nostrils.

Why don’t you shoot him? Why don’t you just shoot him?

Oh shit, she thought. This is definitely getting out of hand.

“Just a quarter, Miss. Come on,” the man said.

“I’m sorry.” She managed a breathy whisper. Her breath was fluttering in her chest. “I’m sorry, I’m not feeling well. I’m … I’m sorry …”

She tried to stand up. He bore in on her. He held her so close to the bench she couldn’t straighten her knees. The smell of him gagged her. His grin—his chancred lips—seemed an inch from her eyes.

“Please,” she said.

She twisted her body sharply. Twisted away from him, away from the bench out into the path. Her head felt as if it were spiraling down. The yellow leaves blowing and whirling in the air made her stomach turn. For a moment, the trees around her seemed to keel over. City Hall seemed to tilt up on its side and fall back again.

“You can spare a quarter, Miss,” said the beggar. “I know you can.” He came at her again. He held his hand out. His ragged shoes chafed the path.

“No,” she said. She pressed one hand to her head. Clutched the leather of her purse so tight with the other that her fingernails bent painfully. “No, no, no, I’m going … I’m going …”

Nuts, she thought. I’m going nuts. This is how you go nuts.

“I have to … I have to … go. I’m sorry.”

She spun away from him unsteadily. Clutching that purse closed as hard as she could. As if the mouth of it might tear itself open. As if the gun might jump out of it. As if the gun might just jump right into her hand.

Why don’t you shoot him?

She started walking. Down the path, toward the hedges and the plots of grass. Toward the fountain spraying up at the far end near the street. Away. She heard her flats clap-clapping on the asphalt. She felt her knees wobble, as if she were on high heels. She took three steps. Four. Five. And then …

“You won’t forget now.”

She pulled up short. It was the beggar’s screaking whisper behind her.

“Eight o’clock. You won’t forget.”

Slowly, Nancy turned around. He was still standing there beside the bench, under the bough of the tree. His hand was still out. His knotted yellow-white hair fell around his jowls. He smiled wildly, his eyes bright.

Nancy stared at him. She swallowed hard.

“That’s the Animal Hour,” he cackled. “You have to be there. That’s when he’s going to die.”

Staring, clutching her purse, Nancy shook her head. “Leave me alone.” She couldn’t believe the sound of her own voice. The deep, hollow, throaty sound. As if she were dead with fear. “Leave me alone.”

The beggar just stood, just smiled, his hand still out, his eyes still on her. Behind him, the other beggars sat, huddled into themselves, paying no attention. The gray-black shapes of them pocked the green benches on either side of the path. The path led away, under the sycamores, toward City Hall. She could see the cops there, both of them, beneath the trees. Both were at the bottom of the Hall steps now. They were standing together, chatting, their hands on their guns.

Call to them. Why don’t you just …

shoot him?

Call to them?

“Come on, Miss. Come on,” said the beggar. His voice seemed to crackle with laughter. His eyes were mocking her.

“Leave me alone,” Nancy said, louder now. “I said leave me … leave me alone right now or I’ll call the police!” Just then, on Broadway, a truck roared. It gunned past with a long explosion of black exhaust into the trees. The noise blew her words away. Even she couldn’t hear them.

All the same, the beggar seemed to get the idea. When she mentioned the police, the shape of his grin changed. It cork-screwed up on one side, down on the other. It became a sneer. He dropped his outstretched hand. Waved it at her; a crimped claw. “Ah!” he said, disgusted. And he turned his back. He started to walk away.

You’re sure you can’t stay now? Nancy thought. In her relief, she had closed her eyes for a moment. She took a deep breath. Next time, don’t be such a stranger. When she looked again, the beggar had shuffled even farther down the path. The bent shape of his dusty black coat was slowly pushing away from her. The scrape of his footsteps in the leaves was growing softer.

All right. All right, she thought. Another breath. Steady as she goes. All right now. Everything’s fine. Everything’s going to be absolutely … going to be … She looked down. Her fingertips were white with the effort of holding her purse shut. She could feel droplets of sweat running down her palm. She gave a sickly smile. Well, maybe not absolutely fine, she thought. Something was going on, that was for sure. There was some kind of glitch in the old brainworks. This fever she had. This flu. Causing some kind of hallucinations or something. That’s all. That’s all it was. No need to go all hypochondriacal about it or anything. Just because a few funny things start happening, just because you see, hear a few strange things doesn’t mean you’re …

Nuts. Going nuts.

… totally certifiable or anything.

Right. She licked her lips. Her lips felt stiff and bloodless. Her stomach felt delicate and weak. She relaxed her hold on her purse. Brought it up, still unzipped, under her arm. She stood where she was another second, waiting for her heart to slow. Waiting for the panic to subside.

It was just a beggar, Nance. Just a beggar in the park.

She watched him going. A smaller figure now. His head hung, his hair dangling. Shuffling slowly past one garbage can after another. Shuffling under the trees, through the intermittent falling of their leaves. He went between the rows of benches that lined the path. Between the homeless men on the benches, their bowed heads, their slumped dark bodies on either side of him. He shuffled away from her, toward City Hall.

Nancy felt her heart wind down as he receded. Felt her breathing ease. Her panic was shrinking. It shrank down to a low burn of fear in the pit of her stomach. She did not think it was going to get much better than that. She couldn’t just shrug this off anymore. She was afraid, and she was probably going to stay afraid until she had it all figured out. Something was definitely going screwy here. There was no doubt about it. It wasn’t just a question of the people in her office. Or of her driver’s license. Or of her elementary school. There was the gun in her purse. The voice she had heard. And this bum, this thing he said about … What was it? The Animal Hour.

She had to go home. She had to make an appointment with Dr. Bloom. Get a checkup. Ask some questions. Find out what was happening to her.

After all, she thought, maybe it was something simple. Like a brain tumor. Or a flashback from a previous existence. Or maybe she had just died in her sleep and would be forced to live her worst nightmare over and over throughout eternity. There had to be some kind of reasonable explanation.

Nancy smiled a little to herself, watching the beggar go. She nodded. Sure. Stay cool. It’s going to be all right.

On a bench not far from her just then, one of the other beggars lifted his head. He was a black man with moldy dreadlocks. He had an eerie, distant smile and those same glaring white eyes as the other. He turned those eyes, that smile, directly on her. He winked.

“You won’t forget now. Will you?” he said.

Nancy made a noise in her throat. It was a small, horrible noise. Like a frightened animal. Like a snake’s prey. She stood frozen like that—like a mouse in the stare of a snake. Staring at the black man on the bench. Staring into his weird smile, his bright eyes. Her heart had sped right up again. Her pulse was drumming between her ears. She shook her head: no.

But the black man kept smiling from the nearby bench. “Eight o’clock,” he said. “He’s gonna die then, girl. You’ve got to be there. That’s the Animal Hour.”

She shook and shook her head: No. No. She backed away from the laughter in his eyes, from the twisting grin. She clutched her purse against her side. She put the heel of her palm against her forehead. Gritting her teeth. Thinking: Stop. Stop. Stop.

Another head popped up. Another beggar looking at her from a bench farther down the line. Another sudden pair of eyes. Another gray face grinning at her.

“Don’t forget now. Don’t forget the Animal Hour.”

“Jesus Christ,” Nancy said. Her vision blurred as her eyes filled with tears, as she thudded her forehead with her palm’s heel. “Jesus Christ.”

“That’s when he dies. That’s when he’s going to die.” It was a fourth beggar, one on the other side of the path now. A hulking gray creature with a face of running wet clay. “He’s going to die at eight o’clock,” he said. “You have to be there.”

“Jesus Christ.”

And another one lifted his eyes as Nancy backed away. As she shook her head at them, thinking: Stop. Stop. Another beggar on the benches by the path raised his grin, his glare. And then another did. And then, one by one, all of them. All the beggars on the two rows of benches lining the path. All the grimy faces under the low boughs of the trees. They were all murmuring at her. Their lips were moving. Their eyes were all bright, white and bright. Their whispers floated up around her like tendrils of smoke, encircled her, enclosed her like wisps of smoke. And their words were like flies, like horseflies, swarming around her, nipping at her face as she swung her hand—Stop. Stop—to try and brush them off. The words closed over her:

“Eight o’clock.”

“That’s the hour.”

“That’s the Animal Hour.”

“That’s when he dies.”

“You have to be there.”

“Eight o’clock.”

“The Animal Hour.”

“You won’t forget now.”

“Don’t forget.”

With a small, frightened cry, she spun away from them. Turned her back on the double row of eyes and faces. Tears spilling down her cheeks, she raised both hands. Brought her purse up in front of her face as she tried to press both hands to her ears. But the whispers were still curling around her, the words still swarming at her ears.

“Don’t forget.”

“Eight o’clock.”

“That’s when he dies.”

“That’s the Animal Hour.”

It’s a dream, she thought. She felt the panic swelling in her. Swelling out of her stomach, into her chest, into her throat. She felt it was too much. She felt it would explode, that she would explode. A dream. A nightmare. Got to be. Got to be dreaming. Walking down that old nightmare road, that’s all. That nightmare highway. Her eyes were shut tight. The purse was in front of her face. Her hands were over her ears.

“Don’t forget now.”

“The Animal Hour.”

“Don’t forget.”

In a second, in a second, I’ll be in my bed. My heart’ll be bumpety-bumping against the old mattress. Good old Mom’ll be in the kitchen. “Time to get up, Nancy. Time for work.” The sizzle of a pair of eggs frying. I don’t even like eggs, but that Mom, she always makes ’em for me. Good old Mom. Making those eggs. Those stupid, oppressive, insistent eggs. Why didn’t I move out? Why didn’t I leave home like an adult, for Christ’s sake? For Christ’s sake, they’re driving me crazy. They’ve driven me crazy!

“That’s when he dies, Nancy.”

“Don’t forget.”

“Eight o’clock. Eight o’clock.”

Oh, Jesus, wake me up, wake me up, Mom. Make this stop, okay? You can make the damned eggs. Fry me right up a hearty pair of those over-easies, okay? Okay, Mom? Just make this stop. Just please make this …

A hand clapped down upon her shoulder: The smell of sulfur went up her nose, down her throat. Her eyes wide, wild, she swung around. She screamed—or tried to scream. The sound turned to dust in her mouth. It choked her. Made her gag.

The beggar. That first beggar. With his hanging jowls and his knotted hair. He was right there, right in front of her. His clawed hand, his festering hand, was on her shoulder. The chancres on his loose-fleshed cheeks pressed into her face. That thin screak, that mocking cackle:

“You won’t forget now.”

He grinned and pressed down on her.

She cried out. She tore herself out of his grip. Stumbled backward, away from him.

“Leave me alone!” Her voice was ragged with tears.

The gray-haired beggar grinned. He shuffled toward her. The other beggars hunched on the benches grinned behind him. They murmured at her. They glared at her with white eyes.

“Eight o’clock,” said the beggar before her.

Nancy’s hands were down now in front of her. Her purse hung open in front of her. She looked down and saw it. Oh God! she thought. She jammed her right hand into the open purse.

“Get away from me,” she said. Spit flew from her teeth. “Get away from me, I’m telling you.”

The beggar came toward her on stiff legs. He reached out for her. His eyes seemed completely white. His grin seemed slack. Drool ran from the sides of his mouth into the purple sores under his stubble.

“Don’t forget. Don’t forget,” he kept repeating.

Nancy felt the cold metal of the gun. She felt the rough grip. Her hand closed around it.

Don’t do this!

“I’m warning you,” she heard herself scream.

“The Animal Hour,” the beggar said. “You have to remember. You have to remember.”

“All right!” Nancy cried out. “All right! That’s it!” She yanked her hand out of the purse. She held the revolver up in front of her. The muzzle of it wavered wildly. “Get away from me,” she screamed. “Get away from me or I’ll shoot!”

The beggar’s grin grew wider still. His jaws, his jowls, hung slack. His white eyes looked at nothing. He took another step in her direction. His hand reached for her.

“He dies at eight o’clock. That’s the time. That’s the Animal Hour.”

“Get away!” Nancy screamed at him. She waved the revolver in his face. “Get away! Get away!”

And then she pulled the trigger.

Zachary Perkins awoke peacefully that morning. He had had no dreams. He lay in bed with his eyes closed, his mind a blank at first. Then, as the moments passed, he began to imagine a woman.

A sparrow was singing morning songs in the maple tree at the window. There was a breeze three stories below in the garden of Lancer’s café. He could hear leaves tumbling lightly over the flagstones down there. He imagined a woman with sable hair, a mane of sable hair.

She was a regal creature. He had imagined her before. She was nude, but armored in her nudity, arched in it, proud. She stood on a raised platform, glaring down at those below. Her flesh was as smooth as a page in a magazine, her skin was as gleaming. She had large breasts that stood erect. She had her hands on her hips. Her long legs were akimbo.

Zachary stirred. He felt his naked body against the sheets. The cool—the somehow wistful—breeze blew in through the window now. It played over his face and made him long for the woman, ache to have her there with him in the flesh. He moved his hand under the sheets, down to his erection. His erection was very hard. He stroked it, imagining the woman’s imperious smile. He moved his hand faster. He threw off the bedsheet with his other hand. Breathing rapidly, he opened his eyes. He looked down at himself …

“Christ!” he whispered. “Christ!” His erection shriveled. He stared, saucer-eyed, at the blood.

There were streaks of it—dried blood—on his forearm and the back of his hand. There were brown cakes of it under his fingernails. He rolled his hand over, staring. There were more dried daubs of it on his palm. It looked like paint or chocolate, but he knew what it was. He knew what it was the minute he saw it.

He sat up. His heart thudded in his chest. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t think of anything. He surveyed his genitals desperately to make sure they weren’t damaged. He looked on the floor by his bed and saw his clothes in a pile there. His T-shirt was on top of his jeans and it was soaked in blood, still damp with blood.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “What is this? Where am I?” He couldn’t think. His stomach was grinding over like a cement mixer.

He gasped. Someone was at the door. There was a knock—three knocks—quickly—one-two-three.

“Mr. Perkins?” A man’s voice, but high and mild. No expression in it. The knocks again: one-two-three. “Mr. Perkins? Are you there?”

Zach’s lips moved, but he couldn’t speak. He stared wildly around the room. White walls with gray gouges where the paint had chipped. Bookshelves made of bricks and boards, stacked with newspapers and magazines. A dirty braid rug. A broad passage into the other room. He was at home, an East Village railroad flat. His own apartment, his and Tiffany’s.

“Mr. Perkins?” The voice at the door was still soft and expressionless. “Mr. Perkins, this is Detective Nathaniel Mulligan of the New York City Police Department. If you’re there, would you open the door please?”

The mews. It came back to him in a burst of light, like a camera flash. He remembered what had happened in the mews.

Oh Christ, he thought. He put his fingers to his lips. Oh Christ. They figure it’s me. Oh God. They figure I did it. That would be the first thing they’d think.

“All right, Mr. Perkins.” A poster of Dali’s Crucifixion hung on the front door. Mulligan’s mild voice came right through it. “We’re coming in now. We have a key from your landlord. If you’re there, please don’t do anything foolish. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

All Zachary could do just then was stare at the poster. It was a picture of a modern man, half-naked, his head flung back, his arms pinioned against the sky. All Zach could do was watch fascinated as the detective’s voice spoke from it.

“We’re coming in.”

Then he heard a key scrape in the door lock. He heard men’s voices murmuring. The lock began to turn over.

Terror coursed through Zach like blood, like liquid lightning. He jumped out of the bed.

He was a small man, much smaller than his brother Oliver. His strict diet kept him thin almost to the point of emaciation. Still, he was sinewy, muscular. His stomach rippled. His legs were strong. When he burst out of the bed, he went quickly, a blur of limbs and white skin. He tossed the sheet aside. Scooped his clothes up as he hit the floor. He pressed the pile of clothes to his chest, feeling the squish of his blood-soaked shirt against his flesh. He grabbed his sneakers in his other hand …

He heard the lock turn over. He froze and gaped at the door. A frightened squeal squeezed through his teeth. “Eeeeee …”

But it was only the first lock. The upper lock. There was still the latch below it. He had a few seconds left. Grimacing with fear, he started to lope across the room. He ran on tiptoe, barefoot, trying to make no noise. He heard the key click into that second lock, that last lock. He heard the men’s voices again.

“… ready behind me,” one of them said. “Smooth and easy.”

Oh God. Oh God, please, Zach thought as he ran. He felt the hard braid rug beneath his soles, then the gritty floor. Oh Jesus please please please.

There was a closet against the far wall, the door only halfway closed. There was a poster on that door too. An ink drawing of swirling clouds and mythic mountains; unicorns in the mist, nymphs and centaurs. Eternity was the caption. Zach tore bareass for Eternity.

Then the second lock turned. The front door opened. Zach slipped through the closet door, slipped inside.

He pulled the closet door toward him as best he could. He stood there, still as stone. He was in among Tiffany’s clothes in the close, gray dark. Linen brushed against his nakedness. He could smell Tide detergent, and talcum powder, and the musk of Tiffany’s skin. He was huffing, his teeth gritted. His hair was damp with sweat, his eyes were wet with tears.

Oh please, Jesus, he prayed. Oh please, please, please.

Just in front of his nose, the closet door was ajar. A line of light fell through it across his eyes. Zach wanted desperately to reach out and shut the door, but he didn’t dare. The policemen were already entering. He could hear their voices become louder, their words more clear.

“Steady. It’s a railroad flat.” This was Mulligan, his high, mild tone.

“Fire escape in the other room.”

“Closet over there. Bathroom.”

“Burke the closet, Brown the John. I’ll move through,” said Mulligan.

Now Zach had moved. He could see them. Not Mulligan—he’d stepped too quickly into the other room—but the two others, Burke and Brown. Burke was a black man, broad and muscular in a plaid jacket, a sky blue shirt. Brown was white; round, mustachioed; he wore a green leisure suit. Each man was holding a small revolver in his right hand. Each had it pointed upright. Each held his hand steady, his left hand wrapped around his right wrist.

They’ll kill me, Zach thought, clutching the blood-soaked clothes to his chest. They figure I did it, and they’ll shoot me. Oh Jesus, please. What could I do? I just wanted something good. I just wanted something good of my own for me and Tiff. Just give me a chance to convince them, Jesus. Please. To get out and convince them. I’ll do anything, I swear, I’ll tell everyone what I think about you, I’ll explain your words to everyone, just please …

He watched as the two detectives moved to their places. They moved stealthily but swiftly, taking long quiet strides. Brown went to the bathroom across the room. He entered and was out of sight. Burke was at the closet door in a second.

Please please please please please, thought Zachary. He clutched his fists around his clothes, around his sneakers. His whole body shook. He could barely keep his quick breath silent. He hated himself for this, for praying like this. It wasn’t like him at all. It wasn’t the sort of prayer he believed in. But he was so afraid. Jesus, he was so fucking scared. He clamped his mouth shut to keep his teeth from chattering.

Burke threw open the closet door.

The detective held his gun high, right beside his cheek. He reached into the closet with his left hand. He moved Tiffany’s dresses to one side and then the other. He pushed them back and looked down under them. Then he stepped away again.

By that time, Brown had returned to the bathroom doorway. Burke looked at him and shook his head once. The white man answered softly, “Not here.”

Zachary continued to cower. He was in the secret compartment now. He had managed to slip in there as Mulligan gave his orders. It was a small chamber at one end of the closet. He had built it himself: He was an excellent craftsman, a fine carpenter. The door was pivot hung and molded at the edges. It looked just like the closet wall when it was closed. Then, when you put your shoulder to it, it swung around at the middle like a secret door in an Abbott and Costello movie. You could slip right into the compartment and the door would shut silently behind you.

Inside, the compartment was dark and cramped, just big enough to stand up in. With the bundle of clothes in his arms, he had to stand very straight, his back against the wall. But he could jut his head forward and put his eye to the peephole—that’s how he watched the detectives moving.

He had fitted the peephole with a wide-angled lens. He could see the bed through it and much of the room on either side. Out in the room, the peephole was hidden in yet another poster. A sketch of Adam and Eve on this one, and a little verse about how Eve was drawn from Adam’s rib in order to stand beside him, not below him or above. The peephole was hidden neatly in Eve’s left nipple.

Now, as Zachary watched, Mulligan returned to the bedroom. He was a short guy, Zach saw. He did not look like a cop, not like a very tough cop anyway. He had a round baby face under receding curls of sandy hair. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, and he blinked repeatedly behind the lenses. His pug features were impassive, like his high voice. He was wearing a khaki trench coat.

“Well, he was here,” he said mildly. He stood with the other two cops beside the bed. It was a cheap double bed with a metal frame. Its sheets were all tousled. Its gray blanket was pyramided on the floor. Mulligan bent down and laid his palm on the bottom sheet. “He was just here.”

Zach’s eyes fogged with tears. He licked his lips. They’re going to search the place. They’re going to find the red bag under the bed. Then it’s over. He would never be able to explain things now. If they found the red bag, he would never be able to convince them that he was not their man.

“Are the windows open in the other room?” Burke asked.

Mulligan nodded absently. “But Southerland would’ve seen him if he used the fire escape. He was just here, and he left through the door before we came.”

Please Jesus please, Zach thought. He leaned closer to the peephole, almost lifting onto his toes. He really did feel like crying: It was half terror and half frustration. How could he have let this happen? How could he have done this to himself? He had had a perfect plan. A perfect way to present the evidence to the police so they would believe it, so it would convince them. How could he let it all go wrong like this? For God’s sake—how could he have overslept?

“Maybe he went to breakfast,” Brown said. And now, as Zach watched, as he prayed, the little round white man was kneeling down painfully. He was bowing his head down so he could look under the bed.

He’s going to find it. He’s going to find the red bag. Zach’s mouth contorted. One tear ran down his cheek. He blinked it away so he could see out the peephole. With the blackness so close around him, his whole being was concentrated on the other room, on what he saw.

“Maybe he went to work,” said Burke. “I mean, he may not even be the guy.”

That’s right! That’s right! thought Zachary desperately. I may not even be the guy, for Christ’s sake.

He saw Brown straighten. He heard him groan. Brown looked at Mulligan. Mulligan, blinking mildly, turned his head to survey the room.

“Some kind of red overnight bag under there,” Brown said. “We oughta toss this whole place.”

Mulligan nodded again, as if he hadn’t heard. “He might’ve gone for a bagel. That’s true. Southerland can watch half an hour, rope him if he comes back. Burke can go to the magazine, ask around there. That way we don’t scare him away. And half an hour, forty-five minutes, we can come back with a warrant too. That way we’ll be legal guys. Happy legal guys for all to see.” He said this tonelessly, softly, as if to himself.

“Listen …” Burke, the big black man, tugged his own earlobe. “Listen, the feds are gonna go nuts. They’re going nuts now. Aren’t we gonna bring ’em in at all here?”

Detective Mulligan just kept nodding, kept looking around. Then he said: “Fuck the fucking feds.” Only he said it very mildly. It sounded strange coming out of his blinking, baby face.

With one last nod, he started walking to the door. The other two exchanged a glance and followed him.

Zachary stood amazed. They were leaving! Just leaving! Yes! he thought. His whole body was taut and eager as he leaned toward the keyhole, as he watched them go. Detective Mulligan paused at the door, his hand on the knob. Zach peered at him, protected by the dark; feeling well hidden now and powerful—and a little guilty, too, about that sense of secret power. Staring out at Mulligan like that, he thought the detective looked like a pretty decent guy actually. A sweet guy. Zach would have liked to come out and talk to him directly. Explain things to him, person to person.

But he didn’t; he didn’t move. He stood still, his head jutting forward, his bloody clothes smearing his chest. He held his breath as Mulligan took one last look around. Then the detective pulled the door open. Zach watched as he went out, as the others followed after.

The door shut. Zach started to breathe again. He pulled away from the peephole. Leaned his head back against the wall. He closed his eyes and let all the breath come out of him. For a second, he felt his innards unclutch themselves. Relief washed over him.

But it was only for a second. Then he was thinking: They’ll be coming back. Half an hour, they’d said. They would search the place and then they’d be sure to find him. He shook his head. He opened his eyes and gazed up at the dim ceiling. Jesus God, he thought. Jesus God. Overslept. The perfect plan, the one way out, and he had overslept. He had blown everything. Now he was trapped. The cops were after him. There was a guard on the street outside so he couldn’t escape. And once they had him in custody, once they had the red bag … it was over. There would be no way they would ever believe that he was not the guilty guy.

Christ, Christ, Christ, he thought. He hadn’t even meant to lie down. He remembered everything now. He had come home and stripped off his bloody clothes. He had just been about to clean up. He hadn’t even meant to lie down, and then …

The drug. Yes. He remembered that too. He had injected the drug again. That’s what had overcome him in the end. He had injected Aquarius. Even though he had sworn to himself he wouldn’t. Even though he had promised Ollie; and Nana. Even though he had promised God.

Sorry, he thought up at the ceiling. Sorry, sorry. He had never broken a promise to God before. Never once. It was a pretty shitty feeling. Like he’d swallowed a rat and it was trying to gnaw its way out of him. The Giant Rat of Remorse. Sorry. Sorry.

For one more moment, he stayed where he was, the wet clothes in his arms, his head tilted back. For one more moment, he appealed to the ceiling with his eyes. Please, Jesus. Please.

It was not that terrible a sin, after all. It was not like cutting down the rain forests or spilling oil all over the ocean or anything. He had tried to stay off the stuff. He had stayed off it for a long time. Surely God would not let him get arrested now. God would not let the police believe that he was guilty for what had happened in the mews.

No. With a breath of resolution, he straightened up. There had to be a way out. God closes a door, but opens a window. Somehow, Zach had to push on. Even with the guard on the street, even with the search party on the way. Somehow, he had to continue with the original plan. Get cleaned up, get rid of the bloody clothes, get the red bag … and get the hell over to the only person who could save him. The one person on earth who had always saved him before.

He smiled a little at that, a goofy, lopsided smile. In a way, it was just like the old days, wasn’t it. It was just like after Mom died, after Dad deserted them and went to California. In those days, there was no one in the world who could help or comfort him—no one, except for his older brother. And now it was the same.

Now again—somehow—he had to get to Ollie.

The day exploded. The revolver bucked in Nancy’s hand. Startled pigeons fluttered up from the park path, up from the squares of grass and out of the trees’ branches. They rose in a gray mass and tacked off in a body to soar toward the dome of the Hall.

Nancy stood immobile. Her mouth was open. The pistol’s handgrip was hot against her palm. Uh-oh, she thought. The explosion seemed to go on and on forever.

She stared horrified at the beggar. He stared back, amazed. His slack jowls wobbled. His strings of gray-yellow hair trembled on his brow. She expected him to fall in the next second. To clutch his stomach and drop to his knees on the path. But he just stood there. He just stared at her.

“Jesus, lady,” he burst out finally. “All I wanted was a quarter.”

Nancy looked down, at the pistol: a squat black monster in her small white hand. The muzzle was pointed off in some wild way, up into the trees. She glanced up there and saw a squirrel crouched in terror on the stout branch of a sycamore. She had missed—missed the beggar at point-blank range. She lowered her eyes to him again with a green, sickly feeling …

And she saw the police coming after her.

The two patrolmen who had been chatting together in front of City Hall had leapt into action. They’d jumped the park railing and were jogging across the grass toward her. Their hands were at their holsters, gripping the handles of their guns.

Instinctively, she swung around, looking for a way to escape. Two more cops had entered the park from the far end. A man and a woman. They were running toward her on the paths, one on each side of the grass. The fountain sent a silver plume into the air between them.

Nancy swallowed hard. She turned north to the cops from the Hall, south to the cops from the street, then north again as all four cops closed in on her. She started to prepare her explanation in her mind: It’s all right officers I’m Nancy Kincaid even though everyone says I’m not and I couldn’t remember where I went to elementary school so when all these beggars started staring at me I took out this pistol which just appeared out of nowhere in my purse and I …

“I better get out of here,” she whispered aloud.

“Crazy bitch,” the beggar muttered.

Wildly, she turned her back on him. She took a big step up onto one of the green benches.

“Hey, lady, hold it!”

“Hold it right there!”

“Stop! Police!”

“Drop the gun, drop the gun!”

The cops’ shouts were small under the thrum of the city. But she heard them. They were already close.

“Don’t move, lady!”

“Police! Freeze!”

She jumped. Leapt over the back of the bench. Down over the metal railing onto the grass. Her flats sank into the soft earth and she stumbled. Then she was steady—running—across the littered grass—her purse over her shoulder—her pistol in her hand.

“Stop!”

“Freeze!”

“Oh my God!” a woman shouted somewhere. “Watch out! She’s got a gun!”

There were other screams all around her:

“Jesus!”

“Watch out!”

Nancy ran. The peaceful trees shook their leaves above her, their yellow leaves against the so-blue sky. The Hall stood behind them, stately, shaded, to her left. To her right, the traffic groaned and whooshed along. This isn’t happening, she thought. This isn’t real. She ran clumsily, her bare knees breaking from her trench coat. If this were really happening, it would be seriously bad … Her hoarse breath filled her head. And her fear—she couldn’t believe the fear. She couldn’t believe she was still moving with so much fear inside her. It was like a vast dark that had yawned in her belly, that would suck her in. Her tam blew off and fell behind her.

“Lady! Lady! Stop! Stop or I’ll shoot! Police!”

Another railing loomed ahead. She grabbed the top bar, vaulted over. She was on a path again. She was past City Hall. If she cut to her left, she could duck through the parking lot, duck around the building. She skidded to a stop. Cast a look back over her shoulder.

And, good God, there they came. Four uniforms, four silver badges. Closer now. Two on the grass, climbing over railings, crushing soda cups under heavy black shoes as they thudded toward her. One on the path, one through the parking lot; churning like engines. Pedestrians dodged them, crouched down in terror, swiveled to spot her. Pointed. Screamed.

Me? she thought. It was a high, thin note in her mind, crazy fear. The police after me? The cutest little thing? The neighborhood ladies used to call her that when she was little. It came back to her now. And how Daddy used to catch her up in his arms. Hoist her into the air, her legs kicking. “How’s my little button?” She stared at the onrushing coppers. They’re going to gun down Daddy’s little button?

There was no doubt about it. Those four stolid faces, their frightened eyes. Each clawed the air with one hand to keep balance. The other hand was at the holster, elbow pistoning. Guns the size of bazookas were circling up into the air. Pointing toward her.

And when she stopped, when she turned to see, one cop braked on his heels. Leveled his .38 right at her, gripping it in both hands.

“Drop it, sister! Drop the rod!”

She bolted. Dashed behind a tree. Broke out, running for the edge of City Hall. With every step, she expected to hear the gunshot. To feel the bullet hit her temple like a mallet blow, knocking her down. I’m not doing this. This isn’t happening. She was into the lot, around the building. Pressing her purse to her side with her elbow, waving her gun, gasping for air.

She was too exhausted now to jump the railings. She took the short path between plots of grass. She half ran, half stumbled on it. Her flats scraped the pavement. With her hat gone, her curls tumbled down around her face.

She reached the elms that bordered the park. She tumbled through onto the broad sidewalk. She pulled up with a gasp at the edge of the breathless city. The wide highway. The distant towers of the Brooklyn Bridge. The huge winged Municipal Building, hanging over her. Pedestrians clacked past her oblivious. She turned. And there, to her left, against the backdrop of a Parisian courthouse, against its mansard roof, its columned facade: an opening into the ground. A vanishing stairway. An unobtrusive black sign.

A subway station.

The cops rounded the Hall behind her. She glanced back and saw them converge. Four uniforms, shoulder to shoulder. Four pairs of eyes—they surveyed the scene. Got her.

“All right, lady …”

She was already staggering away. Reaching for the banister to the subway stairs like a thirsty woman reaching for water. The Beaux-Arts courthouse tilted this way and that as she came near it. The pit into the subway grew bigger.

And now, she heard the running footsteps behind her. Thap thap thap. Getting louder. Closer.

Oh, turn around, she thought. For God’s sake, Nancy. Turn around and surrender. Explain it to them. “My name is Nancy Kincaid …”

“Drop the gun, lady!”

She pushed herself faster. Threaded through the people walking past the entranceway. She grabbed the banister. Pulled herself into the hole. Rapped down the stairs. Faster. Forcing herself to go faster, down into the tunnel. The darkness came up at her from below.

There’ll be cops down there.

She stuffed her gun back into her purse. Pulled out her wallet. Never stopped skipping quickly down. She snapped the wallet open, found a token as she hit the landing below. She broke for the turnstiles. Everything was darker here, quieter, close. Lots of glare from the fluorescents overhead. Bright yellow signs, bright silver stiles. Light-washed faces turning to her. The lizard stare of the woman in the glassed-in token booth. The travelers waiting on the token line looking up. People pushing through the turnstiles, glancing back.

Nancy found an open stile, stuck her token in the slot, pushed through. Already, the cops were on the stairs, their footsteps echoing. Turn around. Stop. Explain. Damn it. She just wanted the black fear to stop. But she ran. Her vision blurred as her eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t stop running. What is happening to me?

She ran down the long hall, under the low ceiling, the low fluorescents. She dodged through the sparse, fast-flowing crowd. Past the faces that swung around to see. A wake of cries went up behind her as the cops came into the station, as they took up the chase. A wake of shouts:

“Stop!”

“Watch out!”

“Get down!”

“Hold it!”

There were the tracks, right up ahead. People waited on the platform. They turned at the shouts. A bald businessman lowered his newspaper, stared at her. A broad black in jeans squared, as if to stop her.

She barreled toward them. “Watch out!” she cried. “I’ve got a gun.”

The black guy hesitated and she was past him. Cornering onto the platform. Out of sight of the cops. Running along the platform’s edge, her flats skirting the yellow line at the brink of it. There were the tracks below—the empty tracks.

No train.

She was sobbing with exhaustion now. Stumbling on in despair.

No train.

There was no train coming. She could see up the tracks. And there was no place left to run. The concrete platform ended up ahead. She thrashed her way toward it. She wove out over the tracks, wove back toward the filthy yellow tiles of the wall. Ahead of her, frightened faces turned, whitened by the low fluorescents. Behind her, new cries: The cops had rounded the corner. They were coming after her. Their shouts were right at her shoulder.

“Stop!”

“You’re under arrest!”

“I’m gonna shoot, sister, put ’em up!”

And she was trapped. Out of room. The platform ended two steps ahead. A metal ladder led down from it onto the tracks and the tracks curved on and out of sight into the unknowable dark.

She flailed toward the edge. Toward a white sign that hung askew where the station wall ended: “All persons forbidden to enter or cross tracks.” The red letters blended together as she started to cry, as the tears streamed down her cheeks.

Turn around. Just tell them. Don’t shoot. I’m just scared. Just a scared little button.

She was finished. She stopped, her chest heaving painfully. She turned and stumbled backward a few steps toward the brink. Her shoulders sagged. Her breath honked in and out of her. She peered through her tears. It was all a blur. Dragon-toothed lights. Featureless faces. And the four cops like shadowy blue goblins. Big, unfocused blue creatures pulsing toward her. They moved more cautiously now—now that she was cornered. They walked—quickly—their free hands raised, their guns leveled at her.

Jesus Christ. They are going to put me away, she thought. It was true. They would think she was nuts. They would put her in a hospital, in a room, in a white room. Just her and the walls. And the voice inside her head …

The Animal Hour. That’s when he dies. You have to be there.

They would call her mother. Her mother would come to visit her. She would sit beside her and call her name and cry. But Nancy would only hear …

Eight o’clock.

The voices. She would be alone in a padded room with voices.

You have to be there.

The cops were only a few steps away from her now. Two of them were coming on ahead of the others, a man cop and a woman. They had their guns leveled at her. They had their hands raised toward her to keep her steady.

“Easy now, Miss, easy,” the woman cop said.

She gazed at them wearily, panting and crying. They were going to put her away and …

You have to be there! The Animal Hour! He’s going to die!

“I have to,” she whispered. “I have to be there.”

She swung around suddenly. The shouts flared behind her. She crouched down …

“Hey!”

“Wait!”

“Stop!”

She grabbed hold of the top of the ladder. With a single motion, she swung herself over the platform’s edge. Out, into the darkness. Down, onto the tracks.

She stumbled. Straightened. Ran.

A blonde came toward him from the corner of Sixth. He had just left Nana’s to head for the mews. The blonde was beautiful, a student with books propped against her middle. The sight of her broke Perkins’s chain of thought.

He watched her as she approached, as he approached her. She was tall and broad. Athletic-looking in a red down vest and jeans. Her skin was white but her cheeks were pink with sun. She glanced at Perkins as she passed. He glanced after her to watch her backside move.

By the time he reached the avenue, he was imagining having sex with her. Not just sex—a whole way of life together—the way of life he figured would go with a girl who looked that way. He pictured them in an A-frame cabin in the Colorado Rockies. She was on her back on a bed of bearskins. Naked, she was spread wide: a naturalist, abandoned. He had dropped a load of freshly hewn wood just inside the door and stripped off his own jeans fast. He was still wearing his sweater as he ploughed into her. There was frost on the windowpanes. Snow on the misty mountains outside.

He was walking down Sixth now, approaching the library on his right. His hands were in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. His chin was on his chest and his straight black hair was bouncing on his brow. He raised his eyes from his sneakers as he thought about the blonde’s lusty cries. Before him, the low buildings of stone and glass faded away toward a crisp blue sky. The bright day made him squint. The hangover had made his eyes feel raw.

He riffled his lips as he humped down the avenue. The taste of solitude was in his mouth again, the weight of it was in his belly.

… desolate and sick of an old passion.
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head.

Shit, he thought, with a heavy sigh. Julia had been blonde too. She had been big and athletic too with that way of flinging herself open to him. Flinging her head back, letting loose with those abandoned howls. He thought about how he had finally lost her: because he had made it with a boy in the river near their house. The kid was no more than eighteen, nineteen. Frail bodied and white skinned. With faraway, dreamy black eyes. Yea, I was a moron and shot my wad. The kid had been sitting on a rock near Perkins’s swimming hole. He had been sitting there naked and dripping. He had been reading Leaves of Grass, holding it open on the rock. When Julia came down the forest path and found them, they had been locked together in the deep water, turning and turning in the current. Perkins’s arm was wrapped around the boy’s chest, the boy’s head was thrown back on Perkins’s shoulder.

“I thought you were trying to save his life!” Julia cried out to him later.

“He was sitting naked on a rock, Jule,” Perkins said. “He was reading Whitman, for Christ’s sake! What was I supposed to do?”

Somehow this argument had carried exactly no weight with her. She had stood and glared at him, her arms crossed on her breasts. Tears streamed steadily down her sunburnt cheeks. He had never seen her cry before and it razed him inside, turned him to ashes.

“It’s just the desperate things you do to keep from loving me, Oliver,” she said finally. “I can’t stand it, all right? I really can’t stand it anymore.”

Just now, just as he remembered this, he was passing under the Jefferson Market Library. It was a storybook castle of a place. All red brick towers and battlements rising out of the low-flung Village mini-malls. Stone spires and gray-metal roofs. Turrets and Gothic tracery around stained glass. A peaked clocktower with four faces rising over all. It was an appropriate reproach to him, and he thought: Look on thy workspace, ye dickhead, and despair.

He was supposed to write his poems here. It was part of a grant he’d won with The Animal Hour. Along with giving him some seven thousand dollars, the state rented him a small workroom in the rear of the library. He even got a key so he could go in after hours. He did go in: every day; and at night, too, sometimes, when he wasn’t tending bar in the café He sat alone at a small metal desk hemmed in by metal bookshelves. Barely a foot of free floor space to pace in. He sat hunched over his notebooks, with his loneliness perched on his shoulder like the Raven. He wrote bad lines of poetry and threw them away. Day after day. Night after night.

He averted his eyes from the building as he passed it. He had been meaning to go in there tonight, but not to write. Just to get a good view of the Halloween parade. The marchers would go right past the place. Transvestites and monsters and Dixieland bands under the windows. The sidewalks below jammed with spectators. The music bouncing off the Village sky …

It made him think of Zach again. Zach was going to be in the parade. He had been all geared up for it the last time Oliver had seen him. That was Friday. Ollie had gone over to Zach’s place to return his copy of Schillebeckxx, a philosophical enquiry into Jesus Christ that Zach had forced on him. He’d lugged the 800-page doorstop all the way up the brownstone’s narrow stairway. Pounded at Zach’s peeling door with his fist. The door had just swung in. Pure Zach: it was unlocked—just open in that crackhead-infested hellhole. Anyway, in the door swung and there they were. Sitting opposite each other on the bed by the window. Tiffany was at the foot. Venus-faced but rail-thin. Black T-shirt, black jeans. Long black hair streaked with shiny silver. Her back was propped against the bedrail, her legs stretched out before her. She was smiling with her rich lips and absently shuffling a deck of Tarot cards. And, at the head of the bed: It was like her reflection. Black T-shirt, black jeans, and just as rail-thin because of that stupid macro-whatever vegetarian diet she had them on. Except the face on him was the face of Death. It was Zachie in a pullover latex skull mask.

“Jesus, Zach,” Oliver said. “You look like Death.”

Zach’s happy, boyish laughter sounded hollow inside the mask. He was practically bubbling over with the news. “I’m gonna be in the parade, Ollie. Downtowner’s gonna have a contingent and I get to play King Death. Isn’t it great?”

Oliver had to smile. Even through the skull’s eyeholes, he could see Zach’s bright, black eyes. The awestruck excitement in them. Isn’t it great? The same as when he was seven years old. Shaking his head, Oliver tossed the Schillebeckxx down on the bed between the two of them. Thunk.

“Here’s your book back, kid. There’s still no God.”

Zach let fly with that boy’s laugh again. “Oh, Ollie!” The death’s head tilted back.

Tiffany, though, smiled her voluptuous smile, cast her eyes heavenward. Launched into her sweet contralto. “Oh, Ollie. If you just kept a more open mind, you wouldn’t be so stuck with your poetry in those retro paternalistic modes of yours.”

Oliver gave her a long look. Retro paternalistic modes. God, he disliked the woman. A simpering Scarsdale debutante gone mystical fem. He hated the lot of them: mystics; fems. Debutantes. He wasn’t too fond of Scarsdale either. Or maybe it was just Tiffany.

He finally simpered back at her. Held his tongue. Zach hated it when the two of them argued. He wanted them to like each other. Zach wanted everyone to like each other under the tender eyes of a loving God. Too bad he lived on Earth …

With these thoughts, Perkins was carried away from the library. Down Sixth to the corner of West Eighth Street. He turned there. A broad street lined with shoe stores, T-shirt shops, poster stores. Lots of heavy metal pictures of death in the windows: flaming Death on a motorcycle, drooling Death playing the guitar … It was only about 10:35 now, and most of the stores were still closed. The sidewalks were quiet. A line of children in costumes—devils, turtles, ballerinas—trooped toward Sixth, their teacher leading. Perkins went past them, chin down, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets. His mouth was working angrily.

Tiffany. She shouldn’t have called Nana. Face of a Botticelli, brain of a midge. She shouldn’t have called Nana about Zach. It was stupid. The old woman was sick, for Christ’s sake. She wasn’t supposed to worry. It was bad for her, bad for her heart. Just because his own phone was temporarily disconnected. Just because he’d tried to steal a few moments of human tenderness and communion with Mindy or Milly or whatever the hell her name was. That was no reason to get all panicked, to get Nana all panicked. Maybe Zach was working. Maybe he’d gone for a walk. Maybe he just wanted to get away from her. It was no reason to murder his grandmother.

Perkins crossed to the far sidewalk. Went down MacDougal Street. His thoughts had come full circle now. He was thinking about Nana, about how frail she was. He was thinking about Nana dying—and then about his mother dying and how he had found her. That’s just what he’d been thinking about when he left Nana’s. When he walked past the blonde: that day when he found his mother, when he was fourteen years old. He remembered how he had come in from playing baseball. They had been in the house on Long Island then. He had strode through the kitchen, his bat on his shoulder. The minute he stepped through the door into the living room, he’d seen his mother on the floor. She was stretched out on her side between the sofa and the coffee table. Her short hair spilled over her cheek. Her thin arm was flung out over her head. The saucer was upside down on the rug and the cup was on its side. There was a small spurt-stain of tea on the white shag.

He remembered how that had bothered him: that stain of tea. His mother had been such a meticulous housewife. Fluttering around with her nervous hands, her frightened smile. Setting everything straight all the time. Flitting from room to room like a household spirit. Oliver had run to her where she lay. After that, after he saw she was dead, he must have gone into shock. He had simply stood up and wandered away, back into the kitchen. He had brought a sponge in from the sink. He had knelt down on the rug and washed that tea stain right out. He had rubbed it away thoroughly, his hand braced against the floor, his mother’s soft hair brushing his forearm. Then, very carefully, he had sponged off the coffee table too. He had carried the teacup and saucer in to the sink. He had rinsed them out and put them in the dishwasher. He did not snap out of it until he returned to the living room. Then, he saw his little brother standing in the doorway. That brought him around. The skinny ten-year-old was staring down at their mother with his big, dark eyes. After a while, he lifted those eyes up to Ollie.

“Don’t worry, Zach-man,” Oliver had said. His voice was toneless. “Go upstairs now, buddy. Don’t worry.”

Zach had turned away. He had gone upstairs to his room. Oliver had knelt down next to his mother. She was a small woman, but he was only fourteen: he did not think he could lift her onto the sofa in a dignified manner. He turned her onto her back instead, right there on the rug. He arranged her arms by her side. He brushed the hair off her cheeks and forehead. Her mousy little face was turned up to him now, the eyes closed, the lips parted.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” he told her softly. He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Don’t worry anymore.”

And then he had returned to the kitchen to phone for his father and the ambulance …

That was what he had been thinking about when he came out of Nana’s place, when he saw the blonde come toward him from Sixth Avenue. And he was thinking about it now again as he reached MacDougal Alley.

He paused for a moment there, at the black iron gate that barred the way. He saw the little lane stretched beyond the bars. It was a queer, quaint private alley, sealed at the far end by a high-rise wall. Cottages faced one another over the pavement, ruffled with rose ivy, shaded with red maples and yellowing ash. The sun came through the trees in patches, dappling the cottage walls.

Perkins pulled the black gate open and went in. Nana’s mews was on the left. A small one, two low stories. It was brick, painted white, but there were chips in the paint where the red brick showed through. Black shutters and doors. Reddening ivy climbing up one side to the flat roof.

Nana had lived here with her husband when he was alive. And with the two boys after Mom died, after Dad declared he couldn’t raise them. She had not moved out to West Twelfth until after Zachie went to college. Then she had decided she could not handle the stairs anymore, and that she wanted a doorman for deliveries and so forth. But she hung on to the mews. She’d let Zach and Oliver stay there when they came to town on visits. And after Zach’s first breakdown, she let him move in and live there by himself. She was trying to sell the place now though. She felt certain that Zach was getting better. And she sure enough needed the money, with Zach’s expenses and his shrink and all. Too bad the market was so lousy, Perkins thought.

He reached the front door. Knocked with his fist. It made the sidelights rattle. In the silence that followed, he could feel the emptiness of the place. He cursed Tiffany. Why had she insisted Zach was here? She must have known it would scare Nana senseless. He rooted in his pocket for his keys.

Idiot broad, Perkins thought. He brought the key out. Unlocked the door. Pushed it open. Stepped inside.

“Christ!”

The smell hit him first. The shutters were closed downstairs and the place was in shadow. But the smell was thick; like liquid air; miasma. Wet and rotten as a sick old dog. Perkins gasped as it caught him. He took another step, came away from the door. Then the light slanted in from the alley behind him.

“Christ. Oh Christ.”

He saw the place, the big room downstairs. He saw the wooden pillars rising to the ceiling beams. The shape of them came out of the dark. Then the rest of it.

“Oh no. Oh man.”

It was a shambles. The studded leather chairs lay on their sides. The sofa was upended. The marble coffee table had been knocked off its stand, hammered to pieces on the Mexican rug.

With a curse, Perkins stepped to his left. He felt his way along the wall. Found the light switch, hit it. There was a loud pop. A spray of white sparks shot from a nearby lamp-stand, drifted to the floor. Only the chandelier went on; only one of its flame-shaped bulbs. The other lamps were all shattered, the jagged necks of the bulbs sticking up out of their sockets. The shattered glass was sprinkled among the broken marble on the rug. The rug beneath, he could see now, was burned. There were round black bits in it. One fringed corner of it had just been torn away.

Zach, he thought. His brain had seized up for just a second, but now he remembered his brother. Jesus.

“Zach?” he tried to call. His voice caught in his throat. He cleared it. “Zachie!” He kept walking farther and farther into the room. In past the kitchen alcove. In under the low crossbeams that went from the pillars to the ceiling. Glass crunched under his sneakers. “Hey, Zach!” This time, he managed to raise his voice. “You here? Don’t fuck around, man.” He stopped to listen for an answer. He heard his heart beating. There was nothing else. The old cottage sat broken and silent. Perkins’s eyes trailed over the wreckage. Over the shuttered windows. Over the littered floor to the foot of the stairs and there …

“Oh … Oh no.”

He caught his breath. He lifted his eyes from stair to stair. He gazed up toward the second story, his stomach clutching, his hands balled into fists.

“Zachie?”

It was only a whisper this time. His lips parting, he looked down at the stairs again. He looked down at the worn tan runner. At the stains on it.

The blood.

She was too exhausted now to think. She drove herself deeper into the subway tunnel. Deeper into the dark. The walls fell away from her. The tunnel fanned out. There were four sets of tracks before her, each curling off in a different direction. Shiny patches of steel gleamed in the light from bare bulbs overhead. Concrete pillars hulked in the shadows like giants, motionless, watching.

She stumbled on, her arms flailing. She couldn’t believe herself. Could not believe she was doing this. She felt at any moment she must stop, turn around, turn herself in. The rails, the ties, the white flecks of garbage in the gravel—they blurred and blended under her feet. It all seemed unreal to her. Faraway, foggy. Even the shouts of the officers on the platform behind her seemed part of a dream. They didn’t shoot or anything, there were no bullets zinging around her. Their voices just got farther and farther away, fainter and fainter.

Ahead of her now, the tunnel narrowed again. Two of the tracks peeled off to the right. The walls closed in on her. They were cement walls. They were washed in a swirl of graffiti. Writhing signatures and profanities covered every inch of stone; a snake’s nest of spray paint colors. She saw it through tears as she staggered on. She saw a glow pass over the face of it, making the letters seem to twist and coil. She panted hoarsely, her tongue hanging out. The glow on the walls spread. A wind began to rise behind her, cold on her neck. It blew her hair over her cheeks.

A train …

The tracks began to quake beneath her feet. The tunnel began to rumble. The glow grew brighter now. It glared on the walls. The coiling letters danced frantically.

Train, a train is coming …

For another second, she couldn’t get her mind to take it in. It was coming. Coming from behind her. Hammering the tracks, making everything shake. Making everything glare and tilt.

My God!

She spun around. It was right on top of her. A world of thunder. A wall of wind. Two lanterns like wild eyes burning her blind. The horn screamed. Screamed in her head. She screamed back. Tried to throw herself to the side, throw herself clear. She fell. Down onto the track. Her shoulder hit the rail. She rolled onto her face, screaming, pissing, covering her head with her hands.

“No no no!”

And then it was on her. As if the sky were on stampede. That long explosion of deafening noise. The track bouncing under her. The hot sting of urine on her legs. The wind like a wave crashing onto her back.

The express.

She could feel it. It was passing. Passing to the side of her, a flashing white line. A blue spark lanced the dark above her head. She felt a sharp, sizzling burn on the back of her hand. She looked up.

And it was past. The express train. The express train on the express track, which was the track next to the local track, which was the track she was lying on. She rolled over in time to see the train’s red taillights shivering off into the tunnel. The yellow rectangle of the rear window growing smaller as it pulled out of sight. The rumbling ground subsided beneath her. The noise grew distant. She lay gasping for air, giddy to be alive. The dark was quiet around her.

Gee, kids, don’t try this at home.

Now she could hear the footsteps. Hard shoes on gravel. The cops had come in the tunnel. They were moving toward her. She could hear their voices growing closer.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Are you all right in there, lady?”

“They’re supposed to stop the trains. These fucking people.”

“Lady?”

A moment later, she saw their flashlights. Beams sweeping back and forth, crossing each other. She saw the silhouettes behind the beams, moving forward among the pillars.

She tried to move, to stand up. Her body felt limp. Her face felt numb, as if she’d been shot with novocaine. She moved her legs and felt the damp.

Oh shit!

Oh, mortification! She’d wet herself! The idea that these cops—these men—were going to see … Oh, she wanted to shrink down to nothing.

Nancy, you …! Damn it!

She managed to climb to her feet. Stood unsteadily. She hoisted her purse strap over her shoulder. Rubbed the back of her hand. The spark had burned her there; there was a purple line in the flesh.

The cops came closer. Their flashlights picked out portions of brown tracks and white pillars. She looked around herself. She felt dizzy and weak, but her mind was clear.

She saw she was in an abandoned station. A ghost station. A platform above the tracks. Unused coils of electrical wires, bags of plaster. Those graffitied walls. Kids must have climbed in here to spray-paint the place.

“You see her?” one cop called to another. His voice echoed in the distance.

“I don’t know. Hold on. I hear something.”

Right under the platform, Nancy saw, in the wall down there, at track level, there were alcoves. Low arching entranceways cut into the cement. Lightless nooks beyond them. Hiding places for subway workers, she thought. For when trains came.

Her hand went to the leather purse at her side.

“Come on out now, lady,” one of the cops called wearily. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

“We want to kill you,” another cop muttered.

“Shut up.”

“Just kidding. Just kidding, lady. Come on out.”

One of the silhouettes was moving away from the others now. He was coming toward the ghost station, toward her. His flashlight beam swept the track. It stretched out toward her feet.

If I could hide the gun …, she thought.

She touched the leather purse. Stared at the alcove in the wall.

If I could hide my purse and the gun …

Then they could not prove anything, she thought vaguely. Then they would have to let her go. She could go home. She could go see Dr. Bloom for a checkup. She could …

come back for the gun later.

Yes. She could come back for the gun when she needed it. When the time was right.

At the Animal Hour.

Yes. She started moving. She hardly confessed to herself what she was thinking. She only knew that she had to hide the gun. And, strangely enough, it sent a thrill through her. A coursing bolt of … maybe fear, maybe anticipation. She wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to think. She wanted to hide the purse, the gun.

She moved. The policeman’s silhouette came closer. His footsteps sounded loudly on the gravel of the tracks. His flashlight beam stretched out to touch the edge of her shoe. She moved away from it quickly. Stepped over the rail. Ducked under the platform.

“Lady?” The cop was only a few feet away. He must have heard her moving. “Lady, is that you?”

She knelt down next to the alcove. The smell from inside it burned her nostrils. A juicy smell, sour and organic. It brought her stomach up into her throat. Something was in there, giving off that stench. She could see it against the far wall, some dead hump of something.

She swallowed hard. She stripped her purse off her shoulders.

“Lady?” He was almost beside her. Another step and his flashlight would sweep right over her. Pluck her right out of the dark. “Are you there?”

She screwed up her face. She held her breath. Turned half away. With a gasp, she shoved the bag into the alcove, stuck it into the pile of muck at the far end. She felt the clammy goo close over her hand, over her wrist, her sleeve. The stench washed over her. She shoved the purse in deep.

“Take it easy, lady,” the cop said tensely.

But then he stopped. She heard the gravel crunch as he pulled up. She heard another sound too: a loud click. A track switch turning over. Nancy pulled her hand free. Looked up over her shoulder. A faint glow was beginning to spread over the swirling graffiti on the walls again. A faint wind was beginning to blow.

“Oh shit,” the cop whispered.

And another cop called from the darkness: “Here comes another one! Damn it! The downtown local!”

“Dumb fucks! They’re supposed to stop them,” came a third voice.

“Goddamn it,” muttered the cop standing over her. “I hate this fucking city.”

He was backing away from her now. The glow was growing brighter on the walls. The police were shouting to one another, but the rumble of the oncoming train was drowning them out. The ground was shaking under her flats. The wind was whipping her face. The white headlights broke up out of the tunnel as the train pounded toward her. The local train. Her track this time. For another long second, she could only stare as the lights closed in, as they bore into her.

Then she ducked into the alcove. The juicy stench enveloped her. The air shivered and throbbed and roared with the on rushing train. She opened her mouth, strangling on the smell. The entranceway went white with light. She pulled her knees into her chest.

And then the train shot past the arched entrance. The streak of its silver sides, the churn of its flashing wheels. She pulled back, her head to the wall. All she could hear was the roar and blast of it …

And then a screech. It knifed through her. And what a screech—intolerably loud—the fingernail of God on the blackboard of heaven. On and on, the sound piercing her until she cried out in pain. She held her ears. She closed her eyes.

The screak tailed off. The shaking ground began to settle. The thunder died away.

She opened her eyes. The train had halted—right in front of her. Shivering, she peered out at it through the archway. She was looking up at the coupling between two cars.

She heard the cops’ voices in the distance. “Oh, nice going.”

“Fuckheads.”

“I hate this city.”

She sat still in the cramped alcove. Her legs drawn up, her arms around her knees. Her eyes teared with the stench. The smell of her own urine mingled with it. She was miserably aware of the chafing sting on her bare thighs.

She heard the policemen. Their male voices shouting commands.

“You gotta move it in. Move it in.”

“You want it in the station?”

“No, I want it in my living room. Bring it into the fucking station. These dickheads.”

“We’re bringing it into the station! Right.”

And Nancy sat still. Gazing blankly at the haunch of the enormous creature before her. The sharp gleaming wheels, motionless now. The safety chains dangling from the coupling.

They’re about to move it into the station, she thought. They’re going to pull the train into the station and the doors will open and passengers will get out. She gazed up at the coupling between the cars. She thought: any second now. She wanted to move. She wanted to climb out of the alcove and up onto the train. She could hide among the passengers. She could get out with them and escape …

But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It was too crazy—she would fall—she’d be killed. Still, she kept thinking: The train will pull into the station any second. And then she would have to come out of the alcove. With her hands up. And the police would surround her. And the idea that the police—these men—would see that she had peed on herself … She wanted to curl up like scorched paper and crumble to ashes.

Any second, she thought.

She came out of the alcove. Quickly. Uncurling. Ducking under the arch. She ducked again, down lower, twisted up under the safety chains. There was an iron rung on the side of one car. She took hold of the coupling floor, lifted her foot to fit it to the rung.

The subway jolted. It started to move.

Nancy cried out. She was sliding backward, off the coupling. The subway chugged slowly. She gripped the coupling floor but she was sliding off. Down to the tracks, down beneath the train, the big wheels.

Oh please.

Grunting with the effort, she pulled. Dragged herself up. Poked her toe into the rung. She grunted and struggled to haul her body back onto the coupling. Her arms strained. Her breasts were crushed painfully against the metal. The train bucked and cantered toward the station just ahead.

Then, with a cry, she made it. She was up on the coupling’s edge. Rolling onto her side, rolling against the car door. She reached up and seized ahold of its handle. The train whistle shrieked. The tunnel walls gave way to the light of the station. Nancy fought her way to her feet, crying with the effort. With a muscular shove, she pushed the door in. Staggered into the car. And it was …

Well, she could hardly believe her eyes. She pulled up short, blinking. It was as if she had come into another world, a world as sweet as harp music. The inside of the subway car was clean. The metal fittings were shiny. The fluorescent lights were bright, making everything soothingly clear. There were handsome businessmen here, natty in their suits, substantial behind their copies of the Times. There was a mother cooing to her baby in its carriage. A pair of German tourist boys chuckling thickly.

Nancy stared. Look at them, she thought. All these good, calm, regular people going about their lives. And look at me! What must she look like to them? Her clothing torn, her hair disheveled. Her face and hands covered with filth. What must she smell like, for God’s sake?

Quickly, she tugged her trench coat closed in front of her. She prayed to the merciful mother of the Lord that the pee wasn’t showing through the front of her skirt.

I’ll become a nun, I swear, just dry that pee, merciful Mother …

And now, the train was coming to a stop. She could see the tiled station walls, the waiting faces outside the window. She thought she spotted some uniforms out there too. Some granite brows under blue caps. Badges. There was nothing for it now though. She had to brass it out. Go through with her plan and walk out with the others. She straightened. Lifted her chin. Clutched that trench coat tightly shut. And then …

painted lips, painted eyes,
wearin’ a bird of paradise …

… she paraded—practically sashayed—into the midst of the other passengers.

No one even looked up at her. They went on, reading their papers, cooing their coos, chuckling their guttural chuckles. She took hold of a shiny support beam, as if it were the staff of Columbia. Her head thrown back, she stood at attention as the train sailed into the station.

Oh, it all seems wrong somehow,
cause you’re nobody’s sweetheart …

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.” It was the voice of the motorman over the intercom.

Nancy swallowed hard. Don’t let him say it. She tilted her chin back even farther. If he announces there’s a fugitive … if he says they’re looking for someone … She held her breath, staring straight ahead. They’ll see. Everyone will see. I’m meat, I’m dead, I’m through …

“Your attention please,” the motorman continued. “This train will be sturfing in stazit fif noreen mozens due to a poleaxe on da traz.”

Nancy looked up. The other passengers looked up, narrowing their eyebrows. They tried to make out the man’s garbled words through the intercom’s distortion and static.

“I repeat,” said the motorman, “we’ll be sturfing fif noreen mozens due to a poleaxe on da traz.”

“Well,” said one businessman with a shrug, “if there’s a poleaxe on da traz, sturf we must.”

Nancy closed her eyes. God bless the Metropolitan Transit Authority! She opened her eyes, braced herself as the train halted. She really might make this, she thought. She really might just walk right out with the other passengers. Walk right past the cops. Right home. To sleep this off, to get some help. To see her mother …

The motorman repeated his announcement once again, just the same as before. Who says this ride isn’t worth a buck and a quarter? Nancy thought.

And with that, the doors slid open. The passengers came out of their seats. Surged toward the exit. She held back just a second until she was surrounded by a cluster of suits. Then she came forward. Stepped boldly through the door, onto the platform, part of a crowd of passengers, hidden in the crowd.

Instantly, steel hands gripped her. She was slammed back against the wall of the train. One cop grabbed her around the throat. Two others yanked her arms behind her back. They wrestled Daddy’s little button into handcuffs while a fourth cop stepped forward with his .38 drawn. He shoved the black muzzle of the gun up under Nancy’s right nostril.

“All right, you nutty cunt,” he said, “where’s the fucking rod?”

Nancy’s head fell back. Her coat … Oh God, it was falling open, the pee … Her eyes rolled up in her head until only the whites were showing. Everything seemed to whirlpool away from her, a black swirl of faces, a dizzying murmur of words.

Well, she’d been right about one thing anyway, she thought, as she felt her legs folding under her. This was turning out to be kind of a lousy day.

Cautiously, Perkins moved into the ransacked mews. He slid his feet through the shattered glass and marble. His eyes flicked to the far corners of the room. The corners were deep in shadow. Anyone could have been hiding there. Watching him. Perkins lifted his fist to the side of his chin, to be ready for an attack.

“Zach?” he said again, softly.

He moved slowly to the stairway, his fist cocked.

He reached the foot of the stairs and peered up into the darkness. He saw the gray shape of the newel post on the second-floor landing. Not much else was visible. He found the light switch on the wall beside him, flicked it. Up and down, up and down.

But here there is no light …

Nothing. His eyes went down over the runner again. There were stains on every step, all the way up, as far as he could see in the dark. The stains were reddish brown on the tan runner. They might have been chocolate stains or catsup. But Perkins knew they were blood. Someone had come down these stairs—or gone up them—dripping blood.

He stayed where he was, at the foot of the stairs, for a long moment. The mews was quiet. The alley outside was quiet. He could hear his heart beating. He could feel the tightness in his throat. He did not want to go up there. The cops were the thing. He ought to call those cops. But Zach …

He had this picture in his mind of Zach on the floor in the bedroom. Their old bedroom upstairs. Zach on his back, reaching up. Help me, Ollie. Zach bleeding.

Don’t worry, Mom. Don’t worry anymore.

He started up the stairs, breathing through his mouth, keeping his fist raised. He kept his back turned to the wall. He kept glancing behind him to fend off a surprise attack.

But here there is no light,
save what from heaven is with

the breezes blown …

The shadows on the landing above resolved themselves. The phone table in one corner. The doorway into the dark bathroom. The hallway to right and left.

He came up onto the landing and turned left. He could see dimly down the passage. He could see the bedroom door etched in gray light, as if a window were unshuttered in there. And now the stench hit him again. He had become used to it; he had stopped smelling it. But now, as he rounded the corner, it came over him in a fresh, dark wave.

Like a slaughterhouse.

He had never been in a slaughterhouse, but that was the thought that came to mind. Probably just the stains on the stairway that made him think of it. Something butchered. Torn flesh, spilled blood. He edged down the hallway with his fist pulled back.

I’m coming, Zachie.

Man, but he was scared. He definitely did not want to be doing this. He did not want to see what was in this room, not one little bit. Man oh man.

The dimly lighted door came closer. It had been their bedroom, his and Zach’s. After Mom died. After their father had moved to California. I just can’t handle them, Mary. After Nana had taken them in. The two brothers had lain in the dark in there, on the twin beds. The city had sounded so strange outside, the house had had such a strange old-woman smell. That first night, Oliver had stuffed the sheet in his mouth so Zach wouldn’t hear him crying. He had heard Zach though. Zach had made a high-pitched sound—eee eee eee—as he fought his sobs in the other bed.

Don’t worry, Zach-man, I’m right here.

He pulled his fist back an extra notch as he reached the bedroom doorway. The stench was thick here; it was like walking under stagnant water now. He swung around the door into the room.

The window was unshuttered—the window against the left wall. The red leaves of a maple were there and the bright blue sky behind them. The light came in and the room was gray. In the gray light, Perkins saw the shape on the bed. A dark, human shape lying motionless on the bed to the right. Zach’s old bed.

Instinctively, Perkins’s hand went out to the side, hit the light switch. He was already remembering the lights were broken—but here there is no—when the light in the room went on. The top light went on and Perkins saw what was on the bed.

He threw both hands up before his face and let out a hoarse cry.

The blood …

The blood was everywhere. The sheets were sodden, black and scarlet with blood.

Jesus, the blood, Jesus …

The shape on the bed was a woman’s. But he couldn’t comprehend it. He couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing.

Her green leggings were torn. Her legs were scratched. The sheet was still white around her legs, but spattered with blood. He couldn’t comprehend it. Her arms were at her sides. Her arms were torn. Frayed ropes were around her wrists, her small hands clenched. There were burns on her white skin. Her skirt was soaked with blood. He stared, shaking his head. Jesus, the blood everywhere … Her skirt was pushed up around her waist. Her leggings were ripped open. Her groin was exposed and her pubic hair was black with blood. Perkins’s mouth was open. He stared through his raised hands. Her blouse was soaked with black blood and torn open and her breasts had been torn apart as if by an animal and the blood was everywhere, soaked into everything, the sheets sodden around the lacerated torso, around the neck, the ragged neck, the jagged stump of a neck where the head …

Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh …

The woman’s head was gone.

The shock of it pinned the poet to the spot for another endless second. He simply could not take it in. And then he did. He saw the headless body on the bed and the smell coming off it hit him hard. Nausea rose in him with a great gush. He reeled back from the doorway. Stumbled down the dark hall. He had to get to the bathroom. He covered his mouth with his hand. His stomach rolled over.

He charged headlong through the bathroom door. He flung his arm out wildly. Hit the light switch. The light came on, brilliant and blinding on the white porcelain. The toilet was in the corner and …

Goddamn it!

The goddamned lid was closed. He would puke over everything. He fell to his knees. Threw himself on top of the toilet. Clawed at the lid. Pulled it open. Stuck his head in.

The woman gaped up at him from the bowl, her eyes an inch from his. Her severed head lay in a pool of black blood. Her hair was half submerged in it. Her slack mouth was filled with it. Her eyes peered out of it. Staring. Vacant. Glassy.

China blue eyes.