He also hated being in Brandy's father's place. He didn't want to get caught there with his pants down. Who knew if the maid came on Thursdays or not. Brandy had lied about that kind of thing before. Once she'd said the maid didn't come until noon and the maid showed up at ten-thirty. David didn't entirely trust her. And then there was the sex thing. Each time he thought the tests were over, she came up with something new for him to do to prove he really loved her. And now he'd really done something important, and she didn't seem to care.

"What's the matter, David?"

"You know, you'd be history right now without me. Did you see me take that guy down? I was amazing. How about that ride, too? I bet you never thought I'd remember the way."

"Daaavid, come over here."

"Aren't I a great driver? I've got the whole city freaking. I make people disappear. Two people, for Christ's sake! And I take down the enemy. I'm the king. Say it."

He was sitting in an armchair by the sofa and felt like a king. "I'm the master," he announced.

"Daaavid. It was my idea."

"You can't make people disappear. Only I can do that. Admit it." He laughed, thinking of the disappeared and dead. He'd set out to do one, but he'd gotten three people in just two days. This was way more sophisticated than shooting someone from a window. This was exerting his power over the whole city. And his parents were stupid. They were completely unstable…

"Come on, David, let's do it."

He didn't look at her, didn't want a repeat of yesterday. The truth was he didn't think he could do it. When he saw people having sex on the Internet or the pay-per-view videos his parents didn't know he watched, it looked like going into butter. That's how he thought of it. He thought sex was kind of like coming to a gate, the gate opening, and his going through it. But every time he tried with Brandy there was, like, this wall down there. A brick wall. They'd be fooling around, and he'd kind of try to get into her and it was like hitting a brick wall. And then she'd change her mind. He was feeling good. He wasn't in the mood to hit a brick wall right now.

Weeks ago, after camp was over and they were bored waiting for school to start, Brandy had come up with this idea about killing someone. They'd been high, and they wondered if they could kill someone and get away with it. He'd thought about it in the same kind of way he thought about parachuting from an airplane and skiing down a mountain where no one had ever been before. He'd heard of people getting to a ski slope like that. Really cool. He'd asked Dr. Clog a whole bunch of questions about killing. Had he been in the army? Had he ever killed anyone? What did it feel like to kill someone? If you killed someone in war, were you sorry afterward? He needed some information on the subject.

Every question he asked, the psychiatrist answered, "You must have a reason for asking me this."

"Just wondering," David had told him. "You know."

"Why don't you tell me your thoughts about school. This is a very important year for you. You're a junior now. How is that studying for the SATs going? Aren't you preparing for a pretest next week? You want to do well, don't you?"

Clog proved once again he was a fool with no real interest in David at all. The man was just an employee of his parents with a job to torture him just like they did. Four hour pretest! That's all he could talk about. It was a fucking disaster. The SATs weren't until October. Why did they have to bug him about this in August?

Brandy hiked up her sweater so he could see her stomach and breasts. "Come on, David."

At the sight of her tits David felt some stirring down below. What the hell. He pulled himself out of the chair and moved over to the sofa. The sound of the sirens were going as Brandy made room for him, unzipped his pants. He was reliving his moments of strength. How they'd beaten the old bum and thrown leaves on his body. Only a few hours later Zumech's red Jeep turned up, and Peachy howled like crazy. It was all happening just like they imagined it. They'd orchestrated the whole thing, and Brandy was finally, actually, really turned on.

She freed his cock from his underpants and played with it, clicking her tongue pierce as she squeezed and rubbed it. He went to another place in his head, an amusement park where there were all these colors and rides. His brain was whirling as she pulled down her own jeans. When he tried to get in, there was that wall again. He was in an amusement park, lights flashing bells ringing on her body that was so soft and curvy, and still he couldn't get through that wall. Then, suddenly Brandy changed course and put his thing in her mouth for a second, just a second, and he felt the steel knob that was her tongue pierce. After that she put it down there where the wall was. This time she guided him inside her. She bucked with her hips a few times-and it was unbelievable.

Just unbelievable. David found paradise at last. God finally smiled on him and he felt bliss. In the middle of his bliss, his cell phone rang. He knew by the way it rang and then rang again that the caller was his mother, but he was too busy thanking God to answer it.

Forty-four

Ten people including Janice Owen's boss and her boss's boss were in a meeting in the conference room when her secretary, Denise, came in and handed her a note about David. Janice had been paying strict attention to the proceedings. She knew what everyone in the room was wearing. She knew from the expressions on their faces all their feelings about the contents of the ten-page memo they were discussing. She knew the substance of the memo's communication. She had not, however, listened to a single thing anyone had said since they'd all gotten their little coffees and nondairy creamers and sweeteners and sat down to strategize.

Janice couldn't concentrate because she was thinking about her bed, a king so wide it enabled her husband night after night, month after month, never actually to touch her no matter what his position or how much he tossed around. If he didn't snore like a pig, she wouldn't know he was there at all. No good-night kisses, no messing around in the kitchen. Nothing. Janice was on a rampage, her every feeling offended by Bill's humming in the shower as he fondled his very large erection while he no doubt fantasized doing it with the ugly bitch Peggy, who was now giving him expensive ties with lovebirds on them.

Janice was furious at herself for having been so nice, so accepting of his long work hours, his exhaustion, and his worry over his work, which he had the bad taste to keep reminding her brought in the bacon. Peggy was twenty-eight, blond, thin as a rake, and a conniving bitch who wanted a husband even if she had to resort to stealing one. Janice felt like a jerk for not taking this Peggy thing seriously a lot sooner. Murder was too good for the girl. The bitch deserved a lingering painful death. How could this be accomplished, she wondered. Shooting her would be too easy. Poison? Disfiguring disease? Cancer?

Janice's thoughts turned to money. Bill made three quarters of a million a year, plus a big bonus. Janice made a hundred and fifty thousand. She could not live as well if he divorced her. She could not manage their son's behavior on her own-but maybe she could. Maybe divorce would be better for them all. She could take Bill for everything he had. New York State was great for women. She could get a lawyer to calculate the value of Bill's partnership in his firm over a lifetime and demand half. It happened all the time. Bill would either have to pay her big-time alimony every month or give her many millions of dollars up front. Either way, she would keep the apartment and get child support for David-who needed tutors and doctors and college money and heaven knew what else. Bill wouldn't have much left for any kind of life with Peggy. Ha!