For the first time ever.

Mr. Gash had spent the day listening to 911 tapes. He couldn't get enough of them. Off late-night television he had mail-ordered The World's Most Bloodcurdling Emergency Calls,Volumes 1-3. The recordings had been tape-recorded by police departments all over the country, and somebody had gotten the slick idea to compile them into a Best of 911 series and sell them on cassettes and CDs. Only the Fword was edited out, to protect children who might be listening.

caller: 911? 911?

dispatcher: This is the police department. Do you have an emergency?

caller: Yeah, my one brother, he's stabbing the shit out of my other brother.

dispatcher: A stabbing, did you say?

caller: Yeah, you better send somebody out here fast. There's [bleeping] blood all over the drapes. He's gone crazy, you got to send somebody fast, fore he goes and kills us all.

dispatcher: Could you describe the weapon, ma'am?

caller: It's a knife, for Christ's sake. A huge [bleeping] butcher knife. It's got a wood handle and at the other end it's real pointy. Get the picture?

dispatcher: OK, OK, settle down. Where's your brother at now?

caller: On the floor. Where the hell do you think he's at? He's on the floor bleeding to death. He looks like a piece of '[bleeping] Swiss cheese, except with catsup.

dispatcher: No, the brother with the butcher knife. Where's he at?

caller: In the kitchen. Probably getting another goddamn beer. Are you guys coming? 'Cause if you're not, just let me know so I can go ahead and slit my throat. To save my drunken crazy-ass brother the trouble.

dispatcher: Easy now, we've got units on the way. Can you stay on the phone? Are you in a safe place?

caller: Safe? Oh Christ, yeah. I'm locked in the [bleeping] bathroom of a double-wide house trailer, it's like Fort [bleeping] Knox in here. I'm snug as a bug in a goddamned rug – what's the matter with you people! Hell no, I'm not safe. A cat fart could knock down this whole damn place ...

dispatcher: Ma'am., try to stay calm.

caller: Oh Jesus, that's him! I hear him outside!! Clete, you back off from here! You leave me be, else I'm tellin' Mama what you did to Lippy, I swear to God! Don't you ... now don't you dare open this door! Clete ... goddammit, I got the cops on the phone – no! I told you no –

dispatcher: Ma'am, is that him? Is that your brother you're talking to?

caller: No, it's Garth [bleeping] Brooks. What's the matter with you morons – hey, Clete, stop that shit right now! No, no ... put that thing down, you hear? Put it away!!!!

dispatcher: Ma'am? Hello? Are you all right?

Mr. Gash was exhilarated by the sound of fear in human voices. Fury, panic, despair – it was all there on the 911 calls, the full cycle of primal desperation.

Daddy's on a rampage.

Baby's in the swimming pool.

Momma took some pills.

There's a stranger at the bedroom window.

And yet, somehow, somebody makes it to a telephone and phones for help.

To Mr. Gash, this was better than theater, better than literature, better than music. True life is what it was; true life unspooling. He never tired of the 911 tapes. He even redubbed his favorites and set them to classical music – Mahler for domestic disputes, Tchaikovsky for cardiac arrests, and so on.

The emergency tapes kept his mind off the grinding traffic, and he listened to them all the way to Toad Island, the morning after he'd roughed up Palmer Stoat. For the long drive north, Mr. Gash had selected the Best-of-House-Fire Calls,with background accompaniment by Shostakovich.

dispatcher: Is there an emergency?

caller: Hurry! My house is on fire! It's on fire!

dispatcher: Where are you, sir?

caller: Inside! Inside the house!

dispatcher: Where inside the house?

caller: The bedroom, I'm pretty sure! Hurry, man, it's all on fire! Everything!

dispatcher: The trucks are on the way –

caller: I was basing under the Christmas tree, see –

dispatcher: Sir, you need to exit the dwelling immediately.

caller: Freebasing, see? And somehow, man, I don't know what happened but all of a sudden there's a flash and the tree's lit up, I mean big-time. Next thing, all the Christmas presents, they're on fire, too, and before long the whole scene is smoke ...

dispatcher: Sir, you need to get out of the house immediately. Right now.

caller: You hurry, that's the main thing. Hurry! 'Cause I don't have a goddamn clue where "out" is. You understand what I'm saying. I am one lost mother[bleeper], OK?

The tapes were aural tapestry to Mr. Gash. From a lone scream he could fully visualize the interior of a house, its bare halls and cluttered bedrooms; the faded carpets and the functional furniture, the oversized paintings and tense-looking family photographs. And of course he could see the orange flames licking at the walls.

"Ouch," he said aloud as he drove.

Toad Island was the logical place to start hunting for the man he was supposed to murder. Possibly the fellow lived there, or at least must have visited the place. Why else would he give two shits about Robert Clapley's bridge?

Mr. Gash's first stop was the home of Nils Fishback, the island's self-crowned "mayor" and Clapley's onetime political adversary. Clapley had told Mr. Gash it was Fishback who'd know the inside dope on any malcontents among the residents.

"Get off my damn property!" was Nils Fishback's intemperate greeting to Mr. Gash.

"Mr. Clapley sent me."

"What for?" Fishback demanded. "What's with the hair, jocko – you from England or somethin'?"

The old man was stationed on the front lawn. He was shoeless and shirtless, a bandanna knotted around his neck. The bandanna was milky yellow, as was Fishback's long beard and also his toenails. He appeared not to have bathed for some time.

"Can't you tell I'm busy?" Fishback pointed at a moving van in the driveway. Two beefy men were lugging a long plaid sofa up the ramp to the truck.

Mr. Gash said: "This'll only take a minute."

"I don't have a minute."

"What you don't have," said Mr. Gash, "is manners."

He intercepted the two movers and advised them to take a thirty-minute break. Then he grabbed Nils Fishback by one of his bony elbows and dragged him into the house and tied his ankles and wrists with a Dacron curtain sash and pushed him into a bathtub. After a short search Mr. Gash found a bar of Dial antiperspirant soap, untouched, which he forcefully inserted into Fishback's mouth.

"You probably feel like puking," Mr. Gash said, "but of course you can't."

From the tub Fishback stared up with wild, horsey eyes.

"Here's what I need from you," said Mr. Gash. He was hovering, a gun held loosely in one hand.

"There's a man causing Mr. Clapley lots of grief over the new bridge. What I need to know, 'Mr. Mayor,' is who would do something like this? Somebody out here on the island is my guess. Some creep trying to squeeze more money from my good friend Mr. Clapley."

Nils Fishback shook his head frantically. Mr. Gash laughed. He had been made aware of Fishback's lucrative real estate sellout. "Oh, I know it's not you," he told the old man. "From what I hear, you got no complaints. You made out like a bandit on this deal."

Now Fishback was nodding. Mr. Gash set the handgun on the toilet seat and took out a penknife, which he used to pry the cake of Dial from Fishback's mouth. The soap came out embedded with expensive porcelain bridge-work. Immediately the mayor wriggled upright and began vomiting in his own lap. Mr. Gash turned on the shower, picked up his gun and left the bathroom.

When Nils Fishback emerged, he was the consummate host, all southern graciousness and hospitality. He fixed fresh coffee and powdered doughnuts for Mr. Gash, and told him of a rumor going around the island.