"Don't hurt me! I give up!" Roy peeped convincingly.

"Unnnggghhh." Dana's face was as red as a pepper and his eyeballs were fluttering in their sockets.

"You win!" Roy cried.

"Aaaarrrgghhh."

Dana's breath was foul, but his body odor was ferocious. Roy turned his head away to gulp some fresh air.

Beneath them the ground was soft and the soil was as black as coal. Roy guessed that they'd fallen in somebody's garden. They lay there for what seemed like forever while Dana recovered from the pursuit. Roy felt smushed and uncomfortable, but it was no use trying to squirm loose; Dana was dead weight.

Eventually he stirred, tightened his hold on Roy, and said: "Now I'm gonna kick your butt, Eberhardt."

"Please don't do that."

"You mooned me!"

"It was a joke. I'm really sorry."

"Hey, you moon somebody and that's it. You get your butt kicked."

"I don't blame you for being p.o.'ed," Roy said.

Dana slugged him in the ribs, but there wasn't much muscle in the punch.

"Think it's funny now, cowgirl?"

Roy shook his head no, faking like he was hurt.

Dana grinned malevolently. His teeth were nubby and yellow, like an old barn dog's. Kneeling on Roy's chest, he hauled back to hit him again.

"Wait!" Roy squeaked.

"For what? Beatrice the Bear ain't here to save ya this time."

"Ciggies," Roy said in a confidential whisper.

"Uh?" Dana lowered his fist. "What'd you say?"

"I know where there's a whole case of cigarettes. If you promise not to beat me up, I'll show you."

"What kinda cigarettes?"

Roy hadn't thought of that detail when he was cooking up the phony story. It hadn't occurred to him that Dana would be picky about his brand of smokes.

"Gladiators," said Roy, remembering the name from a magazine advertisement.

"Gold or Light?"

"Gold."

"No way!" Dana exclaimed.

"Way," Roy said.

Dana's expression wasn't hard to read-he was already scheming to keep some of the cigarettes for himself and sell the rest for a tidy profit to his buddies.

"Where are they?" He climbed off of Roy and yanked him upright to a sitting position. "Tell me!"

"First you gotta promise not to beat me up."

"Sure, man, I promise."

"Ever again," Roy said. "For all time."

"Yeah, whatever."

"I want to hear you say it."

Dana laughed in a patronizing way. "All right, little cowgirl. I'll never, ever, ever pound on your sorry butt again. Okay? Swear on my father's grave. That good enough for ya?"

"Your father's still alive," Roy pointed out.

"Then I swear on Natalie's grave. Now tell me where those Gladiator Golds are stashed. I ain't kiddin'."

"Who's Natalie?" Roy asked.

"My mother's parakeet. That's the only dead person I know."

"I guess that'll do." Based on what Roy had seen of the Matherson household, he had an uneasy feeling that poor Natalie hadn't expired of natural causes.

"So, we cool?" Dana asked.

"Yeah," said Roy.

It was time to turn the big dummy loose. The sun had dropped into the Gulf, and the streetlights were coming on.

Roy said, "There's an empty lot at the corner of Woodbury and East Oriole."

"Yeah?"

"In one corner of the lot there's a construction trailer. That's where the cigarettes are stashed."

"Sweet. A whole case," Dana said greedily. "But how come you know 'bout it?"

"'Cause me and my friends hid 'em there. We swiped 'em off a truck on the Seminole reservation."

"You?"

"Yeah, me."

It was a fairly believable yarn, Roy thought. The Indian tribe sold tax-free tobacco products, and smokers came from miles away to stock up.

"Where'bouts inside the trailer?" Dana demanded.

"You can't miss 'em," Roy said. "You want me to, I'll show you."

Dana snorted. "No thanks. I'll find 'em."

He placed two fingers in the center of Roy's chest and gave a stiff shove. Roy flopped back into the flower bed, his head coming to rest in the same soft indentation. He waited a minute or so before getting up and brushing himself off.

By then Dana Matherson was long gone. Roy would have been disappointed if he wasn't.

Curly made it through Friday night, though not without personal inconvenience. First thing Saturday morning, he drove to the hardware store and bought a sturdy new seat for the toilet in the trailer, plus a dozen jumbo rattraps. Then he stopped at the Blockbuster and got a movie in case the TV cable went out again.

From there he headed home, where his wife informed him that she would need the pickup truck, since her mother was taking the other car to the bingo hall. Curly didn't like anyone else driving his pickup, so he was sulking when his wife dropped him off at the trailer.

Before settling down in front of the television, Curly took out his gun and made a quick tour of the property. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed, including the survey stakes. He began to believe that his presence was indeed keeping intruders away from the construction site. Tonight would be the true test; without the pickup truck parked near the trailer, the place would appear deserted and inviting.

As he walked the fence line, Curly was pleased not to come across a single cottonmouth moccasin. That meant he could save his five remaining bullets for serious security threats, though he didn't want a repeat of the nerve-rattling fiasco with the field mouse.

Determined to discourage uninvited rodents, Curly carefully baited the rattraps with peanut butter and placed them at strategic locations along the outside walls of the trailer.

Around five o'clock, he nuked a frozen dinner and popped the movie into the VCR. The turkey potpie wasn't half bad, and the cherry strudel turned out to be surprisingly tasty. Curly didn't leave a crumb.

Unfortunately, the movie was a disappointment. It was called The Last House on Witch Boulevard III, and one of the co-stars was none other than Kimberly Lou Dixon.

A clerk at the Blockbuster had helped Curly find the film, which had been released several years earlier, before Kimberly Lou Dixon signed on for the Mother Paula TV commercials. Curly guessed it was her very first Hollywood role after retiring from beauty pageants.

In the movie, Kimberly Lou played a pretty college cheerleader who got hexed into a witch and started boiling the star football players in a basement cauldron. Her hair was dyed fiery red for the part, and she wore a fake nose with a rubber wart on the tip of it.

The acting was pretty lame and the special effects were cheesy, so Curly fast-forwarded to the end of the tape. In the final scene, the hunk college quarterback escaped from the cauldron and threw some sort of magic dust on Kimberly Lou Dixon, who turned from a witch back into a pretty cheerleader before collapsing in his arms. Then, as the quarterback was about to kiss her, she morphed into a dead iguana.

Curly turned off the VCR in disgust. He decided that if he ever got to meet Kimberly Lou Dixon in person, he wouldn't mention The Last House on Witch Boulevard III.

He switched to cable and found a golf tournament, which made him drowsy. First prize was a million dollars and a new Buick, but Curly still couldn't keep his eyes open.

When he awoke, it was dark outside. A noise had startled him from his nap, but he wasn't sure what it was. Suddenly he heard it again: SNAP!

Instantly a cry rang out-possibly human, but Curly wasn't sure. He muted the TV and grabbed for his gun.

Something-an arm? a fist?-thumped against the aluminum side of the trailer. Then came another SNAP, punctuated by a muffled profanity.

Curly crept to the door and waited. His heart was thumping so hard, he was afraid the intruder might hear it.

As soon as the doorknob began to jiggle, Curly went into action. He lowered a shoulder, let out a Marine-style roar, and crashed out of the trailer, snapping the door off its hinges.