"You guys stay here. Watch the light: he'll have to move if he didn't go over the edge." He slapped a magazine into the rifle, worked the bolt one time. "If you see him, yell. I can't use the radio. It'd give me away."

"Where're you going?" Big Curly asked.

"I'm gonna crawl around up the hill. If he's not dead at the bottom, he must've headed uphill. He'd be crawling."

Jensen: "Man, maybe we ought to wait."

Virgil shook his head: "Can't. Once he's off the hill, he's got a hundred miles of cornfields in every direction. We'll get him sooner or later, but not before he kills a couple of farmers for their cars. What we need, Larry, is every cop you can find, throwing a perimeter around this hill…It'll take him a while to get off."

"Get some dogs in," Big Curly said.

Virgil snapped his fingers: "Do that. Do that right now. If you can get a couple of dogs, tell the handlers to get them to bark. Get them down below. We want him to think that the dogs are coming."

"They will be," Big Curly said.

"No, no. If he sees people coming, and feels like he's trapped, he'll go down shooting," Virgil said. "If you have a dog walk right up on him, the handler gets shot. We don't want that. Want the dogs barking, but we don't want them trailing in the dark. I'm going. Keep watching the headlights. If you see him…"

"Take it easy," Jensen said. "Take it easy."

"If he's down there at the bottom of the hill, just start honking your horns," Virgil said. "I'll be back."

IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS, in fifth, sixth, seventh, and maybe eighth grades, before the whole issue of women came up, Virgil and his male friends would occasionally play war, always on a soft summer evening, when the light was fading to dark. There were apple trees in the neighborhood, to provide the ammo; a golf-ball-sized green apple, thrown at close range, could give you a bruise like a good left hook. Tree lines, fences, hedges, and overgrown bridal-wreath bushes provided the cover.

One thing everybody learned quickly was that in the dark, even with a bright moon-a full moon hung overhead as Virgil slipped into the grass, heading up the hill-was that you were never sure what was human and what was shadow; you learned not to look directly at someone, because he could feel you in the dark. You learned to move slowly, like the moon shadows spreading across the open. If you didn't learn, you'd take a shot behind the ear, just as sure as God made little green apples.

THE WAR GAMES were still in Virgil's blood, refined by years of hunting. He slipped into the thigh-high bluestem, running in a crouch, then duckwalking and crawling, quickly at first, getting away from the lights of the trucks, then more slowly, feeling his way past hard corners of exposed rock, the occasional bit of brush, the prickly wild rose.

Williamson had essentially rolled the car down the hill the same way his mother's had gone down, and over the bluff. If he'd bailed before it went over, he'd have three choices: head sideways and down the hill to the west, head up and across it to the north, or head sideways and uphill to the east. He couldn't go south, because that was sheer bluff.

Virgil didn't think he would go down and west, because that would take him right into the face of the arriving cops, and also force him to cross the approach road. He could have gone north, but that would have cut across the lights from Jensen's and Big Curly's headlights as they came up the hill.

Most likely, Virgil thought, Williamson went east, parallel to the bluff, or slightly northeast, edging away from the bluff. That way, he'd avoid the road altogether, which ended at the ruins of the Judd place. He'd cross below the Judd place, turn more north, across the shoulder of the hill, and after walking down the far side, would step into the ocean of cornfields that spread out below.

The corn was high enough that he'd be able to jog, guided by the rows, without being seen. Someplace along the run, he'd cut into a farmer's place looking for a ride.

IF VIRGIL WAS RIGHT, he should cross paths with Williamson above the Judd place.

If he was wrong, if Williamson had gone straight north, and he'd made it across the road…then Williamson would be behind him, and above him.

That wouldn't be good.

He stopped for ten seconds, listening. Could hear men shouting, a long way away, but no horn honking. Williamson had bailed. Could hear crickets, could hear the crinkle of grass in the breeze, could hear the rasping szzzikks of nighthawks. Listened as hard as he could, heard nothing more.

Moved on.

WILLIAMSON RAN AWAY from the car, into the dark, clutching the shotgun, no particular destination in mind. He'd fucked up, and this was what happened when you fucked up.

He'd known that Flowers would be out there on the street, watching the Dairy Queen. What he'd thought was, "How stupid does he think I am?"-that dumb little bitch Jesse Laymon calling him up, laying all that past-history stuff on him, like she thought it up herself. The meeting had to be a setup.

Had to be.

So he'd come up with a counterstroke: it was possible that Flowers had kept his investigation to himself, because Stryker and the others were also suspects. And if the newspaper were under surveillance, and if he showed himself there, and then, if he went over the roof, down the whole block, and came down the fire escape on the back of Hartbry's, and wired it down…and if he nailed Flowers as he waited in his truck, and then cut behind Sherwin-Williams and made it down the alley and back up the fire escape…

Hell, it was a big risk, but the jig was almost up anyway. Flowers was pushing him, and if he knew about the Williamsons and the way they died…

But if he pulled it off-he was good.

Flowers killed, while he was under surveillance.

The shotgun was Judd Jr.'s and old enough that they'd probably never trace it to him. He could drop it in the street after he fired it…

He'd worked through it, frightened himself, worked through it again, rehearsed it, had, at the last minute, gone to the roof and spotted two watchers-he knew every car in town, certainly knew Stryker's and Jensen's-and convinced himself it would work.

Scared, sweating, pulling on the black turtleneck, hot in the night, the gloves, his regular black slacks.

HE'D RUN the turtleneck and the gloves through the shredder when he got back, he thought, flush them down the toilet…

Jesus, what a risk.

Jesus, what a rush.

End it. End it.

HE'D ALMOST DONE IT.

He'd been sure he had Flowers, if nothing else. Had seen the head in the window of the truck, from the back. Had come up just right, had hardly heard the boom of the shotgun, had felt the most intense joy at the impact in the glass, and started to run, and then somebody called his name and he finished turning and saw movement and fired the gun and realized he'd been had…

"How stupid does he think I am?"

THE REST of it all passed in a panic flash. He was on foot, he could hear the cop cars all around, then the lights came around a corner, and Carr was coming up the alley. He stepped into a hedge, simply pressed back into it, and when she came up…

Boom/Flash.

HE HAD the car; he could hear them screaming on Carr's radio as he dumped her into the street, and then he was around the corner; and then more lights, and a flasher bar behind him. He hadn't thought about where to go, but he happened to be going north. He heard more cars calling in, heard them calling out his location, felt the squeeze.

He wouldn't go far in the car.

A last stand wasn't his style.

He turned without thinking down the county road that led to the park road, then up the park road to the Judd turnoff, radio blasting, lights behind him, more lights on the road below…and he turned down the crease in the hill that had taken his mother, and thought to follow her over, get it done with.