The Association

Barry pulled open the smoked glass door and felt the welcome chill of air-conditioning. The place was already starting to fill up, but his usual table by the restroom was free and he waved to Lurlene , grabbed himself a menu off the counter, and sat down.

He'd felt awkward the first time he'd come in here. He was not one for eating alone, was not one of those people who was comfortable without companionship in social settings. Being by himself in restaurants or movie theaters always made him feel self-conscious, as though everyone were staring at him, and though intellectually he knew that was not the case, he'd been sorely tempted to get his food to go and eat it in the office. But he forced himself to sit down at the counter and order lunch, and while he was fidgety and ill-at-ease, he managed to get through the meal unscarred.

He returned the next day. Barry was not good at meeting new people, at injecting himself into existing groups or conversations, but he was lucky enough this time to have Bert do it for him. He was seated at the counter, eating a cheeseburger, pretending to be proofreading a manuscript, and behind him, two old-timers were talking about Kingdom of the Spiders, a William Shatner horror movie that had been on one of the Salt Lake City stations the night before. The movie had been filmed in Camp Verde, Arizona, which was where one of the old-timers was from, and he was tearing apart the topography of the film, complaining that in one scene Shatner was driving away from the ranches he was supposedly heading toward, and that editing and selective shooting made the movie's downtown seem very different from what it was.

"It wasn't that they just shot the flick at Camp Verde," the old man said. "I could understand that. But they claimed it was Camp Verde.

It wasn't supposed to be no made-up town or nothing. They were pawning it off as a real place."

"This guy here writes scary stories like that," Bert said from behind the counter, nodding toward Barry. "Maybe he knows why they do things like that."

Barry hadn't attracted any attention in the coffee shop on his first visit, had been ignored by the other customers as though he wasn't there. But all of a sudden the old man and his cronies took an interest in him, and Barry found himself the subject of serious attention. One old-timer even reached into his shirt pocket and put his glasses on in order to see better.

"I rent him the old museum out back," Bert went on. He sounded almost proud. "He writes his books back there."

The old man who'd been complaining about the movie squinted at him.

"You a famous writer?" he asked.

Barry laughed. "I don't know how famous I am, but I make a living at it."

"What's your name?" one of the other men asked.

"Barry Welch."

There was shaking of heads all around.

"Never heard of him," someone said.

The complainer pushed his chair back, walked over to the counter, held out his hand. "Name's Hank Johnson. Pleased to meet you."

Barry smiled, shook the hand. "Likewise."

"So, as a writer, would you do something like that? Put in false stuff about a town even if you knew it wasn't true?"

"Writing is lying," Barry said. "We make things up, and if we put in real places or actual events, we change them to suit our story. We don't care about reality."

Hank nodded. "Makes sense. Ticks me off. But it makes sense."

"A helpful hint: don't watch Kingdom of the Spiders if you're looking for realism."

The old man chuckled. "You're all right, son. Come off a that counter there and eat with us. I got a lot a questions and I don't like standin' here this close to Bert. It's disturbing."

"Hey," Bert growled.

Barry picked up his plate and glass and followed Hank back to his table.

Ever since then, he'd been treated like one of the regulars, one of the gang, and that was another reason he was glad he'd been forced to rent the office. There was something gratifying about being a part of the workaday world rather than remaining apart and aloof, isolated in his hillside house in his gated community. It appealed to his egalitarian, democratic sense and made him feel as though he were a better person for it.

Lurlene came over and took his order--barbecued chicken sandwich and a Coke--and he nodded to Lyle and Joe over at the next table. "Where's Hank?" he asked.

"Can," Joe said simply.

Hank emerged a moment later, wiping his hands on his pants. He nodded at Barry, smiled. "Howdy, son. Hot enough for you?"

"Temperature's fine out in my little shack."

"Lucky bastard." Hank sat down in his usual spot at the adjacent table, gestured to Lurlene for some more iced tea.

At the next table over, Lyle cleared his throat. "Another dog got poisoned last night."

"No shit?"

"Bill Spencer's Lab, Go. They found him facedown in his bowl, tied up right in the front yard. Guzman's going to do an autopsy on him this morning."

Hank shook his head. "Never liked Guzman. I take all my animals to Ryan. He's my pet and livestock vet."

"Yeah, but Guzman'll be able to tell what killed him."

"We already know what killed him. What's this make? Four dogs this year?"

"Somewhere around that."

"Six pets total if you throw in Abilene's cats," Joe offered.

"I never even heard about this," Barry said.

Hank nodded. "Been goin ' on for a while. It's not regular, not consistent, but every month or two some dog'll be poisoned. Always happens in the middle of the night. It's bad enough for a man to come out and find his animal dead, but when it's kids that find the body, like with the Williamson girls ..." Hank shook his head. "It just ain't right."

"And that walking piece of crap Hitman won't do a damn thing about it."

Hank snorted. "Hitman. There's a proper candidate for lynching."

Barry chuckled, but stopped when he realized that he was laughing alone. Hank wasn't serious, he wasn't proposing murder, but the sentiments behind the statement were anything but joking, and he understood, looking around the room, just how different he was from these people. This was a whole other world, and while he might be friendly with Hank and Joe and Lyle and some of the other regulars, he was just a visitor here.

A woman at one of the other tables spoke up. "Why don't the sheriff just arrest those bastards?"

"That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question."

Barry was incredulous. "You mean the sheriff knows who's doing this?"

"Everyone knows."

"Who is it?"

Lyle looked at him as though he were a moron. "Your homeowners'

association."

The answer came as a complete shock, and Barry's first instinctive reaction was one of guilt by association--no pun intended. He was suddenly certain that everyone in the coffee shop held him at least partially to blame for the pet killings, but a quick look at the faces of his lunch buddies convinced him that such was not the case, that he was considered one of them--not one of them--and though he was filled with relief, he still felt at fault somehow, as if he had betrayed the people around him.

"The homeowners' association," he said dumbly.

Lyle nodded.

Hank spoke up. "It's true."

The expressions on the faces of the other men and women were grim.

Barry wished he could dismiss such a charge out of hand, but it was too easy to believe, and he had no trouble picturing a pet-killing committee dressed all in black, spreading out through Corban in the middle of the night to do away with dogs.

He thought of the dead cat in the mailbox, thought of Barney.

"But why would they do that?" he said aloud. "What's the point?"

Hank shrugged. "They're trying to extend their influence into town, trying to make us all into a part of their little kingdom. Corban's unincorporated, and they want to take over. We have no town council, so they figure they can call the shots."

"But no one's buying into it," Lyle said. "Their Master Plan just won't fly here."

Joe nodded. "So they're trying to force their lifestyle on us. They don't allow pets, so they start killing our pets."

"Next they'll be painting our houses for us, cleaning up our yards."

"Let 'em!" someone called from a booth near the door. "I'd appreciate some free maintenance work!"

There were scattered chuckles, even Lyle smiled, and the mood seemed to be broken. The tension that had been gathering over the coffee shop dissipated, and Lurlene brought over his Coke. "Sandwich's coming,"

she said.

"I'muna get me one of them motion detectors," Joe said. "Put it on in the backyard where I keep Luke tied' up. Anyone comes snoopin ' around in the middle of the night-Warn!--all the lights'll go on, and I'll come out with my shotgun, blasting."

"Not a bad idea," Hank said. "Maybe everyone with a dog oughta do something like that."

Lyle nodded. "Maybe they should."

Barry walked back to his office after lunch feeling strangely unsettled, and though he immediately fired up the old computer and sat down before it, more than an hour passed before he finally started writing again.

He closed up shop late, time-fooled by the summer sun, but when he got home, Maureen was still down in her office, knee-deep in calculations.

She was auditing the pay roll expenses for Corban Title and Mortgage, and she informed him that she didn't have time to cook dinner and wasn't in the mood for any of the limited number of dishes he knew how to cook, so he was on his own tonight.

"No problem," Barry said. He went upstairs, micro waved a frozen pizza, and sat on the deck eating, watching the sun start its slow descent toward the canyons.

After depositing his plate and glass in the dishwasher, he told Maureen that he was going to go for a walk, get a little exercise, maybe step by Ray's for a minute.

"Say hi to Liz for me," she said.

"Will do."

Barry hiked up the road to the top of the hill. It was still light out, but the world was suffused in an orange glow, and from this angle the Dysons’ house looked like it was on fire, so bright was the reflection of the setting sun in the home's windows. Ray must have seen him walking up, because his friend was on the porch steps drinking a beer and waiting to greet him as Barry trudged across the gravel driveway.

Ray smiled. "Hey, stranger. What brings you up this way on a school night?"

"The homeowners' association."

Ray's smile faded. He nodded toward the front door. "In or out?"

"The weather's nice. Let's stay out here."

"Want something to drink?"

Barry shook his head. "That's okay. I just had dinner."

Ray took a sip of his beer, sighed. "So what's happened now?"

Barry told him about lunch at the coffee shop, the story of the poisoned pets and the conviction of the locals that the homeowners'

association was responsible. "So what do you think?" he asked. "Do you think they're really killing off pets?"

Ray thought for a moment. "I doubt it," he said. "It's not that I

think such a thing would be beneath them. It's just that I don't think they have any interest in things outside of Bonita Vista. The rest of the world could go to hell in a hand basket for all they care. As long as we're still safe up here, as long as the houses are painted the proper color and no one has an extra car in their driveway, all is right with their world."

"But like you said, they have the sheriff in their pocket. Maybe they want to expand their reach, take over Corban ."

"Maybe," Ray said doubtfully. "But Hitman's in their pocket only when it comes to Bonita Vista matters. I'm not defending those assholes, you understand. But I really think that their interest lies here, that their only concern is what happens in our little area. They might kill our pets, but I don't think they'd cross the border and go outside their territory." He paused. "You know, it's not power they want, not specifically. It's power over Bonita Vista. It's hard to understand, at least for normal people like us, but they really do seem to have some sort of primal territorial feeling about this place, some sort of myopic localized interest that forces them to focus on Bonita Vista and Bonita Vista only. To the exclusion of everyplace else."

"The land under a gated community possesses evil energy and has some sort of hold over its residents, making them do horrible, unspeakable things." Barry smiled. "Sounds like the plot of one of my novels."

Ray nodded seriously. "You're right," he said. "It does."

"I was joking."

"I know."

But Ray was still not smiling, and he sipped his beer as he walked over to the side of the house and looked down on the town of Corban , where lights were beginning to flicker on against the coming darkness.

Barry watched him. His friend had been acting odd lately. Nothing specific, nothing overt, nothing concrete, but there'd be a vibe, at strange moments, at strange times, that made Barry sense something was wrong. He'd hesitated to mention it before for fear that it was some sort of marital trouble, some problem between Ray and Liz, but that did not seem to be the case, and he cleared his throat and stood next to his friend. "Is ... is there anything the matter?" he asked awkwardly.

"Nope."

He tried humor. "You don't seem your usual happy-go lucky self."

Ray waved his hand dismissively, still not looking at him. "It's nothing. I'm just tired."

Barry let the matter drop. Maybe it was nothing. If it wasn't...

well, no doubt his friend would talk to him when he was ready. It wouldn't do any good to push.

Ray looked away from the edge, glanced over at Barry. "Liz wants to have another party, a neighborhood get together for all us outsiders.

You and Mo game?"

"Sure."

Ray shook his head. "I'm getting too old for this shit. Never thought I'd say that, never thought I'd end up one of those old farts who just likes to sit on the couch and watch Jeopardy, but damn if that's not what I'm turning into." He sighed. "Getting old sucks. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

"I always knew it did," Barry told him.

His friend was silent for a moment, and when he finally spoke again, his voice was soft. "You don't want to cross them. The homeowners'

association. There's no telling what they're capable of. The best thing you can do is just stay out of their way."

"Something did happen!" Barry said.

"No. Nothing did. Something could've. But nothing did."

"Then--"

"It's one thing for an old-timer like me to be defiant, have a high profile. They know me. I've been around for a long time, and ... I'm tolerated. But someone new, someone like you ..."

"But nothing. I'm not afraid of those bastards."

"Maybe you should be."

"Why?"

Ray sighed. "Just try to stay out of their way," he said. "If they come after you, go at them full force. Use everything at your disposal to defend yourself. But don't go looking for trouble, that's all I'm saying. Don't put yourself in harm's way for no reason; for pride or stubbornness or principle. It's not worth it."

"Don't worry," Barry said. "I'm not stupid."

"I know you're not. I just want you to keep that in mind, though. Just keep that in mind."

They were late to the party. At the last second, Maureen got a call from a panicked client back in California who had just arrived home to find an IRS audit statement in his mailbox, and it took her ten minutes to calm him down and reassure him that there was nothing to fear, that everything for the past five years was in order, and that this was merely a random audit, not a red-flag situation. "Don't worry," she told him, "I'll take care of it."

She spent the next ten minutes quickly accessing computer records and looking through her file cabinets to make sure that what she'd told him was true.

So they were a half hour late getting to the Dysons’.

Liz answered the door. She gave each of them a big hug. "We were wondering what happened to you two!"

"Just some last-minute business," Maureen said.

Liz winked at her. "I understand."

"What does that mean?" Barry whispered as they walked into the living room. "Does she think we were fighting or fucking?"

Maureen hit his shoulder, gave him a stern look, then turned on her smile as she headed over to the punch bowl.

Barry felt a strong masculine hand slap his back. He turned to see Frank Hodges holding a Heineken and grinning hugely. "How goes it, bud? Haven't seen much of you since you took over the teapot museum."

"There aren't any teapots anymore. It's now home to perverted sex and violence."

Frank laughed heartily, slapped his back again. "Glad to hear it.

That's the way things oughta be." He motioned across the room, where quite a few people seemed to be mingling by the windows. "Do you know Kenny Tolkin ?"

The name didn't ring a bell. Barry shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Oh, you gotta meet Kenny." Frank led him through the crowd and around the couch. "He's the only person here with a job cooler than yours.

Kenny is a career consultant to rock stars. Right, Kenny?"

The man standing before diem elegantly holding a glass of red wine was tall, gray-haired, and distinguished looking --save for the gaudy blue patch over his left eye. He smiled. ""Artistic consultant' is what I'm calling myself now."

"Tell Barry here what you do."

Kenny laughed. "Frank ..."

"Come on."

"I make pop stars into artists."

Frank nudged Barry with his elbow. "Listen to this."

Kenny shook his head and waved his hand, begging off. "No."

"Come on."

"I'd like to hear it," Barry admitted.

"Oh, all right." He smiled, paused, took a sip of his wine. "There comes a time in the career of most singers and musicians, if they're successful enough, when they want to be taken more seriously. When they have enough fame and fortune and start to crave critical respect.

That's where I come in. For an outrageously inappropriate fee, I

choreograph a media campaign, stage interviews, and go over lyrics in order to make rock critics think my clients are senous artists. Music journalists are probably the most gullible people on the planet, and they're desperately willing to buy into the fantasy. I remember one time Kurt Cobain showed up for an interview wasted and wearing a dress, and the interviewer wrote a glowing piece on how Cobain was 'challenging gender stereotypes."" Kenny laughed. "So it's not as hard as you might think to con these people into believing that a twenty-two-year-old high school dropout is now making profound observations about the human condition."

"So how do you do it?" Barry asked.

Kenny smiled. "Trade secret. But I will clue you in on two important words: spiritual journey. It's my most tried and-true method. I take some of that godawful drivel these kids are writing, slip in a few references to fate or a higher power, tell them to stay out of the limelight for six months and to inform everyone that they're 'recharging' their spiritual batteries. Voila! Instant artist. They return from their hiatus with a new respect from critics who now laud their artistic growth and ambition."

It was an interesting occupation, Barry had to admit, and one that he had not even known existed until now. One of those new entrepreneurial jobs that the high-techies were always talking about.

Still, it was Kenny's eye that had really piqued Barry's curiosity.

Horror writer-it is rearing its head once again.

He casually glanced at the blue patch. How many people lost eyes these days? And how many of them wore patches? It seemed anachronistic, slightly exotic, like something out of another era. But he knew it would be impolite to ask about, and he was resigned to the fact that neither Frank nor Kenny was likely to bring up the subject.

Hell, maybe the man's eye was fine. Maybe pirate chic was big in the rock world these days and Kenny was just riding the cresting wave of the trend.

Once again, he felt Frank's hand slap his back. "Barry here's a writer. Like Stephen King."

Kenny looked intrigued. "Is that so?"

"I'm a horror writer," Barry admitted. "Published, I assume?"

He smiled. "I wouldn't call myself a writer if I wasn't. In fact, I

wouldn't be calling myself a writer unless I was making a living at it."

"You're a rare breed. I know writers who've never even written anything."

Barry chuckled. "So do I."

"Have any of your novels been optioned for film?"

"Not yet, no."

"I have some contacts in the film industry," Kenny said. "I'll ask around for you. Put in a good word. If I'm not imposing or overstepping my bounds."

"Wouldn't you like to read one first to make sure I'm not a complete hack?"

"Hacks sell their stuff to Hollywood all the time. Hackdom's no drawback in the film industry. Not that I think you are one," he added quickly.

Barry smiled. "No offense taken."

"Besides, if Frank and Ray vouch for you, that's good enough for me.

I'm always ready to help a fellow outcast."

Frank was beaming.

It seemed odd to Barry that someone with connections in the music and film industries would have a place out here in the middle of nowhere--but he was a novelist and refugee from California himself and should be the last person to generalize and stereotype about the type of people attracted to Bonita Vista. Again, he wondered about the patch, and he thought that maybe, despite the professorial appearance, Kenny Tolkin was like Norman Maclean , one of those outwardly cultured men with a rough-and-tumble rural background. It made as much sense as anything else.

"You know," Frank said, "with talents like you two, we oughtabe able to bring the fucking homeowners' association to its knees."

"I take it you're having a problem with the association?" Kenny derisively pronounced the word ASSociation "You could say that. I got a notice yesterday that I have to repaint the trim on my house. I just painted it last year, but apparently their inspectors found minute spots that are peeling on the south side, the side exposed to the sun. So either I try to find a massive ladder tall enough to reach the roof on the hill side and risk breaking my neck, or I shell out big bucks to have it painted."

Kenny shook his head. "That certainly sounds familiar. Last fall, I

received notice that I was to resurface the asphalt on my driveway. I'd had it done only the month before."

"So did you?"

"Hell no. I hosed off the driveway, sprayed off the dirt, and it looked as good as new. I called up and told them I'd done it, and I

haven't heard back from them since."

"Maybe I should just tell them I did it," Frank said. "Make them go up again and inspect it. Then have it done."

They all laughed.

Barry told how he'd gotten a notice to paint the chimney cap for their wood-burning stove and to pick up pinecones on the property. "There was one damn pine cone he said. "One! And for that they gave me a written notice?"

"Did you paint your chimney cap?"

"I had to hire someone to do it. Some guy named Tom Peterman, who didn't even come out himself but sent his son up to do it. A week late."

"Be prepared to paint it again next year," Frank said morosely.

"Peterman's the one who did my trim."

Kenny chuckled. "Welcome to rural America."

Gradually," other partygoers started gathering around, people with their own complaints, their own tales of confrontation and capitulation, and, like the previous party, it soon became a round-robin, with one homeowner relating a horror story while the others listened, and then another taking his turn after that. It was what they all had in common, this hatred of the homeowners' association, it was why the Dysons had brought them all together, probably why they had become friends with Ray and Liz to begin with. Barry had never been a joiner, had always had a deep fear and distrust of groupthink, but the tribal aspect of this made him feel surprisingly positive. It was empowering, knowing that there were others like you, that different people felt the same things you felt, had the same reactions to things that you did.

Greg Davidson dropped the evening's biggest bombshell.

"We're leaving," he said. "We can't afford to live in Bonita Vista anymore." He put an arm around his wife, Wynona.

The Davidsons had been quiet through most of the diatribes, not registering much interest or enthusiasm in the anti-association rants that had become the party's focal point. That was unusual. Barry didn't know Greg well, but from what he'd seen at the Dysons’ earlier get-together, the man was not shy about speaking his opinion and was a very vocal opponent of the association.

Mike Stewart put a hand on Greg's shoulder. "What happened?"

Greg glanced around the room without meeting anyone's eyes. "It's the association. They've been targeting us for a long time, and ... we just can't fight them anymore." He sounded as though he were about to cry.

"It's the gate," Wynona explained.

Barry was confused. "You can't afford to live here because of the gate?"

"They put that gate in to get rid of us."

Mike shook his head. "I don't think--"

"Hear me out." Greg took a deep breath. "We voted against the association on the last ballot. We knew it was a risk, but I couldn't justify supporting them anymore, and I didn't want... I was tired of just caving in." There were nods of understanding all around, but Greg must have seen the look of incomprehension on Barry's face. "You're new," he said. "You haven't been through one of their elections. Or one of the farces they call elections."

"No," Barry admitted.

"They coincide with the annual meeting on Labor Day weekend. You'll get a ballot, and on it will be the names of the current board members.

Next to each name will be a box that says "Approve." And that's it.

There are no other candidates running, there is no space to put in a write-in candidate, there's not even a "Disapprove' box. So all you can do is ratify the existing board."

"It's true," Mike said.

"I don't know why they even waste time on such a charade, but I suspect there's some sort of legal requirement that homeowners' associations hold yearly elections and this is their way of getting around that.

Anyway, I was tired of supporting those assholes. In the past, we just didn't bother to vote. We threw away our ballot. But this time, I

made my own boxes next to the "Approve' boxes, and I wrote in, "Impeach." Needless to say, it did not go over well. I received a threatening letter warning me to cease and desist from making libelous and disparaging remarks about board members. I wrote back that I could find no bylaw forbidding me from saying whatever the hell I wanted about board members, and I pointed out that my attempt to institute a free election was hardly disparaging or libelous."

"Then they put in the gate," Wynona said.

Greg nodded. "Then they put in the gate. Well, not right then. A few months later. But we knew the reason."

Barry looked over at Maureen, who was frowning. "I'm sorry," he said.

"I'm lost."

Greg glanced around embarrassedly. "We don't exactly" He sighed.

"Bonita Vista is a little out of our range. We loved this place and we wanted to live here, and with a little creative financing we were able to swing it, but we were always hanging on by a thread. The association knew that. So they decided to just... push us over the edge. They couldn't get us on any of their precious technicalities, they couldn't find a single rule or regulation that we'd broken or even bent, so about six months ago, they decided to turn Bonita Vista into a gated community." He held up a hand. "I know they said it was for other reasons, and, who knows, that might have been part of it. I'm sure they did want to prevent vandalism and burglaries and keep out the locals and prevent outsiders from driving on our fair streets, but the timing of it..." He shook his head. "What they really wanted to do was increase the property values of the homes up here in order to increase property taxes. They knew we couldn't afford an increase, that it would drive us out.

"And now it has."

"We got our property tax bill from the mortgage company," Wynona said.

"And we owe nearly a thousand dollars. There's no way in hell we can pay that. We're in debt as it is."

"Maureen here's an accountant," Mike offered. "Maybe she'd be willing to look over your finances, see if there's some way--"

"Sure," Maureen said quickly. "I'd be happy to."

Greg smiled painfully. "Thanks for the offer, but no. We know when we're licked, and we're not about to get ourselves in deeper just out of spite. The game's over. They've won. And we're going to turn tail and run as far away from Bonita as humanly possible."

"But your job ..." Mike said.

"I'm quitting. We're selling the house and starting anew in Arizona.

My brother lives in Phoenix and thinks he can get me a job at Motorola." He looked out the window. "I was born in Corban ," he said.

"So was Wy . And ever since I was a teenager, all I wanted was to be able to afford a house in Bonita Vista. It seemed like a paradise to me, and I thought if I ever got in here I'd be happy, things'd be perfect. But it's been a hellhole." He turned to face the gathered guests. "You guys've all been great. But most of the people here ..." He shook his head.

Ray emerged from one of the back rooms. He'd been MIA for the past hour, and Barry wasn't sure how much he'd heard, but he'd obviously heard some of it. Just as obviously, he'd had a little too much to drink. "Fuck the association," he said, walking into the center of the room. "Those bastards can kiss my ass!"

There were echoes of support: "Yeah!" "You tell "em!" "Damn straight."

"You're not going anywhere," he told theDavidsons . "We'll all chip in and pay your property tax. Hell, I'll pay the whole damn thing myself if I have to!" He put a boozy arm around Greg's shoulder. "We can't let those bastards win."

Both Greg and Wynona were shaking their heads. "I can't let you do that," Greg said firmly. "Besides, we've made up our minds. We're leaving. We're through with this place."

But Ray was on a roll. "Civil disobedience. That's what we need here.

If we all rebelled, if we all refused to follow orders and go along with their dictates, there's nothing they could do about it."

"There's more of them than there are of us," Mike pointed out.

"Then we'll kick their asses! I threw one of those pecker heads off my lot last month, and he went running home to Momma. They're cowards!

I'm telling you, we get a group of men together, men who have something between their legs, and when one of us gets a notice or an ultimatum, we all march over to the board members' houses and beat the living shit out of them!"

"Yeah!" Frank said.

The rally went on from there.

Despite the Davidsons ' depressing story, Barry walked home at midnight feeling pumped up. The ideas Ray and his increasingly drunk guests came up with for thwarting the homeowners' association were outlandish and ridiculous, but the spirit was there, and that made him feel good.

Such sustained and unanimous hatred of the homeowners' association gave him hope.

It had been over a week since he and Maureen had made love, but they made up for it that night in a marathon session that brought to mind the early days of their marriage. By the time he finally settled down to sleep, he was dead tired, and in his dreams Neil Campbell arrived at his garage sale with his prissy mouth and his clipboard, and Barry beat the tar out of him.

Maureen awoke with nothing to do.

It was not something to which she was accustomed, and while she'd known that this was bound to happen, she was still not entirely sure how to deal with it. She was not a workaholic, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she was not a slacker either, and while Barry could easily sit around all day staring into space and contemplating his navel, she was not wired for sloth, did not know how to enjoy huge blocks of free time. She was used to having a job, a regular job with regular hours, and even her weekends and vacation days had always been planned out, her leisure time structured.

But as of yet there wasn't enough work here to keep her occupied on a full-time basis. She'd known that and she'd told herself to stretch things out, but she wasn't wired for procrastination either, and, as always, she'd done the best job she could in the quickest time possible. The fiscal yea rend was coming up for most of her California clients, and two weeks from now she'd be so busy that she wouldn't have time for sleep ... but for now she had nothing to do. Even her gardening was all caught up. She'd watered and weeded yesterday, trimmed dead flowers and fed the plants, so unless she wanted to start repainting the house, she was out of luck.

Kicking off the sheet and sitting up, Maureen looked down at her still-flat stomach. She and Barry had often discussed having children, and she couldn't help thinking that a baby would provide her with plenty of work to fill up these empty hours.

But she felt guilty for even speculating about having a child for such a selfish reason. It was as bad as those accountants --and she knew quite a few of them--who planned their children's birth dates in order to get the maximum tax credits.

She sighed. At least when Barry had been home, she'd had someone to talk with. But with him at his office, she was alone and on her own.

Maybe she'd go down and meet him for lunch, she thought. That might be fun.

And on the way back she could stop over and see Liz. Or drop in on Tina Stewart, who'd been asking her to come by and see the new roses she'd planted.

Maureen hopped out of bed, feeling better. There were things to do, she was not entirely at loose ends, and the gloom that had threatened to engulf her only a few moments before disappeared completely, replaced with a more familiar and welcome feeling of energized purpose.

As she ate breakfast and listened to Howard Stern, whose show they got on a powerful and remarkably clear radio station out of Las Vegas, she decided to start her morning with a little exercise. It was a weekday, the tennis courts were no doubt empty, and she thought she'd hit a few balls, practice her serve, start using this free time wisely and get into shape. Afterward, she'd take a shower, then pack a lunch and surprise Barry down at his office. Maybe they'd even go on a picnic.

Maureen changed out of the jeans she'd put on and slipped into a pair of shorts. She grabbed her racket and a can of balls from the closet and jogged down the hill to the tennis courts.

As she'd known, as she'd hoped, there was no one playing she had the courts to herself, and she picked the left court, the one nearest the trees, standing in alternate corners and hitting balls into the opposite squares. Serving was the weakest part of her game, and although she and Barry were pretty evenly matched, if she could tighten up her serve, that might tilt the balance in her favor.

A red Mustang roared down the street, sliding to a late braking stop in the small gravel parking space adjacent to the tennis courts.

Beat-heavy music thumped from behind dark tinted windows, and a moment later two teenage boys hopped out of the vehicle, rackets in hand. One was blond, one had black hair, both were scruffy, and Maureen saw them and then looked immediately away, not wanting to make eye contact. She wanted to practice on her own, without interference, and she kept hitting balls, ignoring the newcomers.

But that soon grew hard to do.

The boys had brought several cans of balls with them, but she could see out of the corner of her eye that they merely hit the same ball lightly back and forth, not playing a real game, not even putting effort into a decent volley. They seemed more interested in their conversation, a disgustingly graphic and obviously exaggerated account of their sexual exploits that grew louder and louder with the telling.

Part of her wanted to tell them to either quiet down or take it somewhere else, but they looked like the kind of kids who'd talk back, and the last thing she wanted was to start a verbal volley with these punks and have to stand there and argue with them for the next twenty minutes. It was easier to just let it slide and try to ignore them.

As if reading her mind, they took the volume up another notch.

"She had one of those skanky pussies, man. Smelled like she'd been shitting out of that hole, if you know what I mean."

"Been there, done that."

"I ate her anyway, though. Just held my breath and chowed down for Old Glory."

There was a harsh laugh of recognition in response, and Maureen picked up one of her balls and casually glanced over at the next court. She was nonplussed to see that both of the teenagers were staring at her.

"I hear tell those bitches from California have twats of gold," the blond kid said. "Taste like honey."

He smiled in a way that made her feel as though she needed to take a shower, and Maureen looked quickly away. She glanced up at the security camera, grateful that it was there. She wanted to pack up her stuff and leave, but she didn't want those punks to think they were driving her off, that she was afraid of them, so she finished picking up her balls and moved to the next corner on her rotation, continuing to practice her serve. One ball went into the net and she walked forward to retrieve it.

A tennis ball flew over from the next court, smacked her square in the back.

She straightened up. "Hey!" she called out angrily. "Watch where you're hitting!"

The dark-haired boy laughed harshly, and the thought occurred to her that it had not been an accident.

She turned away, and two balls came whizzing over. One sped past her head close enough that she felt the breeze, and the other hit the back of her bare right calf with a loud slap. The pain was tremendous, she was sure there'd be a welt, and, furious, she picked up the ball and swung her racket, hitting the ball over the fence and into the trees.

She walked purposefully over to where their other ball lay, intending to swat that over the fence as well, but two more balls came at her, each of them hitting her hard in the buttocks.

She'd had enough. She was leaving. And if either of those two shits tried to stop her or harass her in any way, she was going to take her racket and smash it across his smirkyface. She grabbed her can from where she'd placed it by the fence and began picking up balls. Hers were easy to identify: dull old-fashioned grayish white as opposed to their fluorescent yellow-green.

The last one was caught in the chain-link fence near the border of the two courts, an attempted serve that had gone wild. Below it was one of their balls, and as she walked over, she saw that the blond kid was coming over to get his ball as well. She slowed her pace.

He slowed his.

Clearly, he intended to reach the spot the same time she did, and though she definitely didn't want to meet up with him, she also didn't want to show any fear.

Her grip tightened on the racket.

They reached the fence at the same time, and she ignored him as she pulled her ball from the chain link and dropped it into her can.

Blondie dropped to his knees to pick up his ball.

"Aren't you from California?" he asked. Smiling, he licked his lips suggestively and looked at her crotch.

Maureen felt violated, and she wanted nothing more than to take off the top of his scalp with her racket, but she pulled away in as dignified a manner as she could muster.

"Go to hell," she said coldly.

Both of the boys laughed, but neither tried to stop her as she walked back across the court to the exit.

She checked out the license plate of the Mustang and committed the numbers to memory. She'd call Chuck Shea when she got home, sic the association on those assholes. Or on their parents. Someone needed to take responsibility, and at this moment she didn't care who. If Chuck thought it best to fine the kids' dads or double their dues or kick them out of Bonita Vista entirely, well, they had her permission.

But on her way back up the hill, she saw something that made her change her mind.

Or rather someone.

He was standing across the culvert to her right, in front of a low wooden house with too few windows. She had not noticed the house before, so unobtrusive was it and so far back was it set, but she noticed it now because of the man. He was at least six-foot-five, with a shock of white Lome Greene hair that seemed incongruous atop his unlined baby face. But it was the crutches that drew her attention.

That and his missing leg. For he stood there watching her, supported by the tallest metal crutches she had ever seen, crutches that glinted in the sun and shined in her eyes. The long left leg of his tan pants was filled out with his remaining limb, but the empty right pant leg dangled there, swaying gently in the air, rather than being pinned up or cut off.

Maureen tried to smile, gave a wave and an anonymous, pleasant "Hi,"

but the man swung away and hobbled back toward the house more quickly than she would have thought possible. There was fear in his flight, a fear that she had glimpsed on his face in the brief second before he turned away, and she looked immediately behind her to make sure there wasn't an approaching bear or murderous criminal, but of course there was not. She was the only one on the road, and she watched him hop up the gravel driveway and disappear into the house.

A moment later, she saw his face at one of the small windows staring at her and scowling.

Despite his obvious fear, something about the man seemed threatening to her, and she hurried on up the road. Again she thought of the association, of telling them that this weirdo had been bothering her, trying to scare her, but she stopped herself. Where was this going to end? Was she going to run crying to the association every time life wasn't perfect, every time she encountered a minor inconvenience or saw something slightly out of the ordinary?

She had changed her mind about calling Chuck, and it took her a moment to realize why.

She didn't want to be beholden to the homeowners' association.

That was a strange way to think. She and Barry paid dues, and she had every right to expect that they be provided services for those dues.

And the association had helped her out with that lunaticDekeMeldrum and had not asked for anything in return. But the feeling remained that by asking for help she would be calling in a favor, a favor that would be expected to be repaid at some time in the future.

As much as she tried to deny it, as much as she refused to admit it, she seemed to have bought into Ray's and Barry's paranoid mind-set. Of course, the fact that nearly everyone at the Dysons’ party had had association horror stories lent their paranoia a certain amount of credence, but it was not logical arguments or recitations of actual events that swayed her, it was her own nebulous feeling that... that if she called on the association for help, she would owe them.

What if, she wondered (and here she was really edging into Barry and Ray territory), those two teenagers at the tennis courts had been sent over specifically to harass her, in the hopes that she would call the homeowners' association and thus be indebted to them?

That was ridiculous, but although her other thoughts were almost as ridiculous, she did not discount them, and she hurried up the last section of hill, feeling better only after she was safely back inside the house with the door shut and locked behind her.

Ray spent the morning sanding and re-staining the deck. It probably didn't need to be painted for another year, but he liked to keep on top of things, liked to have the house looking good. Besides, he knew it drove the homeowners' association crazy that they couldn't cite him for neglect.

Although they'd no doubt find something to jump on his ass about. They always did.

He took a shower afterward, scrubbing his arms with Ajax in an effort to get the redwood stain off his skin. He was reaching around, trying to clean off his elbow, when the shower door was pulled open.

He let out a startled cry.

Six men stood in his bathroom, staring at him.

It was not Neil and Chuck and Terry this time, not the underlings or the toadies, not the newcomers. It was the board. The old men who ruled and ran the association. They stood close together in the confined space, faces partially obscured by shower steam, draped in the absurdly decorated judicial robes that they used when presiding over meetings.

Ray shut off the water. "Get the hell out of my house," he ordered.

The steam was clearing, he could see their faces.

The treasurer looked at his shriveled, dangling genitals. "You call yourself a man?"

Ray's heart was thumping hard enough to burst, and he was filled with a deep consuming terror unlike anything he had ever known. He had never seen any of these men up close before--not this close, at least--and they were older than he'd thought, their skin wrinkled and almost translucent, like ancient parchment.

There was also ... something else about them. Something strange and undefinable that he could not quite place but that frightened him to the bone.

The president stepped forward. He was not snickering, and there was no smile on his face, only righteous anger. "Neil warned you, told you to behave." His voice was quiet but growing stronger, tone and volume steadily mounting. "I thought he and his committee made it abundantly clear that we would not put up with any more of your shit!" One knuckled fist hit the side wall, causing Liz's perfume bottles to shake on their shelf.

The other men were nodding assent.

Ray wanted to step calmly out of the shower stall, dry himself with a towel, and put on his bathrobe as they lectured him. But they were all pressing closer, and he knew that would not be possible. His heart rate accelerated, and though he tried to respond, tried to say something, his mouth would not cooperate and all it did was cough.

The treasurer casually picked up Liz's can of hairspray. There was nothing casual going on here, though, and Ray steeled himself to be sprayed in the face, in the eyes.

Instead, the old man cocked his arm back and threw the metal can as hard as he could at Ray's midsection. The bottom rim connected solidly with Ray's stomach, drawing blood and a gasp of pain. The can clattered to the floor of the shower stall.

"I thought everything was made clear," the president said. "I thought you understood."

This was it, Ray knew. There was no way they could expect to get away with this sort of harassment, no way they could think that he would not turn them in to the authorities. They could not expect to shut him up after invading his house like this.

Not unless they planned to kill him.

And that's exactly what the feeling in his gut told him was about to happen.

He saw all the evidence he needed in the president's eyes.

The bathroom seemed to be getting smaller as the six black-robed men pressed forward, advancing on him. Ray looked around desperately, trying to figure out some way to get by them, some means of escape, but the only window was a small opaque one above the toilet, and the board members had taken up all available space between the shower and the door.

He was trapped.

They weren't wearing gloves, he noticed, and a wild optimism flared within him. They'd left their fingerprints all over the doorknobs and anything else they'd touched. So maybe they weren't planning to take this all the way.

At the very least, if worse came to worst they'd be caught. Even Hitman couldn't shield them from a murder rap, not with Liz on their backs.

"We heard that you were rabble-rousing, inciting rebellion, telling people to--" He inhaled deeply, grimacing, obviously having difficulty even speaking the words, "--ignore the C, C, and Rs ."

There'd been a spy at the party, a traitor, and Ray quickly ran down a list of names and faces, trying to figure out who'd betrayed them.

Frank, he thought. It had to be Frank.

Everyone's an informant.

He should have heeded his own dictum, not been so open in his dissent, so free and easy with his opinions. He had not entirely trusted Frank since the man had tried to defend the association after Barry's cat had been killed, and Ray should have been more circumspect around him. Hell, he shouldn't have invited him to the party.

But he had always been one to see the best in individuals, even those who belonged to organizations and institutions he distrusted, and he had given Frank the benefit of the doubt.

Ray looked into the angry eyes of the president. The smart thing to do would be to deny everything, to explain that he was drunk at the time, to bow down to the board and kiss their asses. But he had the feeling that nothing would make any difference, so he stood up straight. "I

did," he admitted. "And I told them, Tuck the association!""

"You worthless little shit." The president came at him.

And pushed. Ray slipped, fell backward, hit his head. There was a flash of horrendous pain, the warm feel of blood gushing from beneath his scalp, and he closed his eyes and lay there unmoving, hoping they would think they'd killed him, hoping this would be the end of it.

But people were that stupid only in movies. These six were not about to assume anything, were not about to walk away without checking whether their attempts to kill him had been effective, and as he lay there bleeding and in agony, trying to feign lifelessness, he was yanked out of the shower by his leg. His head hit the edge of the stall, and bleeding erupted from a new fissure behind his ear. He opened his eyes, but his vision was strobing and he could not see.

There was only a moving blackness against a pale blurred background:

the robed figures of the board encircling him.

Other hands grabbed his arms. He was pulled into a modified standing position and dragged out of the bathroom, into the hallway, into the kitchen. On the way, he was unceremoniously slammed against doorjambs and table edges and countertops.

The battering seemed to restore some of the clarity to his vision. He could now see where he was, and he both saw! and felt the vice president grab his right wrist and use it to J swat the wall phone. Pain flared up his arm, and the receiver was knocked off the hook.

He was dragged out to the living room, his right knee forced into the corner of the coffee table, drawing blood, his shoulder shoved against a potted palm stand, knocking the plant over.

The vice president opened the door to the deck.

He realized what was happening now, he understood what they were doing.

They were making it appear as though he'd slipped in the shower and hit his head. Suffering from a disorienting head wound, he'd then staggered out of the bathroom, made his way to the kitchen where he attempted to dial 911, but, baffled and confused, he wandered into the living room, then onto the deck.

Where he fell over the railing and died.

It would look like an accident, he realized. No one would know that he'd been murdered.

As much as he hated himself for it, he began to scream, and to his horror his screams were the high-pitched yelps of a frightened woman.

The board members were laughing and joking about his manhood as they pressed his right palm against the sliding glass door and rammed his genitals against the metal door frame. He kept screaming, and there was no thought behind it. He was not trying to frighten them off or attract attention from possible passersby, he was screaming because he had to. It was an instinctive reaction, an innate response.

They pulled him onto the deck.

He wanted to remain cool; disdainful toward them to the end. He wanted to make cutting remarks that would wound and hurt them, that they would think about after he was dead, but he could not do that. He simply screamed those girlish screams as the men held his body and smashed it repeatedly against the railing until a just-painted two-by-four came loose.

He could feel nothing below the waist, but his arms were working and he could still see through the blood, and he attempted to break his fall as he flew through the air and landed with a bone-crushing thud on the rocky soil of the wooded sloping hillside.

He was still alive.

The realization filled him not only with hope and an insane glee but with the unshakable desire for revenge. Despite their best efforts, the board had been unable to eradicate him, and their ineffectiveness would be their downfall. He did not know if he could move, if he was paralyzed or simply badly injured, but he knew enough to remain still.

They were no doubt watching from above, and it would be best to play dead for a while. He could check his vital signs later.

But there was no later.

He must have drifted into unconsciousness because in what seemed like seconds, he was squinting through half closed lids and drying blood at the feet of the board members. They were implacable, and more than anything else it was their relentlessness that finally sapped the last of his will and hope. Ray opened his eyes, not caring if they knew.

He saw the president accept a large rock from one of the other board members, place it on the sloping ground inches from his face, then methodically repeat the procedure.

He felt several sets of hands lift the top half of his body, and he understood what they were going to do.

Please, he thought. Let it be quick and painless.

But no death was quick, he realized, no death was painless. And in a second that seemed to last an hour, that realization was brought home to him in a very profound and personal way.

After the funeral, they all went back to Liz's, where even with the large gathering of people, the house seemed curiously empty. Maureen, along with Audrey Hodges and Tina Stewart, had made the food and organized the informal social. The three women were gamely trying to get Liz involved, to keep her occupied with small details and thus prevent her from dwelling obsessively on her husband's death, but even amid the low buzz of multiple conversations, Ray's loss was acutely felt, and Barry could not help thinking how lonely this house would seem once all the people were gone and Liz was by herself.

He stood with Frank and Mike, and the three men watched their wives shunt a zombified Liz across the living room to refill an hors-d'oeuvre plate. They were talking about road construction on the highway that had narrowed the route to Interstate 15 down to two lanes. They had been talking about baseball... and the weather ... gas prices...

anything except Ray. They didn't know each other well enough to open up, to be emotionally truthful and share their feelings, and the three of them had been assiduously avoiding the one subject they'd each been thinking about. Ray had been the catalyst between them, the one who enabled them to speak honestly in front of one another, and with him gone there was a stiltedness to their interaction. He felt the way he had when Todd Ingalls , his best Mend from kindergarten through third grade, had moved away and he'd been forced to play with John Wakeman , a casual friend, a backup friend, someone with whom he eventually found out he had almost nothing in common. Now Frank and Mike were his backup friends, and while they seemed like good guys, it was not the same, not the same at all.

He hadn't realized how much he had come to rely on Ray, how close the two of them had become. There was deep sorrow within him when he thought about the old man, and as he looked out the windows at the crowded deck, it hit him that they would never again sit out there barbecuing and discussing the Big Issues. Or just shooting the breeze.

It was as though a huge chunk of his life had simply been cut out and discarded, and what was left behind was a painful emptiness.

Along with the sadness, however, there was anger. He had not yet figured out how, but he knew in his gut that the association had been involved in Ray's death. Not directly, that's not the way they worked, but in a circumspect, roundabout way, not doing the deed themselves but bringing about the circumstances that allowed it to happen. From across the room, he caught the eye of Greg Davidson, who nodded a weary hello. Greg and Wynona, he knew, were moving out this week, priced out of their own home by Bonita Vista's gate. That's how the association operated. They were facilitators.

He thought aboutDekeMeldrum , lying dead in the ditch as a crowd gathered in the darkness.

Sometimes they were direct, though. Sometimes they did the dirty work themselves.

There's no telling what they're capable of.

Maureen and the other wives brought Liz by to say hello and accept condolences, and the three men reiterated what they'd said at the funeral, how sorry they were for her loss, how much they'd miss Ray, he was a great friend. Barry kept his words short and sweet. He was unnerved by the listlessness of Liz's gaze. It was like looking at a completely different woman than the one he knew, and he glanced at her for only brief seconds before turning his attention back to Maureen. It was pathetic and heartless and selfish and self-centered, but he felt extremely uncomfortable. He was not one of those people who was good with the sick or the troubled or the dying. He could write about it, but in real life he was a complete washout when it came to offering others emotional support. Thank God there were people like Maureen, who always knew the right thing to do and who had the constitution to follow through.

"Can you help us in the kitchen for a moment?" Maureen asked.

"Sure." He followed the women, leaving Frank and Mike to their own devices.

Audrey and Tina busied themselves at the sink and dishwasher, while Maureen led him over to the breakfast nook, where an old leather suitcase sat atop the table. She glanced toward Liz and lowered her voice. "Ray's books," Maureen said. "For some reason, she packed a whole bunch of them in this suitcase and then put the suitcase here on the kitchen table. I don't know how she even lifted the thing. We could barely move it."

Barry nodded. Grief did strange things to people, and somehow this irrational act, more than anything that had gone before, more than the words and the tributes and the funeral itself, brought home to him the enormity of Ray's passing. Liz had obviously loved him a lot.

"What do you want me to do with it?"

"Take it into his den," Maureen whispered. "Just get it out of the way. We'll figure things out later."

He nodded. Grabbing the handle of Ray's suitcase, feeling the heaviness of the books inside, the anger rose within him. "God damn that homeowners' association," he said. "I know those bastards are behind this."

He was speaking to Maureen rather than Liz, but it was Liz who reacted, who responded to his accusation. She strode over, her gaze hardened, suddenly focused. "I don't want to hear anything about that association stuff," she said fiercely. "That craziness was why he was out there on that deck to begin with. If he hadn't been so paranoid about those people, he'd probably be alive today."

Barry said nothing. He did not want to argue with her, did not want to cause her even more pain, and he picked up the suitcase and looked over at Maureen. His wife's expression was unreadable.

Walking out of the kitchen, he saw Liz revert, her body slump, the tension that had momentarily animated her giving out and disappearing as if vacuumed away. He carried the heavy suitcase down the hall. How had she lifted it? He was struggling with it himself. He found the closed door and placed the oversized piece of luggage on the floor of the darkened den. Glancing about, he saw the hulking shadow of Ray's empty desk in the otherwise spartan room and he quickly hurried back out to the hallway, unaccountably feeling as though he were intruding on the couple's privacy. He closed the door behind him.

Had the association really been behind Ray's death?

He wanted to think that was the case, but he realized that he was grasping at straws, ready to believe any conclusion save the logical one: his friend's death had been an accident.

Barry took a deep breath. He was turning into one of those conspiracy nuts, those loonies who saw government plots behind all ill events, who believed in Bigfoot and UFOs, who refused to believe in luck or chance or even fate and attributed even the smallest occurrence to the complex and illogical machinations of a group of ultra-organized human beings.

And he was forced to admit the possibility that Ray had been one of those people, too.

Sometimes, he thought, the simplest explanation was the real one.

Sometimes what was obvious was what was true, and looking for elaborate reasons was just a waste of time.

Still, he was glad there was no one from the association who had come by to offer sympathy, that there'd been no official attempt at wishing Liz condolences. It would have been hypocritical at the very least and an insult to Ray's memory.

He walked back out to the living room. Frank had wandered off somewhere, but Mike was still in place, talking to a woman with a broken arm, and Barry grabbed a drink off the coffee table and joined them.

"Moira? Barry," Mike said by way of introduction. "Moira and her husband, Clan, live around the side of the hill in that stilt-job. Clan used to be a contractor, and he's the one helped Ray figure out how to build that famous storage shed."

"He couldn't make it today," Moira explained. "So I came alone."

"Barry's a writer. Hooked up with Ray because of their mutual hatred of the homeowners' association."

Already, that description sounded embarrassing, childish, and he found that he was ashamed to be identified in such a way.

"What happened to your arm?" Barry asked in an attempt to change the subject. He gestured toward the cast and sling.

The woman reddened, became suddenly taciturn, the openness of her expression closing down. "It was an accident," she said in a voice that didn't sound at all sure that that was the case.

Over her right shoulder, Mike was shaking his head, making a slashing motion across his throat that Barry interpreted to mean stay away from that subject.

Spousal abuse, he thought, and was surprised at how calm he was with it, how un shocked and unfazed he was. In his dreams, in his fantasies, he was one of those people who got involved, who alerted the authorities, who stepped in and put a stop to wrongs and made them right. But here he was confronted with a situation, and he did not rise to the occasion. Like Mike, he felt more comfortable staying out of it, minding his own business and tiptoeing around that five-hundred-pound gorilla in the middle of the room.

This day was just full of surprises.

The afternoon quickly wound down as people who'd put in a token appearance and performed their neighborly duty excused themselves and headed home. This wasn't a party, after all, no one was having fun at this extremely awkward gathering, and Barry could see the relief on people's faces as they expressed their condolences to Liz one last time and escaped out the door, claiming prior commitments and suddenly urgent household chores.

When Mike and Frank left, leaving their wives behind, Barry decided he might as well do the same. Maureen gave him her approval and walked with him to the front door. They'd driven to the Dysons’ house--to Liz's house--directly from the cemetery, but Barry felt like walking home, and he told Maureen to drive the car back when she was through.

She accompanied him out to the porch, closing the door carefully behind her. "What do you think?" she asked, her eyes meeting his. "Do you think it was an accident?"

He was surprised that she was even asking the question. "Probably," he admitted.

She nodded, but there was not the certainty in her face he would have expected, and he wondered if she'd heard something or seen something that made her suspect this was not the case.

He didn't ask her, though, didn't want to know, not right now at least, and he said good-bye, gave her a quick peck on the lips, and headed up the gravel driveway.

The air was hot and unmoving, not leavened by even the hint of a breeze, and the only sounds on this still afternoon were the scratchy scuttling of lizards in the underbrush abutting the road, the chirrups of unseen cicadas, and the occasional far-off rumbling of truck engines as Corban pickups headed on or off the highway.

Bonita Vista seemed like a ghost town, as though all of the people had suddenly disappeared, and while in one of his stories that would have seemed creepy, Barry found the absence of audible neighbors almost welcoming.

He felt better being outside, walking, even in this heat. Ray's house had been so close to the man, so filled with his memory, that it had been difficult to think, to sort things through. It was easier out here, alone under the wide blue sky, to remember the good things about his friend, to celebrate his life rather than mourn his passing.

Ahead, Barry saw the entrance to his own driveway and the brown shingle roof of his house above the line of trees. As he drew closer and more of the house became visible, he saw something else, something that made his jaw muscles clench and the blood pump faster through his veins.

A pink piece of paper attached to the screen door.

The association had been here.

He was filled with a rage entirely disproportionate to the offense, a rage he knew to be misplaced anger at his friend's death, but he felt it nonetheless, and he strode furiously up the driveway and up the porch steps. Those bastards had been here, snooping around, while he'd been at Ray's funeral, while he and his wife and their neighbors had been consoling the old man's widow. Did they have no shame? Did they have no respect?

He ripped the paper from the screen and read it.

The association was fining them fifty dollars because the string Maureen had used to tie up her drooping chrysanthemums was white instead of green. All lines or cords used by a homeowner to tie plants to stakes were required to be green in order to blend in with the foliage and not distract from the lot's natural state.

He felt the muscles of his face harden into a painful grimace, and he squeezed shut his eyes. "Fuckers!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Fuckers!"

Taking a deep harsh breath, tears stinging his eyes, he crumpled up the paper, balled it in his fist, and walked angrily into the house.

July.

The monsoons came just as Ray had promised they would. With the turn of the calendar page, afternoon skies were suddenly filled with massive thunderheads, and short summer storms brought the nearly unbearable heat of midday down to a level that made for cool and pleasant evenings. From the deck, Barry could watch the buildup of the storms, see the coalescing clouds, watch the rain as it came up from the south and moved like a light white curtain over the canyon lands and through the hilly forest toward Corban and Bonita Vista. It was beautiful, and he wished he were writer enough to capture that ephemeral splendor, but his forte was the grotesque, not the sublime, and translating such a magnificent sight into words was beyond his abilities.

He sat with Maureen, drinking iced tea, staring out at the landscape.

There were scattered showers to the south, squares of gray and white that touched the earth and looked like ghostly extensions of the more solid clouds above. Occasional spikes of lightning and the rumble of accompanying thunder belied the tranquillity of the scene but were nevertheless equally majestic, and at one point Barry saw three jagged bolts of lightning hit the ground at once.

From the road came the sound of a muffler less engine, and Barry peeked over to see who it was. A second later, a pickup packed with sand came speeding up the road, the vehicle's driver obviously attempting to get a running start on the steepest part of the hill. Despite the driver's intentions, the grade proved too tough, and the truck stalled out just above their house. The pickup was blocked from view by a pine tree, but Barry heard the engine attempting to turn over, and after one false start, the vehicle slid back down the hill into view, braking to a hard stop directly in front of their driveway. He looked over at Maureen.

"Don't you even think about it," she said.

"The guy obviously needs help. And this isn't California," he pointed out. "It's not part of some scam. He's not going to shoot us and rob us."

"Never can tell."

He shook his head and was about to go downstairs and ask the man if he needed any assistance, when another pickup pulled up behind the first and stopped.

"Saved by the bell," Maureen said.

The man who emerged from the second truck was tall and heavy, wearing too-new jeans, a fancy western shirt, and the sort of shiny oversized belt buckle that had been fodder for urban comedians for decades. A

shock of white hair over a ruddy bulldog face gave the man an air of impatient arrogance, and while Barry had automatically assumed that the man had stopped to help, he knew even before the cowboy opened his mouth that that was not the case.

"You got a permit?"

The driver who stuck his head out of the window to answer was dark and spoke in a thick Mexican accent. "Yes, sir. Of course, of course. I

have my green card."

"I don't mean a permit to work in this country. I figure you got that.

I'm talking about a work permit for Bonita Vista. Does your boss have a permit to do work in our neighborhood?"

Sound carried up here, but if there was an answer, Barry couldn't hear it.

You see, you gotta get the permission of the homeowners' association before you can do any work in Bonita Vista. Any work. I don't care what the man hirin ' you said, that's the way it is, comprende?

There was derision in the Spanish word, derision and an aggressive hostility. Barry could hear it all the way up on the deck, and it was clear that the driver sensed it as well. His response was low and cowed, subservient. He immediately tried to start the truck again, and although the first two efforts were unsuccessful, on the third the engine caught and held.

The white-haired man thunked his hand on the door of the pickup. "Now you turn this baby around. And you tell your boss what I told you, you hear? No permit from the association, no work in Bonita Vista. Got it?"

Again, if there was an answer Barry didn't hear it, but the pickup did not try to continue up the road and instead backed around the other truck and headed down the hill in reverse, the loud engine fading into the distance.

The white-haired man returned to his own vehicle. He looked up at Barry as he walked, scowling, as if aware that his conversation had been overheard, and Barry quickly looked away, moving out of the man's line of sight, nervous for some reason, not wanting to acknowledge that he'd been listening.

The man got in his pickup and drove away.

"Did you hear that?" Barry asked Maureen.

She sipped her iced tea, nodded. "There are racist assholes everywhere."

That was not what Barry had gotten from the exchange, although it was undoubtedly true.

He had the distinct impression that any worker, regardless of his ethnicity, would have been questioned. It was not a race thing ... it was an association thing. He looked out once again at the approaching storm, but the pettiness of the people on the ground had drained the majesty from the sky, and he was no longer able to enjoy the view the way he had before.

They sat there the rest of the afternoon, as the rain approached and overtook them, whip crack thunder that sounded simultaneously with the flash of paparazzi lightning shaking the house and raiding the windows as though they were in an earthquake. They bore the brunt of the storm for a good half hour before it finally broke, and Maureen went back inside to start dinner.

Barry remained on the deck as dusk approached, ignoring the book he'd brought out to read, simply staring at the scenery. The sunset was dazzling. A section of the butte that stood like a sentinel at the far-off end of the forest where it segued into desert canyon was illuminated by a swath of light that lent the tan rock a brilliant fiery orange hue. The remnants of the afternoon's monsoon clouds dispersing across the western sky were transformed into what looked like puffy strings of cotton candy by the gradations of pink generated by the setting sun.

It was impressive, it was awe-inspiring.

But as hard as he tried to enjoy the view, he could not stop thinking about the cowboy and the Mexican worker and the homeowners'

association.

The next day was the fourth.

The Fourth of July had never been one of their big holidays, and although they slept in, waking up over an hour later than usual, they made no special plans to celebrate. Maureen allowed him to barbecue fat-free hot dogs for dinner in a modified concession to tradition, but the remainder of their plans consisted of doing yard work during the day and watching TV at night.

The day passed uneventfully, and they stopped working when the rains came, Maureen grabbing the rake, clippers, and broom, with Barry taking the shovel and the half-filled Hefty bag, both of them running for the shelter of the lower deck. The storm quit in time for him to barbecue, and they ate in front of the television, watching the two Flint movies back-to-back on AMC. Afterward, they showered together, made love, and went to sleep early.

They were startled awake by a loud boom that sounded like a bomb going off in the air above the house but that Barry recognized instantly as the sound of fireworks.

Despite the recent rains, it had been an exceptionally dry spring, and the national forest sign at the edge of town still had Smokey the Bear pointing to a red flag, warning of high fire danger. Barry's first thought was to wonder who was stupid enough to set off fireworks under such conditions. He got out of bed, slipped on a robe, and walked over to the sliding glass door. He pulled aside the curtain and watched a fat raccoon scramble off the lower deck and down an adjacent tree.

Maureen, still naked, moved up behind him and leaned on his shoulder, yawning in his ear. "Were those fireworks?"

"Sounded like it. But I don't see--"

Another one went off, the trace appearing to originate from the bottom of the hill near the tennis courts. A weak blue burst temporarily lit up a close section of sky, sparkles falling onto the pines.

"Isn't that a fire hazard?" Maureen asked, suddenly more awake.

"It seems like it to me."

"You think someone's setting them off illegally? Maybe kids are--"

Barry shook his head. "These are professional fireworks. Kids don't have the equipment to shoot off skyrockets like this. You need launchers. Besides, these kinds of fireworks are expensive."

They waited for several moments but nothing else went up.

"Maybe they were illegal," he conceded.

"Maybe the police or the rangers or the firemen got to them already and put a stop to it."

"No." Barry pointed. Another trace went up, and an anemic burst of red exploded above the trees.

Maureen smiled. "If this is supposed to be professional, it's pretty pathetic."

"We're spoiled." In southern California, spectacular fireworks could be viewed every weekend at various tourist attractions, along with the ubiquitous nightly displays at Disneyland: consistently impressive shows that could be seen from the beach to the Fullerton hills.

They stood, waited, and a few minutes later another skyrocket went off.

"I'm going to bed," Maureen said, yawning. "This isn't worth staying up for."

Barry agreed, and they both went back to bed, falling asleep to the intermittent sounds of exploding gunpowder.

Barry awoke late. Maureen was already out of bed, and the smell of eggs and hash browns wafted down from upstairs. He dressed quickly, ran a hand through his hair, and headed up to the kitchen. It was a beautiful day. Maureen had opened all the drapes and windows, and morning sunlight streamed in from a cloudless blue sky.

"Breakfast'll be ready in a few minutes." Maureen pointed her spatula at a folded newspaper lying atop the dining table. "Check out the paper. Top story."

"Got any coffee?"

"Check out the paper first."

Barry walked over to the table, unfolded the newspaper, and stared down at the banner headline.

Bonita Vista to Set Off Fireworks Despite Fire Danger He started reading.

The Corban Weekly Standard came out every Tuesday, its stories written the week or weekend before, so there was no reporting on last night's display, only a pre-event article that addressed the situation from the vantage point of a few days prior. But there was no mistaking the tone of the piece or the anger that quoted Corbanites seemed to feel toward the arrogance of the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association, sponsors of the display.

Apparently, Corban was running short on water this summer due to the extended drought conditions of the previous winter, something of which Barry had not been aware. Several years before, a similar situation had arisen, and for two weeks in mid-July, before late monsoons once again raised the water table, tanker trucks from Salt Lake City had brought water to the town and people had been forced to line up with plastic containers in order to get drinking water. Such an extreme situation was not expected this year, but voluntary rationing was currently in place, and it was suggested that people with lawns not water them and that no one wash their cars.

The article went on to say that Bonita Vista had its own wells, so it was not tied to the Corban water supply and was not suffering the same shortage. But water district officials said that it was still callous, insensitive, and potentially devastating to the surrounding forest to put on the display. "Those fireworks could cause a fire that would require digging into our reserves and could completely deplete our water resources," the superintendent said. A representative of the Forest Service concurred, adding that it would take several weeks of consistent monsoons before the trees and brush were no longer dried out and the area was no longer considered at risk. The chief of the volunteer fire department said bluntly that his men should not have to bail out Bonita Vista because of their shortsightedness and stupidity but that they would have to, since a blaze would endanger the town and surrounding countryside.

The homeowners' association didn't care about these objections and intended to continue with their display no matter what. The final quote in the story was from his old pal Neil Campbell. "We're not just doing this for the benefit of Bonita Vista," Campbell stated. "These fireworks will be able to be seen for miles and everyone will be able to enjoy them. They're our present to the town of Corban and the people living in this area. Happy Fourth of July!"

Barry looked up and grimaced. "I need some coffee," he said.

Maureen motioned toward the coffeemaker. "I figured you would."

"Jesus. Not only was it stupid from a PR standpoint, but it was dangerous on top of that."

"And the fireworks sucked besides."

"According to Ray, we don't even have any fire hydrants up here. One of the few things the association's actually supposed to do, take care of public safety, they can't be bothered with. It's more important to fine us over the color of our garden ties than make sure we can fight off a forest fire."

"Typical," she said.

Barry poured himself a cup of coffee. "Are you still enamored with your precious homeowners' association?"

"I was never enamored."

"But you're a little less happy with them now than you used to be, aren't you?"

She scooped up a pile of hash browns, then placed a fried egg next to the potatoes on the plate. "Here," she told Barry. "Breakfast's ready. Eat."

The writing had stopped.

Barry still went down to his office each day, still fired up the old computer, still sat in his chair in front of the screen and attempted to finish the novel that was rapidly approaching its deadline ... but nothing came.

This time, he conceded, it might be writer's block.

His inability to progress any further with his story coincided precisely with Ray's death. He'd taken a few days off because he hadn't felt like working, then the weekend of the Fourth had arrived and he never worked on a holiday weekend. But when he finally went down to his office the following week, he discovered that the well had run dry.

He knew exactly what was going to happen next in the narrative--he'd plotted out in his mind the events that were to take place in the current chapter and all he really had to do was fill in the blanks--but he just couldn't seem to get from A to B. He was stymied, stuck.

And he'd been stuck now for almost a week.

Logically, there was no reason this should have occurred. He'd been under deadline two years ago when his mom had died, and he'd managed to finish that book on time. Hell, he'd found the writing process therapeutic, and he'd ended up finishing the novel ahead of schedule, focusing on it to the exclusion of nearly everything else. And his mom had certainly meant more to him than Ray.

But still the writing had stopped.

He'd said nothing to Maureen, had been pulling a Jack Torrence on her, but oddly enough he'd found himself confiding in Hank and Bert and the gang at the coffee shop. They'd been cool to him after the debacle of the fireworks, unable this time to completely divorce him from the actions of Bonita Vista, but he assured them that he was just as outraged as they were, and he described the way he and Maureen had been awakened by the blasts and had had no idea where they'd been coming from.

His explanation was accepted, but there was not the wholesale wholehearted forgiveness that had accompanied his protestations of innocence after the dog death. He'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time once too often, and it was clear to him that if it happened again, suspicion would definitely be directed his way.

It was not fair... but he understood it. He might not condone the actions of the association, but he lived in Bonita Vista, paid his dues, and bore some of the responsibility. And as much as he tried to disassociate himself from his neighbors and align himself with the townies, the fact was that there was no rationing in the gated community. The realities of the water shortage did not affect him, and he felt a little like a condescending nobleman assuring the poor populace that he sympathized with their plight and understood their feelings. Even now, over a week later, he still sensed some residual resentment--not on the part of Hank or Lyle or any of the core group, but from some of the casual coffee shop patrons--and while he didn't like it, he could not really blame them.

Once again, he spent the morning in front of his computer. He tried to concentrate on the unfinished novel before him, but as usual his mind wandered to other things: an old girlfriend, the movie he'd watched last night on HBO, the groceries he needed to buy on the way home today, what he'd do with the money if he sold his next novel for ten million dollars.

He usually ate lunch around noon, but nothing was happening here and he closed up shop shortly after eleven, heading over to Bert's. It hadn't rained yesterday--the first time in over a week--and the air was hot and dry. Grasshoppers jumped up from the path before him, and several bounced off his jeans.

Bert, his daughter, and a youngish, short-haired man Barry didn't recognize were the only ones in the coffee shop, but Joe arrived soon after Barry sat down and ordered his iced tea, and fifteen minutes after that, the regulars were all in place.

Lyle was the last to show up, and he had news. "Word is," he said, sitting in his usual seat, "that the water restrictions are going to be lifted if we have one more week of monsoons."

"Who told you that?"

"I was down at the office paying my bill and I overheard Shelly talking to Graham in the back."

Hank snorted. "About time."

"I guess," Joe said loudly, "that Bert can start serving water again without charging, huh?"

"Don't hold your breath," Bert called out from behind the counter.

Ralph Griffith glanced over at Barry. "You know, I was heading down the ranch road yesterday when I saw this Lexus come out of the gate at Bonita Vista, all shiny and just washed. There was water still dripping off the hood."

"Hey," Barry said good-naturedly, "I haven't washed my Suburban in months. You can go out back and check."

They all laughed.

"I wasn't saying anything against you" Ralph said. "I

was just commenting that some of those rich guys in Bonita Vista are washing their cars right before a rainstorm while I can't even fill up my little boy's plastic pool with water."

The laughter died down.

"Face it," Hank said. "There are selfish pricks everywhere. And if the situation was reversed and we had water and Bonita Vista didn't, you can be damn sure that there'd be people washin ' their cars and waterin' their lawns and flauntin ' it. It's human nature."

"But don't you think there are more of them in Bonita Vista?" Ralph pressed.

Barry jumped in. "Probably."

"Don't try to take it out on Barry," Hank said.

"I'm not, I'm not. I just..." Ralph shook his head. "It's just that those assholes make me so mad sometimes. I wanted to ram that guy's car yesterday."

"Any of you ever been up there?" Joe asked. He grinned. "Barry, you're excluded."

Hank shook his head slowly. "You know, I never have. Never cared enough to until they put in that gate. Now I can't."

"I never been up there either," Lyle said. "Old Al the roofer told me every house has a view and the views are amazing, but I ain't seen it for myself."

"Why don't you all come up and take a peek?" Barry said.

Lyle looked surprised. "What?"

"Yeah. I'll get you through the gate. We'll head up to my house, have a few drinks. I'll show you what you're missing." He smiled at Ralph.

"Give you a peek at the enemy camp."

The other man reddened.

"That's a mighty nice offer, but..." Lyle trailed off.

"But what?"

"Hell. Nothing, I guess." He glanced over at Hank. "What do you say?"

"Let's do it."

They left after lunch. Ralph and a couple of the younger men were working and had to get back to their jobs, but Hank and Lyle were retired, and Joe and Sonny were unemployed, and the four of them piled into Joe's battered Econoline and followed Barry out of town and up the highway.

Barry pulled up to the entrance of Bonita Vista and leaned out the window to punch in the code that would open the gate. The metal arm swung inward, and he sped through quickly. Joe was right on his tail, as he'd instructed, and the Econoline made it in just as the gate started to swing closed. "We're in!" he heard Lyle shout out the window in mock heroic tones.

Barry led them up the narrow winding road to his house. Maureen was not home, and he was not sure if that was good or bad. She was definitely not a fan of uninvited guests, and if she'd been there when he'd traipsed over with a horde of strangers, he would have caught hell for it after they'd gone. On the other hand, he'd talked enough about his newfound buddies that she doubtlessly would have wanted to meet the gang from the coffee shop, although perhaps with a little more advance notice.

The four men got out of Joe's van and looked around.

"Al was right," Lyle said. "What a view." He stood at the end of the driveway next to the edge of the house, looking back toward Corban , a few of whose buildings could be seen through the trees.

"You think that's something? Check out the view from the upper deck."

Barry walked up to the front door, unlocked and opened it. "Come on in."

"Nice place you got here," Hank allowed.

Barry led them upstairs and through the sliding glass doors onto the porch. "You think we have a great view, you ought to check out the scenery from that place up there." He leaned over the edge of the railing and pointed toward; Ray's house farther up the hill. "Their living room's all glass, and you can see all the way to the desert."

"You make enough off your writing to afford this place?" Joe said.

Barry nodded.

"I'mgonna have to start showing you more respect, boy."

Barry laughed.

Hank turned back to face the door. "So the association won't let you write here, huh? Your own damn house and | you have to rent an office in town to do your work." He shook his head. "That's craziness."

"Reason number two hundred why I hate those bastards."

Sonny cleared his throat. "Didn't you say something about drinks?"

Barry chuckled. "Coming right up." He opened the sliding door. "Beer okay? I got Bud and Miller Light. Or Coke if you'd rather have that."

"Bud."

"Bud."

"Bud."

"Bud."

It was unanimous, and he walked inside to get some cans out of the refrigerator.

The men stayed for another forty-five minutes, but the visit grew increasingly awkward, and Barry was soon sorry that he'd invited them up here. He'd intended for this to be an ice breaker, a way for them to get to know each other better. Maybe, he'd thought, they'd become real friends instead of just lunchtime acquaintances. But instead their visit seemed to widen the gulf between them, and he felt like a nouveau riche snob lording his possessions over the local yokels. That was not his intention, and he did everything he could to counteract it and make them feel at ease, but the nice house with the great view on the hill in the gated community still stood between them. He should have left well enough alone. They all got along fine at the coffee shop, but outside of that specific environment their differences were emphasized, and even beer could not engender the kind of camaraderie needed. He'd wanted to bring them all closer together, but his invitation had ended up pushing them farther apart.

They left early, dispiritedly, offering polite thanks and rather formal good-byes, and he decided to stay home and take the rest of the afternoon off. He wasn't going to get any writing done anyway.

He sat on the deck reading a Richard Laymon novel. There was no storm to the south today, no clouds anywhere on the horizon, only a deep blue sky and hot, still air. Great, he thought. Just what he needed. An extension of the water rationing in Corban . They'd really resent him now.

He sped through the book. He'd continued drinking even after the others had left, and the cans piled up next to his chair as he read.

One. Two. Three. Four. By the time he saw Frank's pickup pull into the driveway shortly after four thirty, he was feeling more than a little lightheaded, and he walked back into the house and stepped carefully down the stairs, holding tightly to the railing.

"Hi, Frank." He opened the door just as the other man was about to knock.

"Whoa. ESP."

Barry smiled. "I saw you from the deck."

"Mystery solved."

"You want to come in?"

Frank shook his head. "No, no. I just stopped by for a sec." He looked uncomfortable.

"What is it?"

"I was working up here today, and I ran into a couple of the board members." Frank looked down at his shoes, shuffled his feet awkwardly.

"They wanted me to tell you that you're not supposed to be fraternizing with the locals. At least not in Bonita Vista. I guess they said you invited some locals over or something. I don't know. Anyway, they said it's cool if you go to their houses, but you can't hang with them here."

"What?"

"Outsiders aren't welcome in Bonita Vista."

"Now they're trying to tell me who I can be friends with and who I

can't?" Barry stared at him incredulously^ "I don't believe this shit!"

Frank held up his hands. "I'm just the messenger. I know how crazy it is, but I don't make the decisions. I'm just repeating what they told me to tell you."

"I can't invite friends over."

Frank shrugged. "Not if they're from Corban ."

"They can't do that."

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

"So what? Fuck the C, C, and Rs ." He wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or simply righteous anger, but at that second he wanted nothing more than to find his copy of the regulations, rip it up, and send Frank back with a counter message: shove these pages up your asses.

Frank glanced around furtively, obviously worried that they had been overheard. "Don't even joke about that." He looked back toward the road. "What if someone from the association hears you?"

Something about Frank's reaction didn't seem right. It felt too exaggerated, as though it were part of an act put on for his benefit, and a hint of Barry's earlier suspicions returned. He remembered the way Frank had insisted to him and Ray that the association could not be behind the vandalism that had been visited upon them. The fact that Frank had turned out to be right was beside the point. It was his attitude that was important. Looking over at him, Barry realized how little he really knew the man.

Everyone's an informant.

Frank seemed like a good guy, and Ray had obviously trusted him, but despite his accounts of occasional problems and run-ins and disagreements, he was not as anti association as Barry would have liked him to be. That didn't automatically make him a stooge or a spy, but it was definitely cause for concern.

"This is my house," Barry said evenly. "I'll say whatever I want to say and talk about whatever I want to talk about. And if I want to say that I think the architectural committee eats out their own mothers'

assholes, I'll do it."

Frank nodded, pretended to smile.

"And if I want to invite friends over, I'll invite them over. Is that clear?" Frank held up a hand. "Hold on there, cowboy. I'm on your side."

"Yeah." Barry's tone of voice made it clear that he did not think that was the case, and Frank backed up awkwardly.

"Well... Igotta be heading back. Just wanted to tell you what they told me."

Barry nodded and watched him retreat to his pickup. He stood in the doorway as Frank waved and the truck backed out of the driveway and continued up the road.

Barry closed the door. He'd had no intention of asking the guys from the coffee shop up here again, but now he was tempted to invite them for lunch every damn day. He walked upstairs to the kitchen to get himself another beer.

Hell, maybe he'd even give them the code to the gate.

The Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions Article IV, General Provisions, Section 9, Paragraph D:

No member of the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association shall, within the boundaries of the Properties, socialize with any individual currently residing in the town of Car ban. The only exception to this shall be if a resident of Corban owns a Lot within the Properties and is also a member of the Association.

Maureen had an early meeting with Ed Dexter at the title company, for whom she was doing some freelance account auditing, and since the Toyota was at the shop getting a new water pump and they had only one vehicle, she offered to drive Barry into town and drop him off at the microscopic shack he called his office. He didn't usually leave until after The Today Show ended, but this morning she made him get ready early, and they were out the door before eight.

She drove carefully down the steep winding road, through the neighborhood toward the entrance of Bonita Vista.

The gate had changed overnight. Maureen slowed the Suburban, feeling an icy tingle tickle her spine and then settle like a lump of lead in the pit of her stomach. She glanced over at Barry in the passenger seat, and he, too, seemed dumbstruck and thrown for a loop.

They'd come through the gate just last evening. In what turned out to be a futile effort to cheer up Liz and get her out of the house, they, along with Mike and Tina, had taken her to a late steak dinner in town.

As they probably should have known, the last time she'd been to the restaurant was with Ray, and she'd spent the first part of the meal crying quietly, the second half silently staring at her almost un touched plate. They'd returned to Bonita Vista around ten, Barry driving, and he'd stopped in front of the gate as always, entered the code, and once the creaky metal had swung open, driven through.

Now, though, the old gateway was gone. In its place was an even more elaborate entrance: stone columns on either side of the road, massive ornate double gates that looked tall enough to block a semi.

And a guard shack.

She and Barry looked at each other, although neither of them spoke.

The road had been widened at this point, bifurcating around the small square structure, allowing for simultaneous entrance to and exit from Bonita Vista.

The Suburban coasted up to the gate and stopped.

Maureen rolled down her window as the trim middle aged man staffing the booth stepped outside at the approach of their car, clipboard in hand.

He was wearing the olive uniform of a security guard, and his close-cropped hair accentuated the militaristic appearance.

The guard walked up to the driver's window. "May I ask your name, sir?" He looked over at Barry in the passenger seat, ignoring her completely, acting as though she didn't exist.

Barry met Maureen's eyes and looked deliberately away from the guard, which caused her to smile. "My name is Maureen Welch," she said.

The man looked down at the list on his clipboard. "Welch ... Welch ..." He glanced up. "Here you are. Barry and Maureen." The humorless formality gave way to a fawning smile. "You are free to go. Sorry for the inconvenience."

"Free to go?"

She'd been about to put the car into gear, but Barry's words caused her to stop.

"You mean if our names had not been on that list, we would not have been free to go? You would have forced us to stay here and not let us leave?"

"There've been reports of intruders, and one apparent burglary," the guard said. "My job is to make sure that only residents are allowed in or out of Bonita Vista. If a trespasser has managed to get in, then, yes sir, I am obliged to hold them here until the sheriff arrives to take care of the matter."

Maureen glanced over at Barry, wondering if he was as chilled by the fascistic tone of this exchange as she was.

"So they put up this new gate and this guard booth and hired you because there was a burglary!"

"As I understand it, too many people knew the entry code. It had been given out to plumbers and roofers and contractors; half of Corban knew it. So the old gate was no longer effective as a security measure. It was felt that new measures needed to be taken."

"Are you from Corban ?" Maureen asked, thinking they'd hired a local man to staff the entrance.

The guard shook his head. "No, ma'am. I live here in Bonita Vista."

There was the sound of a car driving up behind them, and she glanced in the rearview mirror to see a red Saturn pulling up.

She put the car in gear, but kept her foot on the brake. "How ... ?"

Maureen did not know how to ask what she was really wondering. "How did this get put up so... fast?"

The guard shook his head. "I don't know, ma'am. I didn't build it, I

just staff it."

There was tacit recognition that this was unusual, strange, but not acknowledgment that it was damn near impossible. The gate swung open before them, and she guided the Suburban through. She glanced at the stone columns as she drove by. The cement did not even appear to be wet. It was as if this whole thing had been here for months, years, and she realized how truly incredible this all was. There was no way that even a large crew of workers could have torn down the old gate, put up an entirely new one, widened the road, and constructed a guard shack between ten o'clock last night and eight this morning.

They headed toward the highway.

She glanced over at Barry. "What are you thinking?" she asked him quietly.

"The Davidsons ," he said.

Maureen nodded. "Me, too." She had not been sure at the time that she entirely believed the couple's story about the gate being built to increase property values and thus drive them out with higher property taxes, but it seemed eminently reasonable now.

"You going to call Chuck Shea or Terry Abbey and ask them what's doing?"

Maureen shook her head.

"Why not?"

"I'm afraid to," she said quietly.

That shut him up, and neither of them said anything as they drove between the two pine-covered hills toward the highway.

She took a deep breath. "Who do you suppose they're trying to get rid of this time?"

She didn't expect an answer and she didn't get one, and they rode the rest of the way into town in silence.

The telephone was ringing when they got home that afternoon, and Barry dashed past her the instant she unlocked and opened the door, picking up the phone from the coffee table where they'd left it that morning.

"Hello?"

Maureen closed the screen and threw her keys in her purse.

"I'm fine," Barry said into the phone.

The call obviously wasn't for her, so she took her purse downstairs and then went to the bathroom. He was still on the phone when she walked back up several minutes later, still standing in exactly the same position. There was a strange expression on his face, one that she could not read, and she could not tell if what he was hearing was good or bad.

Her heart started pounding.

"Barry?" she said.

He held up his hand. "Yes," he said into the phone. "Okay."

She touched his elbow.

"All right. Thanks. Goodbye."

"So?" Maureen asked.

He clicked off the Talk button, looking stunned.

"What is it?"

"A movie deal."

"What!"

"They want to buy the rights to The Friend" he said. "Half a million dollars."

It was still hard to believe.

Barry finished packing his suitcase and closed it up, fastening the straps. True, The Friend was one of his more commercial novels, though it was not the biggest seller. And he'd always secretly thought that it would make a good film. But never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that Hollywood would be interested, let alone shell out this kind of money.

He'd assumed at first that the offer had been made as a result of Kenny Tolkin putting in that "good word" for him, but further questioning of his agent had revealed that the artistic consultant had not been involved at all, that the impetus had come from the movie studio, where a midlevel executive had read the book on vacation, liked it, and decided to option it.

Still, he'd wanted to run this by Kenny, who had much more experience dealing with Hollywood than he did and who might be able to offer him some pointers or let him know which minefields to avoid. He'd written down the name of the executive as well as the studio agent in charge, wanting to see if Kenny knew them or could tell him anything about them.

He'd called Frank to get Kenny's phone number and was shocked when an obviously angry Frank said that the artistic consultant had left Bonita Vista suddenly and would not be coming back. It turned out that he had not owned the house in which he'd been staying, that for the past two years he'd been illegally camping in a home purchased by an out-of-state property owner for investment. Indications were that he had no Hollywood or music industry contacts, that he was a con man who had pulled similar stunts in other states and who had successfully scammed several Bonita Vista residents before disappearing.

Barry carried his suitcase up to the living room, where Maureen was waiting. She smiled at him and held up crossed fingers. "Good luck."

"I shouldn't need any. I think it's a done deal."

"Still." She kissed him, put her arms around his neck. "Drive carefully. Call me from the airport when you get there. And call me when you land."

"I will." He smiled.

"You know I worry."

"Are you sure you don't want to come? It's only overnight."

She shook her head. "If it was longer, maybe. But just overnight, it's a waste of money."

"Money?" He grinned. "I don't think that's really a problem anymore."

"Don't spend it before you get it."

"Spoken like a true accountant."

Maureen glanced at the clock. "You'd better get going. It's at least a two-hour drive to Salt Lake."

Barry put his arms around her, held her close, and kissed her. "I love you," he said.

She smiled, kissed him back. "I love you, too."

The drive up to Salt Lake City seemed long. Once he got through the mountains and onto Interstate IS, the landscape remained unchanged for over a hundred miles: farmland to the left, foothills to the right.

Thank God for tapes. There were no decent radio stations, and he popped in a series of cassettes he'd made from various albums and CDs, keeping awake and alert by listening to tunes.

He found himself wondering if he could live off the royalties and resales of what he'd already written should it come down to that. He hadn't typed a single word on his new novel for the past two weeks, and he honestly did not see himself meeting the deadline. He wondered if he would be able to finish the book at all. It would be one thing if he was only stuck on this novel, but he had no other ideas either, and he had not even been able to crank out a short story.

This movie deal was a windfall, and if he could just sell one more book to Hollywood, they'd be able to pay off the house and live quite comfortably here in Utah for the next decade. Particularly if Maureen's client list kept growing.

The idea that he was dried up, that his creative life was over, scared the living hell out of him. He'd never wanted to do anything other than write, didn't know how to do anything other than write, and if that was taken away from him... He prayed this was just a temporary setback.

Salt Lake City was nothing like he'd expected. He'd never been there before, had only seen photos in magazines and on postcards, pictures of quaint Victorian homes and a modern downtown backed by snowcapped peaks, but the highway passed by mile after mile of rusty train yards and ugly industrial buildings. The sight depressed him, and he was grateful for the clean, generic modernity of the airport.

He barely had enough time to make the promised call to Maureen and buy some cheapo flight insurance before the boarding call for his flight.

He got on the plane, settled into his seat, and pulled out a book to read from his carryon bag. Reading made the time go by faster, kept him from worrying about crashes and accidents and the possibility of a fiery death, and it usually served to stave off unwanted conversations with his aisle mate. Maureen always suggested bringing one of his own books to read, hyping himself that way, but he couldn't bring himself to be so shameless. Besides, the last thing he wanted to do was reread one of his novels. After writing it, proofreading it, going over the typeset version, and checking the galleys, he was pretty well sick of a book by the time it hit the shelves.

The trip was uneventful, the young woman in the seat next to him seemed to be as loath to talk as he was, and before he knew it the plane was taxiing down the runway at LAX.

X.

He'd always wondered where the hell that had come from. The official name was Los Angeles International Airport. How the letter X had come to stand for the word International was a complete mystery to him. Of course, it also seemed to stand for Christ, since a lot of people abbreviated Christmas as Xmas. And the Christ connection held on the highway, where road signs shortened the word Crossing to Xing.

None of it made any sense.

The rental car he'd ordered was ready and waiting for him, and he gave Maureen a quick call to let her know he'd landed safely while someone brought the vehicle around. Five minutes later, he was out of the airport and on the street, driving. He cranked up the air-conditioning and turned the radio to his favorite station.

Despite the smoggy skies, despite the traffic from the airport, despite the homeless guys on the street corners, it felt good to be back, and he was surprised to discover that he actually missed southern California. Next to him at the stoplight, a short-haired blond man in a red convertible had his car stereo up so high that Barry could hear the thumping of bass over the sound of his own air conditioner and radio, the yuppie apparently attempting to impress the drivers around him by playing music loudly.

Ah, Los Angeles.

It felt as though he'd been gone for years, not months, and he took the 405 to Wilshire Boulevard, intending to drive surface streets to see what, if anything, had changed in his absence. There was still an hour and a half to go before he was supposed to meet his agent for an early dinner, and although he hadn't planned on it, he stopped off at his favorite used-record store. The vinyl section had shrunk a little, the CD section had grown, but there were aisles and aisles of both, and he happily sorted through the albums, picking up an armful before deciding that it was time to get going.

He headed east down Wilshire, tried to figure out how long it would take to get from L.A. to Brea. He'd only be here overnight, but he'd arranged to meet his friends for drinks. The dinner with his agent probably wouldn't take more than an hour or so, and there'd be plenty of time remaining to hang and catch up on gossip.

Lindsay White was waiting for him at Canter's on Fairfax, their traditional rendezvous point. As usual, there were tables full of old men from the neighborhood as well as assorted Hollywood wannabes and use tabes Lindsay was ensconced in a corner booth, and she waved him over as he crossed the room. He'd barely had time to sit down when, in her usual overassertive manner, she motioned for a waitress with an imperial flick of her wrist and snap of her fingers. "The service here is still slow as molasses," she said as the waitress walked up, "so I

already ordered. Order what you want and then we'll talk."

He hadn't had time to even look at the menu, but he ordered a pastrami sandwich and an iced tea--the same thing he'd had the last time they'd met here.

The waitress left and Lindsay leaned across the table, patting his hand. "How are you, Barry? How've you been out there in the heartland?"

"Fine," he said.

"That's great," she told him before he could say another word.

She spent the next fifteen minutes or so trying to impress him, as she always did, and he gamely feigned interest in her newest trendy passion. She was what Maureen called a "Miramax intellectual," one of those people who wasn't particularly knowledgeable or well read but who followed the cultural trends generated by art-house films: reading Janet Frame after seeing An Angel at My Table, pretending to be an admirer of Pablo Neruda after viewing Il Postino , referencing Jane Austen in conversation after seeing the movies rather than reading the books. It was a tactic that worked well these days in polite society, this false familiarity with culture, although it never failed to set his teeth on edge, and it annoyed Maureen to the extent that she made a conscious effort to avoid casual conversation with Lindsay.

When the food came and they finally got around to business, the news was not good.

"I expected to have contracts for you to sign," Lindsay admitted.

"But... there've been complications since we last spoke. To be honest, I think the deal might've fallen through. I haven't given up hope,"

she added quickly. "We still might be able to pull this off. But there's been a changeover at the studio, and you know how these things work. Anything associated with the old regime, the previous administration, is automatically suspect. Right now, that means us.

But I hope to call a meeting with one of the development execs early next week and see if we can work something out. The Friend is a very salable property, a very shoo table property, and I have no doubt that once I can divorce it from the context in which it was rejected, I'll be able to make them see that."

Lindsay tried to smile. "Want any dessert?"

It was still light out when he emerged from the restaurant, and Barry hurried over to his car, driving straight down Fairfax to the freeway in an effort to beat the after work traffic out to Orange County.

He was ahead of the game for a while, but he got bogged down in rush-hour traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway, and he took surface streets from Santa Fe Springs on, avoiding the areas where he knew they were doing highway construction, the challenges of southern California driving serving to keep his mind off Lindsay's disappointing news.

Once in Brea, he drove through his old neighborhood on an impulse. The street and sidewalks were carpeted with purple jacaranda flowers, the arching tree branches above having lost their blooms and given themselves over to summer leaves. Sunset had turned the smog a bright orange color, and he felt a slight twinge of nostalgia for California life.

And for a neighborhood without a homeowners' association.

Jeremy, Chuck, and Dylan were already waiting for him in the parking lot outside Minderbinder's , a hangout from their college days at UC Brea. Minderbinder's was still a college hangout, and the three of them were greeted with suspicion if not hostility as they commandeered a table near the entrance.

"Guess we look older than we are," Dylan said.

"No," Chuck told him. "You feel younger than you are."

"I know that's supposed to be a dig, but doesn't a youthful attitude help promote longer life?"

"The benefits of immaturity have yet to be proven."

A bored-looking waitress showed up, and they ordered beers all around.

"It's on him," Dylan said, pointing at Barry. "He's a rich and famous writer. Just sold one of his books to Hollywood."

The waitress suddenly seemed a little less bored. She smiled at Barry.

"Celebrating?"

"No."

"Congratulations anyway." She walked away with an exaggerated swing of her hips, and Dylan burst out laughing He waited until she'd passed out of earshot. "She's yours for the taking, bud."

"I told you, the movie deal fell through."

"She doesn't know that. Besides, what good's fame and fortune if you can't use it to get a little strange?"

"I'll tell Mo you said that."

"So how's life in the wilds?" Jeremy asked.

"It's not so wild after all."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He started describing the imposed restrictions and regimented rules of the homeowners' association. Halfway through, the waitress returned with their drinks, bending far enough over to show him her breasts as she placed his beer on the table, and he pointedly ignored her.

"Now they've put up a guard shack and a new gate to keep out the riffraff. I have to check in and out with this uniformed guard if I

want to leave or enter my own neighborhood."

Chuck laughed. "No shit?"

"No shit."

"Are you supposed to tip him?" Dylan asked. "I mean at Christmastime and stuff. I've heard that about doormen and things in New York. Maybe this is the same situation."

"I don't know," Barry admitted. "But that's the least of my worries."

He hadn't intended to say anything more, hadn't planned to talk about the weirdness, the scary things, the things he was really worried about, aware of how ridiculous they would sound to outsiders. But Jeremy's quizzical expression prompted him to keep going, to open up.

These were his friends--and if he couldn't tell them, who could he tell?

He took a deep breath. "There's more," Barry said. He told them everything, from Barney's death to Ray's, from Stumpy to Maureen's stalker. He then explained that the new gate had gone up in one night, had appeared fully formed as if by magic.

The three of them were silent for a moment, obviously unsure of what to say.

It was Chuck who spoke first. "You're not trying out some new plot idea on us, are you?"

"I wish I was. But I'm totally serious. This is what went down."

Barry took a long drink of his beer.

"/ believe you," Dylan announced. "There are more things, Horatio--"

Chuck bumped him. "Stop trying to impress the coeds with your misquoted Shakespeare. It's not becoming in a man of your age."

"A man of my age?"

"Told you you shouldn't've moved," Jeremy said.

Barry downed the last of his beer. "Yeah. Thanks."

"And I knew that dead cat was a bad sign."

Dylan shook his head. "There's really some freak with no arms or legs or tongue flopping around in the forest between the houses?"

"There really is," Barry said.

They had a thousand questions, but they were questions of incredulity, not questions of suspicion, and he realized gratefully that his friends were not trying to rationalize or explain away his interpretation of events but believed him fully.

Jeremy put a hand on his shoulder. "We're there if you need us, dude.

The situation gets too hairy and you need some help? Give us a call.

We're there."

"I may take you up on that."

"Hell," Dylan said. "I could use a vacation."

It was nearly midnight when they parted, and though Jeremy offered to let him stay at his apartment, Barry had already passed the cancellation cutoff time for his hotel. "I'm paying for it anyway," he said. "I might as well use it."

Jeremy shook his hand, a strangely adult gesture for his friend and one that felt unfamiliar but at the same time re assuring. "I'm serious,"

he said. "If shit starts to go down, give out a shout. We're there."

Barry grasped the hand and squeezed it gratefully. "I will," he said.

"You can count on it."

He'd opted to book a hotel in Orange County rather than near the airport, and he was glad of that. His plane wasn't scheduled to leave until eleven, and while he would have a long drive tomorrow morning during the tail end of rush hour, at least he didn't have to drive tonight. Fifteen minutes later, he was checked in and sacked out, and he did not stir until the phone next to his bed rang with the seven o'clock wake-up call.

He grabbed a quick Egg McMuffin for breakfast and headed back to L.A.

Between the unexpected traffic and having to turn in the rental car, he barely made it onto the plane in time, but once in the air he relaxed and looked out the window at the receding megalopolis below. He realized to his surprise that he was happy to be returning to Utah, that, despite everything, it felt like home. California was a fun place to visit but he was no longer a part of it. He was glad he'd come, though. He felt better for talking to his friends, for unburdening himself, and he felt stronger on the return flight, as though he now had the strength to stand up to anyone or anything.

Even the homeowners' association.

They landed in Salt Lake City shortly after one. A small crappy lunch had been served on the flight, and he was still hungry. It would be after three by the time he finally reached Corban , so Barry stopped at a Subway and bought a sandwich and an extra large Coke before starting off.

Keeping one hand on the wheel, he sorted through the box of tapes on the seat next to him, finally popping in Jethro Tull's A Passion Play.

He smiled to himself as the familiar strains of the music filled the car, and he cranked up the volume, feeling good.

If he had a hero it was lan Anderson. Not only had the Tull leader created consistently good music over the past several decades, he had done so uncompromisingly. Barry admired the undiluted artistic ambition mat had led Anderson to write and record an album such as A

Passion Play, the willingness to buck the critics and buck the fans and follow his own muse, consequences be damned. It was what he himself aspired to, that sort of freedom and daring, and while he might not have the talent to carry it off, he at least hoped he had the guts and integrity to try.

An hour and a half later, he was off the interstate and on the two-lane highway that led to Corban . The semi trucks and out-of-state cars that had been whizzing by him disappeared, and only an occasional Jeep or pickup passing in the opposite direction let him know that he was not alone out here.

Why, he wondered, did television news anchors always refer to semis as "big rigs"? There didn't seem to be any "small rigs" or even just plain "rigs." They were always "big rigs." It sounded like trucker lingo to turn, CB slang, and he wondered how such a phrase had garnered mainstream legitimacy.

The road was rising, high desert chaparral giving way to pinion and juniper forest, and he rounded a hilly curve to see a white Jimmy pull out from an almost invisible side road. He slowed to let the vehicle onto the highway, and the Jimmy accelerated quickly and roared away, rounding the next curve before Barry was even back up to speed.

He encountered it again ten minutes later, stuck behind a silver Lexus and honking furiously. He was still a good half mile back, but even from this distance it was obvious that the Lexus driver was playing games. He would speed up and slow down, brake nearly to a halt, then, when the Jimmy tried to pass, veer into the opposite lane to block the vehicle.

Finally, the Jimmy driver had had enough. He swerved onto the narrow dirt shoulder and attempted to pass on the right. The Lexus increased its speed, preventing the other vehicle from getting back on the road. There was a dry streambed up ahead, a fairly deep gully that the highway crossed with a bridge. The shoulder disappeared at that point, and dirt flew as the Jimmy shot forward in a desperate effort to pull in front of the Lexus.

The Lexus kept pace.

It was only at the last moment that it seemed to become clear to the Jimmy driver that his rival would not pull back and let him in, that this was some bizarre game of chicken the Lexus driver refused to lose.

The driver slammed on his brakes, but it was too late, and the Jimmy slid headfirst down the steep incline into the dry streambed.

Barry had closed the gap between himself and the other vehicles considerably and had a clear view of the accident. He braked to a halt on the last stretch of shoulder, got out, and ran toward the embankment. Ahead, he saw the Lexus' passenger window roll down, heard the driver yell something down at the victim. The car sped away. Barry tried to get the license number, but the back end of the Lexus was in shadow, and by the time it was again in full sunlight, it was too far away for him to read.

He slid down the slope in a crouch. The Jimmy had not rolled, but it had crashed headfirst into the sandy streambed, and the driver had apparently been thrown free of the vehicle through the open door.

Barry ran up. "Jesus! Are you all right?"

The man nodded, touched a hand to his bruised forehead, brushed sand and leaves off his shirt.

"You need some help? Want me to call an ambulance or the police?"

"No!" the man practically shouted. "No police!"

"Are you kidding? That guy ran you off the road. I saw it. I'm a witness."

"I'm not pressing charges. I don't want... I'm just..."

He shook his head as if to clear it. "Look, you offered to help. All I want is a ride up to the Shell station in Corban . Buck there'll come back with his tow truck and get the car."

"Sure," Barry said. "Anything you want. But you need to get the police out here. For the insurance report, if nothing else." "No!"

Barry held up his hands. "Okay, okay."

The man pressed various spots on his face, looking at his fingers.

"I don't see any blood," Barry offered.

The man took a tentative step forward.

"You need some help?"

He shook his head. "No. I can make it."

"What an asshole," Barry said. "I saw him playing games with you, not letting you pass--"

"I'd rather not talk about it," the man said shortly.

Barry nodded.

The two of them made their way up the steep incline. Barry took it slow, in case the man needed assistance, but he made it to the top without help.

"You from Corban ?" Barry asked as they walked toward his Suburban.

"Yeah."

"Me, too. I live in Bonita Vista."

The man's voice was quiet. "Me, too."

And though Barry tried to engage him in conversation, the man did not say another word until they reached the Shell station in town.

Barry did not even learn his name.

Russ Gifford came home from work to find his girlfriend gone.

He probably would have thought she was at the store or down on the tennis courts or out for a jog along the bridle trail, if not for the pink piece of paper that had been slipped between the metal supports of his screen door and was fluttering noisily in the strong post-monsoon breeze.

It was an official notice from the homeowners' association.

Russ read and reread the form, his hands shaking, his stomach churning with an unidentifiable emotion that could have been anger, could have been confusion, could have been fear. His name had been illegibly scrawled on a blank line reserved for that purpose, and a box next to the statement Action has been taken to rectify noncompliance had been checked. On the open lines that comprised the bottom half of the form was written the chilling and cryptic note: "Unmarried couples are not allowed to live in Bonita Vista (see Article IV, Section 9, Paragraph F).Tammi Bindler has been removed to ensure compliance."

What the hell was going on here?

He read the form yet again.

Not allowed to live? Removed? The ambiguously threatening words and phrases could be interpreted to mean she'd been killed, although he knew that couldn't possibly be the case. Of course, the other alternative was equally unbelievable and almost as disconcerting--that she'd been kidnapped and forcibly taken elsewhere.

He hurried inside, called Tammi's sister in St. George and her mother in Kingman, hoping that Tammi had called at least one of them to explain what had happened, but neither of them had heard from her.

On an impulse, Russ ran into the bedroom to check the closet. Her clothes were all still there. In the bathroom, her toiletries were in place.

He stood, stunned into stupidity, unable to think of what he should do, the next logical step he should take.

The law, he thought.

He walked over to the phone and immediately dialed 911, but hung up before anyone answered. He'd seen enough cop shows to know thatTammi wouldn't officially be a missing person until she'd been gone for forty-eight hours.

Fuck that. He'd lie.

He dialed 911 again, and when the dispatcher came on the line, he said that his girlfriend had been missing for three days and that he feared something had happened to her. The dispatcher took his name and address and promised that the sheriff would be there within the half hour. Sure enough, a patrol car pulled up in front of his house less than fifteen minutes later, and Russ went out to meet it.

A hard-looking older man emerged from the cruiser, straightening his belt as he walked over. "I'm Sheriff Hitman . Are you Russ Gifford?"

"Yeah. Thank God you're here. My girlfriend's missing."

"Been missing for three days, I hear."

Was that suspicion in the sheriff's voice? Russ frowned. "Yes, she has. Since Monday."

"Mmm-hmm." Hitman fixed him with a hard stare. "Look, Mr. Gifford.

There's no man alive that would wait three days to call in a missing persons if his girlfriend disappeared. Why don't you level with me."

"All right. It happened today." He thrust the form forward. "This was on my screen door."

Hitman took the paper.

"I've tried calling her mom, her sister, but no one knows where she is or what's happened to her."

The sheriff looked over the form, handed it back. "I'm sorry," he said. "This is out of my jurisdiction."

Russ stared at him. "What?"

"This is between you and your homeowners' association."

"My girlfriend is missing."

"She is not missing."Hitman nodded toward the pink sheet. "It states very clearly there that she has been removed from Bonita Vista because the homeowners' association does not allow couples to cohabit ate Russ let out a snort of disbelief. "You're joking, right?"

The sheriff just looked at him.

"You're telling me that if a crime has been committed in Bonita Vista, you won't raise a finger to help out?"

"A crime has not been committed," Hitman said patiently. "If you read your C, C, and Rs , you'll find that the homeowners' association has a legal right to enforce its rules and regulations."

"Whose side are you on?"

"I'm not on anybody's side. I'm a law enforcement officer and that's what I do. I enforce the law. Now good day, Mr. Gifford."

Russ stepped after him. "Wait a minute! What am I supposed to do?"

Hitman opened his car door. "If you have any questions, I suggest you address them to your association's board of directors." He got into the cruiser. "Good day."

Russ watched the patrol car back up the driveway, swing around, and head down the street the way it had come.

Board of directors.

He realized that he didn't know who was on the board. He looked down at the form again, but the pink sheet of paper was unsigned and there were no individual names listed, only the name of the association. The officers and their titles could no doubt be found in those damn C, C, and Rs , but he'd tossed the booklet somewhere shortly after receiving it and had no idea where it was. He could ask someone, he supposed, but he and Tammi were not particularly social and hadn't gotten to know many of their neighbors, so he didn't feel comfortable imposing on a virtual stranger.

Ray Dyson would have known. The old man had befriended them and had even invited the two of them to a couple of parties at his house. But Ray was dead.

Maybe his wife. Maybe Liz would know.

He started walking. The Dysons’ house was on the street above theirs, and if he cut through the greenbelt it would be faster to hoof it than drive. He crossed the road and started hiking over the pathless dirt.

He'd known that Ray had hated the homeowners' association but he hadn't known why. Now he did. They were a bunch of self-righteous assholes trying to impose their own morality on everyone else. He andTammi weren't married so she had to go? The two of them had been together for ten years! Probably longer than some of the married couples in Bonita Vista.

Goddamn it, if he had the money, he'd hire a private investigator to check up on those bastards, see how many of them were divorced or had had affairs or somehow did not measure up to the strict standards the homeowners' association required.

Anger felt good. It drove off the despair, kept the self pity at bay.

He walked around an oversized manzanita bush, emerging on the street next to the Dysons’ place. Still holding the pink sheet of paper--the Removal Form, as he was starting to think of it--he hurried up the driveway and rang the doorbell.

There was no immediate response, so he rang again. And knocked.

A few seconds later, the door opened a crack and Liz peeked out. "Yes?"

she said. She looked awful--no makeup, hair uncombed, dirty bathrobe--but what really threw him was the fact that she didn't seem to know who he was.

"It's me. Russ." He felt obligated to reintroduce himself.

"Yes?"

Her tone was brusque. Either she still didn't recognize him or wasn't in the mood to talk. He pressed on quickly. "I came home from work this afternoon and Tammi was gone. I probably wouldn't've thought anything of it, but I found this in my screen door." He waved the Removal Form at her. "It's from the homeowners' association, and it says that unmarried people cannot live in Bonita Vista and that Tammi has been 'removed." I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean--"

Liz opened the door wider, poked her head out, and looked furtively around, as though searching for spies. "They're doing a purge," she said, and her voice was barely above a whisper. "They do that periodically, come down on homeowners who break the rules, get rid of the people they don't like, who offend them."

"But why pick on me? I've never done anything to them. I don't even know who the hell they are."

"I wonder who else is out," Liz mumbled to herself. She looked up at Russ. "Do you know Wayne and Pat? The gay couple?"

"Yeah. I met them at your party."

"Do you know where they live?"

"Around the corner from me. On Oak."

"Check their house. I bet they're gone, too."

Russ realized that the Removal Form was crumpled in his clutched fist.

"Well, who's on this damn board? I want to know what happened to Tammi. I want some answers."

"My husband did, too," Liz whispered, and she closed the door on him.

He heard the snick of a deadbolt, the rattling of a chain lock.

"Just give me one of their names!" He pounded on the door. "Who's the president?"

But Liz did not reappear, and after several fruitless moments of knocking and waiting and ringing the bell and shouting out pleas, he finally gave up. On the way back, he decided to follow Liz's suggestion, and he stopped by the house Wayne and Pat shared. But no one answered the door, and there was no sign of the couple. Although there were still two cars in the driveway, the place had an air of abandonment.

Removed.

The anger was subsiding, and he was filled with an increasing sense of hopelessness, a desperate fear that there was nothing he could do to find Tammi , that he was fated to stand helplessly and impotently by while whatever happened to her happened. He tried to keep the anger alive, wanting the strength it gave him, and he stopped off at the next house over. He didn't know who lived here, but the woman who answered the door seemed nice and neighborly, and he asked her if she could tell him who was on the association's board of directors. He didn't want to burden her with his own problems, so he didn't explain why he wanted to know, but she was taken aback by the question and started to shut the door on him.

"Wait!" he said, but the door closed and locked.

It was the same at all the houses he tried. He hit every house on the street, and though a couple of them were vacation homes and a few other people had not yet returned from work, most of the people answered their doors. And none of them would respond to his question about the homeowners'

association.

He returned home troubled, depressed, and frightened. The C, C, and Rs were somewhere in the house, and he tore the place apart trying to find them. No luck.

He spent the rest of the evening calling friends and family, seeing if anyone had heard from Tammi , laying out the situation and finding out if anyone had any ideas. No one seemed to believe his story. Hell, if he'd heard this from someone else, he probably wouldn't believe it either.

Liz had spoken of purges, and he wondered what she'd meant by that. He should have asked, although she hadn't exactly been in the most talkative of moods.

In his mind, he saw a group of robed inquisitors tying up Tammi and burning her at a stake in the middle of the forest for living with a man before marriage.

No, that couldn't be the case.

Could it?

Removed.

For the first time since childhood, he cried himself to sleep. They were tears of rage and frustration more than of sadness and loss, but his emotions flip-flopped and all of those feelings were somewhere in the mix. He felt as though he should be doing something, as though there was something he could do if only he could remember what it was, but that was an emotional response, and he realized intellectually that he was in the same position as any person with a missing loved one. All he could do was wait.

Ordinarily, Russ was a sound sleeper. But the stress of not knowing Tammi's whereabouts and the uncomfortably unfamiliar sensation of having the bed all to himself ensured that he slept only fitfully. He tossed and turned, woke up at eleven-thirty, eleven-forty, eleven fifty-five, midnight. Sometime after one, he finally nodded off and slept for over half an hour straight. He might have made it all the way through the night, but he was awakened by the sound of pounding.

He opened his eyes, automatically looked at the clock-- 1:43--and sat up, trying to determine where the noise originated. The pounding sounded as if it were coming from somewhere in the front of the house.

In fact, it sounded as though large rocks were being lobbed at the building. But kids who threw rocks usually tossed only one or two and then fled. He'd heard at least a dozen since being awakened, and there seemed to be no letup in sight. There was, as well, an even regularity to the sounds, as though it were being done by machine, as though some sort of reloading catapult was An explosive crash reverberated through the house as the living room window shattered.

Russ was out of bed before the tinkling of broken glass had silenced.

He ran out of the bedroom, down the hall, unlocked and yanked open the front door, and flipped on the porch light. "I know who you are, asshole!" He scanned the darkness, unable to see anyone. "I'm calling the fucking cops, you son of a bitch!"

There were rocks at his feet, obviously ones that had been thrown at the house, and he saw others within the circle of illumination provided by the porch light. He felt chilled as he peered into the blackness.

"Get the fuck off my property!" he yelled.

There was no response. He could see nothing, hear nothing. Who was doing this? he wondered. And why?

Removed.

He reached down to pick up one of the rocks, and once again the sound of breaking glass shattered the silence of the night.

One of the windows on his car.

Thumping came from all directions as people in the bushes lobbed rocks at all four sides of his house.

Russ shut the door, locked it, hiding inside, the pounding of his heart threatening to drown out even his racing thoughts. He'd wanted to call out, wanted to yell threats, but he was scared and acting on instinct. It was the fact that there was more than one person out there that really frightened him. And the fact that they were so organized.

Who was it? And what could they possibly have against him?

The homeowners' association.

Yes.

It didn't make a whole lot of sense--why would grown men be crouched in the bushes in the middle of the night throwing rocks at a house?--but then neither did the whole business of Tammi's "removal." And it followed that if they wanted to remove one of the offending unmarried fornicators, they would want to get rid of both.

Russ had no guns, but he had golf clubs, and he went into the hall closet and pulled out a nine iron, and swung it at shoulder level, hearing the comforting swish of sliced air. If any of those motherfuckers tried to get in this house, he'd take off their goddamn heads.

He walked back out to the living room, pulled his recliner against the back wall, and sat down facing the broken window. A cool night breeze blew the curtains in and out, moonlight shimmering on the shattered glass that littered the carpet.

He waited, fingers gripping the golf club until they hurt.

The thumping continued for another hour before stopping abruptly, but he did not sleep again all night.

In the morning, he packed some essentials and enough clothes for a week, locked up the house, and got the hell out of Dodge.

He'd come back later with some friends to get the rest of his stuff--and to put the house up for sale.

The Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions Article IV, General Provisions, Section 9, Paragraph F:

No unmarried resident of Bonita Vista may cohabit ate with a member of the same or opposite sex in any residence within the Properties.

Unmarried couples may jointly own a lot or residence within the Properties but may not both reside at the location until they are legally wed. Homosexual unions have no legal status and are thus prohibited.

They'd been going to sleep a lot earlier here in Utah than they used to in California ("the Mormon influence," Barry said), but their rituals remained the same and, despite the fact that they'd talked about, planned, and fully intended to make love tonight, Barry was dozing by the time Maureen finished taking her shower. The bedroom television was still on--Politically Incorrect--and she sat on the edge of the mattress, looking down at him, his features tinted blue by the flickering light of the tube. She'd always envied his ease of sleep.

He was one of those people who nodded off shortly after his head hit the pillow and slept through until morning, his face angelically serene no matter what was going on in his life during daylight hours. She, on the other hand, was a tosser and turner, awakened by the slightest shift in his position or the merest change in room temperature.

He smiled in his sleep, and she touched his cheek, gave him a small prod. "Hey."

He frowned, squinted, blinked. "What?"

"You fell asleep."

"So?"

She felt a little hurt. "I thought we were--"

"I'm joking," he told her. He yawned, smiled, pulled her down, and kissed her. She had to work on him a while to get him hard enough, but ever since she'd stopped taking the Pill, she'd had no problem getting aroused; for her, it had given their recent lovemaking an extra edge, had kicked it up a notch, and tonight was no exception. She came quick and hard.

Afterward, she lay in bed, listening to Barry snore beside her, a sound that drowned out the low drone of the television. She looked over at his sleeping face. She wasn't sure how thrilled he was to be trying for a baby. Oh, he said he wanted a family, but actions spoke louder man words as the saying went, and his behavior and attitude clearly indicated that his desire--or at least the intensity of it--was not the same as hers.

Still, she had no doubt he'd be a good dad, no matter how reluctant he might be initially, and she fell asleep looking at him and listening to the comforting sound of his deep, even breaths.

In the morning, they ate breakfast together for the first time in a week, Barry making french toast while she squeezed fresh orange juice.

She kissed him at the door before he set off for his office. "Have a nice day, dear."

"What the hell's that about?"

She smiled, patted her abdomen. "We have to start practicing for family life."

The smile he gave her was unreadable, and Maureen watched him get into the Suburban, waving at him as he pulled out of the driveway.

She closed and locked the door. She had nothing to do today, no meetings scheduled, no work to perform, and this time it was by choice.

As hard as it was to believe, almost against her will, she'd grown fond of free days, of having time off, and she'd started deliberately rearranging her duties and shifting her workload so that she worked only Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Tuesdays and Thursdays were free; they were her own.

She hadn't gone back to the tennis courts since her run in with those teenagers, but she hadn't wanted for things to do. She'd hung around the house, worked in her garden, visited with the new friends she was making in the neighborhood. She was getting used to this life, used to Utah, and if things in Bonita Vista weren't exactly perfect... well, what was?

She sat down on the couch, turned on CNN. There'd been an earthquake in the desert outside Los Angeles, and according to Cal Tech seismologists, the temblor measured 6.1 on the Richter scale and could be felt as far away as Phoenix and Las Vegas. No damage reports or injury statistics were yet available, although, in their never-ending quest to put victims on the air, the anchors did talk for over a minute to a Howard Stern caller before realizing that they'd been had.

"Baba Booey !" the caller yelled. "Ef Jackie! Ef Timmy's skull!"

Laughing, Maureen turned off the television. It was going to be a hot day today, and if she wanted to get anything done in the garden, she'd better do it before ten. She went up to the kitchen to pour some water into her sports bottle and went outside, carrying the phone with her in case a client called while she was working. It was a bad habit, she knew, and one reason Barry refused to get a cellular phone, even though he readily acknowledged the practical benefits of having one in the car in case of emergency. He didn't like her need to be constantly tethered to her job. She recognized his concerns, but she also tried to make him understand that his job was unique, that most people's occupations required dealing with clients or customers, and that they could not just hang up a "Gone fishing" sign whenever they didn't feel like working. They had to take and answer calls even if they came at inconvenient and inappropriate times.

The garden was doing well, and she fed her roses, plucking out some morning glories that had sprouted up and were winding their tendrils around some of her more sensitive plants. The phone rang while she was picking her first ripe tomatoes of the season, and Maureen wiped her hands on her jeans and grabbed the phone from the rock on which she'd placed it. "Hello?"

It was Audrey Hodges. Laura Holm had stopped to chat for a second while on her daily power walk around the neighborhood, had mentioned that she'd seen Maureen working outside, and Audrey was just calling to see how things were going.

"Fine. I'm taking the day off to do a little work around the house."

"Good, good." Audrey paused. "Actually, this isn't entirely a social call. Frank and I are looking for a tax accountant. We've just gotten an IRS notice saying that we owe an extra five hundred dollars because Frank's numbers didn't gibe with the numbers submitted by his employer and our bank. It's the second year in a row this has happened, and I'm getting pretty sick of it. We had a big fight last night and, well, the upshot is that we decided to have someone do our taxes for us this year.

"Just this year," she added quickly. "I don't want you to start counting on us and think you have a permanent client. Frank intends to just use your tax forms as a template and follow the same steps next year. I'd prefer to have you do all our taxes from now on, but getting even this big a concession was like pulling teeth."

Maureen laughed. "No problem. I'll even give you a good neighbor discount."

"Thanks, Mo. Say, would you like to come over for lunch?"

She hesitated. "I don't know. I'm kind of busy ..."

"Come on. You have to eat anyway. We can catch up on a little neighborhood gossip and you can get some extra exercise in the bargain. Just walk down here around noon, eat, and ran. I won't keep you."

"Are you saying I need the exercise?" "After my French onion soup you might." Maureen laughed. "Okay. I'll see you around noon." She spent another hour in the garden, watering plants and squishing quite a few snails before heading inside, changing her clothes, and washing up.

The computer was beckoning to her, and she was tempted to finish the spreadsheet she'd started yesterday, but she forced herself to sit down on the couch and read the most recent Los Angeles Times they'd gotten in the mail. This was supposed to be a day off. She finished the paper shortly before noon and quickly went to the bathroom, putting on some lipstick before grabbing her house keys and heading out. A lot of people around here didn't lock their doors, she knew, figuring they were safe in a gated community, but after what had happened to Barney, she and Barry always made sure they locked the place up before leaving.

The day was beautiful, not yet hot but pleasantly warm, the sky filled with the type of fluffy white clouds in which children loved to see shapes. On the way down to Audrey's house, she passed the flat vacant space that had supposedly been put aside for Bonita Vista's future swimming pool and was surprised to see a group of shiftless men working on the property. Five or six of them were clearing brush with clippers and rakes and other hand tools, while several other men were working in tandem, using pickaxes to dig at a spot in the rocky ground. They looked for all the world like a chain-gang, although there were no shackles or fetters in sight.

She walked by, not looking at the men, feeling somewhat self-conscious, expecting at any moment to hear wolf whistles and catcalls, but there was only a loud occasional grunt of exertion, the thwack of shears, and the plinging of metal on rock.

It seemed odd to her that there were no power tools, that no one had a chainsaw or a rototiller , and she wondered if the association had some rule against that.

Audrey was setting a table on the side patio of the house, and she waved Maureen over. "Come on up! The food's ready. I was just about to bring out the salad."

The Hodges' house was nice, but it was nestled among the tall pines at the bottom of the hill, in the flat part of Bonita Vista, and had no view. She knew that Frank and Audrey had paid a lot more for their place than she and Barry had, and Maureen was thankful that they'd found such a deal. She walked up the wooden steps and around the side of the house to the patio.

"Have a seat," Audrey said. "You want wine, water, Fresca , or iced tea?"

"Water's fine."

"I'll be right out."

Maureen sat down, and her friend emerged a moment later from the kitchen, two tall glasses of ice water in hand.

Maureen accepted her glass gratefully, took a long sip. "I just saw a bunch of men a few lots up the street digging and clearing brush--"

"Oh, those are the guys who volunteered to help dig out the swimming pool and lay the foundation for the community center. Dex Richards is a contractor, and he's overseeing the project, whipping the rest of those couch potatoes into shape. I think even Frank's going to volunteer some time this weekend."

"We didn't even hear about it."

Audrey waved a dismissive hand. "That's because it's been going on so long that there aren't any formal communications to the membership anymore. The association doesn't want to embarrass itself by making promises it can't keep or deadlines it can't meet. But I think this time we might actually pull this thing off.Dex is a good contractor and he knows what he's doing. It'll probably be too late for this summer, but by next spring we should have a pool."

"What's this community center for?"

"Oh, you know. Block parties or birthday parties or youth group activities. Whatever. The association'll probably hold the annual meeting there. We've been holding it in the cafeteria over at Corban High. It'll be nice to have our own place." Audrey held up a finger.

"I'll be back in a sec. I'm just going to bring out the soup and salad."

She went inside, and Maureen stared into the trees. The world was quiet, despite an occasional bird cry and through the still air she could hear the sounds of the men up the street digging, pounding, chopping.

Audrey returned with the food, sat down, and they started eating, talking about the weather, their husbands, Maureen's job, things in general.

Maureen ate a bite of salad. "So, Kenny Tolkin was a con artist, huh?"

The other woman frowned. "What?"

"Frank told Barry that Kenny was living illegally in someone's house and scammed some people out of their money."

Audrey shook her head. "No," she said slowly. "It was his house. From what I understand, he was in arrears because he had not paid his association dues for the year. I think he was put on some type of probation but he skipped out. I don't know why. He could've worked it off. The association isn't completely inflexible." She smiled at Maureen. "Although they're pretty close."

They both laughed.

Audrey speared a tomato with her fork. "I suppose he'll put it up for sale eventually."

The soup and salad were delicious, as was the homemade rosemary bread that was brought out a few moments later after a timer in the kitchen rang. Audrey was quite a cook, and Maureen wished, not for the first time, that she was a little more domestic, that she'd taken some cooking classes or, at the very least, listened more to her mother while growing up. It was not too late, though, and with her new resolve to have more free time, she thought she could probably find the time to sign up for some courses, providing Corban had some type of adult ed program.

"So what do you think about the pamphlet?" Audrey asked.

Maureen frowned. "Pamphlet?"

"The sexual harassment pamphlet. Don't tell me you didn't get one?"

"No."

Audrey laughed. "Well, you're in for a treat. Our old friends at the association are now laying down policy about sexual liaisons between homeowners." She shook her head, chuckled. "Not that it'll stop anything."

Maureen raised an eyebrow. "Anything you want to tell me?"

"No, no, nothing like that."

"Do you have a copy of the pamphlet? I'd like to see it."

"I think Frank tossed it, but I'll see."

She couldn't find the pamphlet, but she did come back with twin bowls of peach sorbet, and they ate dessert and talked about the prudery that seemed to have overtaken the world since their teenage years.

Afterward, Maureen offered to stay and help clean up, but Audrey shooed her off. "Get out of here."

"Next time it's at my place."

"Are you expecting me to help with your dishes?"

"Of course not."

"I'll be there."

Maureen walked slowly back up the street toward home. She looked again at the shirtless workers as she passed by the pool site and for some reason was reminded of Kenny Tolkin. Why, she wondered, had he ran away? Because he was behind in paying his dues? It was a bizarre and unbelievable reaction, and the idea didn't sit well with her. People only ran when they were afraid, and she thought of the mysterious appearance of the new gate as well as everything else that had happened, and despite the heat of the day she felt cold. There was no mail in the box when she checked, but there was a glossy pamphlet. Sure enough, it was titled Bonita Vista Sexual Harassment Guidelines, and she opened it as she walked up the driveway, her eye immediately drawn to the subheading "Love Can Wait."

Wait for what?

She glanced down at the bulleted paragraphs.

Sexual relationships between neighbors are very seldom secret. Others will be watching and judging your behavior, which could lead to disharmony in the community.

Relationships may end and leave one or both of the individuals with bitter feelings. If this happens, there will be uncomfortable and awkward social situations as well as the possibility for retaliation by one or both parties.

Sex between neighbors, even consensual sex, is considered unprofessional and inappropriate behavior. While there are no current regulations prohibiting such conduct, rules are being drafted and will be put to a vote at the annual meeting in September.

Maureen frowned. There was nothing actually in here about sexual harassment. Like Audrey said, this was simply an unwarranted intrusion into people's personal lives. Not only was the homeowners' association driving off individuals who didn't pay their dues on time, it was also trying to dictate people's sex partners. What was next? Requiring association approval before performing certain sexual acts and positions? This was an audacious and unbelievable invasion of privacy, and she found it both ridiculous and horrifying.

She walked into the house. A small petty part of her considered throwing the pamphlet away, not showing it to Barry, not telling him about it. It was difficult enough to be proved wrong about something without having your face rubbed in it. But this was too egregious to be swept under the rug. Barry and Ray had been right about the association all along, and while the regulations outlined in the pamphlet didn't affect her, the next edict might, and she found herself wondering what the association could possibly try to prohibit next.

He was writing again.

Whatever it was that had caused his temporary block J was gone, and Barry was grateful. He did not try to analyze it, did not look at it too carefully or think about it overmuch. He was not one to question the whys and wherefores; he simply accepted it when things went well and hoped they continued that way.

He stopped typing, flexed his fingers, and read over the paragraph he'd just finished.

The thought crossed his mind that he'd been corrupted by Hollywood. It sounded melodramatic and probably seemed ludicrous on the face of it, but the truth was that he'd been thinking of filmic possibilities for this new novel even as he was writing it. Always before, plot and characters had served only the story, with real-life considerations having no say in the outcome. But ever since his near brush with movie success, he'd found himself casting this novel, trying to figure out the actor or actress best suited for each character. He'd also been unusually aware of visual elements in the story, things that would look good on the screen.

Was this influencing the work itself?

He didn't think so, but he wasn't sure, and the possibility worried him.

Still, things were sailing along. He'd finished twelve pages this morning alone, and he saved what he'd written, turned off the computer, and stood, stretching. It was lunchtime, a little later than usual, actually, and he closed up his office and walked across the field to the coffee shop to grab some grub.

All of the regulars were there, in place and eating. They were unusually quiet when he walked in, and he had the unsettling feeling that they had halted their conversations as a result of his presence.

"Howdy, all!" he called out, smiling too broadly as he passed by the tables nearest the door.

Hank offered a curt "Hello," not bothering to look up from his plate.

Behind the counter, Bert merely nodded, and Barry sat down at his usual table, ordering his usual lunch from an uncharacteristically silent Lurlene.

He sipped his water and tried to catch the eye of one of his buddies, but no one was looking in his direction and they seemed to be making a concerted effort to ignore him. He felt the way he had that first day--unwanted and out of place--and it was all he could do to remain in his seat and not tell Bert to wrap up his food to go.

Gradually, conversation started up again, first over on the opposite side of the room, then at the tables closer to his wall seat. He wasn't listening exactly, didn't want to eavesdrop on other people's business, but when he heard Joe mention the phrase "Bonita Vista," his ears pricked up.

"This time they've gone too far," Lyle was saying.

Someone else agreed.

"And you know they're not going to be held responsible," Joe said loudly. "Nothing's going to happen to them. No one's going to get punished."

Lurlene brought over Barry's order. "His sister found him," she said, ignoring him and addressing Lyle's table. "She was going out to feed the dog, and he was next to the doggie bowl."

Hank cleared his throat. "You guys're talkin ' like he's dead. I thought they didn't know if he was going to be okay yet or not."

"They don't," Joe said. "But it don't look good. A chopper airlifted him to the Cedar City hospital. They got a good poison unit there. But last I heard, he was in a coma and they don't expect him to come out of it."

Ralph spoke loudly. "That homeowners' association killed him just as surely as if they'd put a gun to his head."

Barry focused on his food. The conversation had obviously been pitched at such a level for his benefit, but he was at a loss and didn't know how he was supposed to respond. Or if he was supposed to respond. He finished his lunch in silence, paid his bill, then nodded good-bye and headed back out to the office.

What was that about? he wondered. They knew about his hatred of the homeowners' association. Hank did, at least. And there was no way they could think he'd be involved in any poisoning scheme. So why the cold shoulder?

He didn't know, but it bothered him, and after sitting in front of his computer for the next two hours and hacking out only a single paragraph, he shut everything off, closed up shop, and went home.

He was watching TV when Maureen arrived home from a meeting with her newest client, some bigwig at the bank, and she gave him a disgusted look as she put down her briefcase. "Afternoon talk shows?"

"How else am I going to keep up with popular slang? I'm isolated out here. This helps me learn what people are talking about and the way they talk about it. This is research." He grinned. "I can take this off my taxes, right?"

"Try to be a person," she said.

He followed her upstairs to the kitchen, where she poured herself a Diet Coke. "I'm not used to all this ... selling," she admitted. "Back in California, I just had to convince people that I was the best accountant for the job.

I didn't have to convince them that they needed an accountant, period.

People are so backward here."

"Yeah, but the scenery's beautiful." Barry pointed out the sliding glass door.

Maureen laughed. "Yes, the scenery's beautiful."

They decided to go for a late afternoon walk, and Barry waited downstairs on the couch, watching two gorgeous women fight over a grotesquely overweight bigamist on TV while Maureen changed her shoes and filled up her sports bottle.

They walked out to the street, and Barry stopped. "Which way?" he asked, looking in both directions. "Up or down?"

"Let's go down the hill," Maureen suggested. "We'll save the hard stuff for last."

They descended the steeply sloping street, walking slowly and holding hands so as not to accelerate unwantedly . They passed a handful of houses set back among the trees and some heavily forested lots before the road finally leveled off. Suddenly, the trees opened up and they were confronted on the right by what looked like nearly half an acre of denuded land.

"Jesus," Barry said. He stopped short to take it all in. "Look at that." He pointed to the edge of the open space, where a group of shirtless men were lined up before a ditch, digging. An incongruously well-dressed man holding a black whip was standing behind the ditch on a raised section of ground, barking orders. It reminded him of a scene from some low-budget biblical epic or a revisionist in die film about the Old South.

But there were no cameras rolling here.

"What the hell's going on?"

"They're digging a pool," Maureen said. "And laying a foundation for a community center. Audrey said they're volunteers."

The man with the whip cracked it. "Faster!" he ordered. "We're falling behind!"

"It doesn't look like they're doing this voluntarily to me."

He realized that they were both talking low, as if afraid of being overheard, and Barry made a conscious effort to raise his voice. "This must be a joke. This can't be real."

"I don't know, they were doing the same thing yesterday, although without the whip hand. And they've sure done a lot of clearing and digging since then. That's a lot of work for a joke."

"I thought the association had all sorts of brush and tree cutting prohibitions."

"Not for themselves," Maureen said dryly.

They walked slowly past the open area, watching the men work.

Maureen stopped and frowned. "Is that Greg David son?"

He followed her pointing finger, saw a young man on the edge of the group who was half-hidden by a still extant manzanita bush. It did look like Greg, and Barry squinted at the man, trying to get a better view. "I thought he and his wife were moving out:"

"So did I."

"Greg!" he called out, but the man did not turn to look at him, did not respond at all, simply kept digging.

"Maybe it's not him," Barry said. But he knew better. Obscured sight line or not, he recognized the man, and his gut confirmed what his eyes could not.

There was something wrong here. Greg Davidson was not only supposed to have sold his house and moved to Arizona, but he had been as fiercely anti-association as Ray or Barry himself--and had more of a reason to be so than either of them. So why was he still here, volunteering his time to help the association build a swimming pool?

He wasn't volunteering, Barry thought, and the idea made him shiver.

The overseer cracked the whip once again.

One of the other men looked familiar as well, a skinny guy with short brown hair, but Barry could not seem to place him.

There was no reason they could not walk onto the property and look around, find out if it really was Greg David son, ask the man with the whip what the hell he was doing. This was association land, owned jointly by all, and they had as much right to be on it as anyone else.

But they kept walking. Rights were different from reality, and without speaking they each knew that they were not welcome here, that there was something odd and decidedly threatening about this supposedly benign and communally beneficial volunteer effort.

They did not talk until they were well past the site and the road had rounded a copse of tall trees, and even then it was only to say, "That was weird," and "Yeah." What they had seen, what they'd felt, was not something that lent itself to casual discussion, and to say any more than that would invest it with a power neither of them wanted it to have.

Barry filed away the entire experience, as well as their reactions, in his mind, knowing that, like his introduction to Stumpy, it would one day come out in his fiction.

They continued walking, spotting a deer eating the azaleas that lined someone's driveway, seeing some sort of bright orange bird land on the dead limb of a juniper. It was like a different world, a perfect place where everyone and everything lived in harmony, and only the far-off pi inking of shovels behind them told him otherwise.

They took a cross-street to the section of Bonita Vista on the other side of their hill, and met Mike halfway up Sycamore Drive. He was standing by the side of the road, bent over and holding his side, breathing deeply. He smiled sheepishly when he saw them. "That slope's a mother."

Maureen laughed. "Come on! If Barry can do it, anyone can do it."

"I resent that," Barry said. He looked over at Mike, who was still breathing hard. "I thought you were supposed to be in shape. You said you played tennis."

"Well, I stand there and hit the ball over the net. I don't run or anything. That's why Tina has me exercising out here. She doesn't think I do enough physical activity. By the way, if she asks, you saw me jogging out here, not gasping for air by the side of the road."

Maureen laughed. "Your secret's safe with us."

"Where're you guys headed?"

Barry shrugged. "Around the loop and back home."

"Mind if I join you?"

"Be our guest."

They continued up the street. Like Mike, Barry could already feel himself getting winded, but he refused to acknowledge it or let on, and he took long, slow, deep breaths in order to keep himself from panting.

The road came down the side of a small rise before sloping up again, and at the low point of the depression another street snaked off to the left.

"Shortcut," Mike said, pointing.

Barry read the sign as they approached. "Ponderosa Circle?"

"It's misnamed. It's not really a circle. Halfway through, it turns into Pinion, which opens onto your street."

Barry took one look at the steep road before them. "We'll take it."

"Cowards," Maureen told them.

"I don't see you objecting."

They turned left. The narrow street hugged the side of the hill before dipping into a hollow. There weren't many houses in this section of Bonita Vista, only occasional dirt driveways on the right that led up to stilted vacation homes. The flat ground to their left remained heavily wooded and wildly overgrown, small metal stakes with lot numbers on them the only indication that the land had been subdivided at all.

And then they saw the house.

It was the biggest home Barry had seen in Bonita Vista, and it sat on an immaculately groomed lot, surrounded on three sides by a virtual wall of dense vegetation. Two, possibly three stories high, it was painted gray, with black trim and a black slate roof. The walls were solid save for two small slits to either side of the door. There were no windows. A wraparound porch seemed an afterthought, an effort to humanize the house, but there was something off-putting about the iron-gray structure, with its lack of windows and its intimidating bulk, something that resisted any and all attempts to soften its appearance.

In the adjacent carport was a silver Lexus.

A localized breeze sprang up, ruffling his hair, blowing cold against his sweaty skin, but leaving the trees and bushes untouched. Barry suddenly knew where'd he'd seen that other volunteer before. He was the nameless Jimmy driver who'd been forced off the road by the Lexus on his way home from Salt Lake City, the fellow Bonita Vista resident whom he'd given a ride.

"Remember I told you about that accident on my way back from Salt Lake City, the Lexus that ran the guy off the road?"

Maureen nodded. "Yeah."

He pointed toward the carport. "That's it," he told her. "That's the car." He turned toward Mike. "Whose house is that? Who lives there?"

"Calhoun," Mike said, and there was something in his voice that made Barry feel cold.

The world was suddenly silent save for the rustle of the breeze and the sound of a metal pulley banging against the empty flagpole in the center of the grassy lawn.

"Calhoun,” Mike nodded. "Jasper Calhoun. The president of the homeowners' association."

Saturday.

They spent the morning puttering around the yard: Barry scraping from the driveway dirt and debris that had been washed onto their property from yesterday's storm, Maureen trimming, feeding, and watering the plants in her garden.

In the afternoon, Maureen concentrated on building a web page, sitting in front of a blank screen on her computer as she pored through the twin textbooks she'd recently received in the mail. Although she had picked up a few clients, her search for local business wasn't going quite as well as she'd hoped, and if she couldn't take over the town of Corban, then she was bound and determined to become a cyber-accountant and turn her business into an online global corporation.

"E-accounting," she told Barry. "It's the wave of the future, and I'm on the ground floor."

"That's a mixed metaphor," he told her.

"I guess I'll let you proofread my prospectus when I take my corporation public."

Barry was at loose ends. He'd been cheating the past week, writing at home--as though anyone would be able to prove he hadn't composed certain paragraphs at his office-but he didn't feel like writing today, and he didn't feel much like doing anything else. He tried to get into a book, but found himself daydreaming and reading the same sentence over and over. He turned on the television but there was nothing good on, and when he perused the video titles in their library he could not find anything that looked interesting.

Maureen finally got tired of his restlessness and gave him an assignment.

"Audrey put together her and Frank's tax returns for the past four years, and I promised I'd go over them. They've had to pay twice now, and she wants to make sure there aren't any surprises coming up in the immediate future. She's afraid they're red-flagged and the IRS will go back and get them for other years. Why don't you walk over to their place and pick them up for me."

"Am I being that annoying?"

"Yes. Now go make yourself useful."

Despite his token protest, he was grateful to have something to do, and he went into the bedroom, where he kicked off his thongs and put on tennis shoes. The logical thing to do would have been to call first and make sure Audrey or Frank was home, but he wanted to walk, and he kissed the top of Maureen's head before heading out. "Be back soon, boss."

The weather was hot and muggy. There would be no storm this afternoon but the air carried enough moisture that it upped the humidity to swamp conditions. Theirs was not the only house that had been deluged by runoff from yesterday's monsoon, and as he walked down the hill he saw several empty vacation homes with driveways full of mud and branches.

He found himself wondering what Stumpy did when it rained. Did the limbless man hide under someone's porch or huddle beneath the branches of a tree? Did he have some sort of lean-to out there in the woods? Or was he so brain-damaged that he didn't notice and didn't care, sitting out in the torrential downpour and howling into the wind, wiggling through the mud, oblivious?

Barry walked around the curve of the road and saw the site of the pool and community center. There'd been no one working either this morning or now, but the volunteers had already made significant strides toward their goal, and on the cleared land he could see the partially dug building foundation and the Olympic-sized pit that would be the pool.

He was glad no one was working now. It was broad daylight and he was a grown man, but he was a grown man with a dark and overactive imagination, and the thought of seeing those zombie like diggers and their harsh taskmaster scared him.

He reached the Hodges' house. Frank's pickup was not in the driveway, which meant that he and Audrey were probably in town shopping or something, but he walked between the tall pines and up the porch nonetheless, and rang the bell. To his surprise, Audrey answered the door. "Hi, Barry."

"I didn't think anyone was home."

"I'm here, but Frank's out fishing. Once a month, I let him out of my sight and allow him to spend the day at his secret spot on the creek.

He never catches anything, but it seems to lighten his load a bit. If you're looking for him, he should be back around three or four."

"Actually, I came to see you. Mo sent me over to pick up some tax forms."

"That's right! Come in, come in." She stepped aside to allow him entrance, and he walked into the living room.

She motioned him toward the couch. "You in a hurry or do you have time to stay and chat a little?"

He shrugged, looked at his watch. "There's nothing pressing. I can stay a while."

"Good. I want to talk to you about Liz. Frank and I are both worried sick about her."

"So are we."

"I stopped by yesterday afternoon to invite her over for lunch today, and she wouldn't even open the door. Just shouted at me from inside the house."

"The same thing happened to us. We paid her a visit this morning after tennis, and she wouldn't come out. She told us she wasn't feeling well and would call on us when she felt better."

"We have to do something. I know Ray's death was a big blow, but she has to try and get on with her life. I was thinking we could do some sort of intervention, gather all her friends together and march over there en masse, camp out if we have to and not leave until we have a chance to sit down and talk to her."

Barry nodded. "It's worth a try."

Audrey shook her head as though she'd just remembered something. "Oh, where are my manners! Do you want something to drink? Coffee? A

beer?"

"No thank you," Barry said.

Audrey stood anyway. "Well, make yourself at home," she said. "I'll be back in a sec. I have to tinkle." She smiled sweetly at him, holding his gaze for a beat longer than was comfortable, and he looked away, embarrassed.

She walked down the hall to the back of the house, and he leaned forward, sorting through the magazines on the coffee table: Bondage, Rough Sex, S&M Quarterly, Contemporary Torture Play. Hair prickled on the back of his neck.

There was something wrong here.

It was a feeling held experienced so often lately that it was beginning to seem like his normal state of being, this constant lurking dread, this condition of being always caught off guard, always worried that some new and horrible problem was just around the corner.

He debated whether to leave right now or hang around and wait, but quickly decided that to leave would be not only rude but cowardly.

Besides, he might be overreacting. So Frank and Audrey were into some kinky stuff. What they did in the privacy of their own bedroom was none of his business. He glanced around the room, saw nothing else out of the ordinary: an entertainment center against one wall, the stuffed head of a moose that Frank shot hanging over the fireplace, typical middle American furniture and framed art prints adorning the remaining space.

There were only the magazines.

Contemporary Torture Play.

He waited.

She emerged from the hallway a few moments later wearing nothing but a chastity belt--a gothic-looking metal contraption that wrapped around her thighs and hips and fit snugly over her crotch and buttocks. Her face was slightly flushed, but not from shame or embarrassment.

From excitement.

Her nipples, he noticed, had been sliced off. Only scar tissue remained.

She opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue, and on it was a key.

Already he was standing, instinctively moving away. "I..." he began, but he didn't finish. He didn't know what to say.

She removed the key with thumb and forefinger, holding it out to him.

"Unlock my box," she said.

He was still backing up, though the front door was in the opposite direction. He finally found his voice. "Audrey, I don't know if you're drunk or what, but I have to tell you that I'm not interested, I'm not into this--"

She sidled next to him. "You can do anything you want to me," she whispered.

He scrambled, trying to get around her and out of the house.

"Beat me, hurt me, use my mouth for your toilet, give me a boiling oil enema or a hot Tabasco douche."

She reached for him, grabbed between his legs, but he was not aroused, and she frowned as her fingers kneaded his softness.

"What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me? He pushed her hand away. "Jesus Christ!"

Outside, there was the sound of squealing brakes in the driveway, followed closely by the noise of a pickup's door slamming shut.

Barry shoved Audrey aside, the chastity belt clanking as she stumbled, and hurried out of the house.

"I want the pain!" she yelled behind him.

He hit the driveway running, and dashed past Frank, staring at the ground as he sprinted by, afraid to meet his friend's eyes. It occurred to him that he hadn't picked up the tax forms Maureen had sent him to collect, but there was no way he was going back in that house.

He ran past the empty pool site and made it halfway home before the hill became too steep and he had to stop, breathing heavily.

What was happening back at the Hodges'? There was no way Audrey could have gotten out of that contraption and back into clothes before Frank walked into the house. Was he screaming at her now, outraged at her attempted betrayal, mortified that she had exposed their kinky sex habits to an outsider? Or--and this is what made the sweat turn cold on his skin--was he not surprised, was he in on it, had he come home early on purpose, in order to join in the fun?

No, that was impossible. He hadn't planned to walk down to the Hodges'. Maureen had sent him out at the last minute to give him something to do and get him out of the house. No one could have known ahead of time that he would be there.

But Audrey had asked Maureen to come over and pick up the forms. Maybe the whole setup had been meant for her.

Just because you 're paranoid doesn 't mean they 're not after you.

He looked behind him to make sure Frank was not following in the truck, then picked up his speed and walked briskly up the road.

Maureen was still downstairs at her computer when he arrived home, and he ran a hand through his hair, wiping the sweat off his forehead as he entered her office. "Jesus," he said. "Where's that sexual harassment pamphlet?"

She looked up. "Why?"

He told her everything. From the beginning. His invitation in, the innocuous conversation about Liz, then the "tinkle" announcement, the uncomfortably long look, the chastity belt, the demand for pain.

Maureen was disbelieving at first, apparently thinking he was joking, but halfway through his story her demeanor changed, and when he finished she asked, "She actually touched you there?"

"Squee/edit."

They looked at each other, obviously unsure of what to say. Aside from Liz and Mike and Tina, Frank and Audrey were the only real friends they had here in Utah.

Maureen shook her head. "I can't believe it. Audrey?"

"Audrey. Believe it." He sat down heavily on the room's lone extra chair. "God, I miss Ray. That man was like the last bastion of sanity in this asylum."

"Maybe we should move."

He didn't respond, didn't say anything, but for the first time he conceded to himself that that might be a viable option.

The phone.

Two rings. Four. Eight.

It stopped.

Liz allowed herself to breathe again. The third time this afternoon, the sixth today.

She told herself that it could be friends, could be Tina or Moira or Audrey or Maureen, could be someone selling something, but she knew better than that. She knew who'd been trying to get a hold of her all this time, who'd been calling six or seven times a day.

The board.

Carefully, she pulled open a curtain, peeked out. The driveway was clear, and there were no people or vehicles on the road. Looks could be deceiving, though. There were bushes to hide behind, boulders that blocked sight lines. She wouldn't put anything past those bastards.

"I'm sorry, Ray," she sobbed. And not for the first time she begged her husband's forgiveness, asked him to absolve her for not listening to him all those years, not believing;

She wiped the tears away, embarrassed by her weakness though there was no one there to see it.

Outside, the sun was going down, shadows lengthening and darkening on the hill, and she shivered, letting the curtains fall. She quickly went through the house, turning on all of the lights in each of the rooms, but even with every corner of the dwelling brightly illuminated, she was still filled with fear and a bone-deep dread. She returned to the now well-lit living room where she'd started, and slowly, gingerly, as though handling something that was radioactive, picked up the telephone receiver and took it off the hook.

It was worse at night.

It was always worse at night.

She turned on the television for noise and companionship and went into the kitchen to make dinner. Before, she would have prepared a real meal--pan-blackened swordfish or chicken fajitas or turkey casserole--but now she simply melted some cheese on toast and washed it down with a can of Coke. She told herself that she would not drink tonight, she would remain sober and go to sleep clear eyed and clear-headed, but by eight o'clock there was a bottle in her hand, and by the time she rolled into bed at ten, she was pretty well hammered.

She fell asleep with all of the lights on, and both the living room and bedroom television sets blaring.

She awoke in silence to find all of the lights turned off.

The house was dark and her first panicked thought was that someone had sneaked into her home and flipped the switches to frighten her. But a quick look toward the digital alarm clock on the bed stand told her that it was not just the lights and television. The power was out.

They'd shut off her electricity.

She swung her feet off the bed, felt for the wall and guided herself over to the window, where she opened the curtains and peered out, looking down the hill where she knew there were other homes. She wanted to see only darkness, only night, but through the trees came the faint yellow sparkle of occasional porch lights.

The other houses had power.

It was just her.

She felt her way back to the bed and crawled in quickly, closing her eyes and willing herself to fall asleep.

But sleep would not come. Instead, she remained wide awake, her mind racing, trying to remember all of the things Ray had told her, all of the details, wishing he had written them down so she'd have a reference, corroboration, proof.

No, not proof. They were too good for that.

Her mind was going in circles, but at least it kept her from thinking about the power and why it had been turned off and the fact that there was someone on her property, snooping around her house, probably trying to get in.

There'd been other incidents on previous nights but none of them had ever escalated to anything dangerous or physically threatening, and she prayed that such would be the case tonight.

She tried to stop thinking, tried to count sheep, tried to think of black nothingness, but no matter what she did she remained wide awake.

She heard noises in the dark: the house creaking; the outside cries of nocturnal birds; coyote howls; crickets; an occasional tapping that could have been tree branches in the wind, could have been ...

something else. Gradually, all of these sounds seemed to coalesce, some disappearing, others gaining in strength, until she heardA

voice.

At first she thought it was her imagination. It sounded like a young boy, but it was speaking gibberish, not making any sense. Just as the cacophony of night sounds had blended to form the voice, so too did the unintelligible syllables differentiate themselves into recognizable words.

Her name.

"Liz!" the voice called playfully. "Lizzy!"

It came from everywhere, came from nowhere, and she could not tell if it originated outside the house or inside.

"Lizzy! Lizzy !Lizzy !"

Now it didn't sound so much like a little boy. Instead, it had the odd high-pitched timbre of a midget or speech that had been electronically altered. She pulled the covers up over her head, the way she'd done as a child, but that didn't block out the sound, and she tucked the edges of the blanket under her body, under her head, leaving her hands free to plug her ears and keep out the voice.

She knew it was there, though, even if she couldn't hear it, and she remained unwillingly awake until morning, her arms, hands, and fingers falling asleep and tingling but remaining glued to her ears until a hint of dawn light could be discerned through the material of the covers.

At six o'clock, the power came back on, lights suddenly blazing, televisions blasting out morning news programs, and it was then that she knew it was finally safe to get out of bed. She quickly threw on a robe and rushed from room to room, checking windows, checking doors, but everything seemed to be secure and in place. No one had gotten in during the night.

She was not brave enough to go out on the deck and look around, but through the windows she saw no impaled cats or decapitated dogs or any signs of vandalism, and she assumed that all was right.

"Thank God," she breathed.

She was eating breakfast--more cheese on toast, this time with coffee--when she heard a knock at the front door.

She jumped, startled, and nearly dropped her cup. She considered hiding, not answering the door, pretending she was asleep or in the shower, but the knock came again. Louder this time, more insistent.

She put down her coffee cup and walked out to the foyer. Closing one eye, she looked through the door's peephole.

Jasper Calhoun.

Liz sucked in her breath. She could not remember ever seeing the association president outside of an official function--the annual meeting or one of the numerous disciplinary hearings--and to find him standing on her porch this early in the morning, dressed in his robes, was more than a little disconcerting.

Was he the one who had been playing with her power last night?

He looked straight at the peephole, smiling. "I see you Elizabeth.

Open up."

That was impossible, she knew. The peephole was a security device, visibility only went one way, and for that, one had to place an eye almost directly on the tiny glass circle. There was no way he could even know she was on the other side of this door. Still, her instinctive reaction was to pull away, move back, retreat into the house.

"Come on, Elizabeth. I want to talk to you."

There seemed something odd about his face, as though he were wearing makeup or a mask, and a shiver passed through her as she studied him through the convex glass.

"You know I've been trying to call you," he said. "I know you're not answering your phone."

She held her breath, willing him to go away, afraid of moving, afraid of making any sound that would confirm her presence.

"I'm not leaving until you open that door and speak to me."

She'd been planning to remain here forever if need be, safe inside her fortress, but suddenly she unlocked and unbolted the door, yanking it open. "Get the hell off my property!" she demanded.

He spread his hands benignly in a gesture of tolerance that was no doubt meant to seem sincere but that came across as parody. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth."

"Stop harassing me and get the hell off my porch!"

"Harassing you?" He chuckled as if the idea had never before occurred to him, as though such an intention were the furthest thing from his mind. "I just came to ask you a question.

A very important question on behalf of the board."

"Whatever it is, the answer's no. Now go away and leave me alone."

"We met earlier this week in closed executive session, and unanimously decided that we would like to extend you an offer to join our august body."