So on Twilly's part it was carelessness, embracing an unconscious dope-addled psychotic without first confiscating her weapon. His second mistake was succumbing at the worst possible moment to raw desire. By chance Twilly had aligned his comforting hug of Lucy in such a way that his chin came to rest on one of her shoulders. He calculated that a slight turn of the head could put his lips in direct contact with her bare silken neck, and this proved blissfully true.

And perhaps if Twilly had stopped there – perhaps if he'd been content with a chaste and feathery peck – then he wouldn't have ended up on a stretcher in the emergency room. But Lucy's neck was a truly glorious sight and, gun or no gun, Twilly could not resist kissing it. The sensation (or possibly it was the sound of ardent smacking) jarred Lucy from her turbulent, gargoyle-filled stupor. She stiffened in Twilly's arms, opened one bloodshot eye and emitted a hollow startled cry. Then she pulled the trigger, and drifted back to sleep.

The bullet furrowed along Twilly's chest, rattling across his rib cage as if it were a washboard, then exiting above the collarbone. So copious and darkly hued was the seepage of blood that Twilly feared he might be mortally wounded. He snatched the top sheet off the bed (rearranging the zonked Lucy) and knotted it around his thorax; a full body tourniquet. Then he drove to the nearest hospital, informing the doctors that he'd accidentally shot himself while cleaning a pistol. X rays showed that Lucy's slug had missed puncturing a jugular vein – and likely killing Twilly Spree – by scarcely two inches.

She hadn't meant to shoot him; she was scared, that's all, and too ripped to recognize him.

Twilly never told Lucy what she'd done. He did not return to the house, and never saw her again. More than a year had passed since the shooting, and during that time Twilly had avoided all lip-to-neck contact, the experience being indelibly connected to the muffled thump of a Beretta. Even in the throes of lovemaking, he remained scrupulous about the location of his kisses, and banished all thoughts of delicious forays into the nape region.

Until he met Desie. Twilly wanted very much to see the intriguing Mrs. Stoat again, despite the imminent risk of arrest and imprisonment. He wanted not only to be near her but to apologize for leaving the glass eyeballs lying around for McGuinn to swallow; wanted her to know how remorseful he felt.

The dog was the connection, the link to Desie. Having the dog beside him buoyed Twilly's spirits and gave him something resembling hope. So what if Desie was married to an irredeemably soulless pig? Everybody makes mistakes, Twilly thought. Look at me.

McGuinn instantly knew something was wrong – he could smell it in the car. His nose twitched and the hair bristled on his withers.

"Chill out," Twilly said.

But the beast hurdled into the backseat and started digging frenetically at the upholstery.

"Oh stop," said Twilly.

McGuinn was trying to claw through the cushions and get into the trunk of the car.

"No!" Twilly commanded. "Bad boy!" Finally he was forced to pull off the road and park. He snatched the end of McGuinn's leash and gave a stiff yank.

"You wanna see? OK, fine." Twilly got out, pulling the dog behind him. "You're not gonna like it, sport. That, I can promise."

He popped open the trunk and McGuinn charged forward. Just as suddenly he drew back, his legs splaying crookedly, like a moose on thin ice. He let out a puppy noise, half bark and half whimper.

Twilly said, "I warned you, dummy."

Inside the car trunk was a dead Labrador retriever. Twilly had found it in south Miami-Dade County at the intersection of 152nd Street and U.S. 1, where it had been struck by a car. The dog couldn't have been dead more than two hours when Twilly spotted it in the median, bundled it in bubble wrap and placed it on a makeshift bed of dry ice in the rental car. The dog wasn't as hefty as McGuinn, but Twilly thought it would do fine; correct species, correct color phase.

Before spotting the black Lab, Twilly had searched 220 miles of highway and counted thirty-seven other dog carcasses – mostly mutts, but also a golden retriever, two Irish setters, a yellow Lab and a pair of purebred Jack Russell terriers with matching rhine-stone collars. The Russells had perished side by side in a school zone on Coconut Grove's busy Bayshore Drive. Twilly speculated it might have been a double suicide, if dogs were capable of such plotting. Evidence of a cold and heartless master was the fact that the two stumpy bodies of the Russells lay uncollected in the roadway; they would have easily fit in a grocery bag. It took Twilly twenty minutes to bury the dogs between the roots of an ancient banyan tree. Before that, he had jotted down the numbers off the rabies tags, so that someday – when he had more time – he could track down the owner of the terriers and ruin his or her day.

The roadkill Lab wore no tags or identification collar. Twilly was saddened to think it might be a stray, but he would have been equally depressed to know it was somebody's beloved pet; a child's best buddy, or an old widow's faithful companion. A dead dog was just a sad thing, period. Twilly didn't feel good about what he had to do, but the animal was long past suffering and the cause seemed worthy.

McGuinn was pacing behind the rental car. He whined and kept his head low, and every few steps he would glance apprehensively toward the trunk, as if expecting the dead Lab to spring out and attack. Twilly calmed McGuinn and put him in the front seat. As an extra precaution, Twilly tethered the leash to the steering wheel. Then he walked back to the rear of the car and snapped open his pocketknife, a splendid three-inch Al Mar from Japan. The blade was wicked enough to shave tinsel.

Twilly was glad the dead dog's eyes were shut. He stroked its silky brow and said: "Better it's me than the damn buzzards." Afterward he tucked the severed ear in his back pocket and drove around Miami until he spotted a FedEx truck on the Don Shula Expressway. For a two-hundred-dollar tip the driver was pleased to pull over for an unscheduled pickup.

10

The king-sized hot tub was outdoors, on the scalloped balcony of Robert Clapley's beachfront condominium. All four of them peeled off their clothes and slipped into the water – Clapley, Katya, Tish and Palmer Stoat, who needed three cognacs to relax. Stoat was self-conscious about his pudginess, and slightly creeped out by the two Barbies; he wished Clapley hadn't told him the details.

"Twins!" Clapley had chortled.

"No kidding."

"Identical twins – in time for next Christmas!"

"They speak English, Bob?"

"Damn little," Clapley had replied, "and I intend to keep it that way."

Now one of the Barbies was attempting to straddle Stoat in a balmy swirl beneath tropical stars, and Stoat caught himself peeking under her immense high-floating breasts for telltale surgical scars. Gradually the cognac began to soothe him.

"In Moscow," Clapley was saying, "there's a school where they go to become world-class fellatrixes."

"A what?"

"Blow-job artists," Clapley explained. "An actual school – you hear what I'm saying!"

"Oh, I hear you." Stoat thinking: They can hear you all the way to St. Augustine, dip-shit.

Robert Clapley got very loud when he was coked up and drunk. "I'd like to be there for final exams!" he said with a salacious grunt. "I'd like to personally grade thoseSATs – "

"Which one's from Russia?" Stoat inquired.

Clapley pointed at the Barbie now laboring to wrap her legs around Stoat's waist. "Yours!" he said. "You old horndog!"

"And she ... went ... to ... this ... 'school'?"