It was a cardinal rule of political deal fixing: The later the vote, the better. So stultifying was the average government meeting that not even the hardiest of civic gadflies could endure from gavel to gavel. Generally, the only souls who remained to the wee hours were being paid to sit there – lawyers, lobbyists, stenographers and a few drowsy reporters. And since the shadiest deals were saved for the end, when the chamber was emptiest, competition was fierce for space at the tail of the agenda.

Lester Buccione had been elated to learn that the fried-banana contract would be taken up last, in tomb-like tranquillity, and that for this favor the chairperson of the Miami-Dade Commission had demanded only that one of her deadbeat cousins be hired as a part-time cashier at one of Lester's new fried-banana kiosks. So pleased was "Lestorino" that he had promptly messengered to Palmer Stoat's home a cashier's check for the $40,000 fee, which divinely had mended Stoat's tattered confidence – five-digit reassurance that the planet had not skittered off its axis, that the rightful order of the urban food chain had not been perverted, despite the harrowing madness that had ruptured Stoat's personal universe.

He had been fingering the check from Lester Buccione, savoring its crisp affirmation, when out of the blue his missing wife had telephoned and asked him to charter another plane to Gainesville. Right away! And Palmer Stoat had thought: Thank God she's finally come to her senses. He would fly up to get her and then they would go away for a while, somewhere secluded and safe from the demented dog dismemberer, the lascivious bald cyclops, the sadistic Blond Porcupine Man, the doll-stroking Clapley ...

The plane landed at half-past two. Stoat searched for Desie inside the terminal but she wasn't there. One of his cell phones rang – Stoat carried three – and he snatched it from a pocket. Durgess was on the line: No luck so far with the rhino, but good news about Robert Clapley's cheetah! They'd found one in Hamburg, of all places, at a children's zoo. The cat would arrive within days at the Wilderness Veldt Plantation, where it would be caged, washed and fattened up in advance of the big hunt. Anytime you're ready! said Durgess, more perky than Stoat had ever heard him. I'll inform Mr. Clapley, Stoat said, and get back to you.

He walked to the airport parking lot and squinted into the sunlight, not knowing exactly what to look for. A horn honked twice. Stoat turned and saw a white Buick station wagon approaching slowly. A man was driving; no sign of Desie. The car stopped beside Palmer Stoat and the passenger door swung open. Stoat got in. In the backseat lay Boodle, an orange-and-blue sponge football pinned beneath his two front paws. His tail thwapped playfully when he saw Stoat, but he clung to the toy. Stoat reached back and stroked the dog's head.

"That's the best you can do?" the driver said.

"He stinks," said Stoat.

"Damn right he stinks. He spent the morning running cows. Now give him a hug."

Not in a two-thousand-dollar suit I won't, thought Stoat. "You're the one from Swain's," he said to the driver. "Where the hell's my wife?"

The station wagon started moving.

"You hear me?"

"Patience," said the driver, who looked about twenty years old. He wore a dark blue sweatshirt and loose faded jeans and sunglasses. He had shaggy bleached-out hair, and his skin was as brown as a surfer's. He drove barefoot.

Palmer Stoat said, "You tried to scare me into thinking you cut up my dog. What kind of sick bastard would do that?"

"The determined kind."

"Where'd you get the ear and the paw?"

"Not important," the young man said.

"Where's Desie?"

"Whew, that cologne you're wearing ... "

"WHERE IS MY WIFE?"

The Roadmaster was heading north, toward Starke, at seventy-five miles an hour. Stoat angrily clenched his hands; moist, soft fists that looked about as menacing as biscuits.

"Where the hell are you taking me? What's your name?" Stoat was emboldened by the fact that the dognapper appeared to be unarmed. "You're going to jail, you know that, junior? And the longer you keep my wife and dog, the longer your sorry ass is gonna be locked up."

The driver said: "That blonde you sometimes travel with, the one with the Gucci bag – does Desie know about her?"

"What!" Stoat, straining to sound indignant but thinking: How in the world does he know about Roberta?

"The one I saw you with at the Lauderdale airport, the one who tickled your tonsils with her tongue."

Stoat wilted. He felt a thousand years old. "All right. You made your damn point."

"You hungry?" the driver asked.

He turned into a McDonald's and ordered chocolate shakes, fries and double cheeseburgers. As he pulled back on the highway, he handed the bag to Palmer Stoat and said, "Help yourself."

The food smelled glorious. Stoat came to life, and he quickly went to work on the cheeseburgers. Boodle dropped the foam football and sat up to mooch handouts. The driver warned Stoat not to feed the dog anything from the McDonald's bag.

"Doctor's orders," the young man said.

"It's all your fault he got sick in the first place." Stoat spoke through bulging, blue-veined, burger-filled cheeks. "You're the one who yanked all the glass eyeballs out of my trophy heads. That's what he ate, the big dope – those taxidermy eyes."

"From the trophy heads. Yes, I know."

"And did Desie tell you what his surgery cost?"

The driver fiddled with the knobs on the stereo system. Stoat recognized the music; a rock song he'd heard a few times on the radio.

"I tell you what," the young man said, "these speakers aren't half-bad."

"Why'd you steal my dog?" Stoat swiped at his lips with a paper napkin. "Let's hear it. This ought to be good." He finished engulfing one double cheeseburger, then wadded the greasy wax wrapper.

The young man's eyebrows arched, but he didn't look away from the highway. He said to Stoat: "Don't tell me you haven't figured it out."

"Figured whatout?"

"How I chose you. How all this rough stuff got started – you honestly don't know?"

"All I know," Stoat said with a snort, "is that you're some kinda goddamn psycho and I did what you wanted and now I'm here to collect my wife and my dog." He fumbled on the door panel for the window switch.

"Oh brother," said the driver.

Stoat looked annoyed. "What now?"

The driver groaned. "I don't believe this."

"Believe what?" said Palmer Stoat, clueless. Casually he tossed the balled-up cheeseburger wrapper out of the speeding car.

"Believe what?" he asked again, a split second before his brainpain detonated and the world went black as pitch.

19

In Twilly Spree's next dream he was down in the Everglades and it was raining hawks. He was running again, running the shoreline of Cape Sable, and the birds were falling everywhere, shot from the sky. In the dream Desie was running barefoot beside him. They were snatching up the bloodied hawks from the sugar white sand, hoping to find one still alive; one they could save. McGuinn was in Twilly's dream, too, being chased in circles by a scrawny three-legged bobcat – it might have been hilarious, except for all the birds hitting the beach like russet feather bombs. In the dream Twilly saw a speck on the horizon, and as he drew closer the speck became the figure of a man on the crest of a dune; a man with a long gun pointed at the sky. Heedlessly Twilly ran on, shouting for the hawk killer to stop. The man lowered his weapon and spun around to see who was coming. He went rigid and raised the barrel again,this time taking aim at Twilly. In the dream Twilly lowered his shoulders and ran as fast as he could toward the hawk killer. He was astonished when he heard Desie coming up the dune behind him, running even faster. Twilly saw the muzzle flash at the instant Desie's hand touched his shoulder.