They heard the boy's loud moan.

Lance Miller cocked his head and said, "Sounds like he's not feeling good. Maybe we ought to get him something."

"Shore," the county deputy said. "How 'bout a ice-cold girl."

Lance Miller looked up from USA Today. "Already had hisself two of them." He returned to an article about Jay Leno.

"Can you get a dose from a corpse?" the county deputy mused.

"That's dis-gusting," Miller told him.

Another moan, loud and eerie.

"Should we check on him?"

"You see the pictures of his sister's boobs?" Miller asked.

"Missed 'em."

"He tried to burn them."

"Her boobs?"

"No, the pictures," Miller said.

"What were they like?"

"Close-ups, you know. Polaroids."

"No, her boobs," the deputy said.

"Not real big. The picture was dark. He didn't use a flash."

They heard the moan again and looked at each other. "He's beating off in there," the deputy said.

"What if he's really sick?"

"I dunno. How 'bout you look now. I'll look later."

"If he's puking I'm not cleaning it up."

"We'll draw straws."

Lance Miller walked into the lockup area, closed the door and continued down the corridor to Philip's cell.

He saw: the boy, the sheet-rope, the table.

"Oh shit. Oh shit." He fumbled with his key and swung open the door to the cell and leapt up on the table, reaching for the boy's shoulders.

Which is when Philip started to fall.

Behind him trailed the strip of sheet, which he hadn't tied to the lamp, or to anything at all. It streamed behind him like a tail of Dimensional cloak. Firing his secret weapon at Miller – not fifty-thousand joules, not a xaser, not a Honon whip but his two hundred plus pounds of weight. The deputy, struggling to get his balance, slipped onto the concrete floor and landed on his back. Philip continued downward and landed directly on him. There was a huge snap. Lance Miller groaned once then passed out.

Philip grabbed Miller's keys and his Smith & Wesson and walked out of the cell. He unlatched the back door of the lockup, then slipped into Town Hall and out the back door. Once outside he sprinted away from the town building then out of downtown, his lungs sucking air. As the pain in his chest grew, a momentary thought occurred to him – he felt grateful, ebullient even, that he had been in jail and had missed the anguish of the long-distance run in PE class. Now he put his head down and ran faster than he ever had in school. Faster than he'd ever run in his life. Philip ran, he ran, he ran.

Wait. What is this?

Bill Corde stood in the doorway to the lockup and watched one deputy on his knees, leaning over the other one – wait, it was Lance Miller – kissing him.

Wait. No.

What is this?

It was CPR. Lance Miller, white-faced and blotched in sweat, thrashed on the floor. Arms sweeping like he was waving down a rescue copter, legs kicking, whispering in between the county deputy's smacks, "Gedoff, gedoff, gedoff!" The deputy would pinch his nose then breathe air into his lungs.

Corde said, "I don't think he needs that."

"S'all right. I've done this before," the rescuing deputy said as he put both hands on Miller's chest and pressed down hard. The crack of the breaking rib was audible to Corde. Miller muttered, "Gedoff me," and fainted.

"Didn't look like he was having a heart attack," Corde said.

"Look what I done," said the rescuer, standing up and looking heart-sick.

Corde knelt and checked Miller's pulse. "I don't think he's hurt too bad. Why don't you call the ambulance?"

"Yeah, I could do that. The kid escaped." He stood up and ran past Corde to the phone.

"What?"

"What should I call? Nine one one?"

"What do you mean, he escaped?"

Clutching the phone the deputy blurted, "Ran outa here five minutes ago. Hello, we need a ambulance at the sheriffs office. There's a injured deputy. I was giving him CPR and he didn't take to it."

Corde ran through the lockup, out the back door, then to the Town Hall exit door, which swung wide into the sunlit parking lot. Outhouse fulla shit! There was no sign of the fleeing boy. He trotted back into the office just as the fire siren began its throaty wail.

Corde had the dispatcher call Ebbans in then he picked up the phone and dialed Ribbon's home. "Hey, Ettie, can you get him down here soon's you can? We got an escape… Yeah? Where? Fishing? Hell's bells!"

Jim Slocum ran through the open doorway, passing the county deputy, who kept an intense vigil for the ambulance. "What's up, Bill? I just heard an ambulance call."

"The Halpern boy's gone."

"Gone? Whatdya? -"

"Escaped is what I mean. Beat up Lance bad."

"No shit." Slocum grinned. "Hell of a scrapper for a fat boy."

"Where's Steve?"

"Saturday afternoon? Where d'ya think? In his new goddamn truck… He got a phone in it?"

"Naw," Slocum said. "He was gonna put the old CB in but he didn't get around to it."

Corde said, "Get out a description but tell them go easy when apprehending."

"I can say but it don't mean they'll do." Slocum walked off to the dispatcher's office.

The medics streamed through the door with a low gurney and explored Lance Miller's body carefully. They gave him an injection then got him outside and into the ambulance. He was awake again and cussing colorfully as they closed the door.

Twenty minutes later Ebbans arrived and Mahoney five minutes after him.

"Great, we got a killer out?" Mahoney said after he'd heard the news.

"Oh, I guess I missed the trial," Corde said, loud.

Mahoney lifted his eyes to the ceiling.

Slocum said happily, "We got ourselves some proof now. I mean, why's he escaping if he didn't do it?"

Corde looked at him as if he'd asked where babies come from.

Ebbans said, "We better call the state and tell them we got one loose."

"You might want to mention," the rib-cracking deputy said, "he's got a gun."

Outright silence. Every head in the room turned to him.

The deputy blushed then said, "Forgot to say, what with Lance being down and all. He got Lance's gun. I thought he'd gotten the Speedloaders but they'd fallen under the bunk. Just the gun he got. I was relieved to find the extra shells."

Corde said, "Nobody's supposed to go into the cells with a gun! He didn't leave it in the box?"

"Guess he forgot."

"Sweet Mary," Corde whispered. "Get on the horn," he ordered Slocum. "Make it APB to county and state. Armed and emotionally disturbed. Tell them that he's scared but he doesn't want to hurt anybody."

Mahoney asked, "You sound like you're in charge here, Detective. I seem to recall you're under suspension."

The others looked at Corde cautiously, waiting for him to blow. He however had not even heard the words. He was in a different place altogether, running through bushes and trees, wheezing and hawking, right next to Philip Halpern. "The boy's fifteen. So he doesn't have a driver's license. He's probably trying to get out of the county on foot. How would he do that?"

Slocum said, "I don't know. I don't think we've ever had an escape situation here."

Ebbans said, "What about a Greyhound out of Fredericksberg."

"Maybe," Corde said slowly. "How about the state park?"

Slocum said, "Damn, sure. It'll lead him right to the river and I bet he thinks he'll snatch a canoe or boat and head south."

The door opened and Harrison County Sheriff Hammerback Ellison stepped into the office. He was a solid, heavy man but his face was pointed and delicate and he had very small feet and narrow ankles. "I just got the call. The boy got away?"

"Sure did." Ebbans stood up and picked up his hat. "And he's got a gun. You and me ought to get over to the state park. That okay with you, Bill?" Ebbans asked. His voice was strident; he was challenging anybody to question the shift of authority back to Corde. Bless you on this, T. T. Corde nodded and said to Slocum, "Jim, why don't you take 302. Just on the chance that he's hitching. I'll take 117 down to the river and see if I find him there."