In the dream he squeezed his eyes closed so that he would no longer see the birds dying. He stopped trying to move his legs because the water had reached his waist, water so frigid that it would surely kill him in minutes. Twilly wondered how the sea could be so unbearably chilly – in southern Florida! Latitude twenty-six degrees! – but then the answer came to him, and so simple. The water was cold because there was no sun to warm it; because the goddamned skyscrapers on the beach had blotted out every ray of sunlight, leaving the Gulf in a perpetual unholy shade. So it got plenty cold. Sure it did.

Twilly decided to float. In the dream the water was up to his armpits and he was fighting so frantically to catch his breath that he was making weird peeping noises, like a tree frog.

Not acceptable, nossir! Floating – now there's a nifty idea. Float on my back, let the tide carry me up to one of these buildings, where I'll just climb outta this freezing soup. And keep climbing as high and as long as it takes to get dry, climbing like the clever little froggy I am. Water's gotta lay down sometime, right?

In the dream Twilly opened his stinging eyelids and began to float, yipping for breath. He drifted up to a condo, maybe a thousand stories tall, and hooked his arms over a balcony rail. He hung there hoping to regain some strength. Bobbing air around him in the foam were the bodies of seabirds, tawny clumps with rent beaks, clenched yellow claws, disheveled red-smeared plumage ...

The boy struggled to hoist himself out of the frigid water and onto the dry terrace. He raised his chin to the rail but that was as high as he got, because standing there in baggy wet Jockey shorts on the balcony was his father, Little Phil. Cupped in his outstretched palms were hundreds of tiny striped toads, bug-eyed and bubble-cheeked, peeping with such ungodly shrillness that it hurt Twilly Spree's ears.

And in the dream he cried out. He shut his eyes and let go of the rail and fell back into the flow, the current spinning him like a sodden chunk of timber. Something soft touched his cheek and he swiped at it, thinking it was a dead sandpiper or a gull.

But it wasn't. It was Desie's hand. Twilly opened his eyes and could not believe where he was: lying warm in her arms. He could hear her heart.

"Everything's all right now," she told him.

"Yes." He felt a light kiss on his forehead.

"You're shaking."

He said, "So that's what they call dreaming."

"Let me get you another blanket."

"No, don't move."

"All right," Desie said.

"I don't want you to go."

"All right."

"I mean ever,"Twilly said.

"Oh."

"Consider it. Please."

The house was dark and silent. No one had set the alarm. Palmer Stoat opened the door. He called out Desie's name and started flipping on light switches. He checked the master bedroom, the guest bedrooms, the porch, the whole house. His wife wasn't home, and Stoat was miffed. He was eager to show her the latest atrocity – the dog paw in the Cuban cigar box. He wanted to sit her down and make her recall every detail about the crazy man who'd snatched Boodle. And he wanted her to tell it all to that sadistic porcupine-haired goon of Robert Clapley's, so then the dognapper could be hunted down.

And killed.

"I want him dead."

Palmer Stoat, hollow-eyed in front of the bathroom mirror. He looked like hell. His face was splotchy, his hair mussed into damp wisps. In the bright vanity lights he could even see the shiny crease on his chin where the surgeon had inserted the rubber implant.

"I want him dead." Stoat said the words aloud, to hear how severe it sounded. Truly he didwant the man killed ... whacked, snuffed, offed, done, whatever guys like Mr. Gash called it. The man deserved to die, this young smart-ass, for interfering with the $28 million bridge deal that Palmer Stoat had so skillfully orchestrated; for abducting good-natured Boodle; for using severed dog parts as a lever of extortion; for mucking up Palmer Stoat's marriage ... how, Stoat wasn't sure. But ever since she'd encountered the dognapper, Desie had been acting oddly. Case in point: Here it was ten-thirty at night and she wasn't home. Mrs. Palmer Stoat, not home!

He stalked to the den and took his throne among the glass-eyed game fish and gaping animal heads. He dialed the governor's mansion and demanded to speak to Dick Artemus. A valet named Sean – Oh perfect! It had to be a Sean! – informed Stoat that the governor had gone to bed early and could not be disturbed, which meant Dick Artemus was off screwing Lisa June Peterson or one of his other triple-named ex-sorority sister aides. Palmer Stoat, who eyed the cigar box on the desk in front of him, believed the arrival of the paw merited a personal conversation with Florida's governor. Stoat felt it was vital for Dick Artemus to know that the dognapper was keeping on the pressure. Stoat felt Governor Dick needed reminding to veto the Shearwater bridge as soon as possible, and to make damn sure it hit the newspapers so the dognapper would see it.

But no – protective, diligent young Sean wouldn't put the call through to the fornicating ex-Toyota salesman!

"What's your full given name, son!" Palmer Stoat thundered over the phone.

"Sean David Gallagher."

"And do you enjoy working at the governor's mansion? Because one word from me about your obstinate attitude and you'll be back at the fucking Pizza Hut, windexing the sneeze hood over the salad bar. You follow, son?"

"I'll give Governor Artemus your message, Mr. Stoat."

"Do that, sport."

"And I'll also say hi to my father for you."

"Your father?" Stoat sniffed. "Who the hell's your father?"

"Johnny Gallagher. He's Speaker Pro Tem of the House."

"Oh. Right." Palmer Stoat mumbled something conciliatory and hung up. Goddamn kids these days, he fumed, can't even get a job without the old man's juice.

Stoat opened the cigar box and peeked again at the dog paw. "Jesus, what next," he said, slapping the lid shut.

He tried to remember what the guy had looked like that night at Swain's, passing him that snarky note. The suntan, the flowered shirt ... Stoat had figured the guy for a boat bum, a mate on a yacht. But the face? He was young, Stoat remembered. But the bar had been smoky, Stoat had been half-trashed, and the kid had been wearing dark shades, so ... no luck with the face. Desie was the one nasty Mr. Gash should consult. She's the one who'd spent time with the dognapper.

But the thought of Mr. Gash alone with Desirata made Palmer Stoat cringe. What a scary little prick he was! Stoat wondered if the disgusting baby rat was still alive – mewling and crawling half-blind through his cereal cupboard, no doubt! It was unbelievable. Shocking, really. One of the most powerful human beings in the state of Florida, and here his lofty shining universe had been reduced to a tabloid freak show – dog dismemberers and Barbie-doll fetishists and armed punk-haired sadists who crammed rodents down his gullet!

Thank God they didn't know about it, all those people who feared and needed and sucked up to Palmer Stoat, big-time lobbyist. All those important men and women clogging up his voice mail in Tallahassee ... the mayor of Orlando, seeking Stoat's deft hand in obtaining $45 million in federal highway funds – Disney World, demanding yet another exit off Interstate 4; the president of a slot-machine company, imploring Stoat to arrange a private dinner with the chief of the Seminole Indian tribe; a United States congresswoman from West Palm Beach, begging for box seats to the Marlins home opener (not for her personally, but for five sugar-company executives who'd persuaded their Jamaican and Haitian cane pickers to donate generously – well beyond their means, in fact – to the congresswoman's reelection account).