The Association

The Association

by Bentley Little

"It's perfect!" Maureen announced.

Barry agreed, but he was glad the real estate agent wasn't there to hear it. She already had them pegged as a couple of suckers, and if she heard Maureen's unequivocal enthusiasm, she'd know that all she had to do was reel them in. They'd have no room at all to negotiate.

Bat the agent--or "Doris," as she'd insisted they call her--had gone back to her car to gather die paperwork on this property (and, Barry suspected, give them time to talk), and the two of them were left alone to discuss matters between themselves.

He and Maureen walked around the house's upper deck. The view was spectacular. They'd looked at other houses, newer houses, bigger houses, but none that had a location to match this one. It was on the side of a hill overlooking the town, and breathtaking scenery stretched all the way to the mountains on the horizon, taking in miles of forest and canyon in between. Even in this, the hottest part of the day, a slight breeze was blowing, rustling the pine needles in the tree on the deck's west side, ruffling the hair that he had combed so carefully in order to give himself a more respectable appearance.

"We could expand the deck," Maureen said. "Wrap it around the front of the house, maybe put in one of those misters to cool it off during the day. I see, like, a little patio set--some chairs and a table--where we could have lunches or romantic dinners. And, of course, I'll put a lot of plants up here." "The deck's way down on the priority list," he told her.

"That's true," Maureen admitted.

Barry shielded the sides of his face with his hands and peered through the screen door into the house. The interior was hideous. The previous owners had had no taste whatsoever, and every room was carpeted in bright orange, with walls and ceiling covered in the darkest paneling. It was like being in a cave, and the tacky 1970s furniture did little to dispel the air of tired sadness that hung about the rooms.

No doubt that was why the house had not yet sold, why it had been on the market for so long with no takers, and it was why Barry felt confident that, if they did not tip their hand, they might be able to get the seller to drop the price.

He looked away. "Tear off the paneling," he told Maureen, "repaint the walls, install new carpet, junk the furniture, no one would even recognize this place."

"I like the windows," she said. "Whoever built this house planned it smartly."

That was true. The tri level house seemed to have been constructed in order to take full advantage of the breathtaking scenery. There were three bedrooms: a huge master bedroom with an adjoining deck directly below them that offered a view only slightly less spectacular than the one they were enjoying now, another smaller bedroom on the same floor, and, directly above that, on the top floor, the third bedroom, which had French doors opening on to a small balcony overlooking the driveway. The living room, through which a person entered the house, was the sole space on the middle floor, and the ceiling here was two stories high, with extra-tall windows facing the empty and heavily wooded lot on the up side of the hill. Twin carpeted stairways led either down to the bottom level or up to an open dining room kitchen area on the top.

"I want to make an offer," Maureen said. "This is the house."

"Just don't appear too eager. We need some wiggle room here."

Maureen nodded. "I know." "They're asking a hundred and ten thousand."

"We can probably get them to knock off ten or fifteen."

From down in the driveway, they heard Doris' car door slam, and Barry motioned for Maureen to be quiet as they waited for the real estate agent to return.

"Found them!" she announced cheerfully, entering the house and climbing the steps to the upper level.

Barry opened the sliding screen and walked back into the house, and Maureen followed. The real estate agent spread a packet of papers across the top of the ugly dining room table. "As I told you before, they're asking one-ten. There's a new septic system, installed just last year, that incorporates the latest technology, meets all federal standards, and has a service agreement that remains in effect until you pay off the mortgage. You have a quarter of an acre, and of course the ridge behind the neighborhood as well as all of the land on the west side, out to the highway, is national forest land. So no one can build. Your views will remain unobstructed. The house itself has a ten-year termite warranty, with free yearly inspection and, if necessary, fumigation. There's also a ten-year warranty for all plumbing and electrical wiring, which, believe me, is a godsend." She looked up. "You want me to go on?"

"We're interested," Barry told her.

Doris' face lit up, her already animated features suddenly invested with a new and even greater enthusiasm. She continued running down the attributes of the house and lot, the specifics of all attendant deal sweeteners, before Maureen finally stopped her and said, "I think we're ready to make an offer."

Barry nodded.

The agent smiled widely. "Let's go back to the office, then, shall we?"

They went downstairs and outside, Barry and Maureen walking around the edge of the driveway, looking around at the pine trees andmanzanita bushes on the property while Doris locked up the house.

"Whoever buys this house is getting one heck of a good deal," the agent said as they got into her car, Maureen slipping into the passenger seat in front, Barry sitting in the back.

"Well, not that good a deal," Barry said. "The house has been on the market for quite a while and no one's wanted it. If it was a real bargain, someone would've snatched it up."

"The market's soft right now. But that's changing. Thisthing'll be worth two hundred next year." Doris guided the car down the sloping road, through the trees. She smiled. "Beautiful here, isn't it?

Smell that air? Smell the pine? Nothing like it."

They reached the wrought-iron gate blocking the foot of the street, slowing as they waited for hidden machinery to swing the gate open.

Maureen looked out at the sandstone sign flanking the gateway, where the name of the development, "Bonita Vista," was spelled out in green copper letters.

"That's the only thing I don't like," she said, turning back around.

"It seems sort of... snobbish. I don't really like the idea of living in a 'gated community.""

"The homeowners' association only recently put that in," Doris admitted. "And there are quite a few people who don't like it. On the one hand, it offers you privacy and keeps up property values. But the fire chief opposed its installation because it blocks access.

Although," she added quickly, "you should have no trouble escaping if there's a forest fire. The gates open outward, and you don't need to punch in a code to leave."

Barry leaned forward. "There's a homeowners' association?"

"Yes. I'm afraid you are required to pay homeowners' association dues.

That's usually around a hundred or two hundred a year. I know a lot of people don't like associations, but in an area like Bonita "Vista, they're a necessity."

"Why?" Maureen asked.

"Because it's unincorporated. You're outside the town limits, and since the county maintains only dirt roads, the association is responsible for paving the streets and all improvements like ditches, abutments, what have you. It's the association that put in the street lights, that maintains all ditches and storm drains, that will put in any sidewalks or signs."

"What if someone doesn't want to join?"

"It's not an option. If you buy in Bonita Vista, you are required to belong to the association. But there are other benefits, too. There's a communal tennis court for members, and they're talking about putting in a clubhouse and swimming pool."

The road wound between two low hills covered with old-growth ponderosas before hitting the highway. Doris waited for a roofing truck to pass before turning left and heading into town.

Barry smiled. He liked the idea of having to go Into town, of it being a town instead of a city. Hell, he liked the whole damn thing. When they'd first started talking about moving out of southern California, when they'd looked at their options and discussed their preferences, this had been exactly the type of place he'd imagined, and he could hardly believe their good fortune at having discovered such a picture-perfect location.

Truth to tell,Corban wasn't much of a town. The population was somewhere around three thousand, and while there were a few restaurants and gas stations, a rundown hotel, a couple of shops, and a market, there was no Store, no fast-food franchises, no tourist traps, none of the usual amenities that made rural America palatable to city dwellers like themselves.

But he liked that.

And he knew Maureen did, too. This wasn't Aspen or Jackson Hole or Park City, one of those co-opted communities that had turned into playgrounds for Hollywood's elite and the ultra-rich. This was a genuine small town in a non trendy part of Utah, where real people had real jobs, a place where the wave of service industries cresting over the rest of the nation had not yet reached.

The real estate office was a doublewide trailer across the street from a converted house that served as the Corban library, and Doris swung into the microscopic parking lot, braking to a halt with the skid of fat tires on gravel.

Barry got out of the car and looked up at the hill where their house was.

Their house.

He was already starting to think of it as theirs, though they had not even made an offer. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

The three of them walked up the rickety outside steps into the office, where an overweight man and an underweight woman sat at desks in the larger of the trailer's two rooms, unhappily staring into space.

"Good afternoon all!" Doris announced cheerfully, and falsely happy expressions appeared on the faces of her coworkers. The man immediately picked up his phone and started dialing, the woman began shuffling papers.

"Let's go into the conference room." Doris led the way past the desks and into the trailer's other room, a smaller space dominated by what looked like a dining room table.

The agent closed the door as they sat down. "All right," she said.

"As you know, the asking price is one-ten."

"The price is a little steep," Barry said.

"Especially for a house that ugly," Maureen added.

"It needs a lot of work."

"A complete makeover."

Doris laughed. "I understand. How about I offer a hundred?"

"How about you offer ninety-five?"

"I have to tell you: there's no guarantee the seller will come down at all, let alone fifteen thousand. But let me make a few calls and see what we can do." She motioned toward a coffeepot and a pile of Styrofoam cups placed on top of a low bookshelf at the opposite end of the room. "Have some coffee if you want. I'll be back."

They waited until Doris left, closing the door behind her.

"How high are we willing to go?" Barry asked.

Maureen met his gaze. "I like that house."

"It's not a bad price even at full." He stood and started pacing around the room. "But it's a big decision. Should we be rushing into it like this? Maybe we should take a few days, think about it."

"We have thought about it. And we've been looking for a while now.

This is exactly the kind of place we wanted and, as you said, it's a fair price. And if we can get them to lower it even more..."

Barry looked out the small window. "You're right." He walked over to pour himself some coffee and grimaced as he took a sip. "How much you think they'll counter with?"

Maureen shrugged. "Who knows? I'm hoping, after all the wrangling's over, that we'll at least be able to knock four or five off."

He sat back down at the table and they waited for Doris' return.

A few minutes later, there was a knock, and Doris pushed the door open, walking in. "I called the seller," she said, "and offered ninety-five."

"And?" Barry prodded.

Doris smiled. "You've got yourselves a deal."

The first thing Barry unpacked was the stereo.

He wasn't used to the quiet, to die absence of cars and sirens and soccer game screams--the sounds of a city on a Saturday--and the silence of the country made him nervous. Besides, he thought, it would be nice to hear some tunes while they unpacked, and he set up the various components while the others continued bringing in boxes from the truck and van.

He still had cartons of vinyl albums from his college days, and he put on something they could all agree upon—Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick--cranking up the volume and facing the speakers toward the door before walking back outside.

"Whoa!" Dylan said, grinning. "Head music!"

Maureen rolled her eyes. She elbowed Barry's side as she headed into the house carrying a pile of clothes. "Thanks a lot."

She was not thrilled with the fact that Jeremy and Chuck had left their wives back in California, or that Dylan had come at all, but they'd elected to rent a giant U-Haul truck rather than hire movers, and mere was no way the two of them could have loaded and unloaded everything themselves.

Jeremy pulled a dripping six-pack out of the ice chest in his now nearly empty van. "Unpacking fuel!" he announced. "Get it while it's cold!"

The rest of them took a break while Barry made up for lost time and started unloading the U-Haul, carrying out lamps, chairs, and cartons of kitchen items. Maureen remained inside, trying to find the box containing the pots, pans, and cans of soup she'd intended to heat up for lunch.

In the driveway, Dylan, Jeremy, and Chuck had finished their beers and were tossing cans back into the van.

"That hit the spot," Chuck said.

"Sure you don't want one?" Jeremy called out.

Barry shook his head, and Jeremy closed the lid of the ice chest.

"Cool!" Dylan said. "Look at this!" He pointed over at the house's mailbox, a rural rounded red-flagger situated on top of a short pole.

Like Barry, Dylan had probably only seen such mailboxes in movies, and Barry watched as his Mend walked over, flipped the little red flag up and down, then leaned forward and pulled open the metal door.

He leaped back. "Jesus!"

"What is it?" Barry asked, hurrying over.

Dylan didn't answer, but Barry immediately saw for himself. A dead cat had been shoved into the mailbox, and its twisted head and crooked paws were facing outward, the blood-matted fur crawling with ants. A line of the insects was marching into the empty hole that had been the animal's right eye. The smell was disgusting, and he instinctively stepped back, covering his nose.

Jeremy and Chuck showed up behind them and peeked in.

"Probably just kids," Chuck said.

Jeremy whistled and shook his head. "Pretty sick kids."

Barry looked around, saw that Maureen was still in the house, and quickly closed the mailbox door. "Don't say anything to Mo," he said.

"She'll freak about this. I'll just clean it out later. I don't want to stress her out on our first day here."

Chuck and Jeremy nodded as Dylan saluted smartly. "Yes, boss," he said.

"Come on. Let's finish unpacking."

With all three of them working, they were able to pull out the big furniture--the couches and dressers and bookcases and beds--swearing as they attempted to maneuver the bulkier objects through the house's front door. They stopped for lunch, eating soup and crackers on the upper deck, then went immediately back to work, but the dead cat remained at the forefront of Barry's mind. He had no idea how he was going to get the animal out. The mailbox was too small to handle a shovel--his preferred method for disposing of dead animals--and the only thing he could think of to do was put on a pair of rubber gloves and pull out the body. He had no idea if the dead cat had any diseases, if handling a rotting corpse like that would spread contamination, and he decided he would do it this afternoon, have one of his friends help him while the other two kept Maureen occupied.

But Maureen was with them throughout the rest of the day, carrying the smaller boxes, jumping into the back of the truck to decide what would go into the house and what would go into storage, directing them where to put what.

They made an effort to put the bigger items in their permanent places, but the rest of the stuff they simply piled against various walls, making sure there were still walk able pathways as the piles grew out into the centers of the rooms. The leftover furniture that had come with die house was shoved into the two small bedrooms. It would be sold at a garage sale eventually, and whatever didn't sell would be donated to Goodwill or Salvation Army or whatever thrift store they had in this town. Maureen told Dylan, Chuck, and Jeremy that if there was anything they wanted, they should feel free to take it.

The remaining boxes and furniture they took to the storage unit Barry had rented in town. Maureen stayed home since there wasn't enough room in the truck cab for all of them. A sour old man in a Deer-o paint cap let them in the gate of the storage facility, and they pulled the truck in front of the dented metal door marked space 21, unloading everything fairly quickly. As Barry closed and locked the door, he could feel a dull soreness in his leg and arm muscles that he knew would explode into full fledged pain by tomorrow. It had been a long time since he'd done any heavy manual labor, and between last week's packing and today's unloading, his neck and back already hurt.

"Miller time!" Jeremy announced. He'd brought his ice chest, placing it by his feet in the cab, and he reached up and opened it, then started tossing out beers.

Barry popped open the can he caught and took a long swig. The four of them stood in front of the storage unit, drinking, celebrating the end of a long and tiring day.

Chuck looked around at the surrounding scenery. "Why Utah?" he asked Barry. "I mean, it's beautiful and all, but, shit, it's so far away from everything. What are you going to do out here in the middle of nowhere?"

"The same thing I did back in California: write."

"You know what I mean."

Barry shrugged. "I never did all that much to begin with. I mean, hell, a big night out for us is dinner and a movie."

"But there's no movie theater here." "There's a video store. And we can always drive over to Cedar City if we have to. It's only two hours away and it has movie theaters, a college, a Shakespeare festival, pretty much anything you could want." He finished downing the last of his beer. "But that's small stuff, that's not important. The reason we're out here is because this is where we want to live, this is the type of environment we want to spend the rest of our lives in. We're not getting any younger, you know. It's time to start talking permanence, it's time to start setting down some roots."

"Your roots are in California."

"We want a transplant."

Jeremy shuffled his feet awkwardly. "How are you guys set for money?

Your books pulling in enough?"

"Yeah. AndMo'll be working, too."

Dylan snorted. "In this town? Where, the gas station?"

"She can pretty much hang out her shingle anywhere and get tax work.

And a lot of her old clients are staying with her, so she won't exactly have to start from scratch."

"Staying with her? How's that? They're going to drive through three states just for an accountant? I know she's good, but..."

"Fax. E-mail. Telephone. She doesn't have to actually meet with her clients to get their financial information." He grinned. "It's the age of the tele commuter dude. Get with the program."

Chuck shook his head. "You really think you're going to like living in a small town?"

Barry laughed. "It's the yuppie dream."

They had dinner that night at a steakhouse in Corban where they were the only customers and the waitress looked like Flo from the old TV

series Alice. They drank a lot and talked politics and culture, Maureen admonishing Jeremy and Chuck for abandoning their wives at home and depriving her of some much-needed female allies.

Back at home, they tried to figure out the sleeping arrangements. The old beds had been dismantled, and only their bed in the master bedroom had been set up. It was decided that Dylan, Chuck, and Jeremy would sleep on the floor in the dining room area--the only part of the house that wasn't completely overrun with unpacked junk.

Jeremy, always prepared, had brought along a sleeping bag, but Chuck and Dylan hadn't, and they spent twenty minutes pushing cartons and furniture aside, digging through boxes looking for blankets and pillows.

"Sleep tight," Maureen said after they were all settled. "Don't let the bed bugs bite."

"Are there bed bugs here?" Chuck asked.

"We don't know -what kind of critters there are," Maureen said cheerfully. "Good night."

"You're vicious," Barry told her as they walked down to the master bedroom. "Vicious."

In the morning, he was awakened by the sounds of movement from upstairs. He got out of bed without waking Maureen, quickly slipped on his jeans, and went up to the dining room, where Jeremy was rolling up his sleeping bag, and Chuck and Dylan were putting on their shoes.

Barry yawned, looking toward the kitchen. "I'm sorry we don't have any breakfast for you. I should've gone to the store yesterday and picked up some doughnuts or bagels or something."

Jeremy waved him away. "Don't worry about it. We'll grab something to eat on the road. We have a long trip today, and we need to get started early anyway."

It occurred to Barry for the first time that it might be a while before he had a chance to see his friends again. He felt sad all of a sudden, but it was a strange sadness, one tempered by a sense that though his old life was over, a new one was beginning.

"You guys want to take a shower or something first?"

Chuck shook his head, grinning. "No reason to. It's just us."

Jeremy picked up his sleeping bag. "Say good-bye to Mo."

"Say good-bye yourselves."

Barry turned around to see Maureen standing at the bottom of the stairs, bundled up in her bathrobe.

"Bastard," she said with a smile. "You weren't even going to wake me up."

"Sorry."

She stepped aside while Jeremy, Chuck, and Dylan walked down the steps to the living room. "See you guys," she said. "Thanks so much for all your help. We really appreciate it."

"No problem," Jeremy told her.

"You're welcome to come and visit anytime." She smiled. "Even you, Dylan."

He laughed. "A little out of the way for me, but thanks. It's the thought that counts."

"You got everything?" Barry asked.

"Didn't bring anything in," Chuck said. "It's still in the van."

Barry followed Jeremy, Chuck, and Dylan outside, while Maureen remained in the doorway. "Good-bye!" she called. "Have a safe trip! Drive carefully!"

"Always do," Dylan said.

"You planning to drive all the way back to Brea today?" Barry asked.

Dylan shook his head. "I think we're going to take an extra day. I

want to stop off in Vegas on our way back. Pull a Willie Nelson."

"Electric Horseman”

Dylan grinned. "You got it."

Barry reached into the right front pocket of his jeans, found the wadded five that he'd shoved in there after getting the change from dinner last night. "Well, while you're kicking back, why don't you actually play some of that Keno. I'll split the take with you."

"Deal."

Jeremy tossed his sleeping bag in the back of the van and closed the tailgate. None of them were buggers or touchy feely kinds of guys, but this seemed to call for more than a mere wave and a quick "Good-bye,"

and they stood around awkwardly, not ready to part but not willing to make that leap and share a genuinely emotional moment.

"Well," Chuck said, shuffling his feet, "I guess we'd better shove off."

"Yeah," Jeremy said.

Dylan nodded.

"Thanks again, guys. I really appreciate it." Barry looked back at Maureen, still standing in the doorway. "Both of us do."

Jeremy smiled. "What are friends for?"

Friends.

Barry realized that he would have to start from scratch and make new friends here. Neither he nor Maureen knew anyone within a five-hundred-mile radius or had relatives in any of the Four Corners states.

Jeremy and Dylan got into the van, and Chuck climbed into the U-Haul's cab. Barry had given Chuck the track's keys last night, as well as the rental paperwork, and he poked his head into the window of the cab.

"It's not due back until Thursday, and it's unlimited mileage, so if there's anything you need to haul or you need a truck for anything, feel free to keep it."

Chuck grinned. "Don't worry. I will."

"Call and let me know when it's back safe. And send me the receipt so I can double-check and make sure they're not ripping me off."

"You got it, chief."

Jeremy started the van, stuck his head out the window, and waved. "Good luck!"

"You're going to need it!" Dylan shouted and cackled.

Barry glanced over at the mailbox, and thought of the dead cat still shoved in there. He walked out to the edge of the driveway, waving, as Maureen yelled "Goodbye!" from the porch.

He watched the truck and van head down the hill, and he continued to stare down the street long after Jeremy's van was gone and the whine of the U-Haul's engine had faded into nothingness.

They held their garage sale the next weekend, taking out an ad in the local newspaper, the Corban Weekly Standard, and spending all day Friday pricing furniture and household items stored in the small bedrooms. They kept a few things--a clock radio, a punch bowl, a kerosene lamp--but most of the stuff that had come with the house was ugly as sin, and they were happy to clear it out. Barry had originally wanted to wait a little longer, so they'd have a better chance to sift through it all and see if there was anything they could use, but Maureen correctly pointed out that they had no room in either their house or the storage unit for all this crap, and the sooner they dumped it the sooner they could start fixing the place up.

"Nothing over ten dollars," she said as Barry placed a strip of masking tape on a hideous formica table and wrote down the price. "Our goal is to get rid of this junk, not make money."

"Yes sir," he said.

Saturday morning, they got up before dawn and started setting things up, laying out some of the smaller junk on metal folding tables that were also for sale, displaying the rest flat on the asphalt of the driveway. The furniture they arranged in such a way as to block off access to the lower deck and the steps that led up to the front door.

The classified ad clearly stated that the garage sale did not start until seven, but cars and trucks were parked on the road in front of the house two hours beforehand, hunched shapes visible in the half-light of the dawning morning, looking at street maps, reading newspapers, sipping thermos coffee. One obese woman, smoking an ash-heavy cigarette and carrying a huge canvas sack, actually got out of her car and walked up the driveway, intending to look over the sale items, but Maureen, putting last-minute prices on an old mop and bucket she'd found in the kitchen closet, told the woman firmly that the garage sale was scheduled to start at seven and it would not open a minute earlier. She could either leave and come back later or go to her car and wait.

It wasn't a garage sale really--they had no garage, not even a carport--but they were putting out quite a bit of stuff, and neither the woman nor any of the other early arrivals left. Instead, they waited patiently. Barry found it hard to believe that all of the ugly furniture and useless household goods that they wanted out of their home, this junk that they were willing to give away for free if necessary, could be of such interest to people.

There was the sound of a high-pitched meow, and Barry looked down to see a black cat bumping against his leg, looking up at him.

"Hey, Barney." He reached down to pet the cat. "How're you doing?"

The animal purred.

Barney had shown up on their lower deck midweek, yowling loudly, and Maureen had fed the cat milk and a can of tuna. The animal looked as though it was starving, and it was so grateful for the food that it had remained even after feeding, hanging around the porch, rubbing against their legs, purring whenever either of them walked out. Since then, it had spent each day hanging around, using the juniper tree next to the house as a ladder to climb from the lower to upper deck, sleeping on the welcome mat outside the front door. Barry had named it Barney, after Fred's best Mend in The Flintstones--a name to which it seemed to be responding.

He guessed that meant the cat was their pet.

He looked over at the mailbox, its metal glinting in the pink rays of the rising sun, and thought of the other cat.

The dead one.

He'd disposed of the body while Maureen was taking her shower last Sunday evening. Jeremy, Chuck, and Dylan had departed in the early morning, and he'd assumed he'd have time to himself during the day when he could take care of the problem, but he and Maureen had been together all morning and afternoon, and it wasn't until she took her shower before dinner that he had the opportunity to sneak out by himself.

Necessity, as they said, was the mother of invention, and for all his worrying about how he was going to get the animal's body out of the mailbox, when the time came and he realized that he would have maybe ten minutes at most to solve the problem, he wrapped his hands in a Hefty garbage bag, shoved them in the mailbox, yanked out the dead cat and turned the bag inside out. He quickly scrubbed out the inside of the mailbox with a sponge drenched in Lysol, and tossed the sponge into the bag as well, leaving the mailbox door open to air out. He quickly tied the Hefty bag shut and dumped it in the metal garbage can beneath the bottom deck before hurrying back inside, washing his hands in the upstairs bathroom and sitting down on the couch. He turned on the TV

just as Maureen emerged from downstairs to make dinner.

Two days later, the new cat showed up.

There was nothing connecting the two. The dead one had been white, this one was black. But their new pet was a constant reminder to him, and when the mail started midweek and he began going out to collect it every afternoon, he found himself thinking about that bloody carcass, about the ants crawling in the empty eyesocket .

He also found himself wondering why he hadn't told his wife about the dead animal. She wasn't a dainty flower, it wasn't anything she couldn't handle. Hell, she was the bug buster of the family, the one who killed every insect that crept into their house. She was the one who chopped up chicken fryers and gutted fish. She probably had a stronger constitution than he did.

So why had he kept it from her?

Why was he still keeping it from her?

He didn't know.

Barry sat down on a metal folding chair behind one of the tables and broke open the rolls of quarters, dimes, and nickels that he'd gotten Thursday from the bank, putting them in his cleaned-out tackle box.

Barney curled around his feet, purring.

Maureen went inside and made some coffee while he made last-minute adjustments, and she soon brought him out a doughnut and a cup of decaf.

The sun was up now, and there was a crowd milling around in the street and at the foot of the driveway. Barry looked at his watch, glanced toward Maureen, then waved them in. He was taken aback by the sudden frenzy that greeted his simple invitation, and for the rest of the morning it was all he could do to keep up as garage salers came and went, most not buying anything, some picking up a few items, several trying to bargain him down from the marked price. One old man bought all of the tools for sale. One woman purchased all of the kitchenware.

Another woman paid for the garish dining room set, told him that her husband would be by later to pick it up in his truck, then returned after a half hour and asked for her money back.

The man with the clipboard showed up just after ten.

It was a thick crowd, with cars parked on the street half a block in either direction and the yard filled with intense looking bargain hunters, but the man immediately distinguished himself from the pack by his utter lack of interest in the items for sale. Tall and thin, with a prim face and the brand-name casual clothes of a dyed-in-the-wool yuppie, he seemed more interested in the house, in their car, and in the people milling around.

Barry glanced over at Maureen and caught her eye. She'd noticed, too, and he waited until the man had come near the table before calling out, "Hey there!" and motioning him over.

There was no smile on the man's serious face as he stopped writing, looked up from his clipboard, and focused on Barry. "Is this your house?" the man asked.

"Yeah. I'm Barry Welch. What can I do for you?"

The man nodded. "My name is Neil Campbell. I'm from the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association. I'm writing you up."

Barry frowned. "Writing me up?"

"Garage sales, yard sales, sales of any sort are prohibited within Bonita Vista. The guidelines are very clear on this point."

"I didn't know," Barry said. "No one told me."

"You have not gotten your copy of the C, C, and Rs ?"

"I don't even know what that is."

The man smiled thinly. "You can be excused this time, since you have not yet received our C, C, and Rs , but in the future you will have to abide by the same rules and regulations the rest of us follow." He made a little note on his clipboard. "I'll suggest to the board that you not be fined but merely issued a written reprimand. That should satisfy the requirements and the sticklers on the board." There was another thin smile, as if Campbell was trying to suggest that he was one of the more liberal and lenient members of the homeowners'

association, but the smile suggested no such thing.

Then a woman wanted to pay for a pair of pink pillows, and a teenage boy wanted to buy a beanbag chair, and by the time Barry had taken the money and counted out the change, Campbell was gone.

"What was that all about?" Maureen asked.

"Apparently, we're in violation of the homeowners' association's bylaws. That guy was here to write us up and issue a fine, but we got off with just a warning,"

"A fine? What does that mean? Can they do that?"

Barry shook his head. "I don't know. I guess we'll have to look into it."

"I knew it was bad news when I heard there was a homeowners'

association. Remember Donna and Ed in Irvine? They couldn't even put up a basketball backboard on their garage." Maureen frowned. "I was hoping it'd be different out here. Doris said that the association just paved the roads and did, like, maintenance work."

"She's a real estate agent. And she was trying to sell us the house.

What did you expect, honesty?"

"Silly me."

People came in waves after that. There would be ten minutes with no activity, then suddenly four cars would arrive at once and the driveway would be overrun with parents, children, and single adults all searching through different boxes for different things.

As the crowds thinned and the furniture began to be loaded onto pickups and hauled away, Maureen went inside, leaving Barry to handle things alone.

It was during one of the slow times that a burly older man walked up and started sorting through a box of odds and ends. Friendly looking, with a ruddy face, thick white mustache, and round wire-framed granny glasses, he did not seem to be particularly interested in the few leftover items for sale, and after a quick cursory glance at the box's contents, he wandered over to Barry's table. "Howdy," he said. "You just move in?"

"Last weekend," Barry told him.

The man smiled. "Had a visit from the association yet?"

Barry nodded wearily. "Yeah."

The man laughed, held out his hand. "I'm your neighbor. Ray Dyson.

Sworn enemy of the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association."

"My name's Barry. Barry Welch." He shook the proffered hand.

Two cars pulled up on the street and parked. Three elderly women emerged from one, a tired-looking man with a scrawny overalled boy got out of the other.

Barry turned his attention back to his new neighbor. "So you're not a fan of the association either, huh?"

"To put it mildly."

"Thank God. At least I'm not all alone here."

"Oh, hell no. There are quite a few people who have run afoul of those assholes. Most of 'emare too intimidated to say anything, but they're with you in spirit. I can tell you that much."

"Most of the people today have seemed nice," Barry admitted.

"Oh, they're not from Bonita Vista. They're from town. You're not going to get anyone from Bonita Vista brave enough to buck the rules and actually attend a yard sale." He chuckled. "Except me."

Barry looked out at the two cars. "But how did they get through the gate?"

"Someone broke the gate last night. It's open now until they get it repaired. Happens every month or so. Some contractor or roofer who's working on a job here forgets the entry code, gets ticked off, and rams the gate." Ray nodded at his fellow garagesalers . "That's the only reason they're here. If everything was normal and the gate wasn't busted, you would've come out here today and waited and waited and not a damn person would've shown up."

"Except you."

"Except me."

Barry sighed. "We just got here. We haven't even finished unpacking.

I don't want to tick anybody off just yet. Maybe we should just lay low for a while, try to get on the association's good side and hope they don't bother us."

"The association's good side?" Ray chuckled. "No such thing. And these bastards are so used to having things their way that they don't even pretend to be nice. The problem is, the courts always take their part. I threatened to sue once, and I found out that no one would take my case because I had no legal grounds. It seems unconstitutional to me, but apparently homeowners' associations have the right to make you pay dues, to make you conform to their standards, to trespass on your property in order to ensure compliance. They can require you to join and force you to abide by their rules even if it's against your will.

That's especially ironic since we're in what they call a 'right to work' state. Which means that even if you work in a union shop, you can't be compelled to join the union. Exactly the opposite of the situation here." Ray leaned forward. "In case you can't tell, I'm an old union man." "Where are you from?" Barry asked. "I mean, originally. I assume you're not from Corban ."

"New Jersey. I'm a retired transit worker. We moved out west because of my asthma. Besides, my wife has family in Salt Lake City."

"But you like it here, right? I mean, overall?"

Ray shrugged. "Sure, I guess. The scenery's beautiful, we have four seasons a year, I live in a great house, and I've met a lot of nice people, made a lot of friends. It's a wonderful place to retire."

"But?"

"But the association is way too intrusive, and it's such a... pervasive influence here. I blame the board. The association's board of directors is made up of old busybodies with no hobbies and no lives who get their jollies harassing people and snooping around to make sure everyone's conforming." He nodded at Barry. "Who'd they send after you? Who came out this morning?"

"I don't know. The guy introduced himself, but I forgot his name."

"Youngish? Short hair? Serious face? Prissy?"

"Sounds like him."

Ray nodded. "Campbell. He's fairly new, just moved in last year, but already he's their little toadie Hopes to be elected to the board once one of those geezers croaks."

"If the association's so bad, why don't people elect some new board members? Or just disband the organization entirely?"

"Maybe I gave you the wrong impression. Don't get me wrong, there are people like me who don't like them. But we're very definitely in the minority. Most of the homeowners here love having an association. They want to live in a gated community where there are strict maintenance standards and everyone's forced to keep up their property values." He smiled. "Welcome to Bonita Vista."

"Great."

Ray laughed. "So what do you do for a living?"

"I'm a writer," Barry said.

The thick eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

"I write horror novels. You know, like Stephen King."

"Stephen King, huh?"

"Well... not exactly. I say that so people will understand the type of books I write. I used to just say 'horror' and leave it at that, but people were introducing me as their friend the science-fiction writer or their friend the mystery writer, and I don't write science fiction or mysteries. The Stephen King comparison seemed to clear that up."

Ray shook his head. "A writer. That's pretty exciting. I don't think I've ever met a real writer before. Where can I get your books?"

"Around here?" Barry chuckled. "I doubt if you can. But they're at most of the big chains. I'll give you a copy of the newest one next time I see you."

"Autographed?"

"Sure."

Ray leaned forward. "You know, this might work in your favor. I'll spread the news, play up the fact that you're a big-name celebrity, a rich and famous writer. It might intimidate the board into leaving you alone."

"You think so?"

"Can't hurt."

Barry nodded. "Feel free to lie. You can tell them I am Stephen King, if you want to. Anything to keep them off my back."

"No guarantees, but I'll spread the word."

Two new cars pulled up, twin families emerging from the four-doored vehicles. One of the elderly women who'd been looking through the displayed junk stepped up to Barry's table with a vase and a set of place mats in hand, and Ray waved good-bye as Barry tallied up the woman's total. "I'll stop by later in the week," Ray said, "once you guys've gotten settled."

"Nice to meet you, Ray." Barry waved, then turned his attention back to his customer.

It arrived in their mailbox the next day. The Bonita Vista Homeowners'

Association Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions--the promised C, C, and Rs . Thicker than the Corban phone book, it was a perfect bound document filled with nearly a hundred single-spaced pages of text, all written in dense legalese. Barry sat down, tried to read it, got through about half a page, then tossed the booklet over to Maureen. "Here you go. Some light reading material."

She glanced through a few pages, then threw it onto one of the unpacked boxes. "It looks pretty thorough," she said.

"I assume that means that loopholes will be hard to come by."

"Then thank God I'm a rich and famous writer who will be treated with deference and respect and won't be bound by the petty rules of mortals."

She laughed. "Dream on."

"I think that's a song cue!" He rushed over to the stereo and quickly put on an old Aerosmith album. Turning up the volume, he held out his hands, and soon they were dancing through the living room, weaving between the boxes and twirling around the furniture to the music of their adolescence.

The Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions Article III, Land Use Classifications, Permitted Uses and Restrictions, Section 3, Paragraph A:

No yard sales or garage sales may be conducted in, on, or from any Lot or any portion of the Properties.

Maureen was not sure she liked Bonita Vista.

It was not something she would ever admit to Barry. And it wasn't a strong feeling or a definite mind-set. It was more a vague recognition that perhaps her impression of the neighborhood wasn't as favorable as she'd expected it to be.

Part of it was the snotty letter they'd received from the homeowners'

association about their garage sale. Written in a formal yet clearly judgmental manner, it stated that they were in violation of the C, C, and Rs , which plainly declared that yard sales or garage sales were forbidden. The letter went on to say that they would be excused this time because of their ignorance of Bonita Vista rules and regulations, but in the future any such infraction would be punishable by a fine.

The letter wasn't all of it, though. Not even most of it. There was something else.

Only she didn't know what Outwardly, everything was fine. The few people she'd seen walking or jogging along the road seemed to be nice, the area was beautiful, and despite all of the work that remained to be done, she loved their house.

Except... Except those elements didn't gel the way they were supposed to. The nice neighbors, the beautiful environment, the perfect house, all of these were separate components, isolated attributes that were entirely unconnected.

And the whole was less than the sum of its parts.

But she refused to acknowledge any of this to Barry. She did not want to dampen his obvious pleasure with her unfounded impressions.

Besides, the feelings would probably pass.

They spent the next few weeks working on the house: repainting, wallpapering, transforming the dead dark space of their predecessors into a light, airy home that complemented their own furniture and did justice to the magnificent surroundings outside the generous windows.

They ripped out what paneling they could, papered over the rest, replaced the heavy brown drapes with white miniblinds , and pulled up the stained and rotted carpet in the bathrooms, sanding and buffing the hardwood floors underneath. Maureen had brought most of their house plants from California, even the ones she knew wouldn't survive the winter, and once the palms and ficuses were in place, once the spider ferns and hanging baskets were positioned in the corners and near the windows of the various rooms, the house looked 100 percent better.

It was Barry who discovered the sealed envelope in the master bedroom.

He was in the process of painting the inside of the closet and was dusting off the top shelf before applying his brush to it when he suddenly stopped and said, "What's this?"

Maureen looked over from where she'd been painting the window frame next to the bed. "What?"

He walked over, carrying a sealed business-size envelope. It was covered with a layer of dust and addressed to "New Homeowners." She took it from his hand. There was definitely something inside, a document or letter, and she held it up to the window, trying to see if the backlight would illuminate the envelope's contents.

"What do you think we should do?" he asked.

"I don't know. You think this was meant for us?"

Barry shrugged. "We are the new homeowners. Although this thing definitely looks like it's been sitting around for a while."

"Let's open it." She ripped one end of the envelope and used a fingernail to pry open the stubborn paper. Inside was a note on plain white stationery, black ink in a man's sloppy, hurried hand.

We are not leaving voluntarily, the note said. You need to know that.

We are being forced out of our home. It could happen to you, too. For your own protection, write down EVERYTHING!! Names, dates, witnesses.

They're doing it, they're keeping track of all of it. Don't think they aren't. You'd better, too.

Don't let them see this letter. Burn it after you read it.

The note was neither signed nor dated, and Maureen looked up at Barry as she finished reading the message. It was confusing and didn't make a whole lot of sense, but the obviously earnest and paranoid tone gave it urgency and immediacy despite the layer of dust on the outside of the envelope. The feeling within her was one of unease. "What is this?"

Barry shook his head, baffled. "I don't know."

"I don't think it was meant for us. It's obviously been sitting up there for a long time."

"Maybe kids left it. You know, when we were little, my sister and I

buried a fake treasure map before we left Napa, hoping that whoever dug it up later would think it was real and try to search for the treasure.

Maybe this is something like that. A prank."

"Maybe," she said doubtfully.

"Well, what do you think it is?"

"I have no idea. But it seems totally serious to me. I don't mean that we should take it seriously, but it seems like whoever wrote it was dead serious and was trying to get across what he thought was important information."

Barry took the note from her, glanced over it again. "What do you think we should do with it?"

"Throw it away," Maureen told him. She knew it was stupid, knew it was superstitious, but the idea of having that scribbled warning sitting in their house spooked her a little. "It's old, and it's not even ours.

There's no reason to keep it."

Barry nodded. "Yeah. You're right." He wadded up the envelope and note and tossed them both into the plastic garbage sack in the middle of the floor.

"Weird," he said, walking back to the closet. "Very weird."

Other than that, the remodeling proceeded smoothly. The combination of high altitude and manual labor tired them out and led them to bed each night well before their usual time of eleven, but their days were full, they got a lot of work done, and gradually the house began to take shape.

Outside, they cleared brush, trimmed dead branches off the trees, and planted flowers and shrubs that Maureen bought at Corban's only nursery, a mom-and-pop operation adjacent to the Shell station. Under the lower deck, Barry found not only a working wheelbarrow but part of an antique plow, which Maureen strategically placed in the patch of dirt next to the driveway in order to give the front of the house a more rustic look.

It was their third Friday in their new home, and they'd been working on the sloping section of the lot on the north side of the house and were returning from one of their numerous trips to the dump when Ray Dyson flagged them down. The old man was walking down the hill as part of his afternoon constitutional, and Barry slowed the Suburban, rolling down his window. "Hey, Ray."

The old man nodded. "Barry. Maureen. I was wondering if you two would like to come by for dinner tonight. Liz and I would love to have you."

Barry looked over at Maureen, who glanced down at her filthy clothes, at the work gloves she'd tossed on the floor. She shook her head.

Barry smiled. "I don't think so. Some other time maybe."

"Come on. It's not anything formal. Hell, come as you are and wash your hands in our sink if you want. There's no standing on ceremony with us. It's just that Liz is making a batch of her spaghetti sauce, and we thought it'd be nice to have you guys over." He looked at Maureen through the open space between Barry and the steering wheel.

"Save you from having to cook tonight. No work, no dirty dishes afterward. Come on. It'll be fun."

That did sound tempting, she had to admit, and when Barry looked back at her once again, she nodded. "All right."

"Great! What time can we expect you?"

"What time do you want us?"

"Six?"

Barry nodded. "Sounds good."

"You know which house is ours, right? The redwood one you can see from your driveway. Twelve-twelve Ridge Road. Number's on the mailbox."

"We'll find it."

"See you at six, then." Ray nodded to them, waved, and continued his walk down the hill.

Barry had been planning to start on a stump that needed to be dug out, but the afternoon was getting late and they were both tired, so they went inside to clean up. Maureen took a bath in the downstairs bathroom while he took a shower upstairs. He finished well before she did, and when Maureen emerged dressed and refreshed, she found him lying on the couch dead asleep, CNN blaring loudly on the television.

She quietly grabbed a few magazines from the coffee table and went upstairs to read on the deck, letting him rest.

They left the house at quarter to six. Barry had wanted to drive, but there was the beginning of a beautiful sunset, and Ray's house was close, less than a block away. "You have to get out of that California mind-set," she told him. "There's no reason to drive everywhere. Especially on a gorgeous day like today." She motioned west, toward pink clouds that ringed the setting sun.

"You're right," Barry admitted. "Habit."

Even after all of their yard work the past week, both she and Barry were pitifully out of shape, and they were huffing and puffing as they walked up the hill to Ray's house. They slowed the pace for the last couple of yards, trying to catch their breath, and finally stopped to rest at the edge of the Dysons’ gravel driveway.

"Jesus," Barry said. "This altitude's a killer."

Maureen took his hand, pulled him forward. "Come on. My throat's dried out. The sooner we get in there, the sooner we can get something to drink."

Ray had stopped by a couple of times to chat while they were working in the yard, but this was the first opportunity for either of them to meet his wife. Liz Dyson was a petite elderly woman with a sophisticated demeanor who seemed an odd fit with the earthier Ray, but after only a few minutes with the couple, Maureen could see how the two complemented each other, and she thought them a good match.

After some obligatory introductory chitchat, Liz brought glasses of wine, and Ray led them all on a tour of the house.

Which was spectacular.

The Dysons’ place was like something out of a home decorating magazine.

Maureen thought their house had quite a view, but it was nothing compared to their hosts'. The sun had still not set completely, and the fire-red sky illuminated hundreds of miles of forests and canyons, little opalescent glints in the landscape marking tin-roofed ranch houses, miner's shacks, and windmills. Below them, the town of Corban was shrouded in shadow from the surrounding hills and mountains, and lights were blinking on in downtown buildings. It was a breathtaking panorama that put to shame any postcard shot she'd ever seen, and the line of windows that made up the south-facing wall of the Dysons’ living room and overlooked this magnificent vista curved gracefully in an almost perfect half-circle. The room itself was furnished rustically with lodgepole-pine tables and chairs, a southwestern print couch, and a glass-topped coffee table with a tree stump base.

They went from there to the kitchen. It was huge, with an indoor grill built into the Mexican-tiled island between the refrigerator and sink.

A greenhouse window faced the side of the property and a terraced garden. There was a gigantic pot of spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove, and the entire room smelled deliciously of garlic and onion and spices.

The master bedroom, guest bedroom, and den were sparsely and tastefully furnished, and Maureen found herself wondering where Ray and Liz kept all their... stuff. Where were the photographs of friends and family, the collected knicknacks , the tangible personal effects that represented their past? Had the two of them simply thrown out the accumulations of their East Coast life when they moved out here? It didn't make any sense, but it seemed so. She and Barry had more junk in one room than the Dysons seemed to have in then- entire house, and it was hard to believe that two such homey old people were so completely unsentimental.

But it was not her place to wonder, and as they walked back out to the living room, she complimented their hosts on having such a beautiful house.

Liz smiled graciously. "Thank you."

Ray grinned. "Sure beats Hackensack." He patted Maureen's arm, motioned for Barry to come and look at his new wide screen TV, and as the two men started talking electronics, Maureen followed Liz into the kitchen.

The older woman removed a checkered apron from a hook on the pantry door and put it on, and Maureen had to smile. She'd never seen anyone actually wear an apron outside of movies and early television programs, and the gesture seemed quaint and endearingly old-fashioned.

Liz stirred the spaghetti sauce and looked over at her. "So do you have a job outside the house, or are you a full time homemaker?"

"I'm an accountant."

Liz's face lit up. "Really? Me too! I was an auditor back in New Jersey. Doyle, Bell, and McCammon . Thirty years. What's your specialty?"

"Taxes, primarily, although I handle some payroll and related accounts.

I'm an EA, although that's not something that often comes up."

"I bet it helps to lure in the clients, though."

Maureen laughed. "It doesn't hurt."

"Well, well, well. Another accountant." The older woman shook her head, smiling. "It'll be nice to have someone to talk to who speaks the same language."

Maureen had been thinking exactly the same thing. She liked Liz, and it was a load off her shoulders that the first woman she met in Utah was not some backward small town hick but worldly, smart, and sophisticated. She'd had visions of having to condescend to her companions, feigning interest in church bingo games and soap operas in order to have someone to talk with, and the fact that she'd met someone who was not only intelligent but had a background similar to her own filled her with relief.

The older woman walked over to the refrigerator, took out a head of lettuce and several plastic bags filled with vegetables, and Maureen asked if she could help. She was assigned the job of peeling cucumbers, and the two of them stood side-by-side in front of the long counter, preparing salad to accompany dinner--or "supper," as Liz called it.

They talked of trivialities, the safe subjects broached tentatively by two people just starting to get to know each other and not wanting to offend unfamiliar sensibilities. Despite the difference in age, they were more alike than not, both of them gardeners, both avid readers, both hardcore fans of the Home & Garden channel, and Maureen found herself opening up. She asked Liz about their predecessors, the people who had lived in the house before she and Barry moved in, but Liz said she hadn't known the couple very well.

No one had. They weren't there long, less than nine months, and they kept pretty much to themselves. They'd come and gone without making a ripple, and the house had been empty for over a year since then.

The family before that was something else entirely. The Haslams --a husband, wife, and two sons--had been one of the first families in Bonita Vista, well known and well liked, and their departure had caused a stir. The family had practically disappeared, moving out suddenly in the middle of the night. They'd never returned, never called, never communicated with anyone else in the neighborhood again, something entirely out of character for them, particularly for the mother, Kelli, whom Liz knew quite well. Maureen thought to herself that it was a scenario consistent with the panic and paranoia of the note they'd discovered in the closet, and she told Liz about the warning, describing the way Barry had come upon it while cleaning and the creepy feeling she'd gotten reading the hyperbolic words. Ray walked in at that moment to refresh his and Barry's drinks, and he frowned as he listened to Maureen's description.

"That doesn't sound like Ted or Kelli."

"No, it doesn't," Liz said. "But Maureen's right. It fits in with their disappearance. Or at least it sounds like something that people fleeing in the middle of the night would write." She turned back toward Maureen. "You didn't save the note?"

"No. It was over a week ago, and I had Barry throw it away. I didn't want it in the house."

"You think Ted was doing something ... illegal?" Ray asked his wife.

Liz shrugged. "You knew him better than I did. I was close to Kelli and the kids, but I didn't know Ted that well."

"He was into computers," Ray explained. "He had some type of job with a defense contractor, debugging systems. Wasn't home that much. Spent a lot of time in Salt Lake City." He finished pouring the drinks and picked up the glasses. "I suppose that kind of job would make anyone paranoid. It just... doesn't sound like Ted."

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."

"Maybe they were out to get him."

"Who?"

"I don't know. The government? Maybe he was selling secrets or something. Who knows?"

Maureen turned toward Liz as Ray left the kitchen and returned to the living room. "But why would Ted or his wife try to warn us? If he'd done something wrong and the authorities were after him, it doesn't follow that the next residents of the house would be in danger."

"None of it makes any sense. The whole thing's strange."

Maureen recalled the spooky feeling she'd had reading the fervent words of the note. "Yes," she said, "it is."

They finished making the salad, Liz put a pot of water on the stove to boil, and the two of them walked back out to the living room to join the men.

"How would you feel about a party?" Liz asked, sitting down on the couch. "Sort of a 'get acquainted' get-together with some of our neighbors. Some of our more normal neighbors."

Maureen looked over at Barry. "That would be fun. We don't know anyone here, except you and Ray, and it'd be nice to meet people."

Barry nodded.

"Good. We'll set it up."

The rest of the evening passed by quickly, and Liz called the next day to find out if the following night was too short notice for the party.

"We're kind of informal here, and nearly everyone has their evenings free--I don't know whether you've noticed, but Utah is not exactly a hub of exciting nightlife--so if you don't mind, we could have a potluck tomorrow night to welcome you two to Bonita Vista."

"That would be fine."

Maureen volunteered to bring soft drinks, and Liz said that she'd work the rest of the details out with the other guests; all they had to do was show up at six.

The next night, Maureen and Barry were once again walking up the road to the Dysons’, this time carrying plastic grocery sacks filled with Coke and Sprite and Diet Pepsi. There were several cars in the driveway and on the street, and Barry, as she'd known he would, began making noises about ducking out early and leaving the party as soon as possible.

Maureen stopped in her tracks. "We're staying," she said simply, "until / say it's time to go. We have a chance to start out on the right foot here, to make some friends and get to know our neighbors, and I don't want you being your usual boorish antisocial self. There's time enough for that later. Next time you can bail. But right now we're going to make a good impression."

It looked like he was about to argue, but the expression on her face must have conveyed her seriousness, because he sighed. "You win,"

Barry said, resigned. "I'll be on my best behavior and we'll stay to the bitter end."

As it turned out, he had a fine time, and he wanted to stay until the bitter end. Ray and Liz had chosen their guest list wisely, and the house was filled with a variety of people: some old, some young, some middle-aged, some married some single. Nearly all of them had homeowners' association horror stories, tales of run-ins they'd had with bureaucratic members of the board of directors, and Barry was in his element, railing against authority and conformity and exhorting them all to band together into a single voting block in order to oust the association's current board.

Afterward, they walked home tired, happy, and a little drunk. The night was moonless, and the black sky was filled with more stars than Maureen had ever seen in her life. Every so often, a meteor streaked across the heavens. She liked the Dysons . They were nice. And most of the other people seemed nice, too.

But despite it all, Maureen still wasn't sure she liked Bonita Vista.

Barry felt guilty. He had never gone this long before without writing, and while moving in and fixing up the house could be blamed for the first month of literary inactivity, this last week was entirely his own fault. He'd read, watched C-Span and CNN, viewed a couple of old horror flicks that he'd taped but had never gotten around to watching and he didn't write.

There was no fear of writer's block, no worry that he'd run out of ideas, but the rhythm just wasn't there, that routine he'd established since becoming a full-time author, and he found it hard to simply jump back into the grind after so much time off. He would have to get busy soon, he knew-the next book was due in six months and he hadn't even started on it yet--but for now, he seemed compelled to slack off. It was as if he was still in vacation mode, as though either his brain or his body had not adjusted to the fact that this was their new home and was waiting for him to return to California before once again settling down to work.

He sorted through the mail, separating the bills, tossing the ads and credit offers without even bothering to open the envelopes. There were no royalty checks, though they should be coming in any day now, but he had received one small press magazine and two postcards advertising up coming horror novels. He glanced over the postcards before throwing them in the trash pile, then perused the magazine. There were several short stories, some out-of-date movie reviews, and numerous letters to the editor from other writers either defending or attacking an up-and-coming author who had apparently made disparaging remarks on the Internet about one of the horror field's old guard. The letters were uniformly vitriolic, and Barry shook his head at such petty infighting.

It was why he didn't socialize much with other writers, why he assiduously avoided workshops and conventions and professional get-tog ethers The only author with whom he had any sort of relationship was Phillip Emmons, a suspense writer who had specifically looked him up at the lone horror convention he had attended because he had so enjoyed Barry's debut novel The Leaving. The two of them still corresponded, and Phillip had been sort of a mentor to him over the years: helping him choose a new agent; letting him know he was getting ripped off in a multi book contract; suggesting that he start retaining electronic as well as audio and movie rights to his work. Barry not only admired Phillip's fiction, he admired the man himself, and in many ways he was still trying to emulate the other author's personal style.

He remembered the way Phillip had handled hostile criticism the one time the two of them had done a signing together. It was at a bookstore in downtown L.A. soon after the convention. There was a lull in the crowd, and a middle aged, morbidly obese woman with a bitter, disappointed face confronted Phillip at the table and demanded to know why he wrote about such disgusting topics in such graphic detail. He was going to hell, she informed him, and he should cease writing such filth because it was corrupting his readers and society. God did not approve of what he was doing.

Phillip looked at her calmly. "The Good Lord has seen fit to make me rich, happy, and successful," he told her. "He has made you ugly, grotesquely overweight, and miserably unhappy. It seems to me that He has smiled upon me and shit right in your face. Maybe if you were a nicer person, He would have treated you better, but from where I sit, God has made His displeasure with you pretty plain. So fuck off and quit bothering me." He smiled at her and turned to Barry. "The Lord works in mysterious ways, my friend. The Lord works in mysterious ways."

Barry himself could never have reacted in such a manner. But, damn it, it was cool. And he admired Phillip all the more for how he handled the woman.

Afterward, they had talked of God, and Phillip said seriously that he believed in God but disbelieved in religion. "The Bible is God's word.

Why can't I just read it for myself and let Him speak directly to me?

Why do I have to have an interpreter between us? That's all organized religion is: a buffer between me and God. I'm sorry, but my faith doesn't need a bureaucracy to administrate it. Besides, every time you confront one of these fundamentalist wackos with a real question, they can't answer it. Ask a preacher why your mama died of cancer or why your little boy was hit by a car, and you'll get an "It's God's will,"

or "The Lord works in mysterious ways." In other words, they don't know. But they do know that God wants you to vote Republican and He's against raising taxes and for raising the defense budget and, despite the fact that it's His own creation, he desperately hates marijuana."

Phillip made a lot of sense. He was an intelligent guy. He was also very giving of his time, helping out quite a few other young authors besides Barry, and Barry had often thought that if other writers were as real and unpretentious and unconcerned with image, the horror field would be a hell of a lot better off.

He tossed the magazine aside. Maureen came up from downstairs, holding a stack of papers. "I'm done. The computer's all yours."

Barry shook his head. "That's okay. I think I'm just going to read this afternoon. You can have the computer."

"I thought you were going to start writing again," Maureen said.

"Maybe tomorrow," he said. "Maybe I'll start tomorrow."

He awoke to the sound of Maureen's fax. machine.

Barry squinted over at the clock and was surprised to see that it was almost eight. The light outside, seeping between the cracks of the miniblinds, looked too dark for eight, looked more like six, and he nudged Maureen next to him. "Get up. It's eight o'clock."

"What?" She opened one sleepy eye.

"It's late."

They'd both overslept, and it was the sound of the fax machine more than his prodding that made Maureen get out of bed and face the day. He turned onto his side and watched her bare buttocks as she padded naked over to the bathroom. Even after all these years, she still looked damn good, and if she didn't have so much work to do this morning and the fax wasn't prompting her to get started on it, he would've lured her back to bed and spent the next hour engaged in some dirty, nasty sex that was more than likely illegal here in the state of Utah.

But instead, he got up, slipped into his jeans, and went upstairs to put on the coffee. He took out the Friskies box and pulled open the shades on the sliding glass door, intending to feed Barney breakfast on the top deck, but the cat was nowhere to be seen. Barry walked back downstairs to the bedroom, where Maureen was already dressed and making the bed, but when he pulled the drapes open, there was again no sign of the cat.

"Huh," he said.

"What?"

"I can't find Barney."

"I told you we should make that cat sleep inside. There are coyotes, skunks, and who-knows-what out there. You'd better make sure he's okay."

Barry slid open the door, slid open the screen, and walked outside, shaking the Friskies box.

"Barney!" he called.

Nothing.

"Barney?" He shook the box again.

There were no noises in the bushes or in the tree that the cat used as a ladder between the upper and lower decks, and, frowning, Barry walked down the wooden steps off the deck and around to the front of the house.

Where he stopped.

The flowers they'd planted had been ripped out and thrown into the driveway between the Suburban and the Toyota. Uprooted rosebushes lay littered on the asphalt. Geraniums and impatiens, clods of dirt still sticking to their roots, draped the Suburban's white hood. Ms bulbs were strewn about like golf balls on a driving range.

Someone had sneaked onto their property in the middle of the night and destroyed their fledgling garden, had negated all of their hard work, and his first reaction was one of anger. He wanted to beat the shit out of whoever had done this. But there was unease mixed in there as well, and while it was probably just kids Pretty sick kids --he couldn't help feeling slightly disturbed by the fact that their house was the target of this vandalism, that they had been specifically chosen to be the recipients of this attack. His gaze shifted to the various areas they'd landscaped, and he saw that every last plant they'd put in had been pulled out of the ground or trampled. Their property looked as though a mini hurricane had hit it, and only pine trees and manzanitas seemed to remain standing.

And there was still no sign of Barney.

His gaze alighted on the mailbox.

With a sinking feeling in his gut, he walked around the Suburban. He stepped up to the mailbox and paused, then reached out and pulled open the rounded metal door.

There was nothing inside.

He let out a sigh of relief, unaware until that second that he'd been holding his breath. He'd been almost certain that he'd find the cat mutilated, its body stuffed into the mailbox, and he had never been so thankful to be wrong. He turned back toward the house, intending to bring Maureen out here and show her the damage, when he saw a glimpse of fuzzy black amidst the light green stems and deep magenta flowers that had been tossed onto the driveway between the cars.

He knew without looking closer exactly what that fuzzy black was, but he moved forward nevertheless, bending down to examine the object more fully.

Barney.

The cat was lying atop two discarded plants, and its dead open eyes were staring upward at the bumper of the Toyota. White foam was dripping from the animal's mouth onto the asphalt, where it had already puddle into an irregular pool. He wasn't an expert on these things, but he was pretty sure that Barney had been poisoned, and he hurried into the house, dragging Maureen away from her fax to show her the damage outside.

"My God," she breathed. She looked around the property at the upturned vegetation and the dead cat. "Who do you think did this?"

Barry shook his head, completely at a loss. They didn't know anyone here other than Ray and Liz and the other people they'd met at the Dysons' party, and his gut reaction was that it was probably an act of random vandalism perpetrated by bored teenagers looking for a thrill, but whether they were teenagers from town or the kids of parents who lived in Bonita Vista he had no idea.

Pretty sick kids.

"Do you think we should ... call the police?" he asked.

"Hell yes," Maureen said angrily. "I want the assholes who did this prosecuted. We spent almost a hundred dollars on those new plants--not to mention all the work we put into clearing brush. And they can't get away with killing Barney. I mean, what kind of creep would poison a defenseless little animal like that?"

He had no idea, but it made him furious as well. They hadn't had Barney long enough to feel real sadness at his loss, but they felt rage at what had been done, and he, too, wanted justice, his indignation fueled and amplified by Maureen's righteous anger, pushing aside his earlier uneasiness.

There was no police station in Corban , but he called the sheriff's office to report the vandalism, and twenty minutes later a tan Dodge with the sheriff's insignia painted on the doors pulled into the driveway. The deputy who emerged from die vehicle was not the stereotypical redneck he'd been expecting but a skinny unassertive kid who looked as though he were still in high school.

Barry and Maureen met him in the driveway.

"I'm Wally Addison," the deputy said, nodding. He was trying to look authoritative but didn't have either the face or the years to pull it off. He withdrew a metal clipboard from the front seat of the car. "I

understand you've had some vandalism on your property. You need this reported for your insurance?"

"No," Maureen said. "We want whoever did this caught."

"Caught?"

Barry frowned. "Of course."

"I'll be honest with you," the deputy said. "There's a lot of vandalism around these parts--people shooting up stop signs, tipping over cows, batting mailboxes, what have you--and unless there's an eyewitness, we hardly ever catch the people who do it."

Maureen looked at him levelly. "What does that mean? You're not even going to try?"

"No, no," he said nervously, trying to assure her. "We'll do our best to apprehend the culprit. I just wanted you to know that the odds of doing so are not in our favor."

"Well, we don't care about your past track record," Maureen said. "We expect you to find out who killed our cat and tore up our yard, and we expect you to arrest him."

"Of course, ma'am. Of course. Now if I can just get some information from you good people, we can get started..."

Barry described how he'd looked for the cat, going through his discovery step-by-step. Maureen stated that the last time she'd seen Barney had been after dinner, when she'd fed him some leftover chicken on the top deck. Neither of them had had any run-ins with neighbors or had seen any mysterious individuals lurking about; neither was aware of any grudges held against them or any reason why they would be targeted.

The deputy dutifully took everything down, and with an uncertain glance at Maureen stated that it sounded to him as though this was a random attack, probably carried out by trouble making teenage boys. But, he added hurriedly, the sheriff's department would do everything in its power to solve this case. He gave Barry a carbon of his report and a business card with his beeper number, promising to call as soon as there was any information to report.

Ray showed up before the deputy left, and he remained silent, staying unobtrusively in the background until the tan car pulled out of the driveway and headed back down the road. Maureen headed back inside the house, and Barry walked over to where Ray stood waiting.

"I saw the hubbub from my window," Ray said. "What's going on?"

Barry gestured around. "Take a look for yourself. Someone poisoned our cat and tore up Mo's plants."

"And you called the sheriff?"

"Of course. What did you expect me to do?"

"What I mean is: are you sure this was illegal? Did the sheriff or whoever that guy was give any indication that this wasn’t a crime?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The sheriff's office has been known to... assist the homeowners'

association in disputes with individuals."

"You think someone from the homeowners' association killed our cat?"

Barry asked incredulously.

Ray shrugged. "I'm not saying anything. I'm just pointing out that, under the bylaws, pets are prohibited in any residence within Bonita Vista." He was quiet for a moment, tilting his head. "Hear that? No dogs barking. I don't know if you've noticed, but there are no domestic animals of any kind within Bonita Vista. No dogs or cats, no hamsters, no goldfish." He met Barry's eyes. "No pets."

"But--"

"It's in the C, C, and Rs ."

Barry thought of the dead cat in the mailbox and found that he could not dismiss the idea entirely.

"What about the plants, though? This is vandalism. This isn't enforcement of regulations."

"You're supposed to get approval from the architectural committee before any landscaping changes are made," Ray said quietly.

He didn't believe it, not really, but the idea sent a quiet chill down his spine. Was it possible that someone from the homeowners'

association had come to their house in the middle of the night and, while they were sleeping, poisoned their cat and dug up their garden?

He recalled Neil Campbell, the man with the clipboard, and it didn't seem all that farfetched.

"But... people wouldn't put up with this, would they? I mean..." He shook his head. "Even in someplace like Utah--especially in someplace like Utah--it seems like people would be more ... individualistic, like they wouldn't want to get involved in things like homeowners'

associations."

Ray snorted. "For people who are so antigovernment and anti regulation they're pretty well sold on this association crap. I mean, hell, most of them are NRA members who pitch a shit fit every time there's so much as a whisper of trigger-lock legislation. But they have no problem with making a homeowner come before one of their damn committees if he wants to trim a tree or plant a flower. On his own property!"

"NRA members, huh?"

Ray waved his hand. "Don't let that scare you. I kicked one of 'em off my lot just last month. They're tough when they're sending out memos or holding a meeting, but one on-one, they're pussy-boys. Pardon my French."

"What happened? Why were they harassing you?"

"I put up a storage shed. It isn't even visible from the street, but apparently someone saw me unloading the materials from my truck and turned me in. It's like the goddamn Third Reich around here.

Everyone's an informant."

"Ray! Barry!" Barry looked toward the street, where Frank Hodges, one of the men he'd met the other night at Ray's house, was walking toward them, waving.

"I saw the sheriff's car. What happened?"

Barry went through it again, told how he'd been looking for the cat to feed it breakfast and had discovered the animal's dead body along with the uprooted plants.

Frank shook his head sympathetically.

"Ray says there's a prohibition against pets."

Frank nodded. "Yeah. The association doesn't want--" He stopped, frowned. "Wait a minute. Are you--?"

Barry gestured around at the damage. "We were wondering if this could be ... policy."

"No." He shook his head. "They might be jerks and uptight assholes, but they wouldn't do this. Destruction of property is the last thing they would authorize. The problem with the association is that they're too strict about upkeep of property, about making sure everyone conforms to their standards. There's no way they would deliberately vandalize a lot in Bonita Vista. They might clean it up for you and send you the bill, but they wouldn't damage it."

He had expected support from Ray, corroboration, but the old man was silent, and the expression on his face was one that Barry found unreadable.

Everyone's an informant.

Now he was just being paranoid.

He looked over at Frank.

Wasn't he?

He'd been planning to confide in the other man, share his thoughts openly, attempt to forge an ally, but instead he nodded absently and said, "Yeah, you're probably right." He did not look at Ray again.

He told the others that they were welcome to hang around and watch--or help, if they so desired--but he needed to get to work. There was a lot of cleaning up to do.

"Take pictures first," Frank suggested. "This is all probably covered under your homeowners' insurance."

"Good idea," Barry said. "Thanks."

Ray and Frank walked away, waving, and he watched them for a moment before heading around the side of the house to find a shovel and bury Barney.

The Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions Article III, Land Use Classifications, Permitted Uses and Restrictions, Section 3, Paragraph C:

No animal, fish, or fowl shall be kept, permitted, or maintained on any Lot. No Owner shall remove, alter, or interfere in any way with any shrubs, trees, grass, or plants without the written consent of the Association having first been obtained. No improvements, alterations, or other work which in any way alters the exterior appearance of any Property shall be made or done without the prior approval of the Architectural Committee.

The adjustment was easier than she'd expected.

Maureen had worried that she'd go stir crazy working at home rather than in an office, dealing with her clients over the phone, through E-mail, and by fax, but in truth it was liberating. Her life had been pared down to its essentials, and she loved it. Now, she could take time off in the middle of the day to watch a movie or read a book. If work became too frustrating or overwhelming, she didn't have to take a sick day, she could just opt out for a few hours, go outside, and dig in her garden. True, it was a little hard to get used to the lack of human contact and interaction, but Barry was always around, and anytime she wanted, she could walk up to the Dysons' and visit with Liz.

It was a good life, and despite the vandalism of their property, her initial reservations about Bonita Vista faded away with the passing of days.

As expected, the sheriff had failed to find whoever had killed Barney and dug up their yard, but luckily it had not happened again. They'd bought new flowers and shrubs, replanted, and for the past two weeks everything had been fine. Barry still seemed half-convinced that it was part of some sinister plot on the part of the homeowners'

association, but she had never put much stock in that theory and as the days and weeks passed, it began to seem more and more ludicrous.

She'd taken to walking each morning, going on a brisk twenty- to forty-minute stroll through the neighborhood, getting to know the area, acclimatizing herself to the altitude and engaging in some much-needed exercise. The more she explored, the more she liked Bonita Vista, and the more sure she was that they had made the right decision by moving here. The houses, spaced far apart on large lots, were uniformly well-kept yet distinctively individual, and the view in every direction was spectacular. Although she enjoyed the scenery to the south, that breathtaking panorama in which forest segued to desert canyon land and the horizon was so far away that you could see the curve of the earth, in truth she preferred the view to the north, and it was when she was walking up the bill, facing the heavily wooded plateau directly behind Bonita Vista, that she felt most at home, that she felt a part of this place.

Maureen strode purposefully down the sloping street that went around the back of their hill. Most of the houses here were vacant vacation homes, but even the residences that were obviously occupied year-round seemed empty, their owners either gone to work or off on errands. From somewhere in the muffled distance came the faint sound of pounding hammers, the noise of construction, and here and there in the brush random bird cries rang out in the still morning air. Other than that, the world was quiet.

There were no dog barks or cat yowls. Barry was right about that--domestic animals were not allowed in Bonita Vista--and she thought of poor Barney, buried on the east side of the house. It had been nice to have a cat, even for a few weeks, and while she didn't believe that the homeowners' association had anything to do with the animal's death, she still resented the organization for disallowing pets.

The houses grew farther apart as the road rounded the back side of the hill and dipped into a narrow area between the hill and the plateau. Many of the lots here remained unsold, and rusted real estate signs were posted next to the white lot-number stakes. She passed a small empty A-frame with a chain blocking the driveway, and a rustic log cabin with a three-car garage. The road turned again, heading into a copse of tall ponderosas. There were no homes on this section of road, only the uncleared forest pressing in, and though it was midmorning, the positioning of the hill and trees kept most of the route in shadow.

Ahead, she thought she saw something, a still figure that was not a bush, not a tree, not a road sign.

A man.

He stood by the side of the road, unmoving, and Maureen was grateful that he was not close enough to hear her surprised intake of air.

She halted for a moment and bent down, hands on her knees, pretending she'd been running and was only taking a small break from regimented exercise. She counted to ten, then broke into a jog, keeping to the side of the road opposite the unmoving figure, ready to bolt should he make any movement toward her.

It was probably nothing, she told herself. Years of L.A. living had simply made her paranoid, fearful of strangers. He was probably just a fellow resident of Bonita Vista, one of her neighbors out for a stroll.

There was no reason for her to assume that he was in any way a threat.

But he was just standing there, not moving.

Better safe than sorry. Following through on her "serious exercise"

ruse, ready to ignore him completely or smile in a friendly manner, depending on his reaction to her, she jogged by.

"Fuck you," the man said.

His voice was deep and raspy, sickly sounding, and there was something menacing in not only the words but the tone in which they were spoken.

She was afraid to look at the man's face, afraid of what she might see there, and she sprinted faster, her heart pumping with fear as well as exertion.

There were houses ahead, and whether or not they were occupied, she was grateful to be once again in the vicinity of human habitation. The road headed up the side of the hill, and though her muscles were starting to ache, and her mouth was painfully dry from breathing so hard and heavily, she ratcheted up the intensity a few notches and managed to maintain her speed as she ran toward the crest of the incline.

She stopped at the top to catch her breath and casually turned around to look behind her.

The man was striding purposefully up the road toward the spot where she stood.

Panic flared within, and all Maureen could think was that she was being chased, that this man was after her. He seemed even more frightening in the full sunlight. She had not gotten a good look at him before, but she saw now that he was tall and hairy, with a wild mane and bushy beard. The weather was warm, but he wore a flannel overcoat, and even from this distance his heavy boots made a staccato slapping sound on the pavement, the noise absurdly loud in the stillness.

"Fuck you!" the man yelled, his voice echoing.

And he started to run.

Crying out, Maureen sped forward as fast as her feet would carry her, ignoring the protestations of her leg muscles and lungs, wanting only to get away from this psycho and his irrationally dogged pursuit.

She raced the rest of the way up the hill to Liz and Ray's house and fairly flew over the gravel of their driveway, pounding furiously on the door, praying to God that they were home. She glanced back over her shoulder to make sure the man was not coming onto their property after her, already planning how she would make her escape if he was.

Liz opened the door almost immediately, and Maureen pushed breathlessly past her into the house, shutting the door and fumbling frantically for the lock.

Some of her panic seemed to have transferred to Liz. "What is it?

What's wrong?"

Maureen held a hand up, shaking her head, trying to catch her breath, then moved over to the window, looking out. The man was there, on the road, standing at the edge of the driveway, and she pointed. "That guy," she managed to get out. "He's following me."

"Who is her "I don't know."

Liz frowned, peeking out. "Ray's at the store. Check that door and make sure it's locked. I'm calling the sheriff."

"Wait!" Maureen said. "Look!"

Outside, on the road, a car had pulled up next to the man, and two other men were getting out, one approaching her pursuer from the left side, the other from the right.

Liz moved away from the window. "That's Chuck Shea and Terry Abbey."

She quickly unlocked and opened the door. "Chuck! Terry!"

They looked over, saw Liz, and waved. "Hey there!" the taller man called out.

"That guy's been chasing my friend Maureen here! I was just about to call the sheriff."

"Call!" the tall man said. "We'll hold him!" He turned to his friend. "Told you this joker was up to no good."

Liz retreated to the kitchen, where Maureen heard her dialing the phone and giving the person on the opposite end of the line a quick rundown.

Outside, Chuck and Terry were making sure the bearded man wasn't going to go anywhere. Their car was behind him, and they stood on both sides, effectively blocking off all escape routes.

"Fuck you!" the man yelled. He looked toward the house, toward Maureen. "Fuck you!"

"They're on their way," Liz said, returning.

They didn't have long to wait. Five minutes later, they heard a siren in the distance, and two minutes after that, a sheriff's car was pulling to a stop in front of the Dysons’ driveway. She and Liz had remained inside, just in case, but with the arrival of the law, they walked out.

This time, the sheriff himself showed up. An older fellow with the hard, sinewy look of a reptile and the improbable name of Hitman , he brought with him another deputy, this one young but seriously overweight, and the two of them forced the bearded man into the back of the car. They didn't even try to talk to him, apparently intending to ask questions later.

Maureen was the one who had been chased, and she described her encounter, telling the sheriff how she'd run past the man, how he'd yelled out an obscenity, and how he'd followed her up the road.

"I don't know if he was chasing me. I mean, I don't know if that would technically be considered chasing, but I felt--"

"Don't worry about it," the sheriff told her. He nodded to the deputy, who'd been writing everything down. "Johnson. You get all that?"

"Yes, sir." The deputy looked around at the gathered group. "I just need your names, addresses, and daytime phone numbers."

He took down the necessary information, and Terry, after giving his stats, took the sheriff off to the side for a moment and peeled off a business card, handing it to him. The two of them conferred quietly.

A few moments later, with the man in the back seat yelling "Fuck you!

Fuck you!" the sheriff and his deputy got in the car and drove back down the road toward town.

Maureen watched the car head down the hill. She shook her head.

"Sheriff Hit man!" she said incredulously.

They all laughed.

Chuck moved next to her. "Are you all right?" he asked. "You want a ride home or something?"

She shook her head. "No. But thanks for asking."

"All in a day's work," he said with an exaggerated southwestern drawl.

"Ma'am."

Liz smiled. "Thanks, Chuck. Thanks, Terry. You're good guys--no matter what anyone says."

"Yes. Thank you," Maureen said gratefullyT

"No problem. That what homeowners' associations are for."

"I--" She reddened, caught off guard. "What--"

"You don't have to say it." He laughed and looked over at Liz. "I

know our reputation around these parts."

"Don't blame me."

Terry chuckled. "Conics with the territory."

"A lot of people bristle at the restrictions," Chuck admitted. "But in an unincorporated area like this, an association is the only means we have of taking care of basic needs. You want to be hard-nosed and cynical about it? It helps maintain order. And things like the gate keep out most of the riffraff. But the other side of the coin is that it also fosters a sense of community. You've seen the courts, right?

The tennis courts?"

Maureen nodded. "We haven't used them yet, but, yeah, I've seen them."

"There you go. We're also going to be building a community pool, maybe a clubhouse. We have our own little world here, a world that's better than the one surrounding it, and if that means that our standards need to be a little higher, that our rules need to be a little more strict, that we need to put out a little extra effort... well, that's a price that most of our residents are more than happy to pay." He smiled at Liz. "Most of our residents."

"Some of the townies--" Terry gestured down the street, where the sheriff's car had disappeared. "--resent us for that. Chuck and I are on the security committee, which means that it's our responsibility to keep an eye out for unfamiliar faces or suspicious behavior. We don't get too many outside disruptions here, but when we do, it's usually some local yokel who's ticked off at us about something. We have better houses or better cars or better jobs or better retirement plans. I don't know what this particular guy's story is, but nine times out of ten it's something like that."

"This has happened before?" Maureen asked.

"Oh no," Chuck said quickly. "Nothing like this. But there've been...

breaches in security, let's say. And like Terry explained, it's usually some teed-off townie."

"Teed off or drunk."

"Teed off or drunk," Chuck amended.

"You know," Maureen said, "someone vandalized our house a couple weeks ago. Well, not our house really. Our yard. And they killed our cat.

Although it wasn't really our cat. It was just a stray and we were feeding it. We'd sort of adopted it."

Terry frowned. "Did you file a complaint with the association? I

don't remember hearing about this."

"Oh no. We just called the sheriff."

"You should've filed a complaint. In fact, not to be too much of a stickler, you're required to file one according to the C, C, and Rs ."

He held up a hand. "I'm not blaming you. You're new and you didn't know. But we like to keep up with what's happening here. Particularly if it's something like vandalism, something that could happen to any of us. It helps us know what to keep an eye out for."

Chuck nodded. "I wouldn't even be surprised if this guy was involved.

He seems to have been targeting you, and maybe he picked you out as a symbol or something. You're young, good looking, and, probably to him, you're rich. In his eyes, you're probably the perfect candidate for harassment." I "Don't worry," Terry said. "The sheriff's going to phone me once he has a chance to interview this loser. I'll call and let you know as soon as I hear anything." He opened the passenger door of the car and Chuck walked around to the driver's side. "You sure you don't need a ride home?"

Maureen shook her head. "Thanks, but I'm going to stay and talk to Liz for a while."

The two men got into the car, waving as they drove down the hill, and Maureen turned to Liz. "They don't seem that bad," she said.

"No," her friend admitted. "Sometimes they're not."

Barry was on the couch when she returned, reading over the pages he'd written that morning, and though the immediacy of what happened to her had faded during the half-hour visit with Liz, seeing him comfortably ensconced in the living room, knowing that he'd been sitting here alone and happily self-absorbed while she'd been running up the road in fear for her life, irritated her somehow.

He looked up. "Hey, what took you so long?"

"I was chased down the street by a psycho and the police --I mean the sheriff--had to arrest him and take him away."

Barry stood quickly, dropping his papers, and rushed over to her.

"What?"

She explained it all, from the beginning, going into more detail than she had with Hitman , emphasizing the way she felt, the menacing feeling she'd gotten from her hairy pursuer. Barry kept interrupting with exclamations of "Jesus!" and his genuine expressions of worry and concern softened the resentment she'd felt. They ended up hugging, and she found herself reassuring him that it wasn't really that bad, that she was never in any real danger, that it sounded a lot worse than it was. His first impulse was to drive down to the sheriff's office and confront this guy, make sure that charges were pressed, but she convinced him to wait, to let law enforcement authorities do their jobs.

They walked upstairs together to the kitchen. He poured himself some orange juice, while she had the last of the coffee.

"Kind of ironic that it was two homeowners' association guys who helped you out."

She shrugged. "Maybe we've been a little too hard on them."

Barry looked at her incredulously. "Too hard? They tore up our yard and killed our cat!"

"I don't think they did."

"Really? What proof did you suddenly discover that--"

"What proof do you have that it was them?" She shook her head. "Jesus, Barry, for someone who prides himself on being fair and open-minded and willing to think outside the lines, you sure can be a rigid, linear son of a bitch."

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to dismiss what happened--"

"Even though that's exactly what you're doing."

"--but don't go giving credit where credit isn't due. These two guys are part of the association. Fine. They helped you out. Fine. But that's it. They didn't do anything anyone else wouldn't do. Liz is the one who let you in her house, she's the one who called the sheriff."

"Would you have stopped to help someone you didn't even know?"

"The way you described it, I got the impression that they didn't stop to help you, that you were in Ray's house and they just stopped to check on this guy because he looked suspicious."

"That's true. It was like a neighborhood watch. Which is even better.

They weren't just looking out for me, they were concerned about what this character might do to anyone in the neighborhood. Would you do that?"

Barry smiled. "No. But I'm an egotistical, self-obsessed writer focused only on my own career."

"You're only half joking."

"Half? I'm not joking at all."

The phone rang, and Barry quickly moved to pick it up. "I'll get it,"

he said. They'd left the cordless on the dining room table, and he grabbed the handset and pressed the Talk button. "Hello?"

He handed her the phone. "It's for you."

It was Chuck Shea. He'd heard back from the sheriff, and the man who'd been harassing her had confessed to the killing of their cat and the destruction of their plants. He had apparently vandalized several other homes within Bonita Vista, vacation homes whose owners had not yet been by to discover the damage, and the sheriff was in the process of compiling a list of acts and addresses.

The man, Deke Meldrum , had some sort of grudge against the neighborhood, although the reasons for that remained vague. "Probably a disgruntled handyman or something," Chuck opined. "Last year, the association contracted with a local maintenance company to provide all grounds keeping services for the green belts and communal property, and it ticked off some of the freelancers when we did that. I think this guy was one of them. There's something vaguely familiar under all that hair."

"So what's going to happen? Has he been arrested?"

"Oh yeah."

"He's not just going to turn around and get out..."

"Don't worry," Chuck assured her. "The association will press charges and make sure that he is prosecuted. He'll be in jail for quite a while."

"Is there anything I need to do?"

"We'll take care of everything. You probably won't even have to testify. With so many Bonita Vista properties involved, the association will be the complainant, and the most we'll need from you will be a statement. Terry and I are going down to the sheriff's office right now, and we'll let you know if anything else comes up."

"Keep us informed,"

"Don't worry. We will."

Maureen thanked him for the information, said goodbye, and put the phone back down on the table, breathing an audible sigh of relief.

"Thank God."

"What?"

"That was Chuck. He said the sheriff called and the guy who chased me is the guy who killed Barney and trashed our plants. His name's Deke Meldrum, and he's some kind of gardener or handyman. Apparently, he vandalized several other houses, too--vacation houses--and they're going to get him for all of them."

"Do we have to go down and swear out a complaint or something?"

"No. The homeowners' association is pressing charges."

Barry was silent.

"Come on. You can't have a problem with that. What, you think there's some sort of vast conspiracy and now that you and Ray are on to them they're trying to pin everything on a psycho gardener? That doesn't sound ridiculous even to you?"

He said nothing, but she saw the look of embarrassment on his face and pressed forward. "The association is not the bad guy here. They're the ones going after the bad guy. Whatever else they do, however much they cramp your style, they're on our side in this case."

"I just don't like them."

"You can't admit that maybe you've been a little harsh and unyielding, that there's a slight possibility you might be wrong?"

He looked at her, took a deep breath. "All right," he said. "I might be wrong." She nodded. "Okay." "I might be." "You are," she told him. And she found that she believed it.

The Gordon Light foot album ended and Barry continued typing. He didn't like to write without music, but he was on a roll, and for once the silence didn't seem to affect his concentration. Ten minutes later, however, he hit a creative brick wall, and though he tried to keep going, leaving increasingly longer spaces between words with the intention of filling them in later, it was obvious that he was stuck, and he finally gave up, wheeled his chair back from the desk, and walked over to the stereo.

He sorted through his pile of vinyl and put on an old Joni Mitchell record, staring out at the view. There was something about those folkies of the late sixties early seventies that complemented nature, that understood the rural lifestyle. There was a wistfulness in the music as well, a tinge of melancholy that somehow bridged the hopes of that era with the reality of today and subtly pointed out the disparity.

This was music that spoke to him.

Of course, Joni Mitchell herself was no longer the Joni Mitchell of those early albums. The last time he'd seen her, on VH1 at one of those charity concerts, she'd been droning on in a cigarette-ravaged voice, stopping in mid song to lecture the crowd for not paying close enough attention to her lyrics. She'd seemed angry and bitter, a far cry from the open, giggly young woman captured on the live Miles of Aisles, and it had been depressing and dispiriting to realize how much times and people changed.

With the music on, his creative energy returned, and he quickly got back to work. He wrote for another hour or so, then stood and stretched. Maureen was gone, meeting with the manager of the only bank in town, trying to drum up some business locally and get to know some of Corban’s financial movers and shakers, and he was alone in the house. He walked upstairs to the kitchen and got out a can of Coke.

He'd been cooped up in here almost all week, and he felt more than a little restless. The writing had been going well, but being indoors so much was stifling, and Barry walked downstairs and outside, grateful for the fresh air.

He headed out to the end of the driveway and looked across the street at the forested lot next to the greenbelt. He glanced up and down the road, thought for a moment, then on an impulse went back inside, wrote a quick note to Maureen, and carefully shut the front door behind him.

Walking down the hill, he turned on the first street to the right and slowed down, looking for the wooden post that marked the entrance to the east bridle trail.

Even without the post, Barry would have seen the wide swath of open dirt that wound between the trees and away from the road, and he stepped happily from pavement to ground, feeling the delicious crunch of pine needles beneath his tennis shoes.

It was one of the things he liked about Bonita Vista, the fact that it had green belts and bridle trails, though he hadn't availed himself of their use until now. He should come here every day, he thought, an hour or so to get some exercise and stop the spread of middle-age paunch that had materialized since he'd become a full-time writer.

Maureen had been after him to walk with her, particularly after her run in with that lunatic, but she wasn't a hiker, she only liked to stroll up and down streets, and he found it boring and pointless to simply traverse their neighborhood. After a few obligatory efforts, she'd given up on him and had started going out with Liz and one of Liz's other friends each morning, leaving him to veg on the couch and watch The Today Show.

But he liked hiking, liked walking on trails and being surrounded by trees and brush and the earthy smell of nature. Hell, maybe if he could convince Maureen to come with him, they could walk together.

The trail curved down into what looked like a natural gully, following the contours of the land, winding between heavy copses of manzanita and a spread of wild holly bushes. The trees here were tall, much bigger than the ones on then- lot or next to the road, and since no homes were visible from this vantage point, he had no trouble feeling as though he were in the middle of some dense, unexplored woodland.

There was a sudden noise in the bushes off to his right, and though it was morning and a bright sunny day, a bolt of instinctive fear shot through him. He wasn't an outdoorsy guy, a nature guy, and unexpected sounds in unexpected places never failed to unnerve him. One of the hazards of 11 his profession. As a horror writer, he always thought of the || worst possible scenario: a mountain lion that would rip his lungs out, a bear that would tear him limb from limb. He wasn't the kind to ascribe benign causes or motivations to situations he encountered, and he stopped and looked around, listening, trying to determine where the noise had come from.

There was the rattle of underbrush.

And a sound.

He froze, and it came again. A moan that almost sounded like a word.

Whatever was causing it was definitely human, and the hackles rose on the back of his neck. He could not tell from which direction the sound originated, and it was not until he saw the movement of leaves and branches off to his right that he was able to determine how close the source was.

From under the bushes crawled an armless legless man, a dirty, tanned, and heavily bearded individual who pushed himself forward through spastic undulations of his disfigured form. The man's eyes were wild and unfocused, and the slurred incomprehensible noises he made indicated to Barry that he was mentally retarded. He was wearing nothing but a muddy, blood-stained diaper, and when he opened his mouth, all of his teeth were missing.

A chill passed through Barry, and though he knew that such a reaction was childish, that he should be feeling pity and concern rather than fear and horror, he could not help being spooked by the hideous figure before him.

The man flopped into the center of the path, looked up at him, and shrieked.

"It's okay," Barry said. "I'm not going to hurt you." He looked around to see if there was anyone else about, but the trail was deserted. "Do you need any help, any--"

The man shrieked again and began jerking convulsively on the ground, his limbless body moving up and down in obvious agitation. Barry had the feeling that the man was trying to communicate with him, was trying to say something, but whether the sharp cries and ragged movements meant that he wanted Barry to get the hell away from him or that he needed some sort of assistance was impossible to determine.

The bearded face twisted upward on the corded neck, eyes bulging hugely, toothless mouth opening impossibly wide.

Barry crouched down. "Do you want something?"

The figure jerked, screamed at him.

"I'm sorry. I don't--" He broke off, unsure of what to say, not knowing how to respond.

The man cried out again, his flopping becoming ever more frantic.

Barry backed away. Should he just continue on, pretend as though nothing had happened? He looked ahead. The trail before him seemed dark and forbidding, and he immediately turned around, hurrying back the way he'd come. He had no plan, no specific course of action, but he knew that he had to tell somebody, had to try and get the man some help. As bizarre as the incident was, as much as it creeped him out, he understood that underneath the horror show grotesquerie, this was a real person with obviously real problems and that it was his responsibility to make sure that the authorities were alerted and made aware of it.

He was jogging by the time he hit the road, and when he reached die intersection of his own street, he saw Frank driving by in his pickup.

Barry held up his hands, waved him down, and the vehicle slowed to a stop.

"Barry. You look like you've seen a ghost."

"You're not far off." He was breathing heavily from the altitude and exertion. "I was hiking along the east bridle trail, and I ran into ... a man. A man without any arms or legs who couldn't talk and was sort of slinking along the ground in a diaper."

"Oh, that's just Stumpy," Frank said, chuckling. "He lives on the trails."

Barry didn't know what he'd expected, but this certainly wasn't it.

He'd been prepared to run back down the bridle trail with Frank to show him the limbless man, even to help carry the poor unfortunate back to the truck so they could take him into the doctor's office, the sheriff's office, or wherever assistance could be found. But he was not prepared for this cheerful recognition that there was a hideously deformed person living in the forest surrounding them, this open acknowledgment that there was a freak who spent his days skulking along the green belts of Bonita Vista--and that apparently everyone knew about it. It seemed surreal, like something out of one of his novels, not like something that could happen in real life, and for once Barry was at a loss for words, uncertain of how to react or what to say.

Frank must have misunderstood his silence. "Stumpy's harmless. Don't worry."

"I wasn't worried about him. I'm worried for him. He's ..." Barry took a deep breath. "He's all muddy and bloody. I mean, shit, the guy doesn't have any arms or legs and he's inching along on his belly in the middle of the woods--"

"That's our Stumpy." Frank smiled sympathetically. "Look, I know you want to help and all, but there's nothing to do. It's his choice. This is how he chooses to live. Who are we to deny him that and dictate what he's supposed to do with his life? He's an adult, it's a free country. Live and let live."

"I don't think he wants to be there," Barry said. "He was howling like he was in pain, and I think he was trying to tell me something."

"Oh, that's just the way he is. Don't sweat it."

Obviously, Frank did not understand his anxiety, could not comprehend why the sight of a filthy limbless man crawling along the ground might give him cause for concern, so Barry dropped the subject. He nodded as the other man talked, pretended that everything had been cleared up for him, and said good-bye, watching the pickup continue down the road toward the gate.

He walked back up the street feeling at once disturbed by what he'd seen and learned, and at the same time oddly disassociated from it. The fear he'd felt was real, and a vestige of it remained with him, but his concern for Stumpy's well-being was more intellectual, less emotional, and did not hit him at the same gut level.

The Suburban was not in the driveway, so he knew Maureen was still gone, and Barry continued up the street, past his house and directly to Ray's. Liz was outside, weeding, and she told him to go on in, Ray was on the deck.

He let himself in through the unlocked front door, walked through the entryway and into the living room. He could see through the windows that Ray was on a chaise lounge, reading a book.

Barry opened the sliding glass door, and Ray looked up at the sound.

"Hey," he said. He held up the copy of The Coming that Barry had given him. "I'm reading your book. It's pretty damn good. I'm impressed."

"Thank you," Barry said awkwardly. He never knew how to handle compliments about his writing, and while he wanted people to like his work, praise made him uncomfortable.

Ray sat up, put the book facedown on the small table next to him. "So what brings you up here to disturb my reading?"

"Stumpy."

The old man chuckled and stood. "So you heard about Stumpy, huh?"

"Heard about him? I saw him. I was out walking on the east bridle trail, just taking a break from writing to stretch my legs a little, and all of a sudden I heard weird noises in the bushes. A minute later, this man with no arms or legs came squirming toward me, shrieking like a lunatic. Scared the hell out of me. I tried to talk to him, but he seemed retarded and he obviously couldn't speak. When I

went back to get some help, I ran into Frank, who told me that it was just Stumpy, and that he lives out in the woods and, apparently, everyone knows about it."

"Yeah," Ray confirmed. "Stumpy lives out there. I think he probably has a hutch or a lean-to or something, but for the most part he just crawls around wherever he wants to."

"And the people who live here don't care? They just put up with it?"

"Well... yeah."

"You don't think that's a tad bit peculiar?"

"Of course it is. But he doesn't live in Bonita Vista. He lives in the national forest next to it. We've sort of agreed to let him roam the trails. I mean, who's going to prosecute someone like that for trespassing? Even the homeowners' association isn't that hard-hearted.Stumpy's been around here longer than we have, and I

think most of the people have a sort of live-and-let-live attitude toward him. We don't bother him and he doesn't bother us."

"But isn't it sort of irresponsible to turn a blind eye to someone like that? I mean, he was wearing a bloody diaper, for Christ's sake.

Shouldn't there be someone who at least makes sure that he's all right, that he ... I don't know, has access to running water and a toilet, that he has at least the minimum necessities of life?"

Ray smiled sadly. "I'm ashamed to say I never really thought about it that way." He sighed. "Live here long enough, you get hardened to anything."

"So you think I should call someone? Social Services or whatever kind of indigent help the county has?"

Ray thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head. "I'm not a knee-jerk, if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it guy, but in this case, maybe it would be best to let things be. Liz and I have been out here nine years now, and in all that time Stumpy hasn't needed any help, hasn't asked for any help--"

"He was screaming though, crying out like he was trying to talk."

"That's the way he does talk. He's always that way. I admit it's a little unnerving at first, but... well, like I said, you get used to it. I don't think he was upset or in pain or trying to enlist your help. More than likely, he wanted you to get off his trails and go somewhere else. He doesn't much like company, and he seems to be pretty possessive and territorial."

"So there's nothing we can do?"

"There's nothing to do. Stumpy may be handicapped, but other than that he's like any recluse or eccentric. If he had arms and legs and could talk, he'd still be living out in the woods, only you wouldn't think anything of it. You'd think he was some crazy survivalist and never give him another thought. Well, that's exactly how you should think of Stumpy."

"What if sometime he really does need help?"

Ray shrugged. "I guess he'd make his way to someone's house and try to get their attention somehow."

Barry thought of that horrific shriek, of the way the limbless man had looked as he strained his thickly corded neck and opened his toothless mouth. A chill passed through him as he imagined waking up in the middle of the night to find such a sight waiting for him on his doorstep. Maybe it was just his line of work, the fact that he spent his days dreaming up horrors of the flesh and terrifying images of the supernatural, but he could not seem to summon the sort of understanding and acceptance that he knew he should have, and despite his well-intentioned sense of outrage, his real gut reaction to Stumpy was one of fear and disgust.

Ray offered him a beer, but Barry said that he'd already been away from the word processor for too long and he'd have to take a rain check.

He walked back down the hill toward home. The Suburban was back in the driveway, and Maureen was just clicking off the phone as he walked through the door.

"Oh," she said. "That was for you. Where've you been?"

"Out for a walk, Who was it?"

"Your old pal Neil Campbell from the homeowners' association."

"Jesus Christ."

"Apparently, someone complained that you were playing music too loud this morning. Neil wanted to inform you that Bonita Vista does have noise restrictions and the rules state that music cannot be played so loud that it can be heard from someone else's lot."

"Too loud? It was Ladies of the Canyon, for Christ's sake. And you could barely hear it downstairs, let alone outside of the house."

"I guess sound carries here."

"Is he calling back? Or does he want me to call him back?"

She shook her head. "He'll send you a memo."

"This is getting ridiculous." Barry looked at her. "They're your friends, couldn't you tell them that we like to listen to music, that it doesn't harm anyone, and, by the way, mind your own damn business?"

"No one's trying to cramp your style, hon. They just want you to show a little more respect to your neighbors. It's not an unreasonable request."

"It is if it infringes on my rights. I live here, too, you know. And I should be able to live my life in my own house and do what I want on my own property without someone else trying to dictate and regulate my behavior."

"They're only infringing on your rights at the point where your rights begin to infringe on other people's."

"What kind of double-talk crap is that?"

"It means that, yeah, you live here, but you're not alone. Other people live here, too, and we have to take into account their feelings."

"Shit." He looked at her disgustedly, and they probably would have gotten into it then and there, but at mat second the phone rang, and Maureen pressed the Talk button as she brought it to her ear.

"Hello?"

The expression on her face brightened instantly. "Hey, how are you?

... Yeah... It's great... Uh-huh... No, not at all... Yeah, hold on.

He's right here." She handed Barry the phone. "It's Jeremy!"

He took the telephone from her hand.

"Dude!" Jeremy said. "Long time no hear!"

Barry smiled as he heard his friend's voice, and for a brief second he was back in California, back in the real world, far away from Bonita Vista and deformed men and homeowners'

associations and pending memos about excessive noise. "Jeremy, you loser! It's about time!" "Yeah. How goes it out there in the boonies?" He took a deep breath, and though he was still annoyed, still upset, he found himself chuckling at the absurdity of it all.

"You're not going to believe it, bud. You're not going to believe it."

The Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions Article III, Land Use Classifications, Permitted Uses and Restrictions, Section 3, Paragraph M:

Without limiting the generality of any of the foregoing provisions, no exterior speakers, horns, whistles, bells, or other offensive sound devices, except security devices used exclusively for security purposes, shall be located, used, or placed on any Lot. In addition, any noise generated from the interior of a home, including but not limited to the sound from television, radio, audio reproduction, or live instrumentation, must conform to agreed-upon noise levels. No sound that is determined by general consensus to be a nuisance or that is audible from the Lot of another Resident will be permitted to emanate from any Property during any time of day.

"I don't know, Ray. I just don't know."

The two of them sat on canvas butterfly chairs next to the barbecue on the Dysons’ deck, while the women remained inside talking. Past the town, past the hills, past the trees, the canyon lands were a brilliant orange, sandstone cliffs dyed bright pop-art colors by the setting sun.

Barry looked over at his friend. "You'd think that in a place like this, out in the middle of nowhere, they wouldn't have rules and regulations and homeowners' associations. Tracts and subdivisions in southern California, yeah, I'd expect it. But out here?" He shook his head. "Whatever happened to living out in the country with broken washing machines on the back porch and cars on blocks and angry dogs tied up in the yard?"

Ray stood and flipped over the burgers. "Yuppiedom's gone national.

It's everywhere, from sea to shining sea. You can't escape it." He pointed with his spatula toward Corban . "You want your white-trash houses, your mean dogs and broken cars and junky appliances, buy a place in town. You want good views and big houses and cable TV, then you're stuck with Bonita Vista." He sat down again. "That's the problem. All these city people like us, longing for a rural lifestyle, all us retired people and tele commuters we want the comforts of home.

We want fresh vegetables and gourmet food in the stores, we want fax machines and cellular phones. And we're willing to pay for it. But when we bring that shit out here, we bring the rest of it, too. The gated communities and homeowners' associations, the need for conformity and exclusivity. Turns out that we didn't really want to live the rural life at all. We wanted our city life with nicer scenery."

"You really think so?"

"Tell me," Ray said. "Why did you buy a house in Bonita Vista? You liked the homes, right? You liked the landscaping and the views. If this hadn't been here, if the only homes for sale in this area had been the ones in Corban , you would've moved on, found some other town to live in. You wouldn't've wanted one of those small dirty houses with dusty yards or one of those broken-down trailers in the pines. The thing that attracted you to Bonita Vista is that it's clean and well-maintained. What you liked about this neighborhood is what the homeowners' association has made of it." He paused. "Me, too."

"So we're hypocrites, huh?"

"No. But we were lured here, trapped, misled." He motioned around him, at his house, at the other houses beyond. "We thought this was all natural and organic, we didn't think it was an artificially maintained environment. Now we're living in this safe little bubble that's completely cut off from the rest of the town."

"I was talking to my friends back in California, and they were shocked when they found out we have so many restrictions here, so many do's and don'ts."

"You were, too, weren't you?"

Barry nodded.

Ray sighed. "So was I," he said quietly. "So was I."

They ate inside, but after dinner, all four of them retired to the deck. Liz lit citronella candles to keep away the bugs, and they sat on the wing chairs, staring out at the sky and the millions of stars visible on this new-moon night. One star seemed to be moving, heading straight across the heavens at an even pace, and Ray pointed it out.

"That's a satellite," he said.

"I didn't know you could see those with the naked eye," Maureen admitted.

"You can out here. Back in New Jersey you couldn't. And probably not in California either. But out here, there's no light pollution, no air pollution, and if you stay out here long enough and your eyes get adjusted, you can see some pretty amazing things."

They were silent for a moment, looking.

"I wonder why we never went back to the moon," Barry said.

Maureen groaned. "Not this again."

"I'm serious. When I was little, we were supposed to have colonies up there by this time. What the hell happened?"

"He was so brainwashed by all that NASA propaganda in the sixties,"

Maureen explained, "that he feels cheated and personally insulted that he can't take a flight up to the Lunar Hilton on his vacation."

"Space travel's important," he insisted.

Ray nodded. "The future's arriving at a much slower pace man everyone thought. My father went from a world of horse-drawn carriages to a world of cars and planes and rockets and televisions. I think everyone thought that pace would be maintained. And it hasn't."

"Don't complain," Maureen said. "We may not be Things to Come, but we're not Escape From New York, either."

"Or Farenheit 451 or 1984 or Brave New World." Liz sipped her wine, smiled. "Contrary to what Ray may think."

"Only because the homeowners' association doesn't have the technology,"

he said. "Not for a lack of willingness or inclination."

Liz wrinkled her nose mischievously. "See what I have to live with?"

Barry laughed and was about to chime in with a defense of Ray, when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw colored lights and movement. For a brief crazy second, he thought it was a UFO, but he recognized almost immediately that the strobing red and blue lights were on the ground, coming from some sort of law enforcement vehicle. In the dark and through the trees, the lights seemed amplified, illuminating trunks and branches, the side of a house.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know." Ray stood by the railing, squinting into the night.

"But whatever it is, there's at least two or three patrol cars down there."

"How come we didn't hear any sirens?" Maureen asked.

"Beats me." Ray turned away from the railing. "I'm going to check it out." He nodded to Barry. "Want to come along?"

"Sure."

"I guess the little women will stay home," Liz said loudly to Maureen.

"Since we can't accompany the men on their manly mission, maybe we can go back to the kitchen and make them a nice dessert for when they return. They'll probably be hungry."

Ray looked at her, surprised. "You want to come, too?"

She smiled. "No. But it would be polite to ask."

"Sorry."

Barry looked quizzically over at Maureen, who shook her head. "You boys go have your fun. We'll just stay here and gossip about you behind your backs." She turned toward Liz. "Now, if you want to know what he's like in bed..."

The two women burst out laughing.

"Very funny," Barry said.

Ray motioned him toward the door. "Come on. I can tell when we're not wanted."

"Don't worry," Liz told him. "We'll have all the world's problems figured out by the time you return."

There must have been some residual heat from the barbecue on the porch, because when they walked up the driveway and out to the road, the temperature dropped. Goose bumps popped up on Barry's arms, and he suddenly wished that he'd brought a jacket.

He and Ray walked down the hill, passing Barry's house and stopping for a moment to get their bearings since the lights could not be seen from ground level. They ended up going down the street that led to the east bridle trail, and there, right before the post that marked the trail's entrance, stood a small crowd of people and two sheriff's cars, patrol lights on and flashing.

Barry's first thought was that it was Stumpy, that the limbless man had crawled onto the road and been run over by a car or something. But there was no car in sight other than the sheriff's vehicles, and the tarp-covered body by the side of the road appeared to be full-sized.

Wally Addison, the young deputy who'd taken their vandalism report, was standing next to a mean-looking older man who could only be Sheriff Hitman. Several neighbors had walked either up or down the street from their houses to see what all the commotion was about and were milling around, talking in low, hushed voices. There was no police ribbon up, no authorities ordering people to stay back, but the onlookers seemed to be observing an invisible barrier, and they remained behind the cars, far away from the side of the road where the covered body lay in the dirt.

Ray walked past that invisible line and directly up to the sheriff.

"Saw your lights from up the hill," he said. "What happened?"

Hitman nodded toward the tarp. "Dead body. Annie Borham found him.

Looks like he fell in the ditch and hit his head on a rock. Probably bled to death."

Indeed, there did seem to be a lot of blood on the dirt and stones of the culvert, and Barry could only imagine what the man looked like under the tarp.

"Who is he?" Ray asked. "Anybody know?"

"Deke Meldrum. We arrested him up here recently for harassing a young woman."

The deputy said something to Hitman in a low, inaudible voice, and the sheriff raised his eyebrows, looking over at Barry. "I guess that was your wife."

Barry nodded, his stomach tense. The second he'd heard the name he recognized it, and he was glad that Maureen had decided not to come with them. He tried to speak, but no sound came out, and he cleared his throat. "I thought Meldrum was locked up."

"Oh, he made bail day before yesterday. Court date's set for next month when die circuit judge comes through, but until then he's out on his own recognizance."Hitman paused. "Or was."

The sheriff turned away, obviously not intending to answer any more questions, and Ray went over to talk to some of the gathered residents.

Barry followed. Around them, the pine trees seemed taller than they did in the daytime, the black bulk of their closely grown forms blocking out all but a thin strip of stars. The flashing red and blue lights created a sort of shield about them, boxing them in against the darkness of night, and the faces of the crowd, bathed in the strobing colors, were unreadable.

The scene was surreal, made even more so by the realization that Stumpy was probably hiding out there in the woods, watching this, taking it all in. Barry scanned the lower bushes and the beginning of the bridle trail, looking for a telltale glint of eye shine and though he saw nothing, he shivered.

Ray was asking Russ Gifford, a young man Barry had met at the Dysons’

party, what he thought had happened.

"You got me. I just saw the lights and came out to investigate I

thought it was probably an accident or something, maybe a burglary. I

didn't expect anything like this." He nodded toward the bearded man on his left. "Hank says he heard the guy was creeping around, casing the neighborhood, and he tripped and cracked his head open."

"Is that true?" Ray asked.

The bearded man shrugged. "I don't think anyone was actually there to see it, but that's what I heard Annie told the law. And she was the one that found the body."

Annie Borham , a fitness freak of the first order, had apparently been on one of her nightly jogs when her flashlight in had illuminated Meldrum's feet poking out of the ditch. II She'd run home and dialed 911.

"She never came back out here, though," Hank said. "I guess she was pretty freaked out about it, didn't want to see it again. They probably interviewed her at her house."

A middle-aged woman standing next to a young man who could have been her husband, could have been her son, said that she heard Meldrum had been hit in the head with a rock, and that that had knocked him into the ditch, where he hit his head on another rock and died. The retiree next to her said that it was kids, that teenagers from town had been hiding in the brush, throwing rocks at passing cars, and they'd accidentally hit Meldrum , taking off and running back to the highway so they wouldn't get caught.

Rumors were rampant. No one in the crowd seemed to really know anything--most of them had simply been drawn by the lights the way they themselves had--and after waiting for the ambulance and watching it take away Meldrum's dead body, lights and siren off, Barry and Ray started back up the hill the way they'd come. They had company until they reached Barry's street, but then their silent companions headed in the opposite direction, and the two of them continued on alone.

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

"Did you see all the blood?" Ray said quietly.

Barry nodded. "Yeah."

"Looked like an awful lot for someone just tripping and falling on a rock."

"You think those guys were right? You think he was hit before he fell?"

Ray didn't respond.

"What?" Barry said.

Ray shook his head.

"Come on."

"You don't want to hear what I think. / don't even want to hear what I

think. I'm just a paranoid old buzzard who should be on the Internet all day spreading conspiracy theories."

"Tell me."

"Forget it."

"Come on."

"You really want to know?"

"Of course."

Ray stopped walking and turned toward him. "I think the homeowners'

association bailed him out. I think they did so because they knew he'd return here and they could get a little vigilante group going and run him out of the county, maybe out of the state. But I think something went wrong. I think they meant to just scare him but somehow things got out of hand and they ended up accidentally killing him."

Barry laughed. He couldn't help it. "That's wild," he said.

Ray shrugged and started walking again. "Told you."

The laughter faded, and despite the outrageousness of the claim, Barry found that he was unable to dismiss it entirely. While he didn't exactly believe it, he could believe it. Such a scenario was within the realm of possibility.

That in itself was frightening.

They walked in silence for a moment.

"Is there any way to check, to find out for sure who bailed him out?"

"I don't know," Ray said. "But I'm going to call the sheriff's office tomorrow."

"What if it's true? What if the association did bail him out and now his dead body's found up here in Bonita Vista? You think the sheriff'll look into that? You think he'll see a connection?"

Ray shook his head. "I told you before. He's in their pocket. I

don't know whether he's getting actual kickbacks or whether this is just the usual law enforcement kowtowing to moneyed interests, but he's beholden to them, and there's no way he's going to upset the applecart by investigating them."

"You think Meldrum has family in town?"

"I don't know."

They trudged up the hill.

"If that is what happened," Barry said, "if the association did bail him out because they knew he'd return here, and then they killed him, and no one investigates it and the case is closed... that means that they'll get away with murder."

Ray didn't answer.

They walked the rest of the route without speaking.

Maureen and Liz were no longer on the deck. The bugs had apparently grown immune to the scent of citronella, and the two women had come inside to avoid being eaten alive. They seemed to be in a good mood, but when Barry and Ray gave them a rundown of what they'd seen, it put an end to any hope of finishing the evening on a high note, and Barry and Maureen went home soon after.

In bed, getting ready to fall asleep, he told her Ray's theory, that Meldrum had been bailed out of jail by the homeowners' association specifically because they knew he would return here, and that they'd gathered together a vigilante group to scare him, but things had gotten out of hand and he'd ended up dead.

"That's ridiculous," she scoffed.

He had to admit that here in bed it didn't sound quite so logical, but when he thought back to the scene on the road, the black trees illuminated only by the flashing lights of the patrol car, the covered body on the ground, the blood on the dirt, the staring crowd, he could not help feeling a twinge of queasiness.

They were both silent for a while.

"I'm glad," Maureen said quietly.

He'd thought she'd fallen asleep--he was about to doze off himself--and though the words came out of nowhere, had no context, he knew exactly what she was talking about.

She rolled onto her side, facing him. "I'm glad he's dead," she said.

Barry said nothing, not knowing what to say.

"Does that make me a horrible person?"

"No," he told her, and leaned over to kiss her forehead. "No it doesn't."

They came over while Liz was taking a bath.

Ray didn't know if that was intentional, but the idea that the house was under surveillance, that his and his wife's movements were being monitored, made him both uneasy and angry. He was near the entryway, and he opened the door at the sound of the knock. Neil Campbell stood on the welcome mat, Chuck Shea and Terry Abbey just behind him. As always Neil carried a clipboard, and he nodded brusquely in his annoyingly officious manner. "We need to talk to you alone for a few minutes, Ray."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"How do you know I'm alone?"

"What do you mean, Ray?" The innocence was a little too innocent.

"Where do you think Liz is?"

"I'm sure I don't know."

"She's in the bath. So I am alone. Pretty damn convenient."

"All I meant was that we would like to speak to you outside of the presence of your wife. I thought we might chat behind a closed door in some room of your house. But, yes, the fact that Elizabeth is bathing at this time is quite fortuitous."

The uneasiness increased. "What do you want?"

"May we come in?" Neil asked.

Ray favored him with a tight smile. "No you may not."

"Then we will conduct our business here on the porch."

"I have no business with you," Ray said. "As I've told you assholes before: get off my property."

They made no effort to move, and Chuck's mouth curved upward in an amused smile. "You know very well that we're not trespassing. We have the right to be here."

"Why?"

"The association has been informed that you spoke with SheriffHitman ,"

Neil said, "and attempted to discover the identity of the person who bailed the late Deke Meldrum out of jail."

"So? What business is that of yours?"

"When behavior of an individual reflects badly on Bonita Vista, the homeowners' association naturally takes an interest. As you know, it is our goal to avoid tarnishing the reputation of our community and to do everything within our power to make sure that property values are maintained. Needless to say, the death of a man, even a transient, even by accident, is cause for concern."

"What does that have to do with my trying to find out who bailed out Meldrum?"

"We are simply trying to stave off potential embarrassment. It is clear from the questions you asked and from your past behavior that you are somehow trying to place blame for this man's death on the association, and we're here today to ... dissuade you from that course of action."

"Got something to hide, Campbell?"

Chuck stepped forward. "Ray, Ray, Ray. You still haven't learned that sometimes you need to just leave things alone, let them be."

"Yeah? Why is that?"

They moved fast: Chuck grabbing him by the left arm and pulling him out onto the porch, Terry stepping quickly behind him and yanking on his right arm. The two of them held him, while Neil thwacked his genitals with the clipboard. There was a sudden sharp flare of pain, pain so intense that he wanted to cry out and clutch his balls, but he refused to give these bastards the satisfaction of a response, and he willed himself to remain stoic.

Neil grinned, and there was real enjoyment in it. Malice and pleasure, a lethal combination. For the first time since he and Liz had moved to Utah, Ray was scared. Really and truly scared. A line had been crossed, and it was impossible to go back again, to pretend it hadn't occurred.

Neil lovingly stroked the clipboard as he paced in front of the stoop.

"You're not a team player, Ray. Bonita Vista is a community, and you are part of that community. You and your wife are not hermits or recluses, living on your own. You live here, with us, in respectable, civilized society." There was steel in his voice, in his eyes. "You need to play ball."

"Tell your goons to get their hands off of me."

Neil punched him in the stomach and Ray doubled over. He remained standing only because Chuck and Terry were holding him up, and he was humiliated to hear that the sounds he made while trying to suck in air sounded like sobs.

"Bonita Vista is your home, and you'd better start showing it more loyalty, more respect. The reason you have such a nice house in such a nice neighborhood is because of the standards maintained by the homeowners' association, because of our vigilance in going after those who do not follow the rules and regulations. Your life is easy because we have made it easy. Yet you are ungrateful, always looking for the cloud behind the silver lining, always imagining nefarious schemes behind perfectly innocent efforts to improve life in our neighborhood."

"It's a free country," Ray reminded him.

Neil smiled. Behind him, Chuck and Terry laughed harshly.

"A free country? Do you know why we have a homeowners' association?"

Neil asked. "It's because we are not under anybody's rule. The federal and state governments do not concern themselves with our petty little problems, and the county, even if it wanted to, doesn't have the means. We're in an unincorporated area, so there is no local government that has jurisdiction. We are on our own. We have been forced to provide for ourselves, to take care of ourselves, to look out for our own. And you're right, we are free. Free from government interference and meddling and micromanagement. But it is only our self-sufficiency that makes it so."

It sounded like a militia attitude, particularly in the fervency of its delivery, and that was as scary to Ray as anything he had yet heard.

"This is true democracy," Neil said. "It's not representative government but direct participation. We, the people, are the ones making decisions and carrying them out. We're not relying on others, on outside assistance. And we're doing a damn good job of it. A

homeowners' association is more efficient than a government agency.

More efficient and more responsive. This," he said, gesturing to the neighborhood around him with the clipboard, "is the wave of the future.

The decentralization of government that people have been fighting for for years? We have it."

"I'm a liberal Democrat," Ray said. "I like big government."

Neil punched him again.

The patina of politeness, the attempt to convert through persuasive argument, was gone, and Neil's voice was annoyed and angry. "You're a slow learner, Ray, and we're not going to put up with this forever. Get with the program. We're here today as a courtesy call, to give you some friendly advice before you really get yourself into trouble."

Ray could not breathe, but he managed to croak out a message of defiance: "Fuck you!"

Chuck kicked him in the shins, Terry punched the back of his neck.

Without the support of their hands, he crumpled to the ground, gasping.

Neil said something he did not catch, and then all three of them were walking away, back up the driveway toward the road. He tried to stand up, and was only able to do so by balancing himself against the doorjamb. He ached all over. They'd hurt him, he realized, in a way that would not show, and even if there were some law enforcement agency he could go to, there was nothing he'd be able to prove. He was filled with a deep furious desire for revenge, but it was tempered by fear, by the more realistic assessment that these people were willing to go to any lengths to achieve their ends.

Their ploy had worked, Ray realized.

He had not been afraid before.

Now he was.

He was grateful at least that he had shown no fear, that he had been able to keep up his defiant bravado in front of those assholes, and he moved slowly and painfully back into the house, locking the door behind him and limping into the living room. He sat down hard on the couch, still trying to catch his breath.

A few moments later, Liz emerged from the bathroom. "Did someone stop by? I thought I heard voices."

Ray shook his head. "No," he said. He tried to smile. "It was just the TV."

The Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions Article III, Land Use Classifications, Permitted Uses and Restrictions, Section 3, Paragraph L:

Any member of the Architectural Committee, any member of the Board, or any authorized representative of such, shall have the right to enter upon and inspect any Lot within the Properties for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the provisions of this Declaration have been or are being complied with, and such persons shall not be deemed guilty of trespass by reason of such entry.

Whatever it was that had initially turned her off to Bonita Vista seemed to have finally and completely died with Deke Meldrum . Maureen pulled the hose around the right front tire of the Suburban as she watered the replanted irises. She looked out at the road, looked up at the sky. She no longer had any reservations about being here, and contrary to expectations, she found that she liked living in a gated community, enjoyed the security such an extra layer of protection provided. She felt safe--not because they were in rural Utah, away from the smog and the gangs and the high crime rate of the major metropolitan areas, but because they were living in Bonita Vista, an enclosed world, a hermetically sealed environment, shielded against all that lay outside. Her reservations had been turned on their head, and what she had originally thought of as drawbacks now seemed like attributes.

Barry said that it was her "accountant side" coming out, and though he'd meant it as a joke, perhaps there was some truth to that. She was neater than he was, more fastidious and methodical, more concerned with order and organization. It was a trait common to those who enjoyed working with numbers, just as comfort with chaos and disorganization seemed to be de rigueur for liberal arts people like Barry, and she had to admit that there was something reassuring about living in well-regulated surroundings.

Usually, she was big on first impressions. And as old fashioned and superstitious as it sounded, she was a firm believer in "women's intuition." Or at least her own intuition. She trusted her gut instincts, and it was rare that she changed her mind once an opinion had been formed.

But change her mind she had, and it was Meldrum's death that had been the catalyst. It was as if he'd been the conduit for the negativity she'd had toward this place. And with his sacrifice, all of that had disappeared.

His sacrifice?

She didn't know where that had come from, but she didn't want to think about it. That was a remnant of those disgraced first impressions, a holdover from before, and she refused to acknowledge that it had any validity. There was nothing untoward about Bonita Vista, and neither the neighborhood nor the homeowners' association had anything to do with that lunatic's death. It was an accident, pure and simple.

Barry walked out of the house, sipping Dr. Pepper from the battered plastic Batman cup that had been his sole contribution to their kitchen supplies. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Watering."

"No, I mean after that. Are you busy?"

"Not really. Why?"

"I thought we could check out the tennis courts, get in a little exercise. We're paying for those courts with our association dues. We should at least get our money's worth."

It had been a long time since they'd played tennis. In the early days, when they were dating, when they were poor, they spent many a Saturday afternoon on the courts of the high school next to her old apartment.

Neither of them were particularly athletic, however, and time and inclination had led them away from outdoor recreation. But playing tennis again sounded like fun, and she nodded enthusiastically. "Let's do it."

"All right, then."

"Do you know where the rackets are?"

"I put them in one of the garage boxes we have in storage. I'll cruise down and pick them up while you finish your watering."

"Okay." She smiled and pulled on the hose as she moved to the next group of plants. "Prepare to meet your doom."

"You never beat me once," he reminded her. "And I don't think ten years of inactivity have improved your tennis skills."

"Famous last words," she said. "Famous last words."

She finished watering, and after Barry returned with the rackets and a can of balls, they walked down to the tennis courts. Located near the entrance of Bonita Vista, the better to impress outsiders and passersby, the twin courts were perfectly maintained and surrounded by a high green chain-link fence meant to prevent balls from flying into the forest and to keep out nonresidents. Inappropriately large stadium lights were mounted on streetlamp-sized poles in order to illuminate the courts at night and allow evening play.

They stepped up to the gate. An electronic lock with a small keypad was mounted above the latch.

"Guess we should've read our handbook before coming down here," Barry said derisively. He handed Maureen the can of balls and bent forward to look at the metal square. "There aren't any instructions." He punched in the entry code for the community gate, but there was no response.

"Try our address," Maureen suggested. "Or our lot number."

The lot number did the trick, and the framed chain-link rectangle swung smoothly open.

"Keeping track of who uses it," Barry said. "Nice."

Maureen laughed. "You're as paranoid as Ray." She walked onto the green court, felt a slight give beneath her feet as she headed toward the net. It was a far cry from the faded lines on concrete that had defined the school court on which they used to play, and she was impressed that Bonita Vista had such a professional, state-of-the-art facility.

She touched the taut net and walked around it to the other side.

"Didn't Mike and Tina say that they played tennis?"

Barry nodded. "Yeah."

"Maybe if we practice up a bit, we could play doubles with them."

"Sure. In a year or two."

"Speak for yourself." Maureen threw up a ball and hit it over the net to him. He returned the ball, but that was the end of their volley.

She missed, swinging against air, and the ball bounced harmlessly, dead ending at the fence. For the next several minutes, they took turns serving and missing, managing only an occasional return.

"Still think we're good enough to play the Stewarts?" Barry called.

"Let's get into it, writer boy. Four out of seven. You serve first."

They started playing. An actual game, not just random volleys. She noticed that he kept looking away from the court, out into the forest behind them, that he kept peering through the chain-link fence into the underbrush each time he picked up a ball. "Looking for Stumpy?" she teased him.

He glanced up quickly, guiltily, as though she'd read his mind, and it was obvious that she'd hit the nail on the head.

She'd been joking, of course, but she should've known better. Although he hadn't said much about Stumpy since that first day, she should have figured out that he'd be ohses sing about it. A deformed man living in the wilds? That was right up his alley, and no doubt he'd conjured up some outrageous scenarios involving under house crawl spaces and perverse voyeurism, and pets that had been stolen and eaten.

The truth, as she understood it, was not nearly so melodramatic. The limbless man was not malevolent but harmless. Almost everyone seemed to have a Stumpy story, and most of them were pretty damn funny. Barry was right; it was sad that someone actually lived like that in this day and age. But on the other hand, from everything she'd heard, it was his own choice, he preferred to live that way, and apparently it made him happy.

Barry picked up the tennis ball, and moved back into place.

"You think he's spying on us? Is that it?"

"I think he watches" Barry said. "And I think he knows a lot. Stumpy has access to everything. He can go where he wants when he wants. If he could talk, I bet he'd have quite a story to tell."

Maureen shook her head. "Just serve," she told him.

He beat her three games to one, and despite the fact that they were only playing for fun, her natural competitiveness would not allow her to go down without a fight. She walked forward. "Switch. The sun's in my eyes."

"A likely story."

Still, he let her trade sides, and she actually won the next game despite the fact that he was serving.

Then it was her turn and she let fly a not particularly effective serve, but Barry did not even try to return the ball. Instead, he let it bounce behind him and moved toward the net, motioning for her to do the same. They met in the middle of the court. "Don't be too obvious, but look across the street. There's an old lady spying on us."

She turned. On the other side of the road from the tennis courts was a house, a two-story residence of wood and glass with twin front windows facing the road. She saw the curtains move, saw an elderly face peer out.

"So? Old people are always nosy. It gives them something to do:

gossip about their neighbors."

"It's not just that. She's been watching us intently, keeping track."

"Maybe she's a tennis fan."

Maureen turned back, saw the curtains move once more. On the road in front of the house, an equally old couple was walking by, taking a stroll. The woman smiled, waved at them, but the man spent too long looking, did not turn away, and it was clear that he was watching them, studying them.

"See?" Barry said. "There's something weird going on."

"What? Face it, hon , this place isn't exactly a hotbed of activity in the middle of the week. We're probably the day's excitement."

"It's not just that." He glanced around, as though searching for something. "I feel like we're under surveillance." His gaze traveled upward to the top of the fence, to the light pole. He frowned, moved around the pole, looking up. "Check that out," he said.

"What?"

"Up there. Look."

She followed his pointing finger. Mounted atop the light pole, aimed down, was what appeared to be a video camera, the type of security device found in banks and convenience stores.

"See?"

"See what? It's obviously an anti vandalism measure. A perfectly appropriate one considering what happened to my flowers."

He walked around the pole again. "Where does it go?" he wondered.

"Where's the monitor that it's attached to?"

"There probably isn't one. It's probably just a VCR."

"But where? In the president's house?" He glanced up at the camera. "You telling me that thing doesn't have a zoom on it, that whoever's monitoring it doesn't use it to peek down babes' tennis blouses?"

"Now you're just being crazy." She looked at him. "Or is this some story idea you're trying out on me?"

"It's not a bad idea for a story, but no, I'm being serious."

"You're overreacting."

"Am I?"

"It's called security, and I have no problem with it. We have security gates here, security cameras. It's why our crime rate is almost nonexistent. It's why people like to live here."

"You sound like an advertisement."

"Barry?" She shook her head, thought of saying something else, didn't.

"Let's just play tennis."

But he wasn't ready to let it go.

"What about that old lady peeking at us from behind her drapes? What about the people walking by?" "I think it's nice," she said. "They're watching out for us."

"They're spying on us."

"Isn't this what people are trying to recapture, this sense of community, this idea that everyone looks out for everyone else? Isn't that what they mean by the 'good old days'?"

"But that was natural, it evolved on its own. It wasn't imposed on people."

"We had a "Neighborhood Watch' in California, for Christ's sake! It's the same exact thing!"

"No, it's not the same thing." He walked over to where she had put the You can and dropped his ball inside. He picked up the can. "Let's go home," he said. "I don't want to play anymore."

"I do."

"Fine. Then play by yourself. But I'm going back. I'm not going to stay here to be monitored and spied on."

"You're an asshole," she said.

They left together, walking in silence back up to the house. Maureen checked the mailbox on the way in, but it was empty. There was a piece of pink paper attached to the screen door, however, that was fluttering in the slight breeze and drew their attention. It was tucked into the top of the grating that covered the door's lower half, and they walked up the porch steps. Barry pulled out the paper and held it so they could both read.

It was a form, obviously a duplicate of an original, and the heading at the top read Exterior Maintenance Review.

Beneath the heading was a short paragraph explaining that the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Architectural Committee had conducted a review of the property and had determined that the subsequent maintenance was required. There followed a list of actions, two of which had check marks next to them: "Paint chimney chimney cap" and "Clean pine needles and cones."

They'd been gone only half an hour or so--forty-five minutes at the most--and it was hard to believe that in that time someone had inspected their house and lot for all of the possible violations listed on the form. It was also a little disconcerting. While she knew it was legal, she didn't like the fact that people had been on their property while they were gone, snooping around. There seemed something sneaky about it, something wrong. Why couldn't the inspection have been conducted while they were at home?

But she didn't want Barry to know she felt that way. He was no doubt furious and incensed at such a violation of their privacy, and as petty as it was, she was glad. It served him right.

He stared at the form. "Pinecones?"

It was rather small and silly, she had to admit, and she had half a mind to call up Chuck or Terry and ask why they were being harassed for such minor details, but she was mad at Barry and wanted him to be irritated and annoyed.

"I guess you're going to have to do some yard work," she said.

The day was beautiful, the blue sky filled with gigantic white clouds that drifted lazily from east to west, and Barry decided to write outside on the deck rather than coop himself up in the house in front of the computer. If he came up with anything good, or anything usable, he could type it up later.

He picked up his notebook, defiantly cranked up the stereo volume despite the fact that the music playing was an un defiant James Taylor, and pushed open the sliding glass door.

"Turn that down!" Maureen yelled from the bottom floor.

"I won't be able to hear it outside!" he shouted back.

"Buy a Walkman!"

Barry ignored her, went outside onto the deck, and settled into a chair; but he was not surprised when a moment later the music was abruptly cut off. There was a tap on the glass, and he glanced over to see Maureen grinning at him.

"Thanks a lot," he said.

"My pleasure."

She returned downstairs to where she'd been working on the computer, and he turned his attention to the page before him.

The blank page.

He stared at the lined paper. Ever since they'd moved here, he'd had a scene from the movie Funny Farm stuck in his brain. In the film, Chevy Chase moves out to the country because he wants to write a novel, and in the initial tour of the new house with his wife, he finds a perfect room for his studio where there's a bird cheerfully chirping on a branch outside the window. Later, he's sitting at his writing desk in front of his typewriter and a blank roll of paper, completely blocked, and this time when the bird chirps happily outside, Chase throws a cup of hot coffee at it.

That had been Barry's greatest nightmare, that he would be unable to write in these gorgeous surroundings, and even today, as he sat on the porch, pen in hand, there was the small nagging fear at the back of his mind that he wouldn't be able to come up with anything, that the creative juices wouldn't flow.

But he needn't have worried. As always, he had no problem tapping his imagination, and soon his pen was flying, describing the feelings of a young boy forced by his psychotic sister to eat cereal made from the bone dust of their cremated mother.

A woman walked by on the road in front of the house, and he caught her eye and waved. She gave him a thin smile, waved back, then hurried on, obviously eager to be away from him.

So much for small-town friendliness.

He looked at her retreating back. Now that he thought about it, the sociability quotient of their neighborhood seemed to have gone down over the past week or two, the dinner invitations they'd received upon first arrival no longer extended. He wasn't complaining--they had friends here now: Ray and Liz, Frank and his wife, Audrey, Mike and Tina Stewart--but still it was odd, and he wondered why it had happened, whether they'd broken some unwritten code and made some hideous social faux pas, or whether their newness and novelty had worn off and everyone who wanted to meet them had done so.

The woman rounded a bend in the road, disappearing behind the pines, and Barry looked down at his notebook, flexed his fingers one more time, and resumed writing.

The weather changed quickly, as it often did here in Utah. He'd been sweating in the June heat, then suddenly thick white clouds blocked the sun, and there was a measurable drop in temperature--a full eight degrees according to the Sierra Club outdoor thermometer Maureen had installed on the wall next to the door. The sweat cooled on his skin.

If what Ray said was true, July would bring the monsoons, and then they'd really see some schizo id weather. Barry was looking forward to it. As a native southern Californian, his exposure to different seasons had been through movies, books, and television, entirely secondhand, and it was nice to finally experience for himself the vagaries of Mother Nature.

He broke off for lunch some six pages later, his right hand starting to cramp. He felt good about what he'd written this morning. If it went this well every day, he'd be able to write for six months out of the year and take the other six off. Or crank out two books a year instead of one. Probably the latter. Writing was a notoriously fickle and unstable business, and no matter how well he was doing, there was always the possibility that he could be stone cold in a year and find his fiction unsalable . It was the nature of the beast, and even if he hadn't had a borderline-obsessive work ethic, he would still feel the need to strike while the iron was hot.

But inspiration wasn't that consistent, and although there were days when he finished twenty clean pages, there were others when he eked out only a single paragraph that more often than not had to be rewritten the following day.

This morning had been productive, though. Walking in side, he dumped his notebook on the dining room table and went into the kitchen, searching for something to eat. He opened the cupboards, looked through the refrigerator, but the house seemed to be devoid of snacks and he was too lazy to actually make anything. He finally settled on an apple, chomping it as he walked downstairs. Maureen was in the bathroom, but on the table next to the computer were several stamped envelopes addressed to the IRS, entreaties on behalf of her clients no doubt, and he called out between bites, "Hey! You want me to take these letters out to the mailbox?"

"Go ahead!" came the muffled response.

Anxious to be walking, on the move, doing something physical after sitting on his butt all morning, Barry tossed his apple core into the wastepaper basket, picked up the envelopes, and headed outside. At the mailbox, he flipped up the red flag and opened up the rounded metal door to drop off Maureen's outgoing correspondence.

But he saw immediately that the box wasn't empty. Today's mail had not yet been delivered, so there were no bills, no letters, no postcards.

But there was an unstamped envelope bearing his name and, in the upper left corner, the printed initials "BVHA."

Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association .

He ripped open the envelope, angry before he even knew what was in it.

There was no form this time but a typed note on letterhead stationery.

He read the message. Read it again.

Dear Mr. Welch, It has come to our attention that you have been using 113 Pinetop Rd.

as your place of business as well as your primary residence. Bonita Vista is a strictly residential community and all commercial or business activities are prohibited. No homeowner may practice his or her occupation on any of the Properties.

The Board has only recently learned of your specific situation, and after careful review we have determined that as per the Bonita Vista C, C, &Rs you are required to secure an alternate site at which you can conduct your writerly vocation within thirty days of this notice.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call me at 555-7734.1 would be happy to assist you in any way I can.

Sincerely yours, Boyd R. Masterson Committee Chair The paper in his hand was trembling, he was so angry. Barry shoved Maureen's envelopes into the mailbox and shut the door.

Writerly vocation.

In his mind, he was revising and rewriting the letter: a pointless exercise but one that he often did when confronted with adversarial documentation. Too many people in this world were unable to compose an effective missive, and it always gave him a boost to realize that his opponents were not as adept at composition as he was. It diffused the threat somehow, gave him, at least in his own mind, a psychological advantage.

There was the sound of a vehicle coming up the road, and he looked up to see a red Jeep rounding the corner and starting up the hill. It was Mike Stewart. Mike worked in town at the Cablevision office and was obviously on his way home for lunch. He gave a honk and a wave as his Jeep passed by. But something in Barry's demeanor must have alerted him that something was amiss, because a second later Mike braked the vehicle and coasted back down, stopping in front of the driveway.

"Anything wrong?" he called out.

Barry walked up to the Jeep, holding out the letter. "What do you make of this?"

Mike reached out the driver's window and took the paper from his hand.

He started to read, then snorted. "Those assholes."

"You know anything about this rule?"

"No, but that's only because it doesn't apply to me. If they say it's in the C, C, and Rs , you can bet your mama's cooze that it is."

"But don't you think this rule was probably made to keep people from selling stuff out of their house, or setting up some sort of manufacturing unit in their garage, or doing things that would disrupt the neighborhood? I mean, I write, for God's sake. I type. That's it. It doesn't harm anything. No one would even know I do it if I

hadn't told them."

Mike sighed. "You're probably right, but these are letter of-the-law guys. Intent doesn't mean shit to them. They're just into throwing their weight around and enforcing their rules, and the more infractions they find, the more people they can crack down on, the happier they are. They're grateful you slipped through that loophole and they could pounce."

"God damn it!"

"You know," Mike said, "it's my goal to win the lottery. There are quite a few empty lots up here, and if I won, I'd buy them all. Not just to keep the open space, but also because for each lot you own you get one vote in the association election. I'd have a massive voting block, probably more than all the existing residents put together." He grinned. "I haven't decided whether I would vote to disband the homeowners' association or just vote myself president and exempt myself and my friends from all existing rules while enforcing them to the max for everyone else."

"That," Barry said, "sounds like a plan."

"Lottery's every Wednesday and Saturday."

Barry smiled. "I'm a friend, right?" "Damn straight. And I'll make those bastards pay for this." He handed back the letter.

"But until then?"

Mike grew more sober. "I think you're screwed." He held up a hand.

"Don't go by what I say, though. I'm no expert on this shit. You should talk to a lawyer or something."

"Yeah."

"Hey, I gotta get home and eat lunch. I only get a half hour, and fifteen minutes're gone already. I'll call you later."

"All right. Thanks, Mike." Barry waved good-bye as the Jeep took off up the hill, and, still clutching the letter in his fist, headed up the driveway and into the house.

Maureen, after he'd told her, after she'd read the letter, didn't seem all that upset. At least not as upset as he thought she should be. She agreed that it was unreasonable to force him to stop writing at home, but she admitted that she understood the logic behind it. "They can't very well let you off the hook and make you the exception. They're obligated to apply the rules fairly and evenly, not pick and choose who they're going to harass. That would be selective enforcement and there'd be lawsuits galore after that. I know it sucks that you fell through the cracks, but I don't think it's intentional, I don't think they're after you, I think they're just trying to enforce their regulations--as unfair as they are--in a way that proves they're not singling anybody out for prosecution or favors."

"Jesus Christ."

"It's not the end of the world."

"Thanks for the support."

Maureen shrugged. "All I'm saying is that it might not be all that bad for you to get an office, at least not from a tax perspective. The rent's deductible--"

"That's not the point."

"I know that. I'm just saying that we're doing pretty well these days, and your business expenses are almost nonexistent. That's why we took such a big hit last year on taxes. But if you got yourself an office ..."

"Stop trying to be practical and calm me down. I'm pissed off here, and, goddamn it, I have a right to be. Knock off the every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining crap."

Her mouth tightened.

"If I was retired, I could sit here all day and write crank letters to the newspaper or the government or whatever, and I wouldn't be breaking any rules. But because I make my living writing, I can do the exact same thing for the same amount of time and suddenly I'm in violation of the regulations. Don't expect me to be happy about that."

A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he took the letter from her hand, read it over again. "You know what?" he said. "It only mentions me. What about you? You're using this as your office, too.

I'm not the only one working out of the house here."

"And what's that supposed to mean? You're going to turn me in?"

"Of course not."

"What, then?"

"Nothing."

"Then why'd you bring it up?"

"Because they're not applying the rules fairly, because they are singling me out."

"So what are you going to do? Sue them over it?"

"Threaten them with it at least. You're right, it is selective enforcement. And maybe if I play my cards right I can get a waiver."

He had Maureen call Chuck Shea, her association buddy, to feel him out, to see if something could be arranged, a sort of don't-ask-don't-tell policy that would allow him to continue working at home, but Chuck said the work rule was hard and fast. The only exceptions were those explicitly spelled out in the C, C, and Rs ; specifically real estate agents and accountants, who were not allowed to meet clients at home but were allowed to do paperwork--which was why Maureen had not been cited in the letter. Barry was the first writer to live in Bonita Vista, and it was conceivable that there could be an exception made for his occupation in the future, but Chuck said the matter would have to be brought before the voting membership at the annual meeting in September. Until then, he would have to abide by the rules.

"Not selective enforcement after all," Maureen told him after relaying the message, and wasn't that a hint of triumph in her voice?

No. He was being paranoid. He was angry at her, though he didn't really have any right to be, and he went upstairs to the kitchen to get himself something to drink and to calm down before he said something he might later regret.

Afterward, he called Ray, who was of the same opinion as Mike:

underneath all the sympathy and sincerity and heartfelt offers of assistance, the association people were loving this.

"Think I should talk to a lawyer?" Barry asked.

He could almost hear Ray's shrug over the phone. "It's your call. But if I were you, I'd save my money. These C, C, and Rs have been challenged in court too many times to count, and they've survived every attempt made on them. You might go over the regs yourself with a fine-tooth comb, see if you can figure out a loophole, but my guess is that they've got you on this one."

"What are they going to do if I refuse, if I just ignore the letter?"

Ray chuckled grimly. "You're opening up a whole other can of worms there. What they'll do first is hit you up with fines. That'll go on for quite a while, until the total is an outrageous sum that's almost impossible to pay. Then they'll call in then- lawyer and put a lien on your property--"

"Can they do that?"

"Oh yeah."

"Are you speaking from experience?"

"They haven't done it to me. Not yet. But it's been done around here and I've known the people. Believe me, it's not pretty. If you can't find a legitimate loophole or find some way to argue your way out of this with the board, I suggest you start office hunting."

Barry spent the rest of the afternoon poring over their copy of the C, C, and Rs but to no avail. He called Mike that night, who called someone else who supposedly knew someone on the board, and though neither waivers nor petitions of appeal were mentioned in the association handbook, he was hoping to find someone in authority willing to let him slide.

No such luck.

He went to bed that night angry and frustrated. If he'd known he wouldn't be able to write in his own home on his own property, they never would have bought a house in Bonita Vista, he told Maureen. No matter how beautiful the scenery might be, this defeated the entire purpose of moving here, and if they hadn't already sunk so much money into it, he'd put the damn place up for sale and put Utah in his rearview mirror.

She didn't argue, didn't agree, remained silent, and they fell asleep on opposite sides of the bed, not touching.

In the morning, Barry once again tried to wade through the dense doublespeak of the C, C, and Rs , hoping the fresh perspective of a new day might grant him insight and allow him to see something he hadn't before, but if anything, the association's case looked even more airtight than before.

Maureen put a hand on his shoulder. "Find anything?" she asked.

He touched her hand, gave it a squeeze, last night's simmering hostility forgotten. "Not yet," he said.

"So what's the plan?"

He shook his head. "I don't know."

Jeremy was a lawyer, and Barry considered calling his friend for some free advice, but he thought about what Ray had said and decided to hold off for now.

He had a sneaking suspicion that he might be needing a lot of legal advice in the future.

Barry put away the handbook and stared out the window at the trees. He wondered if he might be able to set up a little office in their storage unit, and he drove down to Corban to check. As he'd known, the small space was completely full, piled high with boxes and furniture and all the extraneous crap they could not fit into the house. He stopped by the office on his way out and asked the old man behind the counter if it would be possible to rent another space and use it as a work room.

The old man shrugged. "No law against it, I guess. But you'd have to keep the door closed except when loading and unloading. Company policy. And there's no lights inside and no electrical outlets. Gets pretty hot in there come June and July." He squinted as if visualizing something and shook his head. "Now that I think on it, maybe it ain't such a good idea."

Barry nodded.

"Not a bad thought you come up with, though. Storage units rented for office space. Somebody could make a fortune. Not here, though, not in Corban. Maybe in St. George or Cedar City ..."

"Thanks for your time," Barry told him.

He got into the Suburban, looked out the dusty windshield for a moment, thinking. Realistically, there was only one option open to him, and he drove down to the real estate office, poked his head inside the trailer. "Is Doris here?"

The skinny woman seated behind the desk nearest the door called out, "Boss?" and a second later a familiar face peeked around the corner of the conference room.

Doris saw him and smiled. "Hey!" she said. "How's it going?"

"Fine."

"Give me a minute, will you? I'm sending a fax to one of the sellers.

You can sit down at my desk there." She pointed. "Or you can--"

"That's okay," he told her. "I'll stand."

"I'll just be a minute."

Barry glanced around the office, saw an autographed photo of Pat Buchanan in a frame on one of the desks, amateur paintings of fish and wildlife on the paneled walls.

Doris emerged from the back room. "Sorry to keep you waiting. Is this business or pleasure?"

"Uh, business," he said, caught off guard.

"Just teasing. So how do you like living in Bonita Vista?"

"We love it," he said.

"No problems?" She smiled. "How do you like the homeowners'

association?"

"Well..."

"Sorry I had to soft-pedal that, but it's my job."

"That's kind of what I'm here about."

"What can I do for you?" she asked sweetly.

"I need an office. The homeowners' association says I can't work at home, it's against their rules and regulations, so I have to find someplace else to write. I was wondering if there's a small room or something I can rent in town, maybe a--"

She put a hand on his arm. "Oh, I've got just the place! It's, right in back of the coffee shop. Used to be a teapot museum, if you can believe that. Old Man Pruitt, who owned a lot of land in these parts some years back, had a wife who collected teapots. Antique teapots, china teapots, teapots from Russia and all over the world. Well, she got this idea in her head that she wanted to open up a teapot museum. I

don't know who she thought would come to visit it. There aren't exactly a horde of tourists passing through here, and even if everyone in town came to see her collection--which not all of them did--it wouldn't take more than two days. But Old Man Pruitt built her a little building and set her up. It was hardly ever open, but she kept it until the day she died. That was back in the eighties. It's been empty ever since. Want to go over and take a look at it?"

"I'm not looking to buy anything," Barry told her. "I just want to rent."

"That's what I'm talkin ' about, sugar. Bert from the coffee shop bought that property off Old Man Pruitt in case he ever wanted to expand or build a bigger parking lot or something. That little building's just been sitting there empty ever since, and I bet if we made him an offer he'd take it. He probably hasn't thought about it for years, and if he found out he could make a little cash on that shack just by doing nothing, he'd jump at the chance." She smiled, picked up her keys off the desk. "Come on. Let's go talk to Bert."

The coffee shop was only a block away, but Doris still wanted to drive rather than walk, and Barry figured that for an old real estate trick, an effort to ensure the customer would remain in her clutches and at her mercy until she decided it was time to let him go. But he got into her Buick without complaint, and the two of them drove down a narrow dirt back road rather than the highway; a long cut it seemed to Barry, but one that allowed Doris the time to fill him in on Bert's eccentricities and convince him that it was smarter to stay silent and let her do all the talking.

It was midmorning, after breakfast but well before lunch, and the only customer in the coffee shop was a sour looking old man eating eggs and toast at the counter. Doris waved to the teenage waitress. "Lurlene!

Your daddy here?"

"Just a sec!" The girl disappeared into the kitchen and emerged a moment later with a short, skinny man sporting a crew cut and wiping his hands on a dishtowel.

"Bert!" Doris called out.

The man nodded, no discernible expression on his face. "Doris."

"I got a man here's interested in renting Pruitt's teapot museum from you."

"What?" He looked genuinely puzzled.

"I thought you were interested in making some extra money."

"Always."

"Well then. Mr. Welch here's a writer, lives up in Bonita Vista. The homeowners' association won't let him write at home, so he's looking for an office, someplace he can set up shop and work on his books. I

knew you had that old museum sitting empty, and I thought the two of you might come to some agreement." She touched Barry's arm again in a way that seemed overly familiar.

Barry looked at her, and she smiled at him. There was a flirtiness that had not been there in Maureen's presence and which made him slightly uncomfortable. He should have brought Mo with him, was not sure why he hadn't, and he glanced quickly away.

"What're you thinking?" Bert asked. "Moneywise?" The question was addressed to Doris.

They hadn't discussed amounts, hadn't even speculated on a range, and before Doris committed him to something he was not willing to pay, Barry spoke up. "Why don't we look at the place first?"

"That's a fine idea," Doris agreed brightly. She turned her smile on Bert. "Want to let Lurlene hold down the fort for a few minutes while we go on back and check it out?"

Bert grunted noncommittally but put down his dishtowel. "Don't worry, Daddy, "Lurlene said, smiling. She nodded toward the old man at the counter. "I can handle this crowd."

They walked through the kitchen and out a back door.

The building was indeed small, Barry saw. The size of their master bedroom. But it had windows, shelves, a built in counter and electrical outlets. Most importantly, there was an adjoining closet-sized bathroom. Neither the water nor the electricity were turned on, and Bert said that Barry would have to pay for both, but at least they were hooked up. A giant cottonwood tree provided ample shade, and on the side of the building opposite the coffee shop, a green grassy meadow stretched all the way to a hill and the tree line.

"So how much would you say it was worth?" Bert asked.

Barry was about to say he'd be willing to pay a hundred a month plus utilities when Doris quickly stated, "Fifty a month." It was an offer, not a beginning bargaining point, and the flatness of her voice made it sound as though this were a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. She walked slowly around the room. "Lot of work to be done here, and Mr. Welch'll only be using it to write in. It's not like he's a lawyer or doctor renting a first-class suite with all the fixings."

Bert nodded. "Fifty a month's reasonable." Doris held out her hand for Bert to shake. "Thanks, Bert. We'll go back to my office and discuss it, and I'll call you back. If everything's jake , I'll get some papers drawn up and we'll seal this agreement."

"I can kick you out anytime," Bert warned. "I bought that place because I want to expand, and if I need more parking lot or have to add on to the restaurant, I'll kick you out."

Barry nodded. "I understand."

"Okay then."

In the car on the way back to the real estate office, Doris laughed.

"Kick you out. That's a hoot. Old Bert probably forgot he even had that place until we showed up and mentioned it to him."

"Thanks for stepping in there," Barry said. "I was about to offer a hundred a month."

"I thought you might go high." She smiled. "Didn't want you to cheat yourself. Even if it would've upped my commission."

"I can't commit to anything yet," he told her. "I have to call my wife first."

"Call her? Bring her on down! Look at it, think about it, discuss it.

That shack ain't goin ' anyplace. And no matter what Bert says, he has no other plans for that place. You're a godsend to him. Take all the time you need."

"Thanks," Barry said.

Doris winked at him. "Just doin ' my job, sugar. Just doin ' my job."

In a way, the homeowners' association had done him a favor.

As much as Barry hated to admit it, working out of an office had opened up both his life and his work. He found that he liked spending his day in town, liked the contact with local characters and the sense that he was part of Corban’s day-to-day life. His new novel had undergone a shift since he'd gotten out of the house, acquired depth and texture and a real-world sensibility. It was more mainstream now, more accessible, less insular and self-referential, and in an indirect way the homeowners' association was responsible.

He smiled wryly. Maybe he should thank them on the acknowledgments page.

Outside the window, a redheaded woodpecker swooped out of the cottonwood tree and disappeared into what looked like a microscopic hole in the eave of the coffee shop. It was a hot day, and the cicadas were out in force, their chirruping overpowering the fan hum of his computer and fading all other noise into background static. Inside, shaded by the massive cottonwood's thick foliage and giant branches, the ah- remained pleasant and temperate, but he could see shimmering heat waves distorting the air above the dirt road and knew that out in the open the temperature was anything but pleasant.

Barry saved what he'd written, shut off his computer, leaned back in his chair, and swiveled around. It was pretty neat having an office.

He liked it. Ray Bradbury had an office. A lot of famous writers did.

And there was something official about it. He felt more professional, more successful, his writing suddenly seeming more like a vocation than an avocation.

Besides, he and Maureen were getting along better now that they were out of each others' hair.

And no longer had to share computers.

He checked his watch. Nearly noon--although his stomach could have told him that. Grabbing his wallet from the desktop, he locked up and walked across the field to the coffee shop.

He'd taken to eating lunch here each day rather than going home or bringing something he'd made himself. He was not the only one. The coffee shop seemed to be a favored hangout of many locals. And the food was not half bad. Besides, it couldn't hurt to patronize the business of his landlord. He might be able to stave off potential rent increases. Or get some free work done should the plumbing act up or the roof leak.