'Good point,' Smudge replied thoughtfully. 'I've heard the same thing. I must admit I've also heard of snakes chasing people and cobras spitting you in the eye, although I can't say whether it's true.'

Divinity tried to calm Smoke and get him out of his dangerous mood. But when he got like this, there was no point ranting and raving about something unless she wanted to get the treatment.

'Baby, it's just I don't want nothing bad to happen to you,' she tried one more time as he sped along Midlothian Turnpike, away from the slum he called a clubhouse where he now had enough of an arsenal to take out an entire police precinct.

'I find him, he's dead,' Smoke said.

Wu-Tang was playing 'Severe Punishment.' Smoke turned it up louder.

'What'd I tell him to do?' Smoke glared at Divinity.

'You told him to paint up the statue,' she said quietly, watching his hands to make sure he didn't head them her way.

'I told him to paint up, as in fuck up, as in ruin.' Smoke gripped the wheel hard. 'I knew I shoulda stayed there and watched. Goddamn it. Shit! Then he paints that little fucking blue fish and the whole fucking world thinks that fish virus has got something to do with it! Where's our credit, huh? Where does it say the Pikes?'

'Don't look like we got credit, baby.' She was freezing up inside, waiting for that beast in him to jump out.

'Well, I'm gonna fucking fix that, and you know how?'

'No, baby,' Divinity said, rubbing his neck.

'Don't touch me!' Smoke shoved her away. 'My mind's working.'

The newsroom at this hour was left to a certain breed, the cave fish of journalism, those who slept through the sun and monitored life at its darkest hours. Artis Roop did not keep to a schedule.

He was energized and almost crazed as he hammered on about 'Smokes,' Fishsteria and the same blue fish painted ever so subtly on the base of Basketball Jeff. There had been no real breaks. Roop was rearranging old information, and he knew it. There was nothing else going on except the same old drug shootouts and fights in city council.

'Shit.'

He leaned back in his chair and stretched, cracking his neck to the right and left.

'Got anything for last edition?' night editor Outlaw called out.

'Working on it,' Roop called back.

'How big?'

'How much space I got?' Roop asked.

'Depends on what comes in over the wire,' Outlaw said.

Roop was about to confess that he had nothing worth shit when his phone rang.

'Roop,' he answered.

'How do I know for sure?'

'Huh?' Roop asked.

'How do I know I'm talking to Roop?' the tough male voice came back.

'What is this, some kind of crank call?' Roop was about to hang up.

'I'm the blue fish guy.'

Roop was silent. He flipped open his notepad.

'You ever heard of the Pikes, man?'

'No,' Roop confessed.

'Who the fuck you think painted that fucking statue? What the hell do you think the fucking fish is?'

'A pike?' Roop was fascinated. 'The fish is a pike?'

'You fucking got it.'

'There've been suggestions the fish is actually the state fish, a trout,' Roop let him know.

'It ain't no trout and you better pay attention "cause there's a lot going down in this city that the Pikes are taking charge of.'

'So is it fair to say that the Pikes are a gang?' Roop asked.

'No, fuckhead, we're a Girl Scout troop.'

'Then it's all right if I refer to the Pikes as a gang in my article. Who are you?' Roop asked cautiously.

'Your worst nightmare.'

'I mean, really.'

'The leader. I'm whatever I decide to be and I do whatever I want. Your fucking city ain't seen nothing yet. And you can print that in red. Remember the Pikes. You're going to hear from us again.'

'But why a basketball player, and does the fish tag have anything to do with the computer crash…?'

Roop was answered by a dial tone. He called the police.

At this point, tables B3, B6, B2 and Bl had gotten caught up in Bubba and Smudge's conversation.

'Let me tell you what happened to me one time,' said an old man in overalls. 'Found one in my toilet. Lifted the lid and there it was, all curled up, its tongue sliding in and out.'

'Oh my!' exclaimed a woman at the other table. 'How could that have happened?'

'Can only figure it was a hot summer and he wanted to cool off.'

'Snakes are cold-blooded. They don't have to cool off.'

'Might've come up from the sewer.'

'I was out in my johnboat one early morning before it was light, looking for duck when a damn water moccasin dropped into my boat, right on top of my foot, I kid you not. He must've been that big around.' He made a huge circle with his fingers.

'Every time you tell that story, Ansel, the darn thing gets bigger.'

'What'dya do?' Smudge asked as Bubba sat in silence, his face ashen.

'Kicked the damn thing as hard as I could. It sailed right over my head, all wriggly, and I could feel it brush my hair as it went past before splashing in the water.'

'We had one right here in the cooler.' Myrtle came over to join in. She pulled out a chair as if dinner no longer mattered.

'It was the worse scare of my life, fellas. Apparently he was out back sunning hisself on the loading dock when Beane went into the walk-in cooler to get a barrel of pickles. Must've walked right by that God-awful rattlesnake and neither noticed the other. All we could figure after the fact is while Beane had the cooler door open, the snake went on in and got locked up. So little ole me goes in there the next morning for bacon and the minute I opened that door and step inside, I hear something rattling.'

She paused, shivering, shutting her eyes. Everyone was silent and horror-struck as they hung on to every word.

'Well,' Myrtle went on, 'I didn't move. I looked around and couldn't see nothing at first and then I heard the rattle again. By then I pretty much knew what it was. I mean a rattlesnake's rattle has a rattle all its own and that's what I was hearing sort of in the direction of the ten-gallon buckets of potato salad and coleslaw.' She paused again.

'Where was it?' The man in overalls could wait no longer.

'I'll bet it was eating a rat back there.'

'We don't got rats in the cooler,' Myrtle was quick to defend.

'Then where the hell was it, Myrtle?' Smudge said.

'That far from me.' She held her index fingers six inches apart.

Everybody gasped.

'It was coiled up right next to the mop, its tail sticking up and rattling to beat the band.'

'What'cha do!' Voices chimed in.

'Why, I got bit,' Myrtle said. 'Right there on my left calf. Happened so fast I hardly felt a thing and then that snake was gone like a streak of grease. I was in the hospital a week, and let me tell you, my leg swole up so big they thought they might have to cut it off.'

No one spoke. Myrtle got up.

'Your food ought to be ready,' she said, heading back to the kitchen. ruby Sink tried for hours to get Lelia Ehrhart on the phone, but when call waiting kicked in, whoever was on the line simply ignored it.

Agitation and loneliness usually sent Miss Sink into the kitchen, where she had no one to cook for these days except that sweet young police officer renting one of her many properties. She had often thought about inviting him in for dinner, but she didn't have time to cook a big meal.

Making shortbread cookies was one thing. But pot roast and fried chicken were another. Her various boards and associations consumed her, really. It was a wonder she could ever get around to fixing that boy anything. She dialed his pager and left her number, assuming he was probably busy at a crime scene.

The page landed in Brazil's beeper as he was knocking on Weed's front door. It hadn't taken much investigation to check the city directory and see that the Gardeners, not the Joneses, lived in the small house behind Henrico Doctors' Hospital where Brazil had dropped off Weed last night.